4
" From what I've heard, others can recall the exact time in their lives when they lost their virginity. Not so with Catholics. Ours was wrapped beneath layers of guilt.
Cautiously, slowly, and hoping that God was too busy with other things to notice, our logic and lust would unravel quilts of Sunday morning sermons, catechism lessons, confessional admonitions, and parental warnings.
Such apprehensive behavior would often overflow into other activities. A devout Catholic would never completely open his Christmas gifts until August. Catholics also did very well on bomb squads.
By the time we got through all the wrappings, we would often discover that our virginity had simply melted away. Ask a non-Catholic when they lost their virginity and they recall a specific moment. Ask a Catholic the same question and they begin counting the years on their fingers.
Sitting in the library trying to figure out mathematical equations for a statistics course. I looked up from my pad of
scribblings to see Denise Meyers, a girl I vaguely knew from around school, straining to reach a book that was on one of the higher shelves. She was wearing a short skirt. Discovering a new mathematical equation: Arousal equals the distance of the short skirt above the knees times the shapeliness of the legs.
Denise Meyers was a reasonably attractive girl but, under the gaze of someone being affected by "library lunacy," she looked incredibly provocative. "Library lunacy" was a state of mind reached by sitting in the library and concentrating on material so boring that, after a few minutes, even the seventy-year-old librarian begins looking good. One sure indication that your mind was slipping "
― , The Unoriginal Sinner and the Ice-Cream God
6
" Where were you on the night of March 7?" Typical detective stuff you hear on television all the time. It's so phony. I hate it. Most people can't remember where they were three nights ago much less on a particular date. I know I can't.
The times you remember are the ones you're supposed to: Christmas Day, the Fourth of July, your birthday. As you get older and occasionally look back, even those days drift together into one small blob of memories.
But you always remember the first time and the last. You remember your first day of school and the last. You remember the first time you went to the show by yourself and the last time you saw your grandfather. The first time you made love.
Most of the nights of my life have passed by barely noticed, like the black squares of rosary beads slipping through the wrinkled fingers in the last pew. But later, when I've looked back, I've realized that a few ink colored seeds have taken root in my mind and have grown into oaken strength.
My dreams drift back and nestle in their branches. If those nights were suddenly not to be, I, who had come to lean on them, to relish those few surviving leaves of a young autumn that has passed and will not come again, would not know where I'd been. And I'd wonder, even more so, if there was anywhere to go.
Every Chicago winter delivers four gray weeks, with rare spots of sunshine that are apparently the flipside of hell. Teeth bared, the wind comes snarling off the lake with every intention of shredding the skin off your face. Numb since November, hands can no longer tell or care if they are wearing gloves. Snowmen, offsprings of childhood enthusiasm, are rarely born during these weeks.
Along with the human spirit, the temperature continues to plummet. The ground is smothered by aging layers of ice and snow. Looking at a magazine ad, you see a vaguely familiar blanket of green. Squinting back through months of brown snow, salt-marked shoes, running noses, icy railings, slippery sidewalks, and smoking sewers, you try to recall the feeling of grass.
February is four weeks of hanging onto the ropes, waiting to be saved from a knockout by the bell of spring.
One year, I was invited to Engrim University's President's Ball, which was to be held on the first Saturday in February.
I don't know why I was invited. Most of the students who received invitations were involved in a number of extracurricular activities; they participated in student government, belonged to various clubs, were presidents of fraternities or sororities, were doing extremely well academically or were, in some other way, pleasing the gods. I was never late with my tuition payments. Maybe that was it. Regardless, the President's Ball was to be held in the main ballroom of one of Chicago's swankiest hotels. I thought it was an excellent opportunity to impress Sarah with my importance.
A light snowfall was dotting the night air when "
― , The Unoriginal Sinner and the Ice-Cream God
9
" Dear God:
Thank you for the gift of life.
Signed: Conroy
Conroy:
What gift? You know there's no such thing as a free lunch. You're paying for life every day. Pain, depression, bad weather, disappointments, sorrow, the blahs, and every day you're getting older. What do you call all of that, fringe benefits?
I figured that if I just gave you life, you wouldn't appreciate it. Not that my charging you did much good. Most of you don't appreciate life anyway. You're too busy complaining about the price.
Signed: God
TWENTY-FOUR
"She'll be ready in a minute," said Leonard as he sat down sideways, looping his legs over the arm of an aging, overstuffed chair in the Cohen living room.
As I sat down on the couch, I could hear the sounds of the early Sunday morning crowd drifting through the door and up the few stairs that separated the Cohen Food Store from the living room. The few times I had been in Leonard's house, I always felt as if I were sitting backstage at a neighborhood play.
Mrs. Cohen came out of the bathroom, readjusting the apron that came up to her armpits. "Good morning, Timmy," she said, smiling as she walked across the living room.
"Good morning, Mrs. Cohen."
She stopped and stared furiously at Leonard. "Sit in that chair the right way."
Leonard obediently swung his feet around and "
― , The Unoriginal Sinner and the Ice-Cream God
