The Paper Shepherd Read online

  8

  John Trammel kicked the back of Anthony Caloni’s chair, eliciting a dirty look. John motioned with his head at the compact black haired boy walking into the classroom, his history textbook cradled in his muscular arm. They had had their eye on him for the past few weeks, ever since Brandy, the blond bombshell sophomore who sat two rows in front of them, let a pen roll off her desk and he had caught it in mid air. Nice reflexes, they seemed to say in a silent glance.

  What had gotten their attention today was his jacket. It was the third week of classes, but the autumn was already chilling the early morning air in Ohio, just like it did in Hectortown. Crisp gold and red leaves covered the walkways of St. Andrews in a thick blanket as if celebrating the school colors in a blaze of natural glory. But, the young man’s jacket wasn’t the gold and red of St. Andrews, but the gray and burgundy of St. Jude’s. John and Tony cared only about the one word written in thick block vinyl letters sewn to the back: Basketball. When class was over, Tony followed the young man to the cafeteria and sidled up to him in line for the grill.

  “I thought Dr. Wendel would go on forever about Malachi,” he said, casually. The young man turned around.

  “Tony Caloni. I’m in your ‘prophets as historical figures’ class.”

  “Back row,” he recalled. “You always sit next to that blond kid with the funny nose?”

  “Yeah, that’s John,” Tony said, pointing. “He’s right over there.” The boy held out his hand.

  “I’m Max,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Nice to meet you, Max. Hey, you want to eat lunch with us?” Max thought it over. His habit after a quick lunch was to go to the library to study. Yet, having met disappointingly few students on campus he had anything in common with, he didn’t want to pass up this opportunity to make friends.

  “Sure,” he accepted. They paid for their lunches and Tony led Max over to a long table.

  “Guys,” he said, addressing the three other young men seated there. “This is Max. Max, this is John, Mark, who is also in Prophets, and Kenny.”

  “Hi,” Max said with a weak wave and sat down.

  “So, Max,” John started. “Did you just transfer to St. Andrews?”

  “No,” Max replied, a bit confused.

  “Well, where have you been hiding out the past two years?” Mark asked.

  “St. Jude’s.”

  “Is that another seminary?” Kenny asked.

  “No,” Max replied cautiously. “St. Jude’s Regional Catholic High School. It’s in New York.” The four older boys glanced at each other suspiciously.

  “You’re a freshman?” John asked.

  “Yeah,” Max said, finally getting a chance to take a bite of his burger.

  “They must really be getting loose with pre-requisites,” Kenny reflected.

  “What do you mean?” Max asked.

  “It used to be the school was very strict about making everyone finish their core curriculum requirements before they could take upper level classes.” Kenny explained. “You’re in a junior level history class.”

  “I don’t know. I just signed up for what my adviser recommended,” Max said apologetically. “He didn’t seem to think there would be a problem.”

  “He didn’t say you would have to take American and World history first?”

  “I tested out of them. Advanced placement credit,” Max said. He hated to brag, but it would be even worse if his classmates thought he was bending the rules.

  “What about your science requirements?” John asked.

  “My advisor said Calculus would count for that.”

  “One or two?”

  “Both,” Max said. “And physics. Just the mechanics part. My high school couldn’t teach the electrical half.”

  “What are you taking for your language?” Mark chimed in.

  “I tested out of Latin.” Tony whistled his amazement. St. Andrews College had a notoriously difficult Latin department. Testing out of Latin was nearly unheard of.

  “Are you some sort of super genius?” Tony asked. Max shrugged.

  “No. I just always liked school, I guess,” Max offered weakly.

  “Yeah, but it sounds like you didn’t have time for much else,” John said, baiting him.

  “Well, I guess I didn’t,” Max admitted. “Although I did play basketball.” The four upperclassmen, as if counting down in their heads for an appropriate length of silence, got ready to pounce. St. Andrew’s was surrounded by a town inhabited almost entirely by professors, their families, and the businesses that catered to their book and coffee needs. It had one old theater which had poor sound quality and mostly ran G and PG movies. Outside of that, there was an hour of cornfields in every direction. With such a lack luster varsity sports program, intramural sports at St. Andrews were the major entertainment on the campus. Scouting out ex- high school stars was the backbone of the male social structure.

  “Are you on a team here yet?” John finally asked.

  “No,” Max said, crumpling the wrapper from his cheeseburger. “I haven’t really met anyone I want to play with.”

  “You want to play with us?” Tony asked, innocently. Max didn’t have to think it over for very long. This was one of the first groups of young men he had met on campus who were not yet drunk and shirtless already at noon on a Friday.

  “I’m in. What’s the team?”

  It was a slow night at Jen Caponata’s lake house. Ever since the class of 1994 graduated, things had calmed down a bit. Tiar was in the darkened family room inspecting the collection of great works of literature Mr. Caponata had purchased as a set to demonstrate his worldliness but never actually read. Sarah was in the kitchen getting a bottle of soda for herself. After a really bad hang over a few weeks earlier, she had been avoiding alcohol. Prentice came into the bright, clean kitchen.

  “Hey, Sarah,” he said casually, leaning against the ultra modern built in fridge. “Haven’t seen you around much.”

