The Green Revolution by Ralph McInerny Page B

Inn.
    â€œI’m thinking of serenading Charlie Weis with that line.”

15
    After the game Masses are said in various chapels around the campus, as well as in Sacred Heart Basilica and the Stepan Center, a convenience for travelers, since this vigil Mass fulfilled their Sunday obligation. There were many, too many, expressions of the thought that a requiem Mass would be appropriate after such a loss. Before these worshippers set out for home, the bulk of the visiting fans would have been efficiently directed on their way by campus and local police. With nightfall, revelers subsided and something like peace covered the campus lawns, the trees, the residence buildings. Already, in the stadium, the work of cleaning up had begun, and with morning other crews would remove the debris that littered the campus.
    Notre Dame is the largest local employer, and provides as well a number of temporary tasks associated with football. There were the ushers in the stadium, those who guided visitors in the parking lots, police from around and about who helped keep things orderly, vendors of various sorts, and the campus cleanup crew.
    It was not a cold day, but Bridget Sokolowski wore an extralarge windbreaker and a cap with an oversized bill. Nothing odd there; it was the huge sunglasses that surprised, but then Bridget both needed the money this temporary employment afforded and was ashamed to be engaged in such menial labor. A temporary member of the underclass. No one she cared about knew that this was how she spent Sunday mornings after a Notre Dame home game, cleaning up the darned campus. It was something any nitwit could do. There was no skill involved at all. It was just the mechanical act of picking up and cramming into plastic bags paper, Styrofoam, cups, plates, bottles, whatever. She felt like a bag lady.
    The crew she was with moved down the mall westward toward Rockne Memorial. When they got there, they took a break. Bridget moved away from the others and sat on a little wall, looking toward the golf course. Just below her was the practice putting green. The man lying on it seemed to have assumed the posture of the little leprechaun, the Notre Dame mascot. For a moment, she wondered if it was the mascot, but the man wasn’t wearing that elfin outfit. Imagine sleeping outside like that. He had probably passed out and didn’t know where he was.
    â€œWhatcha looking at?”
    It was the girl they called Chita. Bridget shrugged, but she turned away and felt that her eyes would draw Chita’s to the drunk asleep on the practice green.
    â€œLook at the guy on the grass,” Chita cried.
    â€œPassed out.”
    â€œI wonder. Let’s go see what’s going on.”
    â€œNot me.”
    â€œHey, you found him.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, found him?”
    â€œWell, I’m going to take a look.”
    A minute later Chita’s shriek lifted from the putting green and the whole crew rushed to see what was the matter. But not Bridget. She left her plastic bag full of trash and hurried across the mall, anxious to get the hell out of there. The body on the putting green spelled trouble, and Bridget was not eager to get involved in any publicity that would reveal to her friends how she spent the Sunday after home games.

PART TWO

1
    The chief of the cleaning crew alerted campus security, and when the patrol car arrived, most of the crew lost interest and drifted away. This break was turning into a long one, and they intended to enjoy it. There were some among them whose relations with the police had not always been happy. The rest just wanted to avoid whatever trouble the dead man on the putting green represented. Except Chita.
    â€œI found him,” she told one of the cops.
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œWe were standing up there, sitting on that wall, and we looked down and there he was.”
    â€œWe?”
    â€œBridget noticed him first.”
    â€œWhere’s Bridget?”
    Bridget