A few days later, I get the Jesus poem back and I get an A plus. I’m in shock because I don’t get a lot of A pluses. But then my teacher tells me I’m going to need to see the Bull after class. That’s what we call our principal, Sister Peter Margret. Now I’m terrified because I’m thinking maybe it’s a sin to compare Jesus to a tree. Who knows? So, I’m sitting in the Bull’s office and of course I’m watching her closely because I’m expecting a smack, because why else do you get called to the principal’s office, but instead she smiles. The Bull actually smiles. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her teeth before or since and like the rest of her, they look mean, all yellow and crooked. But then here’s the real shocker. After she smiles, she tells me she’s proud of me. She had no idea I was so thoughtful and in concert with Jesus and his message—whatever the heck that means. Then she kills me with this next one.
“I’d like to submit your poem to the Catholic Daughters of America Poetry Contest this year, if that’s alright with you?”
If that’s alright with you? “Hell no, that is not alright with me,” is what I want to say but you can’t say that to a nun, especially the Bull, so I just shrug and say something stupid like, “Yeah, sure, OK, I guess so.”
Now this is where the story gets crazy. The Bull sends in the poem, and the poem wins the contest and then me and my parents have to go to an awards ceremony at the Knights of Columbus. Then to make things worse than they already were, they give me a trophy for it. A trophy for a poem? Who ever heard of such a thing? And it’s twice as big as any of my trophies from baseball and basketball and when I put it on my trophy shelf it makes all my other trophies look so small and lame that I hide it in my closet until my mother finds it and brings this giant thing down to the living room and puts it on the bookcase so everybody and their mother can see it. When Grandma from the City, that’s what we call my dad’s mom, the one I just told you about who packs the wallop, comes over to stay with us one weekend, which she does every couple of months, she sees the trophy and is so proud she won’t shut up about how it’s a sure sign I must be a candidate for the priesthood.
“Over my dead body,” my dad says. “This kid is gonna be some kinda writer.”
Just so you know, I’m not going to share the poem with you, even if it isn’t half bad. Not that you had your heart set on it or anything, but I’m not going through that abuse again. You got to understand, writing poems and reading poetry are surefire ways to get your ass kicked and it’s bad enough when they publish this thing in the church bulletin and kids from school start reading it because when you’re bored outta your mind during Mass you’ll read anything to make the time pass, which means almost everybody read this stupid thing, because the only thing to read in church is the church bulletin. You can’t imagine the shit I got after that. That first Monday at school, some kids, mostly eighth graders, decide I must be some kinda brownnose for winning a poetry contest which means I deserved a smack to the head and a punch in the shoulder with a purple nurple to top it off—that’s when they grab one of your nipples and twist it. And if a teacher sees you getting smacked or punched or nurpled, they just assume you were fighting and send you down to the Bull’s office and like I already told you, if you got sent to the Bull you better be ready for one of her smacks even if you did just win the Catholic Daughters of America Poetry Contest.
Luckily, most kids aren’t too smart when they rag on you and give you a dumbass nickname. After the poem is published, I’m called names like Shakesqueer and Walt Dickman, but nothing sticks. If you get ragged on with some dopey name and it sticks, that can be your nickname for life, like my friend Billy “Snug” Raines. Back in third grade, we were doing some stupid assignment, another poetry thing, and the teacher asked us if we knew any poems and Billy raised his hand and said, “I’m as snug as a bug in a rug.” I didn’t think that was so lame, especially for a third grader, but the whole class laughed and from that day on Billy has been known as Snug Raines. It used to make him cry but now he seems OK with it. I guess what choice does he have, right?
So, I get lucky. I didn’t get stuck with a dopey nickname after writing my silly poem. Instead, I get a few dead legs, a purple-nurple, and a grandmother who’s got me lined up for the priesthood.