Aleluya! Aleluya! Aleluya!
The Holy Mother Church took us under her wings and instructed us in her ways. By the end of March we were well on our way with our catechism lessons. There was no more exciting experience than to be on the road to communion with God! School work grew monotonous beside it.
Every afternoon when the school bell rang we ran across the school- grounds and over dusty streets and alleys to the church. There father Byrnes waited for us, waited to instruct us in the mysteries of God.
The spring dust storms of the llano continued, and I heard many grown- ups blame the harsh winter and the sandstorms of spring on the new bomb that had been made to end the war. “The atomic bomb,” they whispered, “a ball of white heat beyond the imagination, beyond hell—” And they pointed south, beyond the green valley of El Puerto. “Man was not made to know so much,” the old ladies cried in hushed, hoarse voices. “They compete with God, they disturb the seasons, they seek to know more than God Himself.
In the end, that knowledge they seek will destroy us all—” And with bent backs they pulled black shawls around their humped shoulders and walked into the howling winds.
“What does God know?” the priest asked. “God knows everything,” Agnes whispered
I sat on the hard, wooden pew and shivered. God knows everything.
Man tries to know and his knowledge will kill us all. I want to know. I want to know the mysteries of God. I want to take God into my body and have Him answer my questions. Why was Narciso killed? Why does evil go unpunished? Why does He allow evil to exist? I wondered if the knowledge I sought would destroy me. But it couldn’t, it was God’s knowledge—
Did we ask too much when we asked to share His knowledge?
“Papá,” I asked, “the people say the bomb causes the winds to blow—” We were hauling the piles of manure we had cleaned out of the animal pens during the winter and dumping it on the garden plot. My father laughed.
“That is nonsense,” he said.
“But why are the storms so strong, and full of dust?” I asked.
“It is the way of the llano,” he said, “and the wind is the voice of the llano. It speaks to us, it tells us something is not right.” He straightened from his labor and looked across the rolling hills. He listened, and I listened, and I could almost hear the wind speak to me.
“The wind says the llano gave us good weather, it gave us mild winters and rain in the summer to make the grass grow tall. The vaqueros rode out and saw their flocks multiply; the herds of sheep and cattle grew. Everyone was happy, ah,” he whispered, “the llano can be the most beautiful place in the world—but it can also be the cruelest. It changes, like a woman changes. The rich rancheros sucked the earth dry with their deep wells, and so the heavy snows had to come to replenish the water in the earth. The greedy men overgrazed their ranches, and so now the wind picks up the barren soil and throws it in their faces. You have used me too much, the wind says for the earth, you have sucked me dry and stripped me bare—”
He paused and looked down at me. I guess for a while he had forgotten he was talking to me, and he was repeating to himself the message in the wind. He smiled and said, “A wise man listens to the voice of the earth, Antonio. He listens because the weather the winds bring will be his salvation or his destruction. Like a young tree bends with the wind, so a man must bow to the earth—It is only when man grows old and refuses to admit his earth-tie and dependence on mother nature that the powers of mother nature will turn upon him and destroy him, like the strong wind cracks an old, dry tree. It is not manly to blame our mistakes on the bomb, or any other thing. It is we who misuse the earth and must pay for our sins
—”
“But what is sin?” Florence asked me.
“It is not doing the will of God—” I ducked my head and gritted my teeth on the fine sand the wind carried.
“Is it a sin to do this?” He threw a finger. “Yes,” I answered.
“Why?”
“It’s a bad sign—”
“But nothing happens when I throw it.” He did it again. “You will be punished—”
“When?”
“When you die,” I said. “What if I go to confession?”
“Then your sins are forgiven, your soul is clean and you are saved—” “You mean I can go out and sin, do bad things, throw fingers, say bad words, look through the peep-hole into the girls bathroom, do a million bad
things and then when I’m about to die I just go to confession and make communion, and I go to heaven?”
“Yes,” I said, “if you’re sorry you sinned—”
“Ohhhhh,” he laughed, “I’ll be sorry! Chingada I will! I can be the worst cabrón in the world, and when I’m ninety-nine I can be sorry for being such a culo, and I go to heaven—You know, it doesn’t seem fair—”
No, it didn’t seem fair, but it could happen. This was another question for which I wanted an answer to. I was thinking about how it could be answered when I heard a blasting goat cry behind me.
