Freddogg Off The Chain

Nuns just had a knack for bringing young boys into the strange hallways and stairwells of life bless their immaculate hearts. And the fact that every single one I ever knew hated me with a passion disallowed by the vow of celibacy didn’t make my life any saner. But I didn’t start these weird conversations, they did!
I had no idea why I was called from class on a hot afternoon to face eggplant breasted Mother Superior and her fat Irish red freckled-faced self. And I certainly didn’t know why classmate Bill Zarr was standing next to her. Zarr was the fifth starter on our undefeated basketball team and virtually never touched the ball the entire game. In fact, I’m not sure what he did but he was out there. I mean “way out there!”
“Mr.Zarr tells me that you were trying to teach him dirty words at recess, ”Mr Frederick. “I was wondering if perhaps you could teach me a few.”
“I don’t talk dirty to nuns, Mother.” She smacked me hard!
“Mr. Zarr, what did this pagan child try to teach you”?
“He asked me if I knew what a boner was Mother? And he asked me if I ever had one. I told him as far as I knew no one in my family ever had one but anyway we were from Russia.”
I rolled my eyes back into my head right before face crack number two. “Perhaps you would like to tell me what a boner is young man, ”Mother asked?
“Mother, I am very uncomfortable talking to a nun about these wild claims by Mr.Zarr. But as far as I know, nobody in my family has ever had a boner either, although we do own a brand new 1959 Plymouth.”
I took a round-house left to the skull but I was on the offensive because I could take a hit! Zarr then said something about pussies and knockers and other more specific parts of the female anatomy that I knew nothing about. Then it dawned on me. Zarr had set me up! At first I thought I was probably guilty although I had no memory of early morning boner talk with Zarr. But 12 year olds talk a lot about boners. Say Bill, that isosceles triangle on page 47 is giving me a boner. How about you”?
“What’s a boner” was never an acceptable answer?
This entire inquisition was complicated by the fact that Mother Superior was my classroom teacher for the entire long day’s journey into the night. I knew she hated me anyway but this boner incident just complicated matters. And about twice a week she would look at me and say, ”Run into any boners at recess today, ”Mr Frederick?
“Actually yes. Richard Neilson (retarded classmate) had one but he said he lost it on the way to school!” I mean I was getting tired of this fat penguin bitch running her boner schtick on me.
This polygamous penguin from the extended harem-scarem of god himself threw several left and right open handed combinations into my smart-aleck face. I just smirked and took two more shots. No student in the system had ever seen a classmate get under the habits of nuns the way I could. And they had better bring weapons if they wanted to hurt my hard German head.
Mother Superior backed off her boner brigade of barbs and moved me to the leadoff desk in aisle number one. That was real preferred seating in Catholic grammar school because you got to get up and answer the door and deliver notes to the office. Somehow being a rebel was becoming a cool thing with Mother Superior who was seeming to be more fat and contented and less frustrated with her vacant lot in life.
But the last week of school when I was seemingly “home free” for the summer the hornet in the hot habit turned into an agitated killer.
I answered a knock at the classroom door in the late afternoon when the temperature outside was 95 and inside was 157 degrees. It was a middle-aged woman in a black dress and a hat. Not a habit but a little hat and you could see her ears. I told Mother, ”Some lady is at the door to see you.” And I stuck my index finger straight out in a display of boner humor for the hearing impaired and the class chuckled.
Mother Superior spent a full 25 minutes in the hallway and when she came back into the room she had tears in her eyes. She whimpered a picture study assignment to the class but told me not to bother because she wanted to see me in the hallway.
I followed the moping mother out into the hallway and she closed the door behind her. That made me nervous because nuns never shut the door on a classroom filled with sinners. Once again we were back on the overlook of “boner bight stairwell.”
“Some lady’s at the door! Is that what you said? Some lady’s at the door. Well that was no lady that was my lover—I mean that was a nun!”
And I took a porter house shot that cupped the entire side of my skull. And the hits just kept coming one right after another. It was Rocky Marciano versus some palooka from Penndel up against the ropes. I was 12 years old. I didn’t understand much beyond boners let alone the forbidden fruit of lesbian lover nuns. Then she told me she hated my face and she had tried to offer her hatred up as a sacrifice to the lord but she couldn’t take it anymore. “I hate your face!” (look who’s talking ) she screamed in a simple declarative statement.
Mother seemed to have climaxed into some expungement of evil. She had exorcised a pair of demons in one afternoon. She moved deliberately back towards the classroom, flipped me a rigid finger, and slammed the door leaving me outside with red handprints up and down both sides of my face.
I walked outside and sat on the concrete steps in front of the school. I was in a stunned state but gaining strength by the second. A new young priest sat down next to me. “What happened young man, ”he asked lightly touching my red rouge face?
“I called Mother Superior’s nun friend a lady and she beat me up for it. But I think she was a special kind of friend.”
The priest did not look surprised. “What’s your name young man?”
“Dave Frederick, Father”.
“Hi David. My name is Father Dick.”
“Right” I said. “And they call you boner for long but not for short.”
Father Dick laughed. “I wish our nuns would stop trying to beat the smarts out of people like us, ”the priest said. Father Dick was a regular guy and not a Dick whatsoever. But I couldn’t say the same for full time mothers and part time lovers. I still have a bone to pick with that lady!