Dieciocho
Ash Wednesday. There is no other day like Ash Wednesday. The proud and the meek, the arrogant and the humble are all made equal on Ash Wednesday. The healthy and the sick, the assured and the sick in spirit, all make their way to church in the gray morning or in the dusty afternoon.
They line up silently, eyes downcast, bony fingers counting the beads of the rosary, lips mumbling prayers. All are repentant, all are preparing themselves for the shock of the laying of the ashes on the forehead and the priest’s agonizing words, “Thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return.”
The anointment is done, and the priest moves on, only the dull feeling of helplessness remains. The body is not important. It is made of dust; it is made of ashes. It is food for the worms. The winds and the waters dissolve it and scatter it to the four corners of the earth. In the end, what we care most for lasts only a brief lifetime, then there is eternity. Time forever.
Millions of worlds are born, evolve, and pass away into nebulous, unmeasured skies; and there is still eternity. Time always. The body becomes dust and trees and exploding fire, it becomes gaseous and disappears, and still there is eternity. Silent, unopposed, brooding, forever…
But the soul survives. The soul lives on forever. It is the soul that must be saved, because the soul endures. And so when the burden of being nothing lifts from one’s thoughts the idea of the immortality of the soul is like a light in a blinding storm. Dear God! the spirit cries out, my soul will live forever!
And so we hurried to catechism! The trying forty days of Lent lay ahead of us, then the shining goal, Easter Sunday and first holy communion! Very little else mattered in my life. School work was dull and uninspiring compared to the mysteries of religion. Each new question, each new catechism chapter, each new story seemed to open up a thousand facets concerning the salvation of my soul. I saw very little of Ultima, or even of
my mother and father. I was concerned with myself. I knew that eternity lasted forever, and a soul because of one mistake could spend that eternity in hell.
The knowledge of this was frightful. I had many dreams in which I saw myself or different people burning in the fires of hell. One person especially continually haunted my nightmares. It was Florence. Inevitably it was he whom I saw burning in the roaring inferno of eternal damnation.
But why? I questioned the hissing fires, Florence knows all the answers! But he does not accept, the flames lisped back.
“Florence,” I begged him that afternoon, “try to answer.” He smiled. “And lie to myself,” he answered.
“Don’t lie! Just answer!” I shouted with impatience.
“You mean, when the priest asks where is God, I am to say God is everywhere: He is the worms that await the summer heat to eat Narciso. He shares the bed with Tenorio and his evil daughters—”
“Oh, God!” I cried in despair.
Samuel came up and touched me on the shoulder. “Perhaps things would not be so difficult if he believed in the golden carp,” he said softly.
“Does Florence know?” I asked.
“This summer he shall know,” Samuel answered wisely. “What’s that all about?” Ernie asked.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Come on!” Abel shouted, “bell’s ringing—”
It was Friday and we ran to attend the ritual of the Stations of the Cross.
The weather was beginning to warm up but the winds still blew, and the whistling of the wind and the mournful coo-rooing of the pigeons and the burning incense made the agony of Christ’s journey very sad. Father Byrnes stood at the first station and prayed to the bulto on the wall that showed Christ being sentenced by Pilate. Two highschool altar boys accompanied the priest, one to hold the lighted candle and the other to hold the incense burner. The hushed journeyers with Christ answered the priest’s prayer.
Then there was an interlude of silence while the priest and his attendants moved to the second station, Christ receiving the cross.
Horse sat by me. He was carving his initials into the back of the seat in front of us. Horse never prayed all of the stations, he waited until the priest
came near, then he prayed the one he happened to be sitting by. I looked at the wall and saw that today he had picked to sit by the third fall of Christ.
The priest genuflected and prayed at the first fall of Christ. The incense was thick and sweet. Sometimes it made me sick inside and I felt faint.
Next Friday would be Good Friday. Lent had gone by fast. There would be no stations on Good Friday, and maybe no catechism. By then we would be ready for confession Saturday and then the receiving of the sacrament on the most holy of days, Easter Sunday.
“What’s Immmm-ack-que-let Con-sep-shion?” Abel asked. And Father Byrnes moved to the station where Christ meets his mother. I tried to concentrate. I felt sympathy for the Virgin.
“Immaculate Conception,” Lloyd whispered. “Yeah?”
“The Virgin Mary—” “But what does it mean?”
“Having babies without—” “What?”
