by J. J. Martin
“My word!” Brian went into a pantomime act, appealing to us in confusion at something he pretended was shocking. “I don’t understand what she’s getting at.”
Someone whispered to him and he clutched his neck like a society lady grabbing at her pearls. The class exploded in laughter.
“That’s enough!” Mrs. Cattleford said, her face red as her dyed hair.
While we laughed, Brian made exaggerated shrugs and expressed mock horror at the whispering he pretended to be too delicate to understand.
“Stop it!” she said. “Everyone quiet right now!”
Every sentence Mrs. Cattleford uttered was in the same tone. The words she used were different, but what she said — repeatedly — was “Stop talking. Stop asking. Stop.”
Our teacher may have dressed like a backup singer for Linda Ronstadt — she wore flared pants, macramé jewellery, and an enormous blouse patterned splotchy-blotchy in orange, black, and red, but like the rest of the teachers, Mrs. Cattleford was pretty straight. She was not cool, though she believed otherwise.
This lesson was a great example of her limits.
She tried to be cool, though, tried to be fun and friendly — most of the time, anyway. One morning her mood was sunny. “You children don’t realize how good you’ve got it,” she said, patrolling between the desks and sipping coffee from her mug while we worked quietly on a heads-down exercise. “School is like holiday camp now. And believe me, teachers are different than they were. We’re fun! Why, back when I went to school it was like being in the army. An army run by nuns. But ever since the sixties, everything is free! Your generation doesn’t appreciate what we did for you. Nowadays, you’re free to do what you want.”
“Recess all day!” shouted Meena Thomas, one of the girls.
“Now, now,” said Mrs. Cattleford, taken aback as the class became riled up. “Raise your hand if you wish to speak.”
It was too late. Everyone spoke at once.
“Brian, where are you going?” she asked. Brian Birk had suddenly risen from his chair and was sauntering toward the door.
“Well, I’m going outside.”
Mrs. Cattleford gritted her teeth. “Excuse me, but sit down this moment.”
“No, thanks. I’m doing what I want.”
Laughter nearly drowned her out.
She waddled over to him, hunched like a vulture. By his ear, she dragged him back to his seat. I could see his eyes water from the strain of her grip or humiliation.
“Why would you do this to me?” Mrs. Cattleford said, genuinely. “I’m your friend.”
Our school was new in the 1960s. There were no real classrooms. We had “learning forms” arrayed in a daisy wheel around a sunken amphitheatre holding a library. A single, large skylight illuminated the atrium. Each learning form was lit by a single thin window, which was blocked from having a view of the schoolyard by brick fins that extended outward. Students were meant to focus on their lessons, and not to be hypnotized by sunlight. Teachers were meant to collaborate and co-teach across the learning forms.
Of course, it did not work, and the teachers complained to us every day about how much they hated the architects of our school and hated the layout and just wanted a normal classroom. It was how I even learned that architecture was a job.
All the teachers used bulletin boards, shelving, and mobile blackboards to barricade themselves into a makeshift classroom. The teachers complained about noise and rubbed their temples. Instead of a door, you would enter our class by moving aside a wheeled divider.
If a class got rowdy, it was infectious because the other forms could hear it and everyone would go bananas. So now, as Mrs. Cattleford’s class openly rebelled against her, we could hear other kids in the school beginning to rile.
“Everyone stop at once! The noise!”
One of the dividers rattled and Mr. Plante, the teacher next door, leaned into our form like a monster emerging from a wall. He was a towering blond man with Farrah Fawcett hair and a big moustache. His satin cowboy shirt was open to his chest and a gold cross shone through his chest hair.
“Mrs. Cattleford,” he said, in a threatening growl. “Is everything all right here?”
The entire class fell silent, in awe of Mr. Plante looming into our space.
“Yes, of course, Mr. Plante,” said our teacher quietly. I suddenly pitied her. “Everything is under control.”
