Chapter 14: Holy Water and the Plans We Make

San Luis Obispo, California

October 19, 2003

It was Sunday morning, just after ten o’clock, and instead of relaxing at home as he normally did on The Lord’s Day prior to burning a little of the devil’s lettuce with Laura in the afternoon and watching the sea birds and contemplating the trees from the deck, Jake was instead dressed in one of his custom tailored suits and sitting in a pew in St. Anne’s Catholic church in San Luis Obispo. To his surprise, there had not been a flash of light when he touched the door handle to enter and he had not been hurled across the parking lot by an invisible force. Nor did the basin of holy water begin to boil when he walked by it.

On Jake’s right side was Celia, who was holding Cap, who was dressed in a pure white romper for what was to follow the church service by Father Standish. Celia was dressed in one of her best and most modest dresses. On Jake’s left were the Nerdlys, minus Kelvin. Both of them were dressed quite formally as well. Out of respect for the institution he was now in, Nerdly was not wearing a yarmulke. On Celia’s right side were Roberto and Maria Valdez, both dressed in their Sunday best as well. They had been to every Sunday mass since arriving from Barquisimeto, and even one of the Wednesday masses as well. They donated one tenth of their meager Venezuelan pension income to the church.

At least Laura and Caydee get to avoid this farce, Jake thought as the priest droned on and on about God and Jesus and salvation. Jake was not paying the least bit of attention to what the man was saying, even less attention than he paid the safety briefings given by airline flight attendants while taxiing to the runway. He did manage to keep an interested expression on his face for show. And when the good Father directed everyone to stand, he did so. When the good Father asked everyone to be seated again, he did that as well. When the good Father said, ‘let us pray’, he bowed his head and said ‘amen’ when the prayer was over. He was good at faking things when he needed to.

The Valdez elders, Maria in particular, were the reason they were here. Since arriving in the Kingsley household more than a month before—they were still staying there even though their own home had closed escrow because their ability to drive was a work in progress—Maria had been subtly engaging in a campaign to Catholicize Jake, and, to a lesser extent, Laura and Caydee. It was a campaign that had failed and had even caused a bit of hurt feelings on Maria’s part.

It had started with the saying of grace at dinner time. Jake had allowed this practice to take place, figuring it was harmless enough. After having Celia say it the first night, Roberto said it the second night and then Maria herself the third. Celia said it once more on the fourth. And then, on the fifth night, the true nature of the plot was revealed.

“Jake,” Maria said in her broken English, “would you care to say grace for us tonight?”

“No, I would not, actually,” he said in Spanish, as politely as one could say such a thing to such a request in one’s own home. “But thank you for asking.”

She was obviously taken aback by his answer. “It just a simple ritual,” she said.

“It’s a Christian ritual, Mama,” Jake replied. “I do not consider myself a Christian. I am agnostic.”

“That means that you accept the idea that there might be a God up there, doesn’t it?” Roberto asked.

“I will acknowledge that I think it’s unlikely, but possible,” Jake said. “However, if there is a God, I don’t think he particularly cares if I pray to him before I eat dinner. He’s probably got a lot of other things to worry about.”

“But what if you’re wrong?” Mama asked, giving him a look as if she had just won the debate. “What then?”

“Mama,” Celia said, “Jake doesn’t want to say grace. It is not his custom. How about you say it tonight? You always do such a good job.”

“I understand he does not want to say it,” Mama said with a sigh. “How about you, Laura? You were raised Mormon, right? You’ve said grace before, haven’t you?”

“I’m not Mormon anymore, Mama,” she said. “I haven’t said grace a single time since I moved out of my parents’ house to go to college. Like Jake, I’m agnostic at best, leaning heavily toward complete and total atheism.”

This was enough to make Mama and Papa both gasp and make the sign of the cross. Mama then looked back at Laura. “How about young Cadence say it then?” she asked. “She is still young enough to learn the teachings of the church.”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “That’s kind of what we’re opposed to. Absolutely not. Caydee will not say grace at this table or any other until she is well beyond the age of reason and makes her own decision that she wants to learn about God and the church and all they have to say about life and death. That is how religious teaching should work.”