I tried to shut my ears, I tried to hear the priest, but he was moving away, moving to where Simon helped Christ carry the cross. Dear Lord, I will help.
“I don’t know—” Everybody giggled.
“Shhh!” Agnes scowled at us. The girls always prayed with bowed heads throughout the stations.
“A man and a woman, it takes a man and a woman,” Florence nodded. But the Virgin! I panicked. The Virgin Mary was the mother of God!
The priest had said she was a mother through a miracle.
The priest finished the station where Veronica wiped the bloodied face of Christ, and he moved to Christ’s second fall. The face of Christ was imprinted on the cloth. Besides the Virgin’s blue robe, it was the holiest cloth on earth. The cross was heavy, and when He fell the soldiers whipped Him and struck Him with clubs. The people laughed. His agony began to fill the church and the women moaned their prayers, but the kids would not listen.
“The test is Saturday morning—”
Horse left his carving and looked up. The word “test” made him nervous.
“I, I, I’ll pass,” he nodded. Bones growled. “Everybody will pass,” I said, trying to be reassuring. “Florence doesn’t believe!” Rita hissed behind us.
“Shhhh! The priest is turning.” Father Byrnes was at the back of the church, the seventh station. Now he would come down this side of the aisle for the remaining seven. Christ was speaking to the women.
Maybe that’s why they prayed so hard, Christ spoke to them.
In the bell tower the pigeons coo-rooing made a mournful sound.
The priest was by us now. I could smell the incense trapped in his frock, like the fragrance of Ultima’s herbs was part of her clothes. I bowed my head. The burning incense was sweet and suffocating; the glowing candle was hypnotizing. Horse had looked at it too long. When the priest moved on Horse leaned on me. His face was white.
“A la chingada,” he whispered, “voy a tirar tripas—”
The priest was at the station of the Crucifixion. The hammer blows were falling on the nails that ripped through the flesh. I could almost hear the murmuring of the crowd as they craned their necks to see. But today I could not feel the agony.
“Tony—” Horse was leaning on me and gagging.
I struggled under his weight. People turned to watch me carrying the limp Horse up the aisle. Florence left his seat to help me and together we dragged Horse outside. He threw up on the steps of the church.
“He watched the candle too long,” Florence said. “Yes,” I answered.
Horse smiled weakly. He wiped the hot puke from his lips and said, “Ah la veca, I’m going to try that again next Friday—”
We managed to get through the final week of catechism lessons. The depression that comes with fasting and strict penance deepened as Lent drew to its completion. On Good Friday there was no school. I went to church with my mother and Ultima. All of the saints’ statues in the church were covered with purple sheaths. The church was packed with women in black, each one stoically suffering the three hours of the Crucifixion with the tortured Christ. Outside the wind blew and cut off the light of the sun with its dust, and the pigeons cried mournfully in the tower. Inside the prayers were like muffled cries against a storm which seemed to engulf the world. There seemed to be no one to turn to for solace. And when the dying
Christ cried, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” the piercing words seemed to drive through to my heart and make me feel alone and lost in a dying universe.
Good Friday was forlorn, heavy and dreary with the death of God’s son and the accompanying sense of utter hopelessness.
But on Saturday morning our spirits lifted. We had been through the agony and now the ecstasy of Easter was just ahead. Then too we had our first confession to look forward to in the afternoon. In the morning my mother took me to town and bought me a white shirt and dark pants and jacket. It was the first suit I ever owned, and I smiled when I saw myself in the store mirror. I even got new shoes. Everything was new, as it should be for the first communion.
My mother was excited. When we returned from town she would not allow me to go anywhere or do anything. Every five minutes she glanced at the clock. She did not want me to be late for confession.
“It’s time!” she finally called, and with a kiss she sent me scampering down the goat path, to the bridge where I raced the Vitamin Kid and lost, then waited to walk to church with Samuel.
“You ready?” I asked. He only smiled. At the church all the kids were gathered around the steps, waiting for the priest to call us.
“Did you pass?” everyone asked. “What did the priest ask you?” He had given each one of us a quiz, asking us to answer questions on the catechism lessons or to recite prayers.
“He asked me how many persons in one God?” Bones howled. “Wha’daya say?”
“Four! Four! Four!” Bones cried. Then he shook his head vigorously. “Or five! I don’t know?”
“And you passed?” Lloyd said contemptuously.
“I got my suit, don’t I?” Bones growled. He would fight anyone who said he didn’t pass.
