Chapter 3A

Just before my 9th birthday my godmother, great-aunt Frances, bought me a new dark brown suit and new shoes for my Confirmation ceremony at St. Mary's Catholic Church. It was a dim, cloudy Sunday afternoon outside; but inside the ornate, high-ceiling Gothic church, hundreds of banks of candles cast a warm, glorious light over everyone in the church.

Mom and Aunt Frances and my deceased father's mother, Grandma Rose, drove me to the front entrance and let me out on the sidewalk while Aunt Frances parked her car in the lot behind the church. I stood on the sidewalk for a moment looking down at myself, all got up in the immaculate suit and shiny new shoes, my hair slicked with a hefty, odorous portion of Wildroot Hair Cream. I asked myself if it were really I in this costume. If I bent my arms, the sleeves of the suit crinkled and wrinkled stiffly, but when I straightened my arm the cloth fell back into a smooth, neat tube. I wore a tight starchy white shirt with a flowery bow tie my aunt had chosen. The bowtie and the thick collar dug uncomfortably into the front of my throat.

I felt out of place, as emotionally removed from the impending ceremony as I would have been at a funeral for a perfect stranger's dead dog. I climbed the front marble steps and entered the front vestibule, an imposing, darkly paneled hall where I lined up with a chatty, squealing assemblage of other suited boys. The girls, fluttering and chirping like sparrows, lined up at the other end of the hall in fluffy communion-style dresses and white shoes. Soon the long-robed nuns in their stiff white bobbing habits shushed us into silence. They strode quickly through our ranks to check us out and nod their stern approval.

Even the shuffling of feet on the waxed tile floor came to a dead stop as my own homeroom teacher, Sister Mary Joseph, sternest and most dreaded nun of all, strode into the room. No more than a tiny slip of a woman, her imperious expression and long stride gave her a commanding manner. She stood exactly in the center of the long and narrow hall, her arms folded firmly before her so that her hands were hidden inside the floppy arms of her robe. As she slowly passed her glowering eyes from one end of our ranks to the other, her thin lips characteristically pursed and reset themselves. The hall suddenly echoed as one of the kids gave a loud sneeze, which was quickly followed by the echo of four nuns giving a sharp and loud "Sh!" In the ensuing silence, Sister Mary Joseph began her announcement in her usual manner, with a rise of her head and a long deep breath.

"Children," she said, "you are about to become soldiers for our lord Jesus Christ." Pause. "As you attend the holy ceremony of Confirmation today, you will receive a scapular with an image of your patron saint." Pause. "Wear your scapular at all times. It is your protection from the dangers and temptations you encounter in your struggle with Satan. Protect it as you would your immortal souls. Many holy martyrs of the Church have suffered pain of death rather than lose possession of the holy image we will give you here today." Pause. "You are fortunate and honored that your holy scapulars will be blessed by none other than Monsignor Kearny from Blessed Sacrament School. He has honored us by agreeing to deliver the blessing and the sermon today." Pause. "Now we will all file into our pews." Pause. "Be silent. And conduct yourselves as children of Christ and as you were taught in the rehearsals. Don't forget to kneel and to stand at the proper intervals for a High Holy Mass. And remember at all times that the Monsignor is watching. I know you will make him proud of each of you, one and all."

She nodded to a nun at the door, who shoved opened the vast carved walnut panels that led into the interior. The place filled with the shuffling of new shoes and rustling of clothes as we entered double file, first the boys and then the girls, and took our assigned places in a line of wooden pews along the right side of the church. As I shuffled slowly in line along the narrow aisle I passed my family, Aunt Frances and Mom smiling proudly my way, and my pert grandmother giving me a wink. Their obvious pleasure failed to improve my humor; the only pleasantness I found in the situation was the heavy waft of candle smoke and paraffin in the air, and the dulcet singing of the choir in the loft above and behind us. As this would be a High Mass, I knew I would at least have the pleasure of hearing Sister Albert's accomplished choir singing the Gregorian Chant required by the formal ceremony.

As usual, the Mass progressed in what I always thought was a tortuously slow pace. And again as usual, I occupied my wandering mind by studying the dozens of statuettes that line the walls of St. Mary's. St. Christopher: a rugged, bearded, muscular man leaning heavily on his staff and struggling head first through some undefined tempest, the child Jesus hoisted on his massive shoulders. St. Stephen the Martyr: in the swaddling garb of what I later came to know as the clothing worn by Roman peasants, lashed at his wrists and ankles to a wooden post, posed with his eyes lifted to heaven, all done with exacting, lurid anatomical detail.

