Saying My Stupid Rosary

A Novel in progress

by Tom Bessette

Copyright 2009 BessetteBooks

Bobby Nollette narrates his adventures and observations as a 13 year old growing up in a small city in 1969.

Chapter 2

Sunday, April 6th, 1969

I was watching Loretta. She was in her bathroom, just about to take a bath. I was either in the bathroom closet, or in the hallway outside, I couldn’t tell which, peeking around a half opened door.  I could see the tub filled with soapy water.  I could smell the sweet perfume of her bath crystals.  I could feel the heat of the water on my face. The room was all damp and misty and I saw Loretta like in a picture that was out of focus. I felt like I was all flushed and warm, like I was coming down with the flu. She turned to look at me and a smile crept across her pouty lips.  Her hair was undone and falling below her shoulders, rippling with the cool breeze from the open window.  She fingered the fastening of her robe.  Then, looking into my eyes, she undid the belt and began to pull the robe apart…

“Bobby!”

…she started opening her robe…

“Bobby, come on!”

…her robe, it parted in the middle and started to slip…

“Bobby!! Jesus, Kee Ko, it’s time to get up!”

…slip off her shoulders until I could just start to see…

“Bobby!  Goddammit!  Get up!!!”

“Huh?”

“Jesus, you sleep like you’re dead.”  My father’s voice.  Loretta faded, her body unrevealed.  My stupid johnson was all stiff again and it hurt like the devil.  I wish somebody would just tell me what that’s all about.  I think about Loretta, or even Sister La Salle, and all of a sudden it’s like I got a disease or something.

“I’m up,” I said. “Coming.”

Darn stupid paper route!  I had just started it last week and already I just hated it.  Weekdays were bad because I had to get up at 5:30AM, walk to the corner of Main and Washington to pick up my bundle of papers and trek all the way back to my house to deliver the papers all off in the opposite direction.  I had 132 daily customers to deliver, and had to get them all done by 7:00AM or my jerkiest customers would start crabbing to the paper that I was always late and they should get a new paperboy.  It was usually these same jerks that didn’t have the money to pay on collection day.  Anyways, I’d finish by 7 and then get breakfast and walk the half mile to school, which started at 8:15.  Sheesh!

Weekends, I didn’t have to be up so early but I couldn’t start too late, either.  Pauley, who had just given me the route, said once he didn’t finish a Saturday ‘till 9AM and got royally reamed out for it.  So, still I had to be done by 8AM Saturdays and 9AM Sundays, or else.  When you used to be able to sleep to 10AM, this was pretty darn bad!

Sundays really sucked.  The paper was stupid huge and heavy and I had near 200 customers, and all had to be delivered, like I said, by 9AM.  I would have had to get up at 4AM or something and do it in about three or four trips from the corner, pulling the papers in my old wagon, which would really look stupid.  So, my dad said he’d help; we could use the car, and not have to carry them.

So, this was mostly why he was yelling at me to get up so bad.  It was Sunday again, and he had to go with me.  I guess he didn’t like it either, but, sheesh, what was I supposed to do? It’s not like he had to carry the papers or run up and down stupid stairs all morning, or anything. I did all the work!

So, anyways, I crawled out of bed, eyes sticky, johnson softening now, and yanked on my jeans and pulled on my T-Shirt.  I didn’t sleep in pajamas anymore, they were for sissies.  It was way cooler and easier to just sleep in your Fruit-of-the-Looms.  I would even sometimes remember to put on fresh ones, especially like after last Saturday when I peed my pants in Loretta’s bathroom, or when my mother or Sally caught me wearing the same ones every day.  I hope those streaks I left last week dried up before Loretta’s mother sat on their toilet seat.

In fact, Loretta’s parents were a Sunday only customer and they were on my route, although I was there with the birds and nobody would ever be up, especially my sweet Loretta.  I didn’t see her again yesterday after my route when I was riding with Millar.

Millar had looked sadder than usual yesterday and wouldn’t talk to me again.  We just delivered the bread and collected the money and they didn’t either of us step in any dog doo, so the route went real fast and easy.  I hope he wasn’t all thinking about his wife and daughter.  It would be my fault for reminding him.

I know he did collections later Saturday if people hadn’t paid for the week yet.  I wanted to ask him what happened with the Primeau’s, like if the kids starved to death or the parents went away for good, or whatever, or even if, maybe, one of the kids had eaten the piece of bread that fell on the hat that was all poo, but he was so sad acting, I just let it go.  I even asked around school during the week if anybody knew about the Primeau’s but nobody did.  They went to the public schools and my friends just didn’t know them. Nobody was friends with anybody in that neighborhood that I knew of.

Dad and I yonked down a quick bowl of Cheerios and he threw down a few cups of coffee to, like he said, get his blood pumping, and we went out and got in the car.  He wasn’t grumbling or anything. Phew!

“What were you dreaming about, anyways,” he asked me. “You were rolling back and forth in your bed, all sweaty and moaning.”  I thought I saw a little smile on his face.

No way I wanted to tell him.  He’d think I was a pervert or something and lock me up.  Besides, it was way too embarrassing to talk to your dad about stiff johnsons and stuff.  He wouldn’t understand and he’d want to take me to the doctor for shots and stuff. And, like I said, you don’t need your own dad thinking you’re a perv.  Actually, I’m not really sure what a perv is, even.  Killer Mike says it’s a guy who drools and follows women around with no pants or underwear on under his overcoat and whips it open when they look and they scream, or something.  If dad thought I was one of those, he’d be all too happy to slap me in the slammer for good, I’m sure.  He’d plain kill me.  He was a good dad but that would be too much for anybody.

Anyways, I had to say something.

“Uh, nothing that I know of.  What was I doing?”  What if he knew already, like I had talked in my sleep or something?

“Oh, nothing serious.  It just looked like a real intense dream.  I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“I’m OK.”  Phew, he didn’t know.  I was safe.  I think!  He did seem to be kind of smiling about something, though.

We rode up to the corner and there were five bundles of papers today.  He got out with me and we heaved them into the back seat together.

He said, “Didn’t expect it would be this much work, huh?”

“I guess.  It’s OK, though.”

