BILL CADY Word Count: 149,227 - At My Friend's Place

Bill Cady, The Early Years … by Bill Cady 62
wise, I clammed up, but it was too late. The next morning a brigade was waiting for me
when I got to school. They all knew I‟d taken the keys. It was gonna be my ass.
“Oh, yeah?” I inquired. “Okay, prove it.”
They kept me in the principal‟s office all day. Called both my parents. Even got
them to come to the school. I swore all their witnesses were lying. The witnesses, now
thinking over what I might do to them later, all suddenly started changing their stories.
Maybe they made it up, or heard it from someone else.
Eventually, they started offering me “deals” to confess. To admit I did it and tell
„em where they‟d find those keys. “Not a chance,” I explained. “Not a chance. Prove
it.”
My father threatened to whip my ass. Since I now outweighed him by ten or
fifteen pounds, I told him to take his best shot. Mom cried. It hurt me to do it, but I stuck
to my guns. Finally, by mid afternoon, they‟d gone from rational to irrational, and back
to rational again. They asked what it would take for me to tell them where I put Mrs.
Lott‟s keys.
I insisted on no punishment of any kind, at school or at home, and no future
problems because of what happened. I also insisted I get the rest of the day off, which
was only a couple more hours. Flabbergasted, they objected and argued, but I hung in
there. When they finally agreed, I told „em where to find the keys, then told Mom I
needed a ride home. End of story.
There‟s one last anecdote about Holy Cross grade school I‟d like to share. The
people involved have stayed on my mind for almost fifty years, and it‟s about time they
knew it. Holy Cross ran the St. Vincent‟s Home for Orphans. It was a large building
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