In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida

by Stark Hunter

III.

The Pillar Of Blood

It was because of one Catholic nun, a rather morbid Catholic nun, that my behavior started to become eccentric, and frankly, very bizarre, during the 10th year of my life.

Our new home in Southern California was a dinky two bedroom house on Comstock Avenue, sixteen miles East of LA. It was indeed a far cry from the larger river ranch house on Nicolet Lane in Redding. By the looks of it, this old house was probably built during the Woodrow Wilson Administration just prior to the first World War by an oil field driller, or maybe a street construction worker, or maybe, just maybe, by a worker on a citrus ranch. In front of this little house were two white pillars, which supported its small quaint verandah. One of these pillars strangely reminded me of the "Pillar Of Scourging" that I had seen in my Baltimore Catechism with a bloody half naked Jesus fettered to it. I think it was because of the fact that I hated this new residence with a passion that I developed the habit of taking fallen fronds from the desert palm tree across the street and make believe I was whipping Jesus to a bloody pulp. I would whip the pillar in a sweaty mindless frenzy, imaging myself back in time two thousand years as one of the Roman soldiers I had seen in the movie "Ben-Hur" at the Roxy Theater. Three times I had seen that film in 1959, and I remember almost upchucking my two boxes of buttered popcorn after first seeing the blood covered body of Messala during the chariot race scene. And now as I whipped an invisible Jesus at the "Pillar of Blood" with the palm frond, I inwardly wondered if what I was doing was a mortal sin, a sin I would need to confess soon. What would old Father Karp say if I confessed to him: "Father forgive me, for I have sinned. I imagined myself whipping Jesus in front of my house with a palm frond." Pangs of Catholic guilt inundated my psyche which brought on strange obsessive behaviors, all very "Catholic" in theme.

It was at this Comstock Avenue house, for example, that I started to play "Mass" on the dining room table. I would wrap a towel around my neck and let it hang behind me like a real priest's vestment. I put my bloody crucifix that I had stained with my mother's red nail polish in the center of the table, and as for the sacred host, I would take a slice of Wonder Bread, poke a circular piece out of the center and flatten it with the palms of my hands. For the Paten, I used an old large Christmas card, and for the Chalice I borrowed one of my mother's best wine glasses. After I had set up my altar, I would walk into my church, the old dining room on Comstock Avenue, and say the Mass in a blubbering pseudo-Latin. I used to get all worked up, especially at the high point, when the mystical moment of "Transubstantiation" occurs, when the Priest elevates the host into the air for all to see the bread supernaturally becoming the body of Jesus Christ. Instead of wine inside my chalice, I used Coca Cola, and as I elevated it, I secretly wished it would transform into the real blood of Jesus, but it never did.

Then there was perhaps my oddest "Catholic" behavior: Pretending I was Jesus on the cross. Usually I did this on Sunday nights; the night I took my weekly bath. After exiting the bath tub, I would put a towel around my waist and lean my body against the sliding door of the bath tub and extend my arms out as if nailed to a cross, and then I stood in that old bathroom on Comstock Avenue, imploring God the Father to forgive the blood-thirsty Roman soldiers for crucifying me. I have to wonder what Father Karp would've said if he had known that I once put large dabs of ketchup to my hands, feet and forehead, and I just stood there half naked in my bathroom, pretending to be a crucified Jesus, dripping my life force onto the tile floor. Inwardly I truly felt that I was the "Son of God," and with eyes uplifted into the heavens, I took all the sins of mankind unto myself.

Which now leads me to the one responsible for my idiosyncratic "Catholic" behaviors at that time. Sister Mary Daniel, my 4th grade teacher, had to be a nazi refugee. She was, without a doubt, the meanest and ugliest nun that ever walked the Earth. To me, she was indeed the personification of evil; the quintessence of pain; the absolute bane of my tenth year on this planet. She literally had a big hairy wart on the point of her chin with a few black whiskers protruding out of it. And there were a few more growing beneath the nostrils of her rather large nose. Between her two front teeth was a noticeable gap the size of a fat toothpick. In short, this nun was a vision of death incarnate, and if she didn't like you for whatever reason, you would probably end up having a small lock of your hair torn violently out of your head, which was what happened to me in 1962.

It was around the time John Glenn orbited the Earth three times in Friendship 7, an event I watched intently on channel 2 with Walter Cronkite expertly describing every minute of it with that mustache of his. That day I had stayed home from school after lying to my mother that I was feeling sick, and manipulating the thermometer's mercury by thrusting it forcefully with my arm like a pitched ball, making my normal temperature of 98 read well over 103. The day before, I was unable to do my three digit long division problem on the chalkboard, not because I didn't know what I was doing, but because I didn't know why I was doing it, and Sister Mary Daniel went ballistic by screaming: "How can you be so stupid Hunter?" And then, out of pure frustration, she grabbed a small thatch of hair from behind my right ear and yanked it completely out of my skull. "Now go kneel in front of our Lady and pray hard Hunter." At that moment, my hatred for Catholic school had its genesis, and I no longer wanted to be near the breathing, growling nightmare called Sister Mary Daniel.

