Free The Gathering by William X. Kienzle

years? Why, you’re just into your teens. You get eighteen or nineteen and as long as you’re serious about building yourself, you’re gonna be somethin’. Ya know that?”
    Another pause. Maria had turned on a popular music program. The caressing voice of Bing Crosby could be heard. Smoothly, not noisily.
    “Pop …” Manny said softly, “there’s something I gotta tell you.”
    ’Fredo had heard this song before. It almost always meant bad news was coming around the corner. He didn’t reply.
    “I just heard about it today,” Manny said. “The Brothers are pulling out of Redeemer.”
    “What!?”
    Maria heard her husband over the radio’s volume. She stirred, but didn’t rise. She’d learn what it was about in due time. For the moment, she’d let father and son work it out. The two were as close as any parent and child she knew of.
    “The Brothers are leaving, Pop,” Manny repeated.
    “How do you know?”
    “Bro. V. He told me today.”
    “That can’t be! School starts in just a few weeks! Your mother and I haven’t heard a word. I can’t believe it!”
    Actually, he could—and did—believe it. He had to believe it. His son would not lie. If Manny said that Brother Vincent had told him the Brothers were leaving, then the Brother had, indeed, told him so. And the entire group—all those excellent teachers—all of them were leaving without so much as a reasonable notice.
    But while ’Fredo, in his inner being, had to believe his son was telling the truth, the father was having trouble absorbing the ramifications of this news. “So, what’s supposed to happen?”
    “I guess this has been going on for a long time. The Church officials downtown didn’t think a school should be segregated like Redeemer is. It just came to a boil over this past summer.”
    “But … but … who’s gonna teach you in the eighth grade? Who’s gonna teach you if the Brothers are gone?”
    “The Sisters.”
    “The Sisters—! The Sisters who’re teaching the girls now?”
    Manny nodded. “The Sisters. Plus any lay people they need to get the job done.”
    “On such short notice …”
    “I guess.”
    “Some business! They tell us it’s a sin not to send your kids to a Catholic school. And then they pull the rug out from under you.”
    For the moment, ’Fredo said no more. Nor did his son.
    “I don’t want my kid to be taught by women,” ’Fredo said finally, but without vigor.
    “They’re not women. They’re nuns.”
    ’Fredo looked sharply at his son. They had been over the “birds and the bees” routine. It wasn’t that Manny didn’t realize that nuns were women; he just didn’t look at them in that light.
    ’Fredo cared that the Brothers were leaving, of course. But much more than that was involved. A conspiracy had been entered into. Together, Brother Vincent and ’Fredo had planned to steer Manny into attending Redeemer throughout his high school years.
    From there on the plans were obvious. A starring athletic career, maybe a crack at the big leagues. But now Brother Vincent was leaving—all the Brothers were leaving. And with them would go the plans for Manny’s future.
    That was the burning, sinking ship ’Fredo saw in his mind’s eye. “Wait a minute … the seminary has an athletic program, doesn’t it?”
    Manny nodded. “A darn good one. I asked Bob Koesler and he asked around.
    “They got all the majors: football, basketball, baseball, handball—just about everything. But outside of basketball, everything is in-house. Intramural, they call it. So there isn’t any press coverage. No national attention.”
    ’Fredo knew, by its absence from every sports page in town, that the seminary was in no competitive league. The outside basketball teams they played probably counted their meetings as practice games! But ’Fredo was not that concerned about basketball; Manny would never be tall enough to make a mark in that sport. No, baseball was the focus.
    “So,” ’Fredo