The Friend of My Youth

By Jim Farrell

Robert Penn Warren in his masterpiece All the King’s Men said you never forget the friend of your youth. No matter how he changes, he is always the same to you. This is a story of two such friends. How their lives go down separate paths, but their friendship remains. Even though they change, they are always the same to each other.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 25, 2023
• ISBN: 9781663253873

Jim Farrell

Jim Farrell earned a master’s degree in accounting from the University of Rhode Island and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the Gregorian University in Rome, Italy. He spent eleven years in a Roman Catholic seminary, served as a captain in the U.S. Army, and worked with Air America in Vietnam. Now retired, he lives with his wife, Marianne Collinson, in Palm Coast, Florida. He has published four novels and two collections of short stories.

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ISBN: 978-1-6632-5386-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-5387-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023910953

iUniverse rev. date: 06/22/2023

Other books by Jim Farrell

Brooklyn Boy (2013)

Kiss Me, Kate, and Other Stories (2014)

The Extraordinary Banana Tree (2015)

Mikey’s Quest for Father God (2016)

The Barge of Curiosity (2016)

The Committee and Other Stories (2017)

Realities (2018)

The Whale’s Tale: Call Me Moby Dick (2019)

The Joyce Girls of Brooklyn (2021)

Kevin’s Inferno (2022)

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my wife, Marianne Collinson,

who has supported me in all my writing

and who is my greatest promoter.

To my sister, Madeline Nixon, who has been the source of

so many of my inspirations

To my grandsons, Maxwell James Farrell,

and

Coda James Farrell,

and granddaughter, Cadence Quinn Farrell,

just because they are my beloved grandchildren.

And to Jim Villarreal, the friend of my youth.

Acknowledgments

As always, I wish to thank my cousin and editor, Patty Gallagher, for all her help in cleaning up the words I put on paper, not only checking the spelling, but, more importantly, suggesting better words or better ideas.

My wife, Marianne Collinson, and I had spent a day with my good friend, Jim Villarreal, in New Jersey a few years ago. That night she said to me, How can you and Jim be such good friends? You are so different.

I was reading Robert Penn Warren’s All The King’s Men at the time, and had just read his remarks on the friend of your youth. I showed it to Marianne, and she understood the basis and strength of our friendship.

I have included that quote as an introduction to this novel.

Contents

Chapter 1     The Phone Call (2022)

Chapter 2     Meeting Lee-Pay (1965)

Chapter 3     Lee-Pay

Chapter 4     Summer 1965

Chapter 5     St. Polycarp’s Military Academy – The Early Years

Chapter 6     Josie Russell and Betty Grunfeld

Chapter 7     The Third First Time

Chapter 8     An Early Rift

Chapter 9     Providence College – The Early Years

Chapter 10   Providence College – The Final Four

Chapter 11   The Commitment and the Commission

Chapter 12   Sleeping Together and Eating Cheesesteak

Chapter 13   Monterey and Marriages

Chapter 14   Desdemona Arrives

Chapter 15   The Early Years of Marriage (1972 – 1977)

Chapter 16   The Dissolution of a Marriage

Chapter 17   Holly’s and Johnny’s Married Years

Chapter 18   Back to Philadelphia

Chapter 19   Sacred Writings and Dream Therapy

Chapter 20   Florida

Chapter 21   The Funeral

The Friend of Your Youth is the only friend you will

ever have, for he does not really see you. He sees in

his mind a face that does not exist anymore…

And perhaps he never saw you. What he saw was simply part of the

furniture of the wonderful opening world. Friendship was something

he suddenly discovered and had to give away as a recognition of and

payment for the breathlessly opening world which momently divulged

itself like a moonflower. It didn’t matter a damn to whom he gave

it, for the fact of giving was what mattered, and if you happened to

be handy you were automatically endowed with all the appropriate

attributes of a friend and forever after your reality is irrelevant…

The Friend of Your Youth is the only friend you

will ever have, for he hasn’t the slightest concern

with calculating his interest or your virtue.