Mama ended up saying grace that night. She and Roberto were very quiet through dinner and retired early, not even watching guitar and sing time as they normally did. They were pretty much back to their normal selves the next day, but it was clear that their opinion of Jake and Laura had slipped a bit. It was also clear they were fearing for Caydee’s immortal soul. They continued to rotate grace between themselves and Celia at subsequent dinners. They never asked Jake, Laura, or Caydee—who always politely bowed their heads and said ‘amen’ at the end—to do it again.

“I’m so sorry, Jake,” Celia, near tears, apologized that night. “I had no idea they were going to pull something like that. I thought it was odd when they asked me to say grace that first night, knowing we don’t do that here. Now I know why. They were trying to rope you in.”

“No harm done,” Jake said. “I hope I didn’t hurt their feelings too badly, but I am in my own home. I will not have any attempt to convert me or my daughter to Catholicism anywhere, but especially not in my own home by guests who are staying with us.”

“I’ll talk with them in the morning,” Celia said. “I’ll make sure nothing like this happens again. If they persist in this behavior, I’ll have them move out and into a hotel in town until their house is ready.”

“I don’t think we need to go that far,” Jake said. “We just need to lay down some boundaries is all.”

Celia did have that talk and her parents did agree to the boundaries laid down and they did not violate them, as promised, until about ten days later. They did not cross the line in front of Jake or Laura or Caydee, but in a private conversation with Celia. And this time, they got their way.

“Mama and Papa want us to have Cap baptized,” she told Jake and Laura in bed that night.

Jake was instantly and instinctively opposed to this. Anger flooded him. “Are you fucking kidding me? After the talks we had with them, after the whole debacle over saying grace. Now they want us to baptize our son? What the fuck?”

But Celia was not in automatic agreement with him on this issue. Quite the opposite, in fact. “Rev ... uh ... I don’t know how to tell you this, so I’ll just go ahead and say it. I want to have Cap christened.”

Jake looked at her in surprise. “You do?” he asked.

“Seriously, love?” Laura asked.

“Seriously,” she said.

“Why?” Jake asked. “You’re not a practicing Catholic any more, even if you do go to mass with your parents every Sunday now. You’re agnostic like me and Laura. You’ve told us this many times.”

“I was brought up Catholic,” she said. “It was a major part of my life until I became involved in the music industry in Venezuela back in the early days. That was when my faith began to slip, when I found out what life was really like. Since then, it’s continued to slide further and further down the rabbit hole. I call myself agnostic because I can’t really believe in all that has been taught to me, can’t really take it seriously. But ... well ... I’m not quite as agnostic as you two. Too much of the drivel was driven into my head growing up. There’s a part of me—a very small part, but there—that nags at me, that keeps asking me what if all of it or even some of it is true. What if we really do go to hell if we’re not baptized, or if we don’t believe that Jesus is the Savior? It would actually make me feel better if we went through the ritual. I know it’s a lot to ask, Rev, but I would really like to do this one thing for Mama and Papa but mostly for myself.”

Jake sighed, his anger at Mama and Papa slowly draining away. “Is it really that important to you?” he asked. “You’re not just trying to appease your parents like when you attend mass with them on Sundays and the occasional Wednesday?”

She nodded. “It is,” she said. “And I only do mass with them because someone has to drive them there and back.”

He turned to Laura. “What is your opinion on this matter? I know Cap is biologically not your son, but you’re helping to raise him just like another mother, just like Celia is helping raise Caydee.”

She did not hesitate. “If it’s important to C, I think it should be done.”

“All right then,” Jake said with another sigh. “We’ll do it. After all, what’s the harm? And if all the bullshit turns out to be true, at least he’ll have his ticket punched, right?”

“That’s the idea,” Celia said happily. “Thank you, Rev, thank you, Teach.” She leaned over and kissed each of them (having to stretch a bit to reach Laura since Jake was in the middle).

“Of course, if the bullshit is true,” Jake said, “that means we won’t get to hang out with each other in the afterlife.”

