“The Litany of Assholes”

Over centuries people have held up the golden rule as the ultimate ideal as to how to act socially; treat others as you want them to treat you. In high school though, I’m not sure that rule necessarily stands up. We don’t always treat people well in high school, because we aren’t exactly sure what being treated well means and we don’t really make the connection that how we treat others may effect how they treat us. Teenagers are selfish after all. No, teenagers are much more caught up in reputation. They are concerned with how their reputation will reflect on them as a person and how it will be carried out over the years, because a high school reputation may very well stick with someone for decades afterward.

Take for example, Jim Cassel. Jim Cassel is an asshole. Jim Cassel will always be an asshole in the eyes of those who knew him in high school. No matter what Jim may do after high school, Jim will always be an asshole to those people. Even though Jim may injury his knee in his sophomore year of college and end up losing that athletic scholarship to that nice school, but still be determined to finish out his communication degree at a community college where he meets a pretty nice girl that helps him shed his asshole ways and get married and have a couple kids and be a decent father who works as plumber or some other hard working blue collar profession, one thing will remain the same for those who knew him in high school, Jim Cassel is an asshole. So, after hearing Jim’s story, one may call up an old high school friend and say something along the lines of, “Hey, did you hear that that asshole Jim Cassel got married and has a couple kids, now? The asshole’s a plumber now!”

This asshole reputation becomes generational, however, because as we all know, science has shown us that assholism is hereditary. Therefore, the son of an asshole is an asshole. So now, those two kids that Jim is raising, perhaps very well and are turning out to be decent human beings, they will be assholes, because Jim was an asshole in high school. “Did you hear those little assholes are going to be going to school with our kids?”

Those children are now forever destined to be assholes. They will grow up, fall in love, and have little assholes of their own some day. And those assholes will also give birth to assholes, and so on and so forth. Therefore, the biblical lineage of Jim would read something like this:

That asshole Jim begot this asshole, who begot that asshole, who begot another asshole, who begot another damn asshole, who begot that one guy who could have been a good guy, but he was raised by an asshole, so he became an asshole too.

All of this, because Jim Cassel was an asshole in high school.

Ultimately, reputation works stronger than the Golden Rule in high school, so I say, if you want teenagers to treat each other well, use this rule: don’t be an asshole.

Love Song for the Depraved

I’m in love with the shadow of my thought,

slow dancing with the idea of the dark.

I’ll guide and dip into my depression,

and flirt with the knowledge of my destruction.

I’m in love with the shadow of my past,

hiding in the shade of its cold embrace.

I’ll peek my head out from time to time,

to confirm that I still have a present.

I’m in love with the shadow of myself,

caught in a web of deprived esteem.

I’ll claim to struggle with image,

but make love with my solitude.

I’m in love with my shadow,

alone with it in the dark.

Lost in Transit

I drank my coffee black that morning. I sipped on the bitter nectar as I gazed out over my Great-grandfather’s old farm, seeing corn stalks for seemingly miles before reaching a flank of tall Elm trees. A pure white sun was muscling its way over the Elm trees to light up a gray sky morning. I felt a little roughage drinking black coffee on an east South Dakotan farm despite my clothing selection of a blue hooded jacket and shorts; the look of a Colorado mountain camper or in the South Dakota farm town of Dell Rapids, the look of a city boy.

Across a beaten dirt path, past what may appear to be a small airplane hanger to the ignorant eye and a small old white house there sat a large bright red barn (just like that of the stereotypical farm barn house). Next to this barn was an old brown stallion, simply standing on the other side of an open gate. This was George. George was quite useless in his old age, he never would let anyone ride him and he sat on the other side of that gate not only free, but encouraged to run off on his own. My relatives had no need of him anymore.

As I looked out over that flat horizon sunrise, I felt sympathetic for George. After a summer of hope riddled with a long list of tragedies, I found myself feeling as useless and lost as George, only my gate was closed.

What was simply farmland to others was a train station to me. This station wasn’t a place though. It didn’t take you to any physical destination. It was just the last stop of adolescence. Once you boarded the train. There was no going back. My friends and I had all come to this station, but I was the only one left here.

A couple months ago, I was packed and ready for my train to arrive. The schedule said it would get here first. It never arrived. It was derailed. The pain it would take to get it back on the tracks seemed much too hard to bear.