“Okay, okay, you passed,” Lloyd said to avoid a fight. “Whad’ did he ask you, Tony?”
“I had to recite the Apostles’ Creed and tell what each part meant, and I had to explain where we get original sin—”
“¡Oh sí!” “¡Ah la veca!” “¡Chingada!”
“Bullshit!” Horse spit out the grass he had been chewing.
“Tony could do it,” Florence defended me, “if he wanted to.”
“Yeah, Tony knows more about religion and stuff like that than anyone
—”
“Tony’s gonna be a priest!”
“Hey, let’s practice going to confession and make Tony the priest!” Ernie shouted.
“Yeahhhhh!” Horse reared up. Bones snarled and grabbed my pant leg in his teeth.
“Tony be the priest! Tony be the priest!” they began to chant.
“No, no,” I begged, but they surrounded me. Ernie took off his sweater and draped it around me. “His priest’s dress!” he shouted, and the others followed. They took off their jackets and sweaters and tied them around my waist and neck. I looked in vain for help but there was none.
“Tony is the priest, Tony is the priest, yah-yah-yah-ya-ya!” They sang and danced around me. I grew dizzy. The weight of the jackets on me was heavy and suffocating.
“All right!” I cried to appease them, “I shall be your priest!” I looked at Samuel. He had turned away.
“Yea-aaaaaaaaye!” A great shout went up. Even the girls drew closer to watch.
“Hail to our priest!” Lloyd said judiciously. “Do it right!” Agnes shouted.
“Yeah! Me first! Do it like for reals!” Horse shouted and threw himself at my feet.
“Everybody quiet!” Ernie held up his hands. They all drew around the kneeling Horse and myself, and the wall provided the enclosure but not the privacy of the confessional.
“Bless me, father—” Horse said, but as he concentrated to make the sign of the cross he forgot his lines. “Bless me, father—” he repeated desperately.
“You have sinned,” I said. It was very quiet in the enclosure. “Yes,” he said. I remembered hearing the confession of the dying
Narciso.
“It’s not right to hear another person’s confession,” I said, glancing at the expectant faces around me.
“Go on!” Ernie hissed and hit me on the back. Blows fell on my head and shoulders. “Go on!” they cried. They really wanted to hear Horse’s confession.
“It’s only a game!” Rita whispered.
“How long has it been since your last confession?” I asked Horse. “Always,” he blurted out, “since I was born!”
“What are your sins?” I asked. I felt hot and uncomfortable under the weight of the jackets.
“Tell him only your worst one,” Rita coaxed the Horse. “Yeah!” all the rest agreed.
The Horse was very quiet, thinking. He had grabbed one of my hands and he clutched it tightly, as if some holy power was going to pass through it and absolve him of his sins. His eyes rolled wildly, then he smiled and opened his mouth. His breath fouled the air.
“I know! I know!” he said excitedly. “One day when Miss Violet let me go to the bathroom I made a hole in the wall! With a nail! Then I could see into the girls’ bathroom! I waited a long time! Then one of the girls came and sat down, and I could see everything! Her ass! Everything! I could even hear the pee!” he cried out.
“Horse, you’re dirty!” June exclaimed. Then the girls looked shyly at each other and giggled.
“You have sinned,” I said to Horse. Horse freed my hand and began rubbing at the front of his pants.
“There’s more!” he cried, “I saw a teacher!” “No!”
“Yes! Yes!” He rubbed harder. “Who?” one of the girls asked.
“Mrs. Harrington!” Everyone laughed. Mrs. Harrington weighed about two hundred pounds. “It was bigggggggg—!” he exploded and fell trembling on the ground.
“Give him a penance!” the girls chanted and pointed accusing fingers at the pale Horse. “You are dirty, Horse,” they cried, and he whimpered and accepted their accusations.
“For your penance say a rosary to the Virgin,” I said weakly. I didn’t feel good. The weight of the jackets was making me sweat, and the revelation of
Horse’s confession and the way the kids were acting was making me sick. I wondered how the priest could shoulder the burden of all the sins he heard.
… the weight of the sins will sink the town into the lake of the golden carp…
I looked for Samuel. He was not joining in the game. Florence was calmly accepting the sacrilegious game we were playing, but then it didn’t matter to him, he didn’t believe.
“Me next! Me next!” Bones shouted. He let go of my leg and knelt in front of me. “I got a better sin than Horse! Bless me, father! Bless me, father! Bless me, father!” he repeated. He kept making the sign of the cross over and over. “I got a sin! I got to confess! I saw a high school boy and a girl fucking in the grass by the Blue Lake!” He smiled proudly and looked around.
