((winter of 1956) (Part
two, to: “The Winter School’))
 |
| Façade to: Ecole St. Louis School |
Someone was
pushing coal down the school and church
outside coal shoot, it made a lot of noise, Chick Evens, but nine years old,
liked to listen to it roll down the pass, sending it rapidly along, into the
cellar, it sounded like waves. Sometimes
he’d sneak down to the cellar, and talk to the janitor who opened the shoot
door of the coal room for the truck driver who helped push the coal down; the
truck driver, he had long dark arms, he’d watch them rise and fall, in the
morning’s shadowy alleyway that lead from 10th Street, into the back
school playground—rise and fall, as he pushed the coal along the passageway.
The truck actually had to block the
alleyway when it poured its coal down the open duck. `
There was a tiny light over the top of
the truck, from the cold morning sun—across the street, a multitude of people
gathered by the buildings, waiting for them to be opened for work, all chilled
to the bone, sad winter faces. They lifted their hands, moved them about to
circulate the warm blood inside of them. Some of their voices echoed back to
the school playground, like sorrow over water—‘Oh,oooo yes…sss, I, I
re-member…’ and so forth.
—Spooky
voices. He mumbled looking down the
alleyway, thinking about the coal being drawn out of the truck into the shoot
all the way down to the cellar and into the janitor’s shovels which he smoothed
out into a better looking mess of black mass. He was also thinking of the Tower of Pisa
—Hurry
up now! Hurry! Said Sister Caroline Ciatti (his one time teacher)
The school class room bell had rung; he
looked at the nun, and another one that had joined Sister Caroline, checking
out how perfect their penguin white and black, uniforms were, always so neat
and ironed. They looked like Mary Magdalene from the Bible, he thought. Both
nuns looked at Chick with that—do or die look, a silent look, she knew she
didn’t have to say hurry up to him, it wouldn’t do any good, he’d come running
in a jiffy at the last, very last minute; at the last drop of coal, as soon as
he heard those heavy metal covers on the truck and on the coal shoot bang, that
was all part of the reverie.
#922(6-15-2012)
For: Sister Caroline Ciatti (died: August 8, 2006)