As he drove back down Main Street, I leaned over the back rest and shoved about 30 papers into my paper bag, which was stuffing it full, you bet.  Weekdays, I could put the whole Kit and Kaboodle in at once because they were so much thinner. We drove past our house and on up to Pauley’s.  This part of Main was on a hill.  The houses on the right were up a steep hill, like Pauley’s and I had to climb up about 1000 steps to get to their front porch.  Pauley’s, O’Malley’s, Peterson’s, and Bentley’s. all together.  At least I could cut through yards and didn’t have to come back all the way to the street and climb again for each different house.  The houses on the left were down the hill.  Some had their porches at street level, but I had 4 papers to deliver to bottom apartments where I had to climb down about 2000 steps, and each of these I had to come all the way back up before I could use a different set of stairs for the others.  9 papers delivered and I had already climbed up and down a couple mountains or so. I had taken each side’s papers under my arm instead of carrying my bag.  My dad sat in the car with the radio on and a Lucky Strike going.  When I got back in the inside of the car was like all in fog with cigarette smoke. 

“All set?” he coughed.
“Yup,” I gagged, and closed the door.

We had to drive down the street a block or so to get to the next batch of houses.  In between, the hills were to steep and too close to the street for houses, I guess.

Dad parked right on the corner of Main and First, right in front of the house where Yoder had used to live before he got killed.  His old man had moved away a month or two after Yoder got electrocuted.  Some say he took off because people were going to tar and feather him for screwing up his kid so bad, but dad said that was bull.  Yoder’s mom was still living up there on the third floor.  She had gone completely bonkers and whenever anybody walked by the house, she’d yell out her front window, calling them murderers and what did they do with her poor boy, and stuff like that.  We had a lot of crazies in Cataract, and she was no worse than any of the others, so nobody paid her much mind.

Mrs. Mason, who lived on the bottom floor was a customer and she was up early, as usual, weeding her small flower garden between the house and the sidewalk.  I think she and Yoder’s mom were still friends.  At least Mrs. Mason was the only one she ever talked to and got Yoder’s mom her groceries and stuff.  And, I think she gave her her paper after she was done with it.  Lost me a potential customer, but that was OK.  I didn’t want to try to collect from Yoder’s mom, anyways.  She creeped me out.

“Hello, Bobby,” said Mrs. Mason. “Hello Mr. Nolette,” she called to my dad in the car, although you could hardly see him through the cigarette smoke.

“Here’s your paper, Mrs. Mason.  Lots of ads today.”

“Waste of paper, waste of paper,” she said. “I only shop at Central Market down the street and the Sears catalog.  Those Times Union people, I have told them and told them to not send me all these ads, but do they listen?  No!  And, it’s a waste of paper and fills up my garbage for no reason.  Ever since poor Raymond got put away, no one comes around to collect papers and rags anymore.  Shame, that.  He never hurt a soul and they up and put him in the institution like that.  And, now, our garbage piles up when some young man could make a living.”

“Yes, m’am,” I said.  That’s all you could ever say to Mrs. Mason, even if you could get a word in edgewise. 

Raymond, that she was talking about, was the rag man guy who came and collected everybody’s old newspapers and worn out clothes, and broken metal things, and stuff.  He would take them down to Silliman’s Dump and sell them.  He had this really cool 3-wheel scooter with kind of like a pick-up bed on the back to load everything in.  You’d hear him all year round, yelling “rags, rags,” in his goofy voice.  He had had some kind of accident when he was a kid that left him stupid, but he sure could collect rags and papers and drive his scooter.  He was always friendly and simple and never bothered anybody I know, but about two years ago, a mother and father down on Jefferson claimed he had done something to their little daughter and the cops came and took Raymond away. All of a sudden, everybody just knew that Raymond was bad; they had seen it in his eyes.  It was all a crock, though.  A few of us knew that little girl, and she told one of her friends that she did it to get Raymond in trouble when he wouldn’t give her soda money for the store.  She was a trouble making liar then and she still is now.  I stay the heck away from her. Nobody knows what happened to Raymond. His parents were real old and they finally moved away, people were so mean.

I left Mrs. Mason still crabbing about the Times Union people and crossed the street to the Ryan’s.  They were the best Catholics on our street and went to mass every day, the whole bunch of them. My mom said something once about how they always messed up their rhythm, or something, and so had 9 kids in 10 years and Mrs. Ryan was pregnant again. I don’t know what music had to do with it, though.

All their kids’ names started with a J.  John, Julie, Joelle, Judith, James, Jonah, and so on. Nobody could remember them all, least of all their parents, so my mom said.  Mr. Ryan worked at the post office which, I guess, didn’t pay enough to feed all the kids.  The Ryan’s were always being prayed for in Church, and held up as to how they were such good Catholics for following God’s will and all.  The priests said that since the Ryan’s took children from god willingly, we all needed to help support them by giving money and food whenever we could spare it.  I always wondered if they were too willing to take god’s children; like maybe God didn’t really need or expect them to take so many, especially when I knew 3 families, myself, right in our parish, who wanted children but couldn’t get any from God. Seems to me the Ryan’s were being selfish, you know? Couldn’t they spare one or two like my mom said?

And, another thing.  The priests said to give the money to the church and they would pass it on.  Like my mom said, maybe we should give it direct to the Ryan’s and leave the priests out of it.  Why did they need to handle it, was what I wanted to know.  Mom said those situations usually let some of the money disappear in the process, and the Ryan’s would get less than was given, and maybe the priests were holding on to some of it for safekeeping, which wasn’t right.  Mom said she believed that the priests sometimes had sticky fingers, which made sense, like when you get pancake syrup on your hands, stuff sticks to you!  Just try to wipe syrup off your fingers with Kleenex sometimes, you’ll see.

Judy Ryan was my age and in my class at St. Judas Iscariot’s School.  Her clothes were always old and mended and she was skinnier than most of the other girls, and we had some really skinny ones at our school. Judy’s knee socks were always drooping down her legs and the nuns were always crabbing at her to pull them up.  She would and they would right away droop down again, usually one lower than the other. Everybody said that she wore her two older sister’s clothes and they were plenty used.  It was usual at our school that kids wore hand-me-downs, but the Ryan’s were the most hand-me-downiest kids you ever saw.

