CONTINUED: Listen

I thought back to all the times as a boy I had come awake on this day,  sure that a surprise gift or two waited for me under a glorious tree festooned with colored lights.  There would be no tree or gift this morning and I felt lonely and rather sad, even at age 24.  I switched on the lamp and beneath it on the bedside table sat a small box wrapped in Christmas paper. Opening it, I discovered a pine cone,  round and open with square woody sprigs sprouting out.   The touches of pine sap had dried to a white frosting, making it very Christmas-like.  It was beautiful.  It was wonderful.  I’ve kept it for years.

The pine cone is an ancient symbol of enlightenment and no doubt one of the nuns  believed I was in need of a good measure of it  I laughed to myself.  She was probably right. 

     A half hour later I stood next to an old priest on the altar as he said Mass and I functioned as the altar server.  I looked out at the forty women in their religious habits and saw one who might have been the oldest smiling at me.  She was beaming and her hand gave me a little wave.

     Later at breakfast, I spoke to her.  “Thank you so much for the pine cone. Why did you do that for me?”

“You’re the youngest here,” she said.  “You would miss Christmas presents the most.”

I was embarrassed.  “I guess I’ll get over it someday,”  I said.

“Oh, you needn’t rush,” she said. “Embrace that longing you have for a gift from under the Christmas tree.  Feel it and let it remind you that something deeper in you is longing for Him."

“Longing for a Christmas present and longing for God are not the same,”  I said.

“Are you sure?” She laughed.  “Don't be so holy.  Let your desires show you what your soul already knows to be true."

"I'm not sure I know what I want," I said.

"You will know when you listen," she said.

 When I listened, I found strength to live by, and coincidentally the meaning of Christmas.  It is Emmanuel, the name that means He is with us.   There is someone who walks the path by our side throughout our lives, who shows himself at the oddest times through a variety of people.  It turns out our salvation is worked out among our friends and neighbors. And all we need to do is what that little sign tells us … the one we often see at this time of year hanging in a store, a bar, an office, a dorm room or a home.  It explains everything in one word, "Believe."  It's all we need if we want to see miracles happen all around us.

You know, I can't give Kickstart his faith.  But I can give him a symbol and pray that he listens.  I can give him my pine cone.

Listen and you will hear what’s inside you..

 Believe and He will be with you..

 Emmanuel.   Merry Christmas!

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Copyright 2014, David Griffin

The   Windswept   Press 

Murrells Inlet, South Carolina

www.windsweptpress.com

CONTINUED: Sanctuary

And so it was no surprise Mike and I took advantage of the lengthy sermon during Christmas Eve’s gruesomely long Midnight Mass.  Our mirth bubbled over as we tried out one-liners for the trial scene in our upcoming Neighborhood New Years Play, “Manger Animals Meet Brown Franciscan Alien Sisters.”  When Dad grabbed Mike by the ear and threatened to hug him to death, the two of us were ready to challenge Our Father, as we referred to him in his presence when we wanted to get his goat.  We pointed out that a little laughing was certainly not as bad as the animal noises we made last year when seated near the manger.  These were performed as realistically as possible so that nearby worshipers began to wonder if  any of the cattle in the manger scene were real. 

We also found ways to acoustically amplify our bodily functions while Father Fartslubber brought us all up to date on the latest from the Vatican in their unending quest to stamp out everyone’s night life.

“Just how has it come to be,” Mike and I now asked each other, “that Our Father should swat us while we are supposed to be safe here in the sanctuary of Holy Mother The Church?”

“I’m sure our Catechism would be of help,” said Mike.

“Amen, Brother,” I replied.  “Question 4,381 of the Baltimore Catechism, subpart VIII, paragraph 2 says: ‘Would Holy Mother The Church ever lie to us?’”

“And the answer?”  said Mike.

“Probably she would not, but Caveat Emptor,” I said.

Behind us old Mr. Kennedy who ran the  liquor store listened to this exchange with a look of horror growing on his face.  It was said that his son went away to become a priest, but no one ever heard from the young man afterward.  Therefore it became one of those popular boyhood beliefs the Kennedy kid was in jail doing 25 to life for murdering a showgirl.

