by Chris Rush
One night, she spit her Wrigley’s into a Kleenex and said she needed a cigarette.
“A what?” It was inconceivable to me that Donna would smoke. I watched in awe as she opened the window and lit a Tareyton.
“Are you still a cheerleader?”
“What?” she said. “Cheerleaders can’t smoke?” She exhaled, said Fuck it, and told me the rest.
“Cheerleaders do lots of things. Did you know I have sex? I smoke pot and have sex. With Derrick.”
I felt my whole body tingle and go red; I looked toward the locked door and then back at her. How was it possible that she could even say things like this out loud? Did she think I was already a priest? Was this a confession?
“So, who is Derrick?”
Donna explained that Derrick was her twenty-two-year-old boyfriend.
I had some understanding of “teen pregnancy.” At sixteen, my older brother Chuck had been forced to marry his hillbilly girlfriend. Only a few years later, my sister Kathy had dropped out of high school, pregnant by a sailor. I asked Donna if she was being careful.
“Chris, I’m on the pill.”
“Oh, okay.” Not exactly sure what the pill did, I changed the subject. “I can’t believe you smoke pot.”
“Everybody does.” She dragged thoughtfully on her Tareyton. “Pot makes everything more intense.”
I crossed my legs, not letting on how shocked I was. “Are you a hippie then?”
She shook her head: Uh-huh. “Just don’t tell Mom.”
I couldn’t believe it. Just as things were getting interesting at home, Mom and Dad were planning to lock me up in a priest prison.
I was amazed by Donna’s ability to lead a double life. I wanted to have a secret life, too. Perhaps I already had one, somewhere inside me, but couldn’t yet see its shape. I spent hours at my desk drawing pictures and making art—maybe that was it. To me, drawing was as calming as prayer.
Within a week of Donna’s confession, I became her all-purpose alibi—ready to lie for her at any moment. She didn’t want to upset my parents, who expected much from their not-yet-pregnant daughter.
“Mom, Chris and I are going shopping for school clothes,” Donna would say—and then we’d disappear for hours to her boyfriend’s bungalow on the beach.
Boyfriend Derrick was a high-strung college kid who’d failed out and was about to be drafted. Donna admired his ideals. He was a pacifist, ranting against the Vietnam War. He was also very handsome, with pale green eyes. He called me by my full name, Christopher; this made me feel like a grown-up.
Derrick gave me a notepad to draw in while he fucked my sister in the bedroom. The walls were thin. Even with the stereo on, I heard far too much. I hated it when they made animal sounds. When they came out, Donna would be sheepish, her makeup a raspberry mess, as she watched Derrick roll a joint. The smell of pot was wonderful, like a deep forest, but I didn’t like it when Derrick started laughing for no reason. I was afraid he was laughing at me.
* * *
ONE SUNNY AFTERNOON, I rode my bike to Woolworth’s, meandering home with pockets full of candy. Gliding toward the back door, I saw cars in our driveway I’d never seen before, and strange people wandering about. Two girls were picking Mom’s flowers! I jumped off my bike, speechless, struck dumb by the gob of Dubble Bubble wedged in my mouth.
I spit out the gum and ran inside. A blond guy sat in my dad’s recliner, a joint dangling from his dainty fingers. Calm as a caterpillar, he exhaled a blue cloud, asking, Who are you?
I ran into the kitchen.
My parents were 757 miles away, golfing in Bermuda. My brothers had been shipped off to relatives, but my sister and I were allowed to stay home, by virtue of our maturity. I found Donna at the fridge, talking to a cowboy with red sideburns and a turquoise belt buckle—both of them swigging bottles of my dad’s special beer.
When Donna saw me, she practically did a cheer. “We’re having a party! Chris, this is Buffalo. He’s from Taos.”
“Howdy,” he said, crushing my hand.
The house was overrun: girls in gauze, boys in boots, people splashing in the pool—naked! I was freaking out. I ran down to the basement, where it was safe. Looking at Mary in her golden gown, I suddenly knew what to do.
