The Next Five Stories (16-20) From the Boarding House

16. Blackouts in the City

17. Air Raid Drills

18. Small Secrets

19. Childhood Foods

20. The Confessional

16. Blackouts in the City

It was 1941. It was the time of the radio. All of our boarders had a small one, befitting

their small rooms. We had a large one, encased in a large wooden cabinet called a

console. A piece of furniture, really, of which we were very proud, because it meant

we had a living room large enough to hold it.

Every night, after dinner, we’d listen to one or two radio programs. Dad would

sit in his favorite chair, the radio to his right, me on his lap. Mom sat across from us,

finishing her cup of tea. Dad used his left hand to hold me, and kept his right hand

free to turn on the radio. I could tell by the bright green light that came on to highlight

the radio stations. To change a station, Dad would gently shift his gaze down to his

right, and slide his right hand from the arm of the chair over to the radio dial. No other

body parts moved, just Dad’s head and right hand. His left hand remained around my

shoulders. It was an exquisite example of how little motion it can take to sustain one’s

happiness.

Each week we looked forward to listening to our favorite programs: Dad’s were

Lights Out; The Fat Man; Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons; Inner Sanctum; and Suspense.

Mine were Baby Snooks; People are Funny; and the Alan Young Show. Mom loved Your

Hit Parade; and Truth or Consequences. But the one we all loved the most was Fibber McGee and Molly, a story about a married couple and their funny squabbles. We always looked forward to hearing Fibber—ever the hoarder and much to Molly’s chagrin—open the door of his overstuffed closet and then hearing the sound effects of tons of stuff spilling out, producing a noisy avalanche of assorted items. The sounds effects were wonderful. To this day, there still are people of a certain age (mine) who refer to overloaded closets as a Fibber McGee closet.

1941 also was a time when America plunged into a panic. World War II had

been declared the year before. The whole country wondered if the Germans would

try to bombard the most densely populated city in the world. No one knew for sure.

In the spring of 1942, the U.S. Army determined that the glow from New York City

lights was silhouetting our ships offshore, making them easy targets for German

submarines looking to sink oil tankers or freighters bound for Britain.

The newly-established U.S. Office of Civilian Defense decided to organize

practice blackout drills throughout the city’s neighborhoods. Air raid wardens

supervised the blackouts, cruising up and down the streets to make sure not the

slightest glow of light escaped from the houses. By early 1943, in New York City, there

were several million volunteers in public protection roles such as air raid wardens.

By the time the blackouts stopped in 1945, I was six. I remember them well.

Without warning, an air raid siren would be activated throughout the neighborhood.

We’d stop everything, pull down our blinds, close the curtains, and turn out all the

lights. Using a flashlight Dad, would quickly go around to all the boarders to make

sure they did the same. He took me with him and let knock me on the doors. One or

two of the older boarders, frightened of the siren and being alone in the dark, would

come back with us to our apartment. We’d sit in our darkened living room, in front

of our radio, listening to whatever program was on the air, and wait for the series of

loud beeps that signaled the end of the air raid drill.

Occasionally, we’d forget to close the curtains or blinds. An air raid warden would

knock on our first-floor living room window. “Turn off the radio,” he’d yell. “The light on the dial can be seen from the street.” While Dad’s left arm held me tight, the rest of his body

jerked to the right as his right hand turned off the radio. Mom jumped up, ran to the

window behind Dad’s chair, and closed the curtains fast. They took the warden seriously.

At the time, Dad was in and out of TB hospitals and we were on welfare. He said that if we

disobeyed the warden’s order, we might have to pay a heavy fine that we couldn’t

afford. Mom was concerned about doing the right thing, too: she had come to the

States from Nova Scotia and was not yet a citizen; she feared doing anything that

might jeopardize her staying here. I didn’t really understand back then all that was happening, but when the siren stopped, I saw Mom and Dad giving one other a very relieved look, and my stomach stopped hurting.