Dad smiled and whispered, “Sanctuary doesn’t apply this morning because we didn’t chase each other in here.  We all came in of our own accord.”

I took a deep breath.  “So,” I said, in my self-appointed role as  Neighborhood Child Legal Advocate ( my advertising jingle was ‘Naughty or Nice, For a Quarter You Can Call Dave Twice,’) “if next week Mike and I decide to skip church, what do you suppose will be our sanctuary status then?”

“I haven’t  deliberated long enough to render a  polished opinion,” Dad said evenly.  “But I can guarantee you’ll wish you never heard of sanctuary if you don’t come to Mass.”

“Yes, Sir.  I got it, Dad.  Turns out Mike and I will be available.”

Fifteen minutes later we stood at the invitation to “Pray, Brothers”  and then knelt for more prayer from the missal. Soon the Mass reached the Consecration of the bread and wine.  The small hand-held altar bells jingled and the priest offered up the bread by raising it to heaven.  From everywhere around us short whispered prayers began to softly dribble from the lips of fervent worshipers.   In a voice beyond a whisper, but loud enough to be heard twenty to thirty feet away in the quiet church, Mike intoned in a voice deeper than normal, “Ogee Fatogee.”

Sitting between Mike and Dad I saw my father’s big arm shoot across my field of vision.  One end of it connected with Mike’s ear and pulled the boy bodily across my lap where he was stuffed down in the narrow space just beneath Our Father’s elbow.     

Later Mike said he thought he’d spoken Latin.  He had watched a Tarzan movie and the natives all said “Ogee Fatogee” when their new king ascended the throne.  Tarzan, an illiterate Zulu dilettante, asked what the phrase meant.

“All Honor to You, Sahib,” came the answer.

Mr. Kennedy approached us after church as we crunched our way back across the brightly lit parking lot  toward our car.

“You’ve got quite a bit on your hands with those two boys in church, John,” he said to Dad, an old fellow Knight of Columbus.

“We make do,” said Dad.  “Mary works so hard with the boys all week.”  With a chuckle, he added, “I gave her Christmas Eve off.”

“Might be better for her soul and for the boys’ behavior if she came along to help you control them at Mass.”

I heard my father’s jaw grind shut.  He was no pushover, but he was indeed a nice guy and respectful of his elders, including Mr. Kennedy.  He looked the man in the eye but otherwise didn’t respond.  Everyone became quiet.

Mike lifted his face and stared up at the old man.

“Ogee Fatogee,” he said as a winning smile crept across his face. 

“Esprit de Corps,” I added.

“Una lucha entre el pasado y el futuro,” said Dad, recalling Fidel Castro’s definition of Revolución.

“Muy bien,” I said.

“Ya Wah Bong,” said Mike.

“Ya What Who?” Mr. Kennedy asked.

“Chinese Jingle Bells,” said Mike.  He and I began to softly sing, “Ya Wha Bong, Ya Wha Bong, Ya Wha all the way.”

It appeared to me Mr. Kennedy was impressed.  Or in any event stunned.  He looked down at two angelic faces gazing up at him and then twisted his head back to Dad, who stood no more than 36 inches from his nose.

“Merry Christmas to you all,” said Mr. Kennedy, but his eyes were on only my father as he backed away slowly, a step at a time.

“Please,” he added, “extend my good wishes to your wife.”  He turned and rapidly sped off in the direction of his car.

“He’s afraid of us,” said Mike.

My father laughed. “More likely he’s afraid he’ll catch something from us.”

“Why didn’t you slug him, Dad?”  I asked.

He glanced at me to see if I was serious. He relaxed and answered me.

“Sanctuary,” he said.  “We’re in church, right?”

“Actually, Dad, we’re out on the sidewalk,” said Mike.

Sanctuary isn’t always about four walls,” he said. “Sometimes it’s nothing more than giving a person a second chance.”

Not all of Dad’s bits of  wisdom stuck in my memory, but that one did. 

My father was a pretty astute guy, a wise man who thought about his reactions to things before he let his reaction go too far.  As a beneficiary of all his wisdom, I should have grown up almost perfect.  But lucky for both of us he was ordinary as well as special.  Lucky for me, I’m as much a product of his failures as his successes, leaving me blessedly normal.