  “What do you want, Prentice?” she asked, annoyed. They had barely spoken since the summer when a few dates together had left Sarah extremely unimpressed with him.

  “Well, if you want to be all down to business,” he said, putting his elbows on the granite island Sarah was standing next to. “I want to know what the deal is with Ti.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Sarah said. In fact, she knew exactly what he was talking about. But ever since Max had figuratively and literally left Tiar, Sarah felt oddly duty bound to protect her. No possible good could come from Prentice Jackson knowing Tiar was unattached, she thought.

  “Oh, come on, you guys are friends, aren’t you?” Jen walked into the room behind him, carry half a dozen bottles to the recycling bin.

  “Who are friends?” she asked innocently.

  “I’m just trying to find out what the deal is with Ti and Max,” he said.

  “Oh, nothing,” Jen chirped. “They haven’t been together in over a year.”

  “Then she’s available?” he asked, his interest piqued.

  “Guess so,” Jen said, shrugging, and disappeared again. Prentice’s face broke into a devious smile. Sarah glared at him as she watched him pop the tops off of two bottles of beer and saunter into the family room. She followed him, but for a moment, stood across the room. It wasn’t, she reasoned, really her place to interfere. But, watching Prentice lurk just a few feet away from her team mate, making small talk, trying to distract her eye from cow hide bound versions of great literature, made Sarah’s blood boil. She walked up to the space between them and in one smooth motion, handed Tiar the soda she was carrying, spun around and grabbed the extra beer from Prentice with her opposite hand.

  “Thanks, Prentice,” she said, staring him in the eye. “I have so much trouble getting those tops off.” She put the bottle to her lips and sipped, almost gagging. She gave Prentice one more hard look and walked away to pour the rest of the beer down the sink. Back in the family room, Prentice sat down
on the couch. Tiar seemed too preoccupied right now. He would try wooing her again later.

  Max ran hard down the court, his legs burning, his heart pounding. It was good to be playing basketball again. It was good to feel accepted again… again? Accepted at all! His new team was comprised almost entirely of Booktine scholars—a program for undergraduate juniors and seniors pre-selected for St. Andrew’s Seminary. He had an instant chemistry with them that he had never had with his male teammates in high school. When they weren’t in class or on the court, they explained to him, the team often ate together in the cafeteria or hung out at Pugs, a bar across from campus where the dart board was always available and they could forego the formality of fake ID’s.

  On the court, it was obvious even in this first practice that Max was completely useless at defense. At five foot eight, he would be merely an annoyance against the six-foot plus fraternity boys who comprised most of the teams they played against. Where he would really shine, they predicted, was on offense. He could hit a jump shot from anywhere. The hours he spent every week with Tiar in his backyard really paid off. Mere hours after being introduced, Max had been completely assimilated into this team that called themselves irreverently The God Squad. He was finally starting to fit in on his own.

  A few hours later, only a handful of teens remaining at the Caponata house, Tiar was sitting alone on the chase lounge, exhausted. She would rather have gone home to get some sleep but was waiting for Michelle to give her a ride back to Hectortown. She hoped it wouldn’t be much longer as she could barely keep her eyes open. She was the only one at the party who had bothered to stay up late the night before to study for their biology test. She was paying for it now as her friends continued to socialize.

  “So, how are we going to split the limo this year, guys?” Jen asked. There were mumbles around the room.

  “Why don’t we all just drive,” Michelle said. “We all have cars now. Luxury Limo is getting really expensive.”

  “We could try ‘Chuck’s chariots,’ “ Dana suggested.

  “We used them for my sister’s wedding,” Matt reported. “Their limos smell like cat pee.”

  “But, we have to go to homecoming together,” Jen said. “That’s the whole point.”

  “We can just meet at the dance,” Michelle suggested.

  “Fine. Everyone have a date? Ti?” Jen asked. Tiar was dozing off. She was awakened by the sound of her name.

  “Nah, I don’t need one.” She wasn’t looking forward to homecoming with her usual enthusiasm this year.

  “She’s going with me,” Prentice chimed in. Tiar looked at him out of the corner of her eye, too tired to turn completely.

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “Oh, come on,” Jen insisted. “Stop being a party pooper.”

  “But…” Tiar protested.

  “Seriously, Ti, what’s the problem?” Michelle added.

  “Fine, whatever!” Tiar said, then closed her eyes to get some rest.

  9

  “Nice game.”

  Max was studying in the library. He looked up from his text book at the beautiful tall blond from Dr. Wendel’s class. Were it not for her Chicago accent, she could walk into Hectortown and convince half the residents that she was Sarah’s long lost sister. Although Max had sat behind her in class six weeks, he had never spoken to her.

  “Brandy, right?” he asked politely.

  “Yes,” she said, sitting across from him without hesitation. Tony and John had gone to their pre-seminary adviser meeting leaving Max alone for the afternoon. Max was taking the opportunity to catch up on some reading he had neglected due to the game the night before.

  “You’re Max?” Max nodded.

  “You were at the game?” he asked with some surprise. He had seen her in his seminar class for history majors. She didn’t seem like a typical Squad fan, most of whom were religion majors.

