Weekend Write-In Story Collection

God is in the Hammerhead Beams

In 500 words, imagine what happens when a ghost makes life just a smidge more difficult. Written for the Weekend Write-In prompt themed "Ecto" 23 - 25 October 2015

Too much of this story is based on my experiences as a Catholic altar boy in the 1950s and '60s. If you didn't suffer the emotional, physical and sexual abuse from priests and nuns, you probably won't understand this story.

Chanting Dominoes

"Why do you need to learn it in Latin, David? That seems so Old World, so ridiculously old school. We stopped that in the early '70s."

"The substitute nun says we have to. Everyone said yuck... Except me," he looked up with a wry smile at his father.

"...And?

"Sister Mercedes didn't see where the eff sound came from."

"Mercedes!... Mert!... Is Mert still alive? It surely isn't Old Mert."

"She looks seventy... Seventy-five... She looks older than Grandmother."

"She still have that crooked forefinger? God! how confused we were when she pointed and shouted: YOU. We never knew who she was pointing to."

"They all seem crooked and tangled now... She still shouts, though not at all intimidating — it would take her a full minute to get up from her chair. So she taught you?"

"Grade Seven, Queen Street... She was the Principal. I can't believe she's still around. What happened to Sister Clemencia?"

"The word is that she kicked the habit. I'll miss her... Really miss her... Her after-school private tutoring was sublime," David said as he shifted furniture in his pants.

"Clemencia offered after-school service?" his father asked with a smile of fond remembrance of his days in Catholic school. "Glad to see you're getting some education... But, back to the Latin, son. What did you need to know? I had to memorise all this Latin prattle when Mother forced me to be an altar boy. Now she forces you."

"So what did you do to endure sitting through all the services, the masses, the vespers, the funerals...?"

"You know the hammerhead beams in the ceiling at Saint Bernard's? I know every carved piece, every joint, I even got into calculating tension and compression loading..."

"I'm well into that myself. Everyone thinks I'm so pious always looking up. Father McDevitt says I appear to be searching for the word of God."

"So what do you need to know with the Latin, Son?"

"The first one I don't understand — all the guys snicker at it: Ecto homo. They call it yucky homo and say it refers to Father Lafitte and his boyfriend.

So Lafitte is effete, I suspected that. But to answer your question, son, it's ecce homo. It means behold man, the label the Romans put on the cross. What else?"

"Let's start with the common ones... Dominus Vobiscum and the response: Et cum spiritu tuo. Is that the: May the Lord be with you and its response: and with your spirit also?"

Yes, the God and his Ghost sequence. But we used to have fun with it and to do the big priestly sign of the cross in the air and chant: My father can beat your father at dominoes, dragging out the dominoes like Father... Oh God, what was his name? He was so dramatic."

"You had fun, Dad, didn't you?"

"Son, it's the only way to endure the Catholic oppression of my mother. Let's hope once she's a ghost, it won't be even more difficult."