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My two cataract removal surgeries are over and I have a final visit later this month to determine what level of reading glasses I will need now. During the surgery, my prescription for eyesight was permanently placed in both eyes at the same time the cataracts were removed. However, there is nothing to do to improve the actual level of sight I now have. So I'll probably be betting glasses with another trifocal so that I can see small print, the computer, and distance... Mostly, I find that without glasses, my eyes get tired quickly...
Anyway, back to Jack's book! I love the colors and the design of this painting, by the author...
Ron Tansy’s loyalty to his two oldest friends would be tested when a bear crashed their graduation party in northern Minnesota. It was the time of Vietnam and their lives would follow different paths. Ron would guard nuclear missile silos for the Air Force in Wyoming while Terry saw action in the war and Brett disappeared into the bowls of army intelligence.
When they met again it was over something they all loved from their usher days at the St. Clair; a great movie. "The Day of the Jackal."
After the film and their reactions to it, all three seemed to have mysteriously found their sea legs. Ron was largely invested in real estate and vague about the seed money that made it possible, Brett, now Robert, seemed to be a low-level diplomat overseas, which neither of them believed, while Terry used a few years in the French Foreign Legion to find another line of work that hid from the light of day. After Terry became satisfied with Ron’s ability to work with money, he asked to deposit a large sum with Ron who only asked for Terry’s story, in return. It was close to too fantastic to believe and yet somehow dripping with irresistible intrigue. A deal was struck and as the years passed, it seemed to Ron as though the pair might never meet again. He was wrong.
~~~
An excerpt from The Blazer of St. Clair
In 1973 the film, The Day of the Jackal came to St. Paul, Minnesota. In those days the Grandview Fine Arts Theater played host to nearly all the foreign and independent films worthy of a showing, but not famous or well known enough to appear at the downtown theaters. Three friends and alumni of Holy Spirit grade school attended a showing of this film at the suggestion of Terry, who had run into Ron and who still had some contact with Brett, aka Robert, who happened to be in town visiting. These three were members of a rather exclusive fraternity of sorts during high school: The Fellowship of The Blazer of St. Clair, and the film they saw would take on a cryptic significance in all their lives that would play out over the years on an international stage that would finally bring them all together again.
They were never great friends through grade school but were classmates and had played on the playground together. Of the three, Brett Scarlett was the most popular. Even as a child, Brett left you with the impression he found it all amusing. His was an easy smile. Not insincere in any way and certainly not painted on, but well suited to his good looking face and he wore it well and often. He reminded you, Ron had said once, of a young Jimmy Stewart trying to play Louis Jordan and he only got better at it the older he got. He confessed to being a fan of Jack Paar and stayed up late watching Jack during grade school; this, even when Steve Allen tried to come back on CBS. On the playground (at least among those Sacred Heart students who enjoyed staying up late for any reason) Steve Allen with his more vaudevillian antics and odd regulars like Gypsy Boots seemed more popular. But Jack Paar was more sophisticated, and if sophisticated ever had a more avid student than Brett Scarlett, he or she would be difficult to find. He had a certain swagger to his gait but a Fred Astaire bounce in his step evened that out. He was completely at ease with his hands, either at his side or in his pockets or any variation thereof, it all looked perfectly natural. He was a confident, “hail fellow well met” sort of a youngster who was very well spoken and nice looking. Brett played all the sports but took none seriously.
Terry Lorch was the most accomplished athlete. He played in the St. Paul Catholic League, and Sacred Heart was a perennial champion. Terry began in the sixth grade and by eighth grade he was a standout in football, basketball and baseball. Terry seemed angry about something nearly all the time. He also seemed never to be without a job. Indeed no one could remember when he hadn’t delivered papers in the morning and while Terry was nice looking as well, he wore that perpetual chip on his shoulder. It wasn’t your fault of course, but he wore it like a jacket most days. If you wondered what the source of Terry’s anger was, one could only conclude that he seemed not insensitive to sensitivity but largely uncomfortable with it. To him, life was challenging and you meet the challenge head-on. He was quick to say that he had little time for sentimental bullshit. Economically, Terry parents were quite well off. Brett was always quick to point out that Terry didn’t need a paper route. No one was quite sure why Terry tolerated that. But Brett could get away with saying things to Terry no one else could.
