So many kids attended Thursday Night Mass at Corpus Christi that they sent a van for us. Rusted lesions covered the side of the two-toned vehicle, whose windows had been replaced by clear plastic and duct tape. The van shuddered as it moved and sounded like it was at war with itself. But somehow it managed to hold itself together and rattle its way through the neighborhood, scooping us up for the weekly folk Mass.
The van stopped on Goodman Street first, for Francie and her grandma, then made its way down Webster Avenue, gathered up the Morales girls, before it turned onto Lamont Place, and parked in front of number four.
Kids came running from houses, shouting that the van was here. Flopping onto the van’s torn vinyl seats, we were whisked away to Mass, where everyone (except Francie’s grandma, who draped herself in a black lace veil, and convulsed like clockwork during the Our Father each week) wore jeans or corduroys and was so relaxed that they moved from wooden pews to the carpeted sanctuary, the bosom of the church. After we’d professed our faith and the bread became body, we’d leave the hard kneelers behind to gather in a circle around the candlelit altar and celebrate together.