Prologue

Dark spirits flourished in ancient folklore—demons whose sole purpose was to bend victims to their will and punish those who failed to comply. This inhuman rogues’ gallery included the Dybbuks, who haunted the dreams of early Jews, and the Afreets, who tormented characters in numerous Middle Eastern legends. Other cultures used different names, but these spirits could be found in the mythology of virtually every civilization since the dawn of recorded history.

As a child in Catholic grade school, I had a simpler name for my dark spirits. Ignoring my classmates’ more colorful descriptors—I just called them nuns.

Believing I would benefit from a Catholic school education, my parents enrolled me in Saint Jerome’s Grade School in the fall of 1999. Located in a middle-class neighborhood in the city of Cleveland Heights, Saint Jerome’s was a huge concrete and brick monolith that once housed nearly eight hundred students. The student population was down to two hundred fifty at the time of my arrival, and the school shut some classrooms due to lack of use. Those enrollment declines continued after my graduation, and the bishop of Cleveland eventually closed Saint Jerome’s and several other Cleveland parishes with the goal of “better allocating limited church resources.” The fact that these resources were later distributed to the more affluent suburbs of Greater Cleveland was said by the bishop to be purely a coincidence.

At the time I attended, Saint Jerome’s was also the only school in the Cleveland Catholic Diocese where nuns were still a significant percentage of the teaching faculty. In my pretransition childhood, that should have been an advantage. Never one to hide their feelings, the nuns openly favored the girls. Girls generally followed the rules, were unlikely to mouth off during class, and were far less likely than boys to cause trouble overall.

To the nuns’ dismay, I was an exception to the nice-girl rule. I preferred playing football with the boys to any of the more sedate games normally associated with my sex. I also questioned virtually every point my teachers raised in class, particularly over matters of religion. My queries reflected no interest in Catholic doctrine. It was the nuns’ demand for unquestioning acceptance that really pissed me off.

Adding to my frustration at school was the presence of my brother, Paul. Known by the faculty as “the good Luvello,” Paul accepted anything the nuns told him with the same loving look displayed by dogs when fed unwanted table scraps after a meal. I wanted more than scraps. I wanted a place at the table.

It was this tendency to rebel, both verbally and physically, that landed me in frequent trouble at Saint Jerome’s. My transgressions ranged from openly questioning church doctrine to accidentally, sort of, running down an old nun on the school playground. My friend John still talks about the time our teacher told us Mary spent her entire life as a virgin. To the teacher’s chagrin, I asked if that was why Joseph died so long before she did.

The latter incident resulted in my mother’s first trip to the school principal’s office. When she told my father about her day, Dad almost spit out his coffee from laughing so hard. My mother always blamed him for my irreverent sense of humor.

For all my intentional misdeeds, it was my teacher’s reaction to a more honest question that bothered me the most. One of the nuns, Sister Michelle, yelled at our class for not paying attention during morning prayer. In a lecture we heard frequently, Sister told us our behavior was making God cry.

I listened to these daily diatribes with only minimal attention. I knew God couldn’t cry as frequently as the nuns claimed. Chronically depressed patients in psychiatric wards don’t cry that often.

Whether it was from that thought or just general boredom, I raised my hand after this latest scolding and asked if God could laugh. Without trying to answer my question, Sister Michelle called me up in front of the class and rapped my hands with a ruler.

The punishment was minor, far less severe than what I’d received in other instances. What bothered me more was Sister’s reaction. My question had clearly appalled her, and I needed to know why.

After class, I gathered my courage and asked Sister Michelle what had been so improper about my query.

Looking surprised, she said, “There are some things you just shouldn’t ask.”

It wasn’t until recently I realized she was right.