Unafraid – Novella Four - 3. Part 3: Credo

Part 3: Credo

The closed-in oppression of the church reasserts itself while the sweetness of Terry's memory fades.

After we petted for a while, we just sat there, side-by-side, locking fingers and talking.

I learned in an unusual way that Terry is left-handed. I asked him to write down his poem for me. He asked "Which poem?" and I told him "Your real one."

I lent him my four-color pen, and saw to my delight that he clicked down the green ink. "Hey," I nudged his shoulder. "That's my favorite color too." He smiled, and kissed me again. In a few minutes I could see his handwriting was plainer than Jodie's, but still expressive. "Are you a southpaw?" I laughed. He explained, "I am. But in public I use my right hand. My teachers forced me to."

As he was taking a long time to write it, I asked why. "I only recited the first stanza, but I'm writing out the whole thing for you."

At dusk, we parted, and Terry placed a kiss on my cheek at the bottom of the fort's steps.

I walked home, and later felt tired and had a headache. Maybe I won't do speed again; it's not worth it.

All weekend long, things jostled in my mind. I suppose that led to my confessing to Father Strathmore last Monday, and the man's odd reaction to it. A reaction that still profoundly disturbs me, and makes me dread having to go see him again.

I don’t want to think about that Confession last week, but I have to relive it. It's better to be prepared, and wary. What went wrong? It all started normal – but, I do hate that face-to-face thing.

˚˚˚˚˚

As I went in for Confession last week, my mind was sidetracked.

Every time I entered the vestry I was distracted by its sights, smells and memories – the celestial glint of sliver and gold stars on the blue-painted vaults of the ceiling, the wafting lingerance of holy frankincense impregnating the very silk and linen fibers of the vestments racked in oaken gothic cupboards, and the trapped ghost of a sixth grader named Ralph who accosted me here one day in a wash of tears – and this Monday morning Confession was to be no different.

Father Strathmore saw my eyes gazing up to the ceiling vaults, and heard my shoes make tentative squeaks on the marble floor.

He cleared his throat, and I knew what that meant: hop to it.

My parish priest was sitting on a stacking chair in the center of the room. He inhaled once and used a hand to raise himself a moment. He readjusted himself on the hard plastic seat.

'I know,' I thought. 'These chairs are hard to sit on for a long time,' and no doubt, Father Strathmore had been hearing uncomfortable confessions all morning. But I knew I was his last one. I liked our new priest. Although he sometimes seemed cold, he has a way of not talking to us kids like we are idiots just 'cause we're young.

I sat and instantly felt the warmth that Stevie – the boy before me – had left imprinted on the plastic seat and back panel.

Father Strathmore was a sage-looking man with his glasses and slicked silver hair parted in the center. Usually, little flecks of dandruff bespeckled the shoulder-tops of the black shirt of this man who was in his fifties. That is, if I had to guess his age.

We were starting, and his chunky black-rimmed glasses glinted in the colored light from the stained glass window at my back. He raised his hand.

I bowed my head, as he said, "In the name of the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit."

I crossed myself, and looked up to him. He was now wearing an alb – the typical white vestment – over his black shirt and trousers, and a yellow stole with embroidered sheaths of wheat on it.

"Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been one week since my last Confession."

This was so uncomfortable. Father Strathmore was right there! He sat less than two feet from me, fully in view and eyeing me, but I will have to admit, he looked anxious to be done with this. It was a look of mixed boredom and impatience that seemed to result in the placid scowl now on his face.

"What have you to confess, my child?"

Funny think was, I wondered if the priest knew how we kids compared and contrasted our 'sins' before we filed in for Confession. For one, we were always a little unsure if our misdeeds were worthy of mention, and sometimes we wanted to make them more grievous through advice, but not too damning, mind you.

"Um…" I started. "I have told lies – "

He cut me off impatiently, with, "How many, and what kind?"

Yeah. He hates vaguerry. "Um…several times to my mom when she asked if I had done all my homework before TV. Um…once to Mr. Spencer when he asked if I saw Dylan cheating on a social studies test – we had to memorize state capitals."

"Simon, what else?"

It was kind of shocking to hear him say my name. When I was a kid, we were taught that Confession was anonymous, but in this new style, obviously he knows who I am.