Naturally I would rather stay home and watch TV: "Chucko the Clown," "Sheriff John," "Crusader Rabbit," "Soupy Sales," and my all-time favorite cartoon character, "Felix the Cat." Every afternoon at 3, I would turn the knob of our black and white Zenith to channel 13 and watch the "Felix the Cat Cartoon-A-Roony" with Beachcomber Bill hosting. Watching Felix outsmart the Professor and Rock Bottom, the cigar-smoking bulldog, with his bag of tricks was my escape from the depressing realities of long division, lurid religion stories, and endless mundane work in geography and science workbooks. I recall having many daydreams at that time; in most of my daydreams I invariably saw myself as little "Vavoom," the kid with the big mouth from the Yukon who could topple tall trees with his vociferous "vavooms" which loudly emerged from his powerful lungs. I secretly wished that I, too, had that talent so I could topple Sister Mary Daniel's classroom on top of her head and forever bury the wart with the black whiskers coming out of it. And then there was the daydream of my putting a tied up Sister Mary Daniel inside Poindexter's little flying saucer and permanently sending it to Mars and letting the diabolical Master Cylinder have his way with her.

I cannot even begin to count the times that nun put her scowling face up close to mine and say: "Are you working Hunter?" And if I'm not mistaken, I probably wasn't working. Instead, I was just sitting in my desk and daydreaming about Darla and her white bra strap, or about Cindy Stevens, the cutest girl in my class, or maybe, just maybe, I was again planning how I would trick my mother into keeping me home from school the next day by pretending I was deathly ill. This I did on numerous occasions during the 1961-62 school year, and finally, by February, my mother had reached her limit, and decided to take me to the doctor to see if something was truly wrong with me. Inside my mind I was praying hard to the Blessed Virgin Mary that there was something wrong with me so I didn't have to go back to St. Mary's School again for a long, long time.

Doctor Evers, for as long as I can remember, always wore brown shoes and a white smock with a stethoscope around his neck. On that day in February, he gave me a thorough going over, taking a sample of my blood, listening to my heart and lungs, and he even had me urinate into a plastic cup, which I didn't care for one bit. I remember feeling pretty good on that rainy day because, after all, I was not in school being harassed by Sister Mary Daniel. A week later, I returned to his office, and the results of my physical both surprised and delighted me. According to the brown shoed Doctor Evers, I was truly a "very sick young boy."

"Well Pauleen," I remember hearing him say with his arms folded, "the young Mister Hunter here has a very high white blood cell count, and there is apparently a heavy concentrated presence of Streptococcus bacteria which may indicate among other things . . . leukemia." When my mother heard this, she began to swoon inside that little green examining room, prompting Nurse Millie to go fetch some smelling salts to revive her. In the meantime, Doc Evers had me running in place by his little examining table in my jockey underwear; for what reason, I don't know. But I was able to do that without a hitch. It was quite a scene, I'm sure. Looking back on it now, the entire medical personnel in Doc Evers' office were much more concerned about my fainting mother than me, and as they stood around her fanning and patting her, there I was, running in place like an idiot in my underwear.

After returning home from the doctor's office that day, my heart-sick mother put me on the living room couch, turned on the TV and put a warm blanket over me. And as she did these things the tears started to roll down her cheeks. I knew she was scared to death that I had leukemia and that I was dying. "Mama," I said, wanting to cheer her up. "Come over here and give your son a big kiss." And then she started to cry even louder. "Mama," I continued, feeling greatly relieved that I would be home from school for awhile. "I think you're the Instagrew!" Instagrew was a word my 10 year old mind invented in 1962—meaning "a great person worth loving." And after calling her that word, "our word" for each other, my mother couldn't stand it anymore and fled to the bathroom where she sobbed loudly for at least ten minutes.As it turned out, I didn't have leukemia after all, but a mild case of Bright's Disease, which is an acute kidney inflammation. For six weeks I stayed home, flat on my back on the living room couch, resting my kidneys and watching TV. Did I truly have Bright's Disease like Doc Evers claimed, or did I successfully and psychosomatically cause myself to become ill because of my aversion for Sister Mary Daniel? I really cannot say, as I cannot really say if I truly saw an angel on that black October night in 1960 by the Sacramento River. I do know, however, that if I had related my story of the angel to Sister Mary Daniel, she would've believed me, for she was a true woman of God, and she believed in the lacy clouds of Heaven and in the consuming fires of Hell, and in the eternal damnation of all sinful souls, and she believed dogmatically in the existence of life-saving guardian angels as well as blood-sucking devils and soul-possessing demons; all of these supernatural entities were integral components of her rather narrow world-view, and her hatred for all things of the flesh was quite transparent and obvious to me.

