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.
copyright 2017, David Griffin
Windswept Press
Murrells Inlet, South Carolina
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