"Um…I had some ungenerous thoughts towards Klay."

"What do you mean by 'ungenerous?'" He shifted in his seat one more time.

"I mean, when he beamed Maggie with a dodge ball from behind, for no reason, I wished he – um – would go cripple so he couldn't do that again."

I waited to see how serious a sin this was. I expected to read the gravity of it on his face. Instead, I got confused, because it looked like he wanted to laugh. He cleared his throat, pivoted his head slightly, and his hand went to his mouth. "What else?"

"Um…I had envious thoughts – you know, covetous thoughts – concerning Stevie's new handheld electronic pong game."

Father Strathmore appeared bored. His sighing attention lilted idly up the wall over my head.

Suddenly, and I didn't know why, I had to consider if doing speed was a sin.

"I – " I swallowed hard, and his sight fell onto mine. "I, experimented with drugs, Father Strathmore."

His jaw unhinged, slightly; his eyes perked up, and his glasses were removed. He leaned towards me, saying, "Which? How many?"

"Speed, sir. But only half a redball."

"And what was the situation?"

"I was with an older boy, alone, and we took it together."

He seemed surprised. "An older boy?"

"Yes, sir. A boy in high school."

"And, how do you know this boy?"

"Friend of a friend, sir."

"And what were you doing, together?"

Searing flashes of Terry's kisses burned my brain. I felt currents of blushes making me unsteady.

"Talking, sir."

He leaned closer. "Talking. About what?"

"Life, sir."

"Is that all you did, Simon? Just, talk..?"

Oh God. It seemed like he could read my mind. If he asked a direct question, then it would be a sin to lie, and that would be the one sin I could not tell in Confession – it would be an un-absolvable offense.

I watched my hands in my lap. "We kissed as well."

There was a positively sharp intake of breath from the priest. I quickly caught the amazed blink from his eyes. "You…" He didn't seem to be able to finish.

"Are you all right, sir?"

"Son, do you know what you have just confessed to me?"

"That I kissed a boy."

"Is this a one-time event; did he, force you?"

"Yes. It was my first time, and no. We both wanted to."

"You, wanted to?"

"Yes."

Right before my eyes, my priest transformed. I didn’t know how to best interpret what I witnessed, but I can tell you, the man's respiration became labored, his upper torso stiffened, and on this older man's face, a scarlet flush of heat radiated under his fairy ashen pallor.

He leaned forward in his chair, and his intake of air was choppy. He hoarsely whispered: "So, you have 'feelings' for other boys?" He examined me with an oddly searching leer.

"I don’t feel comfortable – "

His hand landed on my upper thigh. He squeezed, and like an electric current passing directly from his trembling touch into my spine, I got it. I suddenly got it all.

I understood Ralph's tears, and the acrid tone of the 6^th grader that day, here – in this vestry. I comprehended the palpable scent of his fear coming from that boy while we both listened to our priest's footsteps approaching us. And now I know why he fled that day.

As slowly as I could, I stood up. The man – for let's face it, a priest is just a man like the rest – looked dismayed.

"Sit down," he commanded with pissed-off ire.

I pulled the chair back a foot and sat.

He was visibly shaking now. Sweat was bespangling his brow in a mockery of the heavenly vaults above us.

"I…" he faltered. "You, you must remember young man, what passes forth in Confession is to stay in this room. That goes both ways. You know that." The last phrase took a steel-cold ring of threat to it.

"Can I go now..?"

"No. You must receive your penance. Do twelve Hail Marys and twelve Our Fathers." Even as he spoke, it was clear his mind and emotions were far away from prayer, and centered on immediate and frightful things.

I stood. I went to the door leading back to the church.

Father Strathmore's voice stopped me with my hand still on the door handle. "Those impulses are wrong, Simon. Very, very wrong! Be truly penitent in your heart, if you wish God's Grace to descend upon you."

I left him where he was, and felt sick to my stomach.

˚˚˚˚˚

Today, one week later, I kneel in the same pew, and in the same position as when I prayed my silent dozen Hail Marys and Our Fathers. Today I recall I did so without much sentiment. God's healing grace felt far away, as my only instinct told me to run.

