The Welkin

Long before he would dip into the labyrinthine underground of CLS christened by one Patrick McReynolds himself as the cryptobyrinth, scuttling swiftly through the interior digestive track lining of the school, discerning somewhere in the early months somehow that not only all of CLS but also the world as we know it is more or less connected like one serpentine run on sentence, Patrick began hanging out after school in the ceiling rafters the newly refurbished gymnasium, perched a good fifty to seventy feet above the Skyboxx where Coach M entertains lord knows how many Comet Varsity elite cheerleaders over shots of knobs creek and imported Cuban cigars. For reasons no one has yet to inquire about the ceiling is referred to as the WELKIN, due to the cloudy lavender purple-sunset harbinger of a new day of peace and promise coating labeled to the flat top ceiling of the FINANCE FOR ETERNITY gymnasium—this is how the ceiling or “welkin” is perceived from the court, bleachers and skybox vectors below—as an ascension into heaven. The cloudy mist and purple polyutherane draped mist perfectly occludes the searing over head lights. It is simply unbearable to remain up lodged in the welkin during one of the 150 seemingly year round comet home games, due to the full wattage capacity of the overhead lights. But during mid-afternoon, before dusk, Patrick has found this vector of the school quite peaceful, even stain glass ghetto Jesus, the variegated mural of an afro-Christ dunking on the left hand plank of the crucifix—the mural Patrick himself was hurtled through at a velocity of God knows how many fucking non-gangsta G’s two autumns ago when Patrick decided to take matters into his own hands after smoking a peace pipe with Old crazy Hoof down the street and taking matters into his own hands, cajoling fellow Losers Von Behren and Hale and Dejuan and even Lynnford Collins into assisting him in his failed campaign.