Judas Tree – Novella One - 1. The Beginning

Novella One

Judas Tree

"We have left undone those things

Which we ought to have done;

And we have done those things

We ought not to have done;

And there is no health in us."

Book of Common Prayer

"I never work better

Than when I am inspired by anger –

For when I am angry,

I can write,

Pray, and preach well."

Martin Luther

by

AC Benus

Part 1: Mary in the Noose

I stand in our 4th grade classroom, alone. The springtime is at my back with open windows, a breeze blowing and occasion-ally knocking the sticks of the blinds against the aluminum frames. On the air are the voices of the entire school at after-lunch play. The grassy schoolyard is directly in back of those windows behind me, and feeling isolated in this room, I hear the kids’ voices – the yelling, the laughing, the sound of running and quick stopping on gravel, and of balls slamming into mitts.

Suddenly a pain tweaks my left elbow. I glance at it. Nothing I can do about it. I shift my feet slightly, looking down to my thin corduroy cuffs. No good. Now a certain stiffness aches in both my shoulders. I take a quick look at the books resting on my extended right arm: ‘M’ and ‘N’ weigh down my outstretched palm. I look the other way, and it’s worse yet: ‘S’ and ‘T’ are an arm’s length to my left. I can just crane my head over my shoulder and see the vacant spaces on the bookshelves where four volumes are missing from our class Word Book Encyclopedia set.

I know one thing – I think to myself – ‘Sister Cornelia in the 3rd grade would never be this evil.’ She’d send the other kids out of the room, bend me over her lap and ruler me a few times; over and done with. Miss Hill’s novel punishment is meant to be a public disgrace. Anyone passing by the open door can peek in and see me like this. Word will spread about what I did, and they’ll all be gossiping about it. But, I won’t worry about it now. I’ll take my punishment; for what I did, I’ll take my due.

It was all a lark anyway. I look up to the ceiling. ‘So what if I did it?’ I see a couple of pencils stuck up into the dusty, furry coating of the classroom roof. ‘It’s their fault,’ I think. ‘Stevie and Dylan, they’re the ones who take rubber bands and launch super sharp pencils upwards.’ Usually the only effect is, a fine dusting of grayish-white ceiling powder rains down on us kids – asbestos my father calls it. He says it’s useful stuff, for fireproofing and the like. But, it was also Stevie who taught Dylan how to tie a hangman’s noose. Where Stevie learned to do that – the Boy Scouts? – I don’t know. But, Dylan took up the practice and fashioned all the cotton cords of our classroom blinds into mini nooses, neat and tidy. ‘So what? So what if I slipped one of them around our classroom’s plaster statue of Mary?’ It was easy. The wall up to the windows is only half-height, bookcases line the area below; a globe and Madonna live on the shelf at ledge height. ‘So? I slipped it around her neck. So? I raised the blind, and took a step back, to see her hanging there. What did it matter?’

She didn’t change. The same painted look of pity was on her chalky eyes, which were downcast as always; she pitied the suffering of people and acted like there was nothing she could do about it. Freewill, Monsignor Helfgott told us, the devil is in God’s forced gift of freewill – nothing all the sorrow of a virgin mother could do about it, I guess.

From my position, when I’d stepped back with folded arms, I watched her swaying in the slight breeze of this morning’s recess, and wondered if she suffered for us, or suffered along with us. I didn’t have an answer; what do I know? After all, I’m just a kid.

I was going to lower her. My experiment was over, but something – maybe the devil’s voice – said to leave it. I just sat down, pulled out my math book, which was not a likely distraction, and the first person to see it was Maggie, who screamed and ran out of the room.

I sprang to my feet. I undid the holy virgin, but she still did not look up at me; not with accusation, not with anger, but all the while her painted gaze cast a shadow of doubt onto the globe at her feet – the world received her accusations, not me.

Miss Hill stormed in, Maggie just cowering behind her. Mary was back to her usual spot on the shelf, and looked none the worse for the experience. “Simon,” my teacher asked very calmly, “why?” I shrugged with a quick glance at the ceiling. “I don’t know. No reason.”

