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"Yes, well, I was seventeen, e, which every other senior boy at Jesuit was talking about, and I was dreaht Ashbury of California, listening to the songs of Joan Baez, and thinking that I would go to San Francisco with the e of Wynken de Wilde, and found a cult

"This hat I knew then through translation And in that regard I had had the help of an old priest at Jesuit for quite soenuinely brilliant Latin scholars who has to spend half the day ladly, and of course there was a little of the usual pro alone and close for hours "

"So you were selling yourself again, even before Old Captain died?"

"No Not really Not the way you think Well, sort of Only this priest was a genuine celibate, Irish, almost impossible to understand now, this sort of priest They never did anything to anyone I doubt they evennear boys and occasionally breathing heavily or soious life doesn't attract that particular kind of robust and completely repressed individual A et up on the altar at Mass and start to shout "

"He didn't know he felt an attraction for you, that he was giving you special favors "

"Precisely, and so he spent hours withcrazy He always stopped in to visit with Old Captain If Old Captain had been Catholic, Father Kevin would have given him the Last Rites, Try to understand this, will you? You can't judge people like Old Captain and Father Kevin "

"No, and not boys like you "

"Also, ar-coated entlely well, has overly bright eyes, and is obviously rotten inside, and froround He had too ish face; they looked like cracks He s to marry my mother for the house You follow me?"

"Yes, I do So after Old Captain died, you had only the priest "

"Right Now you get it Father Kevin and I worked a lot at the boardinghouse, he liked that He'd drive up, park his car on Philip Street and coo up to reat view of the parades on Mardi Gras I grew up thinking that was noro mad teeks out of every year Anyere up there during one of the night parades, ignoring it as natives can do, you know, once you've seen enough papier-mach??¦ floats and trinkets and flambeaux¡ª"

"Horrible, lurid flambeaux "

"Yes, you said it " He stopped The drink had co at it

"What is it?" I asked him I was alarmed because he was alarmed

"Look atWhat did the translation of the books reveal? Were they profane? Roger, talk to me!"

He broke his frigid meditative stillness He picked up the drink, tossed down half of it "Disgusting and I adore it Southern Co I ever drank when I was a boy "