by John Fante
My father never understood any hesitancy about adding to the already incredibly large charge account with the grocer, but he never went to the store himself. He always sent my mother or one of us kids.
“Tell that grocer he’ll get his money when I get mine,” he said.
My mother recalled something. She got up from the chair. “Wait a minute,” she said.
She disappeared into the bedroom. My father’s memory for discarded cigar butts was bad. He would leave them lying around in a score of different places. Everywhere: in the bedroom, in the bathroom, on the dresser, on window-sills, on the back porch, on chairs, atop pictures and mirrors; everywhere. Sometimes he would send the whole family on searching expeditions for a particular butt. We children always wondered how he knew the difference between one and another, for they all looked alike to us, but he would shake his head until the right one was brought to him.
And so my mother, knowing his peculiar habits, had gathered a great many of these butts into a cigar box. She returned from the bedroom and held the box out, the lid open, and he looked into it with a frown of inquisition and surprise.
“Where did you get these?”
She was quite proud of the feat. “They’re yours!” she said.
“No they’re not,” he lied.
“But they are!”
“No they’re not.”
“But they are too! You don’t suppose…”
“Humpf.” He examined them closely. He put his hand into the box and pressed one of the butts. The leaf cracked dryly and fell apart in his fingers. He shook his head.
“I can’t use them,” he said. “They’re too old.”
“Look again,” she coaxed. “Maybe you’ll find a fresh one.”
“Did you ever smoke a cigar?”
“Why, no,” she said.
“All right, then. I want some more cigars. Throw those away.”
“But I can’t charge cigars at the store! They’re an extravagance, and Mr. O’Neil gets so mad!”
“Never mind O’Neil. Tell him to wait. Ask him if he ever tried to lay brick in the snow. Just ask him that some time, and see what kind of an answer you get.”
He left her standing there, the box of butts in her hands. She watched him at the window as he trudged down the street, his eyes to the heavens as he shook his head in hopeless bewilderment. It made her think of a puppy lost in the snow.
First Communion
HOW WELL I REMEMBER my first Confession and Communion! I was nine years old then. The day is high and clear in my mind. I remember that I had six sins to confess. I had to tell my confessor that I had used bad words six times. I didn’t want to tell him. I didn’t want to name the words. He was a holy man. I knelt in the pew and tried to find a way of language that would convey the essence of my sins. I thought of many devices. I thought I could say: “I used bad words six times,” or: “I sinned against the Third Commandment six times,” or: “I used wicked words six times,” or: “I talked evil six times,” or: “I said bad things six times.”
For a month the nuns had taught us the solemnity and the liturgy of the confessional. Going to it for the first time would be the most important event of our lives, for thereafter we would have the consciences of sinners. We would know the good from the bad.
There were eight boys and eight girls in our first Confession class. We were seven or eight or nine years old. The girls knelt in two pews before the boys. An ugly little girl who grew up to become a nun knelt in front of me. She was Catherine. She was a little girl with thin white skin and shoulder blades that stuck out. She was crying pitifully. Her shoulders quivered and twitched as I leaned my chin on the pew before me and juggled my six sins. The old, cold church was empty except for the sixteen of us and a nun. The sobs of Catherine rose and filled it like timid puffs of smoke. Her dress danced to the jerk of them. The nun tiptoed in from the vestibule. She put a black-draped arm around the little girl’s shoulder and gently stroked her curls.
“There, there!” she whispered. “Don’t you take it so hard. I’m sure our Lord knows you’re sorry for your sins.”
We guys looked at one another and snickered. Sissy Catherine, sorry for her sins! Sissy Catherine, sorry for her sins!
Sorry for her sins? I looked at the dancing curls. Why should she be crying? If there was anybody in that class who had a right to cry, it was I. Catherine crying? Huh! Sissy, sissy, sissy! Wait until she had something really wicked to confess. Then she could cry, all right. Wait until she had to confess what I had to confess. Little sissy Catherine!
