Too Close to the Falls (36 page)

I was the first one finished and handed mine in. As usual I was sure I'd won. I could smell victory. Los Angeles! Who lived out there! Zorro and Sergeant Garcia,
please
. I began planning my trip to Italy. Of course I'd go alone. After all, I went to Harlem alone for high jumping.

I became obsessed with Italy and the Vatican. This obsession mostly took the form of adoring Michelangelo and the painting of the Sistine Chapel. My mother bought me a huge book of Michelangelo's work with a foldout of the Sistine Chapel, which I pored over daily, planning what I should see first. I got every book
in the library on the art of the Renaissance, which became my passion. Mother Superior thought my interest odd since I was not at all artistic. My drawings were never chosen to go on the bulletin board for parents' night. My pink-and-green Easter basket made of construction paper was always a mess and looked as if it had been made in kindergarten, while the other girls' glue never showed. I loved the expressions on the faces in the paintings which gave me alternative interpretations of the bible stories. To me they were like amazing storyboards. I could tell by the expressions that Michelangelo had his own interpretation of some of the stories that I'd heard told in one definitive version for so many years. My favourites were the depiction of original sin and the expulsion from Eden as well as the last judgement. The work of Salvador Dali looked tame compared to Michelangelo's depiction of Charon's boat to hell. The faces of the passengers showed the sudden and horrible realization that they were heading on a one-way trip to eternal damnation as the fires of hell licked at their heels. For Christmas that year I got books on Giotto, Fra Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, and Fra Angelico and read them until they fell apart.

After about six months I learned that I had made the top twenty out of all of the Catholic schools. I was thrilled, although Mother Superior managed to contain whatever enthusiasm she may have experienced. Maybe she felt she'd been there before. My mother was not the least bit surprised that I was a finalist. I overheard my parents' conversation that night as I hid on the landing of the stairs. My mother said, “I think they believe she is just average, and they are begrudging her success with this contest. She has established a reputation as difficult and I believe they
have slotted her to be a checkout girl at Helms's Dry Goods. She got a C in English on her report card, yet she wins an international prize. Does that seem strange to you?” My father's only response was “She hasn't quite won yet.”

I was convinced that everyone in Italy either dressed as the cardinal did or wore togas, like in the paintings. On the wall of The Horseshoe restaurant there was a picture of a gondolier with a red-striped tee-shirt and pedal pushers. Finally I realized I had been living in the past when my mother and I, in preparation for the trip, went to see
Three Coins in the Fountain
. This splashy drama took place in Rome and featured the Trevi fountain. I had alternating fantasies: in one, I was sitting on the pope's balcony, giving him a few tips as we waved to the square full of admirers; in the other, literally more racy fantasy I wore a wide cinch-waist dress, like the girls in the movie, and sat in the sidecar of a motorcycle, scarf blowing freely, as Rossano Brazzi drove me all over Rome, showing me the sights. All of this seemed a tad more interesting than the highlight of my summer, which was going to the Firemen's Field Day and playing fish with Trent McMaster.

By May Day the list had dropped to the top five in the U.S. and I was on it. There was a column about my possible literary triumph in
The Catholic Union and Echo
, saying that they only hoped they could say
arrivederci
to a certain girl from Hennepin Hall. The winner was to be announced by June first. Mother and I didn't buy any summer short sets in case I was going to be “abroad.”

Finally June first arrived, and I tore off to school early and told my mother I'd meet her at Schneider's Restaurant for lunch with the news. I ran into the principal's office and asked Mother Superior if she had the announcement from Rome. She continued
doing paperwork at her desk and said that she did indeed have the results and pointed to an envelope with a foreign stamp and weird fountain-pen writing that said, “Please post.” She continued writing and I finally said,
“Well?”
She said she clearly didn't have the trouble that I had with the English language. She would pin the paper to the bulletin board in the school vestibule because that, as far as she was concerned, was the meaning of the word
post
and she believed in following holy orders. I felt like screaming, “To the moon, Alice!” but knew that she wanted me to offer up my impatient curiosity for the poor souls in purgatory. I went to my classroom and waited for her to unlock the door. Finally, at eleven, all the girls lined up in the hallway and we were to say our ejaculations of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. As we passed the bulletin board, out of the corner of my eye I caught the stationery with the cardinal-red edges. Everyone continued toward the washroom but I stopped and read the letter.

A boy from Providence, Rhode Island, had won. I was first runner-up. Mother Agnese was behind me. She handed me an envelope that had my name on it, c/o Hennepin Hall. It said it was their honour to give me, as runner-up, an autographed holy picture blessed by the pope. I was told the Holy Father had written a few words specifically to me on the back of his picture. I had gone from a trip to Italy to a holy picture, of which my mother had drawerfuls at home.

I was enraged. I didn't want this holy picture. “You can have it,” I said and gave it to her. She looked mad, not her usual controlled inscrutable martyred look, but that kind of slant-eyed mad she got when her words had been divinely inspired. She held out the picture to return it to me, but I was way beyond
putting up with her religious jag at that moment. I screamed, “Maybe
you
don't understand the language. ‘I don't want it' means
I'm not taking it
.” The other kids down the hall were looking. No one ever raised their voice in the hall and never to her.

