Читать книгу Amen's Boy - William Maltese - Страница 9

CHAPTER FIVE

CUSTOM 1955 CHEVY

Father Terry’s Chevrolet was basic black with gray plastic seat covers, but it was always very clean. It still smelled like a new car. It was, specifically, a black, custom 1955 Chevy Bel Air, 2-Door Post Sedan. I asked him if he wanted a big car like the pastor or bishop had. He jokingly said that it wasn’t OK for him to have a nicer car than his superiors, and only the bishop drove an Oldsmobile. No ordinary priest could drive anything as good or better than the bishop. This is how status worked, an unspoken church tradition.

In the Chevrolet, we would drive off with his chalice in a black box, and bring some altar wine and water in little corked glass bottles. We’d go together to the fishing camp community chapel at Blueberry Hill Bayou. This small, wooden building was a missionary outreach church for the people who like to go every weekend away from home to their bayou and adjoining lake, staying in their camps and fishing and drinking beer. They had to have Mass, so going with Father when he drove to celebrate Mass for the fishermen and their families was one of my favorite things to do, a real treat. It became a ritual, and over a period of about two and a half years, we seldom missed a Saturday Mass at Blueberry. It was a great treat to be out at night, and the only time Father Terry would schedule Blueberry Hill Bayou was on Saturday evening. Between time in counseling with father, and the times we went to Blueberry Bayou and even other trips, I began to spend lots of time with him almost daily.

Mass was at 6:30 in the evening, and I would stay awake for the drive to the mission chapel, but often was very sleepy on the return trip to Assisi. My drop-off was just a block from the church; sleepiness had the power to make me forget that I was trying to act strong and like an adult. The little boy would come out, lean on Father, and he would pull my head and shoulder into his side, and put his arm over my neck, pulling me to him in a warm hug. In the winter, it was great. I’ll never forget how, when we drove over the rolling hills and even up and down rather steep hills, I saw the dashboard lights on. It was a sort of magical, greenish, dim light that made me think of space ships in the movies. The radio dial was illuminated, and I vividly recall hearing a song that for some reason was my favorite in those days, “Let Me Go Lover” by Joan Weber.

I watched the speedometer on the dash, with its green and red pointer set about at forty-five miles per hour, and I knew the speed limit was sixty. I figured that Father Terry was like me, enjoying being out in the car more than sitting at home. I imagine I served about a hundred Saturday night Masses. The congregation was always the old fishermen, their wives, sons and daughters, but what I loved the most was that they were all in blue jeans and T-shirts, boots and other clothes not usually seen in church. The altar was special also, because just three years before, when Assisi was renovated, the old wooden altar was sent to this chapel on Blueberry Hill Bayou, St. Anselm’s. It was my favorite altar, wood painted white, carved with a jig saw to make it seem like marble, curled in the form of fancy altars. It was just like you could see in photographs of Rome.

I would sometimes have a small amount of wine after Mass, as that was the custom with Father Terry, because he said the wine gave him stomach acid. He wished I’d drink the extra, so we wouldn’t have to dispose of it in some liturgically proper way. With a few tablespoons of burgundy wine in me, I was a content little boy, with my best friend. I felt nothing could harm me, and we liked just being quiet together.

There were times we went to the camp, and not just one of the camps, but to various camps, where some of the parents of the kids in my school had built “summer homes.” In reality, they were rustic, just fishing camps, in the cooler woods near the bayou and lake. Father Terry seemed to have keys to most of the camps of the people in Assisi Parish, and was told he could use the camps anytime. Now and then, he and I would stop at one of the camps, turn on the water pump and have a drink of water and sit, listening to the night sounds.