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A Sunday Kind of Love
On Sunday mornings, Gram and Big Daddy
woke us up early and took us to mass at St. Mary’s. On Wednesday, Little
Jake and I did yard work for Father Fitzpatrick. A long time ago, Big
Daddy told us that in Ireland, if your name began with Mac or Mc, that meant
“son of” and if it began with “Fitz,” it meant “illegitimate son of.”
Jake and I often wondered how a bastard son of some guy named Patrick made it
into the priesthood. Despite the fact that Father Fitzpatrick may have
been brought into this world under less than admirable circumstances, he was a
pretty cool guy for a priest.
Gram volunteered us to do yard work around the church
earlier that summer.
She said that it was good for us to do penance and although
Jake and I objected to doing it vehemently in the beginning, we finally
relented, knowing full well that if we didn’t, then we would have to face the
wrath of Gram.
I thought this penance thing was a good
way for churches to get things done for free that other people had to pay
for. I thought to myself, “I wish some clown would drop by our house once
a week, offer up some kind of love offering and cut our grass so I could go and
do more important things.” However, Jake pointed out that if we did penance
every week then we were absolved from our sins and could get in trouble as much
as we wanted without fear of going to hell. He thought that it was a
pretty good trade and I agreed with him. We got in trouble nearly
everyday and if cutting the grass at St. Mary’s can keep us on the good side of
the Almighty, then I was all for it.
After we finished our yard work, Gram and
Big Daddy took us to Danny’s Restaurant for lunch. Jake and I were always
starving by the time we got there. Gram was kind of an orthodox Catholic
and made us fast on Sunday morning before going to mass. I really didn’t
see the whole point of sitting through mass with your stomach moaning and
groaning, but Gram said that it was sacrilege to eat before mass. I guess
in a way, she was right, after all during the transubstantiation of the
Eucharist, the wafers and wine were symbolic of the flesh and blood of our
Lord, Jesus Christ and it did seem kind of blasphemous having the flesh and
blood of Jesus floating around with hash browns and bacon.
Jake and I ordered our usual
Danny’s Restaurant burgers and then asked if we could get it to go. We
told Big Daddy and Gram that we’d just as soon eat our lunch at home as
anywhere else. This was a strategic move on our part because if we got
the food to go, then we didn’t get any drinks and if we didn’t get any drinks
then we could polish off another two or three Peach Nehis a piece giving us six
more returnable bottles and bringing us that much closer to our goal of saving
enough money to buy a whole shit load of fireworks for the 4th of July.
Gram said that she needed to stop by the store on the way home to pick up a few
things. Jake and I waited in the truck with Big Daddy and checked out all
of the women coming in and out of IGA in their Sunday best. After a few
minutes, Gram came back out to the truck with a fresh loaf of bread, a can of
spaghetti sauce and an eight pack of Peach Nehi for Jake and I. It was
beautiful when we managed to short circuit the cornbread voodoo and Gram played
right into our hands.
Sunday afternoons were pretty uneventful
around the neighborhood.
Sometimes Jake and I would go swimming or fishing on Sunday
afternoons, but lately we had been taking part in the sandlot baseball games at
the churchyard of the Mina Sauk Missionary Baptist Church. We enjoyed the
game of baseball, but that summer, we had bigger fish to fry. Jake and I
both were ate up with the fever of being girl crazy and two of the girls that
held our interest more than most, April and Stacy, liked to hang out at the
sandlot games. We couldn’t turn down an opportunity to show off for these
girls, so Jake and I began playing baseball at the churchyard on Sundays.
We had first encountered April and Stacy
at Roundhole. Jake and I thought that we were the only ones that liked to
go swimming down there, but were taken by surprise when we arrived at our
favorite swimming hole and it was occupied by two lovely young ladies.
April and Stacy were taken by surprise as well when they saw us coming down the
railroad bridge to the gravel bar on the opposite side of the shore. Jake
was a boob man and always had been. He had always been fascinated with
boobs and developed crushes on TV chicks like Stacks from BJ and the Bear and
Victoria Principal from Dallas. Because of his fascination with boobs, he
was immediately drawn to April like a moth was drawn to a flame and was buzzing
all around her like a fly buzzing around a fresh pile.
