SAINT FRED 
One February morning in the last year that the Mass was said in Latin at Queen of Apostles parish, tiny, elderly Sister Alice Marie asked her eighth graders for a volunteer to fetch a pair of bookends from the library down the hall. She looked around at all the waving arms before finally pointing at someone.
“Fred. You go.”
Feeling special, Fred got up and headed out of the room, then down the dim hallway swinging his arms, enjoying the cool air of freedom while it lasted.
The library was a very small one. Father Dillon was in there, alone, sitting at the table with a thin black book.
“Good morning, Father.”
“Close the door, Fred.”
Fred closed it, explaining his mission.
Father told him to sit down for a minute.
Fred sat across from him, a cold spot in his stomach.
Father closed his book and folded his hands over it. “I spoke with Father Rowley this morning. You’ve been serving six o’clock Mass for him this week, isn’t that right?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Along with . . . Alex Koenig, is it?”
“Yes, Father.”
Father nodded. Then he said, “Fred?”
“Yes, Father?”
“I would like you to recite the Confiteor for me.”
Fred’s shoes filled with sweat. “Right now, Father?”
“Would you do that for me please?”
He couldn’t. He had never learned it. It was such a long prayer. But you said it with your head bowed all the way down, so you could just mumble until your partner was through. It was all Latin anyway and nobody knew what it meant except Father and God, and Fred was pretty sure God didn’t mind, not very much anyway, given some of the other things people did, murder for example.
Father was waiting.
Fred gave it a shot. He looked down and said quietly, “Confiteor deos,” and then began mumbling rapidly.
“Stop.”
He stopped.
“Do you know what the word ‘confiteor’ means?” Father asked him.
“No, Father.”
“It means ‘I confess.’ Do you confess, Fred?”
He looked up.
Father leaned over the table toward him. “Do you confess to not knowing the Confiteor? To faking it? Faking the Confiteor? In front of the priest? In front of the congregation? In front of God? Do you?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Yes Father, what.”
“Yes, Father, I confess.”
Father drew back and studied him, his head to one side.
Fred looked down again.
Father said, “Do you have any idea what an honor, what a privilege, what a . . . sacred privilege it is to serve Holy Mass? Do you have any idea?”
“Yes, Father.”
“You do?”
“No, Father.”
“You don’t?”
“I don’t know, Father.”
Fred heard him sigh, and looked up. “I’m sorry, Father.”
Father nodded. “I’m sorry too, Fred. I’m very sorry. But I’m afraid I have to tell you: I don’t think you’re worthy to serve Mass. Frankly, I don’t think you’re altar-boy material.”
Fred began crying a little, surprising himself. For one thing, he was thirteen. Also, he didn’t really care very much about being an altar boy, especially the hours, and in fact he’d been wondering lately if there was something like an honorable discharge available. But the way Father told him he wasn’t altar-boy material made him feel like such a failure, not only as an altar boy but as a person, as a human being.
“Father, I’ll learn it. I’ll memorize it. I promise.”
Father shook his head no.
“I promise, Father.”
“I think you should go back to your room now,” Father told him, and opened his little book again.
Fred sat there.
“Go on,” Father told him without looking up.
Fred got up and trudged to the door. But then he remembered. “Father, I’m supposed to bring back some bookends. Do you know where they are?”
“That’s all right.”
“Sister wanted them.”
“Go on back, Fred.”
Something rose up inside of him. “She sent me here to get them, Father. She picked me.”
Father got up from his chair. “Return to your classroom. Now.”
Fred’s legs felt wobbly but he stood his ground: “She chose me, Father.”
Father smiled, sadly. “Sister doesn’t need any bookends, Fred. She didn’t choose you. I told her to send you here.”
“She asked for a volunteer.”
Father shook his head with that sad, insulting little smile. “She didn’t wish to embarrass you in front of the others, that’s all. She was just being kind. Go on back now. Go on.”
He went back.
Fred began noticing other things he faked besides the Confiteor.
Little things.
Drying the dishes, for example. His mother would wash and he would supposedly wipe, but not really: he would just make a few rapid passes with the dish towel and put the thing away, the plate or whatever, still wet. Or the fake way he cleaned his room, kicking stuff under the bed or into the closet. Or at school while Sister was explaining long division or the Trinity, he would sit there nodding his head as if he were actually listening. Or coming back after recess: limping, rolling his head around, eyes half closed, as if he’d been in six different fights out there, in case Jean Galloway happened to be looking. He even caught himself doing things to fake himself out. Drinking a bottle of strawberry pop, for example, he would give a phony “Ahhh” after every sip, to show himself how good it was, how much he was enjoying this delicious bottle of strawberry pop, which he was enjoying, but not that much.