“I’ll get to hang out with her,” Laura said. “I was baptized when I was a child. I’m good to go.”

“I’ll try name dropping for you and Caydee if that happens,” Celia promised. “If it can get us into an exclusive restaurant without a reservation, it should work for heaven, right?”

“We’re gonna hold you to that,” Jake told her with a laugh.

“Saint Peter wouldn’t say no to the Celia Valdez-Kingsley, would he?” Laura asked.

“Maybe God is an Intemp fan,” Jake suggested. “Or maybe He likes my solo stuff. Winter Frost He would probably appreciate. Insignificance, maybe not so much.”

“He definitely wouldn’t dig It’s In the Book,” Celia said.

“Why not?” Jake asked. “He and His peeps wrote the freakin’ book, didn’t they? He knows what I’m talkin’ about with that shit.”

They had a nice session of threesome sex after that and then dropped off to sleep. The next morning, after showers, while waiting for Westin to serve breakfast, Celia told Mama and Papa the news. They were ecstatic to hear it. They gave Celia, Jake, and even Laura big hugs and kisses on the cheek.

And now, here they were in the church, waiting for it to happen. It was no coincidence that the date of the baptism was October 19, which was forty-five years to the day from when Roberto and Maria had gone on their first date together in Barquisimeto, the first link in a chain that had led eventually to Cap’s birth. Jake had never actually sat through a church service of any denomination in his entire life. The closest he had come had been Kelvin’s circumcision ceremony in the synagogue. He had no idea how long Father Standish was going to drone on and on, how many more stands, sits, and ‘let us pray’s there was going to be. He had to fight to keep from yawning. He wanted nothing more right now than another cup of coffee followed by a pale Bloody Mary.

Finally, an hour and fifteen minutes after Father Standish’s first words of the mass, it came to an end with a final two minute prayer. But there was more. Standish said that communion would be given shortly to all in good standing with the church. Jake sighed. There were close to two hundred people in the pews by his estimate. Assuming that the majority of them were in good standing, it was going to take a while.

Before having them start lining up for the ritual, while one of the altar boys brought out a trash can and what appeared to be boxes of plastic straws, Standish made an announcement.

“Immediately after communion is finished,” he said, “I will have the privilege of welcoming a new soul into the arms of our Lord, Jesus Christ. I will perform the baptism of Capriccio Roberto Kingsley, the son of Jacob Kingsley and Celia Valdez-Kingsley. Those of you who wish to remain to witness this holy ceremony are welcome to do so, of course.”

There was some murmuring from the crowd, some of it with an excited tone, some with an almost angry tone. Jake could not hear any actual words being spoken, however. He looked over at Celia. “This is not a private deal?” he whispered to her.

“It is supposed to be shared by the congregation present if they wish to witness it,” she said. “That’s a tradition that dates back more than a thousand years.”

“How many of them will stay?” he asked.

“If it was any other random baby being christened, I would say maybe a quarter of them. Since it’s us, however, I’m guessing that most will hang out just to say they witnessed it.”

“Wonderful,” Jake muttered.

“You’re being a good sport about this, Rev,” she whispered back. “Hang in here a little longer and then we’ll go home and drink some of our non-sacramental wine.”

“Consider me hung,” he whispered back. That earned him a naughty giggle that was inappropriate in such a setting.

Father Standish began to bring people forward, pew by pew, starting with the house left front pew. Everyone on that bench got up and approached the pulpit. During the early part of the sermon (or whatever they called it in this church), Standish had poured a bottle of sacramental wine into a large, gold chalice. There was another large gold chalice next to it that contained the wafers that Celia had told him were called “the host”. Each person stepped forward, one by one. To each, the altar boy assigned to his duty would hand a plastic straw while Father Standish would pull a wafer from the chalice. He would then say, “the body of Christ, broken for you. The blood of Christ, shed for you. The bread of heaven in Christ Jesus. The cup of life in Christ Jesus.” The parishioner would then say, ‘Amen’. Father Standish would then hand over the host, which the parishioner receiving communion would pop in his or her mouth. Standish would then hold out the goblet with the wine inside and the parishioner would insert their straw into the goblet and have a sip. The straw would then be handed to the altar boy, who would throw it in the trash can.

