“We have just learned that in retaliation, Russia has launched several nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles from its bases in Siberia, just across the Bering Sea from Alaska. Preliminary analysis indicates that these missiles have been fired on targets along the West Coast, including San Francisco, where the first of them can be expected to explode sometime in the next fifteen to twenty minutes.
“I am afraid, my dear brothers, that this is the end of our world.”
Although time for me seemed to stop, it must have only taken a few seconds for the reaction to set in, and that reaction ran the gamut from stunned silence to swearing to screaming. A few of the guys, probably for reasons they didn’t understand, stood up and starting charging from their seats, knocking other classmates out of their way, breaking up or down the aisles, heading for whichever exit was nearest. I remained numb, stuck to my seat, my heart pounding, trying and failing to find an acceptable location to put the knowledge that within a half hour I would in all probability be dead. I would never see my parents or brothers or sisters again, never see Maggie, my girlfriend.
Nothing I had ever hoped for would come to pass.
Dead, immolated, at sixteen.
Oh my God. Oh my dear sweet God. Have mercy on me, the sinner. (I remember the exact phrase that came into my mind. I’m now forty-eight years an atheist, and such was my upbringing and brainwashing that that phrase still shows up in times of overwhelming stress.)
The hysterical, panicked, even violent reactions started to gain the upper hand in the pandemonium that now threatened to engulf the whole student body. Hersey, still up on the stage, slammed his fist against the podium. “Gentlemen! Gentlemen, please. I need your attention right now!”
Such was Hersey’s air of authority, so impeccable his timing on knowing exactly when to rein in the rampant flow of emotions, that almost immediately he had restored order and gained everyone’s attention.
“Listen to me! Listen to me!” He paused, soaking the moment for all it was worth. “What I’ve just told you is not the truth. I repeat, it is not the truth.” The energy in the hall subsided like a tide going out, as we all hung there in frenzied anticipation.
What was he saying? Could it be that we would escape Armageddon after all?
Hersey showed his horsey teeth in a triumphant grin. “I just wanted to scare the Hell out of you.”
What an asshole!
But of course, I didn’t think that at the time. No, at that moment, like almost all the rest of school, all I could feel was a sweeping sense of relief. I literally felt blood rush back into my face. A gradual wave of nervous laughter began in the back of the hall and soon, growing and growing, swept over the entire assemblage.
But there was one glitch ruining the brilliant piece of theater that Hersey had orchestrated, and that was my brother Julian, who shortly after the initial announcement of our imminent death had fainted and even now lay gripped in some kind of seizure in the aisle next to where he had fallen.
The knot of students who had gathered around him called attention to the problem. Seeing where the commotion was taking place, I knew immediately that it was Julian, and though I don’t exactly remember how I managed it, soon I had gotten myself out of my row and was next to him before any of the faculty had made it down. Pale as a ghost, he lay half on his side in an unnatural pose, his teeth clenched, his arms and legs curled up in the fetal position.
I gathered him up against me, his head on my lap, not really having any clue what to do in a medical sense, but somehow knowing I needed to protect him. As I held him, he opened his eyes, shivered violently, and then vomited just as the first of the faculty arrived and took control. Over the next couple of minutes, as he came back to full consciousness, I stayed close by and finally helped walk him out of the assembly and into the nurse’s room, where we covered him with some blankets and called my parents.
Astoundingly, after my parents heard what had happened, they did not blame Hersey, Tully, or anybody else. They thought the priest had made a pretty good point that had worked with the vast majority of other students, who’d surely gotten the Hell scared out of them. My Dad, I think, actually admired the scam. In his view, anything that made you tougher was better. He never expected Julian to be tough, but the more he could deal with in the real world, the better off he was going to be.
Both of them agreed that what had happened to Julian was unfortunate to be sure, but not really that big a deal. Somebody among the faculty who had known about his “condition” might have warned him about Hersey’s prank and saved him some misery and embarrassment (embarrassment!). But Julian had only been at the school for less than a month, so no one really knew except me. And there simply wasn’t much if any understanding of “special needs” in that strict, Catholic environment in 1962. Indeed, my parents had succeeded in getting Julian accepted into MOM by producing documentation from St. Benedict’s grammar school that he had his condition under control, that he wouldn’t disrupt classes, that he was “normal.”
But after that October 24, Julian wasn’t the same. After dinner every night for the next four days, he retired to the attic hideaway. I went up the first two nights, but he simply wouldn’t say a word to me, no matter what blandishments I offered him. This time, I did tell my parents how worried I was. In response, they both talked to Julian and were sure he would be all right. He’d had setbacks in the past, and he’d always pulled out of them. He’d just have to process what he’d been through and he’d be back to normal in no time.
I should just be patient.
Meanwhile, though, I took the .22 off its peg in the garage and hid it in a crawl space under the back of the house.
On the next Monday, Julian went back to school. Evidently, some of the guys in his class—not particularly any more Christ-like than they’d been before that weekend’s retreat—heckled him pretty relentlessly about what a wimp he’d been at the assembly. What’s the matter, couldn’t the guy take a little joke?
Later, police pieced together what they believe happened. Julian simply walked off campus after lunch on Monday and caught a bus to San Francisco. At the city bus terminal, he asked directions at the information booth for the bus that would drop him off closest to the Golden Gate Bridge. On the bridge itself, a tourist couple from Chicago stopped and, seeing a solitary young man at the rail gazing out over the Bay, asked if he was all right. He had assured them that he was. They identified him by his school picture. They had stopped to admire the view a hundred yards farther on and, much to their horror, had seen him jump.
Missionaries such as Father Hersey, when not on assignment, often got put up as guests in local rectories. During the retreat, he had made a big point of announcing that he would be hearing confessions for all of the next week. He wanted us all to understand that he was a regular guy with a great sense of humor; he promised light penances—no more than three Hail Marys—no matter how grave your mortal sins or how numerous your sins of the flesh—this latter to much laughter. He would be at MOM’s chapel before school, during lunch, and after school hours, and then from 7 to 9 p.m., he would hear confessions at St. Benedict’s every evening through Friday of the following week, when he would be shipping out to India.
On Thursday, we had the memorial service for Julian, which was held at St. Benedict’s parish hall.