Communion (final revision)
1985
Adrian Hoggard sat alone on the shore of Averill Lake contemplating suicide. He was a small, white haired boy with a pale complexion and the somber look of an iron deficiency. While most people carry the weight of the world on their shoulders, Adrian carried it under his eyes. Although a boy of only twelve years old, a deep line nested comfortably and visibly between his dark, unruly brows. A babe in age, and yet he had already garnered a scar of wisdom while looking at a severe world through a lens of severity.
Adrian’s only friend had been his mother, Margot, a quiet Irish immigrant with a softness that stretched from her belly to her eyes. It had been a year to the day since she had passed from a severe case of pneumonia, and he missed her with a fierceness that spread through his throat like vomit. “Complain that you have no shoes until you meet a man who has no feet,” she’d tell him after yet another day of getting bullied by Mikey Schilowsky, the tallest and fattest kid in school. Her old Irish Proverbs would always provide him with comfort, realign the tilt of his axis. But without her, his world was upright, and he was clinging onto air while gravity forgot his name.
October brought with it the sun of Summer and the air of Winter, but Adrian still took off his shoes, rolled up his grey slacks to his knees, and walked into the water. The cold of the lake slapped at his ankles like a crowd of angry fathers—one back hand, and another, another—reminding him of the man at home, sleeping on the sofa. He walked further, to his calves and just below his knees, the water dying the sloppy cuffs of his pants an almost black. It had always made him angry that his father never taught him to swim, but on this day, he was grateful. Adrian closed his eyes, his face full of blissful fire. “I’m coming, Mama,” a whisper only a mother could hear. “Open your arms ’cause here I come.”
He took a deep breath, and a large pebble landed on his skull with a thud. His thin fingers shot up instinctively, looking for the intruder, and came away with a spot of blood. Adrian turned around, and before seeing the boys, he already knew who had cast the stone.
“Why you in the water, Faggot?” Shouted Mikey Schilowsky, followed by the laughter of the four stupid boys who were always with him. Adrian looked down at his reflection in the water and wondered why God hated him so much.
“Did that blow to the head make you retarded or somethin’? I asked you a question.”
He stared into his own eyes. “’Cause I feel like it,” he mumbled, an instinctual fear chilling his bones like a hail storm in January.
“What’s that, Retard?”
Adrian broke from his trance and looked up at the circus playing in Mikey’s eyes. “’Cause I fucking feel like it.”
The ruckus in Mikey’s glare faltered for a fleeting moment, a flash of apprehension before the confidence of adrenaline. “Hey fellas! Seems like the faggot finally pulled his balls outta his ass hole! Why don’t you come say that to my face, Adrianna?” Adrian stared at him, contemplating. He was about to die anyway. “Or you can just run home and tell your mama on us.” A baleful smile tip toed delicately across Mikey Schilowsky’s stout face. He knew that he had him. “Oh wait, you can’t. And you know why you can’t, Hoggard?”
Silence stabbed sloppy holes in the space between the two mortal enemies. Like dogs before a storm, the boys could feel disaster preparing to strike. And then, Mikey spoke and the tornado touched down.
“Because your mama is fucking dead.”
Adrian’s mama used to say “beware of the anger of a patient man,” and he considered himself to be quite patient. But something had been building up inside of him since her passing. The stinging had at first been slight, like heartburn after too much orange juice. Then the sting had started to burn, and night after night—his father covered in piss on the worn yellow couch, drunk, neglectful—the fire festered. The boys at school fed brush to the flames, but it was the unrelenting ache of his mother’s absence that shot sparks into his brain. Mikey’s words brought on these sparks, the heat so remorselessly violent that Adrian could see the reds and yellows and blues behind his eyes.
He did not see himself running through the water, falling and soaking through his white t-shirt. He did not see the boys laughing at him, their crooked teeth like wolves, metal on their molars making even the sun squint in the wake of the imposing glare. He did not see Mikey Schilowsky’s fat jowls loosen, ready to taunt, to torture, only to be silenced by his fist striking him directly on the bridge of his snout. While this happened, the flames partnered up for the Waltz, and Adrian joined their dance.