My mind seemed about to collapse in on itself. Was it sinful to have kissed Terry? If so, why? But 'sin,' surely that is using your authority to get the better of someone. It was too dreadful to think about. What 'advantage' did Father Strathmore mean to have over me? My upper thigh burns right now to recall how creepy he acted; I loathe the feel of his sweaty palm bleeding hot moisture through the fabric of my trousers. No. None of it made sense, except in a…no, I don’t want to think about that.

My sight drifts up to the red candle, and to the high altar at its side. The back wall of the sanctuary is painted in what I guess are rays of glory. These extend up from life-size boulders on the top of the high altar. A cross with a full-size dying Christ rises from the center of the pile, where to his left stands the apostle John – the disciple whom Jesus loved – and to his right, Mary, his mother.

Now looking at them, I am reminded of the verse of scripture I hear prayed at every funeral. Christ told them, "Mother, behold your son; son, behold your mother." It was the Savior's last wish that his family – his two families – should unite and go on without him.

So how did that sort of love, which gave birth to the Holy Church herself, become so hostile to the love he exampled?

At every mass we profess out beliefs, that God made all things, both visible and invisible, and surely that includes the thoughts of love people have for one another. If not that, then what? We believe God is the light of light, by whom all things of light are made.

What man among us can say otherwise? Not with Christ's example to follow – not deny it, and pretend to be Christian. It isn't possible.

I might have been able to toss off last Monday's Confession as some sort of fluke, but not after what Father Strathmore did a few days later.

My gut wrenches to think of it, and why? Just to make a point to me, personally?

It all seems unaccountably unholy.

What internal darkness drove him to do it? Do it to that poor girl..?

˚˚˚˚˚

It was last Wednesday, and lunch break was almost over. The whole 7^th grade was assembled in the 8^th grade classroom, because that's where Sister Jodie was going to teach us Religion Class.

We had a few minutes, and kids were clotted together in small groups chatting.

I sat in my usual seat and started pestering Gina, who was sitting in front of me.

I thought about the girl's hair. When Gina still wore pigtails, it was easy for me to give an innocent yank, and pretend some unnamed ghost had done it when Gina spun her stare on me. Now, Gina's hair is loose, and combed back at her temples in imitation of Kristy McNichol, the new teen 'it' girl. She's also cut it, so now it barely reaches her neck, and I don’t feel comfortable pulling 'raw' hair.

Inspiration hit me. I pulled out my Bic four-color pen.

I held it as close to her ear as I dare.

Click; click; click; click; click; click.

As Gina turned around to leer at me, my glance slipped past her. Jodie had just entered the room. Her pretty and long hair was gathered attractively from the side, above the ears, to make a ponytail. This gracefully rode on top of the rest of her blond hair, which was still free to drape down her neck and shoulders.

She smiled at me briefly, and made a head gesture. I got up and we stood by an open window.

"Hey."

"Hey. Terry told me you guys had a nice chat."

I hoped I wasn't blushing. "Yeah, he's real nice."

"I know, right?"

"Yep." And I didn’t mention that now we both know what a great kisser he is too!

"He said he likes you, cuz you are a cool kid. Believe me, from him, that's saying a lot."

I laughed: "Cool."

Then I suddenly wondered if she could help with what Father Strathmore did.

"Jodie, I messed up. I didn't follow your advice, and confessed something I don’t think is bad."

"It's ok, Simon. That's between us and God anyway. Don’t let it get you down. And, if you want to talk to someone about it, or anything, you know you can come to me. Right?"

I felt like a piece of shit. Her hand landed on my forearm, and I wondered if I've already betrayed our friendship. After all, I did make out with her boyfriend, so what kind of 'friend' does that make me? But then again, I need to talk to Terry to see what he thinks. Because I guess I don’t know where I stand, or where 'we' stand.

"Don’t be sad, Simon." Jodie looked like she was concerned for me.

"I won't. You are such a good friend, a really good friend."

She sighed, like it was obvious. "Yep. I know." Jodie pulled out her lip-gloss and rolled some on while I watched.

"Hey, that smells good. What flavor is that?"

"Peaches 'n' cream. Why?" Her eyebrows went up in grinning delight. "Do you want to try?" She held up the roll-on bottle. "Come on, do. It's Terry's favorite flavor to kiss with!"

Heat, like a pillar of salt, rose through the core of my body; I didn’t need a mirror to tell me I was flushing beet-red.

