Now Is the Hour (15 page)

No, Father.

But your mother said you were with the dog.

Mother said.
How could she say? What words?

The dog was only watching, Father, I said. He wasn't doing anything.

Then out of the blue, I just had to say it. Blurted it out the way I always do:

Tramp is not that kind of dog, I said.

After my Act of Contrition, after I left the confessional and knelt down in the pew and said my five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys and five Glory Be's, I heard Mom get up from the pew behind me. I thought for sure we were going to be kneeling in church all night praying litanies for my soul, so I was surprised when Mom got up so quick.

Then at the Wyz Way Market, parked outside in the Buick listening to KWIK while Mom bought groceries, I realized something. Mom got out of church so fast because she didn't want to see the Monsignor, let alone talk to him.

A couple things about the ride home. A little thing and a big thing.

The little thing was that Mom bought me a candy bar, a Snickers, my favorite, without me asking for one.

The big thing was what she said when we were halfway home. Mom had just stopped at the stop sign on the corner of Philbin Road
and Quinn Road. There were no cars coming from any direction in the dark night. The headlights of the Buick pressed against the dark, against the rough bark of the big cottonwoods that line the road there. A gust of Idaho wind blew so hard, the Buick lifted up off its springs. The heater was blowing warm air up the legs of my pants. Mom kept her foot on the brake. Behind us, in my mind, I saw the brake lights glow out red in all the dark. The dash lights were amber and green and gold on my mother's face. Behind her glasses, her almond-shaped hazel eyes were still not looking at me. Evening in Paris. Perry Como was singing “Faraway Places.”

Rigby John, Mom said, there's only one solution. You and I are going to make a novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help. Nine Tuesday nights in a row. Starting next Tuesday.

All our prayers will be answered, Mom said. All our sins forgiven. If only we pray to the Virgin.

The next day, after school, Dad's black eyes looked at the terrible place inside me that had hurt my mother.

Dad said, Your mom says you need a whipping.

Dad said, I'll be in the saddle room. You know what to do.

What to do was wait for him to get to the saddle room, unlock it, turn the light on, pull his squat three-legged stool out from under the workbench, and set it directly under the light bulb hanging down, then sit down on it.

The walk to the barn was long, the same long as whenever I was getting a whipping. My ass could already feel the welts the belt was going to raise. But the welts weren't the worst part. In a way I liked the welts because that meant the worst part was over. The worst part was the two knocks on the saddle room door. The worst part was opening the door. The worst part was behind my eyes what happened when I saw my father on his squat three-legged stool, the light bulb hanging down directly above him, the shadow of him a dark pool on the cement floor.

The pattern in the wood of the saddle room door was a swirl of universe, a red, rough swirl of wood, years and years of a tree growing. My hand was a fist. I looked over, and my hand was a fist up in the air in front of my head.

Knock knock.

Who's there?

Daddy.

Daddy who?

Daddy under the light bulb on the squat chair. Shadow Daddy.
Inner Sanctum.

Eternity eternity eternity.

From behind the door, Dad said, Go ahead and come on in.

My palm flat up against the wood of the painted red door, I pushed.

He said, Close the door.

I closed the door.

Dad said, Now lock it.

I pulled the dead bolt into its socket, then pulled the dead bolt down.

Like always, Dad's butt cheeks went side to side on his squat chair. He put his right foot out. His foot dragged along the cement. Then his other foot dragged until both feet were square in front of him, knees perpendicular to the cement floor.

Dad said, Pull your pants down and your undershorts.

My fingers went to my first Levi's button and undid it. Then the second button. When I was on the third button, I stopped.

Something like a burp, a large lump of words, jumped right up out of my chest. My mouth was already moving before I knew what I was going to say.

Did Mom tell you what the whipping's for? I said.

Both Dad and I looked around the room to see where the strange voice had come from. He seemed smaller for a moment, only a man sitting on a squat stool. When he spoke again, he was back to proportion, which was way out of proportion. My father took up the whole saddle room.

