Beth Ann Fennelly - Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs

For Tommy, provider of the married loveand in memory of his father, Gerald Franklin,
19332016

CONTENTS

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Heating & Cooling

In every book my husbands written, a character named Colin suffers a horrible death. This is because my boyfriend before I met my husband was named Colin. In addition to being named Colin, he was Scottish, and an architect. So you understand my husbands feelings of inadequacy. My husband cannot build a tall building of many stories. He can only build a story, and then push Colin out of it.

but this tanned, fit couplewhite-sweatered, like tennis prosseemed eager to talk, so we talked. No, their final destination wasnt Denver. Theyd continue to Hawaii after the layover. How awesome, I said, Hawaii. Is it a special occasion, an anniversary? They grinned at each other, like You tell her. No, you.

Their thing, it turned out, was scuba diving with metal detectors. They dove at popular honeymoon spots on Oahu, because, they said, the first time those rich Japanese brides hit the water, their new diamonds slid right off. The couple said they didnt always find a ring, but overall theyd found enough to fund their vacations.

Thats... wow, I said.

They grinned at each other again, and took a sip from their Bloody Marys, then she gave his biceps a squeeze. Her diamond ring broadcast sequins of light on the tray table. I envisioned how, after netting a big rock, theyd perform exceedingly athletic hotel sex. Their avarice was so unabashed that it was difficult to keep despising them, but I, large of righteousness and small of diamond, persevered all the way to Denver.

I peaked early, fourth grade. I had the lead in Mary Poppins . Mr. Banks was played by Vince Vaughn. Yes, that Vince Vaughn, though at that point he was nobody, just another kid like the rest of us. He didnt go to Hollywood until after high school.

I dont particularly recall him as being the one destined for stardom.

And what is it you do? he asked, after a moment of silence. My mother was in the bathroom exchanging her dress for the cotton gown.

I had the sense that he was asking to fulfill some kind of med school training: Engage the patients loved ones in conversation.

Five outlandish occupations pinged through my head, all lies. But I knew I shouldnt mess with him. I needed to get him on our side and keep him there. Im a writer, I said.

A rider? A light turned on in his eyes, suddenly as blue as his scrubs. He put his fists up and bounced them: a cowboy bounding over the plains.

No, I said. A writer. Which now seemed to require a gesture, so I held up my imaginary pen and wiggled it.

Oh, he said, all business again as my mother came out of the bathroom. Well, he said, me too. He untied her gown with one hand and slipped the black Sharpie from his pocket with the other, clamped it between his teeth to remove the cap, then drew dashes on my mothers naked chest, indicating where his scalpel would go.

That Friday, after morning Mass, the priests visited our third grade to announce a meeting for prospective altar boys.

I went. Me, Beth Ann. Why did I go? First, I was attracted to the pageantry: the costuming with the alb and the cincture, the procession with the cross and the thurible filled with incense. I wanted to arrange the credence tablethe corporal, the cruet, and the ciborium. I wanted to raise the aspersorium of holy water into which the priest dipped the aspergillum before raining blessings on penitent heads. When he lifted the Eucharist, I wanted to twist the cluster of brass sanctus bells, alerting our souls to transubstantiation, bread and wine miracled into Body and Blood. And clearly I wanted to fill the chalice of my mouth with the wine of those words.

Also, I went to prove a point.

But I never got the chance. Before the meeting began, Father Mayer evicted me from the front pew. Ill be right back, he told my classmates, then steered me by my shoulder to the sacristy where, behind a heavy door, a few old ladies bent over ironing boards. The altar society, he informed me, cares for the priestly vestments. This is where God calls you to serve. He fled, and I fled, and that evening in my best penmanship I tattled on him to Cardinal Joseph Bernadin. My letter ended, P.S.: And women should be priests! My mom loved the letter: how cute, our little womens libber.

Now, a grown woman with children of my own, back in Illinois at my mothers table, I read in The Trib that Father Mayer sexually abused altar boys. For decades. Hed been removed from St. Marys and sent to St. Ednas, removed from St. Ednas and sent to St. Stephens, removed from St. Stephens and sent to St. Dionysius, removed from St. Dionysius and sent to St. Odilos. All those altered boys. Did the archdiocese, the Cardinal, know? Please. In the church files, theres a contract Father Mayer signed, promising that at St. Odilos he wouldnt be alone with boys under twenty-one. Because by then two of his altar boys had committed suicide.

After St. Odilos, he was sent to jail.

You can look all of this up, if you care to. Father Robert E. Mayer, pastor of St. Marys, Lake Forest, Illinois, 1975 to 1981. Call this fiction: I dare you.

I lay the newspaper down in a light that is no longer the light of my mothers kitchen, but is the stained light of St. Marys, where solid pillars of dust propped up the clerestory windows. In this light I see it all anew, I see it all anew, and clear as a bell, as we say, as if cued by altar boys twisting the sanctus bells, announcing that something has been transubstantiated into something else, forever. The ironing women who lifted the blank communion wafers of their faces. The click of dress shoes as Father rushed back to the meeting, his robes streaming behind him like wings. A year later, his sabbatical. His goodbye pot-luck.

My outrage at not being chosen. My bad luck at being born a girl.

My classmate Donny ODell, who was chosen, during Mass that unseasonably warm Easterhe was holding high the Bible, rigid and dutiful, when suddenly he toppled backward. The whole congregation heard the sickening thwack of skull on marble, and as one, we uttered the same surprised Oh! as if it were part of the Mass, as if a response had been inserted before the Agnus Dei Oh! we cried, in a single voiceand how quickly Father was at his side, bending, lifting in his arms the small boy, Donny ODell, a boy even smaller than I was, Donny in his arms like Jesus removed from his cross, or, with his white alb flowing toward the floor, like a bride. And how Donny raised a hand to his head and opened his eyes and realized that hed fainted and smiled sheepishly. How the parishioners laughed a relieved laugh to see he was okay. How the ushers led Donny outside into the fresh air. How later, filing out into the narthex, everyone laughed again with Mrs. ODell. Your son gave us quite a scare, Nance. For a moment, we thought he was a goner.