Transreal Trilogy: Secret of Life, White Light, Saucer Wisdom Read online

  “Yes, Conrad, I will write you a Jug ticket.” A Jug ticket was a small yellow square of paper. It meant that you had to stay after school for an hour.

  After class Brother Marion drew Conrad aside. “I’m disappointed by your story, Conrad. Surely you can find more deserving targets than the Church.”

  “But—how can you believe all those crazy things? How can you believe in Transubstantiation? A wafer is a wafer, not the flesh of Christ!”

  “God became flesh, why should flesh not become bread? Although the accidental properties of the consecrated wafer are as bread, its essence is Christ’s flesh. The accidental properties of Christ’s body were human, yet His body’s essence was divine.” Brother Marion’s hollow eyes glinted briefly. “You should read Aquinas, not blaspheme like a fool.”

  The brother in charge of Jug was a lean zealot with angry red acne scars on his face. Brother Saint-John-of-the-Cross. Nobody messed with Saint-John-of-the-Cross. You sat there and wrote for an hour, and then Brother Saint-John-of-the-Cross threw your essay away and you could go home. The topic of the essay was always the same: Why I Am in Jug.

  Taking his pen in hand, Conrad felt a strange surge of power. Nobody would read this. He could write whatever he wanted to. It was something Conrad had never thought of doing before—sit at a desk and write whatever you’re thinking.

  “Stop grinning, Bunger, and get to work. Two sides. Why I Am in Jug.”

  Conrad began with the stupid way that Jeans always stuck his lower jaw out to look like he was thinking, and then moved right into some confused vaporing about how misunderstood he, Conrad Bunger, really was. Half a page. Conrad recounted one of Father Stook’s recent tales, the one about the man who’d injured the side of his penis with his electric drill, and who’d then come to Father Stook for permission to wear a condom during intercourse so that the raw spot wouldn’t chafe. “All right,” Father Stook had said, “but you have to puncture the tip.” A page and a quarter. Conrad explained about death, and how the secret of life is that we each possess a fragment of the universal life-force. A page and two-thirds. He ended by making fun of a St. X administrator called Deforio. Deforio was in charge of issuing late-slips. “Sports fan Deforio’s moronic robot scrawl.” Here and there a few gaps remained. Conrad filled them in with random curse words. He felt like if he willed it, he could float right up to the ceiling.

  “I’m all done, Brother Saint-John-of-the-Cross. Can I go home now?”

  The next morning, as he was walking down the hall to his third period mathematics class, Conrad was suddenly struck from behind. Something clamped on to the soft tendons of his neck and dragged him into an empty classroom. It was Brother Saint-John-of-the-Cross.

  “Whadda ya mean writing that kind of garbage? You think you’re smarter than the teachers?” Shake. “I don’t want to read about no antics with the Elks.” Shake. “I want you back in Jug every day this week.”

  Conrad had once seen Brother Saint-John-of-the-Cross punch a student, a football player, in the jaw. Quivering with fear, he crept off to math class. But as soon as he sat down, the wall speaker crackled into life.

  “Brother Albert? Could you please send Conrad Bunger to the Assistant Principal’s office?”

  The other boys looked at Conrad as he left the silent room. Some smiled, some gloated, some simply looked upset. Next time it could be me. Berkowitz, the class clown, squeaked, “Help!” from the back row.

  The Assistant Principal was a wise-eyed man with big shoulders and a trim gray crew cut. His name was Brother Hershey. If Saint-John-of-the-Cross was a hard cop, Hershey was a soft cop. He had a Boston accent and an air of pained rationality.

  “Come in, Conrad. Sit down.” Hershey slumped back in his chair and sighed. Conrad’s Jug essay was lying on his desk. “Some of the brothers are very unhappy with you.”

  “Saint-John-of-the-Cross.”

  “And Brother Marion. And Brother Albert. A change has come over you, Conrad. Are you having personal problems?”

