The Fran Lebowitz Reader (22 page)

It is at this point in your life that you will be giving the greatest amount of time and attention to matters of sex. This is not only acceptable, but should, in fact, be encouraged, for this is the last time that sex will be genuinely exciting. The more farsighted among you may wish to cultivate supplementary interests in order that you might have something to do when you get older. I personally recommend the smoking of cigarettes—a habit with staying power.

While we’re on the subject of cigarettes, do not forget that adolescence is also the last time that you can reasonably expect to be forgiven a taste for a brand that might by way of exotic shape, color or package excite comment.

The girl in your class who suggests that this year the Drama Club put on
The Bald Soprano
will be a thorn in people’s sides all of her life.

Should you be a teenager blessed with uncommon good looks, document this state of affairs by the taking of photographs. It is the only way anyone will ever believe you in years to come.

Avoid the use of drugs whenever possible. For while they may, at this juncture, provide a pleasant diversion, they are, on the whole, not the sort of thing that will in later years (should you
have
later years) be of much use in the acquisition of richly rewarding tax shelters and beachfront property.

If you reside in a state where you attain your legal majority while still in your teens, pretend that you don’t. There isn’t an adult alive who would want to be contractually bound by a decision he came to at the age of nineteen.

Remember that as a teenager you are at the last stage in your life when you will be happy to hear that the phone is for you.

Stand firm in your refusal to remain conscious during algebra. In real life, I assure you, there is no such thing as algebra.

I
t is a clear, crisp day, the sunlight glinting brilliantly off the spires of St. Peter’s Basilica—the entire scene as impressive and monumental as ever—but I scarcely notice as I make my hurried way across the square, for I am late for my interview and as any good journalist knows, popes don’t like to be kept waiting. I enter the Vatican breathlessly, take quick note of the really quite attractive Swiss Guard and make my way to the papal apartments, where I am to meet the man who has arranged this interview—the cardinal bishop closest to the pope.

“Hi,” says a tall, rather lanky fellow whom I would place in his very early thirties, “I’m Jeff Cardinal Lucas, but call me Jeff.” Jeff extends a friendly hand and I, not being a Catholic, am somewhat at a loss as to what to do. Just then I am rescued from what could easily have turned into an extremely embarrassing situation, by a husky masculine voice. “Jeff, Jeff, if that’s the girl from the magazine, tell her I’ll be with her in a minute. I’m just finishing up an encyclical.”

True to his word, sixty seconds later I am confronted by a tall, somewhat shaggy-haired man with startlingly long eyelashes and a ready, even impish, grin. “Hi,” he says in that hauntingly deep voice that I had heard only a minute before. “I’m the Supreme Pontiff, but call me Ron—everyone does.”

And much to my surprise I do, and
easily
, for Pope Ron’s genuine warmth is infectious. Soon we are sitting comfortably on a big, old, leather sofa chatting away as if we had known each other forever. Before too long, we are joined by Sue, the pope’s delicate blond wife of the pre-Raphaelite curls and long, tapering fingers, and Dylan, Ron’s boyish little son from his first marriage.

I check my tape recorder to make sure it’s working and ask Ron if he would like to start by telling me a little about his personal life, what he does to relax—to escape from the pressures of holiness and infallibility.

“Well,” says Ron, “I would first like to say that this is, after all, the new Church and things have really loosened up around here. I mean, I do try to adapt to others. To understand and consider points of view different from my own. To grow. To extend myself. To explore the various regions of thought. You know, I have kind of a motto that I found to be of tremendous use to me in this job. A motto that I think has done a lot to make the Church really relevant. In fact, Sue here liked it so much that she made me this.” Ron divests himself of his robe and reveals a white cotton T-shirt emblazoned in red with the legend
INFALLIBLE BUT NOT INFLEXIBLE.
“Of course,” continues the pontiff, “this is just the prototype. As soon as Sue is finished with the urn she’s working on now—you know, of course, that she’s really incredible with the potter’s wheel—she’s going to see about
having them made up for the entire Sacred College of Cardinals.

“As for relaxation, well, one of the things I really like to do is work with my hands. I mean, it really humbles a man, even a pope, to have tactile contact with the raw materials of nature. See that scepter over there? It took me six months to carve it out of rosewood, but it was worth it because by making it myself I feel that it’s really a part of me, really mine.” At this, Sue smiles proudly and gives Ron’s ring a playful little kiss. It is easy to see what a terribly
happy
couple they are.

“I do other things too, things around the palace. Sue and I do them together, and even Dylan helps, don’t you, Dyl?” Ron asks paternally as he rumples his young son’s hair. “I mean, when we first moved in here you wouldn’t have believed it. Incredibly formal, incredibly elaborate, unbelievably uptight. And it’s such a big place really that we’ve barely made a dent. But one thing we have done—finished just last week, as a matter of fact, I mean Sue and I together, of course—was that we took the walls of the Sistine Chapel down to the natural brick, and now it really looks great, really warm, really basic.”

We sip a little mint tea, and watch with amusement as little Dylan tries on his father’s miter. I join in the gentle laughter as the large headdress falls over his little face. “Now for my next question, Ron, and I know you’ll answer me honestly, I mean that goes without saying. Is the pope Catholic?”

“Look,” he says, “if you mean me specifically, I mean me
personally
, yes, I am Catholic. But you know, of course, that this old bugaboo is no longer really applicable. The field is definitely opening up, and being Catholic really didn’t swing
my election as pope. The Sacred College of Cardinals looks for someone open to God, someone at home with his or her own feelings, someone, you might say, who can communicate rather than just excommunicate—which is, after all, so negative, so the opposite of the type of actualization that I hope the Church now represents. Yes, the Church is opening up to every possibility, and I see no reason why we can’t expect in the not-too-distant future a Pope Rochester, a Pope Ellen, even a Pope Ira.”

“Pope Ira?” I ask. “Isn’t that a bit unlikely? A Jewish pope after the long Church history of saying that the Jews killed Christ?”

“Look,” Ron pontificates, “what’s past is past. You know we no longer blame the death of Christ on the Jews. I mean, obviously they were involved, but you have to look at things historically and nowadays the Church accepts the bull that I issued last year which decreed an acceptance of the fact that all they probably did was just hassle him, and that’s what my bull decreed; the Jews
hassled
Christ, they didn’t actually kill him.”