Pulpit Grasp

There was a knock at the door and I knew it was the priest. I opened it, and it was indeed him; a man standing erect, but also quite comfortably. He took off his hat and held it in one hand around his midsection. The hat was a gray tweed fedora with a black band. It was old and had some wear spots at the base of the rise, just at the black ribbon. I could see two distinct but faint wear-circles.

His hands were hairy and were younger than his head, apparently. His hair color matched most of the hat, while the hair on his hands matched the band; it looked like a vibrant black comb as he tidied his head upon arrival, each finger a dark tooth of the comb.

He look on his face was coy, yet collected. He wore no coat, even though the sky was clouded over and giant quarter-sized snow flakes fell from above. The priests breath produced a slight puff of steam as he spoke, but then quickly dissipated. There was no wind, and the flakes meandered their way down to the ground and melted slowly a few seconds after instant. Flakes that landed on the priests shoulders never actually landed. They evaporated an inch or two above his clothing and as he stood there, it looked like he was outlined in a protective sphere of unfocused sight. A swimming wave of mist took over where the flakes ceased.

“Hello, you must be Benjamin, young man,” the priest said.

I nodded. Or was it a bow?

I held open the door and waved my free hand through the air to show him in.

“Thank you, Benjamin.” The priest stepped in and handed me his hat. “Young man,” he said. I hung it on the paris rack beside the door, which was attached to the bottom portion of our stained mission mirror. The hat sat snug as a bug onto the hook, the tip, a rounded soft little crest at the point was brass, and slightly shone through the worn fabric of one wear-spot.

My father came into the foyer from the kitchen, and wiped his hands on his working towel, then slung it over his shoulder. His long sleeve button down shirt rolled up at the cuff and folded a few times over. He was preparing our supper, a round roast well greased with fat and gristle. “Priest,” my father sent out a hand and they shook.

“So nice of you to have me over tonight, Todd,” the priest said.

My father said, “I see Benjamin has already taken your things.” He looked down at me standing beside him, smiling and proud. He put hand on my head and rustled through my hair and held the grin. “Good job, buddy.”

“Benjamin has set the table already for us, priest. Come into the kitchen for a drink. Dinner will be ready in a few minutes.”

“I’d like that, Todd, thank you.” And we all went into the kitchen. My father turned and went first, followed by the priest as I stepped aside and allowed him by. Then I followed, but before I did, I turned took and took another look at the snowflakes through the window in the front door. They were coming harder now, I could see through the pale orange light cast from the lamp on our porch. Maybe we won’t have school, tomorrow, I prayed, and did the sign of the cross. And then I glanced at the mirror once again and saw the brass horn of the hook very faint again crooking up beneath the fedora. My sight caught the mirror, too, just before I turned to follow my father and the priest and I saw the back of my fathers shirt going into the kitchen. The mirror had a reddish tint to it and I only saw my father, not the priest.

I wheeled, and proceeded to the kitchen, behind the priest.



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My father had come to call Father Dean Rawley by just the name ‘Preist,’ after watching a movie with Daniel Day Lewis in which Lewis’ character addresses his foe with an admirable term of respect. They had known each other for some time; my father attended grade school at Saint Martin’s, as did I.

Father Hawley actually was the Pastor of St. Martin’s, and as far as I knew, all the teachers and nuns and familes of the congregation addressed him as Paster Dean, or Pastor Rawley. I always found it odd that my father did not, and found it more odd that Father Rawley would allow it. On the other hand, my father and Priest knew each other quite well. They met atleast three times a week, either in confessional on Tuesday and Thursday nights between five o’clock and seven o’clock, or in Preists office at the Parish Office, or even sometimes at my father’s Law Firm here in Stillwater, Ohio. Of course, they also met once or twice a year here in our kitchen for dinner.