Dad said, No. And she don't need to. Now, do as you're told.

I undid the third button, the fourth, the fifth. Hooked my thumbs onto the sides of my Levi's, slid them down. I pulled my jockey shorts down.

Air all around where I usually didn't feel air.

The look in Dad's Roosky Gypsy eyes when he saw me naked down there. Dad jumped up so quick like a cattle prod jumped him up. His eyes, then his whole face, turned away, taking the rest of his body with him.

What in the hell!? Dad said.

I looked down, and there I was, my cock poking straight out.

Get me half-naked, and it'll happen every time.

My teeth in my mouth grinding.

Pull your damn pants up! Dad said. Cover yourself, for chrissakes! And get the hell out of here!

The next nine weeks happen like one long bad dream. Tuesday nights, on one side of me out the Buick's window, the twelve miles into town flew by at eighty miles an hour. On the other side, my mother was in one of her Joan Crawford church hats, the ripple going up and down her jaw. Things could not have been worse.

But then there's the universe. This time what the universe conspired was Sister Barbara Ann's altar boy contest and Monsignor Cody's baseball game.

The contest was to see which altar boy could get the most points by the end of the school year. Five points for showing up on time. Five points for not making a mistake. Minus ten points for not showing up. Plus ten points for substituting.

The baseball game came out of nowhere. Sunday morning from the pulpit, Monsignor Cody just up and says there's nothing like a good baseball game to get the religious spirit flowing and let's beat Saint Anthony's.

Mom's novena, Sister Barbara Ann's contest, Monsignor Cody's baseball game. They all came together and fucked me up in a very particular way.

Tuesday night was the night of Our Mother of Perpetual Help devotions.

Tuesday night was the night for baseball practice.

Tuesday night no boys showed up to serve Our Mother of Perpetual Help devotions. Except for me, which means I had to substitute for the three altar boys who were at baseball practice.

Which means I would win the altar boy contest. But winning the altar boy contest wasn't winning. I never was like anybody else, and during those nine weeks of the novena, I was never more not like anybody else than ever. Of course, then with what happened later on, Scardino and “Casey at the Bat” and all, I was in serious deep shit.

And, if I didn't know what was coming, Scardino would remind
me. Every Wednesday morning, after Sister Barbara Ann announced the score, Scardino flipped me the bird and moved his mouth real slow to say:
You fucking queer, you are a fucking dead man.

One long bad dream.

Plus, what did you win? The winner of the altar boy contest got to be the winner, plus got a black glass-beaded rosary blessed by the Pope in the Vatican.

Tuesday, Irving Field, just three blocks away from Saint Joe's, boys ran the bases, hit high pop flies, hit home runs, pitched, catched, boys ran around the baseball diamond having fun together, playing ball at baseball practice. Not me. In the candlelight of Saint Joe's I was kneeling in the congregation, praying for altar boys to show up. They never did. Monsignor entered the altar alone, stood there, and waited. For me he waited because he knew everything about me. In less than a minute, I was on the altar in my cassock and ironed and starched surplice kneeling next to the Monsignor. Mom was up in the choir loft on the organ, watching me.

When Monsignor Cody said:
I who am the most miserable of all
— that's when I got up and got the holy water font from inside Monsignor's sacristy. As Monsignor said the blessing, he shook the holy water font so the holy water splashed out into the congregation in drops. If a drop of holy water fell on me, I thought maybe God was touching me. But if God was touching me, why wasn't I playing baseball instead of locked up in a church with a bunch of old people.

My next job was to go into the sacristy and start the charcoal for the incense.

Don't burn the damn church down.

Outside of confession, those were the only words Monsignor ever said to me. Not hi, hello, how are you, thanks for showing up, bless you, my son. Nothing. Just: When you light the charcoal, don't burn the damn church down.

When the charcoal was lit and the edges were turning white, I put the charcoal into the open censer with the black medieval pincers, then closed the censer, then took a deep breath and carried the censer and the burning incense onto the altar.

