Pride

‘No, Sister.’

‘Then answer the question.’

Of course I figure she’s asking about those seven capital sins again. I start out.

‘The seven capital sins are Pride …’

I stop. The whole class is giggling. Sister Anastasia comes out from behind the desk. She has her ‘signal’ in her hand. I’ve already been hit on the hands with that thing for not paying attention, and it’s only the second week of school. It’s wooden and has a hard knob at the end. There’s a rubber band or something in the handle, and Sister can make a clicking noise with it when she wants things quiet; but mostly I think it’s for hitting kids with, at least that’s the way Sister Anastasia uses it. I’m ready for another knock on the knuckles.

‘Pick up that eraser and put it on the chalk rail here, young man.’

She points at the chalk rail behind her. I lean down and find the eraser under Mary Jane Donahue’s desk. It bounced against her, too, and there’s a white mark on the side of her uniform, but she’s keeping her hands crossed on the desk with her thumbs overlapped the way we’re supposed to do when we’re not writing. The thumbs crossed over each other like that are supposed to make a real cross and be a way of praying to God.

I carry that eraser to the front of the room and put it on the chalk rail.

‘Now put your hand out.’

I put it out and she gives me three good raps with her ‘signal’. She’s strong for a fat woman. The tears are coming into my eyes and I’m so mad I almost just run out the door, only I start back to my desk. The whole class is trying not to look at me, but I can hear them laughing inside. I don’t blame them; there isn’t much to laugh about in school. But I’m mad.

I go back to my desk and Sister Anastasia tells me to stand up again. ‘Kettleson, just what was it you were thinking about when you should’ve been listening to your Catechism?’

Before I can say anything, she starts up again.

‘Children, this is a perfect example of the sin of Pride. Kettleson thinks he knows more than God’s word. Catechism is God’s word made easy for young people. If you don’t pay attention to God’s word then you’re guilty of the first capital sin, Pride. Now, what were you thinking about instead of listening to God?’

I don’t want to lie. I especially don’t want to lie to a nun, even if it is Sister Anastasia.

‘I was thinking about what it is to be dead, Sister.’

She stares at me, shining circles in her glasses. Nobody moves in the class.

‘Just what do you mean by that, young man?’

‘I don’t know, Sister. That’s what I was thinking: how it must feel being dead.’

‘If you’d pay attention to your Catechism you’d know. You’d either be in Heaven with God, in Purgatory working out your salvation or in Hell burning for all eternity.’

She pauses, turning her head to take in all the class.

‘And I don’t have much doubt as to where you’re headed, Kettleson.’

I stand there. What’s there to say? I’m wondering if there’s much difference between what she’s just said and saying ‘Damn you’ to somebody.

‘Kettleson, I think for the good of your soul you should come up here, kiss this crucifix and pray for God’s forgiveness.’

She motions me to the front of the room again. The rooms have scrubbed wooden floors and they’re laid so they lead up and down the room. I walk up toward her with my head down, trying to walk on a single board and trying not to cry. When I get close to her, I smell the smell of a nun, the smell of baby powder and ironed clothes. She pushes me down onto my knees and holds out her large crucifix at the end of the giant-sized rosary wrapped around her waist. All the nuns in this school have rosaries like this around their waists. On the thin ones, it hangs practically to the ground, but with Sister Anastasia it comes to just below her belly, just about where my face is when she’s pushed me onto my knees. I kiss the crucifix and wipe my mouth. Then, I spit on the floor.

It’s something I do automatically; it isn’t meant as an insult or anything. The taste of metal in my mouth always makes me want to spit. When I’m working with Dad he keeps nails in his mouth so they’re handy, but when I’ve tried it, I drool around them and have to keep taking them out of my mouth to spit. It’s the same way with toy whistles, anything metal in my mouth makes spit spring up. Also, I’m nervous and not thinking.

Sister Anastasia grabs me by the hair and yanks me to my feet. She’s dragging me out of the room and I’m too scared to listen to what she’s saying except she’s taking me down to Father Lanshee because I’ve committed a sacrilege, spitting at the crucifix and spitting at a nun. I guess she believes that’s what happened. I try not to yell, not to cry, but she’s twisting my hair in her hands so it hurts and she’s pulling hair out.