I shift my weight again. Now the arch of my right foot protests and threatens to cramp. The impulse to charley horse grips my calf and I know I need to relax. There are just ten more minutes, judging by the clock above the door. Relax. But, maybe. Maybe there was something meaningful to what I did this morning. Maybe there was a reason, and I’ve been feeling – something. I don’t know what to call it, but I think it all began a few weeks ago, when I ran into Ralph in the priests’ changing room . . . .

Part 2: Warning in the Vestry

“Simon!” Miss Hill snapped. I was looking out the window.

“Yes?”

“Take the rollcall form for this week’s funerals to Monsignor Helfgott.”

I stood up. I always liked the chance to clear out of the classroom, if only for a few minutes. Believe it or not, Miss Hill consistently finds me to be among the most trustworthy of boys from the 4th grade class, and I enjoy that trust. I grabbed the envelope from my teacher’s hand and jetted to the door.

“Come right back,” Miss Hill warned.

“Sure thing!” I called from halfway out the door.

I liked going to funerals during the week. For Masses said over those with not much family still around, classes from school were rotated to attend. Masses like these usually started at ten o’clock, and by the time they were over, there’d be only thirty minutes of class before lunch. So, I liked them. In my hand I had this week’s roster, and I felt important.

There was no dallying. I went out the door of the glass breezeway that connected the main part of the school – the eight classrooms – to the newer part with library, cafeteria and gym. Immediately out of doors, spring hit me full in the face, and acted like a foot-stamping girl. Sweet scents from the bushes in full flower that crowded the white foundation stones of the church across the street smacked my cheeks and asked where I had been for so long. The side door facing north was grand, and this is where us kids filed in and out for Mass. Between that door and me, a medium-sized tree, the symbol of our town, was in full flower with purplish-red blossoms. The church above the soft blooms was a brick towering giant with stained glass and multi-colored plaster and paint inside and out. Built in 1894, Saint Lazarus himself has a special niche for his statue. It’s inside at the back and next to the main doors. Mary, his companion, has her own niche on the other side of the entry. In front of them, metal stands glow and flicker with tall glass votives. We learned that the parish priest made these with his own two hands when the church was still under construction. I guess he wanted a permanent place in his parish. With these candles, I like to light one for both the mother, and then the friend of Jesus – when I have a spare 20¢, that is.

The church loomed in front of me, at least the backside did. The front, with the spire, was on the street removed by one block from the school. I glanced around, sucking in the fresh air, but there was no opportunity to dally here, not in the open. Sister Cornelia and the 3rd grade classroom, and Miss Wagstaff and her 1st grade classroom, face this street and have a full view of me crossing over to the church. I went up to the back door, the smaller door on the south side of the church that no worshiper should use, because it puts you into the vestry, or the priests’ changing room. Monsignor Helfgott’s modern house is connected here to the old church by a breezeway, like the one at school, but I preferred to come into the church, especially the vestry.

I stopped once I was inside. Behind me, the great wooden door slowly closed and made a clicking sound as the latch engaged. The light contrast was terrific, and as my eyes adjusted from full sunlight to the dampened bluish stained glass-lit space, my nostrils greedily took in the smell of peace: peaceful incense. I always think of that fragrance as peaceful – its powder-burn singed my nose for a moment – it seemed to my sense of smell as strong as the sunlight just shut out had been to my eyes.

Now I could blink and see. Straight in front of me, about twenty-five feet, the door out of the vestry to the connecting breezeway was closed. It was quiet. I glanced up to the starry blue and gold windows along the plain, outer wall, then over to the objects of my investigation. For the other three walls were lined oaken closets; some open to the room; some sealed with carved doors; all intricate with gothic arches and flourishes. Again, I listened. No sounds. I stepped over to an open cabinet, and with a quick glance at the pale blue ceiling – vaulted and painted with silver and gold stars, I extended my hand and slowly walked along the vestments. I could feel the white silk ‘damask’ – as my mother had taught me to call it – and heavier fabrics, all with gold stitching that made them feel more like drapery than clothes. With each slight pressure, my fingertips seemed to release deeper ruffles of scent, and these two sensations combined to swoon my senses. In the next cabinet were coarser feelings – lightweight linens, scratchy wools, and there tucked at the end, sackcloth. A sandpaper jute, meant only for Ash Wednesday, it shocked my touch of it. I imagined it smelled like the biting smudge the Monsignor smeared on my forehead once a year; the smell of regret.

