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In This Issue

• Lessons of a Dancer’s Life
• Fast Times at Our Lady of Mercy Elementary
• Gulati Talks Soccer, Economics, and His Evil Alter Ego Zubil Dubabi
• Bleeding Candy Sweethearts
• 79 Ways To Fix Your Iraq
• 10-Year-Old Reviews IMDb’s Top Ten Movies of All Time
• A Good London Drinker Thinks How to Drink Hers
• Tales of the Inexpressible: Kinematics
• Cupid as a Young Teen
• Unadvised, Advising the Unadvisable
• Tales of the Inexpressible: Bless Your Heart
• On the Web, No One Knows You’re a Scientist
• Go Ask Alice!
• The Big News from the Big Town: Hollywood!
• The BWOG
• Bored at Butler
• THEY Watch

Rachel Katz

It's not Sunday School that bugs me, really. The teachers do good work, and the head nun's a nice enough dame, even if she does give me the stink eye when I stamp out my cigarette on my way into the building. And it's not that I'm bitter on account of them holding me back. The fair fact is I don't study, so you won't catch me going sour grapes when my friends are moving into third grade and I'm still stuck in first, relearning the Lord's Prayer.

Being an eight-year-old in a class full of six-year-old girls ain't half bad, anyways. Once they hit eight, they get real prissy and grown up, so it's nice getting with the babes while they're young and still like to get loose.

Two Sundays ago, I was outside having a smoke, waiting for class to start. I was leaning against the wall, talking my usual to the chicks as they strolled into the building: "Hey-a Connie, tell your sister she's a real tease, a real hot number"-this while her sister's standing right next to her, you know? Anyone around here can tell you, I'm a smooth talker. The girls love bad boys, and I'm about as bad as they come. Once, I even had a chickie ask me where I got a leather jacket in a child's extra-small, while she twirled her finger around on my chest like I had real, grown-up chest hair for her to play with. I was five when I met her, and she was older, the kind of seven-year-old that even the fourth graders are scared to talk to.

Anyway, after class that Sunday, I was standing outside the building again, waiting for my mom to pick me up. Connie's sister came up to me, real shy-like, and asked if she could have some of my cigarette. I eyed her real hard, pretending to figure out whether she was hip or not, and then gave her the rest of the smoke. As she started munching on it, I said, "You know if you concentrate, you can taste a hint of chocolate behind all the sugar." I'm an expert, and I know the taste of my brand-Necco Dinosaurs-better than anyone.

With the cig in her mouth, she loosened up and started talking. "I heard that next week, they're taking us to Confession." Christ. Confession. I've got no idea how that one Sunday can ruin all the rest of CCD, but it does. It's the audacity of the thing. I don't like being pushed around; when I face God, it should be because I want to. A guy like me's got to get his affairs in order before Confession. It's not an in-and-out kind of deal like for the rest of the chumps in the class.

The whole week before go-time, I was thinking about what I would tell the padre. I'll lie to damn near anyone, but my old lady said that lying to God will kill an angel, and even I don't want no part in something like that. The good news is there ain't a hell of a lot of distance to go between a lie and a prettied-up truth, so most years I've gamed this racket, I've gotten my cake and eaten it too.

This year wasn't shaping up any different, but I'm man enough to admit that when the big day came, I was feeling the heat. Mom said it was because I made her let me wear my black leather jacket in the late-May heat, but I knew that it was my eighth year of living in sin catching up with me. Sweating, I must have munched my way through half a pack of smokes waiting for class to start-and that sugar high didn't help anything. Connie and her sister walked past me, and I managed to get out, "You gals wait here for me after class. I've got something to show you." They hadn't seen my new Hannah Montana tattoo. I'd gotten it from Party City a few days earlier and put it way up on my arm so that only a real saucy dame could catch a peek.

First, though, it was time to do my thing before the Lord. As class started, I shuffled into the room and took my usual seat in the back, where I leaned in my chair against the radiator. The teacher, who was the kind of friendly old so-and-so you got the sneaking feeling would get down every so often with a guy ‘bout my age, announced what we all already knew, that we'd be spending the day's class in Confession. We all got up, formed a line, and marched through the corridors to the confessional. Since I'd been at the back of the classroom, I was near the end of the line and had to wait for almost the whole class to have a spin before I got my shot at Reconciliation.

It wasn't hard to imagine the petty crime stories the poor priest had to sit through with those dozens of squares. They don't know from being bad like I do. "I don't always listen to my parents, and once I pushed my little brother." Big deal, wuss. One time, I took a daddy longlegs and ripped his legs off for no good reason. What's God's rep in the stole supposed to say after he hears the twentieth straight crybaby admit he don't wash his hands after he pees? "Listen, kid, just take this Purell and get out of here"? The Virgin Mary don't need some six-year-old kissing up to her with "Blessed art thou among women" this and "Pray for us sinners" that just because the kid's mommy had to say something twice.

It was getting near the end of the class, with most of the other kids sitting out in the pews, finishing their penance, when my turn rolled around. I breezed into the booth, slid the curtain shut behind me, and took a knee with my face near the screen, real smooth. I don't wait around for things to happen, so I got things started. "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been a year since my last confession." We brushed through the formalities, and next thing I know, I'm knocking the daddy's socks off with the kind of stuff I'll bet he don't even hear from the eighth graders. It was a laundry list of mortal sins that would embarrass Judas Iscariot: the thing with the daddy longlegs; my one pack-a-day cig habit; the time I threw a rock clean through a wasps' nest; the dozens of tattoos I've had over the years; the stuff I've said to dames in my class; the time I said the f-word; the time I lied about saying the f-word and tried to keep my dad from punishing me by telling him that I actually just said, "Funk," even though it was obvious that I'd really said the f-word; the time I secretly gave my dad the middle finger after he sent me to my room for saying the f-word; and the time that I lied and said I was just looking at my ring finger when my dad walked in on me secretly giving him the middle finger after he sent me to my room for saying the f-word.

When it came time for the priest to hand down my penance, he got real quiet. I could hear him breathing as he tried to figure out how I could possibly make things right with the Lord. Finally, he sighed and said, "Son, I want you to think hard about how you can love God, because he loves you and will forgive you for anything. Your penance is three Hail Marys and one Lord's Prayer, and I want you to give your parents a hug when you get home."

I'd never thought I'd meet a guy so damn near as hard as me, but there he was in the flesh and blood. After all the stuff I'd copped to, he didn't see fit to hand down nothin' heavier than four prayers and a token gesture of affection? That priest must have had ice water running through his veins. Lord only knows what a guy'd have to do to get slapped with community service. I did my Act of Contrition, crossed myself, and got the hell out of there. God knows you don't hang with anyone even half as cold-blooded as me no longer than you've got to.