“Ah, I see them every night under the railroad bridge,” the Vitamin Kid scoffed.
“What do you mean?” I asked Bones.
“Naked! Jumping up and down!” he exclaimed.
“You lie, Bones!” Horse shouted. He didn’t want his own sin bettered. “No I don’t!” Bones argued. “I don’t lie, father, I don’t lie!” he pleaded. “Who was it?” Rita asked.
“It was Larry Saiz, and that dumb gabacha whose father owns the Texaco station—please father, it’s my sin! I saw it! I confess!” He squeezed my hand very hard.
“Okay, Bones, okay,” I nodded my head, “it’s your sin.” “Give me a penance!” he growled.
“A rosary to the Virgin,” I said to be rid of him. “Like Horse?” he shouted.
“Yes.”
“But my sin was bigger!” he snarled and leaped for my throat. “Whagggggghhh—” he threw me down and would have strangled me if the others hadn’t pulled him away.
“Another rosary for daring to touch the priest!” I shouted in self-defense and pointed an accusing finger at him. That made him happy and he settled down.
“Florence next!” Abel cried.
“Nah, Florence ain’t goin’ make it anyway,” Lloyd argued.
“That’s enough practice,” I said and started to take off the cumbersome costume, but they wouldn’t let me.
“Abel’s right,” Ernie said emphatically, “Florence needs the practice! He didn’t make it because he didn’t practice!”
“He didn’t make it because he doesn’t believe!” Agnes taunted. “Why doesn’t he believe?” June asked.
“Let’s find out!” “Make him tell!” “¡Chingada!”
They grabbed tall Florence before he could bolt away and made him kneel in front of me.
“No!” I protested.
“Confess him!” they chanted. They held him with his arms pinned behind his back. I looked down at him and tried to let him know we might as well go along with the game. It would be easier that way.
“What are your sins?” I asked.
“I don’t have any,” Florence said softly.
“You do, you bastard!” Ernie shouted and pulled Florence’s head back. “You have sins,” Abel agreed.
“Everybody has sins!” Agnes shouted. She helped Ernie twist Florence’s head back. Florence tried to struggle but he was pinned by Horse and Bones and Abel. I tried to pull their hands away from him to relieve the pain I saw in his face, but the trappings of the priest’s costume entangled me and so I could do very little.
“Tell me one sin,” I pleaded with Florence. His face was very close to mine now, and when he shook his head to tell me again that he didn’t have sins I saw a frightening truth in his eyes. He was telling the truth! He did not believe that he had ever sinned against God! “Oh my God!” I heard myself gasp.
“Confess your sins or you’ll go to hell!” Rita cried out. She grabbed his blonde hair and helped Ernie and Agnes twist his head.
“Confess! Confess!” they cried. Then with one powerful heave and a groan Florence shook off his tormentors. He was long and sinewy, but because of his mild manner we had always underestimated his strength. Now the girls and Ernie and even Horse fell off him like flies.
“I have not sinned!” he shouted, looking me square in the eyes, challenging me, the priest. His voice was like Ultima’s when she had challenged Tenorio, or Narciso’s when he had tried to save Lupito.
“It is God who has sinned against me!” his voice thundered, and we fell back in horror at the blasphemy he uttered.
“Florence,” I heard June whimper, “don’t say that—”
Florence grinned. “Why? Because it is the truth?” he questioned. “Because you refuse to see the truth, or to accept me because I do not believe in your lies! I say God has sinned against me because he took my father and mother from me when I most needed them, and he made my sisters whores—He has punished all of us without just cause, Tony,” his look pierced me. “He took Narciso! And why? What harm did Narciso ever do—”
“We shouldn’t listen to him,” Agnes had the courage to interrupt Florence, “we’ll have to confess what we heard and the priest will be mad.”
“The priest was right in not passing Florence, because he doesn’t believe!” Rita added.
“He shouldn’t even be here if he is not going to believe in the laws we learn,” Lloyd said.
“Give him a penance! Make him ask for forgiveness for those terrible things he said about God!” Agnes insisted. They were gathering behind me now, I could feel their presence and their hot, bitter breath. They wanted me to be their leader; they wanted me to punish Florence.
“Make his penance hard,” Rita leered.