  “Well…it’s about death. Life is meaningless. I can’t see any reason for any of it.” Hershey started to interrupt, but Conrad pressed on. “I’ve been reading books about it. Nausea, and On the Road. I’m not just making it up. Any action is equally meaningless. The present moment is all that matters.”

  “I’ve heard of those books,” Hershey said shortly. “Do you think it’s your place to ride the brothers about religion?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You say that the moment is all that matters, Conrad. Has this attitude led you into sins of impurity?”

  “Uh, no, sir. No.”

  “You’re not a mule, Conrad. I can reason with you, can I not?”

  “Yes.” Conrad knew what Brother Hershey was hinting at. If you really acted up, Hershey would take you out to the gym and paddle you. A lower-track boy had told Conrad about it at lunch one day. “He carries that paddle hid under his robe. All the way out to the gym you can hear it bangin’ on his goddamn leg.”

  “Because I would rather not have to treat a good student like a mule.”

  “You can reason with me, Brother Hershey. I understand. I’ll act better. I can hold out till graduation.”

  “Fine.” Hershey picked up the Jug essay, scanned one side, and then the other. “You misspelled Mr. Deforio’s name.”

  Pause.

  Conrad sat tight. Finally, Hershey crumpled up the essay and threw it in the trash can. He leaned back in his chair and sighed again. “Conrad, can I speak frankly?”

  “Sure.” How long was this going to go on?

  “I had doubts, too, when I was your age. We all have doubts; God never meant for life to be easy.”

  “How do you know there’s a God?” blurted Conrad. The pressure of all the things he wanted to say was like a balloon in his chest. “I mean, sure, the life-force exists, but why should there be a God who’s watching us? It’s wrong to try and explain everything with an invisible God and a life after death. Life should make sense right here and now!”

  Brother Hershey leaned forward and studied the calendar on his desk. When he spoke again there was an edge to his voice. “There are six months and ten days until graduation, Conrad. Discipline yourself. Pretend to believe, and belief may come to you. I don’t want to see you in here another time.”

  “OK.” Conrad thought again of the paddle.

  “When you go back to class, your buddies are going to ask you what happened.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Tell them it’s none of their business.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, Brother Hershey.”

  By the time school let out it was raining hard. Conrad got his books and ran out to wait for his bus. A little ninth-grader was talking about how it would snow most likely and all the teachers would be in a bus and have an accident and then there wouldn’t be school for a few weeks while they got all the teachers buried. There were about fifteen boys waiting for the bus and saying when’s that son of a bitch gonna get here anyway, hell, we probably won’t get out of this place till six. But then the bus pulled up anyway and they all ran through the rain and Conrad stepped in a puddle on purpose, and all the other bus guys were hurrying to get good seats. Conrad sat in back by himself, he felt so cut off and who gave a damn listening to the bus guys all excited about parties or cigarettes or getting drunk. He felt like a cold hand was grabbing his guts and squeezing them. The bus started moving and all the bus guys were shouting, not out of joy, but to get everyone to look at them, but nobody really noticed each other, except some of the guys who were really bugged about not making the scene were laughing at all the right times. Then the bus was really going, and Conrad was sitting at the window looking at the road all black shiny wet and being amazed at how humans move by going past stationary objects and not hitting anything. He was hungry as hell because of no lunch. He felt like vomiting, but ins
tead he spat on a bunch of little white worms which lived in a crack in the floor. Looking out the window again, he saw a great big oak tree dripping unbelievable drops into a puddle and blurping up giant bubbles that looked like jellyfish until they popped, but the whole time all the guys in the bus were shouting. The guy in front of Conrad had picked a scab off his face and was dabbing at the blood with a piece of paper, and the guy he was talking to didn’t even notice it, and Conrad was the only one who saw it except for a little kid across the aisle, and when Conrad stared at his eyes he wouldn’t look back, and acted like he saw something outside the window, and when Conrad looked out he saw that the gutters were overflowing and there were big brown triangle puddles on the road.

  Chapter 4: Friday, March 15, 1963

  “Let’s stop here for supper, gang.”

  “Yay, Jeannie!”

