The Sharp Time

by Mary O'Connell

  I feel at peace.

  Everything feels so holy and real to me, though, according to my mother, all of Catholicism is a beautiful enigma wrapped in a layer of bullshit, stuffed inside a layer of abuse. Still, the inside of this church is so pleasing—I run my hand over the polished roses and crosses carved into the pew, over the soft leather choir book with the word missalette stamped in faded, flaking silver. To be sure, Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception is pure loveliness. It is the Pale Circus of churches, so undoubtedly there are a few rats, but it’s so hard not to feel stoned on the physical beauty of it all.

  Mass starts with a blast of organ from the front of the church and, without warning, French horns and a trumpet from the choir loft. Viva Las Vegas! But then a beautiful white-robed altar girl starts down the aisle, grinning and embarrassed, holding a brick-red Bible aloft over her head. Behind her is an altar boy, and then the priest, singing out of his missalette. And then there’s a smorgasbord of sitting and standing, and singing while kneeling on the padded kneelers, and altar boys and girls floating around the altar in their angel clothes. The first two Bible readings are done by a regular guy in a suit—he appears to be a layperson (here, my brain cooks up some junior high fun: a person who gets laid!), but then the priest goes to the podium on the altar. He takes a dramatic pause, and says, “A reading from the gospel according to Matthew.”

  Bradley makes a little cross over his forehead, lips and heart—I look around and everyone is doing this, and it’s all sort of sort of sexy/creepy but nonetheless fascinating, and I realize that I have not thought about the whole Catherine Bennett debacle since I stepped into Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception.

  But of course noting this simultaneously ruins my peace and I’m now thinking about all of it, the school and Mrs. Bennett and no one calling, and I am not paying attention, the gospel according to Matthew is completely lost to me.

  But the handsome priest, a tall dishwater blond with bangs falling into his eyes and a square jawline, steps away from the podium on the altar. The priest wears a red cassock. I know this garment is called a cassock thanks to Honors English III, thanks to Ms. Lisa Kaplansky, lover of Leo Tolstoy’s “Father Sergius.”

  Lisa Kaplansky, Lisa Kaplansky.

  When I look over at Bradley, I see that he has his own sorrows, I see that he is chewing his thumbnail, the cross tattoo on his thumb pressed to his mouth.

  I lean in close and assume a serious expression, as if about to enquire about last rites or fire exits. Bradley smells sporty and clean, like men’s deodorant. “I love the priest’s flaming-red dress,” I whisper. “I think somebody’s in possession of a Big Bad Wolf obsession.”

  I would like to make Bradley laugh out loud in church, to see him dip his head and double over. But he only fake-smiles, his lips drawn tightly over teeth.

  The priest walks to the front of the church, his red cassock swishing behind him, the bloodied bride of Christ, and he speaks casually, as if hosting a game show or giving an impromptu dinner-table soliloquy.

  “When I was growing up, the Feast of the Epiphany was traditionally the day we took down our Christmas decorations. My family was always a little crabby that day. I remember one year the tree tipped over, the glass ornaments broke—little shards everywhere—the brown shag carpet in our family room was a minefield and all of us kids learned some new words from my father.”

  Raucous laughter from the pews, the choir loft: the parishioners at Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception have never heard anything so exquisitely hilarious. I try to give Bradley a secretive eye roll, but he is completely focused on the priest. And Bradley is not laughing; he’s not even smirking.

  The priest collects his praise, smiling, before he starts again. “Now, epiphany comes from the Greek epi phanos, which means ‘to appear.’ We tend to think of the Feast of the Epiphany in terms of the wise men, the magi, making their dangerous journey to come and adore the baby Jesus, who of course is the promise of our salvation, the word made flesh. But the real Feast of the Epiphany is not just for the wise men, but for each of us, every day. Christ wants to be seen, to be loved, like we all do. He came to us a human being who had to submit completely to the joys and terrors of a human life, as a baby who would be wrapped in swaddling and worshipped, an adult who would be stripped of his garments and nailed to a cross.”