I had supper at their house once and all we had was mushed up oats with milk. No chicken or hamburger casserole or spaghetti or anything.  The kids all lit into it like it was the best candy they’d ever had.  At least they didn’t have any vegetables.  I hated all those, except peas and corn, anyways.

Judy came running out the door when I came up with the paper.

“Bobby!  Hi!”

“Hi, Judy.”

“What time is your family going to mass today?”

The Ryan’s were even more religious than most people.  Everybody I knew, just about, was Catholics and went to church on Sundays and did the sacraments and all, but the Ryan’s, like I said, went even on weekdays, most days, and did confession a couple times a week and even were in the St Judas and St. Mary Magdalene Societies and all that.  Whenever you talked to any of them, pretty much the whole conversation was about Jesus and the Catechism and giving to the church and all that stuff.  I believed in it all, I guess, but lately I was wondering.  Seemed there were things going on that weren’t perfect, you know?  Like some things just didn’t seem right, somehow. Like the priests having fancy cars and new, clean clothes and women to cook and keep house for them  while all  the time saying everybody had to give more money, when half the families in the parish were eating hamburger casserole and mush for supper all the time.

“My parents are singing at the high mass at 11 o’clock, like they always do,” I said.

“You singing too?”  Judy had been asking to come up to the choir loft with me so she could see the mass from up there and be close to the singers.  She wasn’t really a girl you wanted to be seen with, though, you know?  I mean, like, by all the kids. She was skinny and scabby and everybody knew how her clothes were always so ratty, and all.  No like Loretta, who you just knew would make you looked up to by everybody if you could walk into church with her.  But, Loretta, well, I don’t know if, actually, she was even Catholic.  If she wasn’t, there’s no way my parents or the priests would ever let me be too good friends with her, much less let me have her as a girlfriend.  Judy, on the other hand, even with her crummy clothes and skinny legs, would be fine with the priests and nuns.  Like she was a shining example of what a good Catholic was supposed to be.

Anyways, I had to answer her.  “Yeah, I guess,” I said. “I don’t actually really sing very much though.  My voice is being really weird lately.  My dad says it’s changing, but into what, I don’t know.  So I’ve been mostly shutting up, you know?”

“Oh,” she said, “That happened Johnny, I remember.  His voice got all squeaky for a while and then in a year or so, suddenly got all deep and stuff.  It was really funny for a while.  My parents wouldn’t talk about it at all, just made him go to confession and pray al lot more than usual.”

“You guys have to pray at home, too?”  Praying in church and school and at bed time was bad enough.

“Oh, yes. We all get together before breakfast and do the whole rosary twice.  Every night after supper, before homework time, we read from the Bible and do another set of rosaries.  Poppa says it keeps us holy.”
“Wow,” I said. “Seems like a lot.”

“It’s what everybody should do.  Poppa says that if everybody prayed more, they’d have a better chance of going to heaven and living forever in the glory of God. Poppa says that most of the families around here will end up burning forever in hell because they are only Catholics in name and not in deed.  He says only the select few families, like ours will be saved and be able to be with God for all eternity.”

“Uh, Judy, I got to deliver my papers.”

“Poppa says that your family is OK because you all sing in the choir, although you’d be better if you went to mass every day.  That’s why I can talk to you.”

“Judy, I got to go.”

“So,” she said, “Can I come to the choir with you today?”

My dad had gotten out of the car and had come over.  “Bobby, you have to get going.  You’ve hardly started yet and here you are jabbering away, here.”

“Judy wants to come in the choir with us today.”  I was hoping he’d say no and then I would be alright.

But, he said, “OK with me, Judy.  Have your father call me, though, to make sure it’s OK.  If he says yes, you can ride to church with us, even.”

“I will,” she said, and whirled around and ran into her house with their paper.

Sheesh, dad.  Why’d he say that?  Now I was going to be stuck walking into church with Judy. All the guys would rag me about it, real bad.  They’d touch my arm and then chase and grab each other and yell, “Ryan’s germs, I quit!”  This was not going to be fun.

Actually, the more I thought about it, Judy was no germier looking than most of the kids in our school.  There was nobody that was rich, except for Cheryl Berthiaume, whose father owned the liquor store down on lower Washington Avenue.  Cheryl had blond hair that some of the guys said was dyed, and she had green eyes, which Big Ricky said couldn’t be real, I mean think about it.  She had brand new school uniforms every year, two or three of them, even, and you never saw her knee socks droop.  Her shoes were always new looking and shined. On holidays, she even wore stockings, like the grownup women did, showing her whole leg, and all.  It was weird seeing a girl my age’s ankles! And, she was real pretty and clean looking, and you just wondered what it was like to live like that.  She scared the heck out of me, I tell you!

Anyways, I went on delivering my papers.  It was early, still, only around 7:30, or so, and there weren’t all too many people out.  I pretty much ran through the Main Street, Hawk Street, Eagle Street, Falcon Street square, and had delivered about 35 papers when I got back to dad’s car.  We got in and drove down to Jefferson Street.  Dad parked in front of Galarneau’s store and I stuffed my paper bag with another 30 papers and set off to do a square block’s worth of customers.  Mrs. Galarneau was just opening up and she waved out the front window at me as I went by and my dad went inside to pick up more cigarettes.  I headed on down over the tracks and past Molinari’s down to Watervliet Avenue, dropping off papers on the way.  I worked my way down Watervliet past the paper mill.  As usual it smelled like rotten eggs.  My dad said it was the sulfur they used to make the paper, or something, and it sure smelled bad.  You could see big billowing clouds coming out of the smokestacks.  It always seemed dark and cloudy around the mill, even when it was a nice sunny day out.