Robert Penn Warren

All The King’s Men

1

THE PHONE CALL (2022)

It was early morning, the time of darkness when policemen and criminals dominate the streets. I was sleeping with my right arm around Holly’s middle, my right hand cupping her right breast, pressing her warm body against mine. I had adopted this sleeping position around Holly forty-five years ago, and from the night of its adoption, I never had any desire to change it, either the position or Holly. We spent every night in this loving intertwinement until the sunlight streaming into the room awoke us––we sleep facing a wall-length, floor to ceiling window that gives us a view of a white sandy beach and the Atlantic Ocean, never closing the curtains which would obscure that glorious view of beach and sea––but this morning our peaceful slumber was interrupted by sound and not sunlight. At two thirty, the cell phone on my night table cried out to be answered. At first, I thought it was a sound emanating from my dream world, a world populated by me and Holly in our younger days, lounging on a sandy beach somewhere on the Gulf. Even at my advanced age of sixty-nine, the vision of the younger Holly in a bikini delights and arouses me. I didn’t bring my phone to the beach, I thought. I do not even own a cell phone at this stage of my life…No one does…Cell phones have not been invented yet…What is that ringing?.. Then I was wide awake. The ringing was not inside my dream, inside my head, but outside of me, in the realm of waking reality. The Holly next to me was not in a bikini, but in one of my T-shirts and cotton panties. Her cotton panties, not mine. As I said, I still delight in her. She is still a work of art, but young Holly was a masterpiece. I quickly reached for the phone, trying unsuccessfully not to disturb present-day Holly.

Hello. Who is this? I whispered into the phone. Do you have any idea what time it is?

Who is it, honey? asked Holly.

I held up my right index finger toward her. How she hates that. She frowned at me.

Uncle John? inquired a female voice, a vaguely familiar female voice.

Yes, I answered. Could this be Dezzie, Lee-Pay’s daughter?

This is Dezzie Martinez…

Dezzie! I shouted. Is anything wrong? I had not heard from her in almost thirty years. It’s Lee-Pay’s daughter, I said to Holly.

Holly sat up, now wide awake. Lee-Pay, Filipe Martinez, has been my best friend since I, and he, were thirteen. Dezzie, Desdemona, is the daughter of his first marriage, to Josie Russell. His first and only marriage actually; he and Rita, although together, off and on, for thirty years, have never married. Lee-Pay and I met Josie when we, and she, were seventeen, ages ago it seems, but only yesterday. She was a wild filly back then, a filly from Philly. She hooked Lee-Pay the day we met. I think he hooked her too. They rode an emotional roller coaster for the twenty-three years they were together. Wild sex; wilder fights. Josie was, is, an artist, but their greatest creation was Dezzie. Now there is a beautiful and talented young lady. I’m sure you have read her books; she writes under the name Desdemona Russell. She will always be Dezzie to me.

As we aged, Filipe and I have grown somewhat apart, and now rarely see each other. The ardors of travel combined with the disabilities of age have made our get-togethers more problematic. But he will always remain my best friend, the friend of my youth.

Is it about her father? Holly asked.

Again, I raised the right index finger; again, she frowned.

What is it, Dezzie? I asked.

Dad passed away last night, she said.

Oh, no, I said. Oh, no. We talked last month on the phone. He sounded fine….

Heart attack, she said. Rita found him in the kitchen at ten when she got to his house after a showing at her studio. She called Mom, assuming she would want to know. I answered the phone, and we rushed right over. I was visiting Mom in Philly. Lee-Pay always loved artists, Josie the painter, Rita the sculptor, now gallery owner. And others, so many others. We are so unalike. Since the day I met Holly, I have had sex with, and slept with, no other woman.

Dezzie and her father have been estranged since Lee-Pay and Josie were divorced, back in 1992. That estrangement has been the knife that he has never been able to dislodge from his heart. He called her every year on her birthday, but she never returned her father’s calls. He would call me whenever she had published a new novel. God, how he loved her. Enthused over her work. Lee-Pay and Josie have remained friends––friends of their youth. It is difficult to sunder a connection that strong. They could not live together but could not live without each other either. A lifelong tumultuous relationship. Josie and Rita had unbelievably become friends; let me say, rather, friendly acquaintances. Occasionally the three of them stopped for a drink or a sandwich after a show. I wondered how those amicable events were possible. Only Lee-Pay could manage them. I cannot imagine Holly sharing a drink or a meal with me and another woman, especially one I had slept with and still had feelings for.

Lee-Pay is dead, I said to Holly.

Oh, God, she said and dropped back against the pillow. Holly had never loved Lee-Pay as I do, but she tolerated him, accepted his eccentricities, and respected our friendship. She first met him after her senior year of high school.

Thanks for calling me, Dezzie, I said. When are the wake and funeral?

