the beginning of the reservation. Even the most traditional Indians, the people who’d kept the old ceremonies alive in secret, either had Catholicism beaten into them in boarding school, or had made friends with some of the more interesting priests, as Mooshum had for a time, or they had decided to hedge their bets by adding the saints to their love of the sacred pipe. Everybody had extremely devout or at least observant family members; I had been lobbied over and over, for instance, by Clemence. She had persuaded my mother (she hadn’t bothered with my father) to have me baptized and had campaigned for my first communion and confirmation. I knew what I was in for. The God Squad had not been doctrinal, but my classes would be filled with lists. Confession: i. Sacramental. ii. Annual. iii. Sacrilegious. iv. Legal. Grace: i. Actual. ii. Baptismal. iii. Efficacious. iv. Elevating. v. Habitual. vi. Illuminating. vii. Imputed. viii. Interior. ix. Irresistible. x. Natural. xi. Prevenient. xii. Sacramental. xiii. Sanctifying. xiv. Sufficient. xv. Substantial. xvi. At meals. xvii. There were also Actual, Formal, Habitual, Material, Moral, Original, and Venial Sin. There were special types of sins: those against the Holy Ghost, Sins of Omission, Sins of Others, Sin by Silence, and the Sin of Sodom. There were Sins Crying Out to Heaven for Vengeance.
There were, of course, definitions of each of these categories on the lists. Father Travis taught like Vatican II had never happened. Nobody looked over his shoulder way up here. He said Latin mass if he felt like it and for several months the previous winter had turned the altar away from the congregation and conducted the Mysteries with a sort of wizardy flourish, Angus said. When it came to teaching catechism, he added subject matter or dismissed it. Saturday morning, he let me into the church basement and told me to take a seat in the cafeteria. I did, trying not to look down at the rug and think of Cappy. Bugger Pourier, reforming again after years of a stumblebum life in the Cities, was the only other student in the dim room. He was a skinny sorrowful man, with the fat purple clown nose of a longtime drinker. His sisters had dressed him in clean clothes, but he still smelled musty, like he’d been sleeping in a moldy corner. I looked over the handouts and listened to Father Travis talk about each member of the Holy Trinity. After class was done and Bugger wandered off, I asked Father Travis if I could take personal instruction all next week.
Do you have some goal in mind?
I want to be confirmed by the end of summer.
We get one visit from the bishop in the spring and everybody gets confirmed at that time. Father Travis looked me over. What’s your rush?
It would help things.
What things?
Things at home, maybe, if I could pray.
You can pray without being confirmed. He handed me a pamphlet.
Plus, he said, you can pray by just talking to God. You can use your own words, Joe. You don’t have to be confirmed in order to pray.
Father, I have a question.
He waited.
I had heard a phrase mentioned long ago and had stored it in my mind. I asked, What are Sins Crying Out to Heaven for Vengeance?
He cocked his head to the side as though he was listening to a sound I couldn’t hear. Then he flipped through his catechism book and pointed out the definition. The sins that cried out for vengeance were murder, sodomy, defrauding a laborer, oppressing the poor.
I thought I knew what sodomy was and believed it included rape. So my thoughts were covered by church doctrine, a fact I had found out the very first day.
Thanks, I said to Father Travis. I’ll see you Monday.
He nodded, his eyes thoughtful.
Yes, I’m sure you will.
On Sunday, I sat through mass with Angus and on Monday morning I was at church right after breakfast. It was raining again, and I had eaten a huge bowl of my mother’s oatmeal. It had weighed me down on my bike and sat warm and heavy in my stomach now. I wanted to go back to sleep, and so, probably, did Father Travis. He looked pallid and maybe hadn’t slept so well. He hadn’t shaved yet. The skin beneath his eyes was blue and the coffee was harsh on his breath. The cafeteria counter was stacked with neatly boxed-up food and the trash cans were stuffed.