Bermuda Shorts - James Patterson [27]
I blow her a kiss from my dark and happy night.
My Haunted Crucifix
It was positioned next to a secondary altar, forward and off to the right from the main one, nearer to the communion rail and therefore nearer to the congregation, in the old gothic church of my youth: a crucifix of such startling realism it would stop anyone cold whose eyes fell upon it for the first time. I knew people who avoided that side of the church altogether, or would avert their eyes while passing by, gazing down at the blood-red carpet, or into the distance opposite, over the rows of handcrafted wooden pews. Each time I saw it, I was so horrified as to be transfixed. It called to me, drew me to it as a fallen stranger draws a Good Samaritan. Thinking of it now gives me chills and makes me reach for a comforting image, yet none is so palliative as to provide solace from all the dread this memory conveys.
The Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament, where I attended grade school, is a small enclave of Catholic worship and education adjacent to Chevy Chase Circle in Washington, D.C. The school, church, and convent where the Sisters of the Sacred Heart reside form a universe unto themselves for the parishioners and children whose lives are centered around it. Like most Catholic kids growing up in the 1950s and early ‘60s, I have my stories to tell. But when I think of that time in my life, when I think of that school and my experiences there growing up, I return again and again to this crucifix. I believe it has a great deal to do with the forming of my political and psycho-sexual persona as I moved from frightened child to curious young adult to grown man.
The figure of Christ was unusual because it was so large. Most crucifixes are small enough to be placed on a wall or altar, or carried in a procession. Miniatures will fit onto the end of a pocket rosary. But this one was almost as big as I was. In other words, it was the size of a child. I identified first with this size, I think. Christ’s head was bowed, his eyes half-open as though he had just uttered his last, “It is finished.” His was a sublime and intelligent countenance. The sadness in that face haunts me still, for it contained disappointment, an ultimate despair; in a certain sense, the face even exuded failure. The body was pale, thin, with ribs that stuck out. If this man lived on the alms of others, he was disappointed in life as well as death. The grime and uncleanliness resulting from his mistreatment, the whip marks reaching around his torso from the scourging the night before, the loincloth that barely clung to his protruding hips, these spoke volumes about the human capacity for suffering at the hands of others. His poor, blood-clotted fingers clung pitifully to the nails that jutted out from his palms. He was hanging on, the tendons in his arms straining to lighten the burden of his body’s weight. The thorns of his crown were very long and ghastly sharp, and each one sent long tears of blood down that sad face.
A crucified person dies of asphyxiation. When you are no longer able to hold your head up, you bow your head and suffocate. He had had a rough couple of days. He was tired. It didn’t take as long as it might have to die.
On Fridays I would emerge from the confessional and, while other children went back to their pews to giggle and pretend to say their prayers, I would advance to the side altar where this crucifix was mounted on the gray concrete wall and kneel there, looking up at him. I would study the beautiful figure of the man himself. His feet, delicate, lay impossibly one atop the other to meet the wooden board to which they were nailed with one spike. The indignity of his exposed and public encounter with death was embarrassing and humiliating in the pre-sexual revolution 1950s, even for a witness. Caught in his sighing last breath, he found even there an opportunity