One by one, I had watched my friends board their trains, leaving me here in sadness and tragedy. As I watched the South Dakota sunrise, I waited to see that familiar reaper dressed in black make his way through those cornstalks. I wondered who or what he would take from me now. Perhaps most of all, I hoped he would take me. All I could seem to do now was sit and wait for some kind of salvation.

In the midst of this sadness, my mind drifted back to a happier time.

It was the beginning of the summer of hope and transition. I was walking down a suburban street in a classic blue Beatles shirt and shorts with my roughage feet strutting along in a pair of dirty man flops. I had my summer hippy look going with a pair of aviator sun-glasses, long messy hair and a week old grizzly and spotted five o’clock shadow. I was happy then, my pearly whites shown as I smiled ear to ear looking on the late afternoon sun starting to make its way toward the chiseled mountains just a few miles away.

I walked past a backyard fence that a young girl, probably around the age of ten was on the other side jumping up and down on a trampoline, disappearing and reappearing above the fence. She smiled at me with an adorable little girl smile and much to my surprise stopped jumping to tell me that I was “hot.” I wanted to tell her that she shouldn’t grow up so fast, but I simply smiled, shook my head and continued on my way. When we are young, we are all so eager to pack our bags for the train.

My route that day took me past my old junior high and elementary schools. In the transitional times of our lives, it’s very easy to reminisce a bit. I couldn’t help but do so as I passed by the ghost towns where I used to attend school, still potent with the smell of childhood innocence and the anticipation of growing up.

It was the cool and drizzly night of my graduation. The rain had soaked our caps and gowns and left the girls looking like wet dogs with their drenched styled hair. We had just thrown our caps in the air as many people lit cigarettes and cigars on the grass of the Coor’s Event Center in celebration. I promptly retrieved my floppy rain seasoned cloth and cardboard souvenir and started walking down the steep steps of the Event Center. With the toss of a cap, adulthood had begun.

I would take the memory of many adolescent and childhood friends with me on my way to a new life. One such friend was Ben.

Ben was an interesting character. The best way to describe him was always nerdy, but one word couldn’t do Ben justice. Ben was a muscular nerd and a “man” scout, as he would say. He was just the right amount of awkward. He always knew the right thing to say or do to cheer you up or just make you say “what the hell.”

Ben was chosen to give the student speech at our graduation and I was one of the few people he shared it with before executing the speech on the Coors Event Center stage that Thursday night. The focus of his speech was the idea of “mild amounts of madness.” Ben said the only way we can really make it through life is to do something simply stupid and childish from time to time. It was Ben’s idea of a break, a small escape from the reality of a painful life. We needed something small to help us escape. Ben and I had been examples of this very idea our entire senior year of high school, whether it was walking barefoot, taking time from class to play Frisbee, sunbathe, roll down a hill or perhaps the best one of all, make shoes out of duct tape and shag carpet and sell them to our peers: a product we affectionately called “mochishags.” Such childishness seemed simply like events of the past as I walked down those steps toward my manhood. My train was ready.

On the late summer afternoon of the last day of my adolescence, I continued on my way to Ben’s house to give him a letter and say goodbye. Ben was about to embark on his most insane journey yet and in the fall, I was to be in St. Paul, Minnesota beginning my studies as a seminarian. Each of us had a different train to board.

I made my way up a small dirt hill overlooking a large man-made lake that on a calm day reflects the mountains beautifully, but unfortunately, a late afternoon thunderstorm was coming in that day, bringing a heavy wind with it that scrambled the surface of the lavender lake with ripples. Little did I know that afternoon storm was brining more than just rain. The forecast that summer called for death, tragedy and the phone call that derailed my train.

I spotted Ben’s house about four hundred grassy feet from the lake and back down the dirt hill. As I came upon Ben’s house, I couldn’t help but notice how much of an odd couple we were. Ben was an atheist and about to live as a drifter for a year and I was a devout Catholic about to begin a long journey towards the priesthood. Nonetheless, we had remained good friends and never let our differences tear us apart. Ben was a good man and had always respected my faith. But there was a part of me that always wanted to convert him. It was that part of me that had wrote the letter to him that I was going to give him that day.

I walked up on the novelty art littered front porch of Ben’s house, highlighted by a large concrete goose. I rang the door bell and only about ten seconds went by before Ben’s familiar blonde hair and glasses framed eyes answered the door. We exchanged some awkward conversation before getting to more serious things. I think both of us had the thought in the back of our minds that this would be the last time we would see each other. We each had a different train to board. I handed the white enveloped letter that was labeled “open when your heart calls you” in my wobbling feminine man handwriting to him. He gave me the stereotypical Ben response, “Thank you” in a medium ranged voice with a couple higher pitched pubic squeaks and a slight head nod.

