Once every few years, the news media would drag out the stale story of possible abuse or brainwashing at the esteemed Mary Immaculate Queen Orphanage. The stories were always big sellers and rating boosters, because nowhere the world over could anyone believe that one institution had yielded so many substantial public figures.
St. Matthew Cathedral next door shared in MIQ’s good fortune and was heralded as having the most “distinguished congregation in the United States.” Globally, St. Matthew’s was second only to the Vatican in Rome. Never in the hundred-plus-year history of the orphanage had any of its charges, past or present, ever committed a crime or had any run-ins with the authorities. There was never anything more severe than a traffic ticket in the lives of all MIQ’s residents. Model citizens were what the orphanage produced and nothing less.
Another reason I detested adoption day was that it seemed that we were all paraded around on show. Like, “come see the wonderfully perfect Stepford children. Come right on up and see if you can take your very own home today.” I always viewed adoption day more like a used car sale. Like we were all just old jalopies, previously used and partially damaged, that had been buffed up to look pretty and supported by the prestigious MIQ lifetime warranty. Never would a potential buyer be disappointed with a brand new MIQ orphan, guaranteed one hundred percent perfectly ethical, perfectly well, perfect.
I would imagine one of those huge inflatable arm-waving wind socks that car dealerships use to attract attention, mounted right on the roof of the prestigious one-hundred-eighty-six-year-old MIQ Orphanage. I thought we should have been selling popcorn and cotton candy. After all, I already felt like a sideshow attraction.
I don’t know, maybe I was just bitter. Deep down I didn’t really want a new family and I was always relieved that I didn’t have to participate fully in the spectacle that was adoption day. I guess I just hated being one of them, those “perfect” kids. Partly, I was just irritated that the Perkinses were taking so long to come get me.
Best Friends Forever
I never made many friends at MIQ. I have my many colorful childhood paroxysms to thank for that. Even years after my last episode, I was still the black sheep of the orphanage. It was as though everyone was just waiting around for me to wig out again, making sure that when that day came they would be nowhere around. So I had a lot of time to myself, time that I mostly filled with reading. I loved books, and MIQ had a very impressive library, albeit a characterless one. Reference and theology books abounded on every subject under heaven, more than you could ever desire. It was the fiction section that was pitifully weak. You would never find the likes of the irreverent Holden Caulfield or the willful Elizabeth Bennet amongst these hallowed shelves. Even the pious yet passionate Jane Eyre was doomed to be ostracized by the discerning eyes of the ever-watchful sisters.
Just when I had accepted that I would be sentenced to years of solitude and quiet contemplation, Kelly arrived at the orphanage. She was older than most of the new wards. Most arrived as infants or toddlers, but nearly all came to MIQ before they had reached school age. Like me, Kelly had just turned twelve, and upon her arrival she too was named Mary. Due to her age, she was permitted to be named Mary Kelly rather than the standard Mary-plus-some-other-female-name-from-the-Bible. From the very beginning, I could tell I liked Mary Kelly. I even liked her name—it was unique, and I liked unique. Unlike the rest of the kids, Kelly didn’t shy away from me. She had moxie, along with a lot of red curly hair and freckles. Shorter in stature and fuller figured than I, Kelly had been touched by the outside world and I loved it.
Kelly wasn’t actually an orphan; it was through special circumstances that she had come to MIQ. Her parents had died in a car accident, that was true, but she had a brother, Brett. Unfortunately, he wasn’t old enough yet to be her legal guardian. So it was that Mary Kelly would be gracing the sisters and livening up my life for the next four and a half years until Brett turned nineteen. Even though the legal age of adulthood is eighteen their parents’ will contained stipulations for guardianship. It required that Brett graduate from high school, be enrolled full-time in college and have a suitable place for Kelly to live before guardianship was granted.
