I wake up covered in sweat. I hear my name called over and over again.
“Susie, Karen get up and get dressed. It’s time to get ready for Mass.”
Oh, god, I think. I hate Sundays. Why is it so hot? It is only the end of
Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church, Maple Shade, NJ 1957.
May? I roll over and my sister, who is sleeping in the bed with me, said, “Get off me. You big oaf.”
So, I roll off the bed in the other direction. My older sisters were already out and, on their way, wherever that was. I throw on my Sunday clothes and walk slowly down the steps to the kitchen. My stomach is growling, but since I wasn’t allowed to eat anything until after Mass, I know I would have to suffer.
As I step into the kitchen, I see my mother standing at the counter washing last nights’ glasses and cups. My Dad has his head bowed as if in prayer but is petting his dog Andy on the head. “Hi, Mom, hi Daddy.”
My mom looks up with a big smile on her face.” Good morning Susie, how did you sleep?”
“I slept fine Mom,” I didn’t, but my mom is an awful worrier, and I don’t like to give her any more cause for worry. My father is sitting there listening to this exchange, and finally says, “Hey Susie, what’s up?”
“Nothing Daddy, just waiting to go to church. I hope Sister John Michael isn’t there this morning. She’s such an awful grouch on Sundays. And I hope Father Nolan is saying the mass; he always gives a short sermon. And we are usually in and out in less than a half-hour.”
“Susie, go call your sister Karen, and tell her it is time to get up.”
“Oh Mom, you know it’s so hard to wake her up.”
“Susie, just go upstairs, and get her up, don’t yell from the bottom of the steps.”
I stomp up the steps to the doorway of our bedroom, and Karen is still in bed with her head covered by the blanket, deeply asleep, or pretending to be. So, I step closer to her and stick my hand under the covers and start tickling her on her side. She is very ticklish, and she jumps up out of bed, mad as a hornet. Her face was red as a beet, yelling. “Get out, get out of here, I’m going to kill you.” I laugh and run down the steps.
My Mom says, “What is all the yelling about Susie?”
“Nothing Mom, Karen should be right down.”
“You two better not be fighting, or you’ll both be in trouble.”
I walk over to the sink to get a glass of water, hoping that it will be enough to quiet down my growling stomach until after Mass. Karen and I head out to church when we hear the church bells ringing. We don’t have to walk far since we only live two houses away from the church.
Karen is ignoring me, even though she’s walking right next to me. She’s probably still mad about me tickling her awake. As we’re walking towards the church steps, I see that Sister John Michael is standing there twirling her giant rosary beads and frowning. And beside her is Father Siflarski who is rather plump and has a baldhead. On top of his bald head is perched a very unnatural-looking, black toupee.
Karen and I look at them and groan. Thinking oh no, the double whammy, Evil Sister John Michael, and long-winded Father Syflarski. We agree about how much we hate going to the children’s Mass on Sunday morning.
All the kids gather in pairs in the vestibule of the church, waiting for the word from Sister to start slowly walking towards the pews. This is where the kids sit every Sunday. Karen sits as far away from me as possible. My friend, Helen, runs up to stand next to me so she can be my partner. Helen and I resemble each other, and most of the time, people think she’s my twin sister, not Karen.
Helen’s father is a Maple Shade cop, and everyone calls him Skip. His hobby is making bullets. One day when I was over her house, he said we could come in the garage, and he would demonstrate how he made them. He had a small furnace that melted the metal, and then he poured the liquid metal into molds. He had all different size molds. He used a tool like big tweezers to move the hot molds into slots until they cooled. And He showed us some of the finished bullets.
One time he was driving Helen and me to the Cherry Hill Mall, and he suddenly grabbed a light from under his seat and stuck his arm out the window, and put the flashing light on the top of the car. Then he started racing down the street chasing some other car and forced them to pull over. He wasn’t even wearing his police uniform.
It was exciting. I thought maybe they would start shooting at one another. But they didn’t. Skip just gave the guy a warning for driving too fast in a residential neighborhood. I didn’t tell my mother about this. Because I knew that would be the end of me going anywhere with Helen and her dad, as I said, my mother was a worrier!
The church starts to fill up. The pews that weren’t filled with children are filled with the parents of the students and their siblings who are too young to attend school. It’s a noisy Mass, what with the nuns walking up and down the isles terrorizing the kids with their little clickers that they hold in the palm of their hands.
If anyone got out of hand, a nun would stand next to the pew and click at you. If you were warned more than once, you know you were going to be in trouble in school the next day.
Father Syflarski and two altar boys are walking up the aisle at a snail’s pace. Father Syflarski swings an incense burner, and one of the altar boys rings a bell over and over as they move towards the altar. And so, the Mass begins.
Helen and I had created a kind of hand signals system where we could communicate with each other about what was going on in the church. Very often, the other kids would try to get each other in trouble with the nuns by making faces or farting so others would laugh.
Next thing you know one of the nuns would be next to them clicking away like a mad cricket. I love to get Helen laughing because she has the kind of laugh that is contagious and sometimes, I got her laughing. Before you know it all the girls in the whole aisle were laughing. And then I would kneel down as if I was silently praying and minding my own business, and then the nuns come!
On this particular Sunday, I happen to notice that the woman who is standing or at times sitting or kneeling in front of me has a hanger inside the collar of her coat. And the hook is jabbing her in the back of her neck every time she puts her head up. She doesn’t seem to realize what’s the source of her neck pain. Because every time she puts her hand to her neck, she puts her head down and doesn’t feel the hanger.
Well, I was having a good time watching her dilemma, and I start laughing, and the more I tried to hold it in, the more it wanted to come out. I poke Helen in her side to get her attention, and she looks at me, then the lady, and she starts laughing, and the chain effect begins.
Next thing you know Sister John Michael, and Sister Joseph Catherine are both standing next to our isle. And we are all escorted out of the church to the front steps, where they try to wring the truth out of us about who started the riot. Going so far as to threaten eternal damnation.
But there is one thing that can be said for Catholic school kids is that we stick together. And we do not rat each other out. So, no one had much of anything to say. And we all had our heads bowed, and our lips sealed. Sister Joseph Catherine did her best to try and make us talk, but nobody did.
The final result is we would all be spending the next week after school clapping erasers. This was my after-school chore, so it didn’t make any difference to me. Then they march us back into the church, everyone in the congregation stares at us like we were convicted criminals on the way to the death chamber.
We file back into our aisle. Personally, I am glad because we had missed a good portion of the Mass as Father Syflarski was already past the Our Father, and up to Communion. Which meant we had missed the gospel and his sermon. I thanked God for that, I can tell you. After we had all marched up to communion, the kneeling, standing, began again in earnest. The Catholic Church is always making people stand up, sit down, and kneel. It was a real workout just going to Mass on Sunday.
At the end of the Mass, Father Syflarski begins the slow procession out of the church with the incense, clanging bells, and all. Then we file out one aisle at a time as always. Oh, did I mention the Catholic Church is big on drama only they call it a ceremony.
As I walk out of the church, I think I’m home free, Sister Joseph Catherine grabs me by the collar and pulls me to the side, and says, “Well Miss Carberry, don’t think you got away with anything. I know you were the one that started all the malarkey and believe me, you will pay for it either in this life or the next. God knows all and sees all.”
When she let go of my collar, I ran down the street towards my house like the devil is after me. I burst through our front door. My mom says, what’s the rush Susie you act like the devil has you by the coattails. “I look at her and said,” well he did Mom, but I got away. What’s for breakfast?”