  “I’m dating the captain of the Sigma Pi team. You know, they were undefeated before you got here,” she said accusingly.

  “Well, I can’t say I’m sorry,” Max replied. “That boyfriend of yours can be pretty generous with the fouls. If the refs saw half of what he was doing, he’d have been ejected.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Brandy said with a sigh. “Kindness isn’t exactly his best feature.”

  “What is?” She thought for a moment.

  “His car, I guess,” she said, half heartedly. It didn’t sound to Max like much of a compliment. “Anyway, I have no idea what I’m going to write for that paper for prophets.” Max watched the girl as she took a mirror out of her bag, adjusted her bangs slightly with her fingers, and put the mirror away. “I mean, how many different ways can a person really interpret the book of Ezekiel?” Max was about to answer, when Brandy, who apparently meant this rhetorically, began talking again. “The books we have to use for references are like five million years old and written by dead Brits. They all spell everything wrong, and it takes me an extra hour to read each chapter because I have to keep reminding myself that they spell ‘color’ with a ‘u’ et cetera. And I’m allergic to dust, so Friday I had a huge asthma attack digging through these old moldy books in the library basement.”

  Max stared at her silently. She had somehow managed to say all of this with out even a pause to breath. How does she have asthma? Max wondered. She appeared to be at the end of her long string of thoughts. Max was about to explain that there was a much better library for this kind of research across campus when she restarted her tirade.“And that swine of a boyfriend of mine made this big fuss about taking me to the hospital because apparently he and his fraternity brothers had some big night out planned. You know what they were going to do?” It took Max a minute to realize it was now his turn to speak.

  “No,” he said simply.

  “They were taking a friend out to a strip club for his twenty first birthday,” she announced. Max couldn’t tell if she wanted him to appear shocked or not. “Can you imagine telling your girl friend that you want to go to a strip club instead of taking her to the hospital? I tell you, Max, sometimes I think it would easier to be a lesbian.”

  Max laughed quietly to himself.

  “What?” Brandy asked.

  “Nothing,” Max said, sheepishly. “It’s just I don’t usually get such honesty from perfect strangers.”

  “Oh,” Brandy said, seeming slightly self conscious for the first time since she sat down. “I just felt like I could tell you because.... well, you know.” Max looked at her blankly.

  “No,” he said honestly. “I don’t.”

  “Because you’re a safe guy,” she explained. “Because I don’t have to worry that you’re going to try to get under my skirt.”

  “And why would you think that?” Max asked, amused.

  “Because you’re going to be a priest,” she said matter-of-fact. Max laughed.

  “I am?”

  “Oh, my gosh.” Brandy flushed with embarrassment. It occurred to her that she had seen him in their “Jobs for history majors” advising group. It wasn’t a very useful class for a seminarian. “I’m so sorry. I just assumed because you hang out with Tony and all of them....”

  “It’s okay,” Max interrupted, closing the book in front of him. “I can see how you would assume that. Why don’t we make a deal? You go on thinking I’m a safe guy, and I promise I’ll never try to get under your skirt.”

  “Or in my shirt.”

  “Promise,” he said with a smile.

  “Okay,” she smiled back. “How humiliating.”

  “Not at all,” he said. “Probably half the people who meet me on campus make the same mistake, they just don’t have any reason to mention it.”

  “Doesn’t that bother you?” she asked.

  “Why would it?”

  “People probably act all weird around you at parties,” she speculated.

  “I haven’t really been to a party in months.”

  “Well, it must make it hard for you to get a da
te,” she asserted.

  “That’s not really a problem for me,” Max explained.

  “You’re not....” she lowered her voice. “You know.” Max guessed she was suggesting he was gay but decided to feign ignorance. One substantial misunderstanding was enough for any conversation.

  “Dating someone?” he whispered back. She took his cue.

  “Yeah?” she asked, pretending that was exactly what she meant.

  “I’m not sure,” he answered, honestly.

  “What does that mean?” she asked, no longer whispering. “Is there someone in particular you’re not sure you’re dating?”

  “Sort of,” Max said noncommittally.

  “And this person you are not sure you’re sort of dating is...”

  “Back home...In New York... in high school.”

  “So, why don’t you just ask her if you’re sort of dating or not?”

  “It’s complicated,” Max said. He didn’t feel as free disclosing his life to perfect strangers as Brandy did. “Anyway, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  “Try me,” Brandy replied frankly.

  “Well, first of all, I can’t call her because she lives with her evil uncle who won’t let her receive in coming phone calls...” he began.

  “You’re right,” Brandy interrupted. “I don’t believe you.”

  10

  It was a crisp, sunny day when Maxwell Franklin climbed the old wooden stairs to his parents’ porch. He hadn’t climbed up those stairs in three months, the longest he had ever been away from home. He was surprised how excited he was to be home in Hectortown, a place children spend their days dreaming of escaping. He slowly turned the knob on the front door and silently snuck into the house. He was immediately greeted by the smell of cookies baking. Peanut butter chocolate chip, he thought. My favorite. He walked slowly down the hall, trying not to make any of the old floor boards creek.