  Conrad felt dazed and confused. This was the first time he’d been allowed to go out in three weeks. An outing of the church youth group, on their way to an all-state Episcopal youth jamboree. The girls had been singing for eighty miles, singing with hysterical good cheer. The only other guy was named Chuck Sands. He read the Bible, had pimples and greasy hair. Strong, jolly Jeannie—a woman who often helped with youth group activities—was driving this van, and Conrad’s father was driving another. What a nightmare.

  They piled out of the van in front of a family restaurant in some tiny Kentucky town. The girls rushed ahead and got a table by the window. There were four of them. Butt-faced Patsie Wilson; a distant, chain-smoking girl called Dee Decca; and two “hot” gigglers named Sue Pohlboggen and Randy Kitsler.

  “Come on, Bunger,” urged Chuck Sands. They were still out by the van. Inside the bright window’s yellow space, Sue Pohlboggen was fluffing her blonde curls, and Dee Decca was lighting a Newport. Patsie was whispering secrets to Randy. Jeannie was in the ladies’ room.

  “I need air, Sands. I’ll just get something at a supermarket and eat outside, OK?”

  “Fine,” said Sands. “That gives me more room to maneuver.”

  Conrad hurried around the corner and walked a few blocks. Seed store, drugstore, dentist, bank. It felt good to be alone, in the middle of nowhere, free from the relentless pressure to conform. He flared his nostrils and breathed in alienation. This was a time to be thinking deep thoughts.

  What is it all about? he asked himself. Why is all of this here? How can human beings be so blind? The girls primping their hair and waiting for food. Didn’t they see the nothingness which underlies everything?

  For the last few months, Conrad had had a strange feeling of having just woken up. His early childhood—he could barely remember anything about it. Later, as an adolescent, he’d simply taken things as they’d come, the good with the bad, no questions asked. But now—he was cut off, awkward and posturing, a self in a world of strangers. And what lay ahead? A meaningless struggle ending with a meaningless death. How could anyone take rules seriously? His parents, the brothers at school, the cool party-boys and the horny youth-group kids—how could they act like they knew the answers?

  Conrad tripped on a crack in the sidewalk just then. Something strange happened as he fell. Some special part of his brain cut in, and instead of falling, he hung there, tilted forward, in defiance of natural law.

  The instant the miracle dawned on Conrad, it was over. He fell the rest of the way forward and landed heavily on the cracked cement. For a full minute, he lay there, trying to bring back the state of mind that had let him float. He’d had the feeling before—on New Year’s Day in the pasture with Hank. And he often flew in dreams. But now the feeling was gone, and Conrad didn’t know how to bring it back. Maybe he’d just made the whole thing up. Maybe he was going nuts.

  He got to his feet and walked around the corner. There was a lit-up supermarket. He drifted in. Muzak washed up and down the empty aisles; the fluorescent lights oozed their jerky glow. Someday I’ll be buying food for my children, thought Conrad; someday I’ll be dead. He found a package of bologna and a small bunch of bananas. This car trip will never end; I’ll be in high school for the rest of my life.

  “He had the strangest supper I’ve ever seen,” Conrad could hear Jeannie telling his father next morning. “He just bought lunchmeat and ate it out in the street.”

  Dee Decca sat next to Conrad at breakfast. She was impressed by Conrad’s bid for freedom. “Where are you going to college next year?” she asked him.

  “I don’t know yet,” said Conrad. This Dee Decca had short dark hair and a reasonably pretty face, though there was something odd-looking about her body. “Harvard already turned me down and I haven’t heard from Swarthmore. Georgetown is my ace in the hole. They’re dying to have me because I go to a Catholic high school.” He paused to light one of Dee’s cigarettes. “I sort of wish they’d all turn me down. Then I could go off and bum around.”

  “I want to go to San Jose State in California,” said Dee. “I want to join a big sorority and go to a lot of parties. I missed the boat in high school.”

  “A frat house with an ever-present keg of beer,” mused Conrad. “Surfing. That sounds cool.”