He surveyed us at our desks. “Listen to Mrs. Cattleford. If I come back …” He raised a finger, and then curled it into his fist. Then he hammered it against the divider, making everyone jump, including Mrs. Cattleford.
He left and we did not dare breathe. Mrs. Cattleford stood near the front blackboard with her fingers on her chest.
“And that,” she said in a whisper, her eyes moist, “is why we need to have rules. And to follow the rules. And you need to follow the rules.”
Her throat pulsed and she assigned us all to stay in that recess and write lines: I must not disrupt the class.
We never did receive the sex and childbirth lesson Brian Birk was promised. The explanation stayed in that same, shame-filled adult darkness I sensed throughout our little society in Blackburn. Keeping kids innocent of the truth was part of the “normal” way of things. Like with many things, adults assumed someone else would take care of it, somehow. Just, for God’s sake, don’t talk about it with me.
7
Scouts I loved. School I hated. And then there was church.
On Saturday afternoon, we went as a family to church for confession from four until five. I wished we’d stay for Saturday evening Mass and just get it all over with, but our family were Sunday morning Mass–goers. The Saturday-goers were the laziest of Catholics, the guiltiest. The ones who slept in on Sundays and didn’t care if you knew, like our neighbours across the street, the Samskys.
Mr. Samsky used to time his Sunday-morning visit to the front porch so he could wave at us in his dressing gown as we left for Mass and he shuffled back inside with a mug of coffee and the Ottawa Journal tucked in his armpit.
Protestants on our street were invisible on Sunday mornings. I assumed they were at church, but Blackburn Hamlet had no other chapels except for the French and English Catholic ones. They would have to go elsewhere in the township, I figured.
“They don’t go to church,” my father corrected me, speaking from the front seat. School was now over. Scouts was over. But our church routine just carried on. Endless.
“Seriously?”
“What a silly question! They’re barking up the wrong tree, those ninnies,” my mother said, cutting me off. I stopped talking. For good measure, she added a last word. “Protestants. Ha! Are you so conceited that you believe you know better than anyone? Lord, love a duck.”
My father sighed and called my name. Blood left my head and went to my feet at the tone of his voice.
“I noticed my saw is missing from my workshop,” he said. My father kept a small workshop in the basement with a pegboard, outlining all his tools. It was easy to see when something went missing, such as the saw Jamie and I used earlier that day in the woods.
“Which of you boys took it?”
“Me,” I said immediately, worried Jamie might take the heat. “I did.”
He grunted. “And so, you are a thief. A thief obsessed with sharp tools.”
“It’s hard to cut wood without a saw.”
Thank God he was unaware of my Scout knife, which I had won during last year’s bottle drive.
“When you do an examination of conscience, remember you stole from your own father. Confess it.”
“I will,” I said cheerfully.
Our parish was raising money for its own church building. In the meantime, we held Masses at Église Saint-Claude, the local French church.
People of the two parishes did not intermingle except during the transit between alternating Masses. On Saturday afternoons, both priests heard confessions at the same time. French in the left confessional, English in the right.
My father walked ahead of us, while Mum held our wrists. I broke free and caught up with Dad.
“Dad,” I said. “I’m sorry I took it. Without asking. But we’re building a tree fort. Can I please borrow your saw?”
“Sounds reckless.”
“Nothing too big. Just a few nails and ropes. Some lumber from a palette we found.”
“No.” He stared straight ahead.
“But why? We’re careful.”
“You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I’ve got my carpentry badge. I’ve helped you — watched you — a million times.”
“No.”
“But why?”
“Because I’m your father, that’s why.”
We stopped at the entrance of the church. He lowered his eyebrows at me. “Listen up. We’re going in for confession. After the week I’ve had at work, it’s time for me to get clean. You should take this seriously for yourself.”
He dipped his right hand into the stoup and crossed himself so violently drops of holy water splashed my cheek.
We took to the right side of the church and knelt. Dad’s kneel was heavy, as though his knees gave way and collapsed.
