Mea Culpa

by Keith M. Folino

Howard knelt patiently in the quiet darkness of the confessional. The small wooden window slid noisily to one side revealing the shadowy profile of the priest. A faint smell of wine drifted through the decorative wooden mesh to Howard's side of the confessional. Howard crossed himself while Father Peters waited with his chin on his chest and his hands resting on his knees.

"Bless me father, for I have sinned. My last confession was twenty years ago." The small wooden bench creaked as the priest adjusted himself. His eyes were closed. The sound of his breathing filled the confessional like lazy surf rolling over a beach on a dark night.

Howard went on. "I've had impure thoughts 14,600 times."

The priest turned his head slightly toward the screen. "14,600 times?" he asked.

"Yes," said Howard. "Twice a day for twenty years."

Father Peters turned away again, rubbing his eyes behind his glasses and squeezing the bridge of his nose. "Go on, my son."

"It started with the pictures I used to see on my paper route. The dock door of a factory I walked by was always open -- I didn't even deliver papers there. Inside, dozens of pictures of naked women lined the walls. I'd go out of my way to pass that door each day. Eventually the feelings that grew inside me led to my discovery of masturbation. I felt soooo dirty Father!"

"That was a long time ago son; we all have our skeletons. God loves you anyway. Please go on."

"Well . . . I've killed sixteen people and --"

"What! My God!" Father Peters, unable to control the volume of his voice, looked straight through the screen at Howard. The priest was shaking and his breath was heavy, but he remembered his vows, gathered his wits, and told Howard to continue.

"The first was that nun."

"What nun?" the priest queried incredulously.

"Sister Mary Evita Marie."

"But . . . you . . . I knew her . . . you must be . . ." Father Peter's voice trailed off. A ghastly scene that he'd managed to shut out of his dreams for many years came roaring out of his brain like a freight train and slammed into the back of his forehead. He pressed his thumb and index finger into the searing pain between his eyes. His stomach rolled over and saliva flooded his mouth. A flash-fever unleashed a torrent of perspiration throughout his body. His legs suddenly felt weak, so he grabbed the small wooden bench he was sitting on to prevent himself from falling.

Twenty years ago, as a new young priest, he had witnessed a murder. He was sure he was about to be asked for absolution by the person that had committed that hideous crime. But that young boy had been sentenced to life in a maximum security sanatarium. "Was he out now? Could this be him?" It didn't matter.

Father Peter's considered it his duty to listen to any of God's fallen flock. He accepted their slings and arrows just as St. Sebastian had accepted the arrows of his persecutors. Circumstances, revealed in the court hearing that followed the death of Sister Evita Marie, unfolded like old faded newsprint in Father Peter's mind. He took a long slow breath and asked Howard to continue.

"I don't mean to ramble Father," said Howard, "but I really do think you should know the whole story."

"Yes . . . yes, go on."

"I was always the poorest kid attending Our Lady of Good Hope. I was skinnier than the rest of the kids. We didn't have much to eat at home, except for the first week or so after the monthly relief check was cashed. People can be cruel Father --"

"Yes, I know."

"I'll bet you do. Anyway the kids at Our Lady of Good Hope were no exception. They laughed at my fifty-cent 'Barber College' haircuts and the way my father's old white dress shirts hung on my skinny ass."

"Don't be too bitter," Father Peters cautioned.

"Too bitter? I'm not too bitter Father, but it all comes out today."

The priest sighed. "Go ahead."

"My father always ate first in our house and that big tub-a-guts weighed 220 pounds when the rest of us were starving. You can imagine how his shirts looked on me . . . or maybe you can remember?"

The priest felt uneasy now. He considered the wooden mesh that separated him from the penitent on the other side. Sin is like water, he thought. It flows both ways. "Let me share your pain son."

"Sure Father . . . . Those old fashioned wool pants I used to wear all the time -- the ones that came from some 'Good Samaritan' organization -- were another source of amusement for the kids at school. They were the only 'good' trousers I had, but I hated them. They looked like something out of a dark Norman Rockwell painting. 'You don't like 'em, you don't like 'em,' my father would sneer. 'Well if you don't like 'em you can lump 'em,' he'd say, and cuff me behind the head. I can't remember how many times I sat at my desk and pissed those pants."

"Why?" asked the priest.

"Why? Because I was afraid I'd run into the Devil in those dark dank basement bathrooms at school -- that's why. Because I was too embarrassed to voice aloud in front of the whole class that I had to go to the bathroom . . . . I don' t know why! But something was going on at home, something that I can never quite remember -- at home -- where my father would lay on the couch in the front room, wearing nothing but his week-old underwear, cuddling up behind my pet boxer -- even in front of my friends! He would fart indiscriminately while he fondled the dog's nipples . . . ."

"We all have our trials," the priest offered. "At least you could get away to school."

"School! Hah! Haven't you been listening? School was no better than home, maybe worse. The nuns really worked their voodoo magic on me there Father -- especially Sister Mary Evita Marie. She knew what a miserable life I led. But she did nothing about it. She was in cahoots with my father and the Devil."

