Page 65 - What They Did to the Kid

What They Did to the Kid 53

and candles. The choir soared into “Gloria in Excelsis Deo, Glory to
God on High.”
Leaving my soul, I levitated above the congregation. I was more
than an altar boy in black cassock and starched white surplice serv-
ing Father Gerber in his white vestments. I was a seminari an swing-
ing the gold censorium of burning incense out three times on its
golden chains right into the faces of the congregation.
The church was packed with two thousand people standing
behind Barbara Martin standing in the front row closely next to
Danny Boyle crossing his eyes at me, cocking his head, and sticking
out his tongue.
Returning to Misericordia in January, I could remember nothing
significant about that vacation except that the ceiling in our house
seemed lower. My family, the Higgins, my dog, Brownie. Nothing
had changed with anybody.
But everything was changing with me.

Spring 1954

In February, the “Apostleship of Prayer” leaflet for seminarians fea-
tured Saint Valentine, the priest, as Patron of the Month, with the
special mission intention of “Social Justice in Africa.” I was reading
the dictionary and happened on puberty. I had read a lot and knew
whatever puberty was, at fourteen, pubertas was supposed to be hap-
pening to me, the puer, the boy. My father had tried to warn me
something would happen. The priests had warned me.
“What happens to a boy when he’s fourteen,” Gunn had said,
“marks you for life.”
He scared me, but it sounded wonderful, like a secret club of
brotherhood. I knew from my grandfather’s National Geographic
that some tribes initiated their boys and I wondered if that’s what it
was. Some secret ritual nobody ever talked about where they came in
and surprised you and took you out somewhere and maybe painted
you all green and purple and showed you a quick glimpse of a naked
woman and then said you’re a man now.
I really doubted that, because somebody would have leaked
something that stunning out. Besides it would be impure to look

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