Tom Bierkowski
FIRST SORROWFUL MYSTERY
Reggie tilted the jug of altar wine to his mouth and took three deep hits before blurting. "Holy Thursday, Squirt. Gonna be one long-ass Mass tonight. Want a slug?"
"Monsignor's gonna nab you one of these times. We got to light the candles and get the charcoal's going for the incense...we got stuff to do."
"Fuck this altar boy shit," Reggie said. He took another swig of wine and looked out the sacristy door toward the rectory. "You take care of it. I don't even wanta be here."
"Neither do I."
"The fuck you don't."
"I don't."
"Besides, the Monsignor drinks's much as my old man. Don't you know whiskey when you smell it?"
"I know, I know." I didn't know and left the sacristy to light the altar candles and the charcoal.
My mother always cried on Holy Thursday, in the evening, after the Mass of the Last Supper, with the sanctuary stripped bare of vestments and the Blessed Sacrament removed from the tabernacle. No Body of Christ in Our Lady's Church then until the Easter vigil on Saturday night. That was the lesson. I'd ask her, Why do you cry?
It's so sad what He went through, all alone, for us. Whatever that meant. All I ever saw was a round piece of--they called it bread, but it wasn't like any bread I ever ate. Thin, papery white. Stored in gold chalices, locked in the golden safe we made genuflection to every Sunday, the bread we took on our tongues--the sacramental Body of Christ. We all knew the lessons about it. For eight years, the nuns at Holy Spirit School repeated them to us according to the liturgical seasons. I was thirteen, knew the lessons by heart, got A's in religion, but something wouldn't click and I kept wondering about it--about God and what He meant and sort of wanting him to make it plain.
Reggie Wilnot heard the same lessons from the same nuns, but didn't bother. We served Mass together at Our Lad's and he always hit the altar wine before the Monsignor crossed the yard from the rectory to the church. I mostly thoght Reggie shouldn't be doing that.
I reached to light the candles on the high altar and saw Mom in the third row from the front, right behind the nuns, kneeling with her hands folded and bound in a rosary. The pews were filling up. Men's voices floated incoherently from the vestible in waves of greeting and laughter, my Dad's voice rising out of the low hum and fading back into it. Cars hushed past outside in the Market Street sunset. Inside, the smell of lilies and candle wax was thick in the air, foreshadowing the incense. A kaleidoscopic sunbeam low and long through stained glass windows. I felt the bass under my rib cage as the pipe organ fifed a dirge from the loft. I blew out the taper thinking, If I were God, I might live here. Being in church, the fragrance and light, the float of it, there was something to the float of it that said God to me.
The Monsignor vested before the mirror, straightening his chasuble of royal purple, mumbling prayers in Latin. He ran a comb through thin flesh-colored hair, slick with Vitalis, straight back against his pale skull.
"Good evening, Thomas."
"Evening, Monsignor."
"I was just telling Reginald, here, that he'll be thurifer, you'll be cross bearer, and...who's where's...the third server tonight?"
Reggie stared out the screen door, dug fists into the pockets under his cassock and muttered, "Moisna."
"Who?"
"Moisna."
Monseignor looked away from the mirror to me.
"Jackie Moran, Monsignor."
"Well, if he shows, he'll be acolyte."
The Monsignor nodded to himself approvingly, pivoted from the mirror and glided across the sacristy checking his wristwatch against the clock on the wall. He cracked the sanctuary door and looked out into the church, Mmm-hmm, Mmm-hmm, Very good.... Reggie caught my eye, pointed to the priest a couple of times and worked his arm like drinking a bottle.
Still peering through the door, Monsignor spoke, "Gentlemen, this is Holy Thursday night. Do you know what this means?"
"Means we'll be here for four hours," Reggie griped, opened the screen door and spat into the yard.
"You said, Reginald?"
"Nothin."
Monsignor looked to me again, "Thomas?"
I hated to, but said, "Means the Church recalls the Last Supper. You wash the feet of twelve men like Jesus did, then the men walk in procession with the Blessed Sacrament around the church like when they all went to the Garden to pray but the apostles fell asleep. Then after Mass, you put the Eucharist over in the rectory chapel, we take all the altar clothes away, and the Passion has started. Tomorrow's Good Friday." Last year, Sister Petronia slapped my whole face red in class for making a joke about Good Friday being good because we didn't have school. I had to write a five page report on Holy Week. I knew the details. My ears rang for two days.
"That's right, that's right," the Monsignor hummed and walked toward the door where Reggie leaned, picking his nose, eying the yard. "Now just where is Mr. Moran?"
Right then, big Moisna ran in through the sanctuary door.
Monsignor swung around. "Have we been keeping you, John?"
"Sorry Monsignor, I was sittin out there with my mom'n I forgot I was supposed to be servin and, uh, I forgot, sorry."
"Well, get your cassock and surplice, it's six twenty-seven...and now that I think of it, you carry the cross. You're the tallest."
