William Kienzle - Deadline for a Critic

This reasoning put the whole incident into some sort of logical perspective.

God knows what would have happened if Mitch had taken his plagiarism charge to the faculty. Would the faculty have understood that Ridley was just trying to turn a rigged competition into a fair contest? Not likely. If Mitch had told and Groendal had presented his legitimate defense, it simply would have highlighted how unjust and foolish it had been for the faculty to have made this a contest in the first place. And the faculty never would have admitted that. They would have been forced to make a scapegoat of Groendal.

No, Ridley had turned to the only option available when he applied the rule of “fraternal correction” and reported Mitchell’s foolhardy violation of the rule.

Carroll Mitchell had created the impression that he was the wronged party—that Groendal had betrayed a friend who trusted him. Nothing could have been further from the truth, as Groendal viewed the facts he had twisted. Groendal was the offended party. He had been the victim of an unfair competition. Both the faculty and Mitchell had been playing with loaded dice and Groendal was the victim.

And once more, he had been passive. Things had happened to him. He had been in control of nothing.

Then there was the affair of Jane Condon.

Of all that had happened to him, Jane Condon had indisputably been the most manipulative force. He could see it all so clearly now in the quiet, meditative atmosphere of the chapel.

At one time, he had considered them both victims of a series of unfortunate accidents. But now that his rationalization was working so well, he saw clearly through to the cause of the whole mess. It was Jane Condon alone. The only thing left to chance would be on which night he might have decided to go to a movie at the Stratford. But attend a movie during vacation he would. Anybody who knew him knew that.

Jane herself confessed that she had placed him practically under personal surveillance for many years. She would know how devoted he was to the arts. She had to know that he would attend a movie during Christmas break just as he had during vacations of the past-Easter, Christmas, summer, whatever. From that knowledge, all she had to do was choose her time.

His final year in college—a good choice, coming before the greater commitment of the theologate. She got the job as usherette and just waited for him. Why did she not throw herself at Koesler? No; she had preset her sights on Ridley.

He had to admit that he had played right into her hands when he returned the next night. But, for someone who had studied him as thoroughly as Jane said she had, it was not a bad gamble. It was his first flirtation, which she undoubtedly knew. Once he had slipped into her trap and returned to the theater, the rest was child’s play.

An innocent invitation to a New Year’s Eve party. Arrange to have her parents out for the evening. Get him to play the piano until he was fatigued. And then the liquor. In this case the coup de grâce. Overheat the house. Set the whole thing up so it all comes together at exactly midnight. What more natural than to share a kiss at midnight on New Year’s Eve? And then, intoxicated or nearly so, let one thing follow another. Get pregnant then—or later with somebody else; it doesn’t matter so long as you trap the man you’re after. And that’s it.

On reflection, never had he been more passive. The whole thing had just happened to him. He was in control of nothing.

Finally, Charlie Hogan.

With the shock of Ridley’s first act of intercourse and subsequent retreat from his first sex partner, Charlie Hogan had played the object of that syndrome called the rebound.

And don’t ever try to tell Ridley C. Groendal that Charlie Hogan was unaware of what was going on! Not after Ridley’s prayerful meditation in the chapel told him otherwise. Of course Charlie knew. He would have to have been stupid not to know that he and Ridley were more than just friends. There were young men in the seminary who were friends with one another—lots of them. But how many shared all the confidences, the mutual joy of learning from one another, the nearly exclusive companionship, as Ridley and Charlie?

Groendal could think of no one who had shared as much as he and Charlie.

Hogan would have had to be stupid not to see that. And Hogan was by no means stupid. Being the younger of the two, Charlie probably knew where their relationship was heading better than Ridley did. So why then the violent reaction when the climax was reached? Why the beating? Why the betrayal?

Once again, Groendal had been used. And most shamefully so. At least Jane Condon had wanted no less than Ridley himself. She wanted to force Ridley to marry her.

As obnoxious as that was, it wasn’t as contemptible as Charlie’s motive. He did not want Groendal. He just wanted to destroy Groendal. And he had. He had demolished Ridley’s vocation to the priesthood.

Ridley had been passive. All this had happened to him. He had been in control of nothing.

It took Groendal several days to reach all these conclusions. All of them arrived at by prayerful meditation.

As he reached each solution he felt an increasingly greater inner peace. It was as if he were able to lay to rest one ghost of his past after another. This tranquil attitude was communicated in his sessions with Dr. Bartlett, who grew ever more satisfied with Groendal’s progress. No longer was there any immediate threat of shock therapy. Regression, of course, was always possible, but unlikely as long as this promising progress continued.

Obviously, Dr. Bartlett and Ridley Groendal were operating on different wavelengths. Bartlett continued to explore Ridley’s motivations in the various choices he had made. Meanwhile, Groendal was putting his life into subjective order by examining those—four, it turned out—who had shabbily and shamefully manipulated him.

Once he had his house of cards in final order, the question was what he was going to do about it all. What was he to do about his passivity? What could he do about his apparent lack of control over his life? Particularly, what could he do about all this in a Christian context? This is what puzzled Groendal more than anything else. Because, above all, he was a Christian. His entire life bespoke that. My God, he’d almost become a priest! In fact, it was, his prayerful meditation had clearly indicated, certainly not his fault that he had not gone on to the priesthood.

At this point, enter Bob Koesler for the third time, again masquerading as a priest. This time he made a hurried vow never to try it again. Henceforth, he would dress as a priest only if he really were one or if the seminary rule called for that garb.

The first two times had been so easy. Today, he couldn’t quite put his finger on what had gone wrong. Now, instead of deferential if not reverential greetings, he got skeptically raised eyebrows. One nurse actually challenged him, asking with which parish he was affiliated. Why had he not given any thought to the possibility of that logical question?

On the spur of the moment, he had blurted out that he was on special assignment. She accepted with obvious reservations. Unlike the FBI or CIA, the Archdiocese of Detroit gave out no unspecified “special assignments.” Fortunately, the nurse was not au courant.

So it was with a good bit more perspiration than was called for even by the warm weather that Koesler greeted Ridley Groendal.

“Bob Koesler—just the man I was looking for!” Groendal welcomed him effusively and offered him a tissue. “Here, wipe off. Is that getup that warm?”

Koesler dabbed at neck and face. “No, I was almost found out. This is the last time I try this masquerade.”

“That’s okay. It’s providential that you came just now.”