Mike, on the other hand, became a genius.

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copyright 2017, David Griffin

Windswept Press

Murrells Inlet, South Carolina

www.windsweptpress.com

CONTINUED: Guardians

I truly hoped they would ride with us on this Christmas weekend.   Walking on the road through Central Park  in a blinding snow storm is something only an idiot would attempt, or a barely handsome young man.  I suppose I shouldn’t be so harsh.  In truth, I often do it myself.   And after all, as the young woman said, it was a lovely snowfall.  It’s impossible to describe the beauty of falling snow in New York City.  The charm in part stems from the covering of the city’s many visual sins.  Then too, the mantel of pure white helps to hush the incessant noise of a million automobiles.

I was relieved when the couple accepted our offer and climbed up into the carriage.  Had they been native New Yorkers, they might have refused us with suspicion.  And maybe with reason, since my partner, free on a kind of parole from a place you seldom hear about anymore, is not the most angelic looking individual.  The top hat doesn’t improve him and barely hides his horns.  Myself, you wouldn’t take  notice of me unless I was standing in your living room, all 1400 pounds of me, swishing my tail and leaving hoof prints on your Oriental carpet.

   It was indeed a wonderful evening to be out and about in the city,  but perhaps not a great night for a carriage ride through the center of the Park.    Each driver coming up from behind insisted on passing, swishing his car in the snow and sliding around us, often getting hardly beyond the carriage before an oncoming car zoomed down on us like a bobsled.   Cabbies tooted and swore and seemed to aim at us as I strained to pull the carriage behind me off to the side each time a vehicle careened our way.  

 New York City  drivers should stay at home when the snow falls, but instead foul weather brought them out that night.   As conditions worsened, so did their driving skills, common sense and demeanor. They were  like crazed battalions of novice soldiers turning more inept as they continued to lose the battle.

 I began to feel sorry for myself and wished I’d let my lazy devil of a partner talk me out of this last trip of the evening.  He and I are from two separate worlds, as different as night and day.  We were paired for that reason, so that we might better understand humanity.

   We crossed the park and delivered the young couple safely to the Tavern.  I’m sure they quickly ran out of money.  But that’s not my concern.  I’ll come across the two again.  Keeping lovers safe while helping out a little is why we’re here.  You could say we’re old softies, especially for the younger lovebirds.

 You may call us whatever you like … heralds, guardians, cupids.   Not all of us have the youth and beauty of an Adonis or Psyche.  We take the  physical form we’re given.  I’m sometimes sorry I wasn’t made to fly.  The view up there is wonderful, surely a lot better than down here between the traces of my harness.  If I were an eagle, you would see my wings spread in grandeur, rather than watch my backside clomping along ahead of you. 

 Ah, but wishes are for the young.  So are magical evenings and snowy walks in the park.  Age brings wisdom to expose our conceit of self-reliance, and with it the dawning awareness that a carriage of benevolence has brought us through the storm.

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David Griffin                     copyright 2009

The Windswept Press

Murrells Inlet, South Carolina

www.windsweptpress.com

CONTINUED: Fast Train

On a summer evening in upstate New York in 1954, my father brought my older brother and my ten year old self down to Utica’s Union Station to watch the Twentieth Century Limited thunder through the city  without stopping.  Inaugurated in 1902 and running daily until 1967, the Limited carried fathers and brothers and grandmothers and lovers from New York City to Chicago each day.  Every night it brought back another group of souls, arriving at Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan well after midnight.

 At nine p.m., she exploded through Utica’s station at full throttle, pounding down the platform at seventy miles per hour to where we stood.  I felt my father's hand grab on to the back of my shirt collar, an oddly comfortable feeling.  A tornado could not have wrested me away from his strong grip, so tightly did he hold me safe.  When the train burst past us a mere ten feet away, the enormous sound and the blast of air were magnificent. A lighted blue eye on the end of the last car quickly sped away from us down the track to wherever trains go.  She had taken my breath away and won my heart.