What was that? I froze. Somewhere, a door slammed. Somewhere, tennis shoes were running on a protesting marble floor. Was it coming closer? The footfall grew louder.

The door from the breezeway stuttered open with force. I wanted to melt into the vestments. A slight step back, and I could have made it, into and behind them . . . .

Now I could see. Running halfway through the vestry to the outer door was Ralph, a kid in the 6th grade – a freckled redheaded boy who always made me think of him as a male version of the Wendy’s hamburger girl.

For a moment, I thought he would continue and run straight out to the sunshine and spring morning, but for some reason he stopped. The door he had just pummeled creaked closed, and in painful silence, he stood there and listened to it latch behind him. He stood stock still, and as if in slow motion, raised his open palms up to his eyes – his eyes, which were wild looking and frightening. In an instant, he sobbed. It was a harsh, guttural moan, and those hands went up and struck his none-too handsome face – but his sob was cut short – he saw me.

“I—” I tried to explain, walking along the clothes towards the outer door. But he instantly sprang, like a kid Rock ‘em Sock ‘em toy boxer, and he grabbed my arm.

I did not want to look into his eyes, but I couldn’t help it, they were everywhere.

“What are you doing here?!” he demanded, his tears getting wiped by the back of his free hand. There was something bitter, something acrid on his breath. I turned away from his spittle.

“I have to deliver this”—I was holding up the envelope—“to Monsignor Helfgott.”

“Look . . . ” Now he grabbed me by both arms. He jostled me until I was forced to lock my eyes on his. “I know you’re a good kid, and that you will listen to me. OKAY?”

His desperate attempt to sound reasonable was terrifying.

“Yeah,” I said.

Snot began to leak out of one of his nostrils. His tears fell freely now with nothing but my sweater and slacks to stop them, and the crack in his voice became hoarse.

“Never – I mean never,” he choked out, “let yourself be alone with Monsignor Helfgott.” He continued more softly, like he was trying to connect with my soul, but that voice, his breath, and those eyes, they all were scary. “Do you under-stand me?”

My hesitation apparently goaded him, for he shook me violently. He raised his voice so that the plaster ceiling vaults pinged in frightening reverberations. “Do you UNDERSTAND ME?!” His glare demanded that I answer him.

No. I did not. But, I nodded. And I must have looked as afraid as I felt, for in a moment he blinked at me, and some shadow of a deep and pained pity seemed to wake him up. He slowly released his grip, and it felt like I sank down a couple of inches to settle back onto the floor, so tense had my spine become. I swallowed hard and watched as Ralph returned to his position halfway between the doors. His back was towards me; his hands went up and locked fingers on top of his head as if he were debating something. After a pregnant moment, he spun around. He held eyes on mine as he wiped the snot and tears from his mouth and cheeks. Then he changed, and with some kind of calmness, could tuck his shirttails into his slacks. I hadn’t even noticed they were out till that moment.

“Give me that,” he said, holding out his hand towards my envelope. A different kind of peacefulness, perhaps a hard-won resolution, was now in his voice. “I’ll give it to him,” he said strongly.

I held up the envelope and took a step towards him, but then I stopped. We both heard it – the sound of grownup shoes on the floor of the breezeway. As if in slow motion, Ralph turned back to me with some unspeakable terror on his face, one that quietly formed into a look of compassion, of disappointment, of shame – I didn’t know which – but it was for me, and me alone. As I came up to the guy, Ralph bolted through the exterior door. He left me there, facing the burning sunlight, while behind me, the breezeway door unclicked, and I could hear Monsignor Helfgott’s voice call out “Ralphie!”

I turned to face him. The heavy outer door crept up to put pressure on my back and lock. I wondered why I should not be alone with this man.

Part 3: Judas Tree

We sat at his dining room table. Monsignor Helfgott looked at me very intently. I liked our priest. I liked his homilies – always about being a better, more selfless person. His standby sermon was on the dangers of the ‘Big I’ – as he called it. The tendency to think only about myself, or the Big I, before considering how others feel, or what kind of damage the Big I could do to them. I liked him because his lessons always came around to our duty to love one another as ourselves.

“You’re Simon? Right – 4th grade?”

“Yes, sir.” I was pleased to be on his radar. “In Miss Hill’s class,” I added helpfully.

“Good. Um – would you like some milk?”