Rita is making all the arrangements. I am sure she will call you later today. I wanted you to know. Dad always loved you. He always loved you and Mom, even though he couldn’t live with Mom. Rather, Mom couldn’t live with him. I never forgave him for leaving her.

I don’t think he left her, Dezzie, I said.

He left me! she said.

He never stopped loving you, Dezzie. He always called me when a new book came out. Telling me how great it was. You were always in his heart.

Dezzie started to cry. I have to go now, she said, and hung up.

Holly pulled me down into her arms.

I can’t believe it, she said. He was so active, so alive.

At sixty-nine, Lee-Pay still swam in the ocean off Atlantic City during all but the three months of deep winter, spending nighttime hours out beyond the surf communing with God. I told him how that worried me. You shouldn’t do that alone, I often said. I don’t swim alone, but with the Alone Himself, he replied in his mystic manner. If God wants me, He will take me, he replied. God never took him while he was swimming, but stopped his heart, that heart that was so big, so loving. Only God could stop that heart. Only God could dislodge that knife.

Let’s make love, Holly said to me. In honor of Lee-Pay.

She removed her T-shirt and panties, and we joined together. I misspoke earlier. At sixty-nine, Holly is still a masterpiece.

Lee-Pay would be proud of you, she said when we were done. I know I am.

We were having breakfast on our patio when Rita called. Rita Haynes, the mother of the Philadelphia artist scene, Lee-Pay’s on-again, off-again girlfriend for thirty years. They met the year he and Josie split up. Back then, she lived in a small loft apartment in the Mount Airy section of Philadelphia, creating with clay during the daytime, waitressing in the evening. Lee-Pay met her over a bowl of steaming chicken noodle soup that she had served him, and, being Lee-Pay, he talked her into going out for a drink with him when she got off work at nine-thirty. They spent that night together.

Rita’s call was on a Thursday morning, early in February. She told us the wake would be on Sunday evening with the funeral the following morning in Holy Cross Catholic Church in Mount Airy. I knew Lee-Pay would have loved to be sent off from his childhood parish, Most Blessed Sacrament, his beloved MBS, but the diocese had closed that house of worship in 2007. Philadelphia’s traditional Irish parishes were no longer the centers of neighborhood worship that they had been. Felipe, of course, was not Irish. He was Mexican, the only Mexican in MBS, he used to say.

Will you two be up for the wake and funeral? Rita asked.

Of course, I said. We will fly up on Sunday morning.

Stay at Felipe’s house. It will be empty. I will make sure the guestroom is clean. And tidy, she added with a laugh. Felipe was not noted for tidiness. His house was never dirty. He eschewed dirt. But clutter was essential to his lifestyle. Books, papers, reports, magazines, and the research and hundreds of handwritten pages for his mystical writing, his life’s work which he never finished, covered every area of the house. And notes on his clients. How he ever found anything was beyond me, but he could put his finger on anything without delay or difficulty. Josie gave the house to Lee-Pay in the divorce settlement.

Thanks, Rita, I said. We will stay there.

Take a taxi from the airport, she said.

I’ll rent a car.

Park in the back, she said. Let me know when you arrive.

We’re going to stay at his house? Holly said, after I hung up. Holly had stayed there a few times. Never again, she had said after the last visit. I couldn’t even find a place to sit down.

It’s only for two nights, I said.

What I do for you, she said, and poured me another cup of coffee.

I smiled. I am a very lucky man to have you in my life, I said.

Yes, you are, she said. Then she leaned over and kissed me.

I have known and loved Holly for fifty years. She too is the friend of my youth.

2

MEETING LEE-PAY (1965)

I met Lee-Pay when I started my freshmen year at St. Polycarp’s Military Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire. How did I, a Brooklyn boy, end up there? Those who know me as an adult may find this hard to believe, but I was a delinquent when I was young. I was constantly getting into fights; I associated with bad companions, boys and girls; I was disrespectful to the good Sisters of Saint Joseph in Saint Augustine’s School; I was suspended at least once each semester; and was generally a terror at home and in my Brooklyn neighborhood.

My best friends at the time were Bernie Scalzone and his cousin, Maria Cappoletto, both classmates of mine at Saint Augustine’s, until they were kicked out of that school after seventh grade. Bernie taught me how to fight––God, was he ever vicious. His primary rules were: never lose and never give up. He was Brooklyn’s answer to Winston Churchill. I will fight you in the streets; I will fight you in the alleys; I will fight you in the park. If he couldn’t win using his fists, he would grab a two-by-four or a pipe or a brick and upgrade his offense. I stayed in touch with Bernie after he was expelled. One day he showed me a zip gun that he made at his home. It fired .22 bullets. A further upgrading of his offense.