 Eleven years later, the redheaded girl meeting me at Grand Central Terminal was quickly winning my heart.  Each time her blue eyes rushed at me, they took my breath away.  I had asked her to meet me in the center of the main concourse, under the clock, a romanticism from bygone movie scenes.  We were going north to my parent’s home for the weekend.

 I arrived early so I could watch her as she approached, unaware of my presence.   I hoped that viewing the young woman from afar would help explain why she was changing my ideas, my plans and my life.  I looked up to see her descending the escalator.  Like an angel she scanned the crowds below in search of the boy she’d been sent to make happy, and then I understood that a blessing doesn’t need an explanation.

 When she reached the floor and started my way, I hid behind the large round Information Booth, watching   her for just a few more seconds.  Then I popped out and spoke.

 “Is it the man of your dreams you’re looking for?” I asked.

“No,” she said, “only the man I’m going to marry.”

 “And how could you be sure of that?” I said, surprised not by her intention, but her voicing it.  She looked me in the eye, and in the most matter of fact way said, “Because it’s you I want with all my heart.”

I swallowed, or tried to.

“Then I won’t be disappointing you,” I said.

 On the train, we held hands like teenagers, for we weren’t much beyond those years.  The river and the hills seemed to fly past us, but in reality they sat still, like old married couples on a porch, watching two youngsters hurry ahead into life.  At my parents’ house that weekend, we were never apart, never in separate rooms.  Except at night, by patriarchal decree.

 She went back to work in the city on Sunday evening.  I followed a few days later, when I had finished helping my parents move to the small apartment they rented in readiness for their later years.

 And then I was standing with my father on the rail platform once again, this time waiting for the train to take me back to New York.  I told him I was getting married. 

 “To the redhead, is it?” he said, as if he’d been elsewhere for two days and not seen the girl and I mooning over each other and gamboling about like puppies.

I said yes.

 “Is she the one for you, then?” he asked.

I said yes, she is.

 The train arrived, pounding fast down the platform, coming to get me.  My father put his hand up behind me and grabbed my collar and held on.  When the last car stopped before us, he sighed.  And this time, he let go.

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David Griffin           copyright 2009

The Windswept Press

Murrells Inlet, South Carolina

www.windsweptpress.com

CONTINUED: Glamorous

I decided to probe gently but deftly.  Willard would surely be aware his spouse required a hefty investment, that she would need sprucing up before she glided out on that runway of broken dreams.  A few more teeth, at least.  Some extra hair on top would help, plus a new “do,” and more than just a shave and a haircut down at Pete’s. Also,  a beauty contest is probably the wrong event to be obvious about always presenting only one side of her face as she does around the neighborhood, often walking backward to do so.  Gladys is still sensitive to the missing ear lobe O’Reilly’s dog tore off, although  the red scar down the neck could be disguised with makeup.  The earlobe itself would need professional plastic surgery. Willard’s attempts with chewing gum never really worked.  O’Reilly has never offered to help with any expense.  He just complains  about Gladys’ sleepwalking.

Willard can be sensitive, so I did not want to be obvious with my concerns.

“I suppose,” I said, “getting ready for a beauty contest can entail some cost.”

“How do you figure?” Willard replied.

“Well, you know … uh … Gladys may want to get her  hair done.  And a new dress to wear, instead of that “I Love My Laxative” sweat shirt.”

“Nah, I don’t think so,” said the old guy.

“What about a new body brace to straighten her up, Willard?”

“Oh, I think we can get along by bending her old brace back into shape on the fence post.”

“What about travel, Willard.? Where’s the big event, Las Vegas?”

Willard looked sheepish.

“No, in my hometown.”

“That is still a bit of a distance, Willard.”

“Ain’t goin’,” he said

“Who’s not going, Willard.  You are not going?”.

“No need for either of us to go.  It’s all done with pictures.”

