Ogre's Apprentice

9781618423757

CHAPTER 1 May 13, 1955

 All right boys and girls, the bell will ring in just a minute. Mister Collins, pay attention: you will be staying after class, and I want your hands folded on your desk. Please, everybody else, clean up your area. You won’t be back until Monday unless you have choir practice tomorrow morning with Sister Mary Francis, so make sure you have all your belongings.

"

I studied Sister Rose as she posed in front of the class. She stood erect, her crossed arms tucked into the sleeves of her black, flowing robes. The starched bib that spanned her chest was spotless, as was the white linen surrounding her face—Kathy Sullivan called it a Wimple—forming a white triangle that covered her from the forehead up. Sister Rose’s large red cheeks bulged in layers from the forward edges of her headpiece, forcing her mouth into a constant purse. The very tip of her wide, upturned nose sported a tiny pair of glasses. She tilted her head forward and peered over the lenses as she scanned the classroom. When I looked at them from a certain angle—unfortunately, when she aimed them directly at me—the little glasses made her look like the front end of a Desoto. I say unfortunately because that thought usually made me smirk and smirking was unacceptable in Sister Rose’s class.

Of all the nuns at St. Barbara’s, Sister Rose was the only one who decided to hate me the first time she looked at me. Most of the others handed out punishment in a detached, impersonal way. Sister Rose enjoyed it, at least in my case. Her watery eyes took on a vicious gleam when she unloaded on me, which was often.

One more thing, class: Polio shots are scheduled for next Thursday! Make sure you return those permission slips I sent home with you last week for a parent’s signature! So far, I only have signed slips from Miss Sullivan and Mister Cagnetti.

"

During the wondrous fifties, I served time in a parochial school in a typical, northeastern industrial town. Since these were the good old days, and I lived only a mile from Saint Barbara’s Elementary School (2704 steps, carrying my shoes), I commuted by foot. School buses were not an option for the Collins family. Our school, unsupported by tax money, could barely afford to keep two buses running and these shuttled mini-Catholics from nearby farms and villages.

Kathleen Sullivan, thanks and blessings to you and your reading group for once again cleaning the chalk trays and erasers so perfectly. God will surely reward all of you.

I pretended not to notice as Kathy Sullivan passed my desk with her nose in the air. Even with Sister Rose glaring at me, it was hard to resist sticking my foot out as Miss Perfect went by. It’s not easy being surrounded by angels. Actually, they were no more angelic than I was. I happened to be the one unlucky enough to get caught passing notes, or daydreaming, or smirking.

I glanced out the window that had been cranked open to let in some almost-Spring air. The sun smiled down as 1955 plodded by. The Korean conflict was dying a slow death at the hands of diplomats. Winston Churchill had retired as England’s Prime Minister. Many American families bragged about their new Television Machines, dropping names like Uncle Miltie and Howdy Doody blissfully unaware that this novelty in a box would soon change the world.

Here in Stafford, the post-war economy boomed, with the rich getting richer and the middle class believing they could be wealthy, too. For the poor, nothing ever changed. Slums remained slums, even if we someday learned to call them ghettos. No family was dysfunctional, Doctor Seuss was just another writer, we liked Ike, and everybody loved Lucy.

The bad part of hoofing it to school was carrying a loaded book bag in all kinds of weather. Every Catholic kid carried a book bag. For those of us who were pinching pennies the bag was usually olive-drab canvas, procured at Baer’s Sporting Goods, Stafford’s only Army surplus store. Public school brats carried few, if any books and never used bags. Sister Mary Margaret had told me, We need book bags because we carry more homework, which means we’re getting a better education.

The We part of her testimonial irritated me a bit, but I was careful not to smirk.

I asked my best public school friend, Roo Nolan, if Sister Mary Margaret’s statement was true. He said, Bryan, old buddy, I get my education the right way, in school, and don't need much homework. Fish-eater kids like you spend the entire school day in religion classes or learning to play Bingo, so you gotta study real stuff at home.

Roo also believed nuns had to shave their heads so they wouldn’t sweat so much inside the black habits and priests had to eat a whole ham every Easter, so maybe I should have asked somebody more neutral.

Mom had a simpler explanation: We use book bags because we have to buy our own books. Those public-schoolers get everything free, courtesy of our tax dollars, and they don't give a tat if their algebra book falls into a snow bank or ends up in the Bonney River.

This was the most regimented period of my life. School authorities were annoyingly careful to keep us insulated from all that would corrupt. Since adventurous opportunities rarely presented themselves, there was a good side to the barefoot treks between home and school. For real world exploration, life began with a clang of the bell at 3:00 p.m. --3:30 or 4:00 when Sister Rose decided I needed punishment. That was when I happily escaped the pinched scowls of the nuns, and headed home to the control of my Irish-Catholic parents.

Without that small dose of enroute-freedom, I would have gone bonkers. Without that small dose of freedom, I might never have met the ogre.

CHAPTER 2

Stafford’s downtown shopping district, two dozen stores on Main Street, lay between my house and St. Barbara’s. On school days when I didn't have to stay after—it wasn't called 'Detention' until junior high—I had more than an hour to myself. I could wander through the midtown stores, browsing to my heart's content. This was several years before most of the businesses moved to the suburbs and began calling themselves Malls.

These were the fifties. Every day was an adventure in the eyes of a school-aged child, probing new neighborhoods, making new friends and gaining valuable experience in the unexplored wilderness of life. Today, the first spring-like day of May, I was surveying the wonders of Baer’s Sporting Goods store: skates, sleds and bowling balls as far as the eye could see. The smell of new leather, green canvas and gun oil filled the air.