“WHAGGGGGGGGGGGHH… ”
I ducked, but too late. Horse’s strong arms went around my neck and his momentum made us slide ten feet. Half of my face scraped along the thorn covered ground and came up covered with little bull-headed diablitos.
“Hey, Tony, you missed the fight!” Horse smiled into my face. He still held me in a tight embrace. His horse-eyes were wild with excitement and his big, yellow teeth chomped on something that smelled like spoiled eggs. I wanted to curse him, but I glanced up and saw Florence standing, waiting for my response.
“That was a real good tackle, Horse,” I said as calmly as possible, “real good. Now let me up.” I stood up and began pulling thorns out of my bloody cheek.
“What fight?” Florence asked. He dusted my jacket.
“Roque and Willie, down in the bathroom!” Lloyd came puffing along with the rest of the gang.
“¡Chingada! You know how Roque’s always teasing Willie—” “Yeah,” we nodded.
“Willie’s your friend ain’t he?” Ernie asked.
“Yes,” I answered. Big Willie was one of the farm boys from Delia. He and George were always together, they never messed around with anyone. Willie was big but Roque picked on him because Willie never defended himself. He was timid, and Roque was a bully.
“Roque’s always singing: Willie Willie two-by-four, can’t get into the bathroom door so he does it on the floor—” Bones panted.
“And he always pushes you when you’re peeing and makes you wet your pants,” Lloyd closed his eyes in disgust. He took out a Hershey bar.
“Halfers!” Bones growled. Lloyd threw a piece of chocolate on the ground and while Bones retrieved it he stuck the rest in his mouth.
“¡Chingada!”
“That wasn’t halfers!” Bones growled, chewing on chocolate and sand. “I had my fingers crossed,” Lloyd said haughtily. Then he stuck out his
tongue and the chocolate mess in his mouth dripped.
“Ughhhhhhh!” Bones went wild, leaped on Lloyd and began strangling him. Then Horse got excited again and jumped on Bones.
“You could be sued for that—” Lloyd threatened as he pulled himself free from the pile. We continued walking and left Bones and Horse behind, slugging and kicking at each other.
“So why the fight?” Florence asked impatiently.
“Well, after school,” Lloyd said, “Roque went in and pushed Willie, but Willie must have been waiting, because he stepped aside and Roque almost fell in the bowl, anyway Willie continued peeing, and he peed all over Roque’s shoes—”
“It was funny as hell,” Ernie said, “seeing Roque standing there, and Willie peeing on his shoes—”
Horse and Bones caught up to us.
“And then old Roque slugs Willie—” Lloyd laughed. “But Willie just stands there,” Ernie added.
“And then Willie busts Roque!” Horse cried out.
“And there’s blood all over the place!” Bones panted, and the thought of blood got them going all over again. Horse whinnied and reared up and Bones was on him like a mad dog.
“Roque was bleeding like a pig, and crying, and his shoes all wet—” “Man, don’t mess with Willie,” Ernie cautioned. “Hey, he’s your friend,
ain’t he Tony?” he repeated.
“Yeah,” I answered. I knew Ernie always weighed friendships. If Willie had lost the fight Ernie would be bothering me about it, but as it was I had somehow gained respect because I was the friend of a farm boy who made Roque’s nose bloody.
“Hey! How come those guys don’t have to go to catechism?” Abel asked.
“They’d miss the bus, stupid,” Florence said. “Protestants don’t have to go either,” Ernie nodded. “They go to hell!” Bones cried out.
“No they don’t,” Florence defended the Protestants, “Red’s a Protestant, do you think he’ll go to hell?”
“You’ll go to hell too, Florence!” Horse shouted. “You don’t believe in God!”
“So what,” Florence shrugged, “if you don’t believe in God then there is no hell to go to—”
“But why do you go to catechism?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “I wanna be with you guys. I just don’t want to feel left out,” he said softly.
“Come on! Let’s go tease the girls!” Bones shouted. He had caught scent of the girls who were just up ahead. The others rallied to his cry and they went off howling like a pack of wild dogs.