I was a in the fifth grade at St. Martins. My teacher was Sister Ambrose. She was a wretched woman of a hundred and sixty-seven years old. While I did not care for her very much, I did receive good marks on my report cards. The only mark I recieved below an A was last year, in mathematics, during the third grading period. My father was out of town for three weeks on a business trip to Jacksonville, Florida, and decided to leave me with the Richardsons, neighbors of ours next door, as opposed to taking me with him. Even though my father gave Mrs. Richardson explicit instructions about my daily routine’s, such as teeth brushing and bedtime hours, I was mostly allowed to do as the Richardson twins, Jules and Jerald, could. Their bedtime was one full hour later than mine, and homework guidelines varied considerably. Instead of studying for one hour the night before a test, the Richardson twins must just already have that knowledge in their brains, because we never studied the whole time. We ate popcorn after dinner and watched movies before bed. I was tired at school during those three weeks and my teeth went unbrushed multiple times as well. My grade in mathematics slipped to 89.97 percent. The policy at St. Martins was not to round up, even the slightest. You received what you earned, and I earned a B+.

Jules and Jerald were my classmates, and we were all eleven years old. Although, their birthday came two days befor emine, and so, for two days each year they were older than I, and I was younger than them. Our school was small; Stillwater had two full elementary schools for grades kindergarten through fifth grade and one larger middle school for grades six through eight. Saint Martins only had one hundred and sixty-three students spread across eight full grades and a kindergarten-pre-school class, which was combined. So, Jules and Jerald had been in my class of 14 since they moved in next -door four years ago.

My father’s Law Firm recruited Jules and Jerald’s father, Derrick, to relocate from far away. I think it was Montana, because Jules mentioned something one time about how the beuatiful and large the sky was where they came from, and she missed it. She said here in Stillwater, “the sky is smaller.” I found this hard to believe; how was it that our sky was smaller here in Ohio than it was in another part of the country? Isn’t the sky the same size everywhere, I thought? I looked up “Big Sky” in the index of my Social Studies book and there it was! Montana, Big Sky Country. Capital, Helena.

Underneath Montana’s listing it read: Motto, “Oro y Plata” (Spanish: Gold and Silver). That made sense, then too, because Mr. Richardson always wore a real shiny gold watch, and dial on it was ginormous, as big as his wrist. Obviously everything that came from Montana was big, because Mrs. Richardson always had equally ginormous gold earings and the rings on her fingers were much larger than the ones my mother used to wear. I wondered why Stillwater’s stuff was so small.

My mother taught third grade at St. Martin’s and I was in her class the year she died. She was in line checking out at the Food City when a teenager from Munster, the next town over, was high on a mixture of Blue Felix acid, pot, and Crystal Meth. The kid who killed her, Billy Yates, wasn’t hurt in the accident, never passed out— he was so high. At the station later that day when he came back down, he told the police he thought he was at the drag strip out in Norwalk, Raceway 53 it was called. He said he thought he had pulled into the Food City lot to get a 12-pack of Flat Iron beer but wasn’t sure becaue the next thing, he said, he was here in this ‘god-damned cold ass cell.’

Witnesses later told police that Yates’ 1985 Oldsmobile eighty-eight was already accelerating wildly as he turned left at the stoplight out on Rt. 87, into the parking area. They said he was lurched over the wheel and windows were down; the radio was still blasting Motley Crue’s Shout at the Devil after Yates flew up the main driveway and tore through a Halloween display placed in front of the plate glass window, which the Olds shattered on its way to also shattering the lives of my father’s and mine.

Priest sat while my father mixed him a gin and tonic. I sat across from him. The priest looked down and took a stir or two through the ice, lifted and sipped.

“So, Todd, what is for dinner tonight?” the priest said.

“Benjamin’s favorite, pot roast with mashed potatoes,” my father said . He raised his eyebrows and gave me an excited look, and smiled.

“His mother used to make it for him. Mine isn’t as good, but I continue to practice,” my father said.