I went to the closet and opened the box where I’d hidden my shame. After months in my room, it smelled a bit like incense—like a holy garment. I unfurled the pink cape and put it on, and slowly walked upstairs, feeling a bit like Joan of Arc headed to the stake.
Or was I a butterfly, emerging in my true colors?
When I entered the kitchen everyone stopped talking. I saw the cowboy put down his beer and knew I’d made a terrible mistake.
But then there was something new: the sound of clapping. Everyone cheered, “Right on!” The room felt like it was a thousand degrees and I had the sense of something beginning to break. It was a smile, a big grin across my face. People were still clapping. Donna, too. Something was clearly expected of me.
What would my mother do?
Twirl. I executed a double twirl to better show off my splendid Pucci.
I was blushing but didn’t care. Smiling, everyone went back to their drinks, their smokes. A boy in a pink cape—a minor diversion, a laugh.
When I walked into the den, the blond guy waved me over.
“Donna says you’re her brother. Join me. I’m Valentine.”
I took a space on the floor in front of him. I wrapped my cape around me for safety, my head floating above the mound of pink satin. I was slightly afraid of this Valentine.
My sister had already told me all about him. A Russian boy from the city, sleeping with her best friend Jo. Though Jo was blonde and pretty, Valentine was something way past pretty. His features fell exactly between male and female, his long hair a perfect shade of platinum. As if to signal gender, a pale mustache floated on his lip.
Valentine was too beautiful somehow; it caused a kind of pain in my chest.
He was also a drug dealer, wanted by the police. And implausibly, he was sitting in my father’s easy chair, my mother’s Hummels like a blond army behind him.
I felt dizzy.
Wearing black silk pajamas, Valentine casually crossed his legs as my sister brought him a cold bottle of Coke. He took a long swig and handed it back. From behind his ear he pulled out what I knew was another joint. He lit it and passed it—to Donna.
“So, your brother is cool with this?”
Donna smiled, as smoke drifted from her mouth. “Oh yeah.”
Strolling back to the kitchen, she left me with Valentine. I thought I should say something. Trying to sound scientific, I asked him what his intentions were, in regard to drugs.
He held up his hand. The gesture was stern. “Please don’t call them drugs. Call them what they are—sacraments. Given to us by the Creator for our spiritual evolution.”
With his doll eyes flashing, he added in a whisper: “I’m looking for God, not a hand job.”
What’s a hand job?
“So, brother, you need some sacrament?”
Donna yelled from the kitchen, “Valentine! He’s only eleven.”
“But I have an abnormally high IQ,” I said. “I’m not bragging. It’s actually a problem.”
Valentine said, “There are no problems, man. Only questions.”
3.
Johnnies
SUMMER ENDED, LIKE A SHADOW across the sun.
Mom and I left for St. John’s. As usual, she was speeding, passing every car on the highway.
“Mom, I’m worried. I won’t know anyone.”
“You’ll be fine. Soon you’ll be Mr. Popularity.”
The scene at the castle was chaos: cars everywhere, boys running about, mothers weeping, fathers dragging trunks like coffins up the castle steps.
Mother, in a red dress and pearls, pushed to the front. “Where do we go, Father?”
“Is that your boy, ma’am?”
“Yes, it is.”
&n
bsp; “Wrong building, I’m afraid.” He pointed back down the hill.
No castle for me. Younger boys were sheltered in an old farmhouse, just a stone’s throw from the sewage treatment facilities. A fat Father Jerry greeted us there, offering to help me with my luggage. The building was run-down; the whole structure leaned to the left like it was trying to dodge a bullet. My room was grim—metal bunk beds on brown linoleum, dishrag curtains.
Mom helped me unpack and then administered a cautious kiss. “Goodbye, darling.” We both knew not to cry.
“You don’t have to leave yet,” I said. “I think there’s like a dinner or something.”
“I can’t. I have to meet your father in the city.”
Without a second glance, she disappeared.
Father Jerry—his hands too tiny for his enormous body—introduced me to my new roommates, who’d just walked in and were, for some reason, in their underwear.
