Raise It Up, page 2
“I don’t want to say good-bye to Mama.”
“We got to,” I said.
“We ain’t gots to do nothing! That’s what Daddy say. We ain’t no goddamn communists!”
“Don’t cuss. We gotta look nice for Mama’s funeral mass. You don’t want people to think you’re stinky, do you?”
“Oh no,” he said, shaking his head from side to side.
Then he sat there again, mouth open, trying to collect enough words for his next sentence.
“Wash your hair,” I said for the millionth time.
“You do it, Cee Cee.”
“You’re a big boy.”
“You do it, Cee Cee,” he said in a whine that grated on my nerves.
I sat on the edge of the tub, put shampoo on my palm, lathered up his hair. He sat obediently, eyes squeezed shut, pale and pinched, a miracle if ever there was one because he was sick so often, and poorly, and so completely unable to do anything for himself. I couldn’t help but love him; everybody did. Wasn’t one mean bone in his body, and that was saying something, especially in a place like West Branch, Michigan. But there were times when I resented him. Well, that’s not the right word. Times when I hated him. Hated him so much, the fury of it scared me. Charlie had a way of making me feel like we were drowning. I was trying to save him—trying to save his life—but he made such a ruckus, I was afraid we were both going to sink into the raging current of life and be swept away.
“It’s like throwing good money after bad,” Daddy always said about Charlie. What he thought we should do with Charlie, I did not know and did not care to know.
I helped Charlie dry, dress, comb his hair. Then I helped Kay. Then I stood once more at the door to my parents’ bedroom, my heart full of uneasiness. Standing next to their door was a life-sized statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus that Mama had “rescued” from the church in West Branch. They had recently thrown out their statues, replacing them with newfangled art that Mama hated. They wanted to “update” themselves. “Like the truth could be updated!” Mama would snort. Nothing inflamed her passions more than felt banners and “that stick figure on a cross they call Jesus.” It drove her to distraction, the new art, the “new mass,” all the updating and changing that went on in the church in the wake of Vatican II. And the more of its past St. Anselm’s threw out, the more stuff Mama “rescued.” Our house looked like a monastery.
Jesus, standing there by the door to Mama’s bedroom, eyed me with his mysterious gaze, one hand pulling back his robe to reveal his inflamed red heart, the other pointing at me as if to say, And another thing, Cyrus Hood….
Daddy sat on the bed in long johns, face in his hands.
Daddy was tall, like me, and rail thin. Gaunt too and sort of awkward in an Ichabod Crane sort of way. I looked just like him, only younger and shorter. I think that’s why he didn’t like me much. I was like a pale, runtish version of him.
“Mama’s mass is at three,” I said. “Father Jenkins is driving up from Detroit.”
He glanced up at me with blood-shot eyes, did not speak.
“You coming?” I asked.
“She was my wife,” he said in a Southern drawl that more than two decades in Michigan had failed to ease. “Of course I’m coming. I ought not to have drunk so much, but what I ought not to have done and what I did do are almost always two different things, but you know how that is.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“Youse better keep Charlie on a leash. Ain’t in the mood.”
“I will, Daddy.”
“I mean it, Cee Cee. I can’t take that bullcrap today. ’Bout tired of that goddamn idiot.”
“Don’t worry, Daddy.”
“That boy goes on and on…. Christ, I like to be fit to be tied.”
Daddy always said nonsensical stuff like that. “I like to be fit to be tied.” “I ain’t got a dog in this hunt.” “Let’s get the skin in.” “Look like somebody done buttered her biscuits.” Between that and all the “youse” and “we’s” and “ain’ts,” I was fit to be embarrassed to death.
He looked me over, sighed, and rubbed his hand across his face as though he didn’t want to comment on what he saw.
Kids know when their parents don’t like them. I tried to tell George that, and he thought I was full of shit, but I knew it was true. I could tell, by the way Daddy looked at me, that he didn’t like me much. Not that he hated me or anything. Just didn’t like me. I was a disappointment. Why, I didn’t know. But I knew it was so.
“You want me to help you, Daddy?” I offered.
“Oh, what you gonna do for me?” he asked, exasperated. “I wasn’t born in a cotton field, you know.”
“Yes, sir.”
SIX: Bless me, father
A FUNERAL home in West Branch handled Mama’s arrangements and Father Jenkins had permission to say a funeral mass in their tiny chapel. We didn’t have her mass at St. Anselm’s because we don’t go there anymore. Father Jenkins and Mama were of the opinion that the priests at St. Anselm’s were modernist heretics, what with all the nonsense that came out of Vatican Council II, and we had to stay away or risk losing our immortal souls. And besides, Mama loved the old Latin mass and hated the New Mass introduced in the 1960s, the Novus Ordo. That’s the way she said it—the Novus Ordo. Like she was pronouncing the name of a particularly virulent venereal disease. They had dropped the Latin and said everything in English now. Why they had to “update” the mass, Mama didn’t know and didn’t care to know. After St. Anselm’s introduced altar girls and guitars in the sanctuary, we never went to mass there again. The felt banners didn’t help either.