My father never talked about work, but it clearly ruined his happiness. I knew little about what he did, but I assumed he was very important. Whenever I asked him a simple question, like “How was work?” he would stare into the distance and — if he answered at all — say something like “Everyone’s got their place” or “There is nothing I can do, it is my cross to bear.”
I assumed he was something cool and frightening like a secret agent, because he worked at Indian Affairs, which was exotic and mysterious and — judging by his mood — unpleasant.
My father was a proud man, and he usually stood straight and tall, but I could see that when we went to church, his private sins, whatever they were, bore down on him like a load of logs and humbled him into a slouch.
His stern and righteous face rose up from his slumped neck to take the full brunt of whatever guilt Jesus reminded him of while he examined his conscience. All four of us knelt in the pew, as a family. Though I simply daydreamed about hockey or building the tree fort, I imagined God berated my father. Yelled, even, straight into his mind, silent to the rest of us but a cacophony inside Dad’s head.
As we moved forward in the confessional line, he looked steadily smaller, until the light turned green and he went in to tell Father Sweet his deepest, darkest shame. My proud father, guilty, ashamed, and small, shuffling to hear from Father Sweet his penance or absolution.
To me and Jamie, Dad was our judge, our commander. The final authority.
Father Sweet was the only man with the power to correct him, and to make him stand straight again.
One Sunday after Mass, Danny Lemieux and I were clearing the altar. While snuffing out the candles, Danny showed me an old altar server trick. He told me to dip my fingertips in the hot beeswax so that it would make a shell. It stung at first, but cooled into soft, honey-scented enamel, like white chocolate.
By accident, I knocked over the big liturgical candle, and it shattered into blocky shards on the ground. Mrs. Gain — the mean, cylindrical volunteer who coordinated the Eucharistic ministers of the parish — unexpectedly appeared.
She sank her talons into us immediately. Although Danny kept silent, my lies shot out fast as gunfire.
And then Father Sweet arrived, calmed her down with comments about her dress, winked at us, soothed her. She sauntered off and Father Sweet led Danny to the sacristy with his arm around him. I saw him touch Danny’s blond hair. Meanwhile I swept up and skulked away, never to mention to anyone it was entirely my fault.
Father Sweet had a knack for appearing at the right moment and saving misbehaving kids from the wrath of adults.
Naturally, typical boy-stuff myths developed.
Father Sweet — who was short, flabby, and had the skin tone of mayonnaise — climbed Everest. He fought as a commando in The War. He was a race-car driver in Monaco. Although he came from a wealthy family, he gave up everything to be a monk in the Egyptian desert, but then fell in love with a sheikh’s beautiful daughter, who subsequently died. He became a parish priest because he could never ever be with her. I don’t know where we got these stories, but there were many.
These schoolyard legends about Father Sweet — especially among altar boys — were so embellished that it would not have surprised us to hear he had performed miracles. In our imaginations, a legend lived among us. It got so bad that adults repeated a few. Father Sweet was in a class above.
There’s probably a simple explanation. Whereas our families watched TV, drove our kids to hockey, ate ketchup meatloaf, and loped off to bed at a decent hour, he lived alone, ate Friday fish every day, communed with arcana, composed symphonies at night, and wrote homilies that tracked a life of the mind no bourgeois parishioner could fathom.
He could have been descended from some lower heaven, or New York, and not the pudgy, bald, frizzy-bearded gnome he otherwise appeared. How can you explain this unusual figure dropped into our midst?
And right here in dull old Blackburn Hamlet.
Our parish was very lucky to have Father Sweet, people said.
After he confessed, my father pulled himself back to the pew and did his penance, often with a rosary.
My turn.
I went in and knelt. The screen slid open and Father Sweet’s profile appeared in shadow against the linen.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been one week since my last confession.”
Father Sweet asked my age, but — of course — never my name.
