Thursday morning at school, word spread quickly about Roger’s fight. His eye was swollen a little. If it had been me, I would have used it as an excuse to stay home from school, but then I saw the wisdom in Roger’s decision. The girls in our class were especially interested and wanted to hear about the game, play-by-play. I tried to show off my mangled knee, but I couldn’t get my starchy uniform pants up that high. Instead, I faked a limp. Roger talked about the fight nonchalantly. Friday night was still the thing on his mind. He grabbed me and Clip as our class walked to singing practice in the church. “You guys are still coming tomorrow, right?” Clip and I looked at each other, waiting for the other to speak. “How much money should we bring?” Clip asked finally. He was obsessed with this aspect of the adventure for some reason. “It doesn’t matter,” Roger told him. He looked at me. “What’s his problem?” I shrugged and wondered if Roger was scared too. He wanted so desperately for us to go. Our church was a tan brick building lined with stained-glass saints. A stone statue of our patroness, Saint Cecilia, stood holding a harp above the steps to the entrance. The parishioners in Fox Chase were of the new breed of harmless Irish Catholics. They went to church once a week out of habit more than anything else, prayed for a short homily from the priest, but brought their kids and gave ten dollars a week to the collection. As such, the church was large and well kept. Marble steps, elaborate flower arrangements, and new vestments for the priests and altar boys every year. Sister Thomas grimaced at my class as we filed into the pews—the boys sliding on the polished wood, the girls crowded in a constant whisper. The nun cleared her throat repeatedly, attempting to silence us without screaming in God’s house. She had achieved the goal of her order—she was truly a sexless creature. Not a wisp of hair stuck out from beneath her habit, and if it wasn’t for the fact that her uniform bottomed out into something like a dress, she would have been unidentifiable as a woman. Her fat face was pinched into a permanent, righteous scowl that killed any more speculation about blowjobs in my mind for the time being. Weeks earlier, she had smiled when she explained to our class that she was married to Christ, but we knew it was really us she was bound to. She was from that lost generation that had been admired when they first entered the convent at 18, but now most respect for the vocation had evaporated and she was left married to a ghost. Miss Grugan perched behind the organ, waiting for the signal from Sister Thomas. She seemed to us only slightly more of a woman than the nun. Under the lights in the church, her scalp was visible through her thin hair. Her voice was nice enough—just a notch below operatic—but when coupled with our own pubescent ones, we made each other sound ridiculous. “Louder, louder!” Sister Thomas screeched above the din of our singing. Clip and I smiled at each other and filled our lungs. “We are many parts!” we crooned flatly. “We are all one body!”—though Clip sang “cervix” in the place of “body” and we cracked up. By the end of every practice, the students would all be screaming—actually having fun—but nowhere near the right notes. For some reason, Sister Thomas seemed satisfied with this, though we usually scared away the parishioners who were praying in the back. “Remember,” Sister Thomas said as practice ended, “St. Cecilia is the patron saint of music. Let’s do her proud at mass tomorrow.” Clip leaned in. “She also had her head cut off.”
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This wasn’t exactly true, but Saint Cecilia was a martyr. She had been a virgin, like us, and refused her pagan husband on their wedding night, saying she was already bound to an angel. We thought this wasn’t very different than how Sister Thomas described her own love life. But when the news got around that Cecilia had converted her new husband and his buddies into Christians, the Romans finally came after her. Her executioners chopped at her neck three times before they gave up and left her to die. She bled for three days—her head still basically attached—and performed miracles in her home. We always liked stories like this where the church seemed wild and action-packed, completely different from our lives on the parish playground and at Sunday mass. And while we were attracted to the violence and gore of this particular story, we had no idea what any of that had to do with music. It was one of the many simple questions the nuns could never answer for us; why should we sing louder for this woman? What is the connection between murder and music? The answer, I’ve learned, is not as interesting as the question. A botched Latin translation, a few misinformed painters, the signature of a medieval pope, and Saint Cecilia is now never seen away from her organ or harp. She is not the patron saint of, as Clip suggested many times, laryngitis or neck pain, but instead her legacy of strength, certainly—and horror as well—grew into something calm and beautiful, though maybe wrong. And so, Roger.
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—photo by tiseb/flickr
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Great story Sean. Wonderfully written!
It read like a story from my own childhood in the 40-50s in Fox Chase. Excellent!
Awesome story, Sean E! I remember this one.
Excellent story, brilliantly told. This was a great way to kick off the fiction series. Fiction was once traditionally the heart of every magazine produced and edited for me, and the fact that the Good Men Project magazine has embraced this idea is deserving of praise.