Tommy Blair lived right across the street from the mill in a house that was kind of perched back on the cliff next to the tracks.  It was a house just as beat up as Millar’s and Gilly’s houses were, you know, the ones that look like they might fall down if you sneezed at them, or something. Tommy was in my class at St. Judas and was always missing school.  He always had a bad cough, a real loud, croaky one, and could hardly ever say a whole sentence without hacking his guts out at you.  His father worked at the mill, and was real militant about how important the mill was, that it was just about the last mill in town and the people that were starting to talk about pollution were going to wreck everybody’s jobs, and all. He, Tommy’s dad, coughed a lot, too, but said it was just an inherited sickness. Tommy said that lots of people on that street had the cough, so I guess they must be all related. 

I know that when I walked down there, I always got a strange taste and tickle in my throat that took a few hours to go away.  In fact, on days when the wind came from that direction, you could even smell the smoke way up at our house and in the park, and on those days, it was best to just stay inside. But, like Tommy’s dad says, if the mill had to move away or something, where would people work?  I told my dad that it was OK, it wouldn’t affect us, but he told me about how if people all lost their jobs, who would he sell life insurance to?  If he couldn’t sell insurance, then his paycheck would stop.  It didn’t seem right, when you thought about it.  Funny thing, though, all the houses down here looked dirtier than the houses farther up the hill.

Another thing.  There was a gang down here.  Guys from the Middle School.  Tough guys that really liked beating up on Catholic School guys.  If I had had to be delivering the Times Record in the afternoon instead of the morning TU, like I was, it would be a real problem, but I was lucky, they never got up early enough to bother me in the mornings.  I knew a couple of them because of Tommy.  They used to beat on Tommy regular, but Tommy’s dad had popped a few of them in the nose once or twice, so the pretty much left Tommy alone, now.  They even acted like Tommy could join up their gang if he wanted, but he told me that they stole stuff and smoked reefer, and stuff, and drank six packs and threw up on the tracks, and so he didn’t want to.  Throwing up can get real old after a while.

I was thinking all this while I was delivering Tommy’s dad’s paper.  I heard coughing inside as I left it on the porch, but couldn’t tell who it was.  Tommy’s mother even coughed, and she had only married Tommy’s dad, as far as I knew, and wasn’t, like, his brother or anything, so it was a puzzle how she had the same cough.  I thought of knocking on the door to see if Billy was up, and maybe wanted to help me with my route, but his dad was cranky and would maybe yell at me for disturbing the peace, or something, so I just left.

I finished the long block and ended up back at Galarneau’s and my dad’s car.

“Hey, Moose, where you been all this time, huh?” he said.

I hadn’t been gone long, and knew it, so he was only kidding.

He said, “I delivered the 10 papers up near the old canal bed for you, so we can head up to the next stop.”  My dad was always doing stuff like that.

“Thanks, dad.”

I got in the car and re-stuffed my bag while he drove to the Central Market.

“Look,” he said, “I’ll take the papers for the alley houses, you do this section of Jefferson and up Second Street and I’ll meet you at the end of the alley.”

“Sounds good,” I said.  That would save a lot of time.

“May as well make it go quicker, but don’t think it will be like this every Sunday.  This is your route, after all.”

“I know, and thanks.”

We went off in our different directions.  I was about two blocks from Robinson’s store and Sweet Loretta’s house, and thought about walking up there, but that block wasn’t on my route and my dad would get PO’d if I took a detour, pretty girl or no.  He’d think I was only going to Robinson’s for a soda and why was I wasting money on that crap?

I was a ways down Jefferson, turning away from a stoop where I had just left a paper and just about run into Davey O’Donnell.  He was one of those gang guys down across from the mill near where Tommy Blair lived. He was big and all muscle-y and his shirts were always ripped off at the shoulders so that his big arms showed off.  I think he was near 18 and had already quit school, having only made it to 8th grade. He always, and I mean, always, has a cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth, and had flicked the lit end at kids more times than you could count.  The sight if him started a cold sweat to trickle down my back.

He shoved me back and said, “Get the fuck outa my way, faggot!”

I didn’t say anything, just gave him a wide berth hoping he’d go on by.

“What’re ya starin’ at, punk?  Ya got a problem?”

I said, “No,” with a definite quaver in my voice, you know, the kind that just makes guys like him want to beat the crap out of you.  I didn’t want to have the quaver, it just happened, and I knew I was probably a goner. It for sure told him that I was scared out of my mind and wouldn’t fight back no matter what.  Which was about the size of it, I guess.

“You look at me wrong and I’ll whack yer peeny, ya get it?”  He looked real fierce and I thought I might pee my pants any minute.

I said, “I didn’t mean to be looking at you any way.”

“Ya better not, ya know what’s good fer ya!”

He took a step to me and shoved me down on the ground.  I was still wearing my paper bag around my shoulder and the darn thing flopped me over and I got all tangled in it.  He flicked his cigarette at me and hit me right near my eye. It burned a little, but not much.  He stood over me for a minute. Looking real mean, and then took a big step right over me and started down Jefferson the way he’d been heading.

“Ya tell anybody about this, weenie, and me an’ the guys will tear ya to pieces, an’ ya better believe it. An’, ya better not get up till I’m outa sight, ya get me?”

I got him alright. I didn’t say anything, just stayed on the ground, tangled in my paper bag.  He turned and walked away, lighting another cigarette with a flick of his lighter as he went.

I was mortified at myself, like I usually was when stuff like this happened.  Other guys I knew, like Gilly and Pauly, would have fought back.  They might have got creamed, but they fought anyways, just so that they wouldn’t have to get all mortified like I was now.  Gilly was always showing up at the park with a bloody nose or black eye, all pleased with himself because he never backed down from anybody, no matter who.  Same with Killer Mike and Big Ricky.  If any of them would have been with me, things would have been different, I tell you.  I would have probably got the crap beat out of me, but they’d be saying that at least I was a man and fought back.  But, I just wasn’t like them when it came to fighting.  I knew I didn’t know how to punch and dodge some other guy’s punch.  And, the idea of getting a broken nose and a black eye was something I hated to think about.  I just plain didn’t want to get hurt, you know?

So, I still hadn’t gotten up when my dad came around the corner from Second Street and saw me laying there.  He started running to me, all huffing and puffing because of his big belly.

“Jesus, Kee Ko, Moose, what’s the matter?”  By now he was on one knee and had his hands under my arms to lift me up.

“I’m OK, dad, I’m OK.”