  And here amid the lushness of the candled altar, the dark pews, the deep red roses placed at the feet of the Virgin Mary, the little girls in festive wintry dresses, and the smell of incense and candle wax, Catherine Bennett’s wild paisley slip floats down from the choir loft. I look up and watch it shimmy in the air like a drunken, multicolored bird. It floats in my peripheral vision all through Mass, until the priest tells us all to offer one another a sign of peace.

  Bradley gives me an earnest hug and I close my eyes, and, just like that, the slip disappears. I shake hands with the elderly couple in front of us—the old lady’s bony hand feels frail and hollow, the veins like pipe cleaners—and I shake hands with the beefy Irishman and everyone says “Peace be with you, peace be with you, peace be with you,” … and it works, just a little. The sensation of someone offering you a bit of salve, the formal anesthesia of kindness—peace be with you, peace be with you, peace be with you—blinds your neurons a bit, so your situation does not feel quite as grave.

  The organ starts up, and, following Bradley’s lead, I kneel on the padded kneeler. Prayers and more prayers. On the altar, the priest pours an ominous pink liquid—blood of Christ? vino?—from a glass decanter into a goblet. He holds a golden dish in his palms and says, Take this, all of you, and eat it. I think of Erika shaking the Comet into the bowl of frosting, how there are so many ways to give and receive Communion. But then it’s time to pay attention! Three lines of people snake up to the front of the altar, with ancient men in rayon sport shirts directing traffic at the end of the pews. People descend from the choir loft and filter into the established lines. The priest stands in front of the altar with a golden dish, his helpers with their little golden dishes at his side. Bradley appears to be in some fugue state of anguish, his face gone tense and masklike. And then we’re off to the altar; it’s our pew’s turn to take Communion, and when everyone stands up, I do too.

  I’ve never had a First Communion, never held my mouth open for the Savior, but I figure that a kindhearted Jesus would not want me to wait in the pew, a Mass wallflower. Mostly what I think is: When in Rome …

  I have learned about Catholicism through my mother’s complaining and through the books of her childhood, but I wish I had paid a little more attention when I went to Mass with my grandparents in Florida when I was little. My mother would stay at their condo to drink coffee and read the paper, enjoying what she jovially referred to as her sacrament-free Sunday. My grandmother would always have a new dress for me, and I have the memory of staying in the pew at St. Mary, Star of the Sea, during Communion, of staring at the embroidered sand dollars on my sundress while everyone else accepted the body of Christ.

  But for all anyone in this church knows, my mother was a religious fanatic; no one knows that I am not a Catholic. And so with Bradley in front of me and the Irishman with weedy eyebrows behind me, I feel cosseted and protected as I walk to the front of the church, like no one can hurt me here in Jesusville. I have what I imagine to be a bridal feeling of happiness—of imminent change—right before I notice something is wrong with Bradley. We are packed in close, just inches between our bodies, so I notice that beneath his white broadcloth shirt—Bradley changed out of his Spanktones vintage T before we left the Pale Circus—his shoulders are moving up and down too fast, as if he is having an asthma attack. But it’s too late to turn back now; we’re the next in line. I watch over Bradley’s shoulder as the priest holds up the Eucharist wafer between his thumb and forefinger and says: “The body of Christ.” Each syllable has its own weight. Bradley makes a basket out of his hands and he says something under his breath that I can’t quite catch.
The priest lays the wafer in Bradley’s hands, and then it’s my turn.

  The priest looks at me, holds up the wafer—which I see up close is bone-colored, though I assumed it would be a bleached-wheat snow-white. The priest says the same thing he said to Bradley: “The body of Christ.”

  I wonder if he tires of saying that so many times, if the priest ever has the urge to hold up the wafer and burst out with some random sentence: After all, you’re just another brick in the wall. Top o’ the morning, my little chickadee. Kiwi fruit is seeded and delicious. Mostly what I am wondering is what I should say, because there are a zillion people behind me in line, and I cup my empty hands.

  The priest repeats his words, softly: “The body of Christ.” Clearly I have to sing for my supper here, so I smile up at him. I nod and whisper, “Okay. Thanks so much.”

  He surprises me by breaking out with a big smile that looks non-holy and real, and he puts the Eucharist wafer in my hands. I pop it in my mouth and I think how well this is all going, the priest’s smile warming me. I have the random thought that going to Mass might make me feel a lot better and that maybe I will start taking the classes or whatever to get officially signed up.

