Читать книгу Rage. The Legend of "Baseball Bill" Denehy онлайн

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The second part of the test consisted of listening to a three- or four-paragraph story about two people meeting, and after talking about something else for five minutes, the nun asked, “Where did they meet?” I’d think hard and have to say, “I don’t remember.”

The third part of the test consisted of a number of pictures—a family at a picnic, a mother holding up a sweater at a department store—and I’d be asked to study the pictures. That part I was able to do. But as for the other parts of the test, I wouldn’t be able to answer correctly, and the nuns would always make fun of me.

I always got the feeling that I was somehow stupid. I felt shame and humiliation, because I couldn’t keep up with the class. I internalized that shame. That feeling would remain with me throughout my life. If someone made the mistake of saying, or even implying, that I was stupid, that person would soon regret it.

I remember the nuns beating me and trying to make me cry. This was a Catholic thing. Christ suffered on the cross, and you had to suffer too. I grew up during a time when my father said, “Big boys don’t cry.” So whenever the nun hit me with a wooden ruler, I would grit my teeth, but I would never cry. I was determined to take the pain. You could whack me, but I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of crying.