Sitting on the ground by the chain-link fence between our Denver yards, I watched the little dark-haired girl in the yard next door with curiosity. Perhaps two or three years older than me, she moved with a grace I didn’t have, although I’m not sure I would have known to label it that way at five. What I knew then is that I liked watching her pirouette around her small, shaded yard. She turned summersaults and cartwheels from one side of the yard to the other. When she finally plunked herself down by the fence opposite me, sweat poured off her face and her shiny black hair took its time settling back onto her shoulders.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” I said back.
I don’t know what the content of our conversation was after that. I imagine she told me her name—Margo—and I told her mine. I might have told her that we just moved here from Michigan. She might have told me that she’d lived there all her life. The only thing I remember her saying as clearly as if she sat across the room from me at this moment, are these words:
“I hope you’re not Catholic. We hate Catholics.”
Even now, I can feel my little red-haired self freeze like a cartwheel suspended in mid-air. The birds stopped singing. The color drained from the trees. Everyone in my life up to this point, at least as far as I knew, was Catholic. Well, except Aunt Babe and Uncle Paul. They were farmers, and God excused them from going to church on Sunday because they had chores to do. They were Catholics in their hearts, or so I thought. I was sure of that. In fact, at that time, I didn’t know you could be anything but Catholic.
I was too young to know the Catholic teachings about standing up for one’s faith, about how martyrs like St. Stephen were put to death for refusing to disavow their beliefs and that that’s what made them martyrs in the first place. Even years later, when I was ten or eleven, and I sat in my catechism class and dreamed of being a martyr for Jesus, I’m not sure I considered this moment as evidence that I had what it takes.
What I knew was that in the same way I had red hair, I was Catholic, and I couldn’t lie about it. “We are,” I said.
I don’t know what Margo said next. I don’t know what else I said. I just know that, as a young adult, the first time I sat in an anti-racism training session and was asked to tell the person next to me about my first memory of being different, I remembered this moment. I remembered Margo’s summersaults and cartwheels. I remembered her shiny black hair. I remembered the chain link fence between us and the hard ground underneath my tiny body. I remembered feeling empty inside like she had reached in and grabbed my guts and pulled them through the wire fence. It was the first time that someone had said they hated me for who I was. I wish I could say it was the last.
Somehow, in the way little kids do, we got through this difficult encounter. I don’t know if it was immediate, or if it took some time. What I know is that Margo became my first best friend.
For the two short years we lived in Denver, I attended first grade at St. James Catholic School, went to Mass every school day, every Sunday, and every Holy Day of Obligation, and began to learn about martyrs, saints, and what it meant to be a Catholic. Margo attended her public school and her Protestant church. But in our free time, we were inseparable. We played school on our front porches. She tried to teach me to turn cartwheels. She’d sneak over at night so we could talk through my bedroom window. She came to my sixth birthday party and pinned the tail on the donkey. Even her parents were friendly to my parents, as good neighbors were in those days, despite their feelings about our faith.
My parents worked hard to make my brother and me good Catholic kids. They told us to be nice to people no matter who they are, be polite to grown-ups, always tell the truth. At the same time, they told us not to tell anyone, even my best friend Margo, that Dad had been married before. Some stuff, they said, was just for the family to know.
That was the beginning of my lessons in how to keep secrets.
Without question, I was a happy child in the years we lived in Denver. My parents loved me. I had a good mix of school and play. My best friend lived right next door. And I loved going on summer trips with Dad to explore the Rocky Mountains and surrounding countryside. Dad’s sales territory included Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and the Dakotas, and what better way to sell Daisy guns to Western Auto dealers and local hardware stores in small western towns than to be accompanied by a live six-year-old model.
I loved being a cowboy and felt immensely more myself wearing my vest, hat, and holster than I ever did in a dress holding a doll. If I wasn’t dressed as a cowboy, I often chose to go without a shirt. I don’t know how old I was when my mother told me that I couldn’t do that anymore, but I’m sure she did. It’s striking to me now that someone, probably my father, felt perfectly OK about taking a photo of his little shirtless girl.
It was around this time that I first remember lying to avoid trouble. My first-grade classroom was in a small brick building across the street from the main school and church buildings. At lunchtime, we would put on our coats, line up alphabetically in single file at the front of the classroom, and then follow Sister Mary Robert across the street, up the stairs, down the long hallway, and into the cafeteria. We would sit at long wooden tables, like never-ending picnic tables with benches built in, and wait for cafeteria volunteers, like my mother, to bring us our trays. I imagine we were too young to be counted on to successfully carry our own trays without dropping them, so we waited as patiently as first graders could for our food to be delivered to us.
On the day in question, my tray arrived and was placed in front of me. I don’t know if my mom put it there or if one of the other mothers did. What I remember is seeing two yeast rolls balanced precariously on the edge of my brightly colored plate— white, puffy rolls, lightly browned at the top and edges, smelling of yeast and dough, with a little hint of sweet. What I remember is that I gagged.