“Dad, it’s great,” I said. My father was always discounting his efforts since mom died. There were many times since which I wished I had my mom to confide secrets in, or help me with projects, or answer school questions, to be sure. I actually felt my father handled the whole situation fine, though, in all honesty. I wouldn’t describe the relationship between my father and as though we were dancing neutrons—my mother taught all subjects to her classes at St. Martin’s, but science was her favorite and she had always tried to convince me of the delicate balance in life of faith and science— but he was my dad, of course, and I’d always love him. And his cooking wasn’t as bad as he made it out to be.

My father served us and we ate. The priest had three more gin and tonics, which I thought was a bit much, but I didn’t know him very well.

Father Rawley and I did of course know each other, but his interest in me was only brief. When my mother died we talked privately only once, about God’s plans for us and the importance of faith, but that was it. I felt as if he could have been talking to anybody, then. It wasn’t a very personal talk, more like rehearsed responses from an instruction manual; even though my mother worked at the school and knew her well the relationship between myself and Pastor Rawley was raw. I knew him from school, when we had class inspections and fire drills. So, there was that brief interaction when my mother died, plus he gave me communion at church and sometimes confessional. But that was it, really. And even though my father and him had spent much time together, I wasn’t really apart of that.

As far as the relationship between Priest and my father, well, it wasn’t as if I thought my father and Priest were closer than my father and me, but I certainly felt separated from it. That was them and this was us, separated. What they talked about was not usually brought to my attention, and when I saw them together, such as tonight, I couldn’t help but feel like the thrid-wheel—a little embarrassed, perhaps because it seemed the Priest knew my father better than I, and somewhat sad as a result.

I didn’t say much during dinner; mostly I just laughed short or shook my head in agreement at something one of them said. The conversation never really turned to myself, except at one point when my father mentioned he wished he could be at the house when I returned home from school.

“Since I don’t arrive home from work until six o’clock, Benjamin goes to the Richardson’s next door after school,” he said, and pointed his finger back over his shoulder, palm up, toward their house. The Priest brightened, while my father said this with a slight look of disgust.

“Gloria richardson is a  wonderful person and mother, don’t get me wrong, but, well…,” my father admitted. He was always very cautious when he spoke about someone behind their back. Not because he was a Lawyer and there was something called ‘libel law,’ he explained to me one time, but because was raised to be a genuinely polite person.

One time we were downtown, in Cleveland for an Indians baseball game and as we walked to Jacob’s Field from the parking lot six blocks away, we were approached my a number of what my father said were “less fortunate people,” for money. I remember being a little scared by the event—not because some were black men; my mother had taught me that there was no difference between white’s and black’s even though some people thought so, but because they smelled and looked frightening. As we approached them, my father whispered in a hushed tone, “Benjamin, put your head down.” When I did, I saw that one of the men had duct tape around the tip of his sneaker, and the next ones big toe stuck out through his shoe; the nail of which was long and half-broken, dark bruised-purple where the blood had come to heal the wound underneath the nail, but smeared and grimy on the half torn apart, soiled with dirt and creamy pink puss in spots where the blood mixed into the infection. The part of the nail still attached to his toe was split at the tip, which curled in all and opposite directions both left and right, and over the tip and down towards the ground. It looked a little like a Joker’s three pronged hat going in all directions, but twisted—twisted like what we learned about in Health Class, a DNA double helix—but without the Jokers bells attached at the end. In place of the bells here were two scuffed yellowish smudges and what looked like a pea had been pushed on the tip of one prong. I was terrified.

While my father spoke with a careful encumbrance about the men, Mrs. Richardson’s interpretation was contemptuous. When I retold the encounter to Jules and Jerry about it one day after school while we played MLB 2005 on their XBOX 360, she overheard and asked,—

“Your father said they were what?”

A little sheepish, I said, “Less fortunate.”

She laughed like two wild cats fighting to the death. “They’re bums, Benjmain! Bums!”

I loved spending time next door, and knew why my father did not love it, too.

To the Priest, my father said, “To each their own, I suppose,” and he clapped his hands together and gave an him an Aw shucks look.

