"Spider Robinson - Very Bad Deaths" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Spider)

like an exit wound . . .
It's probably hard to imagine now, but back then if you merely saidтАФin printтАФthat the president of the
United States had sex with the corpses of his enemies, some people got all upset. A shitstorm of rage
descended on Krassner. There was some talk of having him nuked. He spent the next year on the lecture
circuit, unapologetically reminding audience after outraged audience: "Who are we to judge? It may
have been an act of love."
Anyway, that was one of my heros. The other was Ed Sodakis. Him I don't think you know.
In the Catholic all-boys high school Ed and I had attended, you were required to receive Holy
Communion with the rest of your homeroom at Friday afternoon Mass. That meant that most of us spent
Friday morning lined up for Confession. Terminal boredom, with the prospect of humiliation at the end
of it, the only consolation being that the humiliation would be about as private as possible.
One particular Friday, the apprehension level spiked. A new priest, Father Anderson, had recently
rejoined the faculty, after several years as a missionary in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Rumor made the place
sound worse than the Walled City of Hong Kong. Father Anderson himself looked just terrifying, bald
and hatchet-faced, never smiling, with thunderclap eyebrows. Nobody wanted to get on his line for
Confession, that morning; a Brother had to assign guys to it. Ed Sodakis was one of them. Until that day
he had been, in the judgment of one and all, student and teacher alike, just another asshole. He had no
particular rep, one way or another.
Then he stepped into Father Anderson's confessional, and became immortal.
Outside all went on as before; that is, nothing whatsoever went on. Pin-drop silence. Totally bored
adolescent males fiddled with their neckties and silently struggled to think of anything interesting
besides sexual fantasies, and of course there was nothing. Sound of grate sliding shut. The light above
the left-hand side of the confessional went out. A student pushed aside the heavy curtain and exited,
trying not to look relieved, and failing. Sound of a noisier grate sliding open on the right side. Silence
resumed, for thirty eternal seconds . . . then was shattered by the voice of Father Anderson. He screamed
so loud he required a full chest of air for each word.
"You . . . did . . . WHAT?"

file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Nieuwe%20map/074348861X___2.htm (5 of 6)24-12-2006 1:50:07
 - Chapter 2


The last word seemed to blow Ed from the confessional like a cannonball. The curtain couldn't get out of
his way fast enough, so he took it with him the first few steps and then tossed it aside. His face was
absolutely expressionless, but the color of a ripe plum. In seconds he had left the chapel.
The kid waiting his turn on the other side of Father Anderson's closet emerged only seconds later,
looked around at us, and got in another line. We looked round at each other in slow motion. Then a
beehive buzz sprang up, which the Brothers allowed to go on a little longer than usual. Then everything
returned to normal. Except that nobody went into Father Anderson's confessional, on either side. No
Brother made them do so. A few minutes later he emerged, poker-faced, white as a sheet, and left
without even glancing at any of us. Five months later he was killed in a car crash.
Ed, sensibly, never told anyone what it was he'd done. Bribes, threats, and appeals to his compassion all
failed. I never saw him again after graduation, doubt I ever will. But to this day I wonder what he
confessed that morning. And so, I imagine, does everybody else.
Anyway, that should give you a rough idea of how young I was, that first day of sophomore year. My
two heros were Paul Krassner and Ed Sodakis. I was as ready as anyone alive to meet and move in with
Zandor Zudenigo.

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