He began wondering if everything he did was fake.
That was a scary thought. That was a very scary thought.
He ended up turning to Jesus, the one person he knew he couldn’t fake out. Lord, help me try to be more sincere, that was his prayer throughout the day. And at night he would kneel on the floor beside his bed, raise his face, and spread his arms out wide, like someone in a holy card: Lord, help me, help me . . .
He began going to confession every Saturday, always choosing Father Dillon’s box. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” he would whisper into Father’s ear behind the grate. But by now he was getting to be so upright, honest, and sincere he didn’t have any sins to confess, mortal or venial. So he would mention faults, usually some little fake thing he caught himself doing, some little leftover phoniness: “Father, I was playing touch football and caught a pass and threw myself on the ground to make it look like a diving catch and then I kept rolling over and over.”
Father would sigh, knowing who it was by now.
“I think I rolled over three times, Father, possibly four.”
Father would tell him to go in peace and slide shut the little window, hard.
One night, sure enough, Jesus appeared in his room, holding up two fingers, smiling gently. Fred knew this was only his imagination, but he also knew Jesus was helping him imagine, inspiring him. So he listened carefully.
Hello, Fred.
Hello, Jesus.
Congratulations on the way you’ve turned yourself around.
Thank you, Lord.
Keep up the good work.
I will, Lord. You know I will.
Attaboy. The other thing I came to say, I want you back serving Mass. You’re definitely altar-boy material now, in fact almost priest material. So I want you to go see Father Dillon. Tell him Jesus sent you.
He won’t believe me.
Probably not.
He doesn’t like me very much, Lord.
I’ve noticed that.
He thinks I’m a fake.
He’s jealous, Fred.
Of your saintliness. It’s eating him up.
Lord, I’m not a saint, not even close.
Spoken like a true saint.
“Father will see you now,” the squat little rectory lady told him, and stood by Father Dillon’s open door, her arm showing him in.
Father was sitting behind a large, polished desk, nothing on it but a green blotter with shiny leather corners and a pen in a holder. His hands were folded on the blotter, his head to one side, with the little smirk he always had for Fred, as if he saw right through him, as if Fred amused him.
“Good afternoon, Father.”
“What can I do for you, Fred?”
“Father, I would like to get back into altar boys if I could. I think I’m ready now. I’ve memorized the Confiteor and . . . well, I’ve changed my ways, completely.”
Father shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
That was quick.
Fred continued standing there.
Father asked him if there was anything else.
“May I say something, Father?”
“Go right ahead.”
“Our Lord appeared to me last night.”
“Is that right.”
“He said I should try and get back into altar boys, that I should ask you about it.”
“I’m sorry, Fred, but I don’t believe you.”
Father stood up. “Enough.” He pointed toward the door. “Out you go.”
Fred walked to the door, then turned around. “I’ll pray for you, Father.”
“Out.”
Fred began getting up every morning in time to make seven o’clock Mass, the one Father Dillon always ran. There were never many people, so he was able to sit right in the middle of the front pew. He was receiving the Eucharist each day as well, and as he waited at the altar he kept his eyes on Father, whose mouth always slid to the side when he saw Fred kneeling there. “Corpus Domini nostri,” Father would pronounce, having no choice, as he placed the wafer on Fred’s tongue, the altar boy holding the paten under his chin in case of crumbs. The altar boy was never anyone saintly or even close to it, yet there he was, in his cassock and surplice, while here was Fred in his school uniform. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right. He hated Father Dillon.
But as he returned to his pew all his anger would dissolve along with the host in his mouth, the sweet, loving mercy of Jesus seeping into his heart, and he would kneel and pray for Father Dillon, asking Our Lord to help Father get over this notion he had about Fred, that he was some kind of phony, some kind of fake saint:
Lord, help him to understand.
Meanwhile Fred’s mother was becoming concerned, since along with attending daily Mass he’d also begun speaking to her kindly and sympathetically and had even begun doing what he could to help around the house.
“All right, Fred, what’s going on?” she finally asked him one day, after coming home from work to find him mopping the kitchen floor.
“Just thought I would get this, save you the trouble.”
It was just the two of them, his father having died in Korea a month after Fred was born. She had a photo of him in his army uniform on the lamp table in the living room, his hat tilted back, flashing a slanted, handsome smile. Fred knew it was hard for her: she was a real estate agent and had to look spiffy and maintain a perky attitude and she wasn’t all that spiffy and perky a person.
She stood there watching him mop the floor. “Is there something you want to tell me, Fred? Something you want to talk about, that I should know?”
“Actually, Mom, there is.” He stopped mopping and looked at her. “Jesus loves you.”
She sighed, wearily. “Fred . . .”
