HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL:

Once more down memory lane. When she was 13 Molly's father retired and we moved in from the country to "beautiful" Regina, Saskatchewan. Culture shock big time. It didn't take two weeks for poor little Molly to witness (but not participate in) her first gang fight in the parking lot of a nearby Safeway. Rather impressive to a country kid. Molly adjusted well enough to her new surroundings. As a country kid she was rather shocked by what she saw, but she had the advantage of good ol' country livin' that made her at least twice as strong as her size allowed. It took a long time for dissipated living to reduce the original genetic and early environmental advantage with which I was gifted. One of my first actions was to deliberately pick a fight with the scariest bully in the neighbourhood. He got in more punches; so he won on points, but if the fight had continued more than the hour it did I would have won because of endurance. From there on in I could cruise on rep. It helped to carry a knife.

When I first moved to the city I was exposed to the tender mercies of a 'catholic school' whose methods of discipline included manners of torture that are part of military interrogation across the world. Lean against a wall on one finger of each hand. Not too difficult for the first few seconds. If you slack,however, you get whacked across the back. As the minutes drag on circulation in the two index fingers becomes compromised. Lawsuits about lost fingers were rare as the kids usually accepted the beatings across the back rather than the pain from the fingers. Trust me; try it and you won't like it. The stretch to a point above your ability was a similar torture with the same incentive of flagellation if you failed. To this day this is why Molly believes every story about abuse in residential schools when the story is told by an ordinary Indian. She saw it and felt it in her own body. She has her doubts when the stories are conveyed through the dishonest chiefs, but the experience of the ordinary person in a residential school was even more horrendous than anything that Molly saw- which was bad enough.

In high school Molly had the misfortune (or fortune if you will) of being a "red diaper baby" and reading the Communist Manifesto at the age of 13. This meant that she was a Marxist for a few years until she grew up. Marxism is a religious response for many Catholics who see the evil inherent in the institutional Church but are unprepared to abandon religious ways of thinking totally. One religion substitutes for another. Needless to say I was not popular amongst the Jesuit teachers at the high school that I attended. My "rep" prevented them from manipulating the rich kids to attack me so they had to do the dirty work themselves. They did it very well.

One instance involved,unfortunately, the first honest priest I had ever met in my life, Father Brady. Brady was actually a decent man. He had a thing going with one of the nuns teaching across the field at the catholic girls' school. They used to meet in the dead of night to hump in the field. Later both him and her left holy orders and got married. Anyways, I was being my usual assholeish self in his Latin class, and he decided to try and make it somebody else's problem by sending me to the principal, a priest named Boyle. Now Boyle was not perverse. He was merely an ordinary nasty clerical fascist. He knew where he was. His type would sanction mass killings in places like Franco's Spain but would refuse to countenance torture. The ideal Jesuit, logical and clean. Brady expected a mere interrogation and intimidation session with two punches at worst. What he didn't know was that Boyle was not there. The vice principal McCardle was. This was one sick puppy, and the likes of him was one of the reasons why Brady eventually left the priesthood (sex aside). McCardle was a sexual sadist who loved inflicting physical pain. His desires couldn't even be confined to the ever present opportunities for "discipline" afforded by a Catholic school. He used to prowl the halls to grab students by the nerves in their shoulders and bring them down to their knees by his version of the Vulcan nerve pinch. Try it and see how painful it is. Ha,ha,ha.

So Molly waltzes in to the principal's office and, "oh shit" it's this demon. Here we go. Hold em out. This bugger had a really enthusiastic way of applying "the strap" to your hands. He'd actually jump up in the air to get the maximum swing to the leather. Now Molly has to more or less apologize to her genteel "politically correct" audience here as the words that follow are those that went through her mind at the time. They also go through the mind of everyone subjected to such treatment anywhere who has the determination to withstand it. Only the language varies. The meaning is the same.

The strap came down again and again. Molly didn't move one inch. The flesh parted. The blood spurted. The wounds got bigger and bigger. In Molly's mind the following words came over and over,

"Do your worst you dirty cocksucker. I won't flinch no matter what you do. You are a dirty bastard. I hate your guts. I'll get my revenge some day, but I won't give you any satisfaction now you filthy cock sucking bastard. "

Well Molly withstood it, and eventually the demon grew tired of tearing her hands apart. Back to Brady's class. Walk in dripping blood like Jesus come down from the cross from her hands. Brady is beside himself to apologize, explaining that he thought that Boyle was in his office. Molly grunts in too much pain to appreciate the apology or to think period. One more step.Just one more step.I've seen other situations like this in my life in much more serious circumstances. The class is dismissed. Brady has one more thing to think about as he plans to exit the Jesuits.

