The Clouded Cloth

Father Myers was our favorite priest. He was about six foot two, one hundred and ninety five pounds. At the age of forty-five, he still had a full head of silver hair. It seemed that he had the answer for every question a young boy of twelve could have. But let there be no doubt, his most important feature was his ears. Yep, you heard me right, his ears. See, he listened, really listened to what my friends and I had to say.

Life in Boston was centered around neighborhoods, and life in our neighborhoods was centered around the church. During the summer when school was out, we spent most of our day at the youth center, shooting pool, shooting baskets, and shooting the bull. Our parents thought it was safer than playing stickball in the streets. The Catholic youth center provided us with a way to spend our summer under the watchful eyes of the church.

One beautiful July afternoon, after a hard fought baseball game, Father Myers took a dozen of us out to get some ice cream. We went to the tasty freeze, and he bought each one of us an ice cream cone. I liked the ones that were dipped in chocolate, so he got me one of those. It amazed me that the Father could afford to buy all of us a cone. In my household, both of my parents worked, but we only got ice cream on special occasions. After the cone we went back to the center to hang out until our parents came to pick us up. When we arrived, a priest came up to Father Myers and gave him a note. He looked at me and motioned for me to come over where he was standing.

“Kenny,” he said “your parents won’t be able to pick you up for a while, they had to drive up to Worcester to see your Aunt Judy.”

“Ok, I can go home, I know where the spare key is hidden.” My Mom always kept a spare key under a loose brick in the planter next to the front door. “No, your parents want you to stay here, we can have dinner in the rectory, and they will pick you up over there.”

The rectory was just across the street from the youth center. It looked just like an apartment building. In fact, it was a dormitory for the priests in the diocese. We went over and Father Myers showed me around. I saw the small chapel, the recreation room, and finally his little room on the second floor. The room was about the same size as mine at home. He had Celtics and Red Sox memorabilia and posters arrayed around the room, which was furnished with a single bed, a small couch and chest of drawers.

“Where is the bathroom?” I asked.

“Down the hall, each floor has two that we all share.”

The room looked like my brother’s room at the Air Force base.

About six o’clock we went down for dinner. The dinning room was very large, with four long wooden tables in the sparse looking room. When the prayer and ceremony were done, the food was brought out by nuns. The meal seemed very stiff and formal. It was almost as if the priests were not allowed to talk at the table.

After the bland, silent meal, we headed up to the recreation room. While I was playing ping-pong with a young, overweight priest, Father Myers attempted to telephone my parents “Kenny, there is no answer at your house. I will try again later.”

Next we went back across the street to the Sanctuary, where the Priests had a prayer service. Afterwards they had a short meeting about the next day’s activities, and then most headed back to the rectory. I walked over to the youth center with Father Myers so he could lock everything up and cut out the lights. The janitor and Father Myers exchanged greetings, and the janitor walked out towards the parking lot.

The basketball court was empty, and our squeaky footsteps echoed as we walked across the court. Father Myers turned to me and said, “Kenny, you and I are friends, right?”

The question kind of floored me; I had never had an adult ask me if I was his friend. Heck, I never had an adult treat me as if I was anything but a kid.

“Sure Father.” I stammered.

“I want to show you something you have not seen before. Can you keep a secret?” He said with a grin.

“Of course I can father!” I said excitedly.

We walked to the end of the gym and walked down the stairs to the boiler room. I had been there once before. On the other side of the boiler room was a locked door. Father Myers pulled out a key and placed it into the lock.

“Are you sure you can keep a secret?” he asked again.

“Yes Sir, cross my heart and hope to die!” I piped.

He turned the key and pushed the door open into the darkness. At the flip of a switch, the lights slowly flickered on, one at a time.

The smell of the moldy old canvas hit me like a hammer in the face. Centered in the large room in front of me was a boxing ring. It was old and dusty, but it was a boxing ring. There was a heavy bag in one corner, and a speed bag in another. I jumped up into the ring, bounded of the ropes and threw a couple of punches at an invisible opponent.

“When I was your age, this is where I spent most of my time.” Father Myers said with a wistful sigh.

“Why don’t we use it?” I asked.

“Come on down,” he gestured with his large hands. “There were a few injuries, and the church fathers decided to close the ring, that’s it.” He looked downcast as he spoke those words, almost like that ring meant everything to him.

“Do you promise not to tell anyone I showed you this room?”

“Sure Father, but why? This room is great! We should be able to use it all of the time.”

“I know it doesn’t make any sense to you now, but please promise not to tell anyone.”

I knew I could keep a secret.

“Ok, I promise.”

We turned off the lights and locked the door. Father Myers put his arm around my shoulders and we walked back towards the rectory. That was so cool. He liked me enough to show me something that no one else got to see. What a great friend!

Back in the recreation room, Father Myers tried to contact my parents again, but they still were not home. We went back to his room and looked through some old pictures of him as a golden gloves fighter. He showed me his baseball card collection, including an old glove signed by Ted Williams at a baseball camp years ago. We laughed and joked and generally had a good time.

After another fruitless attempt to contact my house, and it was time for bed. It was decided that I could sleep on his couch, and could wear one of his old t-shirts to bed.

He collected his shaving kit, clean underwear, and a couple of towels, and we were off to the showers.

The bathroom was quite large. There were four sinks, with four urinals, and four toilet stalls. The floors were covered with tile that was very cold against my bare feet. At the back of the bathroom was an alcove that led into the shower area. It was open and had four showerheads spraying out from a central water source.