Ronald Tansey was another matter. Perhaps the most average looking of the three he flew largely under the radar throughout grade school. He had good grades and he was very fleet afoot. Indeed, he was one of the fastest boys in the school. In spite of that however, he never went out for any of the school’s teams. He did play little league playground football and baseball and later on, one year of American Legion baseball as well. In the consciousness of his classmates Ronald might have been remembered for several things along the way but what seemed to stick in everyone’s memory was his ability to answer the unanswerable questions the nuns would ask with some regularity. For example, there was Sister Mary Francis in second grade who stood up before the class and asked, more or less rhetorically: “Who can tell me another name for tadpoles?” As she did and certain no one could, she turned almost before saying the word tadpoles to begin printing out the new name on the blackboard.
“Poliwogs,” said Ronald.
Sister Mary Francis turned around and said, “Who said that?”
Ronald held up his hand and so it went throughout grade school.
A few years later, Sister Geraldine asked, “Can anyone tell me who the first Catholic candidate for President was?”
“Al Smith,” said Ronald without hesitation.
“In the Revolutionary War, who can tell me who the man they called the Swamp Fox was?”
“Francis Marion,” came the reply and by this time, everyone knew who said it.
It happened a lot. Ronald just seemed to know things no one else did, sometimes even the nuns themselves.
“Joseph of Arimathea asked for and received our Lord’s body after His crucifixion, said Sister Francis Borgia in the seventh grade. “Joseph was a rich man and he prepared our Lord’s body for burial.”
“Sister?” asked one student. “Who was Joseph? Did he follow Jesus like the apostles?”
Seeing Ronald looking down and shaking his head she said, “Ronald? Can you tell us who Joseph of Arimathea was?”
Ronald looked up and said, “It depends on who you believe, Sister. If you go strictly according to the bible there is not much there to tell us who he was. But he is a popular figure in the beginnings of Christianity in England and France. One story has it that Joseph was a tin merchant and did business in the British Isles. That story says that Jesus was Joseph’s nephew and that he brought Jesus to England as a boy. It’s called the Glastonbury Legend.”
“How on earth do you know that Ronald?” she asked.
“My mother’s cousin lives in England and they sing a hymn there called Jerusalem. It’s based on a poem by William Blake. The words ask the question did Jesus walk upon England’s mountains’ green. No one knows if it’s true.”
Again, seventh grade.
But grade school and prison share a lot in common. For the most part both are strictly controlled environments with the societal pecking order usually determined during free time: in the yard in prison and at recess in school. But whether in grade school or prison, “know-it-alls” were not always popular. And so while Ronald got away with it for years until one day, one of his classmates started in on the playground.
“Hey smart-ass,” said Tim Wells. “When Floyd Patterson knocked out Johansson, was it with a left or a right?”
Brett Scarlett didn’t hear Ronald answer. It wasn’t about that anyway. Talk like that always meant the fight came next. He was never quite sure why he did it. Part of it had to do with Brett’s knowing that straight up, he could take Tim and it was just like Wells to pick on someone for being smarter than everybody else. Wells and his whole family were as dumb as wood. And while Ronald waited for the punch to land and the fight to begin, Brett walked over to Wells and as he did, he saw Terry Lorch get down on his hands and knees right behind the bully. Wells saw Brett coming and started to back up. When he did, he fell backwards over Lorch.
“Did he fall like that, Tim? Huh? Did he fall like that?” asked Brett.
Terry Lorch got up laughing.
Tim Wells knew what Brett Scarlett knew about who would win a fight between them and with Terry Lorch getting involved, this was a no-win deal for sure. But Tim had brothers and to not fight back meant they’d kick his ass and so by the time he got to his feet he knew he had to swing at somebody. But he never quite got to his feet because before he could straighten up, Ronald came at him and got him in a headlock. After that it broke up pretty quick with no real blows ever thrown or landed. In general (and that event in particular), a friendship was begun for the three of them that would last through high school and beyond.
In the end, both Terry and Brett had come to value intelligence. Not necessarily those who got good grades per se, but anyone who knew something and wasn’t afraid to share it out loud. Not long after the episode on the playground with Tim Wells, Brett invited Ron over to his house after school. The Scarlett’s home had an unattached large two-car garage with a room upstairs. It would never be confused with a carriage house in any sense, but it had a stairway and a door and two windows and while it got way too hot to play in in the summer, the rest of the time it gave Brett a place to get away to now and then, and of course the privacy to invite friends to come over and smoke cigarettes. Brett’s parents didn’t mind that he smoked and even allowed Brett to smoke in the house. But he was somewhat embarrassed about that and besides he just assumed that their permission did not extend to any of his friends and so, the room over the garage served that purpose. Brett’s collection of Playboy magazines were kept there as well and he had furnished it with a couple of overstuffed chairs and even added a small, portable TV...
Sounds intriguing, doesn't it! Check it out!
Gabbie
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