The whole city was required to participate in the blackouts. Neon advertising signs in Times Square went dark. Stores, restaurants and bars toned down their exterior lighting. Streetlights and traffic signals had their wattage reduced. People in cars were ordered to pull over and shut off their headlights. Night baseball was banned at Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds. Yankee Stadium did not yet have lights, nor did the top of the Empire State Building. The Statue of Liberty’s torch was dimmed. But for all the fears of a bombing, the only wartime devastation in New York City came on a Saturday afternoon in July 1945 when an unarmed Army bomber, lost in rain and fog on a routine flight, crashed into the Empire State Building, killing its three crew members. I didn’t know then that, eight years later, I’d hear a different kind of siren in adifferent place, and that my 8th grade teacher would order the class to “duck and cover.”

17. Air Raid Drills

Russia tested its first nuclear bomb in 1949. The U.S., seeing this as a serious threat to

our country’s safety and security, stepped up and conducted its first nuclear

test in 1952. This marked the start of the Cold War: the race between the two countries to see who could stockpile the most bombs. By 1953, as Americans had visions of death and

destruction coming to their country, the U.S. instituted air raid drills throughout the

country to protect us in the event a nuclear blast should take place.

I was 13 and in the 8th grade. My teacher, Miss Timon, showed us a film called

Duck and Cover. Along with it came a little comic book with a set of instructions

on what to do in the event of a real explosion. At the sound of a loud siren, blasted

throughout the school on the speaker system, we were instructed to duck, quietly

and quickly, underneath our desks in a crouched position, face away from the

windows, and put our hands over our heads. As soon as we all had taken this

position, our teacher would do the same.

If we were outdoors in the playground, we immediately stopped what we were

doing, lined up behind our teacher, quickly and quietly, and walked single file

into the school cafeteria, where we crouched on the floor along the walls farthest from the windows,knees to chest, head over knees, hands over head. The drills lasted as long as it took to make sure everyone had taken proper cover. A series of loud beeps would signal the end of the drill and we’d all return to what we had been doing.

“What happens if we’re home?” I asked Miss Timon. “As soon as you hear a siren,” she said, “go down to the basement, or to the darkest corner in your house, away from the windows. Face the wall, and crouch, same position as here, till the siren stops.” I went home and told mom about the drills, she said it was a good thing for us to know, and added, “Let’s just pray we never have to do it.”

I worried about it. I wanted my mother and the boarders, all 15 of them, to

know what they’d have to do in the event of an air raid. I pictured them crouching in

the storage room in the basement where there were no windows, and wondered if it was large enough for all of them to fit. I went around to the rooms and spoke to the boarders.

“I’m too old to crouch,” one of the older boarders said. “Then stand in the

darkest comer,” I told her.

I worried about my Dad, too, and wondered whether the hospital, where he

was recovering from TB, had air raid drills; how would they move all the patients

into the halls or basement? I asked Mom to ask Dad about it the next time she visited

him. “Daddy says not to worry;” she said, "the hospital has an air raid plan, just like

they do for fire drills."

We did not discuss air raid drills at home anymore but, at school, the drills

continued. I knew the drills were meant to protect us and allay our fears, but they

had an opposite effect on me: The Duck and Cover film had shown simulated pictures

of an air raid and they had scared me. I had nightmares of being hit by pieces of flying debris, or being surrounded by flames. I’d be at school, mom at home, and dad in the hospital. We weren’t able to be with one another. We couldn’t help one another. With each drill, I prayed it was just a drill, not the real thing.

“Please, God. Please, God,” I’d say over and over, crouching beneath my desk,

“Don’t let it be real. Please let me go home.” My prayers were answered; an air raid never happened. But the frightening dreams that had come along with the air raid drills kept

recurring, long after the drills were over.

18. Small Secrets

I have a vivid memory of myself when I was 5: Crouching outside the boarding

house, behind the stoop, hiding from my mother. I could hear her calling me, telling

me to come in. The more I heard her call my name, the more I stayed still, crouching,

barely breathing, at the back of the house. I was holding in a bowel movement.

I didn’t know it then—but I know now—that my behavior was in response to

my mother’s insistence on making me do whatever she wanted me to do: Chances are

it started with toilet training. I don’t remember the details but can only imagine how

hard it must have been, for both of us, to get me toilet trained. We lived in a boarding house where the only bathroom was in the hallway and shared by eight others. Often it was occupied when you needed to go, and just as often there was a knock on the door before you were ready to leave. I can’t imagine, nor do I remember, how I ever got toilet trained.

