Did your mother ever warn you that hanging out with the wrong sort of people could get you into trouble? Well mine did, plenty of times, but like most adolescents I didn't listen. After all, I was fifteen years old.

I knew everything about life that needed to be known. I was certainly old enough to be picking my own friends. What did a thirty-eight year old lady, out of touch with modern times, know anyway?

And so it came to pass, in those dim dark days of nineteen eighty-five, that I found myself facing a juvenile court judge on a charge of malicious vandalism.

Ron Dowling was the friend who'd gotten me there. A year older than me, from the so-called wrong side of the tracks, he was one of the school bad- asses. I was thrilled that someone so cool would choose to hang out with me. He introduced me to marijuana, binge drinking, and cigarette smoking.

On that fateful day he'd prodded and nagged me to steal some beer out of my parent's refrigerator. I'd made the mistake of telling him that my Dad had just made a run to one of the local warehouse stores and had picked up several cases of Budweiser. Ron had not let the issue drop until I'd gone to my house, taken a twelve-pack out of the fridge, and replaced it with another from storage in the garage. I hoped and prayed that my old man wouldn't notice the deficit in his beer, completely unaware that the next day some stolen beer was going to be the least of my problems.

We took the beer down by a local drainage canal and drank it; Ron having seven cans to my five and then we smoked a joint that he had with him. It was night by then and I was pretty well juiced, my better judgement, such as it is when you're fifteen, destroyed. We began wandering around our neighborhood, looking for something to do when we happened across St. Anthony's Catholic School, one of the parochials in our town. Ron, who fancied himself a neo-nazi, not because of any political views, he was too stupid to have political views, but because it was cool among the white trash at our school to proclaim yourself so, became inspired by the statue of the Virgin Mary in front of the school. Apparently remembering the cache of spray-paint in my garage, he suggested we deface the statue.

I protested of course. Defacing religious articles was a little beyond the manner in which I liked to express my teenaged rebellion. But my weakness then was that I was easily worn down, especially with a bloodstream full of alcohol and marijuana. Soon I found myself returning to my house and appropriating a couple of cans of black paint. We returned to St. Anthony's and proceeded to add a hairy bush, large nipples, a mustache, and glasses to the marble Mary. We were uninterrupted in our work and figured that we'd gotten away with it. Who would have thought that a catholic school would have a security camera system?

It didn't take Sherlock Holmes to track us down. The cops, armed with videotape of us in action, simply looked through their books of known juvenile delinquents that resided in our part of town. Though they didn't find my picture among their mugshots, they found Ron's without much searching. Ron, apparently not well versed on the kid code of no finking, quickly gave them my name, telling them it was all my idea. By two o'clock the following afternoon there were police officers at my front door talking to my mother.

When we got before the juvenile court judge Ron, his hair freshly cut, his clothing neat and pressed, explained for the record that the defacement of the statue had originated with me. He said that he'd protested sternly against such a thing but had finally, reluctantly allowed himself to be talked into it, very much against his will.

He told them that I'd supplied the spray-paint with which this heinous crime had been committed. He added that he never would have done such a thing but that I'd persueded him by feeding him beer that I'd stolen from my father.

Needless to say I was shocked and outraged and more than a little scared. I was envisioning a prison sentence for my actions, being locked in a cell with some hairy, six-foot eight roommate who would wish to butt-fuck me every night. But the judge, a cynical looking old babe who had probably been dispensing juvenile justice for the past fifty years, seemed to know what the score really was. She read off Ron's previous record which astonished even me. He'd been arrested for burglary, drugs, assault, and multiple counts of vandalism. She told him point-blank that she found it difficult to believe his tale of innocent persuasion. She sentenced him, in light of his previous history, to four months at the Boys Ranch, the juvenile version of prison in our fine community.

Hearing his sentence I became very scared. I naturally assumed that she would give me the same. But I was wrong. Present at the hearing was a representative of St. Anthony's. She was about thirty or so but it was difficult to tell since she was attired in a traditional habit of the nun corps.

" Sister Mary." The judge addressed her. " This young man has never been in trouble prior to this. At least he's never come to the attention of the police. I don't think incarceration of him is quite the answer in this situation. I am inclined to sentence him to a term of community service."