"But surely you don't think -- "

"No, I don't think, I know!" Howard spat. Sister Evita and my father were both devils. You think I didn't know? I knew, I knew all about the Devil. And I knew that of all people, I was the one the Devil wanted most. I was a filthy, dirty, impure, cooty."

"God sees good in all of us my son."

"Oh yeah? Well the only one I ever saw any good in was that young nun, Sister Mary Catherine. Remember her? She was a student teacher when I was in the fifth grade. She was kind, not spiteful like the older nuns. And she saw something good in me too! She gave me her Holy Missal, and made me feel special, even clean, for that one semester. She convinced me to become an altar boy, maybe someday a priest. I was so sure God would protect me from evil once I became an altar boy.

"I always felt so different when my old clothes were covered by a crisp black cassock and a starched white surplice -- so holy, so like a saint. Of course there were no saints named Howard; I learned that before the first grade. A nun told my parents when I enrolled in catholic school.

"'Howard's not a Christian name,' she said. 'We'll have to give him a baptismal name . . . John would be nice.' That was the first time a nun made me feel less than worthy but not the last."

"Humility is a great purifier," the priest uttered. "You should accept it as one of God's gifts."

"The gift of humility? Hee heeee!" Howard laughed. His voice, a little too high and loud, set the priest on edge again. "I got all the gifts I could handle Father. The nuns were drawn to me, like flies to shit. I was the perfect sacrificial lamb, a chance to make a priest and along the way perhaps a martyr or vice versa. Every chance they got, they offered me the gift of humility. Oh yeah! I was delivered in to their hands without any worldly possessions. All they had to do was peel away what little pride I had left and filllll me with humility! I'd been chosen to suffer like Christ had suffered. Wasn't that wonderful! Surely God approved of their handy-work. Or maybe it was Lucifer they were trying to please. Who could know? Not me Father. Where'd they learn those brain washing techniques anyway? Was it required in nun school?"

The priest shook his head silently as it rested in his hand.

Howard continued his story. "In the second grade another boy was the brunt of their wrath. He was far too old to be in my class. Mark Mustard had been held back twice, and he towered over the rest of us. The nun used to delight in humiliating him.

"'I'll mark your mustard,' she would say whenever he wasn't able to answer a question. As she lashed out at him with her tongue or the long wooden pointer she was so fond of carrying, beads of perspiration mingled with the hairs on her upper lip. Her face would grow so intensely red that I thought the stiff white linen holding her it in bondage would catch fire at any moment. Mark would just stand there, silent, hanging his head as the class snickered -- everyone except me." Howard's voice had grown soft.

"Somehow I knew my time was coming Father. And oh did it ever. Each nun that I met carved tiny little scars in my brain. Finally, in the eighth grade, Sister Evita Marie swung her heavy sword. She cut the last feeble strands of respectability I was clinging to. She dragged my filth out into the open and sent my mind on a journey that would test the fires of Hell.

"I wore my scapular faithfully throughout the years. I even saved every holy picture I ever earned. God! I would spend hours on end reciting indulgences -- Jesus-Mary-Joseph, Jesus- Mary-Joseph -- but even chants that had power over Purgatorian penance couldn't protect me Father, not from Sister Mary Evita Marie."

The priest interrupted. "Surely she wasn't that evil. I mean I know some of the nuns . . . well life was hard for them, too."

"Hah! It wasn't the hard life that made her do what she did; it was her black heart. She called me up to the front of the room one day. 'Howard has no food today class,' she broadcasted. 'Can any of you share your lunch with him?' I would rather have starved. Another time she picked a half eaten cup cake out of the trash in the cafeteria and brought it over to the table where I was sitting. 'Would you eat this if I brush it off?' she said, 'I hate to see food go to waste.' I would rather have died than accept that cake in front of the other kids But I said yes. I felt obligated to do so just as Sister Evita Marie knew I would. She was a master at making martyrs, and I had learned how to suffer silently. If she was really concerned about wasting food, why didn't she eat it herself? I knew then, just like all the other times, that her intention was to belittle me. God! how I hated her."

"Hate is perhaps the worst sin son."

"Perhaps Father. I'll let you be the judge of that. One day Sister Evita Marie said, 'Someone stand up and tell us what their father does for a living?' I slouched low in my chair and prayed she wouldn't call on me. My father hadn't worked in years, and she knew it, but she called on me anyway.

'Howard?'

'Uh, my father's on disability,' I lied.

'Oh that's right, I forgot. You may sit down now, Howard. How about you Billy? Isn't your father a detective? Why don't you tell us about it.'

"She knew, she always knew just what she was doing. I began to envision ways of getting back at her. One Sunday morning, I threw an ice ball at her while she stood outside the church sucking up to one of the rich kid's mothers. Sister Evita moved just as the ice ball arrived, and it hit the other woman squarely on the side of her face. Sister Evita berated me for five minutes in front of the other parishioners, twisting my ear all the while, and she sentenced me to sweep the class rooms each day after school for a week. After class, as I pushed the broom along the aisles, Sister Evita would tell me to be sure to get all the little pussies out from under the desks. That's what she called the dust bunnies."

