This is the last story Anthony was working on. It was still in the early draft stage—not finished, but he wanted to get it out.
Ite Missa Est
cam©2015
I wish I had been able to stop her from landing in the back alley where she was found a day later between some old buildings in Boston’s North End. I wish I had been able to help her. Pull her back or catch her. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t there. I was unable, incapable, impotent.
Rita had sought me out for help. I knew who she was—she was a cousin about 30 years younger than me, but I’d only seen her a few times during her childhood. She heard I was a psychologist living in the Boston suburbs, and called me for help, with the encouragement of her family, from whom I was estranged for no good reason . . . just distance, time and lack of contact. They all thought that a family professional was a safer and more reliable way to go than the North End Mental Health Center right near her, which had not been helping. So she came to see me a few times, this young accountant who dressed as if out of a theatrical wardrobe trunk stored in an attic from the 1930s. She seemed extremely dramatic and equally bizarre in her get-ups the couple of times I saw her. And after her body was discovered, in full costume, I heard, I ended up going to her memorial mass, which I wouldn’t have if she hadn’t found me weeks before that decisive leap.
I was walking through Boston’s North End in the early morning of the memorial, just as the city was coming alive with people and smells and the bustle of business. The summer air was still fresh and yet heavy with Boston and produce and pastry, baking bread, and runoff from fish ice into the gutters and sewers, even though it was already starting to get warm on what was promising to be a hot day. I was dressed appropriately in black pants and shoes and a black shirt with a black satchel over my shoulder.
I felt both purposeful and empty. I didn’t know where the church was exactly, but I knew it was nearby. A young woman noticed me searching, and asked, “Can I help you, father?” Her question caught in my chest and belly.
I said, “Yes, thank you.” I surprised myself with my response. It was as if she rang a bell of my childhood hopes and dreams of someday being a priest. Of having power, of being protected and respected. Not impotent. And so I said yes. It practically seemed a sin to answer that way. Just like identifying yourself as a cop is a crime. But there, then, I finally answered the call—the one I’d been contemplating since I was an altar boy.
I asked her where the church was. She told me it was just up here on the right, very close by, in the middle of an old square, and then she said, as if surprising herself, “Father, will you bless me?”
Again,the bell rang and chimed the call of my youth, my sex-crazy religion. I wanted to be a priest (with my own black car, and weekends off to go where I wanted and do what I wanted when I got there, to be in bars and clubs and places with bad reputations). So I rushed to become an altar boy as soon as I confessed my miniscule transgressions and received the body of Christ. I went to Catholic schools (never nuns, only priests), and now, I had this momentary opportunity to answer that vocation after a life of sin (of saying bad words, harboring and living out impure thoughts). A chance to redeem my lost soul and crucified penis.
So I said, “Yes, I will bless you,” since the sin had been committed and as my father used to say, if you’re going to sin, at least enjoy it. And right there on the sidewalk she assumed a prayerful position. I placed my palm on the top of her head and said, “I bless you in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit,” and made the sign of the cross on her forehead with my thumb, and said, “I bless you in thought.” I did the same on her pink lips, “I bless you in word, and I bless you in deed,” as I made the sign on her prayer-folded hands. Touching her young lips felt like extra sinning, extra good sinning. Stealing a kiss with the full clerical rights to do so.
She barely whispered, “Thank you, Father.” She said “Father” again, and I developed a little spiritual boner. You know how that is. Say it again honey, say it one more time. You know me baby I like to hear it. Say it. Dad says I should enjoy the sin. And so I went on to delight in it a little more. My cock like a relic of long lost hopes and dreams of salvation of potency. My voice lowered and arose solemnly from below my belly. I said, “This blessing is for today, and to take with you all the days of your life.” By now I was in it. Way in it.
She thanked me again, and I began to make a move toward the church with my god-cock in tow. As I was leaving, she grasped for my hand and pulled me back. I reached into my pocket, and pulled out a shined silver dollar.
My mother had given me that silver dollar years before, and I always carried it with me. It was a classic Morgan Liberty Head silver dollar. My mother knew I liked things like that—coins, gadgets, quirky, small delicate or dangerous things. She always had the inside track with me on that. She knew me in this way, in a way nobody else really did. The coin was made of real silver, from the 1800s. I didn’t know what those things were worth, but always kept it in a special pocket so it was never banging against anything else or getting scratched by other coins and thereby losing value. I kept it with me as a lucky piece from my mother. She always had a number of them and often gave me an additional one when I visited her. She kept them in a cylinder fashioned to contain about 30 silver dollar coins. What she mostly had in there were Eisenhower coins from the early to late 1970s—which were nickel-clad copper ones. Not the real silver ones, but still very cool to give as a tip or a talisman.
