the mess that was difficult to mop up or wipe off when the entire bathroom was a steam room from a sensual hour long bath—boys did get dirty. I stopped that day.
Thursdays were wonderful, filled with various cold drinks, and coke in icy bottles, the returnable ones. Often, there were cookies, or cake, and sometimes candy, even two or three pieces of candy, so I could put some in my jeans and some in my mouth. Father Terry kept us focused on the problem, and we did not allow ourselves to be sidetracked off of the most important topic, the topic which we were not allowed to think of in our own minds, but which now had “confessional” sanction: SEX!
I had a pretty good education about sex without knowing it. I was not like John Palermo, who, as an altar boy a year older than me, told me one day that he knew the “dictionary word” for when a man and a woman make babies. I said he did not, and he said he did too, and I said he did not and he said he did too, and he told me the word and told me to check it out in the dictionary. John said the word for men and women doing it was “RAPE!”
“No! It is not!” “It is too!”
“It is not!” I kept this up a while but couldn’t remember what the actual word for intercourse was, so I shut up and went home. I looked up the word.
“Rape—The unlawful carnal knowledge of a woman by a man.” Wow! John Palermo was right! RAPE it was! I knew it was not allowed by the church, and that if you got a girl pregnant, the sheriff put you in jail. Its unlawfulness was clear. John Palermo told me the definition of “fuck” as “rape” and I believed it, until—and this is what Father Terry gave me, that the other boys didn’t have—good information. He taught me what sex was, and what thinking about sex was, and what “sin” was, and what was allowed. I learned fast that in confession it is the word that is important, and so one can stop saying, “Fuck,” for example, and be free of the stigma of the term. Father taught me inoffensive terms that referred to sex, bodily functions, and many things which before then I only knew slang terms for, learned from Bubba or other kids.
Time was compressed fast when it came to me and sex. I began to learn lots of sex information very quickly in the private chamber of my priest’s study.
Invitations were not long in coming. I was invited to camping trips with my priest and the altar boys group. At times, people who were not altar boys came to the camping trips, but they were usually kids whose parents provided a camp in the woods on the bayou for the priest and us to use, so they could come with altar boys. I didn’t know there was such a life as this outside of Huckleberry Finn. It seemed too good to be true. We were free of parents and mean older brothers, and we were nature’s children in the woods and bayous.
The camps were at a place called Blueberry Hill Bayou. It was a long, sand-bottomed stream that was about twelve feet wide, and meandered through the woods along the county back roads forty or so miles away from home. In other words, it was an alternate world, as different as night and day from my everyday home life. Soon, I learned it was also a world where the secrecy of the confessional could cover whatever happened.
The first two months went by, and there was no masturbation. I felt my penis becoming a stranger to me. I was happy to get candy and cake and cokes, and now we even played music. There was this new music I learned about that was called “classical music” which was made up of, as best I could tell at the time, big bands that had violins and kettle drums in them. I loved this music, especially the beautiful “1812 Overture.” That one had cannons in it, live cannons.
I stopped playing with myself, and the new interest that replaced it was the counseling scene that played out with me and my priest. Me and my counselor-priest! I should say the priest and “his me.” He was helping me define who I was. He was my new favorite man on earth. I never knew a man could be such a pal, so sweet and genial, and almost like a mother. I told him every dirty thought I had, even going back to the earliest memories I could remember. I talked about wanting to see penises in the shower room at the pool, and how I looked into my brothers underwear to see pubic hairs, and at some point, when the hour was nearing ending, just before school let out, the purple silk stole came out of the inner black coat pocket. Father Terry would lean over me and begin to whisper in Latin. Soon he would make the sign of the cross over me, and I was forgiven all my sins.
It felt great to be free of guilt in that moment of absolution! No guilt! I loved the process, and I sure liked the lifestyle of the priest, and their cook even gave me biscuits if I had to wait. I wanted to confess my sins twice. I considered our conversation about my sex thoughts as informal preparation for the formal act of contrition and absolution which happened when he put the stole on. Once in the protection of the purple stole; I repeated the previous telling of my sins very seriously as though my previous chatter was just “warming up.”
Father Terry taught me that once he shut the door to the room we were in, that immediately we were under the “seal” of the confessional. When he put on the purple stole, it was the beginning of the sacramental ritual of penance being properly administered.
There was an important lesson here: I could tell him anything behind closed doors and it stayed with us, and I could be free of guilt about it, because God had given him the power to forgive my sins
The sessions in Father Terry’s rooms were increasingly comfortable to me, and they seemed to take on the flavor of a private, secret club. I began to expect the treats from the kitchen or the candies, and the soft drinks, and even now and then, when all the priests and the cook were gone, we’d slip down the dark hall to the kitchen and make popcorn, or eat some ice cream in blue willow bowls, with beautiful silver spoons. I became so comfortable, that we’d now sit together on the sofa, next to one another with our legs touching. When the long playing albums of violin and orchestral music began, sometimes Father Terry put his arm around my shoulder like a pal, or like my uncle did when I visited him. I thought nothing of it, and it felt good to be free from the nagging isolation I’d always felt. I finally felt like a person. I began to feel special. My parents always told me I was smart, but my mother rarely spoke of me being special. She did try to discourage me from taking my father’s constant criticisms to heart, and he was always finding fault, but mother said to let it roll off my back like water off a duck’s back, but I couldn’t do that. No. I cried and I feared my father’s scorn, and my older brother continued to beat me with closed fists. He would sneak up on me in the alley and pummel me mercilessly. He devised methods of humiliation and torture that were so cruel, I hesitate to mention them, not wishing to leave some accusation against him that he cannot address or answer now that he is dead. I even have to deal with guilt because I am glad he died. Nonetheless, during this time in my childhood he beat me a lot. Father Terry didn’t ever exert any negativity or violence. He was a kind and gentle person.
CHAPTER FIVE
CUSTOM 1955 CHEVY
Father Terry’s Chevrolet was basic black with gray plastic seat covers, but it was always very clean. It still smelled like a new car. It was, specifically, a black, custom 1955 Chevy Bel Air, 2-Door Post Sedan. I asked him if he wanted a big car like the pastor or bishop had. He jokingly said that it wasn’t OK for him to have a nicer car than his superiors, and only the bishop drove an Oldsmobile. No ordinary priest could drive anything as good or better than the bishop. This is how status worked, an unspoken church tradition.
In the Chevrolet, we would drive off with his chalice in a black box, and bring some altar wine and water in little corked glass bottles. We’d go together to the fishing camp community chapel at Blueberry Hill Bayou. This small, wooden building was a missionary outreach church for the people who like to go every weekend away from home to their bayou and adjoining lake, staying in their camps and fishing and drinking beer. They had to have Mass, so going with Father when he drove to celebrate Mass for the fishermen and their families was one of my favorite things to do, a real treat. It became a ritual, and over a period