What I do remember is this: don’t eat with my fingers, use a fork, eat everything on

my plate, wash my hands after every meal, say please, say thank you, and be polite;

stop sniffling, don’t pick my nose, don’t bite my fingernails; change my underwear, and

be neat; sit still in church, say my prayers and don’t annoy the boarders. Somehow, I

figured out that moving my bowels was the one thing she could not make me do.

But she tried, thanks to one of the tenants in the boarding house. She saw me

crouching behind the stoop and told Mom. It didn’t take Mom long to realize what

was going on, especially when my stomach got bloated and I started complaining

that I didn’t feel so good. She began a regime of making me go to the bathroom twice

a day with a clock in hand, insisting I sit on the toilet for 10 minutes, time enough—if

I really tried, she said—for me to coax a bowel movement.

Still I resisted. Mom then made me take a tablespoon of Milk of Magnesia every night and spend 10 minutes on the toilet the next morning, right after breakfast. That didn’t

work either. What finally worked was a Clark’s candy bar. Out of desperation, Mom bought a stack of my favorite candy bar, hid them in a drawer, and offered me one only if I had a movement. I remember trying many times, real hard, but with no success, and crying when there was no reward at the end of my efforts. Here, too, I can’t recall all the details and I’m not sure how long this lasted, but between many Milk of Magnesia’s and the promises of a Clark’s candy bar, I must have finally overcome my resistance and given in to my mother.

Several years later, when I was 7 or 8, Mom took me to Dr. Leo Green, our

beloved family doctor, whose office was down the street. I had started making

strange noises and facial movements. Dr. Green, a kind and gentle man, would sit

down with me and ask how I was. Fine, I always said. “Is anything wrong,” he’d

ask. “No,” I’d reply. “How’s school,” he’d asked. “Good,” I’d say. And I was telling

the truth: I felt OK, loved my Mom, and enjoyed school. I didn’t know what else I

was to say.

But I knew that something was wrong. I remember sniffling. All the

time. And tensing my neck muscles so that my mouth turned into a grimace. I tried to ignore what I was doing, until one or two of the boarders would point it out to me, politely, and out of real concern. “Is everything OK?, they’d ask. “Yes,” I’d reply, and hurry to escape their gazes. But I didn’t like their questions; they made me feel different from everyone else.

I tried to stop the sniffling and grimaces, but they persisted and, to a much lesser degree, have persisted throughout my life.

As I entered my teens, my father’s older brother, Uncle Mose, was a constant

presence in our house. He lived next door with my Aunt Betty, came over daily to repair

electrical wires, fix broken windows and kitchen pipes, shovel coal into the furnace, and

carry big cans of garbage to the front of the house for pick up by the Sanitation trucks.

“What would I do without Uncle Mose,” Mom said. But I thought otherwise. I didn’t like the way he looked at me, especially as my body began to blossom. His eyes would rest on my breasts a moment too long. He’d offer to help me wash the dishes and put his hand around my waist as he asked. He’d sit down next to me on the couch, as I listened to the radio, and put his hand on my knee.

One day, as he was teaching me to drive, he leaned over, put his hand on my

knee and moved it upwards along my thigh. When I told him to stop, he took his

hand away, saying “One day You’ll be glad someone does this.” But he never touched

me again. I never told mom. She wouldn’t have believed me. And if she did, and

had spoken to Uncle Mose, he would have denied it. Either way, it would have

destroyed their relationship. Besides, I believed it was all my fault.

19. Childhood Foods

When it came to dinners at our house, Mom did what her mother used to do: serve

the same food on the same night of the week—week after week. Mom was one of nine

kids and it wasn’t easy for her mother to please their appetites, seven nights a week,

so she didn’t try. Even though Mom had only Dad and me to cook for, she followed

her mother’s routine and served repetitive menus; it saved time and effort. I never

heard Dad complain and, since I happened to like what she served, I didn’t either.

