Lit_ A Memoir Part 28

Dev nudges me to take him to various places of worship. It's still a social exercise for me, another maternal duty I hadn't foreseen. Most places get just one visit. The Hebrew that mesmerizes me at the conservative temple frustrates Dev, who likes the Reform service, though it sometimes sounds to me-with its talk of Middle East strife-more political than spiritual. While I adore the hand-clapping gospel music of the Baptists, the anti-gay diatribe is tough to swallow, ditto the long service.

By summer, I figure my half-baked sense of a higher power might resonate with the super-liberal Protestant parishes that shun dogma, but they actually put me off. Church X has the sterile feel of an operating theater. Since the well-off parishioners send their kids to fancy camps, it's almost totally child-free. The sermon-on justice to one's fellows-has so squeezed out any mention of G.o.d or Jesus, maybe to sound modern, there's no sense of history. The pastor asks for peace and gives thanks for plenty, but the homily might come from Reader's Digest Reader's Digest.

Looking for something to say to the pastor, I ask him how he deals with the problem of evil, and he says, We don't believe in it We don't believe in it-a phrase so obviously untrue, I wonder how they sell it. It's like a Rotary Club meeting where everybody's agreed on the agenda in advance and is only waiting for the danish to come out.

Lots of professors go to Church Y, so again, I think maybe they'll rook me in. But where Church X avoids G.o.d altogether, Church Y sees G.o.ds everywhere, each more or less interchangeable. These G.o.ds sound no more potent than the rabbit's foot Dev carries into the batter's box on a belt loop.

The zendo wants people to sit in silence then chant for five minutes, which Dev could never do. You could be saying jump-rope rhymes, the monk informs me before the service. The breathing of the chants is supposed to relax you into a posture I couldn't hold for the appointed time if you oil-canned my knees like Oz's Tin Man.

It's a year before we follow Toby and his wife, Catherine, to their Catholic parish, maybe because I a.s.sociate their church with the shame of my lapsed pals or the Inquisition's torture devices.

The whole surface of the room is sloppy with kids-toddlers zigzag down the aisles, babies squeak and yell. On the altar, Father Kane is a blue-eyed Irishman who takes us through Ma.s.s in the most unvarnished way, with none of the maudlin piety I've seen at some other churches and temples.

At the outset, he seems humble without seeming bent or cowed. As a kid, I'd been dragged to a Ma.s.s by neighbors, where the priest downshifted in prayer into this slow, syrupy-extra-holy-way of talking, as the congregation no doubt prayed to get home in time for kickoff. When Father Kane breaks up the bread, the movements are simple, stripped of any show-with the solemn dignity of an enlightened master mechanic adjusting a carburetor-nothing pro forma about it. The process somehow erases him so he's a clear conduit, and the keen quality of his attention draws me in.

Toward the end of Ma.s.s, Dev whispers, Is that a yarmulke on his head?

Since Dev goes to a Jewish after-school-the best in town-he's covetous enough of a yarmulke that he once lopped the ears off his Mickey Mouse hat to make his own.

I shush him, but Toby says under his breath, What is is that? The priest has taped to the top of his scalp a round piece of wire mesh. From my vantage, I'd thought it was some holy hat, but now it looks like nothing so much as a small inverted sink-drain catcher. that? The priest has taped to the top of his scalp a round piece of wire mesh. From my vantage, I'd thought it was some holy hat, but now it looks like nothing so much as a small inverted sink-drain catcher.

Father Kane tips the microphone and says sheepishly, I normally wouldn't mention this, but I had a growth taken off my head. He pauses, almost blushing as he adds, I didn't want you to think I'd joined the Hair Club for Men.

Which draws hoots. Walking to the parking lot, I realize I forgot my paperback. For the first time since G.o.d-shopping, I haven't cracked it open.

Maybe I'm getting softheaded, I think, driving home. Or the burden of single-motherhood is making me a crackpot. Since Warren's moved to New Haven for love and work, a church community seems like necessary parenting ballast, though twice a month, he drives in all weather to see Dev, even staying at our house, both alone and with his sweetheart.