For how could I ever forget that day in April, 1962. I had returned to school after my recuperation from Bright's disease, and Easter Sunday was fast approaching. As was customary with all the nuns during Passion Week, graphic descriptions of the torture and crucifixion of Jesus were related to all the Catholic school children, and these descriptions were done with mordant zeal. Sister Mary Daniel actually had this wry smile on her face that day as she herded us into a cramped classroom no longer in use in the old condemned school building which was constructed in 1923. Inside this old musty classroom Sister seated us together in the back, and as she paced the "condemned" floor in the front by the hanging crucifix of a dead Jesus, we 4th graders heard the story again. But this time, the story was told by the inimitable Sister Mary Daniel, and she told it in such a way that it was obvious she had told it before many times in the past using the same words to hundreds of little Catholic school children like myself. I remember them as if I heard them only yesterday:" . . . And they took Jesus to the pillar and stripped him of his clothes, and they beat him, beat him with fish hooks and sharp stones on whips and the blood gushed, covering his naked body. And they put a crown of sharp razor-like thorns on his head, and the pain was terrible, so terrible he almost died from it. But Jesus was god and god had to die for us, slowly, painfully, tortuously, and nailed to a cross. And they took him to the Skull and there they tore his clothes off again, and as they stripped him naked, they tore the skin right off his bones. And they threw Jesus on the cross. He was covered in blood and he was naked. Naked. And they hammered nails into his hands and feet and he was on the cross three hours, naked, dripping with blood. And then Jesus died . . . died for you. He died for you because you are sinners! Because you lie and cheat and not do your homework. He died naked because of you . . ."

And then she pointed at the crucifix with a look of complete indignation on her angry face. A feeling of intense guilt overwhelmed me on that day in 1962, for I had not been doing my homework much that year, and I remembered the look on Father Karp's face as he handed my first term report card with the five "F's" on it; for arithmetic, geography, science, religion and reading. He just winced painfully as if to say: "How can you be so dense Hunter?"

And what of the other humiliations I had to endure at St. Mary's School during that long ago school year, back in 1962, the year before the bullets of Dallas?

On the side bulletin board in our small green classroom was a chart with every 4th grader's name on it. This chart was designed to show each student's progress with long division and four digit multiplication. By each name Sister Mary Daniel would stick golden stars whenever a particular arithmetic worksheet was mastered, and I can recall the tons of golden stars by the smart kids' names; names like Patrice Koda, Christopher Fagin, Lucy LaRusso, Nancy Schlener, Michele Poteet, Billy Harrison, and just about everyone else in the 4th grade for that matter. By May of that year, most everyone had at least 15 to 30 golden stars placed by their names, and as for me, well, I had the grand total of two golden stars; again, not because I didn't know what I was doing regarding arithmetic, but because I just couldn't figure out why I was learning all that seemingly worthless information. It was at this time that Sister Mary Daniel divided her classroom into three sections: One section was to the front called "Heaven," and it was in this section where all the "A" and "B" kids sat, like Patrice Koda and Billy Harrison. In the middle of the room was "Purgatory" and it was here where all the average kids sat, the "C" students like Eugene Labonte, who had one leg shorter than the other and always spent the majority of recess time on the toilet; Charlotte Williams, who wore big thick pink glasses and giggled all the time about nothing; and the legendary Janet Laskowski, who one day didn't quite make it to the girls' lavatory on time and peed on the classroom floor. Then, of course, there was the "Queen of Barf," Susie Lou Graybill, who managed to vomit at least twice that year all over her desk and workbooks. And to the rear of the room, well, this was "Hell," where all the failing, "dense" students sat , like Benji Gomez, who could barely speak English and always said: "Que?" whenever Sister told us to do an assignment; and Timmy Lewis, who never did anything except fidget, talk to Eugene Labonte and bite and swallow his fingernails; and there was me, of course, with my two golden stars. I felt like an idiot, and I probably was an idiot, at least in the opinion of Sister Mary Daniel.

And I can remember the day when Eddie Rosenblatt saw the words "Soupy Sales Rules" scrawled on the cover of my geography workbook, and up he ran to Sister Mary Daniel's front desk to "ratfink" on me. Immediately the wart chinned nun got up from her desk, and with rosary beads jiggling loudly, she was in my face once again. The classroom was deathly silent as she grabbed my geography workbook, and with obvious histrionics, she stated: "He is a communist. Communists kill Catholics all over the world, and they kill children. I want his name erased immediately Hunter! Or I will call your mother tonight about this." Of course I erased the scrawl from the book, and luckily, the phone call never came that night, much to my relief. But I did watch "Soupy Sales" that afternoon, and I did see "Pokey" and "Lippy" and "White Fang" and "Black Tooth," and frankly, I couldn't understand what Sister Mary Daniel was talking about. Was the fact that Soupy Sales got cream pie after cream pie thrown into his face part of a communist plot to overthrow the United States government? Even a dense ten year old boy like myself knew there was no logical connection between slapstick and killing Catholics.