“But what if you’re left out of heaven in the end?” I asked Florence. We had both hung back.
“Then that would be hell,” he nodded. “I think if there is a hell it’s just a place where you’re left all alone, with nobody around you. Man, when you’re alone you don’t have to burn, just being by yourself for all of time would be the worst punishment the Old Man could give you—”
“The Old Man?” I asked, my question intermingled with a feeling of sadness for Florence.
“God,” he answered.
“I thought you didn’t believe—” “I don’t.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he kicked at a rock. “My mother died when I was three, my old man drank himself to death, and,” he paused and looked towards the
church which already loomed ahead of us. His inquiring, angelic face smiled. “And my sisters are whores, working at Rosie’s place—”
The wind swirled around us and made a strange noise, like the sound of doves crying at the river. I wondered if Andrew had known one of Florence’s sisters when he went to Rosie’s. That and the pity I had for him made me feel close to Florence.
“So I ask myself,” he continued, “how can God let this happen to a kid. I never asked to be born. But he gives me birth, a soul, and puts me here to punish me. Why? What did I ever do to Him to deserve this, huh?”
For a moment I couldn’t answer. The questions Florence had posed were the same questions I wanted answered. Why was the murder of Narciso allowed? Why was evil allowed?
“Maybe it’s like the priest said,” I finally stammered, “maybe God puts obstacles in front of us so that we will have to overcome them. And if we overcome all the hard and bad things, then we will be good Catholics, and earn the right to be with Him in heaven—”
Florence shook his head. “I thought about that,” he said, “but the way I figured it, if God is really as smart as the priest says, then he wouldn’t have needed any of that testing us to see if we’re good Catholics. Look, how do you test a three-year-old kid who doesn’t know anything. God is supposed to know everything, all right, then why didn’t he make this earth without bad or evil things in it? Why didn’t he make us so that we would always be kind to each other? He could of made it so that it was always summer, and there’s always apples in the trees, and the water at the Blue Lake is always clean and warm for swimming—instead He made it so that some of us get polio when we go swimming and we’re crippled for life! Is that right?”
“I don’t know,” I shook my head, and I didn’t. “Once everything was all right; in the Garden of Eden there was no sin and man was happy, but we sinned—”
“Bullshit we sinned,” Florence disagreed, “old Eve sinned! But why should we have to suffer because she broke the rules, huh?”
“But it wasn’t just breaking the rules,” I countered, I guess because I was still trying to hold on to God. I didn’t want to give Him up like Florence had. I did not think that I could live without God.
“What was it?” he asked.
“They wanted to be like Him! Don’t you remember the priest saying the apple contained the knowledge that would make them know more things, like God they would know about good and about evil. He punished them because they wanted knowledge—”
Florence smiled. “That still doesn’t seem right, does it? Why should knowledge hurt anyone? We go to school to learn, we even go to catechism to learn—”
“Yes,” I answered. There seemed to be so many pitfalls in the questions we asked. I wanted answers to the questions, but would the knowledge of the answers make me share in the original sin of Adam and Eve?
“And if we didn’t have any knowledge?” I asked.
“Then we would be like the dumb animals of the fields,” Florence replied.
Animals, I thought. Were the fish of the golden carp happier than we were? Was the golden carp a better God?
“—last year Maxie got polio,” Florence was going on, “and my cousin got dragged by that damned horse and got his skull busted. They found him two weeks later, along the river, half eaten away by the crows and buzzards. And his mom went crazy. Is that right?”
“No,” I answered, “it’s not right—”
We came out of the dusty alley and onto the wind-swept barren grounds that surrounded the church. The massive brown structure rose into the dusty sky and held the cross of Christ for all to see. I had listened to Florence’s heresy, but the God of the church had not hurled his thunder at me. I wanted to call out that I was not afraid.
“My father says the weather comes in cycles,” I said instead, “there are years of good weather, and there are years of bad weather—”
“I don’t understand,” Florence said.
Perhaps I didn’t either, but my mind was seeking answers to Florence’s questions. “Maybe God comes in cycles, like the weather,” I answered. “Maybe there are times when God is with us, and times when he is not.