“No problem, Ben.” I responded with a summarizing tone, “Well, good luck old pal on your journey.”

“Yes, thank you. Goodbye, old friend.” He came in closely to prepare for a farewell hug, “Hey, if you happen to run across a blonde haired bearded black man up in Minnesota, don’t worry, it’s just me.”

I laughed a bit and gave my old friend a manly hug- threes taps on the back of course, “God bless, Ben.”

“Good luck doing God’s work.” He gave me a satisfied grin before heading back behind the screen door into his house. That last memory of Ben stuck in my mind as a pleasant haunting of adolescence.

I continued to look out over the South Dakotan sunrise. Another humid morning was in store. I was waiting as I always had. But for what? A train that wasn’t going to come? I had waited all of my life to be here in life. If only I knew its bitter taste then, I wouldn’t have longed for this. I would have lived my adolescence. This didn’t feel like that station now. That station had anticipation. Here there was only pain. I searched for some advice that I once knew. Nothing. Even now, the past couldn’t bring me hope for the future.

Finally, it hit me. This wasn’t a train station. I wasn’t lost in transit. I was on my train; a saddened and painful train known as adulthood. My train wasn’t gone. It just wasn’t taking me where I thought it would. I looked forward and took a sip of my coffee; sweet and black as death. I was on my train. I had a one-way ticket to possibility.

“The Cathedral Reflects the Masses”

There is a misconception that you need a fancy culinary degree in order to cook for a catering company. There’s prestige to having the title of cook or chef in the catering business that many associate to culinary colleges. I have no fancy culinary degree, but I have cooked for a catering company for over four years now. Is my job prestigious? If it is, that prestige does not pay off in my checking account. No, I don’t have a culinary degree and I don’t look like what someone might expect someone in my position to look (there’s no chef hats and pants in my kitchen). As the old saying goes, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” But as much as the cover may not reflect the book, the book almost always reflects the author. That can be seen in the running of the company I work for.

Panache is the name of the company. The word Panache is French and essentially means “fancy.” Ironically, Panache isn’t really a fancy company. People pay a lot of money to hire Panache, but the company is run in a less prestigious manner. In other words, the company name, Panache is the fancy cover on what is a rather Scroogian approach to a business. Many people think my coworkers and I make a large amount of money for people in food service. In reality, half of the employees I work with make minimum wage. If you saw the name of the company and saw what those employees were doing, you would be outraged by the small amount they make. How can this be? It’s like finding out a book with a smiling girl on the cover is really Stephen King’s It. But if you met the owners of Panache you’d understand.

The two old men that run Panache are just about as stingy as they come. The head owner, Ernie seems to wear the same thing every day. He drives an old beaten Jeep Wrangler, despite the fact he makes six figures. The man oversees every penny the company spends and he’ll milk his employees for all they’re worth. As the author of Panache, the company’s broken ways of running business show in Ernie. The company has a nice face don’t get me wrong, but don’t look behind the curtain, you’ll find me; a cook without a culinary degree that makes good food.

That same man-behind-the-curtain idea goes with one of the buildings my company owns. Located next to a nice private golf course, the building is really a pretty sight. There’s a reason people choose to have their weddings at the facility. The building’s smooth white exterior glistens like a bride and allows the colors of wild flowers, spruces, and aspens to be highlighted; inside, an arrangement of hanging chandeliers fall from the arched ceiling into a massive carpeted ballroom with a mobile wooden dance floor. It looks nice. Until you look real close. If you pay attention to the building’s floor along the walls, you will notice something. The foundation is moving. The building was built upon a clay-like soil known as bentonite. This soil is not good for foundations, because as the clay-like soil gets wet, it softens and gives way to things like large event center foundations, dipping further into the ground. The shifting in the soil can be small at first, but it will very quickly become a big problem. This building is a lot like its owners. They’re good at showing off the business, but that business is not stable by any means. The ground is constantly shifting under them, and so goes their company. The more I think about it, the more it’s appropriate, and the more weddings and events I work, the more I notice my company’s owners and their building aren’t the only ones that fit this model.