“’Cause I fucking feel like it.”
It took Mikey only a moment to remember who he was: the biggest, baddest, toughest twelve year old in all of Vermont. He spat the blood from his teeth and smiled a pink smile so forbidding that even the filthiest swine would cower beneath their barracks.
“Grab him,” he commanded the boys who stood awaiting their orders. They listened, seizing the arms of poor Adrian Hoggard, a boy who had already accepted his fate. “Take him over to the edge of the lake!” The boys dragged his body, the weight of lifelessness scraping his knees against the unforgiving grains of moist sand. Adrian felt something, relief perhaps, flirting with the overwhelming feeling of nothing.
Mikey Schilowsky grabbed a handful of his wispy hair and tugged, hard, forcing him to stare into an upside-down pair of brown eyes that were full of shit. As he spoke, Mikey’s breath assaulted Adrian’s senses: the air, swampy and bacterial, and the smell, a combination of old sugar and an improperly smoked cigarette. Adrian held his breath while stringy spit rained down on his cheeks and forehead.
“Any last words, Faggard?”
Adrian said nothing, but in his mind he prayed, not to God, but to his sweet, sweet mama. I’m coming, Mama. I’m coming home.
Mikey pushed him forward, his hands splashing in the shallow waters of the shore. Hair still in hand, Mikey plunged Adrian’s head below the water, the tip of his nose violently meeting its end in the murkiness of shattered lake and sand.
At first, Adrian did not struggle. He had planned to die long before Mikey and his gang showed up and disrupted the ceremony. He held his breath and, as in hospice care, patiently waited to pass on.
Instinct is an interesting habit of cognitive creatures. Although Adrian had welcomed death—he embraced it, took solace in its warm finality—as his breath let go and the air turned wet, his limbs gamboled with fear. The muscles in his neck tensed against the portly fingers entangled in his skull, but Mikey Schilowsky’s angry gorilla palms controlled his head like a joystick. The boys on his arms were not more forgiving, fearing that letting go would lead them to the same sodden fate. As he struggled against their grip, their fingers branded bruises into his translucent skin while the whole world quaked.
***
And then, the water became temperate as an island coast. Adrian’s eyes opened like shutters, and the lake was pellucid and white. It was the purest color he’d ever seen, a white cleaner than packaged socks. Yet there was a serene softness to it; it didn’t blind him like the midday sun, nor did it make his head ache like the walls of the hospital where his mother died. It was a physical manifestation of the serenity he’d had been searching for his whole life and had experienced so little of.
This is it, he thought. This is the light that people talk about. Adrian reached for the light, not with his hand but with his soul. As he began to crawl from his skin and leave his flesh behind, a voice—not aloud, yet heard clearly by Adrian—called out to him.
At first, he could not understand what the voice was saying.
Mama?
But the voice was deep, etherial, and undeniably belonging to a man. It bellowed against the walls of his brain, of the lake that had now become a womb. The distortion cleared as Adrian focused his mind on the sound, the deafening cacophony of aquatic life ceasing existence and paving the way for a cosmos of light, spirit, and voice.
Adrian. The voice was saying his name. Without opening his mouth, Adrian responded, a telepathic power not uncommon in the wide open space between the living and the dead.
Yes? Yes, who’s there?
God.
God?
You are my son, Adrian.
But my father is at home on the sofa.
That man, do you feel loved by him, Adrian?
Adrian needn’t think much about it. He had known the answer to this question all his life, but there were a multitude of feelings that accompanied it: sadness, bitterness, and resentment. The level of paternal love required by a little boys DNA was never fulfilled with a game of catch or informal banter about the pretty girls at school. Instead, there was a black eye, or a “you’re a pussy, boy!” when he was too drunk to aim his fist properly.
In his state of euphoria, however, these feelings belonged to someone from a different time, and Adrian held within his grasp the cold facts of his life without any sort of pathos to accompany them. The answer was simple: no, Adrian had not felt loved by his father, never once in his whole twelve years of life.
I love you, Adrian. I love you, as I love all of my children. I am your father, and you are my son.