Still, if Dev loses the bow to his school-owned ba.s.s the night before a concert or needs his basketball hoop set to regulation height the night before his birthday party, it falls to me. And I won't say the venal thought doesn't flit through me that church folk look like they might have wrenches and lawn mowers to loan.

On Halloween, Dev joins the line of Sunday school kids costumed as various saints and taking turns telling brief, sanitized stories of martyrdom. The tiny St. George-visor askew, plastic breastplate listing-comes last, announcing, You can be a saint, too! You can be a saint, too! like a used-car salesman, which brings down the house. like a used-car salesman, which brings down the house.

Not long after, Dev jumps the communion line-his first show of appet.i.te for baptism. While I'm thumbing my missal, his pal Osiris crooks a finger and Dev shoots out of the pew. I lean forward to grab his sleeve, but he jerks away. The line edges up. I hiss at him to sit down, and he ignores me. Once the line curves, I lose sight of him till both boys pop up at the altar.

Before the priest, Dev stands slim and solemn. I think how ancestors on both sides of his family sought this sacrament, which is painfully carnal if you think of it. The body of the G.o.d is absorbed by the human body to nourish the spirit. Dev's mouth pops open wide as a baby bird's.

Afterward, the boys plop down beside me whispering, their hands busy. What obscene gestures, I wonder, are they practicing? But I crane over to catch them in the middle of that old hand game: Here's the church. Here's the steeple. Open the door and see all the people Here's the church. Here's the steeple. Open the door and see all the people. The game's been pa.s.sed down for decades, one kid teaching another how to bear long, adult-prescribed intervals of inertia-a lineage I belong to.

While the priest speaks and the responses come out, I feel myself as an animal herded among similar animals-an echo of the homeless shelter. I think how horses in the Colorado of my youth-huddled together in the cold.

At one point parishioners call out their intentions, people they want prayers said for. For my daughter whose tumor has metastasized. For the refugees from Bosnia and Rwanda. In grat.i.tude for the safe return of my mother from Ireland... For my daughter whose tumor has metastasized. For the refugees from Bosnia and Rwanda. In grat.i.tude for the safe return of my mother from Ireland...

Catholics aren't who I thought they'd be, not even close. It isn't the ritual of the high Ma.s.s that impresses me, but the people-their collective surrender. If I can't do reverence to that, how dead are my innards?

Within a week or two, it's turning out that I forget to bring a paperback to Ma.s.s, so obviously, I'm not just coming for Dev anymore. It's historical interest, I tell myself, when I start reading all manner of theology.

When a married couple-he a former Jesuit, she once a nun-invite me to the Peace and Social Justice Committee, I stumble onto the lay tradition of working with the poor and against political tyranny. (I know, historically, plenty of Catholics worked for for tyranny.) They protest nuclear arms and host refugees from Haiti and El Salvador. Every Sunday they have some batch of parolees who need jobs, or welfare moms looking for baby clothes. tyranny.) They protest nuclear arms and host refugees from Haiti and El Salvador. Every Sunday they have some batch of parolees who need jobs, or welfare moms looking for baby clothes.

Plus they argue like mad. Say what you will about Catholic dogma, like it or lump it, it sure gets people yakking it up. I confess to this couple that Jesus Himself seems sappy-a chump or fool. For all my pretense of practicing surrender, I can't grasp signing up for crucifixion.

The wife says, Long time ago, I started focusing my faith on the Holy Spirit. She's the female p.r.o.noun in the Greek Bible.

C'mon, the husband says. It's not called Holy Spirit-anity; it's called Christianity.

After Ma.s.s one day, I challenge Father Kane on certain aspects of the liturgy that bother me. Missal in hand, I bargain like an insurance salesman to convince him how c.r.a.ppy Jesus is. I say something like, He's so snotty to the lady at the well. I mean, He's putting her down for sleeping around. (Worried, I must've been, about how He'd have judged any future premarital hilarity of my own.) You think He's angry? the priest says. I always thought He was joking or teasing her. And she was just shocked He knew that stuff about her life.