In my four years of catering, I have done events at numerous houses, buildings, and event centers. When people look to select a location for their wedding, they’re looking for a place that reflects them in some way. They want that place to reflect the face they are looking to put on their event. Sometimes this means big elaborate buildings flooded with decorations; other times this means something well…smaller. House parties are when this theory shines best.

I remember an event I worked at a rich doctor’s mansion. I don’t know exactly what this guy did in the medical field, but it allowed him to be able to purchase a rather impressive house. The neighborhood he lived in was a gated community in which owners purchased a plot of land rather than a home within the community and hired workers to design and build their home specifically for them. This type of community made for some very interesting houses. Essentially each house was a rich person’s personal castle. In fact, one person in the neighborhood literally had a castle. Next to that was a beach house complete with palm trees. Across from the beach house was a French Chateau with enough garage doors to service a platoon of luxury vehicles. About a block down from that monstrosity was the mansion I was working at. It was an Italian villa with a massive balcony at the front of the building. The “home” seemed more like a cathedral or museum with a plethora of marble statues and fountains flocked around it. Inside the mansion was a foyer reminiscent of the United States’ capital building with its checkered marble floor complete with a gold-plated marble spiral staircase. It was such a ridiculous display of wealth it made me want to vomit.

The menu of high-end seafood completed the nauseating display. The owner of this disgrace though, could not hide himself behind this wealth and his expensive three-piece suit. His face reflected the attempts to disguise his age, and it was apparent this man was not happy. He smiled with crying eyes; no tears though. No man with a six-car garage cries. The lot across from the mansion was still empty. I considered buying the plot of land some day and living out of a Tough Shed. Maybe that would make him cry. At my pay rate though, that isn’t very likely.

As much as I spend time visiting houses I’ll never be able to afford, I don’t get to spend much time inside them. The company owners don’t like to show off their degreeless culinary artist. I don’t blame them. My job expends a lot of energy, which in turn expends a lot of sweat and blood. Not a pretty sight. Instead, I spend a lot of time in some expensive garages. What I learn in these garages is that these houses like their owners are not without their flaws. The worst of these flaws for a cook like me is the poor electric jobs some of these houses have. Ovens require power and a fair amount of it. Each oven I plug into a garage requires not only its own outlet, but its own breaker. A typical two-car garage has two, sometimes three breakers attached to a handful of outlets. For me, that works. For most house events, I only need two or three breakers for ovens. The neighborhood surrounding Cherry Creek Country Club just outside of Denver does not follow such simple requirements however.

Even if I had the money, I would never buy a house in this Cherry Creek neighborhood. Don’t get me wrong; the houses are gorgeous. The homes are rather new and use a variety of stones and wood to create colors that reflect the cabin life of the Rocky Mountains in a modern fashion. The houses are massive with creative floor plans that give the personal fortress feeling that most millionaires seem to look for in their mansions. The problem with putting so many large homes in the same area is that it takes up a lot of space. I’ve never seen houses so close to each other as these mansions worth millions of dollars were to each other. If they had been just a foot closer, I probably could walk up the walls with my feet on one house and my hands on the other. The streets were also very small, allowing just enough room for two cars to get by each other without any cars parked on the street. Such small passageways made it difficult to maneuver a Penske truck to homes for events. On top of all of that, the houses were right on a golf course. One bad splice and that massive bay window in the living room will be bringing a new meaning to the term open floor plan. But perhaps the largest flaw of these homes I found in the four-car garage of one home.

Homebuilders will look for several ways to cut corners to save costs when building homes. When the house is a five million dollar mansion, the corners that are cut tend to be more mechanical than aesthetic. In the four-car garage of one five-million dollar Cherry Creek home, I found myself very frustrated when I discovered that all the outlets of this garage and outside were on the same breaker. To make this complete, it was Christmas time, so when I plugged in two ovens in my makeshift kitchen in the garage, the Santa Claus on the adobe-tiled roof went out as well as the ovens filled with filet mignon. I did not get to meet the owners of this faulty palace, but I gathered from my coworkers that their liberal use of the n-word did not endear them to the two African Americans we had on staff that night.