Mom and Dad were born in Nova Scotia, just ten miles apart. But they never

met until they came to the States, separately. Mom was 18; Dad in his early 20’s. Their

destination was Waltham, MA, a small town 20 miles west of Boston, where each of

them had aunts, uncles and older siblings that had come from Nova Scotia to Waltham

before them. I can’t remember who came first or when, or how Waltham became their

destination, but by the time Mom and Dad arrived, Waltham had attracted grown a large

French Canadian community, many of whom worked at its well-known manufacturing

company, the Waltham Watch Company. Mom’s side of the family, three sisters and one

brother, remained in Waltham, working at the watch factory and raising their families.

But on Dad’s side, a brother and a sister decided to move to Jackson Heights, where they both got in the boarding house business. Why I don’t know. But Dad went with them, and that is how Mom came to leave Waltham, move to New York after marrying Dad and help his siblings manage their boarding houses. In 1940, when I was a year old, and for every summer thereafter till Dad died in 1953, we spent the last two weeks of July in Waltham with Mom’s family and took turns rotating the houses we stayed at. That’s how I found out that her sisters served dinner just the way Mom did! They all copied what their mother had done. So, depending on what night of the week we were invited for dinner, whether in Jackson Heights or Waltham, I pretty much knew what we were having.

Sundays dinners were at 1:00, after we returned from church. It was

either roasted chicken (always whole, never in pieces), top round roast beef, baked

ham or leg of lamb. Baked or roast potatoes, never rice or pasta; string beans,

carrots or peas, never asparagus or brussels sprouts. Dessert was Apple or Lemon

Meringue Pie from the bakery, seldom cakes. Occasionally, during the summer,

sliced strawberries on baking powder biscuits with a dollop of whipped cream.

Always beer for the grownups. Lemonade or orangeade for me.

Monday nights were simple: leftovers from what we had on Sunday, including

chicken soup, roast beef hash, ham and cheese casserole, or lamb patties.

Tuesdays featured hamburgers on rolls with store bought French fries and ice

burg lettuce with Russian dressing.

Wednesdays: Braised pork chops with mashed or baked potatoes, and fresh

green beans or spinach. When Mom had time, she made twice baked potatoes,

meaning she scooped out the potato from its baked shell, mashed it with butter,

heaped it back in the shell and put it under the broiler for a quick browning.

Thursdays: Homemade meatloaf, or meatballs and spaghetti, ice burg lettuce

with sliced cucumbers and tomatoes, topped with a splash of bottled french dressing.

Fridays, since we were practicing Catholics, were meatless: Campbell's clam

chowder, followed by fresh fillet of sole, codfish cakes, tuna casserole, or macaroni and

cheese. Dessert usually was a slab of Breyer’s brick of Vanilla/Chocolate/Strawberry ice

cream or, on special occasions, homemade bread pudding.

Saturdays: Homemade bread and baked beans with thin slices of steak or ham,

taken from whatever we were having for Sunday dinner. Or, if Mom didn’t have time

to cook, we’d have frankfurters and canned baked beans, or order pizza pie (we never

called it just “pizza” in those days). Occasionally, we brought in Chinese food (always

fried egg rolls and chop suey), White Tower hamburgers (so small that we needed four

to a serving), or fish and chips , wrapped in brown paper, from the local fish market.

Every night, before going to bed, Mom made Ovaltine—a malted milk powder

which was mixed with warm milk. Tasty, similar to hot chocolate, but not as sweet,

Ovaltine was thought to ensure a good night’s sleep. I thought it was over-rated but

Mom swore by it.

I knew that Mom was not a gourmet cook, but that didn’t matter. What mattered

was that she made what I liked. Apart from our dinners, which were handed down

from her mother and French Canadian ancestry, breakfasts and lunches were all

American. For breakfast, she kept it simple: Corn Flakes, Cheerios or Raisin Bran. The

best part was slurping the sweet milk that remained in the bowl. Weekends, she made

pancakes or French toast, served with Aunt Jemima maple syrup.