He invited me to join his gang, the Dragons, and I accepted the invitation. One evening during eighth grade, we fought the Diablos, a Puerto Rican gang, in Prospect Park. I had sneaked out of our apartment after dinner, and met up with Maria, who was a girl Dragon. After we arrived at the park and joined up with the other Dragons, she and I picked out two Puerto Ricans, a boy and a girl, and went after them. Bernie and a few of the other boys, in both gangs, had brought pipes, but Maria and I, and our opponents, used only fists. When I heard multiple sirens approaching, I grabbed Maria’s shoulder, but she did not want to leave––Let me kill this fucking Spic, she cried out. Screaming, The cops are coming, I was finally able to pull her off the Puerto Rican girl, and we ran from the park. I noticed a few boys, and one girl, all Puerto Ricans, lying on the grass bleeding as we fled. I guess the Dragons were better pipe-wielders than the Diablos. I never knew what happened to the wounded.

We hid in Maria’s basement––I will describe what we did there later. When I finally returned home, I thought I had made it to my apartment with my activity undiscovered, but not ten minutes after I arrived, a cop came to the door and told my parents that I had been involved in a rumble in the park. I thought he came to arrest me, but he only issued a warning. When my father heard that, the wheels were set in motion to get me out of Brooklyn. My mother, as was her wont, blamed not me, but the bad influence of the below fifth Avenue Italians. Yes, Bernie and Maria did live below Fifth Avenue.

Maria Cappoletto was not only a great fighter, she was also extremely sexy. A very attractive combination for her young boyfriend. Yes, I was her boyfriend when we were in eighth grade, I still in St. Augustine’s, and she in the local public school. We met after school and, if we ran into any Puerto Ricans, challenged them to fights. To be honest, most of the time Maria started a fight with the girl––Fucking Spic bitch, go back to San Juan! was her battle cry––and I ended up fighting with the boy. I usually won; she always did. Sometimes I just watched her fight, when the other girl’s companion was not willing to tangle with me, which often happened. I had developed a reputation, after all. I loved watching her fight. After her victories––I told you, she always won––we would go to her basement and make out. We never had actual sex, but we did things that I had only fanaticized about before she became my girlfriend. She let me play with her breasts, little but delightful, and fondle her ass. And we kissed with our tongues. Her breath smelled so arousing: erotic, sexy, Italian. Tasting her was like eating exciting pizza. Do you want another slice, Johnny?

On the night of the rumble, when we arrived in her basement, we realized that we were both horny.

Do you want to play examination room? she asked.

What’s that? I asked.

Let me show you, she said, a sentence with a double meaning.

She removed her pants and stepped out of her little black panties––Oh my God, I was thinking. Oh my God––and told me to take off my dungarees. She, wearing only a T-shirt, then came over to me and pulled my briefs down around my ankles. I stepped out of them. We stood face to face, naked from the waist down. The highlight of my young life. I could not take my eyes from the area between her legs. I knew boys and girls were different, but I didn’t know what that difference was. She had hair down there like I did, hers black, mine brown, but below the hair, nothing! That was my first impression, but she then gave me a closer look and let me touch her––so wet!––taste her––Paradise on earth––and smell her––I don’t remember the actual smell, but for years every time I smelled something erotic or Italian, I thought of Maria Cappoletto––and while I was doing that, she rubbed me, telling me that, when we were in high school, she would let me put my thing inside her. She squeezed me when she said that. So that’s where it goes. While she was stroking me, and promising me such delights, I came.

Ugh! she said. That’s why it’s better when you do it inside me; it is not so fucking messy then. She loved that word, fuck, in all its variations. I never forgot that sentence.

That was not the first time I came; I had masturbated. But it was the first time with a partner. She handed me a paper towel––I don’t know where she got it––and while I wiped myself dry, we kissed. Then she said, You better get home, Johnny. We’re going to have fun in high school. Put my thing inside her….

I walked home thinking, I am going to love high school. Well, I did, but not for that reason.

Then I had a strange thought: How does she pee?