“What’s that spot on your cheek?  Why do I smell a cigarette?  What’s going on, are you hurt?”

He sounded like my mother with all the questions.  Sheesh!  You would hardly hear the first one and there were a hundred more right after it and how could you answer them all, I’d like to know?

Now he looked at me all serious.  “Tell me what’s going on. Right now!”

“Nothing!”

“Don’t give me that crap.  There’s a lit cigarette right there and a burn mark on your goddam face.  Don’t tell me ‘nothing’!”

Damn me, I started crying.  I couldn’t help it.  He had me all confused, like he was mad and worried all at the same time.  I didn’t want to tell him that I was knocked down by a gang guy and didn’t fight back.  My mom didn’t want me to ever fight, but my dad was tougher and thought that I shouldn’t let bullies, well, bully me.  I’d almost want to say it was my cigarette instead of getting shoved down, I didn’t know which would be worse to him.

Anyways, his look softened a bit.  “OK, OK, stop blubbering, now.  I’m not mad.  It just surprised me to see you lying on the sidewalk here.  I just want to know what happened, is all.”

I was mostly only sniffling, now, and tried to talk.  “I’m OK, dad. I don’t want to talk about it, is all.”

As usual, he had already decided what must have happened.  “Did some wise guy shove you down and flick a cigarette at you?  Was it that O’Donnell punk?  I saw him, you know.  He walked right by me over on Second Street, in front of Goudreau’s house, smoking like he owned the joint. I know all about him.  The cops do, too!  He’s a bad one.”

“I don’t want to talk about it, OK?”  I was starting to get peeved.

“OK,” he said, “the only thing is that these punks only understand force.  They see you as a wimp, they’ll keep poking at you and poking at you and you’ll never have any self respect.  You gotta stand up for yourself, you know?”

“I know, I know, OK?  Sheesh, can we let it go?”
“You want me to talk to his father?  I know him, you know.”

“No! Leave it be, OK?  Don’t do anything, it’ll just be worse.  I’ll just stay out of his way next time.”

“Sure,” he said, “hide all your life. Then he won’t bother you.  That’s what you think, huh?”

“Can we just forget about it?  I want to just go home.”

“Well, no, we can’t just go home.  We have to finish your paper route, pal.”

“I don’t care about it anymore.  It’s stupid,” I said.

“Well, you’re going to finish it today and keep at it until I say so, you understand?  I know you’re all embarrassed, but I’m not going to let you just crawl into a hole and hide, hear?  Suck it up and be a man.  Now get up and finish this block and I’ll go get the car.  If you see that stupid, worthless punk again, pop him one, right on the nose.  Don’t worry about getting hit.  OK?”

“He’ll kill me if I do.”

“Better to die standing up for yourself than live scared every minute,” he said.  Sounded like something Gilly would say.

I stood for a minute with my head down, looking at my sneaks.  Dad was still standing there.

“Well?” he said.

“OK,” I said.

“OK what?”

“OK I’ll do my route.”

I still stood there, all confused and embarrassed.  My dad thought I was a sissy.  He thought he’d raised a namby-pamby wuss.  I wanted to be tough like him, and like Gilly and Killer Mike and those guys.  I did.  I really did.  But when it was time, I got all nervous and scared and couldn’t make myself be tough. I didn’t know how to do it, you know?

Suddenly I felt stupid tears on my cheeks.  Dammit!  Not now, for cripes sakes!  He’ll think even more that I’m a wuss, now. He’ll say only girls cry, not guys. He’ll say how did I get to be such a sissy, anyways? I turned away fast and started walking down the street, away from my dad, so he couldn’t see.
“Bobby!”

I just kept walking.

“Bob-Beee!!”  That was his mad voice.

“Leave me alone!”

I heard his foot steps coming on the sidewalk behind me.  Crap!  I knew better than to run.  Old as he was, he was still faster than me.  It was like he always said about shooting a bear.  Don’t do it, you’ll just make him mad.  If I ran, he’d really cream me one. So, I stopped and hunched over. He grabbed me by the shoulder.

“Look, Moose, I don’t mean to give you a hard time.  I’m just trying to teach you, is all. The world is all full of people who want to rip a piece of you off, and, if you just let them, they’ll rip and rip and rip until there isn’t anything left. You understand?”

“I think so.”

“Look at your buddy, Gilly.  All the hard times he’s had are enough to make a wet noodle of anybody, but he stands right up for himself.  He doesn’t cower away from bullies, he meets them square.  Sure, he takes a licking now and then, but he always gets back up, and the tough guys pretty much leave him alone, now.”

“I can’t be like Gilly, dad.  I get scared and worried.” Geez, what was I saying?

“OK, you don’t have to be any way at all.  I’m just trying to help.  The more you can suck it up and stand up for yourself, the better off you’ll be.  I don’t mean getting into fights all the time, just be tougher, let them know you’ll defend yourself if need be.  Most bullies will back down if they think you’ll fight.”

“I guess.”  He sure didn’t know Davey O’Donnell.  He would fight anybody, any time, and beat the heck out of them.  Everybody knew that.

“Look, Moose, you are my son and I’ll always stick by you.  Don’t worry, OK?  Come on, now, lets get these papers delivered so we can get to church on time, OK?”

“OK, dad.”

So, I finished the few papers left on this street and he went to get the car.  A few people were starting to come out of their houses to water lawns and pick weeds, and even check to see if the paper was there yet.  They would smile and wave and the Davey O’Donnell’s were suddenly far away and the neighborhood seemed safe again.

Dad came by with the car, and called out to all the people he knew through the open window.  He was driving his Fury with one hand, as usual, with his left arm hanging out the window and the vent window streaming the air into his face.  He had lit up one of his Lucky’s and the smoke from it was drifting out the window, over his arm, and disappearing into the air.  I have to say, he looked pretty cool.  He was older than most of the other dads, but that was OK.  He was still tough, he knew everybody in the city, it seemed, and everybody thought he was a good guy.  It was kind of cool to be his son.

In another 45 minutes, we had finished delivering all the papers and had gone on back home.  My mom was up already and was flipping French Toast when we walked into the kitchen.