Straightway, I began a bad habit which lived with me for a long time thenceforth. I began to examine her conscience for her. I looked for faults in her as big as mine. She was a very good little girl. She got high marks. She knew by heart “Excelsior” and “Lead, Kindly Light.” I went over the summertimes and days I had known her. I could think of nothing worth crying over. I imagined her in the act of committing a sin. I took her out of the church pew and transposed her to the filling-station grounds, my favorite hang-out. I leaned her against the filling-station wall, put a cigarette butt into her mouth, and made her swear, say the six wicked words. But it was hardly convincing. Sissy Catherine simply would not do that. She could not swear as I did. Nobody could swear like me. Nobody had the nerve to swear like me. Nobody was bad enough to swear like me. Nobody was dirty enough. Nobody…I sniffed.
Long before the priest came down from the sacristy I was out-bawling little Catherine. I was the dirtiest guy who ever was. I drew my forearm across my nose and snuggled my face into it. The boy on my left was crying softly. The fellow on my right cleared his throat. White handkerchiefs fluttered among the little girls in the two front pews. Everybody cried. The nun, moved to ecstatic tears herself, pronounced us her most edifying class.
II
The priest came out of the sacristy and knelt for a moment in prayer at the altar. Maybe, I thought, he is praying to our Lord, asking Him please not to send anybody into the confessional who has dirty words to confess. The statue of Christ, His toga opened to a red and bloody heart pierced by two stilettos, pleaded to us from the peak of the marble altar. I was sure I saw His eyes move. I was sure I saw Him breathing. I was sure blood dripped from His heart.
I burrowed into my elbow and howled: “O dear Jesus, I won’t say it any more! I’ll be good! I won’t hang around the filling-station any more! Wait and see! Gimme another chance, and wait and see!”
The priest came down from the altar to the confessional. His feet buried themselves into the carpet like iron chains. He took a toothpick out of his mouth and spat a splinter of it to the floor. With breathless curiosity and anxiety the sixteen of us watched him. Then he blew his nose and patted it amiably with his handkerchief. He stared up at the choir-loft for a moment as if he had forgotten something. He smiled to the nun, counted us, sighed, and entered the confessional.
The Confessions began. The girls were first. Each rose from her pew and looked back timorously at the nun. She nodded kindly, and pointed to the confessional. The girls entered softly, one by one. Through the glazed door we could see each penitent in turn, kneeling in the booth. Came the click-clack, click-clack, at two-minute intervals, of the little slide grating that separates priest from penitent. One after another the girls went in and came out. Their eyes were still wrinkled from tears, but their lips turned meek smiles of relief.
The first boy who confessed came out with a lot of noise. He blustered, his chest in the air. The next had a little opinion in his eyes; a cinch! it said.
Suddenly I made up my mind to confess frankly. I began to get boldly sorry now. I wanted to go in and get it over with. I pitied the priest. My Confession would burn his insides.
When my turn came at last, I was greedy to enter. I jumped up and went in. I knelt and blessed myself. The booth was dark and cold, smelling like an ice-box. The sliding door clicked. There was the priest with his nose in his handkerchief. I drew a long breath. I began the prescribed ritual. At once
my courage froze.
“Bless me, Father, I confess to Almighty God and to you, Father, that I have sinned. This is my first Confession.”
Then: “I made six sins. I said something very bad, Father. I knew it was a sin, too. I said something you will not like, Father. I won’t do it again, Father. I am awfully sorry, Father. And now I ask penance and absolution of you, Father.”
“I can’t give you penance and absolution until I know the sins you committed,” the priest whispered.
“They were awful bad, Father. I think you will be mad when I tell you, Father.”
“No, I will not be mad. You must tell me.”
“Oh, Father! They were awful. You will not like it, Father.”
The priest changed his position, moving his arm. I jumped. I thought he was going to hit me.
He said: “Did you take the name of the Lord?”
“Oh, it was a lot worse than that, Father. You don’t know how bad it was, Father.”
“Did you speak foully? You must tell me. You mustn’t be afraid.”
“Oh, I’m awfully sorry, Father.”