Father Jenkins heard confessions before mass, so I eventually knelt on the carpeted floor while he sat in a chair in the corner facing away from me.
“Bless me, Father, it’s been two months since my last confession,” I said.
“Go on,” he said.
“I know it’s not a mortal sin, but I’m not sure.” The words were thick as molasses in my mouth because I didn’t want to say them.
“Yes?”
“Well.” I fell silent.
“You can tell me,” he said softly in encouragement.
“I have this thing I do. I pretend to be a singer. Just having fun, you know. I pretend like I’m singing a song.”
“And?”
“Well, Mama always got mad when she caught me.”
“Why?”
“Well, sometimes I dress up like a girl when I do it.”
“A girl?” He said this rather loudly, and I was afraid the others would hear.
My face burned with embarrassment. “I don’t think it’s a sin, but Mama used to get really mad.”
“Why do you want to dress up like a girl?”
“Just having fun, I guess.”
“A young man such as yourself ought not to wear a woman’s clothing,” he said stiffly.
“I know.”
“And when you do this, how do you do it? And do other people see you?”
“It’s just me and my little brother and sister. We like to dress up, listen to records, and pretend like we’re singing.”
“Lip-syncing?”
“I don’t know. Is there a word for it?”
He sighed rather heavily and shifted in his seat.
“So is this just for fun or do you actually want to be a woman?” he asked at length.
“I don’t want to be a girl!”
“Then why do you dress like one?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think Our Lord would dress up like a girl?”
I wanted to say Our Lord had long hair and walked around in a dress, but said nothing.
“And you do this in front of your little brother and sister?”
“Yes.”
“You should be modeling proper Christ-like, Catholic behavior.”
“I know.”
“Well, this is a very serious matter.”
“But it’s not a mortal sin, is it?” I asked.
“It’s a very serious matter. It’s very offensive to God to treat your own body this way, to be dressing in a feminine manner when God clearly meant for you to be a man. You are confusing the male and female. It’s an act of rebellion against the natural order of things, and I can’t help but think it will lead to far worse sins in the future if you continue on this path.”
“We were just having fun,” I said defensively.
“There’s nothing fun about sin. And not only are you sinning, but you’re scandalizing your brother and sister and failing to model the proper behavior of a young man. These are very grave sins.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Our Lord said it would be better for those who scandalize children to be thrown into the river with a millstone tied around their neck. Did you encourage them to participate in this behavior with you?”
“Well, we all wore wigs. Well, not really wigs. We used towels and pretended they were wigs.”
“You’re teaching them that it’s okay to disobey the limits set by God on one’s gender. You’re also teaching them to disrespect the male gender.”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“But that is the result of your actions. How many times did you do this?”
I frowned, did not want to answer. Eventually I admitted that I had been lip-syncing for a couple of years and had never felt it to be wrong, or sinful, but that my mother had caught me several times and had been very angry.
“The last time she caught me, she got extremely upset,” I said.
“She had a right to.”
“And then, while she was yelling at me, she had a heart attack.”
“And?”
“Well… here we are. At her funeral. My brother Charlie says I killed her.”
“Was there something about this occasion that was different from the others?”
“I was wearing one of her dresses.”
He was silent for a long time, his jaw in one hand, his eyes closed.
“And I had also put on some of her makeup,” I added quietly, knowing I had to explain all the details or risk making a bad confession.
“And were you alone in this, or did your brother do it as well?”
“Just me. I put on a show for them actually.”
“A show?”
“I played several records. It was like a concert or something. We were just playing around.”
“Did you wear your mother’s undergarments?”
“No,” I said, relieved that there was at least one embarrassing thing I hadn’t done.
“Have you ever worn your mother’s undergarments?”
I wanted to say no, of course not, but that wasn’t precisely true. “Once,” I said. “My brother Charlie and I put on some of her underwear. We were just playing around.”
“And did you expose yourself to him when you did this?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you violate the Catholic standards of modesty?”
“No.”
“So you changed in separate rooms?”
“Well, no.”
“Did he see you in the nude?”
“I guess.”
“Are you aware that this can lead to occasions of sin? You should never expose yourself to others.”
“Oh.”
“I realize you are brothers, but still, the temptation may be there to violate the rules of chastity and proper modesty. If at all possible, you should never expose yourself in front of your brother, and certainly not in front of your sister.”
“Well, duh,” I said, then immediately regretted how disrespectful it sounded.
“Now we’ve talked about your sexuality before,” he reminded me. “Are you still experiencing attractions to members of the male gender?”
“Yes.”
“But you don’t act on these impulses?”
“No.”
“And you realize how sinful and shameful they are?”
“Yes.”
“And have you committed sins of impurity?”
A breath of air escaped my lips rather involuntarily.
“Yes.”
“And how many sins did you commit?”
“Sometimes I do it every day,” I said.
“Self-abuse?”
“Yes.”
“And you know how gravely sinful this is, and still you do it?”