Adrian began to cry, an inexplicable lightness furrowed into his brows, smoothing the creases of trauma, loneliness, and abuse. A foreign sensation, a joyous smile unfurled across his lips, now so red and plump and filled with heat, with life. He laughed and watched the bubbles escape his mouth, and then he laughed some more.
Can I come to you now, Father?
Through the white, a figure appeared—grandiose and magnificant, not of mankind—and for the first time, the voice was given a mouth.
“Dear, sweet Adrian. You are very special. I have chosen you to be one of my vessels on Earth as I conduct the universe from the infinite sky.”
“But Father, what does that mean?”
“It means you have a purpose on Earth, and once you fulfill it, you may join me and your earthly mother in the eternal afterlife.”
“And my purpose has not been fulfilled?”
“No, my son. It has not.”
“And what is my purpose, Father?”
“You will be a physical body, learned in my word. You will go forth and share it. You will lead my children to me, so that I may be their Father, too. And through this, you will deliver them from evil.”
“And if I do this, Father—if I share your word—I can come back to you and to my mama?”
“When your time has expired and your mission complete, yes, we will welcome you at the gates with arms opened wide as eagle’s wings and songs of the angel’s choir.” Adrian exhaled, a breath he’d been holding since conception. “Keep me within your heart, always, and you will find your way back into the light.”
With God’s parting words came water vomit and torched lungs. Adrian’s eyes opened as wide as an acid trip, his pupils expanding and contacting in the new light of dawn. The world around him had grown darker as his spirit had grown brighter.
He tried to sit up on the damp sand, but the effort was futile. He did not hear the boys, only moments before, running from his lifeless body and screaming, “he’s dead! He’s dead!” The only sounds that his ears and his brain recognized were the foul hacking from his chest and the echo of God’s last words.
As he rolled onto his side and folded his legs delicately into his abdomen, he wrapped his arms around himself, the desire to be held, even in his own arms, overwhelming him. But his arms were not his arms alone any longer, for he was now employed by God. And the arms that were wrapping his knees like a fragile gift were no different than the arms that would one day embrace him at the entrance to Heaven. He would never be alone again.
When a man finds purpose, the way the world looks changes. As dusk made its journey into a starry blackness, Adrian looked to the sky, and everything was different. And the stars became quite yellow, and the lap of the water on the shore was singing a soft hymn. Adrian himself was not so heavy, either. He spread his limbs like the stars he was admiring, imitating their gentle twinkle. Then he walked on air, through the whispering trees, to the gravel path. He glided like a water strider to The Church of St. Thomas, where finally, he could lay his head for the night.
***
2019
Father Hoggard stood at the front of the classroom—an old, dusty suite in the back of the rectory. The windows, while beautifully stained variant shades of blue, did not open, and so the room was always stuffy and smelling of congested young children. The alpine diamond patterned rug had once been a brilliant red, but muddy little feet had faded its luster over the years, graying the color to a dull burgundy. Father Hoggard did not mind the state of the room however, for it was a reminder of all the children who had come to learn the word of the Lord.
The children had been attending class once a week for the entire academic year, and this would be the final meeting of the Confraternity of Christine Doctrine before they were to receive their First Holy Communion. There were seven of them this year, the number of the Lord, and they were each seven years of age. Father Hoggard knew that this wasn’t a coincidence. God was sending him a sign, signaling that this was the year for the mission He had been preparing him for.
It had been 34 years since he’d heard the voice of God, but his faith never faltered. On the contrary, it had given him a greater drive, an insatiable thirst for the blood of Christ and the peace he’d felt that night on the shore. Because of his constant search for a connection, he sought out signs: coins dropped on the pavement, shapes in the clouds, a humid breeze that painted dewy skin. He only knew he’d found Him when his heart felt empty, not in regards to loneliness or despair, but rather, in lightness and freedom from dead weight lifted.
Today, his heart was light as a popover as he prepared the children for their final march toward the path of God. They sat at the chipped mahogany table, long and square, two benches on each side. Their delicate little fingers were crossed and laid on the surface, and their backs elongated in the posture of royalty. Father Hoggard had trained the Lord’s soldiers quite well, and he looked upon them, satisfied by their attentiveness.
