A Common Pornography: A Memoir

Confession

Dad went to confession every Saturday. He always asked me if I needed to go too. Sometimes I’d say yes, just so he didn’t think I was blowing it off completely.

When I did go with him I would confess things in a very general way—I said a bad word, I had dirty thoughts, I took a dollar from my mom’s purse. If I wanted to be more revealing I could have mentioned my nights of amateur graffiti, looking in my cousin’s underwear drawer, and stealing from the Salvation Army store.

The confessionals had two spaces for confessors, one on each side of where the priest sat. They were dimly lit on the inside and when the priest was ready to hear your confession he would slide a little door open and make the sign of the cross. There was a thin piece of fabric in that small window separating us, but I always feared that he would figure out it was me. When he spoke through the fabric, in his best soothing tone, I could see some of the features on his long face and that fabric pulsing with his breath. Sometimes I would try to hide in the darkness or change my voice a little or pretend that I was from another town. I didn’t want him to look at me during Mass the next day and think to himself, There’s that little masturbator.

My penance was usually three Hail Marys and a couple of Our Fathers. I didn’t quite understand why there had to be so much repetition. I pictured God watching over and listening in on all the penances from all over the world. Maybe it was like counting sheep to Him, a comforting lull.

I couldn’t imagine what Dad had to confess every week, but he was in the confessional for a good fifteen minutes each visit. Maybe he was being forgiven for all the terrible things I learned about him later, but at the time I imagined that he just needed someone to talk to and instead of his sins, maybe he was boring the priest with stories about his job. I was also his victim in this regard. Sometimes when we were out driving somewhere, he’d start telling me about how he worked on this road and who he worked on it with and how much it cost the state. Details that had no chance of sticking to my brain.

Sitting in the pews, penance done, I watched the short line of confessors getting smaller. The monotonous whispers of the prayers around me turned to sheep and flew to the heavens to be counted and slept on.