I have a confession to make: I nearly killed my eighth grade nun. To many of you readers who grew up attending a Catholic school, this probably doesn’t sound so bad because, just like me, you’d assumed they were trying to kill us. But this was not a preemptive strike on my part.
For whatever reason, either as punishment or because I foolishly volunteered, I found myself on a sun-filled Saturday, along with a classmate, washing and waxing the convent floors. We began scrubbing on the second floor, intending to work our way down and out the door to freedom. At about the halfway point in our project, I’d made it to the stairs at the end of the hallway, and was now past the landing, kneeling three steps down with scrub brush in hand. My bucket of soapy water rested conveniently on the step above me.
I heard voices from the upstairs hallway, those of my classmate and one I recognized as that of our eighth grade nun. After a brief exchange with my classmate, she started down the stairway. I looked up and, through the railing I could see her carrying a stack of books and papers. As she approached the landing, with head down I concentrated on the stair tread in front of me, scrubbing it vigorously to make a good impression on her. It was then I heard a startled “Oh!” I raised one eye slightly. With a clatter, a dark, winged form, closely resembling the Caped Crusader in flight, whooshed over me and thudded on the floor near the bottom of the stairs. The books Sister Mary Unfortunate had been carrying hit the floor before she did. The top of her black and white habit flew off like a large skunk that just bounced off the bumper of a speeding car. Papers fluttered on top of her as soapy water ran down the stairs. She’d stepped right in my bucket, possibly I assumed, by accident.
My classmate heard the racket and ran down. He first looked at me in disbelief, then turned his attention to the floor below.
“You killed our nun!”
“It was an accident!” I was barely able to spit out.
“You killed her!”
I looked down the stairs. “No! See? She’s still moving.”
Yes, fortunately she was moving. Besides the top of her habit, her gold, wire-rimmed glasses had left her face and were now in the midst of the scattered books. The frame was twisted and one of the lenses had shattered. Sister moaned slightly. We both jumped down to help her up.
Fortunately she was more shaken than hurt, but did have a sprained wrist and a small cut on one side of her nose. I had to call my father and tell him I’d almost killed our nun. He drove over and made arrangements to get her glasses fixed, hoping to save me from eternal damnation in the fires of Hell for the part I played in this sacrilegious, but purely accidental act.
In the classroom Monday morning Sister arrived with an ace-wrapped wrist, temporary horn-rimmed glasses, and a small bandage on the side of her nose. Whispers spread through the class and it didn’t take long for all the kids to learn that I’d tried to murder our nun. The girls were horrified, while the boys thought I could have done a better job.
Sister Mary Unfortunate never outed me for the accident, accepting the blame for carrying a bunch of stuff down the stairs, which prevented her from seeing where she was going. I was grateful for not having the tag of “Nun Killer” hung on me for the rest of my life. But in my nightmares, I sometimes still see myself on a winding stairway to nowhere as a great, black, winged specter passes over my head.
• Now for something completely different. I recently attended a performance of Beauty and the Beast at the Paramount Theater. For those of you who haven’t seen the show and enjoy live theater rather than watching tiny videos on your smart phones, I highly recommend you see this show before it heads off to other places. The acting, the music, the choreography, the costumes, the sets, all are truly spectacular. The movable, two-story beast’s castle set especially caught my eye. In a past life I’d helped with set design, painting, and construction for a few shows, even a couple at the Paramount, so I can appreciate what it took to put this set together. For a great couple of hours, get over there. It’s nice that you can buy tickets directly from the Paramount without having to go through a scalper, excuse me, ticket broker, a fat guy sitting in an office somewhere who tacks on a hefty fee for doing nothing. So treat yourself!