At school, my lunch box would always contain one of the following: peanut butter

with grape jelly, or Philadelphia cream cheese and grape jelly on a roll, or sweet

butter and sugar on Silver Cup white; or tuna salad on Levy’s rye. Occasionally, I’d find a

big chunk of Kraft’s American cheese with a pack of Saltines. There was always an apple

or banana, a small container of milk, and two Oreo cookies. Once in a while, Mon slipped

in a bag of potato chips. When I came home from school, I’d snack on peanut butter on Ritz

crackers or slices of apple, which I made for myself, with a glass of orange or apple juice.

Weekend meals had a bit more of a flair, especially when Dad, who was

recovering from TB, was home from one of his frequent stays at the hospital. He

loved to make breakfast: Usually steak or bacon and eggs, scrambled eggs with

peppers and onions, or apple pancakes. He’d always get up early and go to the

bakery to buy fresh rolls and cheese Danish to accompany the meal. Once in a while,

he’d bring me home a jelly donut, even though he knew Mom would disapprove of

sugar so early in the morning.

Weekend lunches were Mom’s domain: sliced ham and Swiss on rye, leftover meatloaf

on a roll, or toasted cheese on white with the crusts removed. Mom used Kraft’s

Velveeta Cheese, a smooth, shiny spread which tasted a lot like American Cheese.

I loved deviled eggs, too—hard boiled eggs, cut in half, whose yolks were mashed

with mayo, mustard and sweet relish, with a sprinkle of paprika on top, and heaped

back into the hardened egg whites. I could eat four halves easily, along with a bowl of

Campbell’s tomato soup.

There was always some kind of light dessert in the fridge. Junket, lighter than

pudding or custard but just as sweet, came in several flavors—chocolate, strawberry

and raspberry—but my favorite was vanilla. It had to be made from scratch, from

powder in a box, such as Jello. Mom would stir warm milk into a pot, add the junket powder, stir until thickened, and then chill until set. With a dab of strawberry jam on top, I thought this was the best.

Mom’s chocolate pudding was good, too. Made with My-T-Fine Pudding & Pie

Filling, the first packaged pudding mix in the U.S., a powdered mix in various flavors

that you stirred with hot milk and then chilled for a few hours till set. For company,

Mom layered Nabisco graham crackers with cooked My-T-Fine chocolate pudding

and chilled the mixture overnight. She served it with real whipped cream. It was my

job to beat heavy cream with a hand mixer until it was stiff enough to make peaks,

add a teaspoon of sugar, and pile the sweet cream in one of her pretty serving dishes.

Jello was always in the fridge. I never knew what people saw in Jello. To some, it competed with Junket as a satisfying dessert. Similar in the making, Jello was a packaged powder that you mixed with hot water and then chilled till set. It offered many flavors and many ways to serve. I enjoyed strawberry Jello mixed with slices of banana, but still it didn’t

satisfied my sweet tooth, like Junket did. When Mom would go fancy and served

lime Jello with chopped mint to accompany leg of lamb; or orange with canned

pineapple chunks to accompany baked ham; or lemon with chopped cucumber and

celery to serve with roast chicken, I graciously declined.

Birthdays called for special foods. Mom made upside down apple cake with

caramel sauce. Weeks before my birthday, I began to crave it. When the day finally

arrived, I was allowed to have two big portions but, if Mom would’ve let me, I could have

eaten the whole cake at one sitting. To celebrate Mom’s birthday, we had lunch out at

Schrafft’s, a chain restaurant in our neighborhood. She always ordered their tuna salad

on toasted cheese bread and shared a vanilla milkshake with me. The combination of

the tuna and cheese was delicious, and the milkshake tasted like liquid Junket! When

Dad was home, he asked for Mom to make his birthday favorite—homemade bread and

baked beans, with a thick slice of baked ham—a real French Canadian specialty.

Our other once-a-year specialty was Pork Pie—a French Canadian specialty served

only on Christmas Eve. Mom cooked boneless pork chops, onion and cloves till

the chops were tender and fell apart and the onions were soft and luminous. After

tasting to make sure there was enough cloves, salt and pepper, she poured the

mixture into a pie crust that she made herself, and covered with a top

crust. She let me pinch both crusts together around the edges with my thumb and

pointer finger. The pie then was baked till golden brown and bubbly and served

warm in thick wedges, along with a salad of iceberg lettuce and Russian dressing.

