Читать книгу Amen's Boy - William Maltese - Страница 11

CHAPTER SEVEN

TO BECOME A FATHER

I thought being a “Father” like this was the best thing in the world. After all, Father even fixed my maniacal habit of “self-abuse” five times a day. I was reformed, and to me, that spoke volumes about what being a priest could do. Maybe he could help the unhappy kids who lived in homes where the parents yelled at each other. My dad asked me who I wanted to live with when they got two houses to live in and was downcast when I said, “Mother.”

I remember thinking, crying as I listened to my mother and father accuse each other of things in Cajun French, how terrible it was to bring a child into this world. They never allowed me to learn French at home because it was the only privacy from children they had. They claimed it might make a boy stutter to learn two languages, and I could study “good French” later in college. Yet their French didn’t hide their misery from me, their dreadful anger. I made a resolution: “I will never be part of bringing children into this hell of a world!”

I made this conscious resolution long before I seriously confronted the issue of voluntary celibacy. I just knew I did not want to bring kids into hell. My life at home was hell, and my brother’s problems were worse, because, like a dumb-ass he began to drink as much liquor as he could. He flew into rages, slugging me and other things. He hit my father again.