I don’t only work for rich assholes however. There is always the other end of the spectrum in the catering business. I once worked a wedding reception in a small suburban backyard. The house was nothing special. It had a rather nice patio, but no one would have paid anywhere near a million dollars for this place. The house needed a paint job and there were cracks in the driveway. The big elm tree in the front yard needed a trim and one in back had been cut down to make room for tables for the reception. This place was simple and homey. Novelty art and family photos (something you rarely find in mansions) flooded the walls and nothing really matched. This was not a showy cover, but the outlets in the garage presented no troubles and the attendees of the reception were good people. The groom was a marine and wasn’t shy about leaving a kind tip at the end of the reception. Yes, the bride did do a keg stand in her wedding dress, but sometimes the book does reflect the cover to some extent. The fact remains that I would take a beer with people like that who lived in small homes over wine with a millionaire who lives in an extravagant mansion any day.

When it comes down to it, not everything is what it seems in the catering business. Sometimes extravagance is just what covers up the missing pieces. Sometimes the ground in the fancy event center is moving and the bow-tied employees are making less than the stockers are at Wal-Mart. Sometimes you may walk in the kitchen and the cook is not Bobby Flay, but really just a smiling poor college student like me.

The Great Pretenders

Our love was rushed.

I was under the impression

that when you gave me that look with those beautiful brown eyes

it was for me.

You stole me.

You trapped me in your grasp so tight

that if I tried to escape the slightest bit,

your alarms sounded,

scaring me into a loveless corner.

We both were playing each other though.

You didn’t know,

but those long passionate kisses were for her:

the one I really wanted.

But that’s fine,

because I know now that your kisses were really for him

or at least the part of him that you did love.

Yes, we were like actors in a movie,

pretending to show the world love,

but they all secretly knew it was all a game.

They will realize it when they exit the theater

and the rose-colored sunglasses come off.

But even now,

when I see your face,

my heart flutters a bit.

Maybe it was the fact that when I held and kissed the girl I truly loved,

I opened my eyes,

and it was you who met my gaze.

 

Mountain Breeze in the City Slums

They open the doors of the long white corridor bathed in aqua colored tables with florescent yellow chairs that tastes like the waters of a desert oasis. In they come, hundreds of them; old and young, black and white; all clothed in pants and shirts that don’t match their faces. I see their smiles like drapes over the window that is their misery. Their eyes look into mine, and for a moment I feel their burden. I feel their pain. Lost in the world, they follow in a line like cattle lead to the slaughter, smelling a small bit of joy at the front of the line. They come for the food, or that’s what I’m leaded to believe. When I see the toothless smiles like worn masterpieces grimace back at me when I send my blessed smile their way, I know. It’s more than that physical need they came for. They came for me. They came to taste that smile. Though the weight of the world is on their shoulders, when love comes through like a mountain breeze through the city slums, the world just gets a little lighter.

Heaven is a Mountainside

If Heaven is a mountainside,

where all the things I care for hide,

my heaven would be pretty tame,

like the earth, but not the same.

The grass there is so lush and green,

it’s the greatest sight you could ever have seen.

The meadow so vast,

where I am home at last.

Aspens sit about the mountain’s head,

where happy souls lie once the body is dead.

The sky is cloudy and the air is cold,

with aspens pointing toward a center’s fold.

There’s a cabin there,

dark brown like her hair.

For my heaven is a girl,

beautiful and precious like a fine pearl.

In her eyes I find,

a love only she could bind.

I see this in her eyes,

there where my heaven lies.

When my body is laid to rest,

my soul will find a new place to nest.

For if Heaven is a mountainside,

where all the things I care for hide,

my heaven is a pretty girl’s heart,

even if our bodies are to part.

The Heart

In the distance,

Far into my dreams,

There is a meadow.

Covered with lush green wild grass,

With wild flowers as a road through the land.

A small breeze glides on the air with the scent of fresh rain.

The meadow is surrounded by mountains,

Like the towers of the fortress surrounding the courtyard.

The cliffs chiseled and eroded like an old sculpture,

Lightly coated with a natural brown soil,

And lined with bright green aspens pointing towards the center’s fold.

These elevated stones are guards to this stronghold.

In the middle of this valley sits a cabin,

This cabin is the sun which creates life,

It is the twinkle in her eye,

Perfectly carved, but not without its own imperfections,

Beautifully woven from the aspens of the region.

The windows are few in this place of solitude,

For the feeling of being inside is far better than any view.

It is small and comfortable,

For only one can find shelter there,

Once they have made a home there,

They will never leave.

A feeling at the entrance greets you,

Like a warm bed in the thick of winter,

A feeling that neither I nor another would relinquish.

I have ventured far and hard to get to this oasis,

A journey though treacherous and elongated is still just a game,

Each obstacle a card in the opponent’s hand.

