Bad Catholics Read Online Free Page B

didn’t use them in school. He often tried to become aggressive but anyone who stood up to him, even a bold infant, could face him down. He was poor and he was dirty. At his First Communion he had been brought by his grandma and he had been wearing black pumps with a hole in one toe where the dirty grey sock showed through. He often tried to talk to Jimmy because Jimmy frequently stood alone in the playground. Kevin also tried to talk to him because he was one of the very few people who didn’t humiliate or reject him as a matter of course. Sometimes, if Kevin was lucky, Jimmy would even talk to him for a bit.
    â€˜Do you want to do something?’
    â€˜Like what?’
    A sly look came into Kevin’s eyes.
    â€˜Let’s go and shit on the floor in the toilets.’ Jimmy recoiled.
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜We could leave shit on the floor.’ Then Kevin had a better idea. ‘Or we could wipe it on the walls.’
    He was grinning with enthusiasm. Jimmy was appalled. In his own home no one swore, ever. He had once said fart, and his mother had been visibly shocked, not angry, but shocked. Gently, with sadness, she had explained to him how a home was a place where the family were just that, family. You didn’t bring the dirt of the streets in on your boots, your tongue, or your mind. Everyone had to make sure the home was a place where the nastiness of the outside world didn’t intrude. You couldn’t always get away from that nastiness, but there were places where you didn’t bring the dirt from outside in with you. Church was one and home was another, they were both sacred places.
    At home elaborate language had been developed so that bodily parts or functions, if they had to be referred to at all, were referred to so that no suggestion of the rude or vulgar crept in. Jimmy knew the words others used, how could he not, but he never used them himself. Now, to have it suggested to him that he might go to the toilet on the floor, that was awful. But to touch it, to put it on the walls – he was physically revolted. He walked away from Kevin. Even standing next to him made him feel dirty.
    About a quarter of an hour after the end of the lunch playtime, when everyone was back in their classes, the headmistress, Sister Augustine, sent for him. He went to her office, a forbidding doorway at the end of a dark corridor reached by a staircase of grey stone steps. He knocked and entered on her command. She sat behind a large desk. Her office was light, tidy and well-decorated, so different from the rest of the shabby, decaying school. Her expression told him something had happened, clearly not something good. He was glad he knew nothing about it and would not be called on to tell tales on anyone.
    â€˜You are a filthy little boy, Jimmy Costello, a disgrace to the school and a disgrace to your family, and if you were not so close to leaving I should certainly have expelled you.’
    He was stunned. He had no idea how he had arrived in such a situation or even what the situation was. Sister Augustine got up, walked around her desk, and stood in front of him.
    â€˜Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.’ He didn’t pretend.
    Suddenly Sister Augustine slapped his face.
    Jimmy had not expected that. He knew he would be punished for whatever he was supposed to have done but he had not expected anything so personal. In a way he was glad. That put her in the wrong.
    â€˜That awful mess in the toilets. I will cane you then you will clean it up yourself. No one else should have to clean it up.’
    Then she became calm. She took her cane from where it lay on the desk. Jimmy held out his hand. He had never been caned before. His life in school had not been good or bad, it had been anonymous. The cane rose and fell three times. Jimmy winced. It hurt, but the pain somehow didn’t seem to go past his wrist. It was a fierce pain, but it all stayed on the