  There is a bottleneck of people around the altar, all us pilgrims who have taken the body of Christ from the nice priest are waiting for his blood, which is served not by the priest, but by the laypeople. As I am a fan of Anne Rice and in possession of an inner goth girl, I feel very chipper about phase two of Holy Communion: a woman to the left of the altar in a taupe pantsuit and kitten heels holds up a gold goblet to each person, and after they drink, she wipes the lip of the goblet with a white cloth. I feel happy to wait in line behind Bradley, to have a dry circular biscuit stuck to the roof of my mouth. Yes, it’s the body of Christ—but what part? His tonsils? His soft, infected gumline? Maybe I will bite down on the wafer and feel the bird-bone crunch of his seventh vertebra: Now, that’s good eatin’.

  But in truth I start to go all Christ-crazy and I think: What if it could be true, what if the priest could really do such a fabulous, fabulous trick with flour and fermented grapes—with the body and the blood—and I feel it; I feel my mind being slowly and firmly blown, and I think, I am so going to take the Catholic classes. Then I look at the carved statue of the Virgin Mary to the left of the altar, and it’s my mother’s face there, my mother forever trapped in that pale blue stone robe. My mom gives me an expansive eye roll, a lavish, sardonic smile, which means: Get a grip, sister. I’d rather you be a Hare Krishna.

  And then the line moves—we are very close to getting our drink of blood/wine. I am mesmerized by the woman whisking the cloth over the goblet, the flash of her coral-pink nails against the gold and starched white. Though I’ve never scored better than a C-plus in biology, even I can tell that swiping a bit of cloth over the cup is not going to kill the germs. But maybe Christ sanitizes everything, his ghostly breath a spray of Purell on the lip of the goblet.

  When there is only one person in front of him, Bradley cuts out of the wine line, his hands folded, his head bowed. I zip out of line and follow, sad to miss out on the vampire aesthetic, the sanguinary zinfandel. And I’m confused about the wafer: I can’t remember if I’m supposed to chew or just swallow it whole. I’m pretty sure it’s a faux pas to chew up the body of Christ like a mouthful of Pringles, so I just press my lips into a demure smile like a ventriloquist’s doll—the word I believe is dummy—and decide to let the wafer melt on my tongue like an M&M.

  But it doesn’t melt; it adheres to the roof of my mouth like papier-mâché.

  I have to walk fast to keep up with Bradley, he is race-walking down the side aisle, which seems a little rude, though who am I to say. I look ahead, scouting out our empty pew, and recognize it by my own purse and by the girly artifacts left behind by the family waiting in line for the blood of Christ—the headless Barbie, the tiny patent-leather purses, the sparkly notebooks and scattered crayons. But Bradley whisks right by our pew, not looking back to see if I am following. I grab my purse and hustle to catch up with him.

  I’m gaining on him when I’m distracted by the enclosed glass room at the back of the church. I didn’t notice the room when I entered Our Lady of Immaculate Conception. There is a carved mahogany sign over the door that says THE CRY ROOM. Every house should have one! I guess every house does. As I walk past, I see the brief tableau of infants and tired-looking mamas sitting in folding chairs, a toddler building a squat tower of blocks, his little fat hand reaching out to put a red block on an orange block. And then I reach the sweet spot at the back of the church, the double doors that lead to the vestibule, where the nun shakes your hand, where the brides and their fathers wait to take their long walk down the aisle.

  The doors swing and squeak in Bradley’s wake. When I catch the handle and pull open the door, I see that Bradley is storming the vestibule, tearing past a woman holding a baby. He pulls open the doors to the outside world, and Bradley leaves Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception.

  As the woman bounces the baby on her hip, she gives me a sort of knowing look, as if I’d gotten into some whisper-fight with my beau at church, as if I’m trailing after him, repentant and misty-eyed. She hits me up with the old, knowing “Honey, all men are jackasses” smile.

  I smile back at her, but in fact many ladies are jackasses too. I have noticed this phenomenon, people. I have most certainly paid attention. The baby squeals and the woman turns her attention to infant entertainment; she points to the stone statue of the Virgin by the doors and says, “Maaary, Maary.” But the baby, a long-lashed dream in a fluffy violet jacket, appears unimpressed. She bucks her head back and squeals some more.