Maybe it is like that now. God is hidden. He will be gone for many years, maybe centuries—” I talked rapidly, excited about the possibilities my mind seemed to be reaching.
“But we cannot change the weather,” Florence said, “and we cannot ask God to return—”
“No,” I nodded, “but what if there were different gods to rule in his absence?” Florence could not have been more surprised by what I said, then I grabbed him by the collar and shouted, “What if the Virgin Mary or the Golden Carp ruled instead of—!”
In that moment of blasphemy the wind swirled around me and drowned my words, and the heavens trembled with thunder. I gasped and looked up at the bell tower.
“DAH-NNNNNGGGGGgggggg…” The first clap of bell-thunder split the air. I turned and cringed at its sound. I crossed my forehead, and cried, “Forgive me, Lord!” Then the second loud ring sounded.
“Come on, Tony,” Florence pulled me, “we’ll be late—”
We ran up the steps past Horse and Bones who were swinging like monkeys on the bell ropes. We hurried to get in line, but Father Byrnes had seen us. He grabbed Florence and pulled him out of line, and he whispered to me, “I would not have expected you to be late, Tony. I will excuse you this time, but take care of your company, for the Devil has many ways to mislead.”
I glanced back at Florence, but he nodded that I go on. The line moved past the water fonts where we wet our fingers and genuflected as we made the sign of the cross. The water was icy. The church was cold and musty. We marched down the aisle to the front pews. The girls’ line filed into the right pew and the boys’ went to the left.
“Enough,” the father’s voice echoed in the lonely church, and the bells that called us were silent. Horse and Bones came running to join us. Then the father came. I took a chance and glanced back. Florence’s punishment for being late was to stand in the middle of the aisle with his arms outspread. He stood very straight and quiet, almost smiling. The afternoon sun poured in through one of the stained glass windows that lined the walls and the golden hue made Florence look like an angel. I felt sorry for him, and I felt bad that he had been punished while I had been excused.
“Let us pray,” Father Byrnes said and knelt. We followed suit, kneeling on the rough, splintery knee boards of the pew. Only Florence remained standing, holding the weight of his arms which would become numb like lead before catechism was over.
“Padre nuestro que estás en los cielos—” I prayed to myself, sharing my prayers with no one. Everyone else prayed in English.
Down the row I heard Bones faking it. “Buzz, buzz, buzz,” his mouth moved to the words, but he didn’t know them. His head was bowed, his eyes closed, and he looked so devout that no one could doubt his sincerity.
Then the priest quizzed us on some lessons we had already been through.
“Who made you?” he asked.
“God made me,” we answered in unison.
“Why did God make you?” he asked, and I saw him look down the aisle at Florence.
“God made us to love, honor, serve and obey Him.” “Where is God?”
“God is everywhere.”
“At Rosie’s,” Bones whispered and rolled his eyes.
Father Byrnes didn’t hear him. “How many persons are there in one God?” he continued.
“Three. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”
“They have to squeeze in tight,” Horse grinned with his ugly horse teeth, and he took the white stuff he had been picking from them and wiped it on his pants.
“The ghost,” Bones said secretly, “the holy ghoooooo-st.”
Father Byrnes went on to discuss the difference between mortal and venial sins. His explanation was very simple, and in a way frightful. Venial sins were small sins, like saying bad words or not going to the Stations of the Cross during Lent. If you died with a venial sin on your soul you could not enter heaven until the sin was absolved by prayers or rosaries or masses from your family on earth. But if you died with a mortal sin on your soul you could never enter heaven. Never. It was frightening to think of missing mass on Sunday, then dying, and for that one mortal sin to go to hell forever.
“If you die with a venial sin on your soul, where do you go?” he asked. “To Purgatory,” Rita answered. The girls always knew the exact
answers. I knew most of the answers but I never raised my hand, because I often wanted to ask questions and I knew it would displease father if I did. Really, the only one who ever asked any questions was Florence, and today he was doing penance.
“That’s right, Rita,” he smiled. “And what is Purgatory?”
“Purga,” Abel whispered. The boys giggled.
“I know! I know!” Agnes waved enthusiastically and father smiled. “It’s a place where souls are cleaned so they can go to heaven!”