The system was efficient, Jake noted. Standish was able to communionize (is that even the right word for the ritual? he wondered. Is that even a word at all?) everyone in the pew in only four minutes. Not too bad. The pew he and his group were sitting in was the next to be called, as they were stage center front, the pew of honor. Celia handed Cap over to Jake. The baby was being surprisingly, almost miraculously mellow about this whole ordeal, Jake had to admit to himself. There was something about the vibe in here that was soothing to him. He was awake, but he was not fussing, he was not crying for a boob or a bottle, was not upset about all the strange people around him, and his diaper, when Jake gave it a quick feel, was not even wet or loaded.

Celia, her parents, and five other people from their pew got up and went forward. Jake, the Nerdlys, and Cap stayed put. The Nerdlys because they were Jews and did not take communion in Catholic churches, Jake because he was not a Catholic in good standing (or even in bad standing), and Cap because he was not of the age to receive communion yet. Jake watched as Celia, Mama, and Papa received their host and their wine. They returned to their seats and sat down. Jake continued to hold Cap in his arms. He seemed quite content there.

In all, it took thirty-eight minutes for everyone who wanted it to receive communion. As Celia predicted, almost all returned to their seats after, waiting for the grand finale of the day’s service. Once everyone was seated, Father Standish—who had been wearing a wireless headset microphone for the entire service—left the pulpit and walked over to the basin of holy water. An altar boy carried out a small table while another put what appeared to be a soup ladle, a small bowl of something, and several small towels on it. A candle was set up and lit at the edge of the basin of holy water. Another table was brought in, this one with a bassinet lined with towels on it and more towels underneath. The Father thanked the altar boys and they retreated.

“My loyal and faithful parishioners,” Standish said, his voice issuing from the speakers. “We are gathered here today so you may bear witness to one of the holiest duties of my office as Catholic priest. We are here to christen the infant Capriccio Roberto Kingsley, the child of Jacob Glenn Kingsley and Celia Marie Valdez-Kingsley, and bring his soul over to the ever loving light and love of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Capriccio’s mother is a member of this church in good standing and a faithful Catholic by all evidence that I can observe. She will make sure that the child grows up with the teachings of the church and will follow our traditions and sacred decrees to the best of her ability.” He said nothing about Jake and his standing with the Catholic church. No one remarked upon this, at least not out loud.

“Will you bring the child forward, Celia and Jacob?” Standish asked.

They stood up, Jake still holding Cap in his arms. Cap was still awake and not fussing in any way. The walked to the basin. Celia then spoke her rehearsed line. “We present this child to you, Father Standish, so he may be embraced by and learn to know Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.”

Standish nodded. “I will accept him and perform my duty as a priest of the Catholic church,” he replied. “Will the witnesses please come forward?”

Nerdly and Sharon stood and walked over, both of them looking more than a little nervous. They took up position across from the bassinet.

“Please tell the assembled parishioners your full names,” Standish requested.

“William Harold Archer,” Nerdly said.

“Sharon Elise Archer,” said Mrs. Nerdly.

“It is my understanding that the two of you are extremely close friends with Jacob and Celia,” Standish said. “Is that correct?”

“That is correct,” Nerdly said. “I have known Jake my entire life. We have made music together and we work very closely together in the recording studio. I am also a one fourth owner of our record label, KVA Records.” He mentioned nothing about how they used to snort cocaine together and bang groupies together, and how they still regularly smoked a little ganja together. It did not seem appropriate to bring that up in this setting.

“And I have worked very closely with Celia and Jake when they produced their music ever since the last two Intemperance albums and ever since Celia became a solo artist,” added Sharon.

“It sounds like you have a wonderful relationship with each other,” Standish said. “There is, however, one other thing that has been brought to my attention. Neither of you are practicing members of the Catholic church. Is that correct?”

“That is correct,” Nerdly said with no shame or discomfort, only with pride. “We are members of the Hebrew faith.”