So when the woman pulled me back that morning in the North End, I reached into that little pocket in my pants and gave her the still warm real silver coin. Handing it to her I said, “This is for you. It’s to bring you luck. You can keep it for as long as you want, and if you meet someone who you think needs it more than you, pass it on to them. And, if I ever see you again, tell me that story and I’ll give you another one.” Because in that moment, I had the intention of getting more from a coin and collectors shop that I knew of in my town. I would go and buy some, and carry one or two Eisenhowers with me, and keep the tradition going.
And I did. I went for only a few days without the coin, which felt a little strange, but ever since then, I keep a stack of them in my office, and one, sometimes more, with me to share with others (but never the Liberty Head which I replaced for a dear price). I have become known as the guy with the silver coins who gives them out. I’ve since given away many silver dollars, and I always say the same thing when I do. And I’ve actually had the opportunity to hear a story of one paid forward, and replace the coin a couple of times over the years. The silver dollar ritual. It all began right there. I made the covenant with that young woman on the street. I know she took it as a sacred object to hold and run her forefinger and thumb over whenever she needed help, or to remember god, or maybe me. It was as if I ordained her into the little cult of old hopeful potent god.
So that woman, she started a tradition with me. Not just of holding on to them, but sharing them, giving them to people as modest mementos, tiny life jackets, little ways of helping people believe they’ll have good luck, or that they’re being saved. Or that they gave someone the prospect of another life. A spiritual one, a life of passion and affection of freedom from suffering. So in some ways, we truly blessed each other.
And unlike my suicided cousin Victor of years before, my father whose moment of death I missed, my cats and dogs who died without me, all the moments I wasn’t there at the time to care or save and minister to ones I loved, all the times I couldn’t come up with the required goods . . . here I felt I had a link with my cousin Rita’s hand on the edge of the roof that fateful night, a way of holding her, pulling her back and blessing her in thought, word and deed.
And ever since I have done this, the silver dollar ritual, in memory of her.
Benedicamus Domino
Ite Missa Est
cam©2015
I wish I had been able to stop her from landing in the back alley where she was found a day later between some old buildings in Boston’s North End. I wish I had been able to help her. Pull her back or catch her. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t there. I was unable, incapable, impotent.
Rita had sought me out for help. I knew who she was—she was a cousin about 30 years younger than me, but I’d only seen her a few times during her childhood. She heard I was a psychologist living in the Boston suburbs, and called me for help, with the encouragement of her family, from whom I was estranged for no good reason . . . just distance, time and lack of contact. They all thought that a family professional was a safer and more reliable way to go than the North End Mental Health Center right near her, which had not been helping. So she came to see me a few times, this young accountant who dressed as if out of a theatrical wardrobe trunk stored in an attic from the 1930s. She seemed extremely dramatic and equally bizarre in her get-ups the couple of times I saw her. And after her body was discovered, in full costume, I heard, I ended up going to her memorial mass, which I wouldn’t have if she hadn’t found me weeks before that decisive leap.
I was walking through Boston’s North End in the early morning of the memorial, just as the city was coming alive with people and smells and the bustle of business. The summer air was still fresh and yet heavy with Boston and produce and pastry, baking bread, and runoff from fish ice into the gutters and sewers, even though it was already starting to get warm on what was promising to be a hot day. I was dressed appropriately in black pants and shoes and a black shirt with a black satchel over my shoulder.
I felt both purposeful and empty. I didn’t know where the church was exactly, but I knew it was nearby. A young woman noticed me searching, and asked, “Can I help you, father?” Her question caught in my chest and belly.
I said, “Yes, thank you.” I surprised myself with my response. It was as if she rang a bell of my childhood hopes and dreams of someday being a priest. Of having power, of being protected and respected. Not impotent. And so I said yes. It practically seemed a sin to answer that way. Just like identifying yourself as a cop is a crime. But there, then, I finally answered the call—the one I’d been contemplating since I was an altar boy.
I asked her where the church was. She told me it was just up here on the right, very close by, in the middle of an old square, and then she said, as if surprising herself, “Father, will you bless me?”