"And the dumbest," Reggie mumbled.
Moisna, six-five in eighth grade, pulled on the longest black cassock from the altar boy's closet. It barely fell to his shins. Reggie scorned, "Fits good as yer pants, Moize. When's the flood?"
Noisna squeezed his bushy head thoughtfully through the white surplice and grinned at Reggie, "Hard to say."
Monsignor snapped his fingers, "Gentlemen, let's go around outside and proceed to the vestibule." We had to walk to the back of church to processin for Mass. Moisna grabbed the cross--a polished gold crucifix at the end of a long brass pole. I held the lectionary, a book bound in red leather with gold and green ribbons to mark the readings. Reggie swung the thurible to keep the coals hot. Monsignor led the way, hands clasped behind his back and flowed arrow-straight in kindly purple vestments across the lawn with a terrier scampering at his unseen feet.
Reggie huffed to me and Moisna, mocking, "Gentlemen, let's us go around and proceed to the uh vestible there so's we can--"
I brushed past, him, "Aw Reg shut-up already," and held the door for Moisna who lowered the cross and stepped through.
"Fuck-off, and that was a some report on Holy Thursday there pipsqueak...and, uh, Moisna?"
"Yeh, Reg?"
"Don't get lost now."
"Gotcha, Reg."
The three of us followed the Monsignor at a distance.
The organ blasted glorious chords now from the loft above our heads. The congregation stood shoulder-to-shoulder, rustling with missalettes, paging hymnals. Straight ahead, through the corridor of parishioners, the marble altar reached in sharp peaks and steeples to a vaulting domed ceiling of stars put there by my own father's brush with gold-flecked paint. The High Altar berobed in purple linens, twinkling with candlelight at every ledge.
Monsignor spoke out loud under the entrance hymn, "OK John, slowly please." Moisna held the cross up there and took long slow steps down the center aisle.
"Reginald, OK." Reggie slouched on now, swinging the thurible on the end of its chains, wafting arcs of white smoke behind him.
"Thomas." I held the lectionary under my chin like a pulpit and step-by-step, down the golden carpet, through an exotic tang of myrrh with the organ grumbling in my chest and the light of sundown leaning through the windows in fat stained planks over the believers. The mysteries of God. I had to wonder, Are you here?
Holy Thursday Mass always did push three hours. The altar boys sat off to the side on wooden stools. Monsignor was enthroned, seven steps up, with the altar like a carved white mountain at his back, rising in jagged peaks. He intoned, let us pra-aay and I ascended five of the steps and rested the lectionary on top of my head. Monsignor pulled a ribbon and chanted the Introit. His shoes were polished black and sunk into the ruby pile of the sanctuary carpeting and caught the ceiling lights. We ask this through Christ, Our Lord. Ah-men. As I returned to my stool, the congregation seated itself for the readings about the Last Supper and the nightmare that ensued.
During Monsignor's homily, Reggie left the sanctuary a number of times to change the charcoal but took longer than he ever had to and sat back down smelling like cigarettes. Monsignor bounced slightly on his heels, hands behind his back, and droned on about how the disciples could not watch even one hour, one hour, with the Lord Jesus on the night of his agony. How will it be for you, brothers and sisters, when you are called to Gethsemane? Will you keep your hour with the Lord?
But there was nothing in his voice. Mmm-hmm, yes, The Agony in the Garden, very nice.
What is the hour? What does it mean to watch? Watch for what? This is what I always wanted to know? Like I knew Pistol Pete Maravitch scorched the Knicks for sixty-eight points the night before on Channel 9, and saw the whole thing. Like I knew all about my house and how if you flushed while somebody was in the shower, the water'd get too hot. Like I knew from the sound of my father's steps coming up to my attic room whether the reason for the visit was good or bad. I wanted to know the undisputable facts about God and since he is God, I thought, what's the big deal about that?
But Monsignor went on this Thursday as always, as if everybody knew already, and was watching, and he was bored with his theme.
I looked out over the pews and saw Mom daubing at her eyes. What are you crying about? Then I looked up to the choir loft, and out over the confessionals. I examined the air above the pews. I looked all around, but the "float" was gone from the church. Ruined. Did I ruin it? Or was it the Monsignor who bounced and hummed on and on? The windows were black with night now. No hymns sounded from the organ. Just the monotone burblings of Monsignor's homily and I wondered about him being drunk now. Reggie got up for another smoke. I grew too bored to think and shifted on my stool. No school on Good Friday, smack! Moisna sat knock-kneed, way too big for his stool, hairy shin bones showing, sleepy-eyed. Every now and then he smiled to himself.