  I look at the statue, and I see that this Mary does not belong to the Precious Moments school of statuary; she does not have the plasticine look of gentle awe layered with resigned wonder. To be sure, she does not have the sardonic, all-knowing expression of my own mother. This Mary looks searching, surprised, her granite brows drawn together so fiercely that no amount of Botox could turn back the clock. She appears to hold out her bowl of holy water with frantic animation: Here! Take some! It’s good!

  And her smile is all wrong, deeply carved dimples that do not match her panicky eyes. And so, cold air blowing in the door, I see that Our Lady of Immaculate Conception is no one if not Alecia Hardaway, perplexed but trying to be a good sport: I’m going to be the mother of Jesus? I’m pregnant? What will this be like? I’m pregnant! Oh, good, I’m pregnant! But … what’s pregnant?

  And Catherine Bennett appears next to the statue and screams into the stone swirl of her veil: Pregnant means there is a fetus in your uterus! Alecia, Earth to Alecia! Do you know how you got pregnant? Was it the angel, Alecia? Did the angel bring you good news?

  The woman with the baby touches my arm and I give a little gasp. She smiles and puts a flyer in my hands. And then I am off into my secular twilight, going down the church steps in my perilous shoes, the ice-crusted railing giving my hand a little bite when I touch it, the cold air stinging my teeth.

  I suppose it’s better to be Bradley, incendiary, no fear of falling as he walks through the parking lot kicking up patches of snow that swirl and evanesce into blustery ghosts. The parking lot is quiet as a winter graveyard. My mother’s headstone appears in my mind—HEATHER JONES—beneath a clutch of carved irises. That was my idea, my heavy touch. Mother had an iris bloom tattooed to her bicep. “ ‘Iris’ means wisdom,” she told me, proudly peeling the adhesive tape away from the bandage to reveal a patch of blistered purple bloom. The tattoo artist had done a lovely job; it looked as if the real flower had been pressed below the surface of my mother’s skin, as if it would glow there forever.

  When Bradley finally reaches my car, he touches the passenger-door handle. He turns his head and stares absently at the Cadillac Escalade parked next to us before he tilts his head back and, with a phifffft sound that cuts the winter air, spits out the Lord: his Eucharist wafer sails up, buoyant, before landing silently
on the hood of the Cadillac.

  I walk through the slushy parking lot, my careful feet the only sound in the world. When I get closer, I see it: the grain-colored disk lodged on the snowy hood of the car.

  Bradley is breathing hard and looking down at his feet. And so I have that bad moment of self-knowledge: aside from being ever so pure-hearted and persecuted, I am also a fairly big jackass. I am the self-involved collector of pain with no thoughts of Bradley’s troubles. I am that super, super creepy person who corners you on the bus and tells you some random thing about his or her dysfunctional family, using the term dysfunctional, saying it right out loud, so as to be victimized again by the tacky TV-speak of it all.

  I am the person who exists solely to suck up your pity and leave you no choice but to nervously exclaim: Oh, my God! Oh, no! I just can’t believe it! As if everyone didn’t have their own story. Stories.

  Bradley gets in the car, slamming the door.

  When I get in the car we sit in the silence, not admiring the lavender-gray twilight. We look down at the car mats. I read the flyer the woman gave me. It has the Mass schedule at Our Lady Of the Immaculate Conception for the upcoming week. With a flicker, the parking lights switch on.

  I clear my throat. I do the girl thing, the mom thing, the über-Midwestern thing. I say: “Bradley. Hey! Do you maybe want to go for pancakes?” It comes out with a lisp, as pacakth, because of the wafer stuck to the roof of my mouth.

  “Yes,” he says gravely. “I do want to go for pancakes. Will you drive?”

  We switch seats—the cold air startling us anew as we open our car doors. I readjust the mirrors, I get the heater going, vented warmth on our faces, and I’m putting the car in drive, when Bradley places his hand on mine. “Wait,” he says.

  I look over at him.

  Bradley says: “The whole thing with Robert?” He says the name sweetly, wholesomely—Rahbert—as if it’s a sparkling summer berry. “With,” he says with a grimace, “Father Bob?”