It's true. Looking at the text, I've overlaid a judgmental tone on the story.

Father Kane says, You know the best part, though-or a couple things. She was Samaritan. She could only go to the well in the hottest part of the day. This was like a colored water fountain before the civil rights movement. And Jesus drinks after her-that's the radical part. The disciples are saying, Why'd you even talk to her? But Jesus didn't flinch.

Father Kane knows that Dev is studying for baptism and first communion, and he asks if I've considered doing the same.

I unload one of my key deal breakers: I don't believe the pope is the ultimate religious authority.

Father Kane says right back, Maybe someday you will. (Little did I know how outmatched I was with the modest Father Kane, who'd clearly had this kind of talk before.) Grinning, he adds, G.o.d's after you. Struggle all you want.

I'm actually a little shocked that he cares whether I convert. Still, I sign up for instruction, claiming it's for conversations with Dev. But when the lady in charge of cla.s.ses kicks me out because I have to miss a few for work travel, I run tattle to Father Kane, who sits me in a pew. He claims I've already read what they'll cover in cla.s.s instruction. He wants to know my impression of Jesus.

I say, He was a peasant from a pigsty town who made all the civil and religious authorities so mad they killed Him. But for me, the Resurrection is only a metaphor for renewal.

If you can believe He made all this happen-Father Kane waves his hand around the room-right here in our little church, forget Rome and Lourdes and all that. That's a miracle, right? Somebody born into his station.

Maybe I don't belong here, I say.

But you are here, he says. What's keeping you from joining us? You come to Ma.s.s, but you're denying yourself the Sacraments. Those are the consolations of the Church.

In Ma.s.s the next week, I enter and get on my knees like everybody else, saying the prayers I usually say at home. Opening my eyes, I actually tear up. There's something different about praying in company-I can't deny it-once you get over feeling like a poser.

About a week later, Father Kane tells me he's found a way for me to miss cla.s.ses and still be baptized with Dev if I want to. I can meet with Toby and talk about the gospels one-on-one. Father Kane will personally fill in any gaps.

Which is how one of my literary heroes winds up my G.o.dfather.

40.

Dysfunctional Family Sweepstakes They are pa.s.sing, posthaste, posthaste, the gliding years-to use a soul-rending Horatian inflection. The years are pa.s.sing, my dear, and presently n.o.body will know what you and I know.-Vladimir Nabokov, Speak Memory Speak Memory For over two years, Mother hounds me to let her read pages I'm scribbling about the worst patch of our family history, but I'm still x-ing out, deleting, starting over. She swears public opinion frets her not one whit. In fact, she and Lecia both signed off on a summary of the story before I set out.

If I gave a big rat's a.s.s what anybody thought about me, Mother says, I'd have been baking cookies and going to PTA. Which I didn't do.

But I know reading it could hurt them, since writing it often wrings me out like a string mop. Some afternoons after I close my notebook-I'm working longhand-I just conk out on the floor of my study like a cross-country trucker. I see a shrink who says the naps don't mean I'm repressing stuff. Don't you know, he says, feeling all that stuff again is exhausting? So the prospect of dragging Mother and Lecia through it too feels like abuse.

Mother's sole focus is money. Whatever wounds I parade through the marketplace, she's mostly just skippy I have a car, however far it is from paid off. In fact, she's sure I've misunderstood the contract somehow.

That's your money though?

That's right, Mother. My money.

What if they don't like the book?

Oh well.

What if it doesn't sell?

What poet would plan for anything different?

The next call she approaches head-on: There's no way you'll have to give the money back?

No ma'am.

No way, no how.

Right.

But do they know you've spent it already?

Once she tries to finagle a peek at the book by threatening to die: saying, What if my heart fails before you finish it?

I'll just have to regret it the rest of my life.

I remind her that as a portrait painter, she never turned the canvas around for view till it was dried, never signed it till she knew what she was endorsing.

The summer it's done, I fly her up to Syracuse. Right off, she drops her purse in the hall and falls on the ma.n.u.script like a harpie. No, she doesn't want to come to the park with Dev and me. She waves us on. I'm not going anywhere, she says.