He went back to mopping. “He really does, Mom.”
One person who had no doubts at all about Fred’s saintliness was his teacher, Sister Alice Marie. She was very old and rather feeble but could see what Jesus saw: how completely Fred had turned himself toward Heaven. She began finding excuses to keep him after school, to unpack some books or wash the blackboard or even help her check math papers. Fred was glad to oblige. He enjoyed the way she looked at him, as if he was giving off a soft light.
One day after school while he was finishing up washing the blackboard Sister asked him if he’d ever seen Jesus.
Fred told her, casually, “He comes to my room now and then, Sister, usually late at night.”
“Oh, I knew it,” she said, and brought her small hands together. “And what does He say to you, Fred?”
“Mostly just, you know, keep up the good work.”
Sister shook her head. “How wonderful, how wonderful.”
“It really is, y’know?” he said. “When you think about it.”
She asked him shyly, “Has He ever . . . possibly . . . mentioned me?”
Fred gave her what she wanted: “He told me I was very lucky to have someone like you for a teacher.”
“Oh, Fred, He said that?”
“He did, Sister.”
Her cup began running over, which he found a little disgusting, so he made the sign of the cross in the air, blessing her, and got out of there.
Walking home he was beaten up by Jerry Klinkhammer, but not very badly. Once Klinkhammer saw Fred wasn’t going to resist, he lost interest.
Fred held on to his sainthood through the summer, and naturally he wished to attend the Catholic high school, St. Anthony’s, in the fall. The teachers there were mostly priests—not Dominicans, like Father Dillon, but Jesuits, known for their intelligence—but his mother didn’t have the money, not even close to it. So he had to attend Jefferson, which was huge, and you had to be in a different classroom every period, with five minutes to find it, and he kept getting lost. He hated walking in late, so he often ended up in one of the bathrooms sitting in a stall, praying to Our Lord to help him find the way.
Our Lord said maybe if he didn’t go following Vanessa Hennesey around the halls like a little panting dog, he would find his room in time.
This was something new: this banging of his heart whenever he saw her, this dry mouth, this clamminess, this urgent stirring in his pants, this boner. She was in his first-period history class, so impure looking with her black eyeliner and wild red hair, her gypsy fortune-teller clothes, bangles on her wrists, and the way she strode through the hallway swinging her long, skinny, freckled arms, never carrying books, a brazen look on her painted face. She was a harlot. That was the word the Bible used for girls like her. A harlot.
Fred loved that word.
You harlot, he would tell her from his bed at night.
He pictured her standing there, hands on her hips, tossing back her head, laughing her brazen harlot’s laugh.
Please, Lord, make her go away?
Please, Lord, please? she would say, mocking him.
You harlot.
She laughed and took off all her clothes.
You filthy harlot.
In the confessional box one Saturday he said to Father Dillon quietly, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”
Recognizing Fred’s voice, Father sighed.
“Father . . . I committed an impure act with myself.”
Fred waited.
Father finally spoke: “That is a very grave sin,” he whispered. “Our Lord hates that sin very much. Do you know why?”
“Yes, Father.”
“You do?”
“No, Father.”
“You don’t?”
“I don’t know, Father.”
“I’ll tell you why. Because the body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and you have defiled that temple. Do you know what the word ‘defile’ means?”
“I’m pretty sure, Father.”
“It means to take something pure and holy and make it foul and loathsome. Do you know what the word ‘loathsome’ means?”
“Yes, Father. I do.”
Father let him kneel there crying.
“All right, don’t overdo it.”
“I’m not,” he said.
“And don’t raise your voice at me. Who do you think you are?”
He knew Father was waiting for him to apologize. He let Father wait.
“Do you want forgiveness or not?” Father asked him.
“Yes,” he said.
“Yes, what.”
“Yes, Father.”
“All right, then. Pray the rosary. Pray night and day. Pray to Our Lady. She’s the one most deeply offended by your sin. Try to imagine the way Our Blessed Mother feels while watching what you do to yourself.”
“She watches, Father?”
“Of course she does, and it makes her sick. Now say a sincere Act of Contrition and go in peace,” he said, sliding shut the little grate in Fred’s face.
Asshole, Fred thought, and left without bothering to say an Act of Contrition.
Walking home, hands jammed in his coat pockets, dead leaves everywhere, he knew he wouldn’t be back. He wasn’t going to quit thinking about Vanessa Hennesey or quit defiling himself, so why pretend to be sorry? Let Father Dillon win, he thought, who cares? It was time to move on.
In his bed that night while Our Lady watched with loathing, covering her eyes but peeking through the fingers, Fred whispered like a prayer, “Vanessa . . . Vanessa . . . oh, Vanessa . . .”