“Make him kneel and we’ll all beat him,” Ernie suggested. “Yeah, beat him!” Bones said wildly.
“Stone him!” “Beat him!” “Kill him!”
They circled around me and advanced on Florence, their eyes flashing with the thought of the punishment they would impose on the non-believer. It was then that the fear left me, and I knew what I had to do. I spun around and held out my hands to stop them.
“No!” I shouted, “there will be no punishment, there will be no penance!
His sins are forgiven!” I turned and made the sign of the cross. “Go in peace, my son,” I said to Florence.
“No!” they shouted, “don’t let him go free!” “Make him do penance! That’s the law!” “Punish him for not believing in God!”
“I am the priest!” I shouted back, “and I have absolved him of his sins!” I was facing the angry kids and I could see that their hunger for vengeance was directed at me, but I didn’t care, I felt relieved. I had stood my ground for what I felt to be right and I was not afraid. I thought that perhaps it was this kind of strength that allowed Florence to say he did not believe in God.
“You are a bad priest, Tony!” Agnes lashed out at me. “We do not want you for our priest!” Rita followed.
“Punish the priest!” they shouted and they engulfed me like a wave. They were upon me, clawing, kicking, tearing off the jackets, defrocking me. I fought back but it was useless. They were too many. They spread me out and held me pinned down to the hard ground. They had torn my shirt off so the sharp pebbles and stickers cut into my back.
“Give him the Indian torture!” someone shouted. “Yeah, the Indian torture!” they chanted.
They held my arms while Horse jumped on my stomach and methodically began to pound with his fist on my chest. He used his sharp knuckles and aimed each blow directly at my breastbone. I kicked and wiggled and struggled to get free from the incessant beating, but they held me tight and I could not throw them off.
“No! No!” I shouted, but the raining blows continued. The blows of the knuckles coming down again and again on my breastbone were unbearable, but Horse knew no pity, and there was no pity on the faces of the others.
“God!” I cried, “God!” But the jarring blows continued to fall. I jerked my head from side to side and tried to kick or bite, but I could not get loose. Finally I bit my lips so I wouldn’t cry, but my eyes filled with tears anyway. They were laughing and pointing down at the red welt that raised on my chest where the Horse was pounding.
“Serves him right,” I heard, “he let the sinner go—”
Then, after what seemed an eternity of torture, they let me go. The priest was calling from the church steps, so they ran off to confession. I slowly picked myself up and rubbed the bruises on my chest. Florence handed me my shirt and jacket.
“You should have given me a penance,” he said.
“You don’t have to do any penance,” I answered. I wiped my eyes and shook my head. Everything in me seemed loose and disconnected.
“Are you going to confession?” he asked.
“Yes,” I answered and finished buttoning my shirt. “You could never be their priest,” he said.
I looked at the open door of the church. There was a calm in the wind and the bright sunlight made everything stark and harsh. The last of the kids went into the church and the doors closed.
“No,” I nodded. “Are you going to confession?” I asked him.
“No,” he muttered. “Like I said, I only wanted to be with you guys—I cannot eat God,” he added.
“I have to,” I whispered. I ran up the steps and entered the dark, musky church. I genuflected at the font of holy water, wet my fingertips, and made the sign of the cross. The lines were already formed on either side of the confessional, and the kids were behaving and quiet. Each one stood with bowed head, preparing himself to confess all of his sins to Father Byrnes. I walked quietly around the back pew and went to the end of one line. I made the sign of the cross again and began to say my prayers. As each kid finished his confession the line shuffled forward. I closed my eyes and tried not to be distracted by anything around me. I thought hard of all the sins I had ever committed, and I said as many prayers as I could remember. I begged God forgiveness for my sins over and over. After a long wait, Agnes, who had been in front of me came out of the confessional. She held the curtain as I stepped in, then she let it drop and all was dark. I knelt on the rough board and leaned against the small window. I prayed. I could hear whisperings from the confessional on the other side. My eyes grew accustomed to the gloom and I saw a small crucifix nailed to the side of the window. I kissed the feet of the hanging Jesus. The confessional smelled of old wood. I thought of the million sins that had been revealed in this small, dark space.
Then abruptly my thoughts were scattered. The small wooden door of the window slid open in front of me, and in the dark I could make out the head of Father Byrnes. His eyes were closed, his head bowed forward. He mumbled something in Latin then put his hand on his forehead and waited.
I made the sign of the cross and said, “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” and I made my first confession to him.