She takes up a lounge chair in the backyard with pages in her lap while I obsessively a.s.semble cold soups and dips and marinades for the grill nearby, trying not to vulch over her. What am I waiting for?

Given that she takes in books the way a junkie shoots dope, I want it to mesmerize her, which-since she's its subject-is pretty much a slam dunk. I'm also hoping she'll confirm in detail what she's agreed in broad stroke is true.

But there's something more ineffable at stake, winding like thin smoke through me, unnamed. It's as if-through the writing-I've a.s.sembled some miniature replica of myself as a girl, and she's now being lowered onto Mother's lap to be verified somehow.

For all the schisms in my upbringing, the most savage scars didn't come from pain. Pain has belief in it. Pain is required, Patti likes to say; suffering is optional. What used to hurt was the vast and wondering doubt that could spread inside me like a desert, the niggling suspicion that none of the hard parts even happened. So the characters that so vividly inhabited me were phantasms, any residual hurt my own warped concoction.

I wanted Mother to see the girl I was-the girls Lecia and I were, really-to take us into her body as we've taken her so indelibly into ours. Is that love or need?

As Mother reads, I grind beans to brew her coffee. I cut her sandwich into quarters. I keep wiping her ashtray clean. I dissolve sugar into tea and shave ice into a frosted gla.s.s.

Occasionally, she hollers out, How'd you ever remember all this crazy c.r.a.p? She laughs a lot. Once she says, This is your daddy to a T. I can smell him.

But her strongest emotion seems to be for an alligator belt of hers I wrote about, which she mists up over, saying, I wonder where that went to? She absorbs the material-maybe as she did being our mother-as if it were a novel she'd already seen the film of, though like any mother, she's inclined to heap on undiluted praise. No more convincing cheerleader ever shook a pom-pom.

She's almost to the end when she claims her eyes are tired.

From downstairs that night, I hear small noises from the bathroom-stifled, intermittent squeaks like a mouse might make. I tap on the door, which opens to her red-rimmed eyes.

You are so busted, I say.

She has on a black T-shirt and yoga pants. You caught me, she says, wiping her nose.

I didn't mean to hurt you, Mother, I say.

She looks surprised: I'm not the least bit hurt, she says.

You're not festive.

Living through it hurt me, she says. Reading about it's a blip on the radar.

Not a lot of mothers would make this so easy.

Can I smoke up in my attic, or are you gonna make me go on the porch?

We creak up the stairs to where she's spread pages across her mother's old wedding quilt, st.i.tched together from men's flannel-suit samples-all manner of gray and chalk stripe with a cherry-red underside.

I hold a blue teardrop flame to her cigarillo while she takes a long draw, then blows smoke up to the rafters. She raises her arms to flatten both hands on the slanted ceiling, saying, This is like an artist's garret up here.

You could come live with us, I say. I could put in a skylight, and you could paint again.

These old bones wouldn't make it through a winter.

We sit in a silence it's hard not to scribble in with chat. Her long ash falls on the quilt, and she rubs it in, saying, It blends.

Is there anything in there you didn't know, that we hadn't talked about?

She says, I never knew you felt that way.

What way?

She shrugs and shakes her head, then asks, Didn't we have some fun?

Sure, later on some. We have fun now. But like you said, living through it...

I mean in Colorado. Remember we went to that department store in Denver and I got y'all those little coats with fur on the hood?

My head kecks to one side. I say, I got lost that day.

But we found you. And y'all had your horses, and the house was so fancy. There was shuffleboard at the bar y'all liked to play. You loved the jukebox.

"Ring of Fire," my favorite song. But we were afraid you were gonna go to jail.

Whatever for?

Shooting Hector.

Aw-she waves her hand in a pshaw pshaw motion-you knew I'd never shoot anybody. motion-you knew I'd never shoot anybody.

Dev comes to the doorway, one knuckle making a s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g motion in his eye socket, saying, Are y'all crying again? Then: Why does everybody from Texas cry and smoke?