The Prayers in Rossford

Poetry

Now this was twenty years in the past, though he did not like to think of that. This was before there was a Layla or even much of a Todd. How little of our lives we know. Even in their dullest aspects, who could foresee what would happen? And always there is some horrible suspicion, some horrible dreadnought about the bad that can happen, but life is a surprise. Turning forty you know that now.

They drove for fourteen hours across the state of Indiana, and Fenn was totally swept up in the earnestness, the sweetness, and the quiet funniness of Dan Malloy. Dan was a little taller and a little slighter than he, but they seemed about what and what. They were both religious, and they were on their way to the National Shrine. The day after they would gather on the Mall and protest abortion. Fenn wondered if he believed in that even then. The school had paid for him to go to DC, and he went because he had never been anywhere. He had told this to a very Catholic, very Southern friend of his when they were in her car. She touched the rosary wrapped around her rear view mirror and said, “Go. It doesn’t do a damn thing. But you’ll get a free trip to DC. Go.”

So he had gone, and he and the other kids from Monserrat who were going with the kids, like Dan, from Citeaux University had slept on the bus and awakened, twisting through the concrete ruts of highway, then skyway.

They were tossed out of the bus to spend the whole day enjoying Washington. The truth was they couldn’t sleep in the church during the day, and there was no place else for them to go. So after the sleeping on a bus was the trudging through the capital. He trudged through it with Dan Malloy. Back then Fenn had an almost sacramental belief that everything happened for a reason, and no one came into his life by accident. And so he determined to keep Dan.

There was a high Mass in the Shrine that night. It must have been somewhere around eight o’clock. Everyone went. Fenn did not. He wrote a poem.

And now
after the scourging
after the pillar and the slap on the face
and how everyone tried to capitalize on
my devotion
and I tried to make it fit in
there is the procession of palms
we’re all holding fronds
and none of us is dancing.
Catholics want to sing
they want to jubilate
but who knows how?
here in the Midwest
where the daffodils push up through the ice
what counts, what’s best is to be nice
in our khakis and Oxford blue shirts

But I want to be intoxicated

God when you rode an ass into the church
when you drove out the changers and the ushers
and the priests
and everyone carrying on
trying to be someone
carrying on their backs carcasses
and corpses
and corpses
of names
and titles
and dignities
lord,
what I did was take off my shoes
and take of my tie
all dignity flies
in the face of something more
that after searching
scourging
reading
fasting
resisting

i just want to be crazy

i just want to be mad
i just want to wander and sit on the floor of your house
drunk with jesus
and everyone who sees us
will think we’re mad
and that could be the end

“There is a tree” they sing
“There is a tree”
faraway

on a green hill…
on a hill

and if this ecstasy kills

then is there room on your cross for me?

Fenn was sure that he was totally different, like he wanted something completely different from the rest of them. Or maybe he was second guessing them. Maybe he was trying to make himself special. But he didn’t think so. He felt, in his corner of the chapel, in a room full of sleeping bags, very much alone, and in need of that loneliness.

After ten o’clock they came stomping down, and when Dan returned, Fenn was glad of it. They were not the same. Dan needed acceptance, Dan found himself in that group. They mattered. All of this really mattered to him. Fenn supposed it mattered to him, too. But not in the same way. Not quite the same way. Dan’s eyes were so wide and blue, his face so rounded, his lips red. It wasn’t that he looked like Chuck, but Chuck was the only person he’d ever been with, and he hadn’t thought about that much since high school.

When they were all changing into their pjs, something Fenn had done long ago, Dan cried, “Hide me.”

And Fenn, lazily, put a blanket around him while Dan changed. He had snug little underwear on and Fenn saw them for just a second. He was completely in love with the boy who had pulled on his pajama bottoms, whom he was talking to, hitting it off so well with.

“We saw the Prime Minister of Israel today,” Fenn reported.

“Oh, you did not,” Dan swiveled his head around in a way that made Fenn blink with amazement and grin at the same time. He might as well have snapped his fingers.

Dan is gay. And then, though one would have thought his experience with Chuck would have taught him this thoroughly, he realized:

And so am I.

By the time they made it to the old house on Burrough Street, Christmas of their sophomore year, with the house darkened and waiting for the morning, they were catching hands over and over again, Fenn pulling his hand away long enough to unlock the door and then locking it after them. Then through the dark, hands catching again, half dizzy and stumbling with the excitement of what was about to come, they went half steadily up the stairs, covering each others’ mouths, pressing toward the bedroom where Fenn locked the door and put his mouth on Dan’s. For a long time, they stood holding each other’s faces, smelling the cold and smelling the mustiness and the cafeteria smell-ness and everything else collected in their winter coats and hats, before they took those off with a slow tenderness and went to the bed. Dan, in his checked plaid shirt said in a slightly high voice, “I always knew I was this way. I always knew I wanted this. From you.”

In the grey dark they unbuttoned shirts, pulled down pants, caressed skin. Fenn stroked the cotton of those snug briefs before pulling them off. He and Dan both gasped and shuddered with the touch of his warm hands on Dan’s hot skin, the soft skin of his ass, of his belly of his scrotum. They kissed deeply before climbing into the bed to make love in every possible way, to do what they didn’t know was possible. Dan remembered it was two hours later before they rested. How could it have been so long? How could there have been that much love to get out? He remembered the feel of the tight soft curls, of Fenn’s hair, of the springiness of it. How could it be so soft? He hadn’t really expected that, the smell of Fenn’s pits, of the place between his thighs. Two hours later Fenn lay on his back and brought him inside, to both of their surprise and Dan felt himself, penetrating, fucking, fucking, fucking, gasping, coming in a hot shower. They lay together, gasping and aching, quiet for a long time. Dan looked across the room and saw in the darkness, even darker the slim shape of a crucifix on the wall. He wasn’t ashamed. It didn’t seem to not fit the moment.

In Fenn’s arms, Dan heard a laughter coming out of Fenn’s chest.

“Merry Christmas,” Fenn said, kissing him.

Dan was still firm. He felt so good down there, so good with the memory of being inside of Fenn, with wanting the same thing to happen to him, with knowing it would, aching for it a little in a place he’d never ached.

He smiled a Fenn, kissed him and buried his head in his shoulder.

“Merry Christmas,” he said.

Peace I leave
My peace I give
Peace for you
Peace for all

They sang it over and over again, one side of the church singing back to the other. It was late August now. It was the end of the summer, but it didn’t feel like it. The doors of Saint Barbara’s were open. The bottom part of the stain glass windows were turned open to let in air. The heated wind, the echoing song of peace was the Holy Spirit. As Keith McDonald lifted the brass and glinting chalice, every heart was bright. And broken.

Lamb of God
You take away the sins of the world
Have mercy on us!
Lamb of God
You take away the sins of the world
Have mercy on us!
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world.
Grant us peace.
Oh, grant us peace!

Peace, Dan reflected, beside Keith, was a word that sounded just like what it was.

The children’s choir was singing, everyone was joining in. They were moving away to the next part of the Mass, which was the communion, which was the taking of bread.

Dona nobis Pacem, pacem!The children sang
Dona nobis, pacem, pacem.

Silence.

“Behold, this is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Happy is everyone who is called to partake of him.”

This communion. The last communion, the lines of parishioners. Everyone at Saint Barbara’s rejoicing. And yet there was this lovely sadness. When Dan went to take the dish of wafers, to take the Body of Christ to the bottom of the altar steps, he saw, in the corner, the boy who was the reason this was the end. Casey. Did he know? Did he have any idea? How could he? Dan looked around. Fenn was not here.

Fenn should have been my reason.