“You boys famished,” she asked?

Dad said, “I could eat 5 of those, what do you think, Moose?”

“I can eat 6, easy,” I said. We did this all the time, me and dad, each saying we could eat more than the other.

“We’ll see about that,” he said.

Mom served and we dug in.

“Sally up,” asked dad?

“Still in bed,” mom said. “Ever since she got herself engaged, she’s been just sleeping in like she can’t get enough rest.”

Dad said, “So, then, getting engaged makes you tired, huh?” 

He said this with a kind of smirk on his face. Mom gave him one of her ‘Men’ looks, like we’d never understand anything.  She looked at my dad like that a lot.

Me and dad were chowing down the French Toast.  I had slathered mine with butter and Log Cabin syrup.  I had drips all coming down my chin, and my mother put down here spatula and grabbed a towel and wiped me raw.

“Goodness, Bobby, you eat like there’s no tomorrow. Slow down, there’s enough for everybody.”

I couldn’t talk because my mouth was stuffed full and she’d get real mad if I spit food out again, trying to talk.  She got mad about stuff like that way easy.

Dad said, “We probably need to start getting ready for church, I suppose.”

“Yes,” mom said, “And that Judy Ryan, from up the street is coming with us.  Her mother just called me.”  Mom looked at me. “You invited her, huh?”

I sat there with my mouth open, full of gooey toast and syrup, dripping, flabbergasted.  I worked hard to swallow it all down, half choking.

“Huh?”

“You invited her to church with you, to come up in the choir loft.  Her mother said you did.”

I had forgotten all about it.  “Well, she wanted to come and I asked dad and he said OK, if it was OK with her father.”  I was out of breath with weirdness.

“Well that was nice of you, Bobby,” mom said. 

“I guess,” I said.  The heck it was.  I didn’t want her to come.  How’d this happen anyways? Darn my dad for saying OK!  He should have known better.

“Well, let’s get cracking,” said dad. “I don’t want to be late like the Boulerice’s are every week, you know?”

“Now, Bill,” said my mom, “don’t be so judgmental all the time.”

“Hey,” he said, “now who’s calling the kettle black?”

“Don’t you give me that,” she said. “I may have opinions, but you’re the one who knows just how everybody else should act all the time.”

“Oh,” he said, laughing now,” so they’re called ‘opinions’, now, huh?”

They launched into one of their silly smiling arguments.  A few years ago, it would have turned into a knock down, drag out screaming match, but something happened a while back and now, while they still argued, they were usually laughing while they were doing it, like they saw how silly they were being but didn’t want to stop because it was so much fun, or something.  Weird!

My friends parents talked of my mom as a ‘strong’ woman, whatever that meant.  What I could see was that she would stand up to anybody, anytime, without a thought as to what they might think of her.  My friend’s mothers were mostly wimps.  They might yell at their kids and make them do their homework or go to bed without dessert, but when it came to dealing with the fathers and priests and police and those guys, the mothers backed right down and got all shy and cutesy, and like that.

Not my mom.  She told my dad what she thought, and would actually up and talk right back to Father Archambeault, something that everyone said, especially Father Archambeault, would get her sent straight to hell before too long. Mom didn’t seem to believe that or even care.  She just said stuff and to heck with them. 

She was real tough to the nuns, especially when one of them was jawing on about how some bad kid was going to hell or something, boy, she’d light right in to that nun, then, telling them that if they didn’t stop being so mean, maybe they’s end up in hell. The nun would get all PO’d and say that nuns couldn’t go to hell, and all, and anybody that would say so was an infidel.  Mom didn’t care. 

She once told Sister Mary Acquinas that if going to hell meant being in a different place than Sister Mary Acquinas, then that’s where she’d rather be.  And, she didn’t get struck down by lightning or anything, except Father Archambeault came to our house and told mom she had to have respect, and then mom jawed back at him, saying she couldn’t respect snooty nuns who hated for a living. Father Archambeault left and slammed the door after him, and my father put his head in his hands and just shook.  He did that a lot, now that I think of it.

My dad was a lot quieter.  He was always saying to not rock the boat, to not make waves.  He had served in the Navy in World War II on a destroyer and had helped bombard the Pacific Islands so that our guys could go and kill the Japanese easier.  He was supposed to be in the invasion wave for Japan until President Truman decided to blow up Japan with the Atom Bomb.  Since dad was already married with a kid, they sent him home, saying that Japan had surrendered and they didn’t have to have all our soldiers killed, invading, now.

Dad was hard to figure.  He was tough with me, and always trying to get me to fight tough guys, and all, but when it came to Father Archambeault and the nuns, and my mother, he didn’t seem so tough.  I couldn’t figure it out.  It seemed sometimes like he should blow up and chew the priests out and go pound on their noses, but he never did.  He just always said that we should just listen to them and do what they say.  Mom, on the other hand, would pound on their noses, if she thought it wouldn’t get her sent to burn in hell. My parents were pretty much opposite of everybody else’s, I guess.

Anyway, we all got ready for mass.  I had taken my bath last night, as usual.  Mom kept telling me I should start taking a shower because it was more grown up and used less water, but I still liked the bubbles.  I put on my black pants and light blue shirt, like I wore to school, but no tie.  Dad said I should wear a tie to church, but Mom said there was no need.  She said there was nothing in the bible about God being impressed by ties, and she didn’t care what the priests and nuns thought, anyway.  Dad just shook his head and shut up, like usual.

Mom would have even let me wear my P.F. Flyers, but dad said I should at least wear shoes, like at school, and I think she let him win that one.  I wet my hair and combed it so that the part was all crisp on the side.  I still had this stupid cowlick that just wouldn’t stay down, no matter how much water or Vitalis I used.  I hated it.  I would work on it until mom yelled up that I was taking longer than Sally.

Speaking of Sally, she never went to church with us much anymore.  She went, but always with her fiancé, Mark.  Mark would pick her up out front of the house. She’d hop in and we’d see them, later, sitting in their pew underneath us. 