Kelly was definitely a shining star in my previously dim and stagnant life. For the first time I had a friend and a confidant. Another perk was that Kelly’s brother sent her weekly care packages. They always contained marvelous, forbidden items like band t-shirts, hunky teen heartthrob posters, gossip mags, and music that was actually played on the radio—I am not talking about the gospel channel, either. Sometimes he’d even throw in a book or two. They were always wonderfully provocative books that had not been prescreened by the sisterly censors. Life was good.
Kelly called me String Bean, which wasn’t original at all, but because of my height it was fitting. I was going through that gangly stage. You know, the one where you’re all legs and knees and nothing else. My early teen years were not becoming on me. I was way too tall and lanky and painfully thin, not because they didn’t feed me or anything, but just because it was my curse to be awkward. I wasn’t even talented or coordinated enough to play on the basketball team, where I might have fit in. Kelly frequently alternated between teasing me unmercifully and assuring me that with my height and svelte frame, I would make a supremely perfect willowy supermodel.
Kelly would say, “Promise me that when you’re out of this concentration camp and are a gorgeous, rich model living in New York or Paris, you’ll make me your assistant. So I can go to all the fabulous parties and meet exotic sexy guys.”
“Keebler, you’re insane,” I’d squeal, secretly hoping that one day my life would live up to Kelly’s fantasies. Kelly hated being called Keebler, but I felt it was only fair after all the taunting I had endured. Besides, I thought it was more creative than her pet name for me. Kelly’s wild red hair and short stature reminded me of an elf—one of those shoe-cobbling elves, not the beautiful, mystical, woodland fairy–type elves. So it was that Keebler stuck, at least as long as she insisted on calling me String Bean.
Kelly was always planning our new lives together, far from Mary Immaculate Queen. The dreams were always formulaic: we were beautiful, wealthy, and adventurous women. Highly sought-after commodities, she’d say.
“We’ll spend our days unearthing lost cities, starring in rock videos, and posing for the covers of magazines, and we’ll spend our nights fighting off men,” she’d laugh.
I knew how much Kelly loved guys. I imagined that I intended on doing a lot more “fighting off” than she did.
Regardless of Kelly’s more zealous nature, we were a perfect match, and except for Brett’s occasional visits, we were all each other had. Kelly said that in a couple of years when she left, she wanted me to come with her. I told Kelly all about the Perkinses and their intent to come for me someday. I could tell she didn’t hold out as much hope as I did for the matter.
“If the Perkinses want you so damn bad, then why haven’t they come and broken you out of this detention center?”
“I don’t know all the details. Maybe they’re away on business,” I hissed.
“Business that was so important it has taken almost ten years?”
“Maybe they had an accident and are in a hospital overseas with extensive injuries.”
“More like amnesia,” Kelly retorted.
“Look, I don’t know the circumstances. But I know that my family had one hell of a reason to leave me here. Maybe it was for my own protection, to keep me safe.”
“Well, String Bean, last time I checked, the witness protection program lets you not only take your whole family but even your pet. So unless your family decided that Bowser was more important than their daughter…”
“Don’t you dare finish that sentence, Kelly,” I threatened.
“Or what, your precious fictional family won’t let me talk to you anymore?”
At that moment I lost it. I lunged at her with all my force, knocking her to the ground
. I tore at her hair, hit her in the face, kicking and screaming while I sobbed uncontrollably. Two of the sisters pulled me off her. Another helped her to her feet. I could see the terror and anger though her scratched, bloodied face. But I didn’t care.
My unnatural wailing continued for two more days broken only by the uncontrollable sobs. Kelly and I didn’t speak again for several days.
One of the boys at the orphanage, Peter, goaded me. “We knew it was only a matter of time before you…snapped.” He followed me around the school, always just a few paces behind. “Mary Elizabeth, Mary Elizabeth, Lizzie. That’s right, Lizzie. Lizzie took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done she gave her father forty-one. You know that’s why you’re here, right, Lizzie? Tell everyone, Lizzie. Tell them you’re a psycho.” Peter then broke into the theme from Psycho—“Eee! Eee! Eee!,” waving his arm in a stabbing motion as if he held an invisible knife. Undoubtedly his take on the whole Alfred Hitchcock Psycho thing.