“Tell me. The priest is your friend.”
“Oh, I’m awfully sorry, Father.”
The priest sighed.
“Did you say ‘God damn’?”
“Oh, it was worse, Father.”
“Did you say ‘Jesus Christ’?”
“Oh, no, Father, I never say that.”
“Did you say ‘bastard’?”
“No, Father. It was almost that, though, Father.”
“Was it ‘son of a bitch’?”
“Yes, Father.”
The priest sighed.
“Is that all?”
“Oh, yes, Father.”
I recited the rest of the formula: “And I am sorry for these and all the sins of my past life, and I ask penance, pardon, and absolution of you, Father.”
He gave me my penance—a few short prayers. He lifted his hand in quiet absolution. I came out of the confessional. I was happy, very happy. I knelt at the altar and said my penance. I went out into the sunshine of a serene afternoon. I never felt so clean. I was a bar of soap. I was fresh water. I was bright tinfoil. I was a new suit of clothes. I was a haircut. I was Christmas Eve and a box of candy. I floated. I whistled. Some day I would be a priest. I had better run home now and feed the chickens, and mow the lawn, and get in the coal and wood, and go to the store.
III
The next morning the sixteen of us were to receive our first Holy Communion. The boys were to wear white shirt-waists and dark breeches. My mother was in the hospital, so my father asked my grandmother to take charge of me, to dress me. I didn’t have a white waist, but my grandmother said she would fix that, all right. You bet she fixed it! She went to the bureau for one of my father’s white shirts. She snipped the sleeves off at the elbows. I could wear it now, she said. I thought it was a grand shirt to wear, my father’s. It covered me like a sheet. The pockets sank below my belt. The sleeves were still too long. The tail bagged like a pillow. My grandmother agreed: it certainly was a swell shirt. She blessed me, and I went to nine o’clock Mass. I was to offer my first Communion for the success of my mother’s operation. They would wheel her into the operating room that morning.
But only my grandmother and I thought I wore a grand shirt. The Sister Superior screeched when she saw me standing in line with my partner. She ran to me. She seized my sleeve, long and dangling with unraveled thread. The cloth shrieked, ripping to my elbow.
“For heaven’s sake! Go home and put something on.”
It was hard to understand. I thought it was a swell shirt, my father’s. The guys laughed and said things about tents and awnings and gunnysacks. Mass would start in five minutes.
My mother would fix my shirt. But I had to hurry. Pretty soon they would begin to operate. I knew of such things, for it had happened twice before in the same year.
I ran across town—twenty blocks—to the hospital. I sprawled and crawled up the three flights of stairs to my mother’s room. I opened the door to see them lifting her from the bed on posts to the bed on wheels. I saw my mother. She was too white to sew. She looked as if her face was covered with talcum; like a girl, she had her hair in a braid.
She saw me. She took my hand and smiled.
“He’s an angel,” my mother said to the nurse. “He went to Communion for me this morning. That’s why I’m not afraid.”
I blurted: “I never went yet, Ma.”
She didn’t hear. I half repeated it, but the nurse pasted a funny-smelling hand over my mouth. They pulled my mother away. I followed them down the rubbery, smelly corridor. The bed on wheels swung quietly into the operating room. My mother saw me in the hall. She asked the nurses to stop. She waved her fingers to me. I ran tiptoe to her side.
“Isn’t that Papa’s shirt?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Let me fix it.”
“You can’t now,” the nurse said. “The doctor’s waiting.”
“Just a safety pin,” my mother said.
The nurse gave her one. She pinned it at the elbow of the torn sleeve, to prevent any further ripping.
“Tell Grandma to fix it,” my mother said. We kissed.
They pushed her inside, and I went down the hospital steps. I was too late for my first Communion. I went home slowly. Soon I forgot all about Communion. I was proud of this swell shirt, my father’s. I pulled the collar down and let the breeze fill my waist. The shirt ballooned out.
I tried to explain to my grandmother. She spoke little English and understood less.
