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| First grade Presidential campaign poster |
In October of 1960, Mom was
pulling for Kennedy and Dad was rooting for Nixon. I couldn't have cared less
one-way or the other—my thoughts were on baseball. The Pittsburgh Pirates had
just crushed my heart by beating the Yankees in the seventh game of the World
Series and I wasn’t sure if I would ever recover.
The morning after that fateful
game, my mother walked me to St. Stephen’s of Hungary, the Catholic elementary
school I attended on 82nd Street. At the entrance, I kissed her goodbye and
dragged my school bag up the four flights of stairs to my classroom. I sat at
my desk, feeling glum and numb. My melancholy lasted for about an hour until
suddenly I realized that there is more to life than baseball.
There are also girls.
Even at six years old, I was beginning
to get a funny feeling in my belly whenever women were around. I had so many
crushes—delightful first crushes—and I found them in the strangest places.
In the first grade, it was Sister
Beatrice.
Sister Beatrice smelled great. I
did all I could to figure out ways to get close to her. Shoe knotting was a
ritual requiring assistance. I'd offer my leg out hopefully.
"Excuse me Sister, could you
please tie my shoes?"
Sister Beatrice would drop to one
knee to reach my shoe. When she leaned, I leaned—all the way. My nose would
nearly touch her forehead, which peeked out of her hat. Sometimes, a little
wisp of brown curly hair slipped out of the hat onto Sister Beatrice's
forehead. The first time I saw the hair I was shocked, then relieved. I thought
all nuns were bald and the hats kept their heads warm. With my nose to her
forehead—she was too busy tying to notice—I would whiff away.
I smelled baby powder. I smelled
Ivory soap. I smelled her. She smelled better than my brother's bottom after
Mom put a new diaper on him. Being close to her, having her directly talking
into my ear, made me swoon. I'd breathe in deeply so that I had some of her
smell left over when I went back to my desk.
I loved her.
By the holidays, my grandfather
had taught me how to tie a perfect double knotter, but I never let on.
"Oh Sister Beatrice, please
tie my shoes?"
She started giving me funny
looks. By the spring of first grade, every other kid in the class tied their
own shoes. I could see it in her eyes, "What's wrong with the boy?"
I had a choice: I could go on
letting her think I was a moron, or I could begin tying my own shoes, and lose
my best opportunity to smell her. It was no contest.
"Aren't you practicing like
I showed you?" Sister Beatrice asked.
"All the time," I said.
"Just can't get it. I feel so bad."
I loved Sister Beatrice because
of the way she smelled, and also because at lunchtime, when they closed off the
street to let the kids play in front of the school, she would play punch ball
with us. On her knees, she'd help us draw the bases onto the street bed, and
when she stood up; her front would be loaded with chalk. (It went well with the
chalk on her bottom. In class, she liked to lean against the blackboard while
flipping an eraser in one hand. She never dropped it. Not once.)
Sister Beatrice would come up to
the plate to take her turn hitting. She would whack the ball, punching it
between the fielders. Then she would scoot down to first base, holding her
heavy skirts up with both hands, flying past the parked cars. I would stare at
her black wide-heeled nun shoes and black stockings. Sister Beatrice had
perfect shoes for kicking field goals.
My first love was a pretty, punch
ball-playing nun who smelled wonderful. I was hooked.
In the second grade, I became a
choirboy. I was no fool—I was one of two boy sopranos surrounded by fifteen
blue-skirted girls. Three times a week they stuck me right in the middle of
them. I loved their white socks, their black and white shoes. The girls needed
to cover their heads when they entered the church with school issued beanies.
If a girl forgot her beanie, she had to think quickly. One day, my all-time
crush, Barbara, forgot her beanie. I moved in.
"Barbara, would you like my
hankie?"
"Did you blow your nose in
it?"
I showed her both sides twice.
"Clean as a whistle, just
washed with Clorox."
Barbara accepted my hankie. With
a Bobbie pin, she fixed it over her silky black hair. I stood back. She was
Bernadette of Lourdes. The only thing missing were the sheep and a couple of
farm kids. We were in the choir, high in the back of the low-lit church, but I
imagined we were in the French grotto, where the Holy Virgin appeared to
Bernadette. With a halo glowing softly over her head, Barbara smiled at me and
whispered, "thank you". My knees grew weak.
The hankie stayed in my pocket
for three weeks before my mother, a notorious neat freak, noticed me hiding it
under my bunk bed mattress.
She said, "What are
doing?"
"Nothing."
She came closer for a look-see.
"What are you nuts? There's
snot all over that thing. Give it to me."