My sins were always the same: lying, not listening to my parents, and, although I still considered it defending myself, arguing or fighting with others. I admitted to swearing at or fighting with others, such as Rob and Squirm or any other dickheads who crossed me. I mentioned Jamie and I had stolen a stack palette from behind Joe’s Variety, but I suggested it was probably garbage, anyway.
I could not see Father Sweet through the fabric screen, but he was itching again. He often fidgeted during my whispers.
“We are all sinners,” he said. “We inherit sin. Did you know that?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“How can one atone?”
“Uh. Do a good turn for someone? Every day?”
“Well, that is always good. But it is only through deeper engagement with the Church that one atones. Remember Jesus’s words about the way and the truth and the life. We must come to God with humility, ready to atone. Penance brings us to reconciliation.”
“Okay.”
He prescribed one decade of the rosary and three Glory Be’s, bookended with an Act of Contrition at the beginning and end.
I headed out to the pew to pray, joining my dad, whose back was already starting to straighten.
8
Summer was nearly over, and as Jamie and I were skidding our bikes toward the treehouse build site, we passed a culvert that drained the town’s high streets into the stream. From time to time, a homeless man was said to camp there. The consensus at school was this guy was a dangerous creep. I had never seen him, but I knew that this was the guy from whom Rob earned some fast cash.
I spied a shaggy bearded man wearing an unseasonably warm collection of jackets, wool and heavy cotton, all soiled into the same oily brown. He looked like a wizard.
The hobo was surprised and glad to see us. He waved and spoke to us in a thick Ottawa Valley accent: “Hallo, lads! More of yas! Busy day today.”
“Ignore him,” I said to Jamie. “Don’t look at him. Let’s go.”
“You know, your pals come through here were selling a quality show. How ’bout you lads? Youse in show business?”
My brother tilted his bike to the ground and swiped a sharp stone to throw at the man. I kept a pedal up, prepared for a rapid getaway. My instincts were keen, but I didn’t sense real danger. I knew we could outrun him easy.
/>
“Hey. Don’t,” I said, nodding at the rock in Jamie’s hand. “Come on.”
“You wanna make a quick ten?” called the hobo. “Ten whole dollars!”
“They talk about you at school, you know.”
“Who? Teachers?” said the hobo, suddenly alarmed.
“No, kids,” I said. “Everyone says you’re a sick pervert.”
“I’m a man of the world! Could teach you lads sump’n. Besides, I just wanna have a look.”
“Look at what?” Jamie asked. He was tossing the rock up and down in his hand.
“Yer pecker, shorty!”
My brother laughed but I didn’t. I grabbed the rock from Jamie and flung it hard at the hobo’s face. The rock missed him, but my attack clearly had an effect.
The hobo waved his arms like a windmill, trying to regain his balance, He struggled to climb out of the culvert, but we were already on the move down the path and away from him.
“Sanctifié! ” cursed Jamie as we cycled beneath the arching trees.
“Don’t slow down. Keep up.” My brother’s legs pumped furiously, but he lagged behind.
Fast as we rode, the howl of the hobo echoed after us like the bay of a wolf. “Fuck oooooooooooffffff,” he cried.
We arrived at the build site, where we had stashed the palettes, ropes, and a Beaver Nuts tin filled with nails and screws stolen from Dad’s workbench.
“Man. You are good at hiding things,” I said to Jamie. “I could not see any of our stuff from the trail. Let alone the fort.”
“That’s the advantage of being low to the ground,” Jamie said.
“You’re not that short,” I said.
He shrugged.
“Ah,” I said, waving a dismissive hand. “Who cares?”
“Yah. Who cares.”
Whistling the Sol the Clown theme song, I hoisted a plank on my shoulder and turned around so I narrowly missed the top of Jamie’s head.
“Hey, watch it!” he yelled.
“It’s just a joke … I wasn’t really trying to hit you.”
“You’re still a dick.” He paused. “I don’t see what’s so funny about hobos, anyway.”