Ham On Rye

17

Of all the guys left in the neighborhood, Frank was the nicest. We got to be friends, we got to going around together, we didn't need the other guys much. They had more or less kicked Frank out of the group, anyway, so he became friends with me. He wasn't like David, who had walked home from school with me. Frank had a lot more going for him than David had. I even joined the Catholic church because Frank went there. My parents liked me going to church. The Sunday masses were very boring. And we had to go to Catechism classes. We had to study the Catechism book. It was just boring questions and answers.

One afternoon we were sitting on my front porch and I was reading the Catechism out loud to Frank. I read the line, "God has bodily eyes and sees all things."

"Bodily eyes?" Frank asked.

"Yes."

"You mean like this?" he asked.

He clenched his hands into fists and placed them over his eyes.

"He has milk bottles for eyes," Frank said, pushing his fists against his eyes and turning toward me. Then he began laughing. I began laughing too. We laughed a long time. Then Frank stopped.

"You think He heard us?"

"I guess so. If He can see everything He can probably hear everything too."

"I'm scared," said Frank. "He might kill us. Do you think He'll kill us?"

"I don't know."

"We better sit here and wait. Don't move. Sit still."

We sat on the steps and waited. We waited a long time.

"Maybe He isn't going to do it now," I said.

"He's going to take His time," said Frank. We waited another hour, then we walked down to Frank's place. He was building a model airplane and I wanted to take a look at it…

The afternoon came when we decided to go to our first confession. We walked to the church. We knew one of the priests, the main man. We had met him in an ice cream parlor and he had spoken to us. We had even gone to his house once. He lived in a place next to the church with an old woman. We stayed quite a while and asked all sorts of questions about God. Like, how tall was He? And did He just sit in a chair all day? And did He go to the bathroom like everybody else? The priest never did answer our questions directly but still he seemed like a nice guy, he had a nice smile.

We walked to the church thinking about confession, thinking about what it would be like. As we got near the church a stray dog began walking along with us. He looked very thin and hungry. We stopped and petted him, scratched his back.

"It's too bad dogs can't go to heaven," said Frank.

"Why can't they?"

"You gotta be baptized to go to heaven."

"We ought to baptize him."

"Think we should?"

"He deserves a chance to go to heaven."

I picked him up and we walked into the church. We took him to the bowl of holy water and I held him there as Frank sprinkled the water on his forehead.

"I hereby baptize you," said Frank.

We took him outside and put him back on the sidewalk again.

"He even looks different," I said.

The dog lost interest and walked off down the sidewalk. We went back into the church, stopping first at the holy water, dipping our fingers into it and making the sign of the cross. We both kneeled at a pew near the confessional booth and waited. A fat woman came out from behind the curtain. She had body odor. I could smell her strong odor as she walked past. Her smell was mixed with the smell of the church, which smelled like piss. Every Sunday people came to mass and smelled that piss-smell and nobody said anything. I was going to tell the priest about it but I couldn't. Maybe it was the candles.

"I'm going in," said Frank.

Then he got up, walked behind the curtain and was gone. He was in there a long time. When he came out he was grinning.

"It was great, just great! You go in there now!"

I got up, pulled the curtain back and walked in. It was dark. I kneeled down. All I could see in front of me was a screen. Frank said God was back in there. I kneeled and tried to think of something bad that I had done, but I couldn't think of anything. I just knelt there and tried and tried to think of something but I couldn't. I didn't know what to do.

"Go ahead," said a voice. "Say something!"

The voice sounded angry. I didn't think there would be any voice. I thought God had plenty of time. I was frightened. I decided to lie.

"All right," I said. "I… kicked my father. I… cursed my mother… I stole money from my mother's purse. I spent it on candy bars. I let the air out of Chuck's football. I looked up a little girl's dress. I kicked my mother. I ate some of my snot. That's about all. Except today I baptized a dog."

" You baptized a dog?"

I was finished. A Mortal Sin. No use going on. I got up to leave. I didn't know if the voice recommended my saying some Hail Marys or if the voice didn't say anything at all. I pulled the curtain back and there was Frank waiting. We walked out of the church and were back on the street.

"I feel cleansed," said Frank, "don't you?"

"No."

I never went to confession again. It was worse than ten o'clock mass.