“No Communion,” I said. “Shirt no good. Sister no like. Sleeve too long. Sister tear. Mamma say fix.”
“Yah, yah,” she said. “Me fix ’um.”
She got the scissors and cut the sleeves off at the shoulders. Now the shirt drooped to my elbows.
IV
That evening my father sighed to see his tine shirt so amputated, and he made a noise with his teeth and tongue: Sssk, sssk, sssk.
“Thank God when your mother comes home,” he said.
When he learned the why of it, he clattered the dishes with a wild fist. He was furious with the nun. I watched and listened with a great pride. He growled and pressed his temples.
“By Jesus Christ, tomorrow you go to Communion, and you wear a blue work shirt, understand? A work shirt. Not a white shirt, or a green shirt, but a blue shirt. A blue shirt. Blue! Blue! Blue! And I’m gonna take you out of the Catholic school. And I’ll put you in the public school. I’m tired paying taxes, anyway.”
“Shut up!” my grandmother said in Italian. “All the time you talk, talk, talk, and say nothing. All the time. Shut up!”
“Shut up yourself!” my father said. “Who’s running this house? Me or you?”
“Blah!” my grandmother answered. “Pie-face!”
The next morning there were many surprises on my bed. There was a new pairs of breeches. And a new pair of shoes. And three new white waists. And a new pair of stockings. And two new pairs of B.V.D.’s. And a new cap. And two new neckties.
In the kitchen I heard my father humming over his breakfast. He had been with my mother most of the night, and her operation had been a success.
My grandmother said to my father: “Why did you buy him white shirts? They soil easily, and he will tear them. Blue is best.”
My father said: “No son of mine will ever wear a blue shirt.”
“You are crazy,” my grandmother said.
“I know what I’m doing,” my father said.
“You are crazy,” my grandmother said.
“Some more bacon,” my father said.
I went to church. After the bells rang at the Sanctus, I walked down the aisle to the Communion rail. There were a million singing crickets in my new shoes. People looked up from their prayers to see who made the noise. They bent their necks to see my new shoes.
Oh, boy!
Altar Boy
ONE
TIME I SERVED MASS with Allie Saler, and Allie had the right side to serve. I mean he had to hand the priest wine and ring the bells and move the missal and pretty near all the important things that altar boys do. All of us guys in the altar boys used to like serving on the right side on account of it was so important. It is a lot more important than the left-side server. He hardly ever does anything. All he does is genuflect and hold the paten at Holy Communion.
We got to the sacristy about ten minutes before Mass started, and when it came time to figure out who got the right side, I said I did, and he said he did. We started in saying dirty things back and forth, and Father Andrew came in.
He said: “Here, here, what is going on here?”
We told him.
He said: “Oh, that is nothing. I will settle it by having Allie take it this morning.”
I just hated that look on Allie’s face. It was just like he had it all figured out with Father Andrew that I was going to get the left, and Father looked straight at Allie, just like I was not there, and it was just like saying: “I like you better than him, and your father owns the drug-store, and his father never does come to church, so that is why you get the right.”
It says in the Catechism that to think evil things is the same as doing them, so right away I knew I was sinning to beat the band while I was standing there, and I knew my sins were awful ones, maybe mortal sins, because I was standing there wishing Father Andrew was a man instead of a priest, and more my size, so I could knock the hell out of him, and get even. I was not wishing any such thing as that on Allie because it was a waste of wishes. I knew I would lay into him good and hard after Mass. He knew it too. I could tell, all right.
But it was all settled that he got the right side, so we started to get things ready for Mass. Father put on his vestments. Allie lit the candles and I got the wine and water ready.
The wine was not real wine at all. My father has swell red stuff in his cellar, but this was blackish-red grape juice, kind of bitter, and just as thick as ink. The guys used to swipe a mouthful every once in a while and pretend they were stewed, but I did not because it did not taste so good, and my father says you can down a whole barrel of it without it fazing you. Father Andrew likes his wine plain, without mixing it with water, and about an inch of it for every Mass. I mean the wine would be an inch deep in the pitcher.
