I wanted to run from them, straight from that corridor back to my school in Ohio. I wasn’t as scared of Davis as I was of my own complicity- afraid that I would get caught hearing these sentiments and just listening placidly without defending what I knew was right. I knew that I was being weak, but I was too scared to challenge him. I let what he said go unanswered, and just kept staring down at my lock.
The next instant, I felt his hand on my face, and adrenaline rushed through my body. Instead of the attack my body expected though, I was surprised to feel his gentle grasp on my chin. I think that for the first time since I had left Ohio, my body relaxed.
With his palm over my chin and his fingers squeezing my cheeks, I recognized his perfume from the ambient scent of our gym’s locker room. Right Guard and Old Spice, the anxious cocktail of eighth graders racing to get started.
I let him turn my head so that we were facing each other, his icy blue eyes locked on my own.
“How…do…you…get…” he deliberated, “ a priest...” and then he paused to trace the ash on my forehead with his free index finger. “To FUCK,” he continued, illustrating for me by pumping his hips back and forth with exaggerated strokes. Then he took his hand off my face and pressed his palms together in front of his heart as if in prayer. “A nun,” he said, bowing his head modestly and keeping his eyes trained on mine.
I shook my head no, which was the best that I could do. Davis nodded, now certain that I heard him, and looked pleased that he had succeeded in extracting a reaction from me.
“You dress her up as the alter boy!” he finished, puncturing the tension in the corridor. Scattered sniggering and sighs of relief rose from the hallway. The girls standing at his side looked on blankly.
“Does that shit come with kneepads?” one of Davis’ boys called at him from the stairway. But Davis was through, and was already retreating back down the corridor between his two girls.
“Yo Jesus, did that thing come with kneepads?” one of the other kids called at me, trying to catch some of the fish that Davis was too stuffed to eat.
That night, I decided that I hated New York City. Why was I the only kid at school who had been to church for Ash Wednesday? I still don’t have this answer, by the way: New York, the melting pot, self-professed nucleus of American Diversity - why was I the only one?
My Ash Wednesday experience (and the subsequent Jesus nickname, which stuck) killed any chance I had of making friends at public school. Afterwards, I'd have been lucky to be ostracized.
I reacted the simplest way I could, keeping to myself and trying to shut the other kids out of my reality. I made believe that they didn't exist at all, and just pretended that I couldn't hear all the stupid crap they would call out at me when they were trying to impress each other.
At the end of each week though, Sunday brought a day of rest - a day of respite from my friendless New York existence. Each seventh day was like a mini-vacation back to Ohio, back in time to before we had left. The kids at church were all from Pennsylvania, and they were night-and-day different from the stuck-up, weighted down New York mercenaries that I went to school with. After church we played sports, went to movies, went to the mall - just like I was back at home. Those Sundays made me feel that I was living a dual life; like my time at church was spent under a secret identity, where no one knew that I was Jesus.