“Peter, leave her alone. We all know you’re just a dick,” I heard the voice behind me exclaim. When I turned around, I saw Kelly with a smile on her face just below the remnants of a black eye.
“I’m so sorry, String Bean. I never should have...”
I ran toward Kelly with my arms stretched wide, and before she could even finish her sentence, our fight was over.
“I have been so lonely without you, Keebler,” I cried.
“Me too. Me too. Come on, get off me before we give these freaks anything more to talk about.” She glanced sideways at Peter. “You know he’s just hot for you,” she remarked loudly as we walked off.
“What?” I said weakly.
“That’s why he’s such a jerk to you,” Kelly replied.
It was never any secret that Kelly loathed the orphanage and its religious foundations. Kelly and Brett’s parents were cradle Catholics. Their parents had been baptized as babies. They had made their First Communion. Even their Confirmation and marriage were all dutifully overseen by the Catholic Church. As a family they had always attended Mass every Easter and Christmas. Once in a while they would even throw in a random Sunday for good measure. But neither Kelly nor Brett had ever developed a taste for the devotion it took to be a really good Catholic. Living at MIQ was what you could call a “culture shock” for her.
At St. Matthew’s, Sunday Masses were reserved for the who’s who of the congregation. Reporters and news crews could frequently be seen waiting for church to let out so they could snap pictures and get comments from the political phenoms and reclusive geniuses who could be found amongst the rich and famous parishioners. Friday and Saturday Masses were for the regular upper and middle class families who dappled the nearby community. Thursday Masses were the working slobs, the poor folks who trudged on in their daily lives unaware of all the secret, closed-door deals that held their fates precariously in the hands of the more powerful and elite. The earlier in the week that you attended Mass, the more insignificant you were to the whole worldly picture. Of course, these arrangements were unspoken and rarely even hinted at. No one ever tried to improve their station in life by trying to hobnob at St. Matthew’s on their undesignated day, although secretly I always wondered what would happen if someone were ever so brash. In the grand scheme of things, us orphans were at the bottom of the heap, at least until we were adopted into the upper crust. We went to Mass every Wednesday. The only souls even more unfortunate than us were the old people, the geriatrics who had either outlived or been abandoned by their families to live alone and in poverty. They had the Monday/Tuesday slot.
Every Wednesday Kelly, me, and the other sixty-plus charges of MIQ would wake early, dress in our usual bland, conservative blue-and-gray parochial uniforms, hurry through an even blander yet nourishing breakfast, and then wait. We’d line up double file in front of the orphanage’s large iron gates that lined Enoch Street. Then we waited in anticipation for our excursion, which in reality was the extremely short fifty-meter jaunt next door to St. Matthew’s. While predictable and routine like all other aspects of life at MIQ, this was the one and only time we were allowed to leave the premises. Upon filing into St. Matthew’s we would tarry some more, this time for our turn in the confessional, always mindful of our flawlessly straight queues. One after the other we would enter the confessional and bare our souls to Father Brennigan.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been one week since my last confession,” each of us would begin.
“Tell me your sins, child,” Father Brennigan would reply.
After you told Father all your sins, he would issue you your penance and tell you to go in peace. That was your cue to kiss his ring. Kelly thought it was crazy because he wasn’t the pope, or even a mob boss for that matter. It was just his way. It had always been his way ever since I could remember, and who was going to argue with a priest’s traditions?
