Shred of Evidence

Temple Beth Shalom

The synagogue was my first stop. I hadn’t been to church in donkey’s years and tended to distrust all institutions on principle, but this old boy had been feeling pretty empty and disconnected for a long time, so I thought I’d give the spirituality thing a try.

Why the temple? Something of a whim, I guess. I definitely wanted as far away from Mother’s bible-thumping Baptists as possible. And while I didn’t know much about Jews, I figured that a religion that had endured so much grief must offer something to fortify a hungry soul.

I didn’t want to draw attention, so I donned a yuppie uniform of khakis, golf shirt and loafers and slipped into a back pew after the Friday night service had already started. The bare spaciousness of the place took me by surprise—a crescent-shaped auditorium of concrete, bleached wood and slices of bright, abstract glass. I hadn’t expected such daring in the middle of a neighborhood of columned mansions and lush green vistas dotted with the warning flags of lawn care companies.

The congregation impressed me right away. Every worshiper appeared confident and content, none more so than an elegant brunette seated on the first row of the opposite tier of seats. Her face positively glowed while the rabbi shared his words of wisdom with the congregation. At the end of the service, I edged across the way and managed to retrieve her jacket that had slipped unnoticed from the back of her pew to the carpeted floor.

She rewarded me with a wide smile and words of welcome. I admit I kept her talking just to admire her eyes of deep golden brown. Warm and serene, they were the type I admired above all others. I was trying to decide if I should invite her for coffee when the rabbi came up, slipped an arm around her waist and called her “honey.”

Typical. If there’s a lost cause around, you can bet I’ll find it. I decided to continue my search for solace elsewhere.

Mary Queen of the Holy Rosary

I appreciated the ambiance the moment I pushed through the paneled doors slick with the residue of the same lemon-scented furniture polish that Mother favored. These Catholics certainly knew what they were doing; they played to all the senses. The organ provided soothing background music, the aroma of incense perfumed the air, golden sunlight filtered through stained-glass windows, and the graceful limbs of the dying savior on the cross were arranged with utmost artistry. The empty spot within me contracted just a bit. Surely I could find what I was looking for here.

Throughout the service, I noticed that the parishioners used their bodies to worship their Lord. I could empathize with that. But in between the genuflecting, crossing and kneeling, I could detect little fervor in their eyes. The young priest was a different story. As I sat in the shadows of a side aisle, I had an unobstructed view of his delicately chiseled profile. When he raised his eyes and spread his hands in supplication over the gleaming communion silver, I confess I was moved to reach for my handkerchief.

Though I wasn’t seeking absolution—actually, I think I craved nothing more than a few minutes of someone’s undivided attention—I returned to Mary Queen at the time specified for Confession. It wasn’t at all like I’d seen in the movies. The coffin-like cupboards with separating grilles had been removed; these days the priest and petitioner sat face to face. From the front, the priest’s face was more doughy than delicate, but he had wonderfully clear, grayish-blue eyes—sympathetic, uplifting, like windows to his soul.

His eyes became troubled as I recounted my transgressions. But by the time we had finished, they were still and peaceful.

Harvest Time House of Praise

My next foray took me outside the city, to a chapel on the banks of a creek, surrounded by ancient shade trees. No lack of fervor here. A piano player with arms the size of hams pounded out the hymns while the worshipers wailed and stomped. All the men were in shirtsleeves and the women in flowered dresses with unbound hair streaming to their waists. I was glad I’d left my jacket in the car.

After hearing about more about the fires of hell than even Mother’s preacher described, we moved outside. The children ran wild under the trees while the adults got busy spreading white cloths on foldout tables and digging aromatic covered dishes out of napkin-lined baskets. A group of girls too old for games but not yet shouldered with their mothers’ responsibilities gathered on a side porch. Their innocent giggles heartened me more than any of the preacher’s fiery pronouncements.

It was pathetically easy to tempt one of the longhaired beauties away for a quiet chat by the wooded creek side. I asked about boyfriends, a sure icebreaker with teenage girls of any background. This one wasn’t shy. While she recounted the exploits of Ronnie, Paul and Matt, I lost myself in her huge dark eyes. Among the best I’d ever seen, those luscious orbs practically oozed with her easy sense of belonging, her naïve faith in the goodness of life.

In the end, I managed to convince the girl of the futility of that line of thinking. It would have been delightful if she had converted me, but she just didn’t have the strength. I offered her the tip of my oversized handkerchief to wipe an eyelash from her cheek, and almost at once, she sank like a leaf fallen to the surface of the gurgling brook.

