Brown Bag Lunch, Flirting with Lolita, Detention and The Inquisition

      In the winter of third grade, during one of our lunches I got into my first real trouble with the Catholic bureaucracy.

The day started innocently enough, but the shit started to brew during lunch.

     It was the first time that I encountered the potential instability and pettiness of people. Our lunches were held in our classroom and since St. Francis did not have a cafeteria we would indulge in the brown bags our mothers prepared for us.

      The nun that usually watched over us had to go somewhere. In her place an eighth grade girl was assigned to watch over us. To my young eyes she was very attractive adult. Thinking back, she looked like that pretty young actress who played in the movie, “Lolita” and her mannerisms were also like Lolita’s. Unlike any of the nuns she engaged us in conversation. She was very flirty and she encouraged us young boys to joke and flirt with her. She tried to engage me with a few quips and as shy as I was, I took the bait and teased back. Something went horribly wrong. She scolded me, for being rude to her and vowed she would see to it that I would serve detention.

      Her threat had the same chilling affect on me as telling me that I would go to a Nazi concentration camp.

I heard all of the horror stories; I had visions of the nuns committing various forms of unspeakable atrocities on me. The info on the grapevine suggested that detention was not where you wanted to go. My entire day was filled with dread of the horrors that I would have to face.

      Once there, I found the atmosphere to be very gloomy and threatening. Much to my surprise, there were a hellva lot more kids crowded in the room than I had expected.

There were also many nuns in the room circling the room like prison guards on Alcatraz or Riker’s Island. 

      In my minds eye I saw all of us sitting in penance with black and white prison uniforms covertly watching and whispering conspiracies on what should be done about the prison’s bull screws that circled the room. The bulls, (nuns) were ever ready to mete out punishment on the slightest imagined infraction. The school’s Mother Superior resided over the kangaroo court as if it was the inquisition. Essentially she was also the warden.

      She called each person forward by name and read out the charge. In each case most of the kids admitted to their guilt, and they were sentenced with saying a specific number of prayers for penance such as the Lord’s Prayer and Hail Mary’s. The length of time that we had to spend in detention within certain parameters depended on the severity of the crime committed.

      Some of the kids spent twenty minutes in detention and other kids like me spent four hours. It was in truth a kangaroo court because no one was allowed to face his or her accuser.

      The Mother Superior simply read the charges from a piece of paper written by the accusers. Without exception, every kid that pleaded not guilty were screamed at and called liars.

      My name was almost the last called and I was instructed to stand as charges were read against me. The Mother Superior read out the damning charges. As I said, I felt like I was in the inquisition. The charges were: talking without permission during lunch, rude behavior and inappropriate and vulgar language towards the girl watching over us.

I was asked, guilty or not guilty.

      “Not guilty”, I squeaked.

      The Mother Superior leaned forward and screamed, “Liar, liar!!” “You are guilty!!”

      I made the mistake of trying to overcome her ranting by talking faster and louder so that I could get a word in edgewise and so that I could be heard over her screeching.

As I talked to her I told Mother Superior that I had never cursed in my life and that the girl had initiated the conversation. I tried to explain that I did not think I was rude to the girl, but merely joking back with her.

       The Mother Superior jumped up, frothing at the mouth, eyes bugging out and her entire body quaking as she pounded the table with her chubby manly hands.

      Mother Superior was screaming like a person possessed by demons. “Your guilty you filthy little liar!!” “Guilty!!” “Guilty!!” “Guilty!!”

      I tried to interrupt, but she screamed to the screw nuns on each side of me, “Shut him up and sit him down!!”

      One of these bull nuns cracked me on the head with a yardstick and then whipped me with it several times all over my body.

      My failure to reason with The Mother Superior no matter what I said knocked aside my trusting child’s sensibilities. In my highly stressed mind’s eye the people and the room changed.

      Once again I imagined that I was being tried at the inquisition and The Mother Superior was wearing a garment that I supposed that an inquistioner would wear.

      The other bull nuns were now wearing garb of dungeon guards, executioners and torturers. The kids that had been sitting around me quiet and contrite were now arranged in a variety of positions around the mossy slick stonewalls of the dungeon we were held in. Some were hanging on the walls in shackles, others were being branded with hot pokers, other inmates being stretch beyond endurance on a rack and while other kids were wearing iron masks and iron maiden boots as they wallowed in dirty straw and their own filth.

      In my mind’s eye the nuns that grabbed me, took my bounded and stone weighted body and tossed it into a large pool of water.

      I imagined I could hear The Mother Superior say. “If you float you are a warlock and may God have mercy on your soul.” “If you sink and drown, you innocent and God will have mercy on your soul.”

“I advise you to do your penance now and beg God forgiveness for your scurvy soul.”

      The two bull nuns who had been standing beside me while I had gone on my mental flight held me roughly in my seat. This forced my mind back to the present. I look up at The Mother Superior and it seemed as if she had calmed down a bit. She stood there blinking stupidly several times. She straightened out the imagined non-existent disorder of her nun outfit. She sat down and folded her hands. As she did so, her look and manner changed as if the demonic entity that had possessed her relaxed its hold on her.

Now her face was relaxed the demonic mask had been replaced with a look of understanding and compassion.

      She even smiled sweetly and adopted an intimate and conspiratorial tone to her voice and said, “Well, we are all sinners.” “And the Lord will forgive us all if we admit the errors and sins of our ways.” “Since you sinned by your behavior with the girl at lunch you are to be punished by detention and prayer.” “Since you suffer from the sin of pride and you do not acknowledge your sins and your bad behavior here today, you will say the Lords prayer 1,000 times or more during the rest of your detention.” “You will not leave until we give you permission to do so.”

(1,000 times is an arbitrary number that I chose for this story because I cannot honestly remember how many times I was supposed to say the prayer or how many times I actually said it before I could go home).

      After four hours of penance, I was among the very last of the remaining kids who was serving detention. The remaining kid’s parents were waiting for them. I did not have this luxury. My father was away at sea, and my mother had to work late. No one but my Grandmother was waiting at home for me. Since my Grandmother was unable to drive she could not come to get me even if she had known that I was serving detention.