She laughed and raised the lip-gloss close to my face.

"Right, right." I chuckled and jostled the stick away from me. She doesn't know anything; it was only a joke. "Very funny."

She slapped my arm. "I know," she said cryptically, and began to walk away.

"Wait!" I saw a ring on her finger, on her left ring finger. "Where did you get that?"

She came back to me, raising her hand to be level with her anything but sheepish grin. She sang at me like a boast: "Terry. It’s a promise ring, and he gave it to me last night."

I must have looked as shocked as I felt, for Jodie demanded, "What's wrong with you!"

"Nothing. I guess, I'm just surprised."

"Why? You should know, now that you've met him, that I love him, Simon. I really do. He makes me happy."

I sort of stammered: "No – it's not that, Jodie. I'm happy for you. But, I am surprised, that's all."

She lowered he hand and took her tone down with it. She stepped towards me, and drew out a slow: "Why?"

"Um. Just 'cause. That's all."

Jodie sparkled her pearly-whites at me, and rotated her ring at waist level. "But you didn't tell me, do you like it?"

"It's pretty. So this means you guys are engaged, or something?"

"No, silly." She came in so close to me, with uplifted elbows, that her forearms pressed into my chest and tummy.

She whispered half into my neck: "It means, he and I are now, exclusive."

The breathiness of the last word tickled me mercilessly, and made goose bumps rise on the spot.

Jodie pulled back. There was a cold glint in her eyes, as she said in her regular voice, "Get it? We are thirteen now, and almost full grown. We should take responsibility for our actions."

I barely had time to blink before she turned on her heels and sauntered away. She left me there wondering; left me there imagining that Terry had already broken his word and 'confessed' our petting session in the fort.

I must have drifted back to my seat; I must have idly opened my notebook; and I must have absent mindedly picked up my Bic pen and resumed clicking it, for all I could think of was Terry.

Next thing I knew, I blinked, and realized Gina had twisted full around to stare me down.

She roughly turned my notebook towards her.

"Green ink, huh?" she ridiculed dismissively.

"What?"

"You like to use that pen's green ink, don’t you?"

I finally got what she was talking about. "Yeah. I like the green."

She snickered: "You know what that means, don’t you?"

"Yeah. It means I prefer it over the blue, black and red."

"No, dummy. Well…" She looked like she couldn't bring herself to say it, whatever 'it' was.

"Gina, what are you talking about?"

"Be careful. Don’t you know Gay guys like green? Everybody knows that."

"Huh. I never heard that."

"Duh!" My brother told me all about it. They use it as a signal to other Gay guys. It’s a fairy color; Oscar Wilde only ever wore green carnations in his lapels."

"Really?!"

"Yes, they like green ties too."

"How does your brother know so much about it?"

She sputtered her lips like it was obvious. "He just does. Everybody does."

The school bell rang, and all the stray kids noisily took their seats.

My eye was trained on the classroom door, expecting Sister Jodie to appear.

The door opened, and in strode Father Strathmore. All of my chattering classmates were stunned into shocked silence. Kids sat up straight in their seats, and I could almost hear a universal gulp pass around the room.

He was wearing all black: his usual shirt and trousers augmented by a black blazer. His took off his glasses, and sat on the front center edge of the teacher's desk.

"Good afternoon, children."

We recited in a broken chorus: "Good afternoon, Father."

"Sister Jodie has given me permission to speak to you today on a very special topic."

I scoffed to myself, as if Sister Jodie can tell a priest 'no.'

He went on, slicking back the side of his hair. "It has recently come to my attention that some of you young people are walking a very dangerous path. A selfish and evil-engendering route to perdition."

The priest stood, and his glance around the room found me.

"Perdition, means hell. And I pray to God…" His glasses went back on. "…That each and every one of you is praying for your own, personal, deliverance."

I could begin to feel me slide lower along the length of my wooden seat. If I could have shrunk away to nothing, I would have.

"Now, children – I would like to begin with a prayer. Fold your hands, and bow your heads."

I leaned forward, elbows on desk, fingers interlaced, and was somehow grateful to close my eyes – at least that would be one sense not susceptible to what was about to come. In this personal darkness, I could feel my pulse race as a throbbing on the left side of my neck.