Voices calling the faithful to dinner made the rest of my business a hurried mess, but that was all right. It was time for me to go, anyway. Mother was making fried chicken for Sunday dinner. I knew I’d catch hell if I was late, so I finished with the girl, slipped back to my car through the trees and hurried home.

Calvary Christian Fellowship

I waited a few weeks before trying another church. At Mother’s suggestion, I took long walks in the park and tried to appreciate the beauties of nature. It didn’t help. I still felt lonely and miserable, and even if I walked for miles, I tossed and turned all night. Others might view squirrels and trees as spiritually uplifting, but to my eyes, they were just fluffy-tailed rats and rubbishy foliage.

The people were exceedingly friendly at the long, low brick church crowded between a Buy Low Superstore and a mobile home dealership. I’d barely cleared the door before a man with a toothy grin pressed a visitor’s card in my hand and insisted I fill it out. Of course, my real name wouldn’t do. I wondered if putting Holden Caulfield on the dotted line would give me away as a former English teacher.

The service was familiar, very much like the church I’d attended as a boy. No matter how late Daddy had come home or how hung over he’d been, Mother had poured coffee down his throat, stuffed me and my brothers into clean white shirts, and marched us all off to Sunday school and church. If anyone asked why Daddy looked like death warmed over, Mother was ready with one of her standard lies: “Poor Harold must be coming down with the flu” or “Harold’s been pushing himself so hard at work.”

At Calvary—by sheer, unadulterated coincidence—I’d taken a seat behind some ladies who reminded me of Mother, particularly one whose coif matched Mother’s towering mass of silver-blue curls. Every time that lady patted her hairsprayed helmet or adjusted her white lace collar, the headache I’d been battling since early morning pounded harder.

It occurred to me that writing some notes about the fresh viewpoint I sought might help my headache. There was a stubby pencil and a stack of comment cards in the hymnal rack on the back of the pew in front of me. I jotted a few things down, and when they passed the collection plate, I wrapped the card up in a dollar bill and threw it in.

Then I felt worse. I imagined that the deacons were staring at me with cruel, mocking eyes. And even though the preacher couldn’t have possibly read what I’d written, I swear he directed his entire sermon straight to my pew.

After the last hymn, one of the ladies turned around and invited me to the coffee and doughnut fellowship in the church basement.

I think I’d probably had too much caffeine already, because I must have gone a little nuts. When the blue-haired lady—who didn’t really look all that much like Mother once I saw her face—asked if I enjoyed the service, I couldn’t force any words past my thick tongue. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop twisting my handkerchief or take my eyes off the darting serpent that seemed to be flicking in and out of her bright red lips.

The rest of that incident passed in a frantic, nearly forgotten blur. I only know that I scrambled out of that church empty-handed and in a terrific hurry, certain I would never return. I needed to find a totally different worship experience.

Covenant of the Goddess Beltane Bonfire

They called it skyclad; Mother would have said “nekkid.” I was tentative at first—where would I put my handkerchief? How would I carry my treasures away?—but almost everyone was shedding jeans and t-shirts to join in a circle around the crackling bonfire. Not wanting to appear rude, I did the same.

Drums pounded a steady rhythm as men and women of all ages, sizes and shapes linked hands to dance around the fire. At first, we skipped like children, chanting nonsense syllables. It was actually fun! But then we ran, faster and faster, so fast my side began to hurt and I could barely get my breath. As the drumming turned feral, the circle began to disintegrate and couples and threesomes scampered off into the dark woods.

A girl with glittering green eyes that seemed to have captured the rhythm of the dancing flames grabbed my hand. I hesitated. Over the girl’s halo of copper frizz, I had spied a robed figure in the shadows on the other side of the bonfire. It was an old woman sitting quietly on a stool, not rushing to join in the fertility rites with the others. The woman’s face was hidden by her hood, but the humped back and pendulous breasts outlined by the belted robe seemed strangely familiar. For one giddy moment I thought I recognized Mother, then laughed at my absurdity.

My perfectly conventional mother cavorting with witches? What a joke!

The girl took my laughter for assent and pulled me towards the trees. Well, why not? Perhaps this pagan’s flashing green eyes would be the ones to summon the magic I so desperately craved. A log on the bonfire shifted and a shower of sparks shot up like miniature fireworks. I felt daring! Invincible! Just let Mother try to hold me back now!

