We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates Page B

Grimly Patrick stared into a corner of the auditorium as into a recess of his own labyrinthine mind, as about him hundreds of idiots yelled, clapped, whistled, stamped their feet like a single great beast.
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    TWO!   FOUR!   SIX!   EIGHT!
WHO  DO  WE  AP  - PRE  - CI  - ATE?
MT.  EPHRAIM  RAMS!!!
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    Too silly, too contemptible for words.
    But try explaining that to Michael Sr. and Corinne, the proud parents of “Button” Mulvaney. As they’d been for four glorious years the proud parents of “Mule” Mulvaney.
    Patrick had never told his parents how he dreaded one day discovering Marianne’s name in a school lavatory. Whenever he saw obscene or suggestive words, nasty drawings, above all the names or initials of girls he believed he knew, Patrick rubbed them off in disgust if no one was around, sometimes inked them over with a felt-tip pen. How he despised his male classmates’ filthy minds! their juvenile humor! Even the nice guys, the halfway intelligent guys could be astonishingly crude in exclusively male company. Why, Patrick didn’t know. Every other word “shit”—“fuck”—“bugger”—“asshole”—“cocksucker.” Patrick himself was too pure to tolerate the breaking of taboos not wholly intellectual.
    Another thing Patrick had never told his parents: how Marianne, for all her popularity, was considered one of the “good, Christian” girls. Virgins of course. But virgins in their heads, too. There was something mildly comical about them—their very piety, decency. A tale was told of how Marianne had asked one of the science teachers why God had made parasites. In the cafeteria, amid the bustle of laughter, raised voices, high-decibel jocularity, Marianne was one of those Christians who bowed their heads before picking up their forks, murmuring prayers of gratitude. Most of these conspicuous believers were girls, a few were boys. Jimminy-the-Cricket Holleran was one. All were unperturbed by others’ bemused glances. Or wholly unaware of them.
    In conversation, exactly like her mother, Marianne might speak so familiarly of Jesus you’d swear He was in the next room.
    The previous fall, one of the popular football players was injured at a game, hospitalized with a concussion, and Marianne Mulvaney had been one of the leaders of a fervent all-night prayer vigil on the field. The injured boy had been admitted to intensive care at Mt. Ephraim General but by the time the prayer vigil ended next morning at 8 A.M. , doctors declared him “out of immediate danger.”
    So you could smile at Marianne Mulvaney and the “good, Christian” girls of Mt. Ephraim. You could even laugh at them. But they never seemed to notice; or, if they did, to take offense.
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    Why didn’t you tell me? Anything.
    How could you let me drive you home that day, not knowing what you were feeling. What you were enduring.
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    By 5 P.M. the sky was streaked in dusk. Plum-colored crevices in patches of cloud. Blowing, flying high overhead. Patrick tried not to be spooked by the sight of snow-covered vehicles on the roadside, abandoned days before during a blizzard. The Haggartsville Road was fair driving but High Point was basically a single crudely plowed lane. He’d gotten out, so he supposed he could get back. And school again in the morning. That damned school bus he was bored by the sight of.
    Saying something of this to Marianne, who was clutching her pink-angora hands on her lap and didn’t seem to hear or in any case didn’t reply. The stiffness, the tension in her. Was she frightened of her brother’s driving? The heavy car skidding? Beneath loose powdery snow the hard-packed snow of High Point was smooth as satin. Treacherous.
    That satin dress: cream-colored, with strawberry chiffon trim: St. Valentine’s. Mrs. Glover the senior English teacher