“That is my understanding,” Standish said. He did not seem the least bit offended by this (though a few gasps from the audience had been plainly heard). “We are all the children of God in our own way. You have simply chosen a different path in which to worship Him. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with that.”

“I agree,” said Nerdly, who did not really believe that he was a child of God or that there even was a God. He just liked being a Jew. He kept this information to himself as well, however.

“As such, the two of you may sponsor and bear witness to the baptism of Capriccio Roberto Kingsley, but, in the eyes of the Catholic church, you cannot be considered his godparents.”

“We understand and accept,” Nerdly said. He and Sharon had already been briefed on this aspect of the ceremony.

“That does not mean that you are not still expected to take on the responsibilities of godparents,” Standish said. “You can call yourselves his godparents all you want, it just will not be recognized officially by the church.”

“We will take our responsibilities very seriously,” Sharon said. “I can assure you of that.”

Standish nodded. “I just have a few questions to ask of you before we begin. Do you renounce Satan and all his works?”

Nerdly did not believe in Satan any more than he believed in God, but he answered as expected. “I do,” he told the priest.

“I do as well,” Sharon replied.

“And are you fully prepared to take on a parental responsibility for Capriccio if his parents should—God forbid—meet an early demise?”

“We are,” Nerdly said, though he knew that he and Sharon were actually second in line to take care of the Kingsley children if Jake, Laura, and Celia were killed in an airplane crash or some other disaster that did not involve the children. Pauline was actually first in line.

“We are,” Sharon echoed.

“Very well,” Standish said. He turned and looked at Jake and Celia. “And do the two of you renounce Satan and all of his works?”

“I do,” Jake said, keeping a straight face.

“I do,” said Celia with a nod.

“And are you agreeable to William and Sharon sponsoring this christening and bearing witness to the ceremony?”

“We are,” Jake answered for both of them, but that was not good enough.

“And you, Celia?”

“I am as well,” she said.

“Please hand me the child,” Standish said next.

Jake handed Cap over to the priest, who took him in experienced arms. Cap looked up at him and began to fuss just a bit. He had a little more stranger anxiety than Caydee had at that age and he had never seen this big man in the robe before, let alone been held by him. Standish did not give him time to fuss too much, however. He put him in the bassinet on his back. Jake noticed it was designed so his head was lower than his feet and that there was a drainage hole on the head side.

“Celia, if you will come over and put your hand on his chest to comfort him and keep him in place?”

“Absolutely,” she said, coming over.

“Jake, please stand next to your wife.”

Jake did so.

“Now,” Father Standish said. “Let us pray.”

Everyone bowed their head and Standish began to speak. It went on for the better part of three minutes, obviously a well-rehearsed, long since memorized prayer just for such occasions. He finally wrapped it up and everyone said “Amen”.

“Let us begin,” Standish said next. He picked up the soup ladle looking device and dipped it into the basin of holy water. He then looked down at Cap. “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is active as God’s presence and power in the world. You shall know Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, from this point forward, and He shall know you, Capriccio Roberto Kingsley.”

He poured the ladle full of holy water over Cap’s forehead, thoroughly wetting him. Thanks to the angle of the bassinet, the water did not get in his eyes or nose, but ran through his hair and onto the towels in the bassinet. What was not absorbed by those towels, drained out onto the towels on the table. Cap was still pissed off, however. He immediately began to cry and squirm around. Celia had to apply more pressure to his chest. She knew not to verbally comfort him at this point, however.

“In the name of God, the Father,” Standish said. He then dipped the ladle again and poured it over Cap’s forehead for a second time, pissing the baby off further. “In the name of God, the Son, our Savior Jesus Christ.” He dipped one more time and poured that one as well. “In the name of God, the Holy Spirit. In the name of all manifestations of God, I hereby pronounce this child baptized in the name of the Holy Catholic Church.” He then tipped the index finger of his right hand into the small container and transferred the oily liquid onto Cap’s forehead, saying something in Latin that neither Jake nor Celia understood. “Let us pray,” he then said.

