The Dark Path by David Schickler

wait . . .
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    DEEPLY SPOOKED, I hurry back to Georgetown almost as fast as I ran from the chapel that night last fall. I need a break from God, I decide. I need the Alabama Boys and springtime. And they’re here for me. The weather warms, girls switch from jeans to skirts, and on Copley Lawn the cherry blossoms explode like sweet pink redemption. On my dorm hall another brand of redemption arrives one night when Pike is found passed out drunk in the lounge. Rod and Adam are summoned, and they go to work.
    I don’t know about it till the next morning when I’m coming back down the hall from the showers and I see a creature emerging from Pike and Brett’s room.
    â€œWhoa,” I say.
    The creature is wincing like he’s hungover. His eyebrows have been shaved off, along with most of his hair. Tiny tufts of hair have been left on his skull like stubborn black crabgrass. Rod has also used black indelible marker to draw all over the bald parts. There are dark mushroom clouds and dark grim reapers and the giant words FUCK and CUNT and I HAD THIS COMING .
    â€œHi, Pike,” I say.
    He looks down and away as he passes.
    A night later I go with the Alabama Boys to a house party off campus. Once we get there, the Boys melt off into the arms of girls. I find myself in a crowded kitchen. One guy is passing around giant plastic cups of Tanqueray gin and tonic to some girls.
    â€œWant some gin?” he asks me.
    â€œNo thanks. The juniper berry is the worst kind of berry.”
    â€œWhat the fuck does that mean?”
    I think about it. “I don’t know. Give me some gin.”
    Soon I’m zippy on Tanqueray. I wander outside. On the back lawn stands a giant garbage can filled with rocket fuel, which is liquor mixed with cherry Kool-Aid packets. R.E.M.’s “Gardening at Night” plays on a stereo and I drink rocket fuel, feeling the springtime in my blood.
    An hour later I’m somehow hanging out of a second-story bedroom window of the house, holding on to the window ledge with my feet. I’m not sure how I got here—a dare?—but I look down at the crowd on the grass. They’re all walking on their heads. When I try to pull myself back up into the house, I can’t. The crowd below drags the trash can of rocket fuel over underneath me.
    â€œGo for it,” someone calls.
    â€œInto the drink!”
    â€œCliff dive, motherfucker!”
    I try again to pull myself up into the window and can’t.
    â€œHelp,” I yell, scared now. “Someone help!”
    Two guys I don’t know scurry into the house and find the upstairs bedroom I’m in. Each grabs one of my feet. They strain, trying to reel me up and in. The crowd claps and shouts.
    â€œCliff-dive-cliff-dive!”
    My right foot slips in its holder’s grasp. “Don’t let go,” I beg.
    Then I see Pike in the crowd below. He’s not cheering, just looking up at me, his eyes locked on mine. With the mushroom clouds and the F UCK YOUs on his scalp and the leer on his face, he looks like the ringmaster of some apocalyptic circus. He’s grotesque but riveting, almost marvelous, and I can’t look away from him, and his eyes say,
You have this coming, too. A reckoning. Just wait.

Chapter Three
    BY SEPTEMBER of sophomore year I’m all but certain that I’ll join the Jesuits. As priests go, they’re a damned smart bunch. The ones that teach at Georgetown run an impressive gamut. There is the Mystic, Father Prince—my favorite—but there’s also the Bodybuilder, Father Kelleher, who teaches acting and whom girls around campus call Father What-a-Waste because of his good looks and huge pecs. Then there’s the Cut-Up, Father Raminski, who teaches economics and who gasps and falls on the floor, twitching like a heart attack victim, when students give especially stupid answers to his questions. These are