  “Listen up now,” yelled leather-lunged Jeannie. “It’s time to divide into our discussion groups. We’re going to share our feelings about the liturgy.”

  “What’s that mean?” whispered Dee. She had a husky, sophisticated voice.

  “Let’s sneak off,” answered Conrad. “I’ll meet you outside by the pavilion.”

  The Kentucky State Episcopal Conference Center was a collection of buildings something like a summer camp. Two groups of cabins, a dining hall, an administration building, and a large outdoor pavilion. The buildings were perched at the top of a long empty hill that bulged down to a forlorn brown river. It was almost spring. The ground was wet but not muddy. The pale sun was like a chalk mark on the cloudy sky.

  Conrad took Dee’s hand; she let him. They walked downhill, lacing their fingers. Her face was creamy white, with two brown moles. Her mouth had an interesting double-bowed curve to it.

  “Question,” Dee said after a while, saying it as if she were in a college seminar.

  “Yes?”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To make out?” As Conrad said this, he released Dee’s hand and put his arm around her waist. They were over the brow of the hill now, and the buildings were nowhere in sight.

  “I hope you don’t have W-H-D.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Wandering Hands Disease.”

  “Oh. That’s—” too stupid of you to even talk about, Conrad wanted to say. On the other hand, it could be a come-on, couldn’t it, that she would bring up petting right off the bat? He steered them into a grove of trees and slid his hand up from her waist and toward her bra strap.

  “Stop that, Conrad.” She planted her feet and turned up her face. He kissed her. She pushed her tongue in his mouth. She tasted like tobacco. He pushed his tongue back. Her mouth was cool inside. The taste of her spit. Her smell.

  They were hugging, hugging and French kissing, not wanting to stop, afraid they wouldn’t know how to start again.

  “CONRAD!!!” The voice was rough and distant.

  “Don’t worry, Dee, that’s just my father. They won’t come all the way down here. They’ll give up in a minute.”

  They kissed some more. Conrad didn’t bother trying for her tits again. This was plenty.

  As Conrad had predicted, the grown-ups gave up on them. He and Dee made their way down to the river and walked along the bank. Apparently the river flooded frequently, for the shore was littered with sticks. There were big sycamore trees. In one spot the river had eaten a great dirt cave into the hillside. Conrad and Dee sat on a rock in there and talked.

  “Did you have a happy childhood, Conrad?”

  “I guess so. I can hardly remember anything about it. My mother used t
o give me hay-fever pills. The first thing I remember really clearly is my tenth birthday. It was the day my family moved to Louisville. My brother and I saw a flying wing.”

  “A what?”

  “A plane that was just a wing. Anyway, I was happy for a while, but recently—It’s like you said before. I missed the boat in high school. I’m not cool, and I don’t know what anything means. I’ll be glad to go off to college. Everything here seems so stupid and unreal.”

  “I’m not unreal.” Dee gave Conrad a little nudge. “And not everyone is stupid.” She paused, then glanced over. “I’m quite intelligent, you know.”

  “Well, fine. I used to date a girl who couldn’t understand anything. Have you heard of existentialism?”

  “Yes. Existence precedes essence. You are what you do.”

  “That’s good,” exclaimed Conrad, a little surprised. He’d never heard it summed up so simply. “And nothingness is behind everything.”

  “I wrote a term paper on existentialism.”

  “Did you read Nausea?”

  “Yes. You have too?”

  “It’s my favorite. The part where he’s in a park looking at the roots of a chestnut tree, and the persistence of matter begins to disgust him—ugh!” Conrad looked at a nearby tree, trying to summon up Roquentin’s nausea.

  “This river,” said Dee slowly, “it’s been here for hundreds of years. It’ll be here for hundreds more.”

  “We could live in this cave,” observed Conrad. “Build fires and catch fish.”

  “Not in the winter.”

  “Do you believe in God, Dee?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “I…I don’t think so. Not really. Not like in church, anyway. Maybe the universe is God?”

  “That’s called pantheism. Everything fits together into a whole, and that Whole is God.”

  “That’s like my own theory.” Conrad explained about death and the life-force.