Me doing it, and Mom watching me do it. My whole life's been like that.

The big moment of Benediction was when Monsignor turns around with the gold, spaceship-looking monstrance in his hands and points the monstrance with God in it at the congregation. Mom started playing “Tantum Ergo Sacramentum.” Miss Kasiska, Miss Radcliffe, and Miss Biddle all genuflected and made the sign of the cross. I sang too, and the censer was on the second step with the smoke coming out, and my hand was ringing, ringing the gold bells, never stopping the whole time, while Monsignor lifted the golden monstrance up through the sign of the cross.

And there we were, all of us, even God, inside the slanted mirror up in the choir loft, and Mom watching.

All the while Monsignor Cody was pointing God at us, every one of us, every human-being one of us was praying, praying hard to God for things we wanted to have, or for things we don't want to have, for an old way to stop, or a new way to be, to not be sick, or not be old, or for special intentions, like my special intention, I mean my mother's special intention for me.

After devotions, the charcoal still burning in the censer, I opened the sacristy door, carried the censer outside and down the side stairs. Most nights it was pitch-black. When I got to the corner of the church, as soon as I stepped away from the church, the wind was cold, but I liked the cold wind because it had been so warm on the altar ringing the bells and looking at God. The wind blew my cassock and surplice, and I felt like Heathcliff in the olden days wearing those clothes, flutters of cloth, the sound of big skirts on women in the wind. This was the only good part of the night because in the dark, cold night, for a while there was no Mom, and only the stars were watching.

I didn't know where I was in all of this, or even if there was enough of me around to be something enough to make a differnce. I was just putting one foot in front of the other. Trying to be a good Catholic son. I didn't see I had any choice, and I did care about being a good son, if only to keep my mother close. The rest of it I wasn't so sure about. But how could I say no to my parents, my teachers, my priest? There were no words, no real options. What started it all, masturbating, the thing that they were telling me I did have a choice about, I couldn't seem to make the right choice. When that feeling came up in my balls, I didn't have a chance. Truth be told, I was worried about
my soul. I didn't want to hurt Jesus with my sin, and I didn't want to go to hell either. Even Hemingway said it. What was immoral was what made you feel bad after. And after jerking off, I felt like shit. But it could be an hour, and there I'd go again.

What I did have a choice about happened around the same time, and it is something I've been ashamed of ever since.

It all started one Saturday afternoon about the third week into the novena. I was out in the barn, and I looked up from where I was spreading out straw in the calf pen, and there was a kid my age standing there. The light was bright from the open barn door behind him, so he was only a silhouette. Then when I got close and I was looking at his face, his face was a face I'd seen a hundred times, but nothing registered. Then it was his pale eyes behind his crooked glasses with the white tape across the glasses in the middle.

There I was, just me with Puke Price.

I looked around. Only the chickens and the sick baby calf were looking.

Then it was weird. On a Saturday in the barn, alone without anybody else from school, Puke Price wasn't that bad.

Hey, Puke, I said. What you doing here?

Puke always wore his corduroy pants up too high on his waist. His shirt was tucked in, and right there around his waist it was a bulgy mess of shirttails, bunched-up pants, and his brown belt cinched tight.

Puke said: My name's Allen.

His shoulders went up a little, and his hands made fists.

I want you to call me by my name, he said. I don't call you names, he said. My name is Allen.

Puke's big breath of air went right up against my face and up my nose.

Fried bologna breath. The worst kind of breath. There's tuna breath, and Cheetos breath, and onion breath, and boiled broccoli breath, and each one of those breaths is bad. But the worst kind of breath is all four of them; tuna, Cheetos, onion breath, and boiled broccoli breath all in one and that's what I call fried bologna breath, and Puke had fried bologna breath real bad.

I said: Allen. Sure, I said, Allen. What are you doing here?

I liked that Allen smiled, but still I stepped back because I saw he was going to speak, and words and breath go together, and with Allen you had to be careful.

My dad's here, Allen said, shooting rock chucks. We'll be here all afternoon.