After the homily, twelve of the lectors, my father among them, assembled in front of the altar of St. Joseph and sat in a semi-circle on folding metal chairs. They each took off their right shoe and sock. I held a large silver bowl of warm water with a clean white toweldraped over my forearm. One by one, I set the bowl on the marble floor before each of the men while the Monsignor knelt to "wash" their feet. A great show was made of this. What appeared at a distance to be a solemn and moving ritual, up close...man, he hardly splashed any water on them at all! One swipe of the towel to dry and on to the next. I saw that the Monsignor didn't like doing this. He vaguely smiled and frowned alternately, his face grew red. I was embarrassed for him. My Pop's big foot right there, too.
The whole thing. Ridiculous. I knew what it was all supposed to mean from the nuns, but all I saw were these ugly feet and Monsignor's half-smiling way of washing/not washing them. How bending over and touching the men's feet had caused a lock of slick hair to fall across his forehead glistening with sweat. His humiliation. And mine too; attendant to this farce, holding a water bowl, towel over arm, feeling like a lawn jockey in a black dress. I started to itch.
The Monsignor swiped at the twelfth foot and swished back to his throne to gather himself, looking at no one. I took the bowl and towel into the sacristy. Reggie was just twisting the cap back on the jug and laughing. I scratched and looked at the clock. Five after nine.
"What's the joke, Reg?"
"Nuthin that'd interest you."
"What's your problem?"
"Yer a momma's boy and a midget."
"Fuck off."
"Oooh, yer gonna burn in Hell, talkin like that in church."
After communion, Monsignor carried the consecrated host in a star-burst monstrance of gold. Moisna, Reggie and I followed each with our own prop. It must have been going on ten o'clock when we led the men and boys of Our Lady's in procession three times around the nave of the church. Women and girls knelt in the pews. We all sang Humbly wwe adore thee, Christ Redeemer King. No school tomorrow.. Thou art Lord of heaven, thou to whom we sing. After the third lap, Monsignor made the sign of the cross with the monstrance in front of the high altar. God the mighty, thou hast come, bearing gifts of grace. The parishioners all blessed themselves. He removed the host in a golden pix and we walked out single file through the sacristy, across the dark yard to the small chapel in the rectory. Moisna led with the cross, I followed with a candle flickering. Son of Adam still though art, savior to our race. Saddest song ever sung.
Then back to the church where the four of us stripped the altar in silence, while most of the parishioners filed out. We blew out the candles, folded up the altar clothes, carried everything away. The tabernacle door left open. Holding nothing. It was five of ten. All the nuns, maybe a dozen others, remained. To watch for an hour. They started a rosary.
In the sacristy, we pulled off our surplices and cassocks and hung them up. Monsignor unvested with great care, but speedily, kissing each piece of cloth and humming prayers before hanging them up according to the rubrics. He stood before the mirror, combing and said to himself, "Fine job, gentlemen, fine job. Have a good night." Without looking at us, he cut out the door for the rectory."
Reggie grunted, "Four fuckin hours," and reached in back of the safe where all the gold vessels were kept. "But, least I made the best of it...you ready Moisna?" Reggie stuffed a blue flask in his hip pocket.
Moisna shrugged, "Yeh...why not?"
"What you got there, Reg?" I asked.
"Just a little holy water, Junior."
"Get outta here."
"Yeh, look for yerself."
He held it out. A cross emblazoned on a blue plastic flask.
"What's in it?"
"Some of the Monsignor's whiskey."
"Get out."
"See for yerself, you know all about booze."
I twisted off the cap and smelled. It was the Monsignor's breath. The Monsignor and him running on and on the way he did every week. Mom, Pop, the nuns, everybody--praying at his shiny black feet, receiving blessings from up on his chair. Him with his meals cooked and his wash folded by old Mrs. Korlecki. Him sipping whiskey on Sunday mornings then stepping through the sacristy door to say Good morning, gentlemen and I'd smell that breath across the room. I twisted the cap back on and handed the flask back to Reggie. "Where'd you get that?"
"Strolled right into his living room and shoisted it while he was yappin away over here. He knows as much about Holy Week as you do, Squirt. Let's go Moisna."
"Where you guys goin?"
"What d'you care? C'mon Moize."
"Where you goin Moisna?"
"Up the Lily to drink the stuff, I guess. No school tomorra. Wanna come up there, Tom, with us?"
"He ain't comin, Moize. Good little Tommy Errman? Kid's an angel."
"Yeh, I'll go."
"Nothing' wrong with Tommy, Reg. He can come with us."
"Fuck if I care. You just better keep yer mouth shut, Peewee. Let's go already."
"Alright, I'll meet you guys in the alley, just one minute."
I ran out into the sanctuary, started to genuflect but remembered there was nothing to genuflect to, not tonight. Walked fast to where Mom knelt with her beads behind the nuns, reciting the Glory Be.
"Mom, I'm going up Moisna's to play air hockey a while, OK?"
Mom's bereaved gaze was straight ahead. "As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen. Don't be late."
A nun announced in a birdy voice, "The First Sorrowful Mystery, The Agony In The Garden. Our Father who art in heaven...." Mom joined in, Hallowed be thy name. I bolted into the night.