"Dear heavenly Father, we beseech Thee to bestow a kernel of wisdom into the foolish heart of youth. We humbly ask You to open ears so that young minds can be affected with the might of Your will. I pray that the sense of obligation Your divine command places in the hearts of your stalwart priests, nuns and deacons sparks a fire of duty in my young and vulnerable charges. In Christ's name, we pray. Amen."

My classmates sputtered a prolonged mixture of 'amen' and uncertainty.

Our priest's tone took on an air of informed authority – one not to be questioned. He leaned on the desk with his backside.

"You children are old enough now to be told the unflinching truth. Selfishness leads to perdition. Now, I've already said perdition equals hell, but the concept goes beyond that. The term implies filth, degradation – in other words – a rotting rankness that seethes and festers from the inside."

He paused for effect. A quick glance around me showed faces rapt with wonder and worry.

Father Strathmore stood in silence. So too, he placed his hands together behind him at the small of his back, and ambled over to the aisle of desks nearest the windows.

As he began to stride amongst the students of the 7^th grade, his voice grew louder.

"We can rot from our own thoughts, children. We can obliquely scan the side of our concerns and ignore our worries until the point where we are irredeemable. Our conscience is a thing that needs constant nurturing so that it may interfere with the natural callousness we are inclined to regard as our thinking patterns. Logic is the enemy."

He stopped at Maggie's desk. Her big brown eyes were upturned to him in open innocence. "Do you, young lady, know what I mean?" Without warning his fist landed on her desk lid. She jumped and shook her head pertly.

Our parish priest again paused for effect. He refolded the back of one hand into the palm of the other, and continued pacing.

All eyes followed him, and our heads and torsos tracked his body movements.

He walked along the line of lockers at the back of the room, ignoring the several other aisles that would lead him back to the head of the class.

"So, what among all of God's gifts, children, can lead us away from a festering belief that what we decide to do is innocent?"

He entered my aisle.

"What, children, can be the tool we use to ratchet ourselves out of the mire?"

My heart was racing.

He stopped at my desk. He took off his black-framed eyeglasses, and leered at me unmasked.

"Simon, what can save you?"

I shrugged; I blinked.

"The fear of God, and it alone."

I don’t know, but it's not a lie to say I felt like crying.

"All of you children can only activate your inner conscience by conjuring up a constant worry that God is displeased with your actions, your deeds consummated, and nay…" He leaned down with his hands on my desk for support, and I had to turn away. "…Even the very dirty thoughts in your unclean head."

He paused again, straightened up, and moved on. Then he re-placed his glasses to shield his eyes from us.

At the front of the classroom, he stood with tightly locked hands on his hips. But in my mind's eye it seemed everyone in the room was looking at me. Father Strathmore had appeared to single me out, and although my classmates may have struggled to follow the content of our priest's 'lesson,' the motivations sunk into them clearly enough: this lecture was directed at me. The whole thing was torturously engineered to get at me, and do so in public.

I supposed that instead of blushing at their guarded glances at me, I was pale. It felt like all my blood had settled in my gut.

Was this the 'obligation of secrecy' that my Confessor had used as a warning to me?

The blood gathering in the core of my being slowly became hot with anger.

This is the man I trusted?

His voice boomed: "The health of fear is a healthy fear of God, and so too of His hellfire. It is our only link to a personal salvation."

I had to regain my composure. I poked Gina's shoulder and immediately whispered, "What about 'good works?'"

She made a sound, a soft sound of gasping recognition.

Father Strathmore honed in on us like a sonar ping.

"What are you saying?"

I didn't except it, but Gina spoke up bravely. "What about good works, sir? We are taught that prayer, partaking in the sacraments, and performing good works, paves the road to salvation."

He acted angry. "I am not dismissing good works, girl – Gina – but I am saying we also need access to the voice of conscience that will remind us of God's displeasure. His distaste for the choices we willfully make against Him."

Gina straightened up on her desk chair, saying, "We can't get to heaven on fear alone. That's passive. We must do something, and that something must improve the lot of our fellow man. That's what Sister Jodie teaches us, anyway."

Wow. Gina suddenly became my hero. Her simple approach and restating of the obvious was like all the windows of the classroom had suddenly been ripped open. I could breathe again.

