November 30

Slowly, carefully, Pete pushed the door closed behind him.  Slowly, carefully, he turned the knob, releasing the catch, shutting the door.  Only then did he breathe.  One deep breath.  In and out.  No one knew he had left.   He didn’t know why he bothered being quiet.  They wouldn’t have noticed if he had run down the stairs and slammed the door.  They were too busy yelling at each other.  Why did his family always have to yell?  It was always the same.  First his little brother Joey would do something stupid, then he would start yelling when he didn’t like people’s reactions to his stupidity, and he would just keep going until his parents started to yell back, or worse, yell at each other.  The walls weren’t that thick, and they lived in an apartment building that everybody called “flats” because they lived on Hong Kong Island, which used to be a British colony, and apparently the British called apartments “flats,” which made no sense to Pete, because they weren’t flat at all.  Each building in the row lining the street that lead to the school was three units tall, and each unit had an upstairs and a downstairs, and thin walls through which you could hear the neighbors above you, and below you, and beside you.  For example, Pete hadn’t had to wait for the announcement to know that the couple downstairs was going to have a baby last year, because he had heard vomiting every morning for weeks.  That’s how thin the walls were.  Pete liked to do things quietly.  He didn’t like to be noticed, and he didn’t like his family’s yelling.

He didn’t have any particular place to go.  He just wanted to get away.  He didn’t really want to go to George’s flat.  He hadn’t seen him since they had gone to the beach together Friday night, and he didn’t want to hear about what had happened after he had walked away – after George had gone off with that skank, Jennifer.  Maybe he should have stuck around.  Probably Jennifer had left George after he bought her the beer she asked for.  Pete just hadn’t wanted to talk to her; even for the few minutes she was using his best friend.  Pete didn’t like being around the kids who were jerks to the teachers, and to the other kids, and who were always late to class because they were off on the roof sneaking cigarettes.  Sneaking?  There was nothing sneaky about it.  They reeked when they walked into class.  Why didn’t the teachers do anything?  Idiots like Jennifer got away with everything, just like Pete’s stupid little brother.  They just took up space, and wasted everybody’s time. 

And Jennifer had been all flirting last night, first with him, and then when he wasn’t interested, she had switched to George, like he and his friend were interchangeable.  And George hadn’t even cared.  He let her put her arm around him, and ask him to buy her beer like she was doing him some big favor.  She just wanted the beer.  Probably thought she was too cool to pay for it herself.  It wasn’t about being old enough.  She was a sophomore, which meant she was a year older than they were.  Anyway, there was no drinking age in Hong Kong. 

And George had just bought her the beer and walked out of the shop with his arm around her, winking at Pete and motioning for him to follow like it was some kind of an adventure. 

Probably George was mad at him right now.  If he went to George’s place, he would be accused of desertion, and there might be more yelling, and he didn’t like yelling.

He turned up the hill.  Towards the school.  Maybe someone would be hanging out at the basketball courts.

Mr. McAllister, his religion teacher was walking down the hill, towards his own flat, carrying a manila folder thick with student papers.

“Here’s someone I was hoping to talk to.”  Mr. McAllister greeted him as their paths intersected.  “Mr. Meren, I’d like to talk about the paper you turned in a few days early.”

“Oh yeah, the one on being called.  I know it’s not due ‘til Tuesday.  It’s just that I have a lot of other stuff, and I thought I’d get it out of the way.  It’s OK, isn’t it?”

Mr. McAllister pulled a single sheet of paper out of the folder.  “If by OK you mean is it well written, well I must admit that I found it charming, if a little bit confusing.”

“Confusing?”

“Well, you’ve only turned in the introduction, which is not badly written at all, even charming as I said, but still, I’m not certain that I’m following your train of thought.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.  I thought I’d given you the whole thing.  I can run back in and print it up again.”  He gestured in the direction of his front door, and even took a step towards it, but Mr. McAllister stopped him.

“I can wait ‘til the new week, Peter.  But I must say that your approach is fascinating.  Exploring the concept of a divine calling through the lens of dachshunds.  It’s entirely original.”