The land of this journey is deserted and infertile,

A land far too many have traveled,

Yet all,

Alone.

The feeling of this venture is the one the poor man feels at the foot of the wealthy man’s door.

Why does she do such things?

Why does she leave me parched at the shores of her fresh water ocean?

But at last I reach the narrow corridor of the mountain range,

Like facing the last ranks of a legion.

I push through showing my strength,

All of this I do in search of one goal;

To reach her cabin,

To reach her heart.

“Triumph of Frassati: A Dodgeball Tale”

On the night of January 26th, 2014 an event happened. To many this event may seem insignificant, miniscule in fact, but this event changed the course of one fraternity’s reputation and the lives of sixty teenagers from Littleton, Colorado. The event? A dodgeball tournament. In the cold snowy air of the late January night, one glowing green ball struck a teenager in blue’s shoulder and sent the team in orange across from him into a frenzy. The bright orange shirts flooded onto the dodgeball court to create a massive huddle. Atop the huddle sat the fraternity’s elusive prize: the Cabrini Belt. But at this moment, you, the reader, must be curious. None of this that I’m talking about makes any sense. So what? A bunch of suburban teenagers played a dodgeball tournament. Who cares? Well, let’s travel backwards; shall we?

In 2010, the Catholic parish of St. Frances Cabrini had seen success in numbers that very few youth groups in America had ever seen, particularly Catholic youth groups. Cabrini held the best retention rate from freshman year to sophomore year of any Catholic youth group in the nation. This success coupled with the emergence of a growing group of young men calling themselves the BAC (short for bad-ass Catholics) led one of the parish’s youth ministers, Stephen Nepil to try something never before attempted by a Catholic youth group in the United States. Using the emergence of this group as a catalyst, Nepil birthed an idea that split the youth program’s teens into three fraternities and three sororities. Nepil’s inspiration? Harry Potter.

In her best-selling young adult series, J.K. Rowling split the school of Hogwarts into four different houses. Stephen Nepil split Cabrini’s youth program into three, with each fraternity adopting a sister sorority. Just as the wizarding world of Harry Potter drove their house competition through the fictional game of quidditch, Cabrini’s fraternities and sororities would drive their competition through a bi-annual dodgeball tournament. The prizes would be the Cabrini Cup for the girls and the Cabrini Belt for the boys (a cheaply made cup-shaped trophy and an old wrestling belt that a former teen had graciously donated). Each fraternity and sorority had a group of young adult leaders such as me and would craft an identity for themselves as well of a set of colors. These colors were emblazoned in t-shirt and hoodie form along with each group’s name.

To Nepil’s and much of the adult leaders’ surprise, the idea took off at an incredible rate. Teens loved sporting their “Cabrini gear” as it came to be known. Not only did teens and family members wear their fraternity and sorority shirts, they started to wear anything that sported the name “Cabrini” on it. The church sold shirts by the thousands. Youth group shirts were everywhere; schools, grocery stores, sporting events. Cabrini itself had seemed to create its own cultural identity. With this, Nepil’s head nearly exploded. He took things further.

Cabrini itself had become a culture just as Hogwarts was a culture. But still, Nepil saw that it lacked something. At the center of the Hogwarts culture was quidditch. At the center of Cabrini’s culture (aside from Christ) was dodgeball. What was missing? The glistening quidditch field. Cabrini needed a dodgeball field like the Hogwarts quidditch field, complete with tall looming flags. Though the idea of a dodgeball field with flags was a bit far-stretched for a suburban Catholic church, it was the way in which Nepil dawned upon the idea that was even more unconventional.

It was a night in August 2011 when Nepil handed me his phone. Several of the adult leaders and I were packed onto two cozy couches in the cramped tan-bricked church youth office. It was our traditional Monday meeting, and Nepil wore his classic inspired smile that both excited you and terrified you all at once. “Check this out.” Nepil’s crackly voice squeaked like an excited twelve year old who had been smoking since he was five.

I held the beaten i-Phone in my hand and examined the photo Nepil had left sitting on the screen. It was peculiar, seeming to be nothing more than trash on the side of the road. “What is it?” I asked.

Nepil smiled broadly. “It’s a beer can.”

“A beer can?”

“Yeah, isn’t it sweet?”