Leftovers were even better the next day-straight out of the fridge—for lunch.

The cliché is true: ignorance is bliss—at least in childhood. Up until I was 18, I had never had fresh bagels or whole wheat bread; olive oil, balsamic vinegar, or garlic; fried or brown rice; shrimp, salmon, scallops, lobster, clams, mussels or oysters; yogurt; Brie or Parmesan cheese; zucchini, avocado, chick peas, Brussel sprouts, eggplant, Boston lettuce or cauliflower; cashews, lentils, soy sauce, quiche, gazpacho, lasagna, or anything bar-b-cued.

Once I started working and eating out with friends and colleagues, my

taste buds expanded exponentially. I started bringing home new foods home and

cooking them for Mom: Spanish rice; linguine with clam sauce; shrimp casserole;

eggplant parmigiana; mashed cauliflower; and lentil soup. To my surprise, she let me

do the cooking and enjoyed what I cooked. As long as she didn’t have to think about

what to buy and what to make, it was OK with her.

Looking back, as far as I was concerned, we ate well, morning, noon and night.

Mom must have had a very strict budget to abide by, but I seldom felt its constraints. I

knew Mom struggled to make ends meet, but I always had enough to eat of what I liked

to eat, and when friends and family dropped by, Mom always had something to offer

them. I couldn’t have asked for more.

20. The Confessional

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” I said to the priest in the confessional box. “I

told my mom that I hated her and wished her dead.” The priest nodded and leaned closer toward the screened window. “Go on,” he urged, “what else?” He didn’t ask why. He didn’t want to know that she had put my cat, Blackie, to sleep without telling me. He wanted me to get on with my list of sins.

I went on to recite variations on confessional themes that I learned in Sunday School, some true, some made up: I had a fight with my best friend (true); I lied to my mother twice

(just once); I was angry with my teacher (true); I took the name of our Lord in vain

twice (three times, really); I cursed four times (really true); I missed Mass one Sunday

I forgot to eat fish on Friday (not true).

I put in a little of everything until the priest stopped nodding. He straightened

up and drew away from the screened partition, somewhere around the fifth or

sixth sin. Murmuring a brief prayer, he made the sign of the cross and doled out the

penance that would absolve me from the sins I’d just confessed.

My first confession—the day before I made my First Holy Communion—was

when I was eight years old. In Sunday school, the nuns taught us that God was all-knowing,

and there was no place to go to have a private thought—not in my bed, not in

the bathtub, not anywhere. Thoughts were as real as actions, and had to be confessed.

I still recall the words I had to memorize: “I confess to Almighty God that I’ve

sinned through my own fault, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I’ve done and

in what I’ve failed to do.” Why God had to know so much was always a mystery to me.

By nine, I had learned what to say that would appease the priests, andcould even anticipate what my penance would be. A jealous thought, an angryfeeling, a few lies, and a couple of curses would always amount to saying five Hail Mary’s and three Our Fathers. Once in a while, for a more serious offense—like when I touched myself in bed—I had to say an extra and longer prayer,an Act of Contrition. I often wondered what the penance would be if I did

something really wrong.

Now, even at 17, my nerves still jumped and my skin itched as I made my way

to church the first Saturday of every month. Usually, the 10-block walk to St. Joan of

Arc Church was just long enough to plan what I would say. Today, however, a month

since my last confession, by the time I got to church I was still searching for the right

words to tell the priest what I had done. It was the first time I felt I had committed a

sin in the eyes of the Church. Sitting down in the first row, I clenched the front edge of the pew to steady myself. My stomach growled in loud defiance of any attempt to appear calm. At the altar, a soul was being hastened to Heaven by an old woman in mourning, as she lit

one candle after another.

“Light more than one candle,” my mother had said right after my father died.

“Each one will help Daddy get to heaven sooner.”

The gnarled fingers of the man sitting next to me slowly made their way

around his rosary beads. His eyes never left the altar and his lips moved silently as

he rested on each bead to say the appropriate prayer. What had he done to get such a

long penance?