“Huh!” was all I could think to say for a  moment.  Then I thought … of course!  What better way to conduct a beauty contest of aging daffodils.  Through the mail!   Why bother with lost old ladies who can’t remember why they got on the airplane or their cranky husbands who can’t find any event but the pole dancing in the bar?   And this was no doubt why I hadn’t heard Willard complain about the cost of teeth and hair and all the expensive  beauty aids that make up supporting a glamorous woman like his 87 year old wife.  He had no doubt discovered the least expensive solution to making Gladys glamorous … Trick Photography!  The simplest trick being to get Betty Lou down at the coffee shop to pose as Willard’s wife for the photo session.

“Still,” I said to Willard without waiting for him to speak, “incidental expenses can mount up.”

“Sure,” he said, “Any investment requires an initial outlay.”

Willard’s vocabulary doesn’t ordinarily include these terms, so I was immediately suspicious about what he’d been reading.

“Oh, I get it,” I said as I rocked back in the porch chair. “They come by and take pictures for a fee.”

“Ain’t no new picture taking needed,” said Willard. “They have all they need from the yearbooks.”

I let that remark hang in the air for a while.

“Willard,” I said after a moment, “tell me what you’ve gotten yourself into now.”

He shifted around in his chair and then said, rather quietly, “Well, you know me and the boys back home get arguing and bragging on the Internet forum we started, ‘The Big Ones.”

“Uh-huh,” I offered.

“Albert is the town librarian now … only ‘cause he works for free … and he suggested a … well, a little wager.”

“Wager, Willard?”

“Like a wager.  More like a beauty contest, of course.”

“Of course, Willard.”

“Anyway, we all decided to kick in $500 each for a $10,000 pot.”

“And …” I said, expectantly.

“Bill Boron, the town mayor, was supposed to look up each of our wives in the 1940’s yearbooks after we paid in our $500. He’d choose the prettiest.”

“What could possibly go wrong with that?” I said with the heaviest sarcasm I could muster.

“He went through all the yearbooks from the 40s and chose Betty Coutant. No one could argue with him.  She was dead to rights the prettiest girl of the decade.”

“But …” I said, with even heavier sarcasm.

“Yeah, ‘But’ …” said Willard, with a forlorn face.

“Let me  guess, Willard.  Betty wasn’t married to any of The Big Ones.”

“She wasn’t married at all,” he said.  “She became a nun.”

“So who got the money, Willard?”

“She did,” said Willard. “She still runs an orphanage in Toledo, and she’s pretty persuasive.”

“You must feel blessed your money went to a good cause.”

“I guess so …”

“But now you’ll have to tell Gladys she won’t be hobnobbing with the Miss Universe girls.”

“That’s the only good part to  this story,” he said.  “I never told Gladys nothing about it.”

“That was smart,” I said. “Nothing?”

“Mostly nothing,” he said. But now she’s wondering why I straightened out her back brace on the fence post.  She thinks I’m taking her out to the movies.”

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David Griffin           copyright 2016

The Windswept Press

Murrells Inlet, South Carolina

www.windsweptrpess.com

CONTINUED: Dragon Breath

A fellow student named Burton was Sister Mary Anthony’s pet and the keeper of all the locked-up chemicals in the lab.  I can’t really tell you how we bribed him into giving us a pinch of the powder because, even years later he would be so embarrassed by the subject of the blackmail that he would probably sue me for writing about his crime of nature.

 Suffice it to say that we obtained a rather large pinch and were able to keep it in a stolen test tube overnight.  The next day,  just before lunch, by which time the boys’ bathroom urinals were always dry, we carefully poured the magnesium powder  toward the rear inside of one of these  ancient porcelain monuments that looked like upended bath tubs, built wide for boys with impaired aiming ability.

"Put more in," said George as he crouched

beside me while I carefully tapped a pinch of magnesium on a dry spot at the bottom of the urinal.

     "No, that's enough, George.  We don't know what more will do and-"

     "What a chicken-shit," he said.  "Let me have the test tube.  I'll show you what a future explosives engineer can do."
     "I thought you wanted to be a car mechanic."
     "It's all about noise," he said, “loud noise.” He would eventually become a drummer in a rock band.  I gave him the test tube and he emptied the entire contents into the urinal.

 Hiding ourselves in one of the nearby pooper stalls (as we boys called them,)  George and I waited and soon our random victim walked in to use the very urinal we  had salted.  We couldn’t have prayed for a better dupe.

