nailed to the side of the window. I kissed the feet of the hanging Jesus. The confessional smelled of old wood. I thought of the million sins that had been revealed in this small, dark space.
Then abruptly my thoughts were scattered. The small wooden door of the window slid open in front of me, and in the dark I could make out the head of Father Byrnes. His eyes were closed, his head bowed forward. He mumbled something in Latin then put his hand on his forehead and waited.
I made the sign of the cross and said, “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” and I made my first confession to him.
Diecinueve
Easter Sunday. The air was clear and smelled like the new white linen of the Resurrection. Christ was risen! He had walked in hell for three days and on the third day he had risen and was sitting at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth—
The two lines stretched from the steps of the church out to the street. The girls’ line was neat; they looked like angels in their starched white dresses, each pair of hands holding a white prayer book and a rosary. The boys’ line was uneven, fidgeting nervously. We pulled at our ties and tugged at the tight fitting jackets. We did not hold our prayer books or rosaries in palmed hands. Around us proud parents smiled at each other, waiting for the priest to open the doors. From time to time a mother would move to the line and straighten this or that on a nervous kid.
Behind me Horse whinnied into the clear Christian air.
Bones snapped at him, and one of the high school sodality girls whose job it was to keep us in line whacked him on the head.
—Christ will come to judge the living and the dead—
I knew.
“What was your penance?” Horse asked Lloyd.
“Ain’t supposed to tell,” Lloyd sneered.
“Bones got a whole rosary!”
Everybody laughed. “Shhhhh!” the high school girl said.
“Hey! There’s Florence!” Florence was standing against the wall, sunning himself in the morning sun that was just now beginning to warm the cool morning air.
“He’s going to hell,” Rita whispered next to me and Agnes agreed.
“Augh, augh, augh, hummmmph,” the Horse neighed nervously at the mention of hell. His large teeth chomped hard and a white spittle formed around the edges of his mouth. The air smelled of fresh-cut hay.
Up in the bell tower the pigeons ducked and bobbed at each other and sang their soft cooing song. Christ was risen. He was in the holy chalice awaiting us.
“I heard Rita’s confession,” Abel bragged.
“You damn liar!” Rita hissed back.
“Ah, ah, black spot on your soul,” Lloyd said and shook his finger at her.
“Shhhhhh!” the high school girl warned us. She hit Bones again. She hit him hard because I could hear her knuckles striking the bone of his skull and her exclamation when it hurt her.
“The door’s opening!” someone whispered. Father Byrnes stood at the entryway, smiling, surveying his flock. The parents returned his smile. They were pleased that he had done so well with us. I turned and looked at my father and mother and Ultima. Then the lines started moving forward.
“Remember your instructions!” the high school girl threatened us.
“Don’t go drop God on the floor!” Bones volunteered as he went by, and she whacked him again.
We had been told to take the Host carefully in our tongue and swallow it immediately. No part of the Host must be lost from the time it left the chalice to the time it entered our mouths.
“Don’t go bite on God,” Horse whispered.
Swallow Him carefully, don’t chew on Him. I wondered how God must feel to go into Horse’s stinking mouth.
Above us the choir sang. The two lines moved without incident down the aisle then filed into the front row of seats. Father Byrnes went up to the altar, the altar bell rang and mass began. All during the mass I prayed. I thought back to yesterday’s confession and about the mixed feelings that the revealing of my thoughts had left in me. But I had told everything, everything I thought was a sin. I had cleansed myself completely and prepared to take God into my body. Since the confession I had talked only to Ultima and my mother. I had kept myself pure.
On the altar the priest began the ceremony of changing the bread into flesh and the wine into blood. The body and blood of the