One of my most ignominious moments that year occurred one day in May. As usual, we were all silently eating our lunches inside the classroom while Sister Mary Daniel ate hers within earshot inside the Convent which was right next door to the school building. Timmy Lewis decided in the midst of his ennui to throw every green grape in his Huckleberry Hound lunch box at the kids in "Heaven." It wasn't long before the classroom erupted into loud peels of high pitched laughter mixed in with verbal protestations, mainly from the "heavenly" girls, and like a one person blitzkrieg, in rushed Sister Mary Daniel like a thunder blast with her black and white nun habit trailing behind. "What is the meaning of this?" she loudly asked. Instantly the room transformed into a morgue. It took about fifteen seconds for Lucy LaRusso, one of the straight "A" students in "Heaven" to answer her. "Sister, the boys in hell were throwing grapes at us. Look!" With rosary beads jiggling and her bony fingers grasping the big black crucifix tucked snugly inside her thick black belt, Sister Mary Daniel silently and deliberately cased the classroom. What she saw on the tile floor were the remains of at least a half dozen green grapes squashed into inedible sinewy clumps by Timmy Lewis and his partner in crime, Eugene Labonte.

Who could ever forget those blue Irish stabbing eyes as they probed deeply inside you, looking for the slightest hint of guilt. But no one fessed up after Sister asked: "Who did this?"

"I will make every student in hell get on their knees for an hour if the guilty party or parties do not confess." At this point in time, Eddie Rosenblatt, the "Tattler from Hell," raised his hand high into the air. "Was it you Eddie Rosenblatt?" Sister threateningly intoned. "No Sister. I didn't even have grapes in my lunch today. Why don't you check everyone's lunch box and see who has grapes today." Apparently this suggestion made sense to Sister Mary Daniel, and so, every lunch box in "Hell" was duly inspected. Not possessing the best luck in the world, I happened to have grapes inside my "Flintstones" lunch box, and along with Benji Gomez, Gary Casanova, Tommy Kiefe and Timmy McGann, we were made to stand up front facing the chalkboard with our noses touching the inside of a drawn circle for the remainder of the lunch period-a time period of about fifteen minutes. And as for the guilty one, Timmy Lewis; well, all his grapes were on the floor, so Sister didn't find any in his lunch box, so he got off scott free. As I stood there with my nose pressed against the chalkboard, breathing in the chalk dust, I knew for the first time in my life what being the victim of an injustice felt like, and inwardly, I started making plans to get my revenge on the scrawny, hair-pulling punk named Timmy Lewis. And as I could hear the snickers from all the kids in that class, my hatred for Catholic school intensified. I was in "Hell," and I truly felt God had forsaken me.

There was, however, one positive moment of sublime salvation for me during that rather grim school year when Sister Mary Daniel actually smiled at me. For the entire year Sister Mary Daniel told us about the millions of pagan babies throughout the world who were without parents or homes to live in and who were starving to death. Every morning she would give us the same depressing speech: "Do you know what it's like to be cold? Do you know what it's like to be hungry? Starving? Naked? Do you know what it's like to have no father or mother to take care of you and feed you? Do you know what it's like to not be a Catholic and not know Jesus? Or Mary, our Blessed Virgin Mother? No, because you live in the United States of America which is the greatest richest country in the world. You do not know what it is like to be cold and hungry and naked. I want you to bring in all your pennies for the starving pagan babies everyday or God will be angry with you."

So, feeling that I was already on thin ice with God regarding my lack of submitted homework assignments, and all my strange fantasies about whipping Jesus at the Pillar of Blood, I decided I would make restitution and donate a few dollars to the starving babies of the world. At first, I brought in a smattering of dimes; then I brought in a few quarters. Eventually, I brought in dollar bills. Mention must be made at this point that to the left of the room, Sister Mary Daniel kept a chart with every 4th grader's name on it, and like the Arithmetic chart to the right of the room, she put a golden star by the names of those who donated one dollar. By Patrice Koda's and Billy Harrison's names were only 2 or 3 stars. By Charlotte Williams' and Eugene Labonte's names were just 6 or 7 stars, and by my name, well, I had 12 Golden stars. I'll never forget the moment Sister Mary Daniel called me up to the front of the class and awarded me an official "Certificate of Adoption" of one pagan baby by the name of "Stephen Joseph," and as she handed me that certificate with a picture of Jesus cradling a baby lamb in his arms, Sister Mary Daniel actually smiled at me and said: "Stark, God has forgiven you of all your sins.."