The pastor at Saint Augustine’s, Monsignor Reilly, visited our home the week before my graduation, and, as a result of that visit, future promised delights with Maria Cappoletto vanished. My father had met with the pastor, unknown to me, a few weeks earlier to discuss my gang involvement. That night Monsignor Reilly met with my parents in our kitchen while I was banished to the living room. He came with a solution. I tried to overhear what they were saying, but I could only hear whispers and my mother’s crying. What are they talking about? I thought. After their private consultation, my father called me into the kitchen.

John, my father stated––I hated it when he called me John. It never augured well––Monsignor Reilly’s brother, who is a Salvatorian priest, is the headmaster of a private boy’s school in New Hampshire. It’s a military academy, and its mission is to make men out of troubled boys….

What’s a Salvatorian? I thought. Troubled boys…Are they going to send me to a reform school?..In New Hampshire…Where the fuck is New Hampshire?..Out west, I think…How will I see Maria?..A school run by a priest?..What kind of school is that? My only experience was with schools run by nuns.

Mom and I, and Monsignor, think that St. Polycarp’s Military Academy…

Military Academy?..I don’t want to be a fucking soldier…St. Polycarp?...What fucking kind of name is Polycarp?..Sounds like a fish, many fish…Thanks to Maria, the f word, her favorite, had become one of my favorite words too. But I was wise enough not to use it, except internally, in my home. My mother would have washed my mouth out with soap…

will be ideal for you…

Do I have any say in this? I protested.

Not really. You have given up that say with your behavior, answered my dad. Mom started crying again.

But all my friends are in Brooklyn, I added.

That’s part of the problem, your friends, said my father.

John, said Monsignor Reilly, My brother, Father Frederick, the rector, is a wonderful man. And you will make new friends…

I don’t want to make new friends, I said. Replace Maria?..Who could replace Maria?

John, it’s been decided, my dad said. You start there in two weeks.

Two weeks? What about summer vacation? I asked. I had such plans for a magic summer with Maria…Accelerating that high school promise…

The school runs a summer program for incoming freshmen, Monsignor Reilly answered. Gets the boys ready for the start of school, eases them into the military regimentation. Military regimentation?

That’s my summer vacation? I said.

St. Polycarp’s has a lake for swimming, and you will play a lot of sports. Softball and volleyball in the summer…

Softball…Volleyball? I said. They’re girls’ sports.

John! said my father.

Johnny, said my mom between tears. This will be as hard for us as it will be for you, but it is necessary. If you stay here, you will end up in prison. Or worse. We’ll visit you as often as we can. She reached over and hugged me. I knew she was not the moving force behind my banishment. I hugged back.

Monsignor Reilly gave my parents a list of items I would need to bring with me. Maria Cappoletto was not on that list. I would not be wearing a uniform during the summer session but would be measured for the everyday-use khaki pants and blue dress shirts and for the Sunday and special occasion green dress uniform during the two months of indoctrination. Monsignor Reilly gave my mother a roll of sew-on numbers––all 646––that would have to be sewn on all my T-shirts, shorts, socks, and civilian garb. That was needed so that my clothes would be returned to me from the on-campus laundry. A brother in the laundry will put the numbers on his uniforms, said Monsignor Reilly.

I felt like a prisoner, Prisoner 646, Brooklyn’s Jean Valjean, sentenced to four years at hard labor for juvenile delinquency. The sentence to be served at St. Polycarp’s Military Academy, an all-boys school out in the middle of nowhere, a school not only without Maria Cappoletto, but devoid of all females. Could I endure that?.. I wondered if I would have a mug shot taken, holding a board with 646 on it in front of my chest. Now let’s get a side shot, 646.

You might have thought from the above that I was an only child. That is not correct. I have one sister, Kathleen, Kathy, who is five years older than I. When the above life-changing visit transpired, she was a freshman (freshwoman?) at Boston College, living in Boston. The five-year difference in our ages meant that we were never close growing up, but, as you will see, we became close as we became older. Boston is close to New Hampshire. How my classmates would look forward to her and Lee-Pay’s sisters’ visits.

I guess I have to find a new boyfriend for high school, said Maria, always the practical one, when I told her. You would have liked fucking me, she added.

That’s why it’s better when you do it inside me; it is not so fucking messy then. No, I would never forget that sentence.

As I departed from her that day, I thought, Yes, I definitely would have liked fucking her. Even if I came home for summer vacations, which I was not sure I would at that point, she would have replaced me. Maria was not one to tolerate prolonged abstinence.