Full Gospel Mission

I’d been away for a few months—Mother’s idea. First, she’d wanted me to “have a rest,” then she’d changed her mind and badgered my witless doctors to send me home. To them, she promised to dole out my medication, drive me to my therapy appointments, even participate in family counseling. To me, she complained about the extra work and threatened dire consequences if I even so much as glanced at a church. I wondered why she bothered, then decided she just needed somebody to cut her thick toenails and help her apply her weekly hair rinse.

At first Mother dogged me around the house like a bloodhound during the day and locked me in my room at night, but I was on my best behavior, so she gradually relaxed. One Sunday when she stayed in bed past her usual time, I decided to go out and get a newspaper and a sack of doughnuts to surprise her. The car keys were in her purse by her bed. I didn’t want to bother her, so I slipped out on foot and headed downtown.

When I passed the storefront with electric piano music drifting from the open door, I wasn’t at all interested. Full Gospel Mission—give me a break. The building with the soaped up windows didn’t look the least bit like a church, and the shabbily dressed men shuffling through the door looked like winos with their stubbled chins and bleary eyes. Winos, for Christ’s sake! Not at all the sort of person I wanted to commune with.

I hurried on. Where was that doughnut shop? Had I passed it without noticing? I turned and started back, slowly, so I wouldn’t miss it again.

At the storefront mission, the music had stopped and the preacher had launched into his spiel. I stood on the sidewalk and let his words wash over me like a warm tropical wave: Come unto me, all who are weary. Well, wasn’t I weary, weary to death of posing and pretending? Weary of staring out at the world from the cold, lonely cave that existed just behind my eyes?

I took a few steps toward the door. Surely, it couldn’t hurt to just sit down and listen for a few minutes. Why should I care if the place was full of bums? Didn’t Jesus himself drink with outcasts and whores? My feet seemed to float over the pavement. Salvation might be waiting inside!

A car horn, raucous and insistent, stopped me. I turned to see a navy-blue Olds 88 with a broken antenna creeping along the curb. My bubble of euphoria burst like a child’s balloon that hits a hot light bulb. Mother had tracked me down.

Pleasant Grove Baptist Church

The organist plods through a Bach prelude while a trickle of women come forward to view the deceased laid out in his casket bed of cushioned satin. They stop to offer consoling words to the chief mourner, an elderly woman with a massive helmet of blue, sausage-shaped curls. She clutches each one by the hand, nods shakily, then dabs her tears with a lace-edged hanky. Years of practice have conditioned her to perform exactly as expected.

Everything is settled now, she thinks, though it’s a crying shame. Harold, Jr. used to be such a good boy—always helping around the house, never in trouble like his brothers. And so smart! Won a scholarship to a university up East, but of course, she wasn’t having any of that nonsense. She made sure her favorite stayed home where he belonged, taking care of her and attending classes at the local community college.

The grieving mother gives her lacquered hair an unnecessary pat and sighs. So many good years together, especially after his father’s liver conked out. But lately the boy had been acting like he didn’t have a grain of sense. Whenever she asked what ailed him, he’d just stare over the top of her head with those icy blue eyes and clamp his jaws shut like he was guarding a state secret.

Why couldn’t the doctors straighten him out? They were trained to deal with strange thoughts that get in people’s heads, but they seemed as baffled as she was. She knew she’d have to take matters into her own hands when the police started visiting the house. They asked questions about horrible things and searched the boy’s room. By the time they’d removed jar after jar of round, shiny objects floating in yellowish liquid, she’d come up with a plan.

Turning, she touches the back of her hand to her son’s cheek—so nice looking in his Sunday suit with the crisp white handkerchief folded just as he liked. Thank God the undertakers knew their business. She wonders how they managed to make his weak chin look so manly. Cotton wool? Sawdust? And his lips and cheeks that had turned so blue after he’d drunk the coffee spiked with a handful of her pain pills—they must have covered that with make-up. Her son wearing foundation! No, mustn’t think about it. After all, she only did what had to be done. And it was a blessing to him, really.

She’s just too old to trail him around, cleaning up after him as she had his father. She followed the boy once and the damp out in those woods aggravated her lumbago so bad she’d been in bed a week. And the goings-on around that bonfire! It’s clear that Harold, Jr. was cruising for disaster, a one-way ticket to prison. And her boy could never have survived that; not with his delicate constitution. It’s so much better this way.

She watches through a mist of tears as the preacher closes the casket for the service. Yes, everything is so much better when Mother takes charge.