Then there was the story of Father John Toth- hopefully presently frying in the circle of Dante's Infierno reserved for the wrathful. This was an interesting animal as he was the "original" for every leftist's dream of those who oppose their sexual ideal. Very few people who disagree with leftism's ideology of "homophobia" actually conform to the cartoon version but Toth did. To say the least he was an annoyance as at least 1/2 of every class that he taught was devoted to two subjects. One was "the commies are out to get your mind"- interesting as I was a commie at that time (the foolishness of youth). The other was "be a man".

This was particularly bizarre as Toth was a great closet queen in the tradition of Elizabeth I . One of his favourite occupations was to cruise the hallways and fondle the bums of students with a great grin on his face. Even his clerical robe couldn't always hide the hard-on. Let us say that Molly never gave him a hard-on. He hated my guts with a deep passion. One day I was doing my usual radical student stuff,passing around a petition for students' rights in the hallways (FAR LESS RADICAL THAN MY BROTHER_NOW DECEASED_WHO BROKE THE COLLARBONE OF THE FOOTBALL HERO WHO WAS ONE OF THE PEOPLE THAT THE PRIESTS ENLISTED TO INTIMIDATE ORDINARY STUDENTS-MOLLY HAS ALWAYS BEEN RATHER NON-VIOLENT UNLESS IT WAS NECESSARY-more on this story if you want). Father Toth came up in full fury. Ranting and raving about the communist conspiracy. Being as I was a communist at the time and several evolutionary steps above him in the great chain of being I KNEW that what I was passing around was pure liberalism. He was so silly that I started to laugh at him. Bad plan but unavoidable. I meet the same sort of nonsense even today, but it disguises itself as leftism. The common factor is a total lack of a sense of humour- indicating much more serious intellectual defects.

Anyways, I laughed. The sucker turned red. He turned white. He turned red again. The details of his silly face are firm in my memory even after all these these years because they were so amazing. He said, "I'll see you in my room after school Murtagh". Here we go folks. I spend the afternoon with the 'Campion Smart Club', the honour students who could double as the 'Campion Atheists' except they didn't draw as much "heat" as I do. Good people everyone, but without "the devil in their soul".

OK. Let's go rock and roll. I go into Toth's private little torture chamber. He rants. He raves. He threatens. He puffs out his fat chest. Now... Tothy Poo used to be a professional boxer in his days of proving how much he wasn't queer and he had an impressive chest before it fell down to the level of his gut. Finally Molly can take no more of his bullshit. She takes off her glasses (yes Molly has always been nearsighted),

"OK Buddy, take your swing"

Now, Toth was a professional boxer. But Molly was trained by the best. This bastard could win on the prairies, But Molly's father was boxing champion of Quebec in his weight class, and the evil bugger insisted that Molly learn the techniques. He only stopped my training when I hurt him by a judo throw.Ironically enough my judo career ended when I disabled the "champion" who was supposed to go on to win an upcoming competition with a nasty street trick that I learned from the old man (all that I can say here is DON'T LEAVE DISCIPLINE TO YOUR BEST OR YOU MAY FUCK UP-Pick Man # 2 to be your thug).

Anyways Toth landed a goodly number of punches on me. Enough to turn my face to a nasty bloody pulp- until I got my guard up. Toth may have been a professional boxer in southern Saskatchewan, but my father fought the best in eastern Canada. My guard was unbreakable once I got it up after he had the advantage of surprise. To this day I wonder why I didn't fight back. I had the advantage even though he was 100m pounds heavier than me. But I merely blocked until he got scared by the skill.

I went home. My parents saw my face. The old lady was beside herself about lawsuits. The old man-who I may remind you was a boxing champion wanted to go and beat the shit out of this sleazy priest. Let us say that this wasn't the first time that the Irish community has confronted the corruption of their priests. My father was convinced to not finish my fight by a phone call where Boyle forced Toth to apologise. One can imagine the ear twisting. We accepted this grovelling and neither launched a law suit over assault nor turned up with 200 people at the Jesuit centre with a bad temper.

That is my "high school confidential". It reads more like a report from eastern Europe under Communist rule. It may be more brutal than what actually happens today, particularly if your school is not Catholic-though Molly has little doubt that there are other "techniques of persuasion" in public schools that are more modern and presumably more effective.

By the way most of the people mentioned in this blog are long dead.

Keep smiling,

Molly