“Um . . . ” I considered it. “It’s almost lunchtime. I can wait.”

Monsignor Helfgott’s gaze at me turned momentarily severe, but it faded back instantly as he said, “Ralphie was upset. Did he say . . . why?”

“No, I—”

“Oh, don’t concern yourself about it. I’ll find out later.”

I shrugged. “I’ve never seen a boy like that, like Ralph, cry before. I guess he was in pain—”

He cut me off. “I said I’ll take care of Ralph. Now – what about you? I know Stevie and Dylan from your class are altar boys, and have been for a couple of years, so why not you? Don’t you like church?”

“Oh, I do, sir. I really do. But, my folks don’t get up on Sunday mornings. So . . . I can’t be an altar boy.”

“Hmm – they should come to church, you know.”

“They know.”

“Well, do you like your religion class?”

“Yes, sir.”

Now he was distracted, looking out the window and towards the school. But he asked, “Can you tell me the legend of your town’s name?”

“Judas Tree?”

“Yes.” He turned moist eyes on mine. “Yes, the Judas tree legend.”

I puffed up, sat bolt upright on his wooden dining room chair, for this was one I knew by heart. “A mighty tree grew in Jerusalem. In the springtime when our Lord was crucified, this tree and all of its kind around the world – including here – bloomed in pure-white buds. Judas, remorseful at betraying Jesus with a kiss, threw a rope over the sturdy tree in Jerusalem, tied it off and hung himself. At the moment he died for his sins, the tree grew weak and feeble – its mighty limbs shriveled to mere sticks, and all the pure-white blossoms became stained in his blood. Every tree all around the world – including here – only grew to a small size and bloomed red with the disgrace of his crime. Like the one outside the church door is blooming now.”

Did it look like Monsignor Helfgott was going to cry too . . . but, again, it passed.

“Good,” he said while swallowing. “It’s true. But, I can teach you more – if you are interested . . . . ”

“Yes.” I pulled up to the edge of my chair, arms just be-fore the elbows on the table. Something sad reached him. He put his hand out and touched the top of mine.

“You know the story well, but do you know where the Judas tree was? Why he selected that one tree, out of all the others?”

I was amazed. I had no idea there was such a ‘why.’ I shook my head.

“Because, that tree grew in front of the tombs of the high priests, the ones who wanted Jesus arrested. See, they had betrayed Judas. They had promised him that Jesus would not go to the Romans, but stay with the priests.” His moist hand clamped onto mine. “Do you see why he chose that tree?”

My mouth went slack. I shook my head.

“Jewish purity laws forbid death, especially suicidal death, from anywhere near holy places. The priests’ tombs were holy . . . until—”

“Judas ruined it for them.”

“Yes.” He squinted a smile. He was relieved to see I understood. He let go and patted the top of my hand.

“Yes. Judas Iscariot betrayed those who had betrayed Jesus.”

“Do you think . . . ” I hated to ask him.

“Do I think, what?”

“Judas is in Hell?”

“The Church says he is, therefore, we must think of Judas in Hell. But – I wonder, and maybe you wonder too – if Christ is all love, and he needed Judas to complete his mission here on Earth, among us, then can a person of all love punish a redeeming act of love?”

His eyes drifted back to the school, and I thought I better get a note explaining my absence to Miss Hill.

“Do you see, Simon? Only God was with him on that tree. Only God knows if Judas made a perfect Act of Contrition – only God knows what was on his dying lips, or what was deep in his heart at its last beating.” He gripped my hand again, this time with a clammy force that made me want to pull back, but I didn’t. “I wonder, son, if you’ve ever made a mistake—” He corrected himself with a headshake. “Mis-takes.”

I didn’t think we were talking about religion anymore, so I asked, “Like a sin?”

He slowly let go of my hand. “Yes. A sin . . . . ”

I went slack-jawed. I wondered if – or how – he found out about my little ‘habit.’ It was time to come clean. “Well, sir,” I started. “I sometimes, not all the time, sir, light more than one votive candle for my dime . . . ” I trailed off, slouched my head and spine and withdrew my hands into my lap.

“Listen to me.” He leaned across the table and put a finger under my chin, raising it. I was starting to see there were tears in his eyes. “Doing something wrong can only be proportional to the depth of devotion of one’s faith.”