Sweet wasn’t exactly the word I would have used to describe it, but to Nepil the can was a stroke of genius. How, you ask? Upon the can was a makeshift crest with a lion on it. This crest gave Nepil an idea. Each fraternity and sorority would create its own crest, each one featuring a central crest representing all of Cabrini. The crest would look like so:

Somehow, someway Nepil was able to convince the other leaders and myself to go along with this extravagant idea, and throughout the next several months, crests, flags, and an outdoor dodgeball court were made. Nepil’s vision was alive and yet again successful. But throughout all of this, and the two years to come, one of Nepil’s visions could not be met: a Cabrini Belt championship for the Frassati Fraternity.

Unlike its brother and sister fraternities and sororities, Frassati had not always been Frassati. When the Cabrini fraternities were formed in 2010, the fraternity now known as Frassati went by the name of HVHY. Also unlike its brothers and sisters, HVHY was formed by teens, not adults. Essentially, HVHY was the leftovers; a group of senior guys not claimed by other two fraternities (the BAC and Auducia). At the time, Nepil asked the group of seniors to take claim of the third fraternity, name it, and give it a set of colors. The group was full of intelligent teenagers, which was reflected in the name they chose. HVHY referred to the Jewish name for God (Yaweh). Hebrew being a language that doesn’t spell out vowels and is written from right to left, HVHY became the mechanical English spelling of the Hebrew name for God. This was well and good, until the fraternity made hoodies using the Hebrew spelling.

Recently, the Catholic Church has made a movement away from the Hebrew Yaweh with respect to the Jews who still held the word as sacred. The Jews never speak the word for God (Yaweh). The Catholic Church, however, used the word freely for centuries. Had HVHY formed their fraternity a decade earlier, there would be little offense in their name as most Catholics were concerned. But with this recent change in Church teachings, the plain Hebrew spelling of Yaweh on the HVHY hoodies came with controversy and in time a name change.

By mid-May 2011, the seniors and founders of the HVHY were graduated and the fraternity they worked to form was abandoned and christened with a new name: Frassati. Stripped of its leaders and name, Frassati had to create a new foundation and identity. It was around this time that I received a phone call. The call was from Tyler Tracey, one of the youth ministers of Cabrini and the head leader of the Frassati fraternity. During this phone call I was asked to lead a group of teens for the Frassati fraternity. Being a young fool of only twenty years of age, I agreed. What I did not know was that I was about to play a large role in the formation of this fresh, new fraternity. The group I would lead would make up over fifty percent of the fraternity’s very humble numbers (a little over twenty teens). Compared to the other two fraternity’s growing sizes, Frassati fraternity look like a kernel of corn up against two oranges. Though a lack in numbers was the one thing that was not new for the fraternity, it was that size discrepancy Between Frassati and the other two fraternities that had shown its way onto the dodgeball court.

As the spectacle that was Cabrini culture and dodgeball was growing larger and larger, one thing remained. Frassati was going to lose and lose badly. After six tournaments, Frassati had won a grand total of one game. But as much as the numbers seemed overwhelming, the young guys of Frassati took the disappointment rather well. Their expectations were low, so a brutal defeat wasn’t that bad. Hey, they got a few guys out before losing. A close game was seen as a victory in their books. Many of the Frassati guys were fine being the fraternity that didn’t win dodgeball games. In some ways that was their identity. They were a group of young gentlemen. Yes, they may not have been the most athletic guys in the world (or Cabrini), but to themselves, they were good guys. They didn’t have to win any dodgeball games to prove that. But as much as the teens didn’t care whether they won or lost, the leaders and youth ministers did.

As it came time to form groups for the fraternities’ latest initiates in May 2013, Stephen Nepil had a plan. Unlike any other year before, Nepil paid close attention to the athletic skill of the youth program’s freshman. This year, he was going to try to stack Frassati with athletic talent. While the members of Frassati had remained patient with the fraternity’s lack of dodgeball success, Nepil wanted a change in the tides. Though his allegiances were with his own Auducia fraternity, Nepil wanted to see the Frassati win a dodgeball tournament. Going into the Fall tournament of 2013, it looked like Nepil might get his wish. The group that Frassati brought to the dodgeball tournament in September 2013 seemed like real contenders. Full of young baseball arms, the team was set to compete for the Cabrini Belt. But much as it is said in professional sports, you can’t buy a championship. The same can be said for amateur dodgeball. Once again, as it had for five of the previous six tournaments, Frassati lost all their games. The games were closer, but the results were the same. Despite Nepil’s efforts, the Frassati fraternity had made little progress when it came to dodgeball. Frassati was still the fraternity that didn’t win at dodgeball and expected to lose when they played. That was their identity. Until 2014.

