On any given Wednesday...

On any given Wednesday CLS All-stars lead the entire Christ Lutheran School student body on their weekly exodus-across the street to Chapel, held Wednesday morning at eight-thirty am in Christ Lutheran Cathedral and Hall of Fame—a makeshift Mt. Zion of the Midwest which started out (although Coach Martin Looney, i.e., Coach M claims that the rumors are all one-hundred percent unfounded) as a modern era tower of Babel by Mr. Looney’s great-grandfather, Edvard Stinchminknochenhausseur; who fled Germany for reasons having to do with the third Reich (Mr. Looney, informing his class during a Banned Books Week fundraising seminar for BOOKEM’ FILM that the Edvard Stinchminknochenhausseur  who Christened Christ Lutheran Cathedral and Hall of Fame is not at all the same Edvard Stinchminknochenhausseur mentioned by Adolph Hitler in Mien Kampf, where Hitler brutally accuses his dear old, Ja-Ja potato pancake loving grand-pappy, Edvard Sticnhminknochenhausseur of worldwide domination citing various reasons  having to do with trying to compensate for some sexual minor vagary which Mr. Looney insists was not a genetic heirloom hand-me-down, just go ask Karen Pinesol.

 

The Exodus, as the soundtrack also implies, commences when the entire student body rallies in the gymnasium—the cheerleaders leading the school in a victory chant while the basketball team sprints out of the locker room as fast as they can; each wearing their new warm-ups; replete with a new pair of Nike Dedalus’; purchased weekly, from the Cathedral’s tithes and offerings; Marcellus Buck usually leading the team through the din of cheers, is dressed as a Moses, fake Amish beard and traditional African outfits, his ten commandments being an ersatz Vacation Bible School arts & craft type of thingy from three summers prior which is really the tops of two severed Ironing boards shackled and ducked taped in Aluminum Foil.  Jeremiah Noelle’s erector set headgear is sometimes decorated with gold lame lining, so that more than once he was thought of to be the Evil Pharaoh, who, as is Jeremiah’s weekly role, sidesteps out to center court to lead in the post-service pre-game pep rally invocation where after all the heads are bowed and every eye is closed Marcellus sprints out pounding Jeremiah on the back of the Head with his edition if the Ten Commandments yelling to a now ecstatic audience that Jeremiah needs to LET MY PEOPLE GO, before leading the Student body in a very Louis-Louis rendition of Pharaoh-Pharaoh.

 

Until recently, when Patrick started spending eternities between the wall-linings, Patrick was always forced to sit next to Mrs. Looney and was asked to give her the occasional neck and lower abdomen massage—wearing specialty CLS Comet condom latex gloves, of course. Hale likes to disappear with Cabbages for a little Whew-whoo, if you know what I mean my dear friend during this pre-exodus Exodus. DeJuan (along with Kadeem, the janitor’s son) is asked to Dress and sprint out onto the court, along with the twenty other basketball players. When game night rolls around though, Mr. Looney will spoon-feed DeJuan the same-old-same-old spiel about him not being black enough to play a leading black man’s role in such a public black man’s sport. Shithead is almost always excused from Chapel and is sent to the music room, where he fools around on the sitar for an hour or two. Lynford likes to sit in the front row and get a really good seat and every week comments very loud, saying “Ouch, now you just know that’s got to hurt,” when Jeremiah gets hammered over the head with the tablets. VonBehren pretty much just hangs-out with himself, in a corner near the stage, trying not to look too bored sporadically glancing at Meredith-Elise Willow, who wrote him a very long sonnet, illustrating her excellent use of iambic-pentameter wishing that he just drop dead, hopefully as soon as time would allocate and that his death be as painful as is humanly possible.

 

After Marcellus Buck jives the student audience Coach M struts out into Center Court wearing his faded Fightin’ Farmers Drum Major uniform from high school. He often steps on Jeremiah’s forehead before blowing into his whistle several times, pretending that he is a drill sergeant of sorts. The CLS student body lines up in a single file dash after Marcellus. Either Tod or Gannon will bang away on the timpani (wheeled on a go-cart platform Hale once unsuccessfully tried to steal to get down to the Sunshine state).  Behind Marcellus are the Cheerleaders and the starting five followed by a pennant-on popsicle stick Kindergarten class cheering the Comet accolades as they exit the gym and take a strong left on Center Plank, where Hale and Cabbages are likely to join the mass, sneaking out of the Care Takers and Grounds office, owned by Gerhardt Murray, before the mass exits the Building on the official front door which no one uses, heading towards chapel.  When the Students cross Starr St. Marcellus raises his hands out to halt traffic reenacting the crossing of the Red Sea. The one and only Losers Day Chapel where Coach M. had Patrick, against his volition, to pose as Moses and halt traffic, a beamer came out of nowhere and nailed Patrick, sending him flying, catapulting, into the arms of Misses Looney who just so happen to have a net open and ready for him. In addition to the chagrin of the large, afro-centric Moses costume that Patrick was coerced into wearing, and the weight of the lugging the dual Ironing Board mandates, Mr. Looney ‘just so happened’ to have his camcorder rolling and ended up taking National Second place on America’s Funniest Home Videos coast to coast human torcher talent search. Mr. Looney was later overhead telling Tad Durham, Comet referee and oblivious driver of the Beamer that if only they would of nabbed Patrick in the Nuts while filming they could have snatched the grand prize of one mill, having both tuition and students double the following autumn.