“Boys and girls of the Church of St. Thomas,” he began. “These are our final moments together before I set you forth on your mission. This Sunday, after you eat the body of Christ and drink his blood for the first time in your lives, you will officially be responsible for your own souls. Sins made will be yours to seek forgiveness of.”
Michael raised his hand, straight arm, as he was taught. “Yes, Michael?” Called Father Hoggard.
Michael had always been the meekest boy of the group, fragile glass bones with a bit of a stutter in his walk—a child who has also heard “you’re a pussy, boy!” From his earthly father. He had white hair like goose feathers and eyes with cotton irises. Father Hoggard had taken quite an interest in him. His interest was not of a sexual nature, as so many have come to believe of all priests because in most cases, it had been the shocking truth. And his truth—perhaps more shocking than grown men using the veil of religion to hide their homosexual pedophiliac desires—was that he had never been attracted to anyone sexually, male or female, in his entire life. He had once found his mother to be quite pretty, but that’s the only memory he had of being pleased by a woman’s appearance.
So no, his fondness did not stem from lust. It stemmed from a reflection, a mirroring of himself in another being. He wanted to save Michael, just as God had saved him.
“Father, I was just wondering…” said Michael, putting his hand down and staring at the papery fingernails on it.
“Go on, Michael. Remember what we say?”
“Don’t make little of your dish for it may be an ignorant man who judges it.”
“And what does it mean?”
“It means to never undersell yourself.”
Father Hoggard nodded in approval, looking on the boy with calm eyes that gave him courage.
“Well, Father…I have a question about what we’re supposed to do at the end of the service.” Michael took a deep breath. “I think what we’re supposed to do might be against one of the Ten Commandments.”
The students around the table gasped as if Michael had just said “shit” in front of a priest. But Father Hoggard only smiled, as he had been prepared for someone to question his orders.
“I see. And what makes you think that, Michael?”
Michael looked around at the faces of his peers, all wide eyed and ready to judge. But he remembered that only God could judge him, and his muscles relaxed into the inset of his shoulder blades.
“Umm…well actually, there’s two. Two Commandments. The first is honor thy mother and thy father.”
“Your mother left you, Michael. You do not have to honor a woman who you do not call Mother, a woman you have no memory of ever meeting.”
“Yes, but—my father?”
Father Hoggard remembered his conversation with God all those years ago. “Have you ever felt loved by your father, Michael?”
“Well…”
“Has he ever told you he loved you?”
“No, Father.”
“There is no honoring a man with no honor.”
“Yes, Father. But the other Commandment? Thou shalt no—“
Father Hoggard lifted a hand, older, more withered, than the hands of the children before him. His hand was the universal signal for silence, and Michael obeyed. “There is a lot of work to be done today, Michael. We must continue forth with our final preparations.”
***
Father Hoggard lead the children from the entryway of the rectory and out onto the sidewalk. The May air was attempting to shake the cold from its limbs, but Winter clung on like a desperate woman. The children buttoned up their sweaters and zipped their jackets, and then they joined hands to cross the street to the church. They stomped up the stairs—left, left, left, right, left—and entered through the imposing oak doors, the wood stained a deep and threatening brown.
The children lined up to rehearse the entrance that they would make in just three day’s time. Because there were seven children, there were two lines of three and one solo child to lead the army and carry the cross.
“Michael,” Father Hoggard called. “Come to the front. You will be holding the cross.”
Michael gaped at the man before him, a mixture of panic and privilege turning his feet to cinderblocks. He was to lead them in their mission, the one that will take them directly to God and eternal happiness when they reach the afterlife. He would be the first seen by the Lord, the one carrying the cross, just as Jesus had all those years ago. It was a burden of the highest esteem.
He regained control of his feet, and walked toward the priest. Father Hoggard placed the cross in his arms like a newborn baby, delicate, easily harmed. But as Michael felt the cold of the gold metal stroke the tips of his fingers, he felt the strength of the compound. He dared to apply pressure to the structure, pulling his hands just slightly in opposite directions on either end of the cross. The brass did not quiver under the weight, there was no movement at all. And Jesus, made of stone and paint, a man half dressed in a quilted skirt and a crown of thorn and blood, stared down at his fingers, as if saying “try me.” And this made Michael feel powerful.
