Those Were the Daze

Possible triggers: military, religion, swearing

Of Cats and Mackerel-Snappers

Well, it’s Friday. It’s Lent. We eat fish for dinner on Fridays during Lent. 

And right now, it’s dinnertime.

We are sitting at the table. As per usual, I am sitting on Dad’s right, the Place of Honor. 

“What’s for dinner, Dee?” says Dad, sniffing the air.

“Fish, honey,” says Mom.

“Uh. Great,” says Dad, sounding disappointed. Fish is definitely not Dad’s favorite. 

“Pass your plate, Cher,” says Dad. 

I pass him my plate. He scoops up a piece of fish and lands it on my plate. 

“Mackerel snappers,” says Dad.

Now, DEAR,” says Mom.

“Mackerel snapper’s food,” repeats Dad. Somewhat devilishly.

“Dad, what is a Mackerel-snapper?” I say.

“That’s what your mom is, kid. A Mackerel-Snapper,” he replies.

“A mackerel is a fish,” I say.

“Right,” he says. 

“I don’t get it,” I say.

“A Mackerel-Snapper is a Catholic, kid,” he says, as he helps himself to the mashed potatoes and hands the dish to Beth, who is wrinkling her nose at the fish on her plate. My kid sister never eats much.

My brother Will is cradling his dinner with one arm. Jay is half finished with his fish. And the potatoes haven’t even made it to him yet.

“Will,” says Dad.

“Yes, Dad,” says Will.

“Quit protecting your dinner! Nobody’s going to take it away from you!”

Will puts his right arm back in his lap.

In the excitement of learning about Mackerel-Snappers and hearing Will catch some flack for protecting his dinner, I lean forward, forget my manners and plant my elbows on the white tablecloth.

“Cher!” Dad bellows. 

“Yes, Dad?” I say.

“Get your elbows off the table!”

“Yes, Dad!” I say. I remove offending appendages. Duly noted.

“Dad?”

“Yes?”

“Why are Catholics Mackerel-Snappers?”

“Because they eat fish every Friday.” 

“Only during Lent, dear,” corrects my mother, sweetly.

“Right. Only during Lent,” Dad says. “But that’s not ALL they do. No sir. Catholics plan to take over the world,” he says.

Now THIS concept interests me.

“What do you mean, Dad?” I say.

“Yep. Catholics plan to take over the world, kid. They hold secret meetings in their basements, where they polish their guns and make plans to take over the world.”

“ALBERT!,” says my mother.

But Dad is on a roll. 

“Catholics are like cats,” he says. “Cats plan to take over the world too,” he says.

“Cats??” says I.

“Yep. Nasty, dirty, filthy sneaking things. I had a nightmare about them last night,” Dad says, chewing his fish thoughtfully. 

“A nightmare?” I say. The thought that my Never-Say-Die Dad could have a nightmare just boggles my mind.

“Yep. I had this nightmare. Cats were taking over the world. Me and a bunch of good guys were up in this tall skyscraper. We were the Last of the Good Guys. 

“Who are the Good Guys?” I say.

“Oh, guys like Davey Crockett, Doc Holliday, Frank Sinatra, Daniel Boone, John Wayne. And Clint Eastwood. And me,” says Dad.  “We were ALL up there, shooting at the damn cats.”  

I know all about these guys.  These guys are DAD’s guys. There’s not a wuss among them. They are all so tough they can spit nails. I have been listening to Frank Sinatra since I was two. And Davey Crockett, Daniel Boone and Doc Holliday? In my book, they rank right up there with The Saints because of their Never-Say-Die attitude. I remember how Daniel Boone and Davey Crockett defended the Alamo To-The-Last-Man. In my mind, Dad’s skyscraper has white stucco walls just like the Alamo, and cats are clawing up the white stucco walls at a rate of 60-per-second. 

“Tell me the rest of your dream, Dad,” I say. 

“Well,” says Dad, “We had some guns and ammo up there, and we were defending ourselves as best we could. But we were running out of ammo, ideas, air space and altitude. Damn cats. Grey ones, black ones, orange ones, striped ones, calico ones. Any and every damn kinda cat you can imagine—they were crawling up the sides of the building and crawling in through the windows. We were shooting them as fast as we could, but there were just too many of them for us.”

I can SEE the cats, grey ones, black ones, orange ones, striped ones, calicos ones—all climbing up the stucco walls of Dad’s skyscraper at the rate of 60-per-second. Dad is standing in his flight suit right in between Davey Crockett and Doc Holliday. Davey Crockett’s coonskin cap is falling down over his eyes and he’s got spare bullets clenched between his front teeth. Ordinarily, Doc Holliday has nerves of steel, but even HE is looking slightly worried. 

Not Dad though. He’s cool as a freaking cucumber. 

Dad’s yelling— “Bring it ON—you sneaky furry bastards! I am a FIGHTER PILOT!” 