“And if you die with a mortal sin on your soul?” he asked, and his voice was cold. The church seemed to shudder from a blast of wind outside, and when it settled a side door opened and an old lady dressed in black hobbled up the side aisle to the altar of the Virgin. She lighted one of the candles in a red glass and then she knelt to pray.
“Hell!” Ida gasped, sucking in her breath.
The father nodded. “And is there any escape from hell?” he raised his finger. We nodded no in silence. “No!” he shouted and slapped his hands so we all jumped in our seats. “There is no hope in hell! Hell is the place of eternal damnation! The fires of hell burn forever and ever—”
“Forever and ever,” Agnes said thoughtfully.
“For eternity!” Father Byrnes said emphatically. He reached under his frock and pulled out a tattered, well-worn copy of the catechism book. He hardly ever used it because he knew it by heart, but now he fumbled through and pointed. “Look there on page seventeen. Eternity. What does the word eternity mean?”
We turned to page seventeen. “Forever,” Agnes said. “Without end,” Rita shuddered.
“About twenty years,” Bones growled. He hadn’t raised his hand and he made everyone laugh so he had to go up to Father Byrnes and hold out his hands, palms up. Father Byrnes took the flat board he kept for such occasions and laid into Bones. One swat of the board was enough to blister the palms, but Bones didn’t seem to feel it. He nodded happily and said, “Thank you father,” then came back to sit down. I saw the old woman at the Virgin’s altar turn and nod approvingly when she saw Father Byrnes strike Bones.
“Now I’m going to tell you a story that will teach you how long eternity lasts. Now, keep in mind, this is how long your soul will be burning in hell if you die with the black spots of mortal sins on it. First, try to imagine our whole country is a mountain of sand. A mountain of sand so high that it reaches to the clouds, and so wide that it stretches from one ocean to the other—”
“Gee whiz!” Abel’s eyes opened wide. Horse, sensing something he could not understand, began to get nervous. Bones rolled his eyes. We all waited patiently for father’s story to develop, because we knew he had a way of telling stories that very clearly illustrated the point he wanted to make. I thought of Florence holding his arms outstretched for eternity.
“Now, suppose across the ocean there is a flat country. The ocean is very wide and it takes weeks to cross it, right. But you want to move this huge mountain of sand from here to there—”
“Get a boat!” Horse nodded nervously.
“No, no, Horse,” Father Byrnes groaned, “keep quiet! Listen! Now girls,” he turned to them, “how long do you think it would take to move this mountain of sand, all the way across the ocean, until you have the mountain over there and an empty place here?” Several hands went up, but he only smiled and relished his question. “Ah, ah, ah,” he grinned, “before you answer, let me tell you how you have to move that enormous mountain of sand. And it’s not with a boat like Horse says—” Everyone laughed. “A little bird, a sparrow, is going to move that mountain for you. And the sparrow can only hold one little grain of sand in its beak. It has to pick up only one grain of sand, fly all the way across the wide ocean, put down the grain of sand, then fly all the way back for another grain of sand. It takes the little bird weeks just to fly across the ocean, and each time it carries only one grain of sand—”
“It would never finish,” June shook her head sadly. “Just in a bucket of sand there must be a million grains, and to move that would take thousands of years. But to move the whole mountain of sand—” She ended her sentence in despair. Horse whinnied and began to bolt in his pew, and Bones had latched his teeth to the back of the pew and was viciously tearing at it, his eyes rolling wildly all the time and the white froth came foaming from his mouth. Even Abel and Lloyd, and the girls, seemed nervous with the impending conclusion of the story.
“Is that how long eternity is?” Agnes asked bravely. “Is that how long the souls have to burn?”
“No,” Father Byrnes said softly, and we looked to him for help, but instead he finished by saying, “when the little bird has moved that mountain of sand across the ocean, that is only the first day of eternity!”
We gasped and fell back in our seats, shuddering at the thought of spending eternity in hell. The story made a great impression on us. Nobody moved. The wind whistled around the church, and as the sun sank in the west one penetrating ray of light gathered the colors of the stained glass window and softly laid them, like flowers, around the Virgin’s altar. The old woman who had been praying there was gone. In the dark aisle of the church Florence stood, his numbed arms outstretched, unafraid of eternity.