April was especially well endowed for a
girl who was only going into the 8th grade and on the day that we met them at
the swimming hole, she had on a bikini top covered up with a plain white tee
shirt. The tee shirt was soaked and was plastered to her skin like a thin
layer of cheap Wal-Mart paint. Every outline of her bikini top was
visible through the damp fabric of that plastered on cotton tee-shirt the
straps, the seams, the deep v in the middle where her breasts came together
into her Royal Gorge of cleavage; even her nipples were visible through the
shirt and exploded out of her bikini top in an areola borealis.
Jake told me that if he ever got his hands on those boobs, he would have to be
careful. It wouldn’t be too hard to get carried away and sprain your
wrists from the sheer enjoyment of them.
In contrast to Jake’s fascination with
boobs, I was a leg and ass man.
Daisy Duke was the end all be all of women as far as I was
concerned because she had it all. Once you got past those long honeydew
legs wrapped up in those skin tight short-shorts, you would find that she had a
nice pair of melons hanging half out of a tight fitting cotton blouse.
Stacy was no Daisy Duke by any means, but nevertheless she caught my eye and I
just kind of followed Jake’s lead as we began making polite conversation and
splashing around in the water.
Stacy had deep blue eyes that were set a
little wide on her face, a slightly turned up nose and a delicate, but firm
chin. She had lovely, smiling lips and her facial features were framed by
a cascade of blonde hair that flowed down to her shoulders in a waterfall of
golden waves. She had an unbelievable, almost tropical looking tan that
looked like it had been done on a rotisserie. I think I must have loved
her or something because around my heart, it hurt a little bit and it began to
flutter as I silently began praying, “Please don’t let me get a hard on”
because Jake and I were wearing our bathing suits and kids our age had no
control over their penis muscles whatsoever and there was nothing more
embarrassing than getting a boner at an awkward moment.
Jake and I showed off as best we could
for April and Stacy at the sandlot games, but like Gram always said, “All good
things must come to an end” and the games did just as soon as the preacher
showed up for the evening service. He didn’t mind us playing ball in the
churchyard when no one was there, but didn’t want us hitting a ball through the
windshield of one of his brethren while they were taking part in the evening
service.
April and Stacy went to the church and as luck would have
it, Jake and I got an invite to the youth service earlier that summer.
Gram didn’t really know what to think
when we started going to this service. She thought it was mighty strange
for us to come home long before dark, dig out some of our nice clothes, get in
the shower and get all cleaned up on a Sunday night. She was on the verge
of putting us to bed, throwing a couple dozen quilts over us and sweating out
whatever had gotten into us when we told her that we were going to
church. All of a sudden, she lit up like a Christmas tree and I thought I
saw something that resembled pride. I was sure that she was going to call
up Aunt Elsie and tell her that one of her boys was going to be Pope someday
and then Jake spoke up told her we were going to the Baptist church where we
had been playing ball. That kind of knocked all of the wind out of her
sails, but Jake and I had a knack for doing that sort of thing so we didn’t
mind it very much.
Big Daddy didn’t like the idea very much
either and said, “What’s wrong with being a goddamned Catholic.” We
thought that a “goddamned Catholic” was kind of a contradiction of terms,
especially since Big Daddy had told us that the Almighty was a Catholic, but
later on, we explained to him about April and Stacy and how we thought that
going to church would be a good opportunity for us to get to know them
better. It was Big Daddy who, then, lit up like a Christmas tree and had
a look about him that resembled pride.
He seemed to understand after that and even offered up a
couple of tips to help us move things along a little faster.