“Todd, perhaps Benjamin would like to spend some extra time after school in the rectory?” Priest asked and looked at me for a reaction. I sat motionless. No.

“We always have a need for students to sort papers and run little errands around the the compound. I’m sure Benjamin’s teacher would even consider his time spent with myself and the sisters to count s extra credit.”

My father looked at me, surprised, which was a look I knew meant I was supposed to take with cheerful agreement.

“How about that, Buddy? Think you want to help out Priest and the others after school from now on?”

I didn’t.

“Sure, dad. Sounds like a good idea.” It didn’t sound like a good idea, but I didn’t have control over it and went along.

“Well, that’s wonderful then. Benjamin, I’ll tell Sister Samantha you will be helping out and instruct her to have some work for you to attend to each day,” father Rawley said.

“Todd, what time do you think you can pick up Benjamin after your work?”

“I can be there by five-thirty.” My father said this as he stood, took his plate in hand, turned and walked to the sink.

Father Rawley breathed in a deep, relaxed breath as if he had just been infused with new life or a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Or, now that I think about it some more, like we had just finished a business meeting. This agreement had a pre-planned feel to it, which probably why my father had gotten up, and walked away before it was finished. They spoke to each other now as if we were in play rehearsal. “The rectory office closes at five and on Tuesday and Thursday as you know,” he now turned to me, placed his hands together out in front of him, and interlocked his hairy fingers. “He’ll be waiting in the pews, during those times…,” he mused. “And on the other days of the week…”

Placed together, facing me now, his hands looked like ten black ink-stained caterpillars snuggling, squirming together like pigs or puppies struggling for their turn at their mothers teat together. He stared at me now with my fathers back still turned to us, and locked me into his gaze. I felt put on the spot, called out on the carpet. Or like I was in an open confession. Tell me your sins, young Benjamin. Tell me what a terrible little boy you have been. His face was so close now, as if the table between us had shrunk to just twelve inches in width, and a sort of swirling wall had formed around us, separating us from the rest of the room; what formed now was twirling spiral like the ones pilots describe when they’d flown confused through the clouds over the Bermuda Triangle—the sort of space, time wormhole my mother had warned me was out in the universe and possibly somewhere here on our earth. The streaked interlocked wavy lines pulsated independently, alternating reddish hues bright and rich and distinctive flashed on and off. The sound between us now banged off the walls in a harmonic resonance, and the priests voice sounded as if it was coming from far away, but boomed; it was broadcasted like a boomerang echoing to me and away and to me and away. “Do you like that Benjamin?” It came back and forth, loud. Now, slow, and deeper and distorted, like it would it when my mother played a record  for me when I was young and I put my hand on it to slow it down, the words coming slow and deep. My heart slammed inside my chest and the nerves inside my arms gyrated, making me feel tingled and trapped. “Wouldn’t you, Benjamin? Wouldn’t you like that?” I know I would. I would like that very much, to spend some time with you after school, Benjamin.

Finally, the priest it felt as if the priest had relinquished his grip on me, although his expression didn’t change. Neither didn’t he move his hands. He sat there still, but I had a feeling like the trance-like state I was in was being pushed back from me, and the room softened for me. I was back now fully across the table and I could a another voice calling to me, softly. The tingles in my arms stopped and smoothed and I felt a wave a warm, soft suppression calm over me. Leave my benjamin alone. Yes, I could hear something, definitely, but very faint. He’s not yours. Benjamin is mine. Leave my Benjamin alone.

My father now turned back around and asked me to clear my plate. I began to do so, and asked to be excused after.

“Sure, buddy, but hold on just a second.”

“And on the days which you do not have confessional, Priest? He asked.

I paused, and the priest looked at with a delightful, but mysterious look and said, “Oh, he’ll be with me in the rectory. I’m sure I can come up with all kinds of things to keep him busy until you arrive.”

My father, completely aloof to what had happened when his back was turned, said, “Great, then it’s settled.” And then he excused me from the room.

I could not get up to my bedroom fast enough.