"No, no, I have a cold. I
don't want anyone else catching it."
She grabbed it, "I worry
about you."
I sighed as my beloved hankie
flew through the air, hit the lip of the hamper and slipped beneath the rim
into the pile of dirty laundry.
Being in the choir was fun, not
only because of Barbara, but also because practice got me out of class twice a
week. I even ended up with a special assignment for Father Emeric's Silver
Jubilee as a priest. I had to learn his favorite folk song in Hungarian. I was
going to sing it before 200 people in the school's auditorium.
As the event grew closer, I began
to practice at home. We had a small apartment, and the only place I could
rehearse was in my parents' bedroom. It was the only room with a door, and even
with it closed, I could hear my parents and my brother giggling on the other
side. It drove me crazy.
My father grew concerned. One
night, I overheard a conversation between him and Mom when they thought I was
asleep on the couch.
Dad said, "Doesn't Tom seem
a little too happy about this choir assignment?"
"Bob it's an honor. He sings
great, and it keeps him out of trouble with the nuns," Mom replied.
"Well sometimes, he leaves
the house with this blissed out grin—I mean he's going to choir - not the park,
not to skate, not to play ball. He's going to choir. I don't get it."
"Well if you went to the
church and heard him sing, you'd get it."
"Well, I hope it's a just a
phase. Dear God let it be a phase."
Mom's last comment held the
secret. If Dad went to church and looked up into the choir, he'd have seen my
enormous grin stuck in the middle of the fifteen girls in their white socks and
black and white shoes. All his worries would have faded away.
I remained in the choir, buried
in the middle of my harem, until that horrible day my voice changed. And then,
with great reluctance, I retired.
One day in class, when I was in
the fourth grade Sister Adrianne said to me, "One more word, one more word
mister, and you'll be staying after school."
That wasn't a threat, it was an
invitation!
I loved being around the nuns,
especially after school–they acted differently then. They were regular people,
with normal feelings. Figuring out ways to spend more time with them outside of
school was easy. I had a big mouth. I was constantly being told to "watch
my step."
When I was punished and had to
stay after school, a nun had to stay with me. And sure, they could do some of
their paper work or read whatever holy book they were reading. But what they
wanted most of all was to get out of the classroom and back to their residence
floor.
Forty empty desks, the nun and
me. I learned it could play out three ways. First way, she kept you in the
classroom for a long time then home you went. Second way, she gave up and let
you out early. Third way, wanting to punish you but not punish herself, she
told you come with her. I preferred door #3.
On this particular day, Sister
Adrianne took me to the mysterious fifth floor with the curtained windows and
no classrooms. I was in their private sanctuary. She put me in the study room
and told me to keep my mouth shut. It was heaven. I was so quiet, she forgot I
was there.
Sometime later, Sister Jerome, the
principal and eighth grade teacher, came into the study and jumped when she saw
me.
"Thomas what are doing
here?"
"I'm not sure—Sister Adrianne
put me here."
"Why did she put you
here?"
"Oh, I'm being punished for
something. She said she was sick of the classroom, so she brought me up here,
and put me in this room."
"Well, you sitting here like
a sack of potatoes is doing no one any good. Do you want to do something
useful?"
"Sure."
"Come with me."
We went to the kitchen. It was
hugest one I had ever seen.
"Help me with the string
beans." Sister Jerome ordered.
This I knew how to do. My Mom
always made string beans. All you did was twist off the ends. I jumped up on a
tall stool around the centered wood block counter and began my chore. Most of
the nuns, at one time or another, walked through the kitchen while I worked
away. When Sister Adrianne walked in, she was ready to scold me—it was a no-no
for non-nuns to be in the kitchen. But Sister Jerome shot her a look. It needed
no words. The look said, "I put the kid to work, let's leave it at
that."
I began to mischievously worm my
way into the nun’s residence on a regular basis. Sometimes, my “punishments”
included polishing the furniture or vacuuming the rugs. Other times, I had to
sit in the study and read books about the saints and all the great ways that
they had died.
Late one afternoon, Sister Jerome
popped her head in the study and saw me reading with my feet up on a hassock.
"Are you still here?"
she asked.
"Well, I was worried you
might have something else for me to do," I replied.
"It's almost five
thirty!"
"What are you making for
dinner?"
"Thomas, go home."
I left slowly, reluctantly,
hoping she would change her mind and call me back. In a way, their sanctuary
had become a haven for me, too—a place of comfort, acceptance, and community. A
place where I could observe these women I loved—the first women I was ever
attracted to—in all their mystery, from a safe distance. I knew they could
never love me back. I was just a boy. But still, they filled such a large place
in my heart.
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