She remained very calm and spoke in a lower than normal tone. “Clearly you are disappointed, Catherine. I have only one thing to say to you and I hope that you listen well, as your faith is at stake. You may get a chance to see more than Michelangelo's version of the demons who are dragged to the inferno on the Judgement Day if you do not take heed. Catherine, you suffer the sin of pride and that is one of the seven most deadly. May I suggest something to you? If you are not as pleased with this picture of our Holy Father that he has autographed for you as you would be with the three-week trip to Rome, then you are not really a Catholic. There is little hope of working on your faith when you are not of the fold. I'll leave that with you. I'd like you to walk over to church now and light a candle and make your decision, one you can live with. You may leave early and then go straight home for lunch.”

I walked over to the church, pushed open the heavy doors, and sat in a pew, the one that said “McClure” on it. I knew that it was time to feel really terrible — but I didn't. I felt free. I put my feet up on the bench and kicked back my kneeler. This church was just a building. There was nothing more for me here. I wasn't going to pretend any more. I couldn't take the subterfuge any longer. I was just covering bad plaster with wallpaper. It worked, but it was a cheap job. I didn't care about this holy picture and I'd wanted the trip. Finally the proof was in black and white. It was as obvious as the nose on my face. I didn't have faith nor was I going to heaven.
I decided then and there to stop worrying about it. After all, if hell was eternity I'd have plenty of time to worry then.

As I slowly walked back to the vestibule of the church, I realized I could stop trying to wear the straitjacket of meekness, silence, pridelessness, and every other virtue I had failed at on a daily basis. I'd start out every morning as a selfless junior Carmelite on a silent mission of penance in order to succeed in Mother Superior's eyes, which I saw as no different from God's, but would lapse into speech by the time we had finished the Pledge of Allegiance.

I'd even tried obsessive rituals to be a more selfless and deserving person. Since I couldn't make — or will — myself into a successful vessel or a “daughter of Mary” knock-off, I opted for anything that could give my life order. I opted for magical or obsessive thinking. I actually thought, or hoped, that if I drove my bike around the block three times and pulled into the driveway and did a fishtail on the gravel, then God might make me a good Catholic girl. Now I was finished with all these vain efforts. I could give it up, take off the mantle, the hair shirt of passivity, and breathe. I knew that I couldn't like myself and I should blame myself or kick myself in the head because life was so short compared to eternity, but that's not how I
really
felt. It actually occurred to me for the first time at that moment when I looked at the annunciation picture in the sacristy that no matter how bad hell was, I had a reprieve. I could be myself in this life.

What if I was flagellating myself for nothing? Why was I rubbing religion on my brain like a pumice stone? Did I really
want
to emulate Linda Low? I let myself say for the first time something that had been nagging me for a while — what if there
was no heaven or hell? I let myself think it and for the first time I didn't let that thought scare the bejesus out of me. If I'm not so thrilled to see the pope, maybe he isn't so thrilling. Maybe he is just a guy from Palermo, the way the cardinal is really just a fat man from Brooklyn in a red satin dress with a matching beanie.

Mother Superior had gone over the edge and I was in free fall. She actually released me from her grasp. She had all the tickets to the merry-go-round and I had been grabbing at the ring for too long. She didn't know it yet, but I wasn't interested in the ride any longer.

I left the dark church and was blinded by the spring light and the cherry blossoms that were late this year. It had been a cold 1958, but it had suddenly heated up and the buds went to blossoms in a few days. The sky was blue and the clouds were light and fluffy and festive like white cotton candy. I strolled over to meet my mother for a burger and a Coke.

I skipped school that afternoon and went into Niagara Falls. When bad things happened, Roy was always the person I wanted to be with. He never said much, but what he said was always a comfort. I needed to tell him about the contest bust and my new decision to drop the Catholic faith. I didn't think my mother was ready for that. One thing I'd never told him was that the topic of the “Reading is fun because . . .” essay had been him. I'd been able to give him the gift of what I read and he gave me everything else.

When I went to his subterranean office under the grate, he was gone. He'd picked up stakes in the night, leaving only a picture of Louis Armstrong waving and smiling goodbye from a Cadillac. That day marked the end of my first decade, and I was never to see Roy or God again.

It had been two years since I retired from the uphill battle of attaining eternal life. Now I was close to becoming a teenager and did just as I pleased — easier said than done. I had very little opportunity to express my devil-may-care attitude, mostly because there was no one to listen. Roy had moved on. And
working at the store didn't seem to be part of my soul any more. It was just a job.

I was now at an age when boys no longer played with girls at home or at school, so the Bloods bled to death. Those glory days were gone. Now even talking to a boy seemed to mean something ominous. I wasn't sure what, but the boy-girl thing was a quagmire and I wasn't wearing the right boots for the terrain. Most dangerous things interested me, but for some reason, this one seemed very dangerous and very uninteresting. I didn't mind heading over a precipice, as long as I could steel myself. I just didn't want to be led there blindfolded. It wasn't the danger or being ostracized that made me back off the girl-boy thing, but I couldn't figure out what the goal was supposed to be. There had to be something in it for me. If I skipped school, I got a day off; if I sledded in dangerous areas, the thrill was in making it in one piece; if I was rude to someone, it was because they bugged me and I got it off my chest. Talking to boys offered no reward that I could fathom. It seemed of interest to other girls, so I guess I just didn't get it.

By process of elimination, all that was left was girls. The Baker sisters had transferred from paper dolls to junior golf.
Yawn.
Linda Low and her apostles were thrilled to run the Guardians of Mary Club, which was unspeakably boring. It made Trent McMaster's Blue Army look like the Green Berets. Then there were the other girls who came in from farms or somewhere who put their tongues on the frozen school-bus windows and seemed pleased to have managed toilet training. They were obviously out.