The Escape char in MCL

[beus@bunsen.cs.byu.edu]

The Escape character seems to have no function in MCL, other than the
possible use as a meta key.  Typing Escape to (read-char) does not satisfy
it.  Escape is not a read macro character from what I can see.  

What gives?

I simply want to use it as an ordinary character.

Thanks in advance for any help.