We need to go outside the school to get to the rectory and she stands at the door, rings the bell. We don’t talk at all while we wait for the housekeeper to open it.

Father Lanshee finally comes himself and tells Sister to let go of my hair. Father Lanshee is young and short with tight curly hair. He’s the one you go see when it’s even more important than going to see Mother Superior. Sister Anastasia tells him what happened, that is, from the way she sees it.

Father Lanshee looks at me.

‘And what do you have to say for yourself? Why have you done a thing like this, one of our youngest and finest altar

boys?’

Father Lanshee is from Ireland and has an accent. He’s the one who taught me to be an altar boy when I was in fourth grade. I learned the Latin fast enough so during the summer I was the only fourth grader to serve mass.

‘I didn’t mean it, Father. It was only the metal on my lips.’

‘Are you trying to tell me Sister Anastasia is lying to me or maybe she’s seeing things? She says you spit on the crucifix and at her. Is that true?’

It’s in his voice. He believes her and he’s mad. ‘I only spit on the floor. Father, I didn’t mean it.’

He looks over at Sister Anastasia. Then I look over at her, too. She’s standing with her arms folded across her fat stomach so the bib is pushed up almost like a table under her face. Father hits me hard on the side of my head with the back of his hand. It feels as if my ear is burning off and I know this is only the beginning.

‘There must be a devil in you to do a thing like that, Kettleson, spit on the crucifix and spit at a nun!’

He has his face down next to mine and it’s getting red. He’s red all the way up into his curly hair. I can’t turn my mind off from seeing things like that even when I’m probably about to be killed.

He grabs me by the other ear with his finger and thumb. He starts dragging me with him through the rectory and out the back door, the one that opens into the church. I’m learning not to say anything; there’s nothing to say anyway.

He takes me into the church, leads me down the aisle, opens the gate in the altar rail and pushes me down to my knees again at the foot of the steps to the altar. Sister Anastasia isn’t with us. I peek back under my arm and she’s kneeling at the altar rail with her hands praying and her eyes watching me behind those shiny glasses, through the silver circles.

Father Lanshee, with his arms folded, is standing between me and the tabernacle. ‘You stay there and pray to God for your immortal soul. Sister Anastasia, you pray for him, too. I think he must be possessed.’

He goes into the sacristy and comes out with the censer, filling it with incense. He also has the round gold thing with a handle they use to sprinkle holy water. I’m scared and I’m crying but I’m trying to pray. Father Lanshee puts his stole around his neck. This makes him a priest, officially. He kisses it before he slips it over his head. I look up at the altar with the Gospel on one side and the Missal on the other. I almost didn’t get to be an altar boy because I couldn’t reach up and lift that Gospel high enough to move it to the other side without scraping and making the altar cloth crooked. I needed to strain up on my tiptoes to do it. Then, carrying it down the steps and genuflecting when you can’t see past it is another hard thing; and that Gospel’s heavy. Besides, you have on a surplice so you can easily trip. I practiced moving the Gospel a lot before I got good enough to say a mass; it’s much harder than learning the Latin, by a long shot. Father Lanshee must be reading my mind.

‘There’s got to be a devil in you, boy. That’s what really did it and we’re going to pull him right on out. What have you been doing lately which could let a devil take hold of you?’

He’s waiting for me to answer. I think of all the things I’ve done that might be devil’s work but the only thing that comes out is about Mr Harding.

‘Father, this summer there was a dead man, a dead man who killed himself in his garage. I was the one who found him. I was thinking about that when I was supposed to be studying my Catechism.’

Father Lanshee looks at me. He has the censer lit now and it’s smoking. He has the holy-water shaker in his other hand.

‘Yes, I heard about that. He wasn’t Catholic, was he?’

‘No, Father. He was just Mr Harding; I think he was a Protestant.’

‘There could easily have been devils around a place where a man knew such despair so as to take his own life. That could be it.’

He comes to the step just over me. I put down my head. The smell of incense makes me sneeze but I’m holding it in.