“I am a Steely-Grey-Eyed-Loose-Limbed-Fighter-Pilot-with-the-Eyes-of-An-Eagle-and-the-Hands-of-a-Surgeon!!!” 

It didn’t matter though. Dad could yell as loud as he wanted. This was definitely a No-Win situation. This was definitely a Bad-Day-at-Black-Rock, which is what Dad calls a really hard day at work. 

“What HAPPENED?” I say.

“I don’t remember. I woke up in a cold sweat. But the point is, you can’t trust a cat or a Mackerel-Snapper,” he says.

I am laughing so hard now at Dad’s vision of thousands of cats climbing a skyscraper trying to take on the Last of the Good Guys that my insides hurt.

So you can’t trust cats or mackerel-snappers. But. Mom and us kids are mackerel-snappers. Are we an exception to the rule?

I go to bed still wondering about that.

***

Tomorrow is Saturday. It is my First Confession. 

I am nervous. No. Nervous is not the word. I am TERRIFIED. 

I am LATE making this First Confession. That’s all because we move around so much. It’s trouble enough to make sure that all your household belongings make it from one assignment to the next, even if you keep close watch while the big-muscled guys come over to pack your stuff, and you watch them like a hawk while they wrap up your family’s toothbrushes in brown packing paper. No matter how hard you watch, some things just never make it. 

I guess my religious training got lost along with the toothbrushes. 

I am the oldest kid in the First Confession class. Nothing new about that. Just add it to the list. The Tallest. The Flattest. The Oldest and The Blindest.  

What I feel so bad about, what has been searing my conscience for months, is taking change off Dad’s dresser. I mean, it happened years ago. But I got the idea from somewhere that God can SEE everything I DO. Well, taking that change, 50 cents, from Dad’s dresser—it just gnawed at me and gnawed at me. Like some rat in one of Dad’s POW books. Until one day when Mom was washing my hair, I couldn’t stand it anymore and I confessed. Mom forgave me. She said Dad would forgive me too. But I know that to be TRULY forgiven, I have to confess this sin to the priest.  

So this Saturday morning I am up bright and early and make sure I am wearing something “nice”. I don’t want Mom to say… "Cher. Are you REALLY going to wear THAT to your First Confession?” 

The rain makes little streaks across the windshield of the car as Mom drives Beth and me to the new Air Force Chapel.

“I’ll pick you up in an hour, girls,” she says, as I slam the car door shut.

This is the NEW CHAPEL. For months, mom and us kids have gone to church inside the base auditorium, but now they have finished the NEW CHAPEL. Personally, I think it’s ugly. Personally, I think it looks like some creature from the bottom of the ocean, with huge pointy white spines sticking straight out into The Wild Blue Yonder. Not like St. Bernard’s where I was baptized and where I go to church with Aunt Marcie when we are in Pittsburgh. That church is old and beautiful. It’s made out of natural stone. It was built in 1890. There’s a brass plaque on the outside that says so. THIS church is made out of glass. St. Bernard’s stained-glass windows aren’t all squares and triangles like this new church. They are pictures of Jesus all the way around the top of the round gold ceiling. When we visit our permanent address, I go to Sunday Mass with Aunt Marcie. I stare at the altar until my eyes feel funny because I’m always hopeful I’ll catch a vision of Jesus or Mary. Or at least an angel. I figure even a sinner like me might get the vision of an angel once in a while. 

We go into the church. We are the last ones to get there. All the other kids are sitting down. My sister and I are the oldest kids in our class. I am the oldest of all.

There are three solid rows of sin-filled 5th graders filling the hard wooden pews. Beth and I take a seat.  

“You’re late,” snaps Sister Mary Augustine. All of the sisters have Mary for a first name, then something else for a second name. Nobody has a last name. You give that up when you go in the convent. Along with sex. 

Sister Mary Augustine hates kids. You can tell that by the way she squints her eyes at us and slaps her ruler onto the palm of her hand every time she says the word “sin” in Sunday School class. 

Today the ruler is missing. She has a clicker in its place. You know, one of those black and orange things you get on Halloween. Click-click. Our class responds to that clicker just like Pavlov’s dog.

 One click means stand. Two clicks means kneel. Three clicks means sit.

We are nothing but three rows of sin-filled mackerel-snapping children, trained to sit, stand and kneel at the command of the Halloween clicker between Sister Mary Augustine’s bony white fingers.

Click. We all stand. Click, click, click. We all sit.

“Now children,” drones the baritone voice of Sister Mary Augustine.

I concentrate on Sister Mary Augustine’s face. I concentrate on the two little hairs on the end of her chin that wiggle up and down when she talks. 

“Today is a very special, blessed day,” she says. “Today, you will receive the Sacrament of Confession,” she says, her chin hairs wiggling.

“You have all learned that Our Lord forgives your sins through his priest. It is important that you remember ALL of your sins, not only the big ones, the mortal sins that can leave your soul burning in the everlasting fires of hell,” she says, her chin hairs wiggling.