“Michael,” said Father Hoggard, kneeling so their eyes could meet. “Do you accept your mission?”
He didn’t take his eyes off the cross, marveling at the vision before him. There was sudden heat in his hands and a voice in his head. Honor thy Father.
“I accept.”
“Excellent, Michael.” Father Hoggard stood, now addressing the rest of the children. “Now let’s line up and file to your pew. Remember to sit where your name has been taped to the backing of the seat. And don’t forget children,” he made eye contact with each and every one of them before continuing on. “Make sure your weapons aren’t visible from under your seats.”
***
Sunday had arrived with the swiftness of a Frigatebird. The air was much warmer than it had been a few days prior, Spring grabbing onto the sun and hugging him closer to the atmosphere. The rains of April brought the true brilliancy of green to the lawn outside of the church steps and the islands in the parking lot. The Magnolia Butterfly Trees were in full bloom, neon yellow petals snowing on giddy children as they played tag under the flimsy branches.
There was a purity to the day—not of an artificial, sterile kind—brought on by the sweet air and laughter of children. As the bells began to chime, the parents wrangled their little swine and herded them into the church. There was a tidal wave of commotion as people realized that family’s had been assigned specific seating, something that had never been done before, at least as far as Karen, Susan, Lisa, and the other mothers from the PTA were concerned. They had but a few moments to complain before Father Hoggard approached the pulpit, his mere presence enough to trigger a silent discomfort. People always seemed to think priests can smell their sins, and in the case of Father Hoggard, they were not wrong.
“Welcome friends, to The Church of St. Thomas. Today’s sermon will be followed by the First Holy Communion of seven young community members.” Coos and giggles bounced off the walls and up to the cathedral ceilings. The parents were excited to see their angels dressed like angels.
“I’d like to speak to you about the Lord’s children. These children are like the branches on the trees. Once a branch falls off or is broken off, what happens to the leaves?” Father Hoggard waited, as if he were expecting somebody to stand up and respond.
“Have you ever been to an apple orchard? I’m sure most of you have. If you pull a branch off of one of the trees what happens to the apples?” Father Hoggard looked around the room, scanning the members of the congregation for a reaction, perhaps a glint of recognition or understanding in their eyes. But they were all vacant, Jesus had left them or never been there at all. “They die. The branch can no longer produce fruit. The children are the fruit of the lord.” Father Hoggard pulled out a branch from a pine tree, demonstrating how the needles had browned, withered, and died.
“Please rise for the singing of a hymn. If you’d like to follow along, turn your books to page 25. ”Everyone stood, singing from their throats—a soft, breathy sound blanketing the entire congregation.
“…Advocate and loving mother,
Mediatrix of all grace:
Heaven’s blessings she dispenses
On our
sinful
human
race.”
The organs roared with the familiar tune, but the tempo had slowed, the octaves, lowered. A strange, ominous feeling descended upon their guts as the clouds assaulted the sun and the room grew darker.
Father Hoggard had fire in his eyes, the same fire that he’d had as a child, a fire that’s always been. “You are all sinners. You were born into natural sin, baptized to be cleansed of it, and continued forth into life, incapable of retaining purity. You have begged, borrowed, and stolen. You have committed adultery, hurt one another, even attempted murdered. You have hated your fellow brothers and sisters. All of this, and little or no remorse. You are sinners. You are sinners. You are sinners! Damned be the sinner in the eye of our lord!”
The people of the church looked down, guilty of what they had just been accused of. They stared at their veiny hands and fiddled with cheap plastic buttons, fearing that looking at the alter—at Father Hoggard’s eyes—would turn them to breathing flames.
“Let us pray. O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee and I detest all my sins…”
Beg for mercy.
“…because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell, but most of all because they offend thee, my God, who are all good and deserving of all my love.”
Fear Me.
“I firmly resolve, with the help of thy grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life.”
Amen.
Father Hoggard began to weep. After all these years, the voice of God rang through his pulsing skull, his brain fighting to be released, to be freed from his body and in the arms of the Lord.