“Dachshunds? You mean the little dogs?  Dude, you gotta be kidding?”  Pete looked closely to see if his teacher was making a joke.  It was hard to tell with Mr. McAllister.  He usually looked like he was about to start chuckling at some secret joke, but after being in his class for three months Pete had decided that his religious studies teacher was rarely joking.  He just thought life was really amusing.

“Dude?”  Mr. McAllister was incredulous.  “Does anybody really use the word dude any more, when not referring to institutions that cater to pseudo cowboy fantasies that I’m told used to be popular in the western United States?”

Pete smiled.  He liked the way Mr. McAllister used words.  “Yeah, well, I like retro.  What can I say, it feels comfortable.”

“Ah, integrity.”

“Integrity?”

“Being true to your own nature.  If retro is what’s right for you, than retro it should be.”

“So my nature is retro?”

“You’re the one who must ascertain your true nature, young man, not I.  Now, back to your paper -- I must admit that I can’t yet tell if the calling of your anthropomorphized canines is truly basketball, but I’m eager to read the rest.”

         “Um, Mr. McAllister, I wrote about Mother Theresa.”

         “Peter Meren, you wrote about wiener dogs.”

         With that, he handed Pete a single sheet of paper, and continued down the hill.

         At first Pete thought it was a mistake.  He had turned in a three-page paper written in Cambria font size twelve double-spaced.  The three pages had been stapled, with his name in the top right hand corner of each page.  The single sheet of paper he was now looking at was something entirely different.  It was covered with single-spaced type in a tiny font he didn’t recognize.  But his name was on it in the upper right hand corner: 

Peter Meren

Concepts in Christianity

Period 2. 

That was right, but he didn’t recognize any of what followed.  He sat down on a metal bench on the edge of the sports field across the road from his apartment.  Anthropomorphized canines?  Could be interesting.

Prologue

Once upon a time there were the Three Wiener Dogs Gruff, who lived in a big house by the edge of the woods near the bridge.  And, in their yard, was the finest asphalt basketball court in all the land.

Now besides being the world's top-seeded three-on-three basketball team in the under 5-foot height designation, the Wiener dogs were intrepid adventurers and solvers of mysteries.

That is how our story begins.  That is how our story always begins.  There is great spiritual comfort, and nourishment for the soul in predictable ritual.  Not, mind you, at the expense of novelty and intrepid adventure.  In the Catholic Church, some parts of the Mass are the same every week, some parts repeat on a three-year cycle, and some parts are always unique.  Fred was raised Catholic, but now practiced his own brand of wiener dog spirituality.  Akelmeyer and Malchisedech thought little about spiritual matters.  The two younger dogs took both daily ritual and novel adventure at face value, as it presented itself: minute by minute.  There is a spiritual tradition called Zen, which applauds this approach.

But, never mind that.  The "once upon a time" in question was a bleary mid-morning in early December.  The distant mountains were lightly frosted with snow, but a dull overcast kept the slightly damp court from feeling too cold.  Malchisedech and Akelmeyer were taking turns practicing free throws, each good-naturedly ribbing the other when he missed a shot.  At their level of play, missed free throws were rare, in practice or games.

But they did happen.  Malchisedech was showing off with an eyes-closed, backwards, over-the-head shot.  The ball sailed over the top of the backstop and into the woods.

"Air ball, air ball," taunted Akelmeyer.

To be continued . . .

Well it was obviously a mistake.  It was just a mistake with his name on it.  He hadn’t written a bunch of nonsense about wiener dogs and basketball.  He would never have thought of those names.  Akelmeyer?  Malchisedech?  Pretty weird.  He crumpled up the paper and threw it in the wastebasket next to the bench.  He could turn in the right paper on Monday, and this time he would actually read it when it came off the printer.  He had obviously printed something George’s little sister Brittany had written.  This seemed like her imagination.  Well, maybe not.  She was more into elves and fairies, but she was crazy enough to make up a story about basketball-playing wiener dogs.  He’d have to ask her what she was doing writing stuff on his laptop.  He continued up the hill, in search of his own basketball game.