Chapter 5, Cholera!, parts 264 - 267

Richard Britell June 20, 2012

264. The Abbot went on,"His trust fund paid for his keep at the institution but when he was about thirteen he ran away. The next time he appears it is in Lyons selling Bibles door to door. The next few years were difficult for him because he had no papers or identification, but correspondence with the religious  orphanage established his identity. 

265. Here Buboni let out another low moan, and we realized it was not his impatience with the fanciful story of the Nigerian, the groan was because he had not gotten over his indisposition from the night before.  He left us for another visit to the bathroom. Off he went, using his crutch, and dragging his broken foot behind him.

266. The Duck gave me a significant look. Buboni had not touched his lunch.  When he came back from the bathroom the duck said, "Buboni, you are pale as a ghost, or, as Twain would say, 'you are toad belly white'".

267. Buboni ignored him and sat down again, and the Abbot continued talking of the Nigerian. "He will come into an inheritance when he reaches his 24th" but suddenly Buboni stood up to his full height, threw his crutch on the floor and shouted. "What if the Pope woke up one morning and realized that the entire history of Catholicism was an entire crock of bull"

Buboni, Lost In The Woods, parts 252 - 255

Richard Britell June 16, 2012

252. Buboni wanted to depart from the monastery but the Duck wanted to make another visit to old Frangeopani before we left. The Abbot sent his boy to enquire if the old man was receiving visitors. He soon returned to say, that anyone could come who wanted too, but the old man was deeply upset about some things that had happened during the night.

253. The children from Dannersville had struck old Frangeopani again during the night. Not content with bombing him with water balloons now and then and nailing his chain to the tree while he was asleep, they had snuck up in the night and painted the words "God Loves You", in giant letters on the side of his shack. The old man's first impulse was to just paint it out as he had all the other stupid thing they had painted on his shed but...

254. How was a devout old man to paint over the words "God loves you", obliterating a thought so close to his heart. The children with the infallible accuracy of naive intelligence had struck him in his sorest spot, his vanity.  Frangeopani was one of those who believed that God loved him an extra special amount.  But he was loth to broadcast this idea by way of a shed billboard to the entire Monastic community.  The text could even be seen from the highway a quarter mile from his shack.

255. This would have been no problem for him if his assistant had been around.  Frangeopani had a helper who came every afternoon and helped him with his rewriting of Scriptures. The assistant would have taken care of the defacement and graffiti on the shed as he always had in the past. His assistant had disappeared the day before, he was none other than the Nigerian. So explained the Abbot's boy to us, as we debated what to do next.