“I was in Brazil, with Antonio. When we flew into Rio the plane passed over the big statue of Christ on top of Corcovado and for the entire time I was there I couldn’t get that out of my head. The statue, I mean, the way it commanded everything below, in every direction. When I had an orgasm the image of Jesus on the mountaintop was in my mind, like I was coming with Him, not Antonio.”
“How old were you?”
“Twenty-five. Rudy and I were separated and when Antonio invited me to go with him to Brazil, I just said yes, without thinking. I left Roy with my mother in Miami and we flew from there.”
“And that was the first time?”
“Uh huh, and it didn’t happen again—not with Antonio, anyway. I only saw him two or three times after we got back to Chicago.”
Roy’s mother and her friend Kay were standing in the lobby of the Oriental Theater. Kay was smoking a cigarette. Her husband, Harvey, and Kitty’s son, Roy, who was eight years old, were inside the theater watching the last few minutes of The Proud Ones, a western starring Robert Ryan as a sheriff in a Kansas town who’s going blind.
“Do you think if I went to Brazil I could have an orgasm with Harvey?”
The two women laughed and Kitty said, “Maybe you should go with Antonio.”
“Is he my type?”
“He looks like Chico, the Mexican gunfighter in the movie, only taller. But Antonio was only an instrument of the Son of God.”
“You should do a commercial for the Catholic Church, Kitty, standing in a mink coat, saying, ‘Jesus made me come.’ Or, ‘I came for Christ.’ ”
“I’m sure the nuns believe it when they masturbate.”
“I thought they weren’t allowed to.”
People began coming out of the theater.
“Mom, you missed the best part. The sheriff can’t see but he uses his hearing to figure out where the bad guy is and shoots him down, anyway.”
Kay’s husband lit a cigarette and watched the crowd leaving.
“See anything you like?” Kay asked.
“The movie was okay. The kid liked it.”
“I mean the women in the lobby.”
“Lay off, Kay.”
“Kitty was just telling me about the time she went to Brazil.”
“I remember when you went there, Mom. You brought me back a little statue of Jesus Christ standing on the top of a mountain.”
“Did you have fun there, Kitty?” Harvey asked.
“She certainly did,” said Kay. “She even had a religious experience.”
“What kind of religious experience?”
“Kay’s just being silly.”
“No, really. She had an epiphany.”
“What’s that?” asked Roy.
“It’s when you see God,” said Kay, “or you feel Him inside you.”
“Do you have to be a Catholic to have one?”
“No, Roy,” Kay said, “but it probably helps.”