Father Strathmore gathered his thoughts together through a drawn-out sigh. His head lifted ceilingwards, and prismatic light shaded his eyes from behind his glasses.

"Children. Being in the darkness is like being in the world without the fear of God." He scanned the room, his gaze slowly drifting over all the upturned eyes to rest squarely on mine.

He spoke as if directly to me, and did so in a near pleading and very personal tone. "We need to fear Him to stay good. I know, good in both thoughts and actions. Without it, it's like trying to see in the dark."

For some reason – maybe because she thought the priest was looking at her, or because she was simply mad at the analogy – Gina spoke up again.

"Mr. Spencer taught us the human eye can see quite well in low light."

"I'm speaking of seeing God's light, Gina!"

"So am I, sir."

"Well, your homeroom teacher is not wrong, but no one can see anything with no light, neither spiritually or physically."

Gina exhaled a skeptical breath of air.

Father Strathmore almost came to the point of laughing. "I am not used to being doubted, young lady."

A new and malicious glint crept across his facial features. "Would you be willing to try an experiment? I think I can prove my theological point quite well with a flesh-and-blood demonstration."

"What do you want me to do?" Gina was game.

Father Strathmore went around and began rifling through the desk drawers. "Come up here," he told Gina.

By the time she rose, adjusted her blouse and slacks, and went up there, Father Strathmore had found a roll of masking tape. He held it up like a trophy above his silver hair.

He told her in a booming voice: "Being in darkness is like being in the world without the fear of God."

He walked over to the closet by the classroom door. He opened it, and sneered at Gina. "You believe you can manage to see in low light, and that is like having faith in your own spiritual innocence, despite all warnings. So, prove that you can see."

"Get in the closet..?"

"Yes. Get in and tell us what you see."

Gina half glanced around the room. If she expected to read some signs of 'Don’t do it,' she found none.

Gina swallowed hard and quietly made her way to the edge of the closet door.

One last 'Are you sure' glance at her priest confirmed that he wanted her to go in there.

She did, and I could make out there was barely enough room for her shoulders to maneuver between the coats and jackets. She pushed them to the sides like bookends.

Father Strathmore slowly closed the door on her.

After a moment, he asked her, by way of addressing the class, "What can you see?"

A faint voice replied, "I can see the door, and I can see fabric when I turn my head."

The Father loosened the cut end of the masking tape. He sealed the top gap by raising his arms and showing us his flared-up jacket tails. Then he quickly taped down the side with the hinges, and then the door handle's side.

As he did so, odd sounds began to issue from the closet.

"Father..?"

"Yes."

"I…I…can't…"

"You can't see, can you?"

"Can you…"

"See, girl!" He gloated to us. "I told you so."

She began to strike the door. The handle jiggled vehemently.

"Can you see God's light, young lady!"

Gina panicked and started wailing, "Please, oh God, let me out!" The pounding from the inside became double-fisted.

While the frightened cries grew louder and desperate, Father Strathmore folded his arms and stared at me. A quick glance around the room confirmed the utter shock and helplessness I felt, as it was mirrored in all my classmates' faces.

"I'm scared," she screamed.

I stood up. "Let her out!"

He made no motion to do so.

The keens from Gina in the closet increased in short-breathed bursts.

"For God's sake!"

I ran up to the door.

I yanked on the handle, and the door only moved a fraction of an inch. Gina's desperate pounds made the entire door, frame and wall vibrate under my grip.

I braced my right foot against the frame nearest the doorknob and pulled with all my might. The tape began to give away with a sticky ripping sound. It then unzipped with a jolt. The last to release was the seal along the top edge, but once it did, Gina pushed from the inside too, and together we popped the door open.

Gina was in tears. She immediately ran into my arms, and her limbs were in a fitful tremble.

I hugged her, felt her tears burn hot on my neck. "Shush, now. It’s oookayyy." I soothed her with a hand on her head, and felt like crying too.

Slowly, we rotated our step so I could see Father Strathmore's unflinching lack of compassion.

There was no misunderstanding that he spoke directly to me, and to me alone. "Satisfied?"

"Why did you do it?" I heard the crossness in my voice.

"To teach a lesson. That's why. To show you what it's like to be in the world without God's light."