Again,the bell rang and chimed the call of my youth, my sex-crazy religion. I wanted to be a priest (with my own black car, and weekends off to go where I wanted and do what I wanted when I got there, to be in bars and clubs and places with bad reputations). So I rushed to become an altar boy as soon as I confessed my miniscule transgressions and received the body of Christ. I went to Catholic schools (never nuns, only priests), and now, I had this momentary opportunity to answer that vocation after a life of sin (of saying bad words, harboring and living out impure thoughts). A chance to redeem my lost soul and crucified penis.
So I said, “Yes, I will bless you,” since the sin had been committed and as my father used to say, if you’re going to sin, at least enjoy it. And right there on the sidewalk she assumed a prayerful position. I placed my palm on the top of her head and said, “I bless you in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit,” and made the sign of the cross on her forehead with my thumb, and said, “I bless you in thought.” I did the same on her pink lips, “I bless you in word, and I bless you in deed,” as I made the sign on her prayer-folded hands. Touching her young lips felt like extra sinning, extra good sinning. Stealing a kiss with the full clerical rights to do so.
She barely whispered, “Thank you, Father.” She said “Father” again, and I developed a little spiritual boner. You know how that is. Say it again honey, say it one more time. You know me baby I like to hear it. Say it. Dad says I should enjoy the sin. And so I went on to delight in it a little more. My cock like a relic of long lost hopes and dreams of salvation of potency. My voice lowered and arose solemnly from below my belly. I said, “This blessing is for today, and to take with you all the days of your life.” By now I was in it. Way in it.
She thanked me again, and I began to make a move toward the church with my god-cock in tow. As I was leaving, she grasped for my hand and pulled me back. I reached into my pocket, and pulled out a shined silver dollar.
My mother had given me that silver dollar years before, and I always carried it with me. It was a classic Morgan Liberty Head silver dollar. My mother knew I liked things like that—coins, gadgets, quirky, small delicate or dangerous things. She always had the inside track with me on that. She knew me in this way, in a way nobody else really did. The coin was made of real silver, from the 1800s. I didn’t know what those things were worth, but always kept it in a special pocket so it was never banging against anything else or getting scratched by other coins and thereby losing value. I kept it with me as a lucky piece from my mother. She always had a number of them and often gave me an additional one when I visited her. She kept them in a cylinder fashioned to contain about 30 silver dollar coins. What she mostly had in there were Eisenhower coins from the early to late 1970s—which were nickel-clad copper ones. Not the real silver ones, but still very cool to give as a tip or a talisman.
So when the woman pulled me back that morning in the North End, I reached into that little pocket in my pants and gave her the still warm real silver coin. Handing it to her I said, “This is for you. It’s to bring you luck. You can keep it for as long as you want, and if you meet someone who you think needs it more than you, pass it on to them. And, if I ever see you again, tell me that story and I’ll give you another one.” Because in that moment, I had the intention of getting more from a coin and collectors shop that I knew of in my town. I would go and buy some, and carry one or two Eisenhowers with me, and keep the tradition going.
And I did. I went for only a few days without the coin, which felt a little strange, but ever since then, I keep a stack of them in my office, and one, sometimes more, with me to share with others (but never the Liberty Head which I replaced for a dear price). I have become known as the guy with the silver coins who gives them out. I’ve since given away many silver dollars, and I always say the same thing when I do. And I’ve actually had the opportunity to hear a story of one paid forward, and replace the coin a couple of times over the years. The silver dollar ritual. It all began right there. I made the covenant with that young woman on the street. I know she took it as a sacred object to hold and run her forefinger and thumb over whenever she needed help, or to remember god, or maybe me. It was as if I ordained her into the little cult of old hopeful potent god.
So that woman, she started a tradition with me. Not just of holding on to them, but sharing them, giving them to people as modest mementos, tiny life jackets, little ways of helping people believe they’ll have good luck, or that they’re being saved. Or that they gave someone the prospect of another life. A spiritual one, a life of passion and affection of freedom from suffering. So in some ways, we truly blessed each other.
And unlike my suicided cousin Victor of years before, my father whose moment of death I missed, my cats and dogs who died without me, all the moments I wasn’t there at the time to care or save and minister to ones I loved, all the times I couldn’t come up with the required goods . . . here I felt I had a link with my cousin Rita’s hand on the edge of the roof that fateful night, a way of holding her, pulling her back and blessing her in thought, word and deed.
And ever since I have done this, the silver dollar ritual, in memory of her.
Benedicamus Domino