My parents drove me up to Exeter two weeks later. I had looked it up on a map in an Atlas my father had in his den. I discovered that New Hampshire is in New England, north of Brooklyn by five or six hours, not out west. The nearest big city was Boston, where Kathy lives. There are no big cities in New Hampshire. Residents of Manchester might disagree with that; that is their prerogative. But they are wrong.

Father Frederick, a roly-poly priest, met us outside the Admin Building. He was accompanied by Father Edwin, a blond, stern looking priest whom I discovered was the disciplinarian for the school––he began to appear in my dreams and remained in my nightmares for years––and an older boy, in uniform, whom I was instructed to address as Lieutenant Grimes, or simply, Sir.

Lieutenant Grimes, who wore a silver bar on each collar, was starting his third year at St. Polycarp’s in September. Juniors hold the rank of first lieutenant; sophomores wear the single gold bar of second lieutenants; seniors wear the double silver bars of captains. Freshmen are called Plebes, and their collars are bare. Lieutenant Grimes––I never did discover his first name––explained this to us. One senior was selected by the faculty each year to serve as student body commander, adorned with the gold oak leaf of a major. The current major, who would not make an appearance during the summer months, was Major Puce. I couldn’t wait to meet him. That was sarcasm, if you didn’t catch the tone in a written sentence.

My parents accompanied me and Lieutenant Grimes to my assigned dormitory room, on the top floor of a three-story brick building in the center of the campus. When he told us he was taking us to my room, I wondered if I would have a private room or would share one with a roommate. I was surprised to discover that I would have twenty-four roommates, the remainder of the freshmen class. There were thirteen bunks on one side of the large, open room, and twelve on the other. Most of the bunks had been taken, but we found a vacant one in the middle of the dorm. A bunk and a wooden footlocker: that was my new home. After I transferred my clothes to the footlocker, Lieutenant Grimes showed us an area in the back of the dorm, farthest from the entrance, where there was a spot assigned to me to hang my uniforms, a one-foot-long section of a wooden pole with a sign, KELLY (646), tacked above it. Just beyond this area was the common latrine, washing, and shower room. Latrine?..I thought…Latrine?..

Sophomores and juniors sleep in four-man rooms on the second floor, he told us. Those rooms will be mostly vacant during the summer except for the four officers who will be assisting me. You will meet them tonight. The two latrines on that floor are off-limits to freshmen. Don’t get caught using them, he added. Better to pee your pants than use them. The first floor and basement have classrooms and labs. Senior classrooms are in the Admin Building.

Before my parents left, Lieutenant Grimes gave us a tour of the campus, starting with the long, two-story, one below ground, Admin Building. Faculty offices, senior rooms, and the chapel were on the ground floor. The mess hall and senior classrooms were on the below-ground floor.

When we entered the chapel, Lieutenant Grimes told us that we started each day with Mass and ended each day with evening prayer.

Daily Mass…Holy shit, I thought.

Prayer is an important part of our life, he said.

What would Maria think of that?..She liked to prey, not pray.

He then took us to the connected auditorium and gymnasium, which were much larger than I expected for a school with an enrollment of one hundred students. I assumed one hundred since the freshmen class had twenty-five. I did not take attrition into account. I discovered that, for the following year, there were only twenty sophomores, eighteen juniors, and fifteen seniors.

When I mentioned my surprise to Lieutenant Grimes, he said, Theatre and basketball are big here. Father Gabriel runs theatre, and we have two major annual productions and an annual one-act play contest. Do you like theatre or sports, John?

Sports, I said. I’m pretty good in basketball…

See, you will like it here, Johnny, said my mother.

We have a freshmen team that plays against local schools. JV and Varsity too. Father Nathan is the varsity coach, and he supervises all sports. We won the New Hampshire private school championship last year, Lieutenant Grimes added.

I wonder how they would do against Boys’ High or St. Francis Prep…

I noticed an open field with goal posts at each end and a backstop in one corner. There was a dirt track surrounding the field.

Do you––I could not get myself to say ‘we’ yet––have a football team?

No, but we play intramural touch football, he said.

Touch football…it figures…We played tackle on the streets in Brooklyn…

The track is for our annual field day, he added, and for our daily mile run. Daily mile run?.. Our lake is behind the field, for swimming and fishing.

How many seats are there in the auditorium? asked my father. It looks like a thousand or more.

It holds nine hundred and twenty, answered Lieutenant Grimes. "Our Lenten Passion Play sells out for four performances. People come from all over southern New England, and even