“Anthony, Stewart, I want you to meet Christopher.”
Father Jerry left me there, in my gold ascot and blue blazer, to sort out the arrangements. When I asked which bunk was mine, Tony (the shorter one, with chest hair) said, “Will you look at his goddamn outfit?”
Stew (blond and Polish) had skinny arms with prominent lumps of bicep; they looked like snakes that had just swallowed gerbils. He put one of his deadly arms around me and asked if I gave good head.
Thinking it was drug slang, I said, “No, but I’d like to.”
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING, I peed in a trough with six other boys, as if group urination were the latest thing. And waiting my turn at the sinks, I noted that some boys brushed their teeth in the nude, and with great vigor. There was spitting and gargling, farting on command. Having nothing to contribute, I combed my hair, tied my tie, and found my way to breakfast.
The cafeteria, in a basement below the church, echoed with the sounds of several hundred very rowdy boys. As I waited in line with my plastic tray, I began to worry. Nearly everyone was bigger and older than me. At the seventh graders’ table, even my loudmouth roommates seemed uneasy.
We were the runts—and we were surrounded.
I’d never seen so many jocks. St. John’s School, carved from a huge private estate in the 1930s, was a fervently Catholic institution, with a famous athletic program. Golden trophies lined the halls. The students, known as Johnnies, were, for the most part, clean-cut and wide-shouldered. I understood now why Father Karl had asked me about sports during my interview.
Watching grown-up boys wolf down their food, I was both frightened and excited. Was it really possible I was going to spend the next six years here—until I was eighteen?
I felt my own arms: there were no gerbils.
On second glance around the room, I was relieved to spot a few other skinny boys, as well as a few fat ones, off in the shadows. Maybe their plan was similar to mine: study, survive, graduate. But first I had to get through seventh grade.
* * *
EACH DAY at St. John’s was dependably the same, and slowly I began to adjust. With the other thirty boys of Low House, I woke at seven to a clanging bell, frantically got dressed, and made my bed. Dress code was nonnegotiable: short combed hair, dress shoes, school blazer, white shirt, and dark tie. Pastels of any sort were highly illegal. When I’d done my mad rush of clothes shopping with Mom, I had no idea of how regimented everything would be.
Classes were much harder than at St. Ignatius. I barely had time to sketch (or to feel homesick). I sang at mass, cheered at football games, and slogged through hours of homework in study hall. The schedule was relentless. When the last bell announced lights-out, I collapsed.
From dawn to dark, the monks were always watching, their silhouettes embedded in each and every scene. All wore black woolen cassocks, the fabric coarse and somber. Some monks were ancient, having spent their whole lives on the mountain. Others were fresh from college. Though many were not ordained as priests (Brothers rather than Fathers), all the monks of St. John’s were teachers by trade.
Above everything stood the church, a concrete fortress, harsh and modern. Beyond that, the monastery skulked closer to the ground, windowless, revealing nothing to the outside world. My teachers ate and slept up there, traversed the secret tunnels connecting the church and the castle.
Johnnies were forbidden to even visit the monastery.
I wondered what the monks did at night. Did they fry pork chops, smoke cigars, watch Bonanza in their underwear? I’d heard that they’d all taken a vow of poverty. That sounded dreadful.
Most of them, though, were quite pleasant. I think they liked their lives. My religion teacher, Father Peter, was a loquacious elderly monk with a sizable mole on the tip of his nose. Some of the nastier boys called him Mickey Mouse.
You ask too many goddamn questions, Dad had told me—but in Father Peter’s class my questions were encouraged.
“Father, if God knows everything, then there’s no free will. If He knows what I’m going to say, then I’m just a robot.”
Father Peter smiled. “Who knows, maybe we amuse God with all our jabbering? You amuse me, Mr. Rush. And you seem to have no shortage of free will.”
Within a short time, I was at the top of my class.
I wished I could tell Mom in person. Even though home was several hours away, I assumed I’d be going back most weekends. But on the phone, Mom suggested I stay for the first month or two, to get adjusted.