The people in the congregation became uncomfortable, disturbed by such an open display of emotion in a public place by a person of power. The old, thin woman on the organ stepped toward him, but he held up his hand in protestation.
“Fear not my tears, for they are tears of joy. The Lord is with us today. Now let us bring forth the children to receive Him in their hearts, their souls. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” Father Hoggard signed the cross as the people in the pews confusedly followed suit.
***
The doors to the church groaned open with a sound like a bleating goat, slaughtered. Seven fair children stepped forth, eyes wide and unsmiling. Mothers tried to wave, but the soldiers had been trained. Their white gloved hands were static in prayer. White suits and dresses covered their fragile bodies, white shoes protected their small toes, and white socks with delicate lace accents were folded over the shiny fake leather of those belonging to the little girls. Pearls garnished the slim necks of some, others wore no jewelry at all. The uniform differed very little from one child to the next.
Michael began the march forward, the cross held high above his head. As they made their way down the aisle, cameras flashed and parents cooed.
“Mary! Look here!” Shouted a grandmother to the little girl at the back of the line, but Mary knew better. They all knew better.
Father Hoggard stepped away from the podium, down the three stairs, and met the children at the front of the church.
“Body of Christ?”
“Amen.”
After the last child received the body, the children took the seats they were assigned, and Father Hoggard returned to his position at the altar and continued the sermon. “These are the Lord’s children. They no longer belong to you. God is their father, their mother. Their sister, brother, and their friend. He will love them unfalteringly, without boundaries, in a way none of you have proved yourselves capable of.”
Angry muttering spread like the plague across the entire body of people. One man with whisky stained breath and a soiled flannel shirt stood up and yelled “fuck you, faggot!” But everyone was too personally offended to notice.
“Please quiet down for a bidding prayer on deliverance lead by Michael Schilowsky.”
As the child approached the altar, the congregation quieted, fearing that further conversation would prove the accusations set upon them true. Michael stepped up to the podium and adjusted the microphone to his height, the awkward movement sending wailing feedback through bleeding ears. The sound did not phase Michael however, for he was prepared.
“Dear Heavenly Father, We the children, your children, pray for deliverance from the evil in this world. We pray for our separation from drunkards, infidels, and adulterers. We ask to remain pure of heart and sound of mind so that we may walk the path of your son, Jesus Christ. Give us the strength to resist temptation, to overcome fear, and to carry out the mission you have sent us here to complete today.”
Seven little voices rang out in Amen. Michael returned to his seat, rejoining his troop.
“Thank you, Michael. Children, it is time. Take your positions.”
Seven little pairs of hands reached under the pew in which they were sat, seven machine guns waiting for those hands, raw metal meeting raw flesh. As the weapons were produced, there was an uproar in the church, the people in the back running from the building. They were not of concern, not today. Their families were right behind them, seated in the sections that had been labeled for them.
Mary shot without hesitation, shooting her father in the shoulder and her mother through the forehead. Her father wrestled the gun from her hands and, after seeing his wife was dead, shot his daughter and then himself.
Shots echoed through the house of God. Showers of rainbow glass landed in finely combed hair. Children screamed as they murdered and fought to murder. A soldier, Zeke, had been pinned down by a large man. Father Hoggard observed from up high.
Michael’s section had only one person sitting in it. Mikey Schilowsky, still big and fat and ugly as ever, looked into the eyes of his son, the same eyes as the woman who had left him.
“You’re too much of a pussy to shoot me, boy.”
Michael smiled at his earthly father, and he too had the fire eyes. He placed the barrel above his dirty snout, the cold round metal resting firmly on his greasy brow. And as Mikey went to grab the gun from his son, he pulled the trigger, and the mighty Mikey Schilowsky fell the same way all men do.
Through the chaos emerged Father Haggard, and he stood beside Michael as the world around them crumbled. The father and the son. He rested his hand on the boy’s shoulder, a silent way of saying well done.
Michael stared down at the man, the drunk who’d beaten him and starved him and called him all those names. He stood over his body and spit on his face.
“Deliver us from evil."