My gaze never failed to linger on the carved image of St. Joseph, whose name matched my middle name and who had been chosen as the patron saint of my Confirmation. Not as herculean as St. Christopher, he was a long legged figure with a long beard, seated at his carpenter's bench with a tacking hammer in one strong hand, his other arm draped around the shoulders of the peasant boy Jesus, who clung absurdly dependant at his side. I studied Joseph's face interminably, striving to imagine what it might be like to have had such a father with strong, chiseled features and commanding eyes under a heavily furrowed brow. I wondered what his beard would feel like.

And the Virgin Mary, a short, full hipped woman in a simple white flowing robe with a blue shawl draped about her head and shoulders. Her slim right hand was raised as if conferring on the viewer the two fingered blessing that I had seen Pope Pius XII confer from his balcony in movie newsreels. In her right arm she held the half nude child who turned its head to gaze at the viewer with a frown of divine approbation that seemed blatantly inappropriate on the infant's face. Always my eyes fixed themselves on Mary's girl like, oval face. The sculptor had fashioned for her a pair of enchantingly dark, gentle eyes. Her expression was tender, knowing, forgiving. I could not match my mother's face with hers, nor my great-aunt nor my grandmother nor anyone else. I wondered what it might be like to have such a mother. In many ways her expression reminded me of one I sometimes saw on Martha Jane. My eyes moved down to Mary's small bosom, and warmly I remembered the moist swell of Martha Jane's breasts and the feel of her nipples under my tongue.

I asked myself if the woman who lived within that statue would be scandalized at my illicit familiarity with the feel and taste of real, warm, responsive titties. Would she, too, offer a nipple for sucking?

I was fully aware of the blasphemous nature of these thoughts. As Mass moved agonizingly along, we children prepared for communion by attending the rear confessional one by one. Dutifully, I ducked into the dark curtained booth and spoke into the cloth shrouded grating that separated me from the priest, whom I could dimly see and whom I knew immediately to be the kindly and unflappable Franciscan, Father Edward.

Dutifully, I contrived a suitably penitent voice. Dutifully, I recited the same repertoire of sins I usually confessed and for which I was truly sorry: for saying bad things about my fat Aunt Mary, whom I really didn't like, even after I confessed not liking her; for talking back to my mother or disobeying and upsetting her; for not making the bed on Saturday; for taking God's name in vain when I got angry at a kid on the playground and wished that Jesus would tear the little bastard's tongue out and send him to hell to be devoured by slimy gnomes; and for falling asleep during morning Mass.

Brazenly, I made no mention of wondering what the Holy Mother's breasts were like. Brazenly, I made no mention of Martha Jane's breasts or her thighs or that I had made her cum. Brazenly and stubbornly I refused to connect Martha Jane with evil, and even if I could I brazenly and stubbornly refused to betray our trust.

On the other side of the grating Father Edward leaned back in what I could see was a brown leather backed chair. He gave his usual sighs and his usual response: "Very well, my child, and is that all you have to confess?"

"Yes, Father."

"You know you must honor your mother and you must not have unkind feelings for your aunt, for they all love you and care for you in ways you do not understand. And for your penance I want you to say ten hail marys and ten our fathers."

"Yes, Father."

"And remember to avoid the temptations and the sins of greed, envy, and lust."

"Yes, father."

And then the usual, ritualized dismissal: "Your sins are forgiven. Go in peace, and sin no more. "

"Thank you, Father."

I left the man with no inkling of Martha Jane. I wondered if his benediction forgave me for that as well as for the sins I had confessed. I thought the penance was a little out of line for not liking my fat Aunt Mary. Apparently at least half that penance must have been slated for disobeying my Mom.

Returning to my pew, I found the walls of St. Mary's reverberating with the husky, amplified voice of Monsignor Kearny. From the ornate pulpit at the front of the church he inveighed weightily with his baritone's voice of doom: "... and be wary, my children, of the evil nature of the sins of the flesh, sins that render our precious souls disgusting in the sight of the Lord. For to Jesus and His Holy Mother Mary, the sins of the flesh are truly the most offensive sins of all. Because of them we risk the punishment of being cast down to a terrible, burning place in purgatory for ten thousand years, and after that, into the flames of hell for all eternity..."

Just ahead of me sat Sister Mary Joseph, nodding slowly in righteous agreement as the monsignor thundered on. I sighed impatiently, my eyes wandering until they fell on the statue of Jesus, gruesomely hanging from a crucifix high over the center of the altar. I cringed at the sight of the bloody nails...