“Of course, MORTAL sins are the worst.” She pauses. “But you must remember the small sins too, the venial sins. They are not as serious, but they grieve Our Lord. They leave a gray dirty mark on our souls and we want our souls to be white and clean and perfect for God,” she says, her chin hairs wiggling again.

“So now, children, Father John is in the confessional. He will be waiting there to hear your sins through the Holy Sacrament of Confession. You must be truly, truly, truly sorry for them. GOD knows whether you are TRULY sorry or not. I want each of you to think about your sins while you sit here and wait your turn.” She pauses.

“Now we will begin,” she says.

Click, click. 

As if one body, all of us sin-filled mackerel-snapping children rise and then kneel. Sister Mary Augustine swishes in her long black habit down to the main altar, where she kneels down, bowing her black veiled head in prayer.  

Sister Mary Augustine is praying that our collective souls will have the grace of a good confession. (Or she might lose her Job.)

I wonder, if somebody messes up, will Sister Mary Augustine go to HELL for not doing her job right?  

Dad is always telling Us Kids, “Always do your job right. Always do the best job you CAN do. If you’re a ditch-digger, make it your job to be the best damn ditch-digger in the world.” I wonder if God thinks Sister Mary Augustine has done a good job. 

But then I get distracted from contemplating Sin and I start wondering what kinds of underwear nuns wear underneath all their heavy black clothes. They must get really hot in the summer. Maybe the Catholic Church owns the Mitchum Deodorant company, I think.

I must focus and recollect all my sins. I try to remember definitions of sins word-for-word, exactly as they are defined in my blue and white book, My Catholic Faith.  Just the way Sister Mary Augustine taught us. 

There is Mortal sin, the kind that gets your soul to singeing and frying in the everlasting fires of hell. This is the sin I have committed by stealing change off Dad’s dresser. Stealing is against the Ten Commandments. IF you break ANY of the Ten Commandments, you commit a MORTAL sin. IF you commit a MORTAL sin, you will burn in HELL. Sister Mary Augustine has explained it all for us in Perfect Nun detail over the last six weeks. 

It’s simple, really. Just like at home. Option One: Keep The Rules and You Are Fine. Option Two: Break The Rules, and as Dad says — “Your-Ass-Is-Grass”. 

I have read Dante’s Inferno. So I know all about Hell. Maybe I have reached some new level Dante forgot to write about, sitting on this hard wooden seat with all my fellow sinners in front of me having had their go at Father John. Pretty soon I have to take my turn and go confess my mortal sin to Father John in the dark box. What will he say? What punishment will he give me? I am sweating hard underneath my winter coat, just thinking about these things. I could use another dose of Mitchum right this minute.

One by one, the kids in my pew disappear into the black box with its dark velvet curtains. They all look the same going in, heads down, ashamed and scared. Except for the wise-ass boys who make jokes about Sister Mary Augustine behind her back. They probably wonder about her underwear too. 

They all come out of the confessional looking relieved. Some of them are even smiling. But mostly they just look relieved. Their souls have been Shriven. That means forgiven.

I can feel the weight of my mortal sin sitting heavy in my soul. My mortal sin is black and hard. Ugly as Hell. 

I think of my poor, hardworking father. He grew up during the Depression and had to eat dandelion salad and go to school with holes in his shoes and give his paper route money to my grandmother. Dad gets up at five o’clock in the morning to go to work and sometimes doesn’t get home until 10:30 at night. He does all of this just to support ME. Fat, ugly, ungrateful stealing slug that I am.

“O my God, I am heartily sorry,” I whisper, starting the Act of Confession, practicing it one more time before it’s my turn for the black box and the red velvet curtains.  

I think about how Dad works so hard for all of us, and me stealing his money, and a hot tear slides down my cheek. I think about the Everlasting Fires of Hell, where my soul would be right now, this VERY minute, if I was to suddenly get struck by a bolt of lightning here in this very uncomfortable pew. Before I can make it in there to see Father John.

It is my turn. I stand up to walk the two feet to the velvet curtains. But my legs give way. My world goes dark. 

“Is God taking me now?” I wonder. “Am I going to hell?” 

This is my last conscious thought. 

My sister told me later in the car that Sr. Mary Augustine flew to my side like some black bat and dragged me outside to revive me under the drizzling rain. 

When Sister Mary Augustine brought me back into the church, pinching my elbow REAL hard all the way, there sat my perfect little sister, her sins forgiven, her sinless soul shriven, giggling at me in the pew. 

After my revival, I have to confess anyway. Of course. 

Father John seemed kinda bored by my sins. Which really surprised me. Maybe it’s because he hears lots of stuff during the week, like “I’ve cheated on my wife.” Or “I was too lazy to screw that last rivet onto the landing gear.” 

That’s the way it goes when you’re a Mackerel-Snapper. God. I wish He’d made me a cat.