There were no expectations for Frassati going into the tournament on January 26th, 2014. Sure, Nepil and all the leaders wanted Frassati to win, but they weren’t about to put any money on it. The tournament started the same they all had; with a Frassati loss. But unlike the tournaments of past, Frassati was close, real close. They had lost their first game by just one single player. This gave Frassati momentum going into the next three games; three games that they won. The fraternity was on fire after these wins. Suddenly that Frassati team that never won games was playing for the championship. Ablaze with excitement, the teens went to mass that night before the championship showdown in the lights and snow. But as the Frassati teens headed toward the sanctuary of Cabrini, one face was missing. The face was that of one of my senior guys, Nick Lantz.

Nick was never an athlete and never will be. Even if he was, he wouldn’t be a star. His size and height would make him a guy who stood in front of the star quarterback, not the star quarterback himself. But what Nick lacked in athleticism, he more than made up in heart and loyalty. Nick didn’t care if Frassati won a dodgeball game or not. He could hardly care if there was ever was a dodgeball tournament at all. Nick was a devout Catholic in the purest sense of the term. But when the Frassati teens raised their arms in victory, Nick’s were noticeably absent.

As I entered the sanctuary for mass I spotted Nick amongst the crowd and found a seat next to him. I didn’t hesitate to note his absence to him. “Where have you been?”

“I was in the chapel.” he answered.

Of course, the holy devout Nick Lantz was in the chapel. If given the option between praying and playing dodgeball, Nick would always pick prayer. So, it was no surprise to me that he had been in the chapel rather than basking in the glory of victory down on the field. What surprised me though, was his reason for being in the chapel.

A year before Frassati had won its first dodgeball game ever. During that game, Nick had been in the chapel, looking to get a break from the festivities. His intention was to return for the game. But when he returned to the field, Nick found that the game was over and miraculously Frassati had come out on top. Whether seeing it as a coincidence or an act of divine intervention, Nick recognized the correlation after Frassati lost their first game on January the 26th and decided to make a quiet yet bold decision. He would spend the next two hours in the chapel praying. During that time, Frassati went undefeated and clinched a spot in the championship game. Though simple, I saw it as one of the greatest acts of humility I had ever seen in a teenager. Here a senior in high school sought to skip out on his last chance to play dodgeball with his fraternity and saw it as his duty to go the chapel and pray while a group of younger teens secured victory. Incredible.

Even Nick Lantz couldn’t miss the chance to see Frassati compete in a dodgeball championship game against the dominant BAC fraternity. In the final double-elimination match-up, it seemed the tables had completely changed for the Cabrini fraternities. Frassati, once the victim of many embarrassing losses at the hands of the super athletic BAC, defeated the very same fraternity in convincing fashion. By the time that green dodgeball sliced through January snow and struck the final BAC teen, the number of Frassati competitors that still stood in on the opposite side nearly resembled the total number that had competed in the fraternity’s first dodgeball tournament nearly four years before. The tides had turned and they had turned toward the color of Frassati orange.

Here I sit, in an American Pit

I never gave a damn about those reds and blues.

There’s really nothing positive with the late night news.

“No,” they’ll say, “you really should care,”

but I’d prefer a system that was a bit more fair.

I know there are things out there that affect me,

budgets, taxes, and war are some that I’ll own.

But just for today, let me be free,

I’d like to drift away and turn off that damn phone.

Instead I’m stuck here in the middle

between a Hollywood star and a man with a fiddle.

I hate watching angry hands and mouths throw a fit,

leaving me here in an American pit.

Perhaps it’s the passionate stances I don’t get,

or maybe it’s how people will argue with friends

and then agree with someone they just met.

They’ll argue the means and never get any ends.

Balancing a budget without taxes is lofty,

though it seems balance is something we need.

But maybe I’m just not a softy,

because I’ve never cried over weed.

I’m not going to pick sides,

because I’m not one for either one.

I’d prefer to get away from their tides

because I know alcohol won’t change who won.

So for the last time, let’s not bicker,

because together our blood is thicker.

We need to stop seeing the lines

and really open up our minds.

But for tonight I’m stuck in this bar where I sit,

Will someone please get me the hell out of this American pit!?