I remember when I was younger, I loved watching Father Brennigan give his homily during Mass because he always talked with his hands. The light from the altar candles would catch his big gold ring and inevitably shoot a beam of light onto one of his unsuspecting parishioners. I would imagine the light as a sniper’s laser targeting its next victim—or in this case, sinner. Father Brennigan wore the ring all the time. I don’t think he ever took it off. It was only during confession that you were really able to get a close look at it, though. To me it resembled a men’s class ring, large and masculine with an oversized red stone on top. After many years of closer inspection I can tell you it was really much more detailed than that. The red stone had been carved in bas-relief style to reveal understatedly a lamb standing in front of a cross. I thought the ring beautiful and priceless. It looked extremely old and historic, fitting for the pastor of the esteemed St. Matthew Cathedral. I must admit, I spent more time fixated on his ring than on my sins during confession. I suppose I should have confessed that also.
I don’t know about the other kids, but I never had much to confess. I usually departed with only a few Hail Marys and a couple Our Fathers as my penance. I was all too aware of the lack of depravity at MIQ and just assumed that everyone else had as few indiscretions to confess as I did. Also, the line moved very quickly, thus strengthening my perception and leaving me hardly any scandals to imagine. Even with my barely tarnished soul and being accustomed to weekly confession, I never cared for the practice much.
Father Brennigan was very old-fashioned and insisted that all inhabitants of MIQ give their confession face to face. “No veil of anonymity here,” he’d say. Everyone in connection with MIQ, from the groundskeepers and cooks to the sisters and each of us orphans, all had to abide by Father Brennigan’s request. Only Mother Superior, Sister Christine, bucked Father Brennigan on this issue. I just figured she liked being difficult; it was her nature to be so. Believe me, I could tell you better than anyone—we had a history together, after all. Sister Christine was the only one who went to the private confessional. I honestly thought it was ridiculous. After all, we were the only ones in the church. Father Brennigan knew it was Sister Christine because he’d have to get up and leave the face-to-face confessional and go into the private confessional the next door over. It just seemed so silly to me. On the bright side, every week the monotony was broken by Father Brennigan’s musical chairs, or “musical confessionals,” as Kelly would say. I would chuckle under my breath and then Kelly would whisper, “Sister Christine, stubborn as mule and just as attractive.”
After all the confessions were made and penances satisfied, we would sit quietly in our pews, waiting for Mass to begin. The Mass at St. Matthew’s ran exactly sixty minutes, regardless of audience size or subject matter. Like I mentioned before, Father Brennigan was very traditional, and the only aspect of the Mass that had changed since its modern conception more than several hundred years ago was the translation from its original Latin to English. Personally, I think Father Brennigan regretted even that small alteration, even though he was barely old enough to re
member anything different. Each Mass was concluded with Father’s immortal words, “go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” That was our cue to stand, genuflect as we left the pew, and start our brief but dreaded walk home. The silence was deafening on the way back. No one wanted to return. Yet we all knew we had to. Sometimes I thought it was just me, but it seemed the walk home always took just a minute longer. Everyone’s steps seemed a little slower and shorter than upon leaving MIQ.
“Here we are, back at the clink,” Kelly would announce. It was no secret she hated the orphanage and likened it to a prison. She was always coming up with a new and clever way to say jail. Sometimes it was the pen, poke, pokey, reformatory, juvie, detention center, concentration camp, rock, penal complex, cult camp, and my favorite, the POW (penitentiary of worship).
Upon entering the gates one day Kelly screamed, “Hello, Shawshank, where’s my redemption?” Everyone burst into laughter.
“Wow. That’s a new one, Keebler. You’re really on today.”
“Yeah, I think that’s a keeper.”
Just then Mother Superior made her way up the walk and into the schoolyard. “You’d better mind yourself, Mary Kelly, or we won’t be allowing your brother to visit next week,” Sister Christine warned through a deep, permanently pressed scowl, so carved into her face that we were sure she looked like that even in her sleep.
“Really, honestly, Mother? Is it true? Is he coming?”
“Yes, Mary Kelly. As long as you are respectful and well behaved all week, your brother will be here next Saturday to spend the afternoon with you.”
Sinful Purity (Sinful Series) Page 2