I bit my lip. I didn’t understand.

He stood and wiped his tears with a white hankie from his inner coat pocket. He paced between my chair and the window. He went on, “A deep betrayal of a lightly held belief is a light sin. A light betrayal of a deeply held faith is a great sin – a great mistake.” From the window, he swallowed hard and tried to smile at me. “You lit the extra candles in the expression of the goodness within you. It’s as if you lit them knowing – understanding – that others, perhaps of a lesser faith, would see them as examples of the flames that can kindle goodness in all who see them – who make of them tokens of God’s love for us; of his protection over us.” He walked behind my chair, and now he laughed. “You will pay the dimes you owe, in good time. Don’t concern yourself about that. Do you follow?”

I nodded. I smiled. I thought I did understand. I brought goodness into the world by being good – that, and that alone. Standing at the window, I could see his face darken in profile, and a gray circle of light hover over his salt and pepper head. He said, sounding like when he offered a prayer, “I hope your life is only full of mistakes like the ones you’ve made so far.” He raised an arm and leaned against the frame with an elbow. Towards the school, he murmured, “There are other mistakes too heavy to bear. Ones that further darkness in the world, ones that hand over the safety placed in our hands, for the greater the trust, the greater the treachery.”

His head pivoted to me, but his glance this time was weird. I did not follow him now, but something in his manner made me ask, “You mean, a mistake like Judas made?”

He inhaled sharply, and his form crumpled before me. He kneeled at the side of my chair, and I heard a faint choking sound, even though his mouth was closed. He slowly raised one hand, and I could feel his moist palm stroke my short blond crew cut. With his other, he turned his knuckles in and ran the short ends of his fingers over my cheek.

“Yes, son – a mistake like Judas made – a betrayal of love like Judas made.”

His closeness brought a wave of incense to my brain. It rose from the folds of his clothes and let me think of nothing else. His nearness, the holy smell rising from him, stilled me, even though I could not help but feel afraid. None of this was right. None of it made much sense. Even the familiar – even the good – seemed suspect. And his eyes, the eyes of my priest, appeared wild. They were pleading with me, showing just as much fear, just as much pain – and perhaps something unknowable, like shame – as I had seen in the vestry, in the wild eyes of poor Ralphie.

˚˚˚˚˚

Walking out of the vestry door, the spring sunshine was dimmed by gathering clouds overhead. To the west, behind Saint Lazarus School, tinges of gray edged the horizon. As I walked across the street, I fingered Monsignor Helfgott’s note and thought about how much I like attending Mass. I liked squinting my eyes at the candlelight, and blurring the pinpoints of brightness into glowing diffused halos. It seemed magical to do so, and turn the flames sitting above the back and front altars into visions of the Holy Spirit Itself. I loved the Benediction; the waft of perfumed smoke from the censer kicked by the priest’s hands back and forth around the altar and over the heads of us worshipers. And I loved the Host in the monstrance shown to us while Stevie or Dylan, or one of the other altar boys, picked up the sacryn – the brass hand bells. Some boys would curtly jostle the bells and quickly stifle them afterwards. Some others would shake and shake, too long making a magical presence sustained to be mystical anymore. But there were other boys who know – yes, I think Ralph is one such boy. Ralph would gently pick up the sacryn, and start soft, heavenly ringing with the bareness of slow reverberations, and then, as the Monsignor raised the sacred, the blessed, Host of the body of Christ above his head, Ralph would increase tempo and volume to subtle heights – all of this, all of it, let down just as quietly, so that by the end of the Benediction, "It is right to praise the Lord" is echoed from the beginning of the prayer in meaningful silence.

I stopped on the sidewalk. Something like a realization hit me. I was three feet from the school breezeway door. That’s right. I remembered in 2nd grade, just after Stevie and Dylan became altar boys, I had heard them talking. The older altar boys, Dylan told Stevie, said to always be in pairs when with Monsignor Helfgott. “Always in pairs equals never alone,” I murmured. The loneliness this memory generated reminded me of the feeling I got walking through peoples’ yards. I was warned against that too, but in 2nd grade, I did it anyway.

Something made me feel sick to my stomach about that old man’s folding chair. I had met him, doing what I was not supposed to do, and I felt then as I feel now, like a dark shadow was creeping over me.

(to be continued...)