" Yes Your Honor." Sister Mary nodded. Her voice contained slightly more than a hint of an Irish accent. " I have no objection to that."

" Good." The Judge smiled, a smile that seemed almost predatory. " Now since he has caused damage to your facility, I think it only fair that restitution should be made to you. Now instead of having him pick up garbage at a local park or some other such nonsense, I was wondering if maybe there was some work at your school that he could do?

School is starting soon after all."

Sister Mary seemed to think about this for a moment. " I suppose," She finally answered. " That the gymnasium could use a good re-painting."

The judge smiled. " Excellent." She said. " And I've seen a videotape that shows me that he already knows how to paint." She picked up her gavel. " You are hereby sentenced to community service at St. Anthony's Catholic School, repainting the gym and whatever else Sister Mary here deems reasonable. Your sentence will comprise one hundred hours of work, starting tomorrow. " She turned to the nun. " Agreeable Sister?"

" Indeed."

" So ordered." The judge said, banging down her gavel.

Early the next morning I found myself being led by Sister Mary, dressed again in her habit, through the empty halls of the school towards a small gymnasium. There were two basketball courts, a set of bleachers, an equipment locker full of balls and other equipment, and a large scaffolding assembly. Stacked near the scaffolding were well over thirty gallon containers of white paint and some painting equipment; brushes, rollers, turpentine, tarps, masking tape rolls.

The gym looked immense to me and I wondered if I would be able to complete it all in the prescribed one hundred hours.

I had never been in the presence of a nun before. My parents were agnostics and had raised me as such. All I knew about them I'd learned from various books and magazines. My previous information had assured me that they fell into one of two categories. They were either saintly women who saw good in everything and everyone or they were harsh disciplinarians, always ready to rap someone's knuckles with a ruler. Sister Mary seemed to fit into the latter category.

" I suggest," She told me, her Irish brogue rolling off of her tongue. " That ye start with the trim over in that corner. Don't forget to put down the drop cloths and to take the fixtures off the walls. That should take ye most of the day. Tomorrow ye can start with the rollers." She gave me a stern look. " And don't be spillin' no paint on the floor now."

" Yes Ma'am." I told her, and went to work.

She checked on me multiple times throughout the day. Her only conversation was to inform me that I was doing some aspect of the job incorrectly and to suggest a corrective action. At precisely noon she told me it was time for lunch and she offered me a bologna sandwich on white bread, no cheese, no mustard or mayo, and a glass of tap water. I ate and drank and then returned to work. By the end of the day I'd finished the trim and was ready to start doing the main work of rolling on the fresh paint.

The gym took me five days to complete.

I'd thought I was done after the second day but Sister Mary insisted upon three coats of paint, complete with trim. A routine was established.

She would lead me to the gym each morning, check on me multiple times throughout the day, criticizing if I was doing something wrong, she would feed me the same stale bologna sandwich and glass of water at noon, and she would release me at five o'clock each afternoon. She did not converse with me otherwise. She offered me no inspiring lectures on the grace of God or the value of a hard day's work, or anything else.

I had developed no firm opinions of her during this period. She was simply a woman dressed in a penguin suit who had power over me. Her face was always neutral. I could tell that she had reddish hair from the stray locks that protruded from her habit but other observations were hidden from me. I could not determine, for instance, what her body was shaped like, the habit was too bulky. I knew she wasn't fat or terribly skinny, but beyond that I was clueless. My only view of anything other than her face had been a brief glimpse of her left ankle that I'd seen when she'd bent over to pick up the used plate that my lunch had been served on. Certainly she'd never fallen into my mind's vast collection of sexually exciting women, the likes of which I masturbated to at least once a day.

Finally, halfway through the sixth day, just as I'd completed the gym painting to her satisfaction, things changed.

" Excellent job young man." She told me, gazing around the room, her blue eyes seeming to sparkle. I noticed that her accent was decidedly thicker than usual. " Now ye still have sixty hours left of your service but since ye've done such a foine job on the gym, I'm inclined to let ye go home early today. Tomorrow we'll start work on something else."

" Thank you Sister." I told her, grateful that I would be released from my prison early today.