Gram told us never to go to church empty
handed, so she sent us off to the Mina Sauk Missionary Baptist Church with a
dollar a piece and Jake was amazed at her generosity. We would have to
find ten RC bottles to make a whole bone. We would have to drink two
Peach Nehis apiece all week long to net a whole buck. He said that we
should give them a buck when we got there and keep one for the fireworks
fund. I told him that I really didn’t feel comfortable short changing the
Almighty like that, but he reassured me that it would be OK and reminded me
about Big Daddy objecting to us going to the Baptist Church in the first place
and how he insisted that the Almighty was Catholic. I brought up the John
the Baptist guy that I saw on the Easter movie about Jesus, but Jake just took
all the fire out of my argument when he reminded me that we had cut grass this
afternoon, we had done penance and we were absolved. Thank God and Father
Fitzpatrick.
After the evening service, the youth
group met in the classroom and had snacks. Sometimes they had ice cream
and sometimes they had cookies, but they always had something. This was
our opportunity to spend some time with April and Stacy after church. The
last few times we came, we even got to walk them home which was even better
than netting a whole bone every time we went to church. The only problem
was that in order to get in to the classroom, the kids had to recite a Bible
verse to the youth leader. The youth leader let Jake and I off the hook
the first time we went to the evening service, but told us the next time we
came to church, we had to know one.
Jake and I memorized a Bible verse one
Bible verse between the two of us. The youth leader, who kept insisting
that we call him Brother Rayburn, looked kind of put out when Jake and I said
“Jesus wept” the third week in a row before sitting down next to Stacy and
April and eating our snacks.
Yeah, Brother Rayburn looked put out, but I think that even
he realized that boys chasing girls into the church house probably brought more
people to Jesus than a sermon or a Bible verse ever could. We had a good time
at the church social and Stacy and April asked us if we would walk them
home. Jake and I eagerly accepted their invitation and we took off down
the road toward their house, seizing every opportunity to show off as we
went. Just before we got to the door, we stopped and asked them for a
kiss goodnight and just like the week before, the girls told us that they
didn’t feel exactly right about kissing boys after church. We walked them
up to the door, said goodbye and then took off for our own house.
The purpling midwestern sky was covered
with stars, a warm breeze was blowing through the trees and I could hear a
hound dog barking in the distance. Jake and I walked in silence for a
while, trying to take in what had just happened or more to the point, what had
not happened. When I was standing on the steps of April’s house, it
seemed that the universe started and stopped within the confines of Stacy’s
mouth. I wanted that kiss so bad; I wanted to kiss her more than I wanted
anything and was getting tired of being all worked up over nothing. I
felt like a dog, endlessly chasing its tail in the front yard. Jake and I
had to find a way to break this pattern, this endless cycle of getting all
primed up for a kiss goodnight and then walking away empty handed kissless.
“Hey, Jake,” I said as we neared the
curve just before the church, “Why do you think that they think it’s bad to
kiss after church?”
“I don’t really know,” he said, “it’s
just a girl thing… but then again, it might be because they didn’t cut any
grass for Father Fitzpatrick today and have to worry about their souls.”
“Do you think they would kiss at the
skating rink,” Jake asked.
“Probably,” I said, “Most of the other
girls do. There’s something about the skating rink and kissing that just
kind of fit together.”
“Well, we are just going to have to get
them to go skating,” Jake said.
“We probably ought to learn another Bible
verse, too,” I said, “Brother Rayburn looked like he was getting pissed at us
today,” I concluded.
“Yeah, there’s some verses in the Song of
Samson that girls really like,” Jake said, “We could impress the girls with
those, so it wouldn’t be a complete waste of time.”
Jake went on to explain how Uncle Jake
had told him that you could get girls to do just about anything if you could
say the right stuff. I kind of equated that to the kind of magic that
took place when you were cussing - The kind of magic that took place at Roundhole
when Jake called Brian Bowden a stupid bastard. Later that night, I
dreamed of being at the skating rink with Stacy, saying those magical
“Abracadabra” kind of words and finally getting that goodnight kiss.
William Matthew McCarter holds a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies
and a Master's in Liberal Arts.
He is currently enrolled in a PhD
program at the University of Texas at Arlington.
He has published his work in both tradition print
magazines and online publications. His most recent
publications have been in Wilmington Blues and The Indite Circle.
Email: William Matthew McCarter
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