I noticed a new addition since my last visit. Next to a shelf display of footballs and basketballs, Mr. Baer had set up a short row of white leather balls, sort of like volleyballs. They had small black pentagons arranged on their surface. The sign said, Soccer, America’s New National Pastime. Must be something played in the big cities, I guessed.

I moved on to the huge hockey equipment counter, where new Sizzle-Sticks were on display. The ad said, FEEL THE ENERGY! I reached out to feel the energy and Mister Baer appeared next to me.

You!

I jerked around in surprise. Mr. Baer was in a worse mood than usual. His eyebrows frowned so hard they pushed layers of shiny skin up his forehead. He pointed a thick finger at me and his bright pink jowls shook. His glasses were so thick and cloudy I could hardly see his eyes. His breath smelled like fish bait. Yes you, boy! Five dollars! Either buy that hockey stick or quit picking it up every time you come in here!

Buy? Me? I had never thought about buying anything! I never even saw five whole dollars at one time—better move on, Bryan. I’m just looking, Mister Baer, I said, backing toward the side door. Grouch.

The store’s only security system, a cowbell on each door, loudly escorted me to Queen Street, the last paved road before the railroad tracks. Off to my left, the Capital Theater dominated the street with its enormous marquee straddling the sidewalk, announcing East of Eden, starring people I never heard of. I had been to the Capital a few times, when they advertised twelve-cent special Saturday matinees. It was great, especially when Roo or I had candy money.

The FOR SALE sign on the marquee was new since my last walk in this neighborhood. The movie people must be feeling the pinch that Father Weaver was complaining about in church. He thought the pinch was strangely limited to the Gooding Munitions plant where most of his congregation worked. He had waved a collection basket as he said that.

Glancing about for more adventure, I decided to cut down Spring Alley and have a peek at the ogre’s house. At this time of day, the tall buildings along Main Street, some of them five rows of windows high, cast shadows across Spring Alley. The dark shadows made it seem uncomfortably quiet. The only noise came from the steam plant where the alley dead-ended a few hundred yards away, so there were rarely cars in this area.

I loved visiting the ogre’s place, a dilapidated, barn-shaped structure, sided with peeling red mineral paper. Even the NO TRESPASSING sign on the front wall was peeling. Topped with a sagging roof that always had black smoke coming from its round, crooked, sheet metal chimney, the tired looking shack was a marvel to my imagination.

The smoking chimney was unusual nowadays because the Stafford Steam Company served all of the local stores’ heating needs. SSC—Keeping Stafford Warm Since 1858. While most buildings had chimneys, none of them in this part of Stafford needed to smoke.

The steam company occupied a spectacularly dirty building just 225 steps from the ogre's chimney. Day and night, workers burned mountains of soft, wet, bituminous coal to generate steam. The steam passed through underground conduits, providing heat for the shopping district and other large buildings in Stafford. Hot water pipes also served folks who hadn’t yet connected their faucets to modern water heaters. St. Barbara’s school was the last building on one of the steam lines and boy, did we know it in midwinter. Brrr.

Climbing the huge coal piles on the way home from school was great fun, especially on Mondays when the New York Central railroad delivered a fresh pile, but the wet dust invariably earned me a pounding from Mom. (LOOK at you, young Collins! Even your underwear is black!)

The sight of a smoking chimney in this commercially heated part of town only added to the mystery of the ogre’s house. As I crept gingerly down Spring Alley, I glanced around, imagining all sorts of beasts hiding in the shadows. A corral fence ran to the north of the building and joined the brick wall of a vacant Wells Fargo warehouse. The same fencing ran south to a rarely used New York Central Railroad maintenance building. Barbed wire topped the fence and rusty chicken wire covered the spaces between the rails. The added protection was unnecessary—nobody I knew had ever dared going beyond that fence.

If I walked along the railroad tracks behind the shack, I could see a set of wooden sliding garage doors back there, but I never saw them opened. Once, I spotted an ancient truck parked by the doors, but never any sign of life. The rear fence and gate, topped with barbed wire and covered in wire-mesh like the alley side, were equally uninviting. I never walked back there alone. The legend of the ogre kept one alert in this neighborhood. I scooped up a handful of stones from the gutter for protection. The heft of a goony in my palm was soothing.

Back in first grade, I remember hearing some older guy, maybe an eighth grader, telling a girl from my class about the ogre that lived somewhere under our town. Since we were in St. Barbara’s recess yard, surrounded by eight-foot high chain-link fencing, we were a captive audience. The boy claimed that if a person said the right three magic words, they could summon an ogre from the underworld. The girl's eyes grew wide, almost as wide as mine did.

The big kid knew he had us. After glancing about for patrolling nuns, he continued: During the Civil War, the old building in Spring Alley was an army livery stable. One night, a few of the soldiers were sitting around the fireplace, polishing saddles and telling war stories and doing army stuff. One of them accidentally spoke the three magic words!

The kid lowered his voice, and we leaned closer, our eyes begging him to continue.

The building started to shake, somebody yelled, ‘Earthquake!’ and all of ‘em ran for the door. They weren't fast enough, though. The dirt floor opened up and a green, wart-covered ogre hand reached up and grabbed four of the men!

As the storyteller swept his arms over his head for effect, the girl screamed, high enough and shrill enough to damage any dogs in the area. He cringed, covering his ears in pain. We both grated, SHHH! The eighth-grader scanned the area for nuns again, but glass-shattering screams were common in a packed schoolyard. He lowered his voice to a whisper, spitting consonants into the little girl's face.

Before anybody could react, the floor rumbled and slammed shut, leaving only a slight depression where the hole had been. The other soldiers could hear the captured men screaming underground for two days!

I said, "Didn’t