 Eddie was a year ahead of us in school and was an excitable kid, being Italian, and rather effeminate to boot.  He was what today one might call a drama queen, and his reaction to any upset was always sure to be over the top.

 Eddie unzipped and whipped it out.  A split second later the boys’ bathroom erupted with a clap of thunder and a blinding purple flash.  Every foot of plumbing pipe rang throughout the building.  Eddie staggered backward, fell down and peed up the wall and across the floor, he even managed to piss up his shirt and tie.  He jumped up and through the purple haze of smoke ran from the scene as if he had just been licked up the front by a fire-breathing dragon.  Not pausing to put himself back in nor to zipper up, Eddie bolted out of the bathroom and down the hall about 30 feet before colliding with Sister Mary Anthony, who was approaching the area at high speed for obvious reasons.

 “Put that thing back in your pants, Mister,” shouted the nun.  I don’t think I have ever heard  the word “thing” pronounced with such malevolence.

 Laughing uproariously,  George and I danced in the pooper stall as the nun came crashing through the bathroom door.  Our stall door opened only inward and the two of us were having a problem getting out.  As Sister’s  feet pounded toward us, George pulled down his pants and sat down on the toilet.  The stall door crashed open,  knocking me backward onto a sitting George who said simply, “He did it, Sister.”

David Griffin                                      Copyright 2007

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CONTINUED: Saltpeter

The bomb didn't work as I hoped it would. I mixed all the ingredients, poured the stuff in a foot-long mailing tube and glued an M-80 firecracker inside as a detonator. Me and my friend George  carried it behind the garage to Mrs. Malozzi’s garden, lit the fuse and ran back behind the corner of the garage. If the bomb had successfully exploded as intended, with approximately two pounds of gunpowder ripping open the afternoon sky, running behind  the corner of the building would have been about as useful as raising an umbrella in a nuclear attack. Half of Cornhill would have felt the shock wave.

The M-80 exploded with a deafening bang, but luckily the ingredients didn't ignite.  Instead, saltpeter  showered over the garden. Turns out saltpeter is also a great fertilizer.  Mrs. Malozzi still talks about how great the tomatoes were that year.

A few days after what George and I would forever refer to as the “Great Fertilization,” Dad was driving me to school  when Peggy Lee’s “Fever”  (when you touch me!) came on the car radio.  Dad reached over and turned it off.  Just to annoy him, I said,

“Nice song.”

“No, it isn’t,” he replied.

There was dead silence for a moment and I always knew what that meant.  We were going to have a talk.

“Mr. Luzeri called me,” he said.  “Seems you bought a lot of  saltpeter.”

I still knew nothing of the chemical’s  withering effect on males.

And you told him it was for me,” he continued.

Surely, Mr. Luzeri didn’t think my father was making bombs!

“But we  figured you bought it for yourself," said my father.  "And you know, saltpeter can be dangerous.”

Could Dad have heard about the explosion in the tomato patch?

“So, David,  I just wanted to say that some things in a boy’s life are very natural and you shouldn’t worry so much about it or use chemicals to ...  well, to dry it up.”

“You mean blow it up, Dad?”

“Well, yes, that too.”

“It was just an experiment, Dad.”

“I’m sure,” he replied.

“I just wanted to see if it worked.”

“Uh huh.”

“And if it did, I was going to write it up for the school newspaper.”

My father slowed the car and brought it to the curb.  He set the brake and turned to  look at me.

“You certainly don’t think they would print it, do you?”

“No, probably not. But they’re always looking for personal experiences.”

“David,” he said, “no school newspaper is going to print a story about a kid who eats a box of saltpeter to keep from having an … an …”

A great light opened in my mind and I understood what we were discussing. I was really embarrassed.  So was he.

“To keep from having,” he began again, “an … an …

I said the word for him, beating him to the punch.

“Yes,” he said, “ that’s what I was going to say.”

Now I understood.  Mr. Luzeri had indeed looked at me very strangely that day.   But  who in their right mind would want to … to dry it up, anyway?

 “David, tell me you are  not going to write it up for the school paper."

“Of course not,” I said.