"I know," murmured the priest. "I know."

"She knew she was making me have impure thoughts. I could tell by the way she squinted through her glasses at me -- she knew! I just kept on sweeping and hating her.

"Another time she called me up to her desk in the middle of the day and hissed, 'Go downstairs and wash your hands. You stink!' I wished I could disappear. I could hear the other kids snickering and whispering to each other as I walked out of the room. Fear began clawing at my neck as soon as I descended the basement stairs. In the lavatory, I cried and washed my hands while my eyes darted nervously around trying to catch the shadows that lurked at the corners of my peripheral vision . I was sure the Devil himself would appear at any moment, laughing hideously, and drag me off kicking and screaming -- That's when I decided."

"What, my son, what did you decide?"

"All in good time, Father. The next Saturday I was scheduled to serve mass -- do you remember? I knew that Sister Evita Marie would be there. She always was, kneeling in the first pew, fingering her rosary, her lips moving, her eyes closed. What a disgusting display of hypocritical piety. It couldn't be overlooked, and it was intended for you Father.

"I arrived at the church early that morning. I was sick from eating nothing but cabbage soup for the last several days -- food had run out at home -- my bowels were loose. It was still dark as I dressed to serve the mass. My stomach complained, and I farted like a sick mule. I stood there in the sacristy Father, too petrified to go to that damn dark basement lavatory outside below the church. I prayed that the urge to evacuate would pass, until I couldn't wait any longer, then I shit myself. It was horrible! Services were going to begin soon, I had to do something.

"My mind blurred. I removed my trousers and then my underwear. I used my cassock to wipe as much of the putrid mess from my body as possible. I wrapped the whole disgusting business in a large ball and threw it into the corner of the closet. Then I pulled my trousers back on. The sticky remnants inside them chafed against my thighs. I donned a new cassock and walked out into the church past the altar. I could feel her eyes even before I saw her. Sister Mary Evita Marie was kneeling in the front pew. I could see the disdain in her eyes, but it was her fault! She's the one who made me do it Father. Oh God! The stench was awful. As I looked at her, I made up my mind. We would both be 'washed in the blood of the lamb' on that day. I worked my way through the mass in a semi-daze, wondering -- no, knowing -- that you could smell the awful odor emanating from my body."

"But I didn't know," said the priest. He sat wilted on the small bench.

"When it was time to serve communion to the congregation Father, I followed you along the communion rail holding the thin gold-plated paten beneath the chin of each recipient just as I had been taught. I was very careful not to cause them discomfort by bumping their throats with it. Do you remember Father?"

"Yes . . . my God! How could I forget?"

"The body of Christ, you repeated over and over again. Amen, they would reply as they raised their chins and extended their tongues."

"Please no more," Father Peters begged from the center of the confessional.

"I told you! It all comes out today," Howard hissed. "When it was Sister Evita Marie's turn, she lifted the white communion cloth attached to the rail and held it against her chest. In her typically pathetic display of piety, she raised her head and stuck out her venomous tongue. The nerves in my body stretched like piano wire. Heat poured from every pore. I couldn't contain my hatred any longer. I drew back my arm and struck the serpent's throat with the edge of the paten as if I were trying to fell a tree with a single blow.

"Her flesh opened cleanly. A wide red grin mocked the hypocritical smile that had only moments before been on the lips above it. At first I thought her head would continue falling backwards over her shoulders. Blood gushed over the starched white cloth that covered her hands. But when I yanked back the paten, knocking the chalice full of consecrated hosts out of your hands and onto the floor, her body came forward with it. She fell onto the rail, her eyes staring up at me. A gurgling sound came from her open mouth past the small white wafer that was still stuck to her tongue.

"I'm not sure what happened next Father, I think someone hopped over the communion rail and helped you pull me away from her. The two of you held my outstretched arms and dragged me backwards, up the altar steps, away from the screaming crowd. I felt so like the crucified Christ that hung above the tabernacle. My feet scraped and scattered the fallen hosts, but I saw God smiling down on his newest martyr. And I heard the voices of angels singing -- 'Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domine.'"

"Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord," the priest whispered.

Howard stopped abruptly. He listened for a moment to the priest who was crying softly on the other side of the screen. "That's all, Father," he said. Howard's cheek twitched rapidly as he waited for the priest to respond.

"But you said sixteen people . . . . How could you? . . . Who were the others?"

"Don't you think that's enough for one day, Father?"

"Yes . . . yes I suppose it is . . . um . . . say the rosary tonight . . . and you'd better make a novena."

Howard rose slowly, pulled the drapes of the confessional to one side and ducked into the candle-lit expanse of the church. Genuflecting to the altar, he turned and walked toward the heavy arched doors that led to the street. Two muscular male nurses clad in white uniforms followed close behind him. When he crossed himself, he felt a cool drop of holy water trickle down his forehead. Howard hoped he would be able to ride in one of the front seats of the bus on the way back to the "hospital."

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Last Updated: March 10, 1997