Kiss of the Fur Queen

Champion stands in a line with seven other boys to receive a haircut from Brother Stumbo, a pasty-faced priest in black. Brother Stumbo shears the children’s hair to a bald pate. As an agitated Champion sits in the barber’s chair, an older priest arrives on the scene, informing the boy that Father Bouchard’s baptismal registry shows his name is not Champion but Jeremiah Okimasis. Champion breaks into tears but Father Stumbo tells him he mustn’t cry in front of the older monk, who is Father Lafleur, the principal.

Champion discovers that the boarding school strictly segregates boys and girls—even brothers and sisters. The sound of a music unlike any other he has heard draws him out of his queue to a room where a woman sits playing a piano. Champion is ecstatic to hear her play, wanting to “listen until the world came to an end” (56). However, Father Lafleur takes him away to his class.

Father Lafleur introduces Champion, now going by Champion-Jeremiah, to the ideas of God, Heaven, and Hell. Champion-Jeremiah notices that the murals of his classroom portray Heaven as populated by golden-haired, white-skinned cherubs who play harps rather than accordions, while hell is full of fire and dark-skinned people.