The rest of the ride was silent.  I wanted to tell him I wasn’t stupid enough to eat all that saltpeter.  That we used the stuff to make a bomb.  But admitting to trying to blow up a tomato patch wasn’t a pleasant thought.

Finally, as we pulled up in front of the school,  I said, “I really didn’t eat a box of saltpeter, you know.”

“I can tell,” he said, “You’re still breathing.”

“And it wasn’t the kind of experiment you’re thinking of.  I just can’t tell you about it.”

“Or you’d have to kill me?”

“Somebody might get killed, yes.”

He sighed, “You’ll be late for school. Why don’t you go and sin no more.”

“Yup, good idea,” I said.  “See you tonight.”

That evening, I quietly marked the pages on gunpowder in the encyclopedia.  I drew a bold circle around  the ingredients list and underlined the word, “saltpeter”  twice.  Then I drew what I hope looked like a tube and wrote “firecracker” on it.  I was never sure Dad came across it as I had intended, but years later as my wife and I were leaving for our honeymoon,  he hugged me goodbye and said,  “Don’t eat any firecrackers tonight.”

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Copyright by David Griffin, 2008

The Windswept Press

Murrells Inlet, South Carolina

.www.windsweptpress.com

CONTINUED: Sister Cliodhna's House Warming

Before joining her  order  of nuns she had been an iron worker on the bridges of Belfast for three years following high school, but lost her job as The Troubles in Derry swung into a higher gear. .  Cliodhna was laid off as more men became available in Belfast, men whose real motive in moving from the country had been to come to town and shoot at each other or blow up each other's families.  On the surface, the main issue between the mobs  appeared to be a  theological debate their ancestors had thought important enough to kill over.  But the real reasons lie in class and money.  Losing the job was particularly unfortunate for Cliodhna.  Her strong physique and  can-do manner meshed nicely with the welding occupation and she fit  in well with her burly co-workers.  But in addition to the loss of a career she loved, she was now broke.
     In the poverty that was Derry, Cliodhna looked in her wallet and then at the Irish boys surrounding her.  Discarding the idea of marrying any of them, she decided to become a nun.  Such was a fairly common ticket out of poverty for many of the Irish and they often worked on overseas assignments.  Shipped off to America by the Sisters of Hope (whom she often referred to as the Daughters of Drudgery)  Cliodhna came on a June day in the early 1960's to the Anglican Children’s Home of Our Savior at Utica, where Our  Savior was hopefully planning to save the building from collapse. 

When she arrived, the orphanage was in chaos,  steered crookedly by less than a  dozen nuns who were terrifically disorganized.  Younger children ran around half dressed, meals were tantamount to bedlam and the nuns had no idea who was in charge and often argued about whose job was whose.

At the sisters’ community meeting on Cliodhna’s fourth night at the orphanage, after volunteering a  particularly apt summation of the problems she saw, the ironworker from Belfast was elected Mother Superior.  “But I’ve only been in the Habit for 3 years and I’m the youngest here,” she said to the outgoing  Sister Superior Alfred who would now gladly lay down her scepter of power and with it all the complaints, petty arguments and normal bickering heard in any convent.  “Sissy-shit,” Cliodhna called it.

The nuns at the orphanage were unique in the mostly working class Catholic city.  Called Episcopalians by the townspeople, the sisters were actually professed in the Church of Ireland, a close cousin to Anglicanism.  They had been enlisted at the turn of the last century by Utica’s upper crust Protestants to run the orphanage built by a local benefactor. Though Our Savior’s charges were mostly Catholic children, the bourgeoisie had been very happy to find Protestant nuns, even if they had to be imported. 

It wasn’t long before the home was running like a well adjusted time piece.  It turned out that Sr. Cliodhna had just the right touch with people, nuns especially, knowing when to cajole and reason and when to scream and kick ass.  When the new Superior was in a mood, the sisters would step sprightly through their chores and work harmoniously together even though they had been arguing only 30 minutes earlier.

At night when she retired, the young nun worried about how she could lead the women in their care for the children, dealing with the individual tragedies that had brought each child to Our Savior’s door.   From where would the money come to fix the sagging floor under the dining room?  Was she helping her sisters to live a life of service?  And helping them to a closeness to each other and to God?