“Yes.”
“And are these sins committed alone or with others?”
“Alone.”
“And when you are alone, do you touch yourself inappropriately?”
“Yes.”
“Even when you know it will lead to sin?”
“Yes.”
“Are these sins committed at night?”
“Usually.”
“While you’re in bed?”
“Yes.”
“Are you wearing pajamas or do you… remove your clothes?”
“It depends.”
“And do you touch places on your body that you know you should not?”
“Yes.”
“And while you’re touching yourself this way, are you aware that you are being tempted and that you might sin because of it?”
“I guess.”
“Do you touch yourself in the shower?”
“Sometimes.”
“And are you sorry for these sins?”
“Yes, Father.”
“And are you prepared to renounce them and sin no further in the future?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Are you sure these sins were committed alone?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t commit such sins in front of your brother, perhaps?”
“No,” I said, frowning.
“I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable, but I need you to understand these are gravely sinful matters. You must realize that Our Lord suffered and died on the cross because of such sins. And each time you repeat these sins, you are crucifying Our Lord over and over. You might as well take the whip in your own hands and scourge Him, the way He was scourged before his crucifixion. Scourged, whipped, stripped naked—nude!—so that the whole world could look at him, at his tender, precious body, the body that he sacrificed for us. He allowed himself to be stripped naked so that he could give everything he had to us. When you sin, you might as well hammer the nails into his hands and feet yourself—that’s what you are doing when you commit these sins. It’s like spitting on his naked, bleeding body….”
“Yes, Father,” I said, feeling slightly aroused at the thought of Jesus Christ being stripped naked.
“You are telling Our Lord and Our Lady that you don’t love them, that you prefer the wickedness and perversion of sin to them, that you’d rather pleasure and please your body than sacrifice for their sake. You are driving the presence of God from your life.”
“Yes, Father.”
“You are telling God that these perversions are more important to you than He is. St. Paul said homosexuality was ‘man working with man that which is unseemly’ and the Old Testament said such sins were an abomination, and that those who commit them should be put to death. Surely you can understand my concern? The salvation of your soul might be at stake.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Is there anything else you would like to confess?”
“No,” I said.
“For your penance, I want you to say ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys. I want you to ask Our Lady to help you to be pure and to model the sort of Christ-like male behavior that Christ would want you to model. Will you do that?”
“Yes,” I said.
SEVEN: I want Mama
CHARLIE, SMELLING like soap and shampoo, sat on my right, and George, smelling like cigarettes, sat on my left, looking stiff and uncomfortable in church clothes he hadn’t worn since he graduated high school and told Mama he wasn’t going to mass anymore and weren’t a darn thing she could do about it. Kay sat next to him, her small face pale and withdrawn, clutching a Winnie the Pooh bear. Daddy sat on the end of the pew, not looking at any of us. We were in front and cheek to jowl with the small sanctuary and Mama’s pine box and the makeshift altar we had set up for Father Jenkins to say mass on.
Father Jenkins came every other month to hear confessions and offer mass for our little group of “traditional Catholics.” There were about twenty regulars, and Oliver Kowski’s mom and dad arranged for the masses to be said. Oliver and I were in the same grade at West Branch High School. Oliver was about the cutest boy in school, or at least I thought so, but never dared say.
I looked around. Most of those attending were Mama’s traditional Catholic friends, some of our neighbors; none of Daddy’s kin from Alabama had driven up. If Daddy was to be believed, they “didn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of.” Mama had two sisters in the Upper Peninsula, but they weren’t there either. Mama had had a falling out with her family years ago, or so she said.
Daddy had become Catholic at Mama’s urging, but his heart wasn’t in it.
Mass began with the tinkling of a bell.
Father Jenkins, wearing a black chasuble and stole, was preceded into the sanctuary by two altar boys dressed in black cassocks: Bill Worthers and Oliver Kowski. I knew both from school, Bill being a senior and Oliver being a sophomore like me. Bill was not much to look at—you could tell by the expression on his face that he was rather slow and would much rather be rabbit hunting or something—but Oliver… the only word I could think of was beautiful.
You could say I had a crush on Oliver Kowski.
I lived for gym class. My locker was a few down from his, and I snuck every glance I could and then some, all the while terrified I would get an erection and the other boys would notice. He was blond, blue-eyed, had large, very red lips, and a swimmer’s build. Swedish genes. I hated those fucking Swedish genes. It wasn’t fair that some people were so good-looking.
Although we were both traditional Catholics, we did not talk much during school. He was from the right side of the tracks, after all, and his father was a banker. I was a step or two removed from trailer trash and my father was the town drunk, among other things. I wore hand-me-downs and got free lunches.
He tried to be friendly, but I was always so tongue-tied and awkward, he must have come to the conclusion I was a complete loser. I had flawlessly smooth conversations with him in my head, but the moment he showed up next to my locker or sat next to me in class and started talking, I was reduced to a gibbering mess. I was surprised I didn’t actually drool. Why he would want to talk to someone like me, I had no clue.