Cap continued to cry and fuss and squirm while Standish rolled out another prayer. At least it was shorter this time, lasting only around thirty seconds. Once everyone said ‘amen’, Standish turned to Celia and told her, “You may pick up your child and comfort him now. The baptism is complete. Jesus Christ knows his name.”

“Thank you, Father,” Celia said, grabbing her baby from the bassinet and snuggling him into her body, his chin resting on her shoulder. He continued to cry for a few minutes and then gradually settled down. Thanks to the angle of the bassinet, he was not really all that wet, with only a little dampness to his romper. His hair definitely needed a good toweling off though. Celia was handed a dry one by Standish to accomplish this.

“Okay, everyone,” Standish said through his microphone. “We thank you for coming, as always, we thank you for your donations to the church, and we thank you for staying to witness one of the most enjoyable duties of my office.”

The crowd began to file out the doors, most of them chatting to each other, many no doubt expressing that Celia had a lot of nerve bringing her Satanic husband and their Jewish cohorts into the church. And the known Satanist had actually said that he renounced Satan. Can you believe that? They would say anything, wouldn’t they?

Maria and Roberto joined the Kingsleys and the Nerdlys and Standish. “That was a wonderful ceremony, Father,” Maria told him in Spanish. “Very moving. We could not have asked for anything better.”

“As I said,” Standish replied in Spanish to her, “christening a new soul is one of my favorite and most treasured duties I perform.”

“We thank you as well, Father,” Jake said. He pulled a folded piece of paper from his shirt pocket. It was a check for fifteen thousand dollars made out to Saint Anne’s Catholic Church, the ‘donation’ for Father Standish performing the ceremony for them. Of course, most of his parishioners did not donate nearly as much as that for an infant baptism (he generally got a few hundred bucks, sometimes as much as a thousand from some of the wealthier parishioners) but Jake and Celia were quite wealthy and could afford to donate much more. He handed the check to Standish after shaking hands with him. Standish put the check in his own pocket without looking at it. That would have been rude. He already knew it would be a considerable amount. After all, Celia donated ten thousand per month to the church, money he was quite happy to receive (and, by doing the math and coming up with one hundred and twenty thousand dollars of donation money per year, she had to be making $1.2 million per year gross, as good Catholics were expected to give ten percent of their income for the tithe). And he knew that Celia knew it was traditional that the donation for a christening would be at least twenty-five percent more than the parishioner’s monthly donation (twice the monthly donation for officiating a wedding ceremony).

The parking lot was nearly empty when the Kingsleys and Valdezs walked out to the Navigator. Cap was no longer crying but he was now fussing in a very familiar manner. He was hungry. So, before they left, Jake pulled into the shade of an oak tree near the back of the parking lot and Celia broke out a boob. Cap drained it dry and then drained half of the other one. He then began to get the sleepy eyes. Celia strapped him into his car seat in the middle of the middle row of seats—the safest place in the vehicle in the event of any kind of impact—and he was sound asleep before they even left the SLO city limits.

He returned to his home as one of God’s children in the eyes of the Catholic Church.

On October 22, a Wednesday, three days after Cap’s christening, at 1:33 PM, the mastering of the new V-tach CD (titled Two Wrongs and No Rights) was finally completed. They burned twenty copies from the master and then locked the master in a secure storage room inside the third, unequipped studio. Each bandmember received a copy, as did the two studio techs. The two techs and the bandmembers were admonished not to put anything from the CD on Napster, Limewire, or any other peer to peer network until they started appearing there from other sources. All promised to do so. Jake then gave one copy to the Nerdlys, kept one for himself, and put the rest in an envelope that he would deliver to Pauline so she could get them to the various suits for evaluation.

“I’ll give Brainwash the day off tomorrow and then have them start hauling their shit over to the studio on Friday,” Jake said.

“Have you discussed your idea with them for keeping them on eight hour sessions yet?” Nerdly asked. They had put their thinking caps on and come up with something that would work well as long as the Scanlons agreed to it.

“I have not,” Jake said. “I haven’t checked in with them at all this week since I’ve been too busy helping to finish up the master over here. I’ll run it by them when I see them on Monday. They’ve already been told they’re off until then.”