Mark was pretty much not too bad, I guess.  He didn’t cuff me around like stupid Mike used to.  Mark was just all into bowling and hunting, all the time.  He had met Sally hanging out at Davis’s Bowling Alley over on Erie Street. Our cousin Tom was into bowling and had let Sally go with him so she could watch and, maybe, even bowl herself.  But, right away she saw mark and I guess she was a lot ore interested in watching him bowl than bowling herself.  After his games, they would hang out at the Starlight Lounge, which was part of the Bowling Alley, and drink vodka tonics and snuggle in a booth in the back.  Or so I heard. 

Mom and dad were nervous about Sally and Mark because Mark worked at the Alley, cleaning the bathrooms and Starlight Lounge and sweeping the alleys themselves.  Mom and Dad didn’t think that would be a great job to raise a family on, and kept asking Sally if she should maybe keep looking for some guy with a better job.  But, Cousin Tom told them that Sally’s heart was all pitter-pat and there was nothing they could do. Dad even went and talked to Mr. Davis, who owned the Alleys and asked him what he could do.  Mark’s father had died a long time ago and Mr. Davis had kind of taken him in. Mr. Davis told dad that Mark was a good guy and would maybe inherit the Bowling Alley someday if Mr. Davis’ two sons died, or something, and that dad shouldn’t worry himself about it. Dad came back and told mom that maybe they should lock Judy up so she couldn’t get out to see Mark, but mom said everybody had to make their own mistakes in life, just like she had when she had married dad.  That started them jawing at each other and I left the room, as usual

Anyways, Sally and Mark were now engaged, despite my dad, and he came to church with her on Sundays. I always went upstairs into the choir loft, mostly, I think, so my mom would be sure that I did go to church. 

I hated church. Hated it, hated it, hated it! The more I thought about it, the more I hated it.  I hated Father Archambeault and I stayed away from Father Amyot as much as I could. Father Archambeault was old and stern and rigid about how to be a good Catholic and I thought he was a liar and a thief, taking everybody’s money and spending it on new Cadillac’s and who knows what else.  Father Amyot, well Father Amyot was getting pretty creepy and weird.  He had his ‘Discussion Groups’ made up of altar boys and other 7th and 8th graders and the guys who went were different, somehow, after they did.  I don’t know what it was, but they were just…different.  Boob Berthiaume was after me to join, saying that father Amyot had asked for me personally.  That was too weird, for sure.  I just don’t want to talk about it, now, what else old Boob said and everything. I can’t.

Anyways, Judy Ryan had showed up at our front door in her mended dress and droopy knee socks and cracked up loafers to go to church with us.  As we were getting into our car, the Nadeau family came walking by.  It was a ten minute drive to church and, probably a twenty minute walk, at least, and we would just about be on time as it was.

“Nadeau’s are early today, I see,” said dad.

I started giggling cause I knew my father was being sarcastic.

My mom frowned at dad and said, “Now, Master Nolette, Mr. Perfect, Mr. Holier than All Mankind, you just worry about getting your own family to church, OK?”

“What did I say,” he asked? “I just commented that they are early today. What’s wrong with that?”

The Nadeau’s were always late for everything.  The mass we all went to started at 11AM, usually lasted 45 minutes or so, and they usually snuck in around twenty or twenty five after, or so.  The Nadeau kids were all the time getting tardy slips at school.  They just were always late.  Dad said they’d all be late for their own funerals, which would probably turn out to be true, except that none of them ever died that I knew of.  Maybe someday…

Mom let it go and dad drove us on to church.  Judy sat beside me.  I expected her to sit way over next to her window, but, weirdly, she sat on the middle hump with her legs touching mine, droopy socks and all. I tried to scrunch myself all the way to my door and she kind of leaned a little closer.  I just stared straight ahead and ignored her as best I could, thankful that my Johnson wasn’t acting up, for once.

Because we were early, dad was able to get the last spot in the school parking lot.  Another reason to hate Sundays and church was coming to the same stupid schoolyard after having been in school prison all week.  I could feel Sister Mary Matthew staring at me out of her second floor office, even though she probably wasn’t even there. Sure she wasn’t, she was in church, ready to start patrolling the aisles, whacking on kids who weren’t being properly respectful of the Holy Trinity.  That was another great reason for being in the choir loft.  Sister Mary Mathew never came up there, although she often stared nastily up at the adult choir members who whispered between hymns. She probably wished they were miscreant schoolchildren so she could whack them.

To get to the choir loft, you had to go in the side entrance to the church, away from where most everybody else went in.  There were always kids, mostly ones I knew, hanging around, hoping to be able to kind of blend into the choir and get to see mass from up high, and away from Sister Mary Matthew, and all. I think they thought I had some kind on an ‘In’ and could get them upstairs, or something. Joey and Lenny and Billy were there, all lined up next to the stairs, all looking at me with hope on their faces.

“Psst!  Bobby!  Hey, Bobby, let us upstairs, huh?”

Adults were saying hush!

“Bobby!  Hey, c’mon, be a bud, huh?”

I said, “I can’t, OK?”

My mom grabbed my elbow and squeezed and led me to the stairs.

“Some friend you are,” they said.

Just then Sister Mary Matthew materialized between us and the guys all scattered like the wind.  She stared holes in my mother and started mumbling under her breath.

“Never you mind yourself, Sister,” said my mother.  “Bobby told those boys they couldn’t come up with us, so we are all set here.”

Sister Mary Matthew didn’t say anything, but you could see she was all stiffened right up under her habit and the look on her face would scare the devil to repentance.  Her fists were clenched and her jaw muscles were working and she could have been speaking to the spirit world in tongues for all we could tell.

“Where are you going, Miss Ryan,” she screeched. 

Judy’s knees buckled right there on the steps and she kind of slid over behind my mother.  My father looked nervous as heck and seemed to be on the verge of confessing all his sins to Sister Mary Matthew right there, the heck with waiting for a priest.

“She’s with us,” said my mother, “and no concern of yours, thank you very much.  Now if you’ll excuse us.”  And we all turned and, at her urging, walked up the stairs, everybody hunching over, awaiting the lightning bolt that was sure to come. All of us, that is, except my mom, who smiled beautifully and marched up the winding staircase with her chin jutting up.  I stole a look back at Sister Mary Matthew and she was mumbling and grumbling and looking at my mom with clear intent to maim and kill in the name of Christ, Jesus.  Yes, she was a pious soul.