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September always brought the bittersweet combination of  chaos and relief as the summer ended and the children went back to school.  Not that the nuns would take a vacation.  With the children no longer underfoot in the daytime,  floors were to be scrubbed and waxed, rooms painted and other chores accomplished against the coming winter.

Sr. Cliodhna  spent the final week of August ensuring each child was enrolled in either a public or Catholic school.  Sister Romula at the nearby Catholic elementary spoke of the possibility of having to charge tuition to Our Savior’s orphans in the coming years to cover expenses.  The bitch, thought Cliodhna.

     Cliodhna’s conversations with various institutions in the community from whom she tried to enlist financial support became more urgent.  On a Wednesday morning she visited the middle-aged president of a local bank where she voiced a need for money to fix the sagging floor in the dining room.  Mr. Bentingham nodded his head sagely as if he had a great understanding of  floors and orphans, but didn’t appear to be forthcoming with cash.  “I’m sure it’s a struggle,” he said

      Cliodhna’s blood boiled.  A struggle?  This blue-blooded ijit hadn’t the slightest idea what happened in the real world of broken lives, orphaned children and dwindling finances.  She fumed inside.

 The nun stood and squared her shoulders, then loomed over the man.  “You’re coming with me, “she said. She took him by the ear and told him they were going for a ride.  Half laughing, he left the bank babbling about how he hadn’t been pulled out of his seat by the ear since his mother died ten years before.

In her medieval Habit with a 3 foot Rosary hanging from her waist, Sr. Cliodhna declined the banker’s offer of a two martini lunch and led him straight to the cellar under the sagging floor.  She pointed up at the steel beams that ran from the brick foundation across the expanse of ceiling above the dirt floor.

“The beams are partly rusted,  Mr. Bentingham”

she told the banker.

“Call me Brent,” he said.

“We’ve stopped the rainwater leaks.  All I need are lots of  diamond-plate steel butts to scab the beams and a few lolly columns for temporary support.”

“How much money?” asked Brent.

“About four hundred, maybe.”

“Including labor?”

“No,” she said.

Sr. Cliodhna knew she needed more than donations.  She wanted people from the community to invest themselves in the Children’s Home of Our Savior.  Not just for the money.  The home had no friends.  Sister Cliodhna looked at Brent.  He appeared in decent physical shape. 

“Me?” asked the banker.

“You could use the exercise, Brent. You do the lifting and I’ll do the welding.”

Brent brought along men friends from his club the following Saturday.  They were dressed in their old clothes, last season’s tennis tops and shorts.  Cliodhna sent them home to put on long pants, concerned about the flying sparks.  It was enough to worry about setting Our Savior ablaze while welding without having to be concerned about tender shins.  Cliodhna wore her nun’s headpiece and coveralls buttoned to the neck.  It was difficult managing the welder’s helmet, but she succeeded.   She allowed Brent to try a little welding and transferred the hood to his head, but soon realized he was messing up his lap joints and she relegated  him back to carrying steel plates.

Wives arrived at  noon bearing dishes of food for the workers.  Brent proudly told everyone of his welding work.  After the club lunched in the cellar on the dirt floor, sitting on broken furniture and overturned ash cans, a few wandered upstairs to visit with the children.

Sister Cliodhna was relieved to have the floor shored up and to have members of the community helping out.  She hoped that eventually she would attract a mix of people here and not only the tennis club.  It would do them all  as much good as it would the children.  She realized that a new facet of  Our Savior was being revealed: the orphanage as a focal point for  those who had a heart to be with the children and hopefully with each other.

Brent was quite proud of himself.   He would never admit it, but it was the first honest labor he had done in his life.  Smiling broadly, he asked Cliodhna,   “So, did I do well?”

“Yes,” she replied,”thank you so much.”

“How about my welding,” he asked, “what would the  Belfast bridge welders say about it?  Good, huh?”

The nun looked around to make sure no one would hear.

”We would say, ‘For a banker, me son, you’ve got quite a pair of iron ones.’ ”

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copyright 2007 David Griffin

The Windswept Press