I heard someone in the rear of the church clear his throat over and over again,

the sounds reverberating all the way up the main aisle. Having trouble, no doubt,

fabricating his list of sins. Or summoning up the courage to confess a real sin—

maybe not having gone to Sunday mass in over a year.

This particular afternoon, there were four priests giving confessions. They sat

in their own enclosed, rectangular booth measuring 4’ x 8’, located in the four comers

of the church. Each consisted of three compartments. The center portion, with a door,

was where the priest sat to hear the confessions. On either side was a small dark

room the size of a phone booth, entered through dark, heavy curtains, where you

knelt to confess your sins. It felt like a small tomb.

The priest, flanked on both sides of his compartment by small sliding windows,

went from one side to the other, hearing confessions on an alternating basis. Open

the left window, hear confession, absolve the confessor, close the window. Open the

right window, hear confession, absolve the confessor, close the window. From one

side to the other, every Saturday afternoon, from 3:00-5:00 pm.

Father Boylan was my favorite confessor. Tall, white haired and soft-spoken,

he listened and seemed interested in what I had to say, but he didn’t ask too many

questions. He had never asked me to explain what I had done at parties that made

me lie to my mother about them, and always ended on an encouraging note: “Let’s

try to do better from now on, okay?” Best of all, he dealt out the least penance.

Father Boylan was always my first choice—if I had the time to wait on what was always the longest confessional line. If time was short, I sometimes had to settle for someone else, like Father Mooney, my mother’s favorite. “I always feel so good after confessing to him,” she told me, every time she went to him. “The more penance he gives me, the better I feel.”

Father Mooney always had a joke to tell when you met him on the street, but in

the confessional, he always had a lot of questions—what my mother and I had fought

about, why I was jealous of my best friend, what made me get angry. Confessions took

a long time with Father Mooney. He was interested in the details. I always hated to

leave his confessional—there was always a long line of confessors awaiting their turn,

and it was hard to avoid their impatient eyes.

Before I ever went to confession, I was intrigued by the dark, mysterious

curtain and what was behind. I liked the idea of being in there all by myself, if only

for a short while. At home, I shared the bedroom with my mother. The only place

in which I had any privacy was the bathroom, and my mother became exasperated

when I stayed in there too long. Whenever I had to go, she gave me a clock so I could

tell when five minutes had passed. When I finally complained that five minutes

wasn’t enough, she upped it to ten.

I seldom went to the other two priests. One often forgot to close the screened

window on his left side before he opened the window on his right, my side. Once, I

had declared three fights and two lies before he realized the person on his left was

listening. He closed the window quickly, but I seldom went back to him. The other priest always kept his door half-open. Parishioners rushed to sit in the pew directly across from his confessional, hoping to hear what was being said. He had once yelled at my mother for letting me attend Girl Scout meetings at the local Jewish Center. “Why don’t you make her come to meetings at church?” Her feeble attempt to explain that I wanted to be with my best friend, who was Jewish, went unheard. His penance had been so long that even my mother had complained. I always bypassed his compartment.

I joined the long line for Father Boylan. It gave me plenty of time to think of

what I would say. I hadn’t talked about sex in the confessional before. And I had

never discussed it with my mother either. The year before, my mother had caught me reading True Romance. I expected her to grab the magazine and throw it away. Instead, she said: “You can learn a lot more from those magazines than I can ever tell you,” she said. ‘You’re old enough to know about those things.”

I felt I was the luckiest girl in the world: my mother seemed so much more

understanding than those of my friends. But after a while, I began to realize that,

unlike some of my friends’ mothers, she seemed to be very uncomfortable when it

came to talking about the “facts of life.” Like when I was 11 and had stayed home

from school with cramps.

“You’re getting your period,” my mother had said, trying to be reassuring

when I asked why there were stains in my panties. “I was your age when I got mine,

too. We’ll go buy you some sanitary napkins this afternoon.” If it hadn’t been for my

best friend, Ruth, who had gotten her period a few months before, I wouldn’t have

known what my mother was talking about.

