Chapter 364: Jonathan XVIII—Without a Second Thought
“So what do you think that guy wanted with your Mom?” Elena whispered, leaning forward and keeping one eye on Sister Mary Celeste. Jonathan never ceased to be amazed by the way Elena could always talk softly and clearly through a toothy smile or the side of her mouth, and from a distance it looked as if she weren’t saying a thing. It’s an art entertainers have to learn quickly, Elena had once explained to him, the ability to say what you want with hundreds of people watching none the wiser.
Jonathan, however, did not have that talent so he answered Elena with a soft grunt which resembled the rhythm of the words, “I don’t know.”
“I mean, didn’t it seem kinda weird to you?”
Jonathan
nodded. It seemed very weird. Chelios did say he wanted to talk to Dad as well,
so at least he knew that something weird in that
way was up. Not that Mom would ever look at a hairy freak like Chelios like
that, ugh, but still. Why would he want to talk to Mom privately? He didn’t
know if Mom told Dad about it, and he told Freddy and Jana not to tell Dad just
in case Mom didn’t want to bother him about the game yesterday. As far as
Jonathan could tell the man needed a good ass kicking. At least Dad shut out
the Wings yesterday, showed them a thing or two.
“…on her wedding night she did not submit to her husband nor did she fight him, rather she showed Christian restraint and piety, and some say using her softness and music to convert him to Christianity and therefore remained a virgin…”
“God these stories are sick, really,” Elena murmured. “Everyone always gets burned at the stake or chopped up, or enslaved or imprisoned.”
“….and when she did not die from the strangling, she was burned at the stake…”
“See!”
Jonathan half grinned and had to stop himself from laughing. That’s just how saints were made, as far as Jonathan knew. In order to be a saint you had to be special, so it seemed simple enough to him that one had to die just as curiously as they lived. Elena always questioned everything they learned, especially in history, and although Jonathan didn’t know a lot, not even of an iota of say, a Cecile would know he had a feeling he knew enough to try to help Elena see the correct way. Actually, he thought saints were pretty cool, performing miracles and shit like that, they were like wizards and stuff.
“Do you find that amusing, Jonathan Roy?”
Jonathan grimaced. Of course, she would see even the tiniest half smile. “Uh… no sister,” he said and he swallowed. “No I don’t.” He clasped his hands together on the table and straightened his posture, as if that would soften her up.
Sister Celeste tilted her head; she had round cheeks but a slim neck, and was really very pretty. She even seemed really young, and Jonathan wondered how someone that attractive could grow up and want to hide in a convent or a parochial school. She pressed her hands together and walked to his table, soft steps but with heavy shoes that made a clomping sound. “But you smiled, Jonathan Roy, so you obviously were entertained by the manner of Saint Cecilia’s death perhaps? It isn’t surprising I suppose, with the bloodlust you youth seem to manifest nowadays, it gets harder and harder to get through to you children, it’s quite disturbing.”
Inwardly,
Jonathan sighed. Sister Celeste had not forgiven him since his escapade with
Kirk Maltby, nor Elena. As far as she saw them now, it was as little savages,
hungry for violence. She leaned forward. “How did the youth of today, in this
world, especially in
“As far as I can tell,” Elena said calmly, uninvited, “Executions are no longer held in public squares and no one is drawn and quartered or burned at the stake anymore or fed to lions.”
Sister Celeste blinked. “No but they flock to movie theaters to see the representation of the very same thing, one craving satiated by another medium.”
Elena frowned slightly, not in annoyance or anger, but in a pensive way, and she nodded. “Understood.”
“Now Jonathan Roy, tell me, why would you not be horrified at Saint Cecilia’s death, why be entertained by it, is nothing sacred to you?”
Jonathan scratched his head. “No I wasn’t entertained by it.”
“But a smile shows a certain frivolous attitude toward her torment.”
“Eh, I don’t know,” Jonathan sighed. “I mean should we really be that sad about her death?”
Sister Celeste’s eyes widened.
“No really,” Jonathan cut in before she could say anything. “I mean her death and suffering only brought her to a bigger payoff in heaven right? I mean she was sainted, so shouldn’t we be happy at least that she got a compensation for it I mean other people die slow horrible deaths and never get anything for it right? I mean, I mean like wearing a crucifix and everything, doesn’t that like commemorate how Jesus was like slowly tortured to death? If it really grossed us out that much why would everyone use it like fashion?”
Sister Celeste’s mouth opened a little, “Very good,” she murmured, “Very good.”
“It must suck to be a girl sometimes,” Scott said as he chewed a mouthful of pizza at lunchtime. He washed it down with a loud gulp of milk.
“Well yeah,” Jonathan replied and he took a huge bite from a sugar pie. “What reason you have in mind exactly?”
“Well, like look at the girls over there, you know, Elena and her friends,” Scott said pointing awkwardly with his middle finger.
Jonathan pivoted in his seat and saw Elena and the other girls eating and talking. They seemed in good enough moods. Elena caught his eye and she smiled and winked. He felt his ears redden; he smirked, looking back at Scott. “She looks fine to me.”
Scott nodded. “Yeah but at what price my friend, what price,” he said in a faux English accent. Scott was in drama class, a class that Elena was also in, and it always irked Jonathan whenever he contemplated the possibility of those two being the romantic leads in something together. “I mean for a girl to look hot they have to really work at it, and that means eating nothing but salad and water and throwing up.”
Jonathan scowled. “Elena doesn’t do that, she eats good.” The sight of her slipping food into her napkin flashed through his mind. The next morning he had seen the food shoved into the trash when he carried it to the outside bin.
“Yup.” Scott said. “I wasn’t singling her out, just chicks in general, you know?”
Danny soon changed the subject and they talked about hockey and Dad, and Nick wanted to know if Dad were retiring anytime soon because he was playing like he would never get old. Jonathan said not that he knew of but he also thought of the way Dad hobbled out of the car at night after games, and how he limped downstairs and upstairs. He wondered how much longer Dad could hurt and say he loved the game.
At the same time, he also glanced a lot at the girls. All of them had fluffy salads with no dressing and Elena kept poking at hers a lot as if she were tending a garden. Sometimes she put it in her mouth; he watched her swallow and chew. Salads were good for you and hers had ham and cheese on it too, so it’s not like she was eating something with no nutritional value. Being a skater, a dancer, an athlete she knew that she needed to eat protein and maintain muscle values otherwise she wouldn’t be any good at what she most wanted to do.
He trusted her.
But what disturbed him, was when lunch was over and he saw her dump half of the salad into the trash can without a second thought.