I wasn’t the only boy stranded. There were lots of kids who didn’t go home on Fridays. A few parents showed up to visit on Sundays, but they never stayed long.
I could hear kids crying from inside the phone booth on the second floor. Sometimes, even a jock would emerge from the box, sniffling and rubbing his eyes. I refused to do that. Whenever I called home, my routine was consistent: I bragged and chattered, even as my heart was sinking. I was my mother’s son—and I refused to humiliate myself.
If I spoke with Donna, she always said, “You’re lucky to escape.”
I tried to feel lucky, tried to imagine I was a boy in a fairy tale. Surrounded by a thousand acres of forest and ravine, St. John’s was miles from the nearest town.
The woods were a tangle, a dark dream.
* * *
AT NIGHT, I usually slipped into bed early, to avoid the kids crashing about in the hallway. In the minutes before lights-out, all the boys went a little wild.
Luckily, there was supervision. Father Jerry had his quarters at Low House—he was our own personal priest. I thought of him as an old man, but he was probably only in his forties. He had a perfectly round face and slicked-back hair, too black, like something painted on a mannequin. His cologne smelled like whiskey and roses, filling the air as he made his rounds. While my roommates relished their last moments of freedom, Father Jerry would always visit me—sit on the edge of my bed. He was kind, always asking me how I was.
Once it had been my mother who had bid me good night. Often there was a dinner party or bridge game waiting—and she’d only have a moment. But that moment was all mine, her kiss a ray of light falling, landing on my lips.
Now it was Father Jerry who offered me kindness. There was so little tenderness at St. John’s that I looked forward to his visits—the way he smiled at me and called me sleepyhead.
“Good night, baby,” he would whisper in my ear, while with one efficient gesture he’d slip his hand under the covers to pet my skinny legs and caress my balls. Then, with a sigh, he’d stand and leave for another room, another boy.
As the year went on, Father Jerry grew bolder. His hands began to stray. He would find my anus and massage it with his finger. Sometimes, he’d lean in to kiss me—and I’d smell the booze. Then, before anyone could notice a thing, he’d say good night, baby and be off. The bell would ring, the lights would shut, and I’d fall asleep, confused.
The next day, in a noisy classroom, I’d blush, thinking: He’ll visit again tonight.
* * *
THE FIRST MONTHS
: a blur of boys, trees, darkness. I can still smell the roses in whiskey, wet stone, rain on wool coats. The sweet smell of candles and frankincense.
Often, I sat in church, in the flickering half-light, listening to the sound of monks walking past. It was always safe there, and serene.
Sometimes I thought, Maybe I’ll give myself to God. Did that mean giving myself to Father Jerry? At twelve, I could not do the math of love and sacrifice—but God understood everything. I asked Him to help me.
I thought of my real father, how he went to confession, day after day.
I prayed and I studied—and in my notebooks I began to draw the dark trees of St. John’s, witchy and half-human, faces in the bark like the apple-throwing trees from The Wizard of Oz. I can still see those drawings, can still walk through that living forest.
* * *
IN THE CHURCH, sometimes I saw an older boy—a fat kid lighting candles and muttering prayers. One Saturday morning, I watched him creep in by the side door. I went and knelt down beside him. He lit a candle and turned to me. “I’m praying my nana dies and goes to hell. Then I’ll inherit her money and her house. Why are you here so early?”
I opened my mouth but nothing came out.
He asked me, “What are you praying for?”
I didn’t have a good answer. I told him I wanted to become a priest.
“Why would you want to do that?” He asked me to give him one example of God actually helping anyone. “You can’t depend on Him,” the boy said, with shocking conviction.
“Then why are you praying to Him?” I asked.
“I’m not. I’m praying to Lucifer, my prince.”
* * *
PAULY PINUCCI—LUCIFERIAN—lived upstairs at Low House. He was fifteen and on the wrong side of average: too short, too chubby, too big a nose. He wasn’t much of a Johnny—but his voice was deep, his hands long and lovely.