But for a woman whose education had gone only as far as the seventh grade,

Mom could be very wise. When I was 14, she warned, “It’s not good to smoke, but

if you do it, don’t do it behind my back.” She added, “And if you ever get in trouble,

come tell me. I won’t get angry unless someone else tells me first.” One evening a neighbor across the street called to say she’d see me on the roof of her apartment house smoking with some friends. Luckily, I had already told Mom and, true to her word, she admonished me but didn’t get angry. And I never did it again.

So my decision not to tell my mother about my boyfriend wasn’t out of fear of

what she’d say, but because I knew she’d be at a loss for what to say. Finally, I was at the head of the confessional line. I heard Father Boylan close the window on my side of the confessional and knew I was next to go in. I saw the window open. Father Boylan made the sign of the cross, the signal for me to begin.

“Bless me Father for I have sinned. It’s been four weeks since my last

confession. I skipped my evening prayers a few times, yelled at my mother four

times, smoked two cigarettes behind her back, and was late getting to Mass last

Sunday.”

“Is that all?” Father Boylan asked. I didn’t answer. “Is that all?” he asked again.

I willed myself not to faint. “I also lied to my mother about where I was going last week. I skipped a daof school and spent it with my boyfriend. He’s going into the Army. We spent the afternoon in his bedroom, and we went all the way.”

My heart was beating so fast, it was as if it were trying to leave my body. I

waited for Father Boylan to say something.

“Are you very sorry for all your sins?” he asked. “Yes, Father.”

“Fine," he said. Then say ten Hail Mary’s, ten Our Fathers, and a very serious Act of

Contrition.”

I left the confessional and walked slowly down the aisle. I was at a loss for words.

I fixed my eyes on the stained glass window at the rear of the church; the warm

splashes of reds, greens and blues helped restore my breathing so that by the time I

reached the last pew, I had regained my equilibrium.

“That’s it?” I asked myself. “That’s all there is?”

Peggy Lee’s voice popped in my head, as did the words of her hit song:

Is that all there is, is that all there is?

If that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep dancing

Let’s break out the booze and have a ball

If that’s all there is.

I had confessed what I believed to be the only serious sin I had ever committed.

An act that I had been told by nuns and priests would bring me God’s ever-lasting

condemnation. I had chosen Father Boylan because I was pretty sure he wouldn’t yell

at me, but I had expected that even he would have something more to say than just

dole out a heavy penance.

I said my prayers and walked out of the church with the startling realization

that I was responsible for my own actions. If they were not in accord with the

doctrines of the Church, there was little that my mother, the nuns and the priests

could do to punish me. I was on my own, and it was up to me. That’s all there was.

From that day on, I led my life according to the values that meant something

to me. I didn’t go back to confession until the day before my wedding, several years

later. By then, I was a secretary at an advertising agency. College had not been an

option; my mother couldn’t afford the tuition. “It’s not good to know too much,” she admonished, when I kept pressing her to change her mind and let me go to City College. I know she believed what, but it also was her way of keeping me at home and

close to her.

We had a church wedding to please our parents. They knew we no longer

attended church on a regular basis, but neither of them asked any questions. They

really didn’t want to hear the answers. For now, both were grateful that we were

doing the right thing in front of family and friends.

Father Boylan had died the year before; I confessed to Father Mooney.

“Bless me, father, for I have sinned.” I skipped the usual made-up list and got

to the point.

“I’m getting married tomorrow, Father, and I’ve had sex with my boyfriend.

“I see,” he said. “Have you practiced birth control?” “Yes, I’ve used a diaphragm.”

“Well, now that you’re getting married, you won’t be needing that.” I wasn’t sure how to answer.

“Father, we’re not ready to have a family yet. We need to save some money to

give our kids a better life than we had.” “No need for that,” Father Mooney said. “Your children don’t need any more than you had. Go home and get rid of what you’re using.”

I left the confessional without waiting to hear what my penance was. I walked

up the aisle to the front of the church, kneeled down in the first pew and said my

own short prayer.

“That’s it for me, God. You had a second chance and you blew it.”

I walked out the front door and got married the next day. I received communion, even though I hadn’t said penance. Who would know?