I gagged a lot at that age. At practically every meal something made me gag. I suspect I might have had undiagnosed food allergies, perhaps to the first wave of processed foods that found their way to our plates in the late fifties and early sixties. But back then, if it was on your plate, you ate it. You did not waste food. Whether it was for the starving children in Africa or the saintly virtue of being thankful for what you were given, cleaning our plates was right up there with honoring our fathers and mothers. I sometimes wondered why it wasn’t one of the Ten Commandments, but then, I wasn’t sure which one it could replace because The Eleven Commandments just didn’t sound right.
Notwithstanding, the thought of putting those rolls into my mouth was too much for me. At a moment when my mother wasn’t looking, when Sister Mary Robert was engaged in conversation with one of the mothers or attending to another of my classmates, I did the unconscionable. I slipped the rolls off my plate and onto the floor. Nestled between rows of little girls’ patent leather shoes and boys’ loafers, there they rested. If I leaned back and tilted my head just so, I could see them there on the buffed linoleum cafeteria floor.
My heart raced a little when I realized what I had done—the sin I was sure I had committed. Even knowing that, though, was better than putting those disgusting rolls in my mouth. According to my daily catechism class, I wouldn’t reach the age of reason for another whole year, until I was seven. At that time, I would have to go to confession and tell the priest the bad things I did, but I figured that until then I was safe. What I hadn’t taken into account was the wrath of Sister Mary Robert.
The rest of lunch proceeded without incident, and by the time we put our coats back on, lined up, and headed back to our isolated classroom across the street, I was sure I’d gotten away with it.
It wasn’t until the end of the day, just before class was about to be dismissed that Sister Mary Robert addressed us.
She stood at the front of the class with her hands clasped underneath her scapula, the long piece of cloth that hung in front of her habit, and declared, “Someone in this class wasted food today. Someone threw their delicious hot rolls onto the floor of the cafeteria. We are going to stay here until the person who did this comes forward.”
I could feel my body stiffen in my seat. I glanced around the room without moving my head – just shifting my eyes from side to side. I waited.
“Well?” Sister Mary Robert asked, “Is anyone going to admit that they did this?” She looked at each of us as if she could read the list of sins engraved on our souls. I forced myself to loosen up, to look normal, to not let her read my list.
I waited some more.
The bell rang, and still no one moved. After what seemed like years, a few mothers came to the classroom door to see why their child hadn’t yet been released. My brother and I walked the few blocks to our house every day, so my mother must have waited there, wondering why we were late. I don’t know what my brother did—if he waited for me or went home. I just remember sitting there, feeling guilty and ashamed for what might have been the first time in my life. But even that was not enough for me to admit my wrongdoing.
I don’t know how much time passed before she finally released us. What I know is that I never came forward. Somewhere inside of me, I found a place to keep my secret. There was power in keeping a secret, although I doubt that I would have been able to describe it that way then.
What I knew was that, just like the fact that my dad had been married before, I could keep some things to myself. Was that the same as lying? I’m not sure I tried to differentiate lying and secret-keeping at the ripe old age of six. All I remember is that I liked knowing things that others didn’t, especially if keeping them to myself kept me out of trouble.
Eventually, the roll incident was replaced by another first-grade crime. “Someone in this classroom,” Sister intoned, “went into a bathroom stall, locked the door, and then crawled underneath it to leave it locked.” She scanned the room with her x-ray eyes. Even though I felt like throwing up, I sat there stoically. I wouldn’t let her eyes penetrate me.
I don’t know why I did it – why I locked the bathroom door. It was just one of those things that my little first-grade self felt called to do—an early act of rebellion. Maybe it seemed like a magic trick. I loved magic shows, especially when the magician made something disappear or reappear. Maybe when I crawled under the stall door, I imagined myself reappearing in a magic trick.
“We are going to sit here,” Sister Mary Robert commanded as she slid into the chair behind her desk, “until someone,” (pause for effect), “confesses.”
Despite my sweaty palms, I again learned that the best strategy was silence. When no one confessed and she finally released us, all she said was, “Jesus knows, children. Jesus knows.” I gulped but walked on out the door.
The next time they served us yeast rolls at lunch, I stuffed them into my mouth, praying I wouldn’t throw up all over the cafeteria table. Although I knew how to keep a secret, I also knew it came with a risk of discovery I wasn’t willing to take for yucky yeast rolls or silly magic tricks. It would be a few more years before I fully mastered the art of secret-keeping—at a time when the stakes were much higher—but I was on my way.
Read Chapter 4: “Whisperings”
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I can relate. It was definitely considered a sin to waste food, and we were expected to eat every bite. I believe I was in 3rd grade, attending St Joseph's in Enid, Oklahoma when I had a "cafeteria moment" of my own. It didn't involve a deception on my part, but I felt exonerated by the outcome. They served us stewed tomatoes at lunch that fateful day (probably canned ones - the worst kind of all), and I flatly refused to eat them. The nun who confronted me finally succeeded in forcing me to put then in my mouth, and before I could even swallow them I projectile vomited all over the table. I can't recall exactly what transpired after that, but I imagine she regretted forcing that on me. =:o)
Ha! I love that your grandmother never said anything! What a gift!