The stairs creaked and popped, but they got us upstairs OK.  Right behind us at the top of the stairs was the locked door to the steeple.  I burned to go through that door and climb up there, if it wasn’t too dangerous.  It was locked because Father Archambeault said it wasn’t safe and was condemned.  I was always confused about that, wondering if it was somehow condemned to hell, which I thought was reserved for Catholic Schoolboys, and not parts of buildings.  Maybe the Devil lived in there, part time, like Big Ricky said was true of the back area of the church basement, where the rats lived.  It was funny how the church had so many places for the Devil to hide.  It didn’t seem right, somehow.

I was pretty much condemned to hell anyways because of the way my Johnson kept acting up whenever I dreamed about Loretta in the bathroom or pictured Sister Mary LaSalle underneath her habit.  That was about the quickest way to hell there was, thinking that way about nuns.  I was doomed, I knew, because I didn’t even really want to stop thinking about Sister Mary LaSalle.  She was the youngest nun in school.  Big Ricky said she was only twenty-two, and her face wasn’t all wrinkled, and her hands weren’t all brown spotted, and she never yet whacked anybody with her pointer or clamped anybody’s ears with her clapper.  She even smiled.  Sometimes she kind of skipped from class to class, if Sister Mary Matthew wasn’t around.  All things considered, she was probably condemned, too.  Maybe she and I could climb together up into the steeple.  I would hold her hand to be sure she didn’t fall. She would take off her veil and collar and shake out her hair, because it was so hot. Maybe she would catch her habit on a nail, or something, and it would rip and I would get a glimpse of the clean skin underneath…

Crap!  There goes my stupid Johnson again, and me standing right next to Judy Ryan, of all people.  Geezum, what if she could tell?  Holy Moley, would I be dead, then.  Sister Mary Matthew would cook my gizzard over a slow fire, hungry mongrel dogs waiting…there, now I’m OK again.

Our church, St. Judas Iscariot, had one of the big pipe organs.  The choir loft was about a quarter filled by the playing part itself, with three rows of white keys and a whole bunch of levers over them, and a ton of foot pedals and stuff.  It was way too confusing to me, so much more than our upright piano home that mom played once in a while when she was in a good mood.  At the back of the choir loft were all the tall organ pipes that the sound came out of, about thirty or fifty of them, all about twenty feet tall and brass yellow colored.  The folding chairs for the choir members were arrayed all around the back and sides of the organ, though hardly anybody sat in them during mass.

When I was little, my dad used to sit me up on the back of the organ while he sang, and I could rub his nose and suck my thumb, sometimes causing him to miss important notes.  But nobody minder, especially my dad.  that was back when there were over fifty choir singers and the whole area was filled up with bodies and voices until you couldn’t tell what was what.  Nowadays, there were only twenty six members left and the songs were thinner than they used to be.

Two years ago when I was still eleven, they had talked me into being a member of the choir.  They needed bass singers and picked me as one even though my voice hadn’t started to change yet.  So, I sang the bass part in my high, thin voice which, I guess, was better than nothing, but sure sounded weird.  Then, last year, my voice started being completely undependable, sometimes croaking like a frog and sometimes booming about three hundred decibels louder than the stained glass windows were built to withstand.  I asked to quit and the director was all too happy to take me off the roster, telling me to come back when I was fifteen.  Yeah, right!

So, anyways, my parents went to their places next to the organist and Judy and I walked along the rear of the loft in front of those huge pipes and over to the other side of the loft. 

Judy was walking like she was on eggs or something.  I guess it was her first time up here and it sure was different than being downstairs in all the pews and all.  Up here, it was all dusty and creaky, and the area that we were heading to was hardly ever used.  Even I hardly went there because I usually stayed closer to the singers.  But, with Judy, I thought we should get out of the way and sit to the side.

We slipped into one of the old pews, which, under the dust, seemed almost new.

“It’s all so spooky,” she whispered. “And dirty and squeaky, too.”

“Uh, Huh.”  I didn’t really feel like talking to her.  If she had been Loretta, though, I would have talked like there was no tomorrow.

“Does anybody ever even sit over here?”

“Not much, I guess,” I said.

“What if Sister Mary Matthew sees us?” 

The thought of Judy Ryan getting in trouble was crazy.  The Ryan’s were the most Catholic people in the Parish.  I don’t think Father Archambeault would ever let Sister Mary Matthew say boo to them, even.

I answered, “What’s she gonna do, if she does?”

“I don’t know,” she said, “Give us detention, or even spank us, maybe?”

Judy was right to worry because Sister Mary Matthew preached all the time about the need for what she called Corporal Punishment.  Lots of kids and parents knew about it and wouldn’t say boo about it.

“Well, if she ever tried to spank us, I think my mother would make a big stink, you know?”

“I don’t know. Sister Mary Matthew is a nun, after all, and my parents say they are almost already saints, and all.”

“Well,” I said, “I don’t think my mother thinks that Sister Mary Matthew is a saint at all!  My dad’s pretty scared of her, I think, but not my mom.  I think my mom would complain all the way up to the Bishop if she wanted to.”

“Not the Bishop!  Nobody can complain to the Bishop!  He’s almost as high as the Pope!”

“I don’t know,” I said, “my mom’s pretty tough!”

“But the Bishop,” Judy said, like she couldn’t ever believe such a thing!

Right then the mass started and the choir was singing the opening hymn while Father Archambeault walked out on the altar with his hands folder all piously, and Gabby martin and Nicky Galarneau following behind him, holding up the end of his robe.  And sure enough, there was Sister Mary Matthew right up front in the nun’s row, staring back up at me like she knew what we were talking about and was plotting revenge, imagining maiming and torturing us into purity of heart.  Judy saw her, dug her fingers into my arm, sucked in a deep breath and sat down and started tearing up.  I even felt a bit stiff and started ahead at the altar, with my hands pressed together in prayer, so I would look holy to Sister Mary Matthew. In about twenty or ninety minutes or so, out of the corner of my eye, I saw her turn her eyes front.