While Father Myers shaved I went to the toilet. I could hear him humming a tune while he shaved. Then I grabbed a towel and went into the shower alcove. I removed my clothes and went into the shower room. It was cold and very dark, illuminated by a solitary bulb in a waterproof enclosure. The water was cold, and I felt goose bumps cover my young hairless body.

“Is the water hot yet?” Father Myers asked as he stepped into the shower room. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. His body was so much different from mine. Just then the water began to get hot and I began to shower, hoping he hadn’t seen me looking at him.

As I soaped up my body, I felt him come over towards me. He reached around me and gave me a big hug. The wiry hair of his chest pressed against my upper back, sending a chill up my spine.

“Thank you for being my special friend Kenny, I know I can trust you.”

I felt like a giant was squeezing my chest, I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. I couldn’t say anything, it was like I was frozen in place. “You know special friends can do things together don’t you?” He whispered in my ear. He twisted me around by the shoulders so that we were facing each other.

“Will you give me a special kiss Kenny? Please kiss it?” He moaned as if in pain.

His hands on my shoulders pressed me down onto my knees. It felt weird, the floor was cold, but the hot water was pouring down on my head like a spring shower.

Just then we heard the squeaking of the bathroom door opening. Father Myers instantly turned to face away from the entrance to the shower. He turned off the hot water with a flick of his wrist, and icy water rained down on his body.

“Is that you Nick?” called someone from the alcove.

“Yeah, I’m in here.” answered Father Myers.

“Ok, the kids parents called from Worcester, they won’t be able to make it home tonight. They are wondering if the kid can stay here tonight?”

“Ok, thanks, Kenny is going to stay in my room on the couch.”

“Ok Nick, will talk to you later.” The door squeaked again as the source of the voice left the bathroom. I took this opportunity to run out into the alcove and grab the towel, Father Myers was right behind me.

I knew what had happened in the shower was wrong. I was scared and amazed at the same time. I felt much better now that we were out of the shower. I wondered to myself, did this mean the Father was a homo? Did it mean I was a homo? I knew that Priests didn’t marry, but did not understand exactly why.

We walked down the hallway in silence. When we got to the room we both put on our underwear. I slipped on one of his old t-shirts, and he slipped on a nightshirt.

He cut the small TV on, and the evening news show was on. We watched in silence for a couple of minutes, as the weatherman tried to make jokes about the sorry weather we had been having lately. Father Myers walked over to his bed and kneeled down beside it.

“Kenny, you want to see something neat?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye.

“Sure.” I said, seemingly having already forgotten what happened in the shower.

He pulled a cardboard box out from under the bed. It was full of skin magazines. There was Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler and many more.

“You can go ahead and look if you like. You don’t tell anybody, and I won’t tell anybody.” He said with a devilish grin.

For the next hour we looked through the magazines. Father Myers lay on his bed while I sat on the floor, Indian style and leafed through the magazines.

At eleven o’clock Father Myers placed his magazines into the box, and looked down at me. “I won’t tell anyone you looked at these magazines. It will be our special secret. I know I can trust you to be my special friend. These are our secrets, ok?”

“Well,” he said with a yawn. “It’s time to turn in, tomorrow will be here any minute.”

I placed the magazine I was looking at back in the box, and he shoved it back under his bed. I went and lay down on the couch he had made up for a bed. Father Myers came over and placed a sheet over me, and reached over and flicked off the light.

I lay there in the darkness listening to Father Myers deep breaths. The images of the beautiful girls, posing wickedly, danced through my head. I remembered the feeling of Father Myers body pressed against mine in the shower.

I thought of the times my friend Bobby and I had looked at his dad’s porn magazines, and went into the bathroom and beat off together. At least we had not touched each other.

I felt the sheet go back and vaguely made out Father Myers form standing over me. He kneeled down on the floor and took me into his mouth. I could feel his whiskers rubbing against my skin. I was frozen with fear, but I could not move. Strangely, my erection did not go down, not even a little. I tried to think about the girls in the magazines. My heartbeats were so loud and fast I thought I was going to have a heart attack. It was over in seconds.

“You see what a special friend I am?” he whispered in the dark. I wanted to disappear from the earth. At that moment, I prayed for death. I was scared, embarrassed, and confused.

“Aren’t you going to return the favor Kenny? After all we are special friends.”

It hurts me to think about what happened next. I don’t know if I did it out of fear, or because I was curious. I returned the favor. He rolled away from me with his eyes closed.

“Oh god…. Thank you so much Kenny,” he whispered as if he was in pain. “You don’t know how much I needed that. Thank you for being my special friend.”

He took my head in his hands and tried to kiss my lips, I shook my head and turned away.

I lay wide-awake on the couch for a long time. I felt vile and disgusted. My belly was doing flip-flops, causing me to gag from time to time. I got up and went to the bathroom, and wretched into the toilet for several minutes. Since I didn’t have a toothbrush, I lathered up a bar of soap and scrubbed my teeth with my fingers as best I could. I finally nodded off to sleep sitting on the toilet.

The next morning when Father Myers woke me up he was completely dressed in his priestly gown. “Kenny, before we go to breakfast we have to talk. I really appreciate what you did for me. You know we must never tell anyone what happened. They just won’t understand what we mean to each other.”

I hope I will never feel again, the way I felt that morning. Dirty, filthy are two words that come to mind. How would my family and friends think about me if they knew what I had done. Nobody would ever believe me against the word of a priest. A member of the community in good standing, Father Myers was well thought of by everyone in South Boston. I could not believe that I was so worthless as to let this happen. My dad would disown me, no question about that. The guys at the youth center would shun me after laughing their heads off.

The car was silent as my father drove me home. The tension was thick, as if we both had something to say, but neither of us could bear to say it. Finally, after clearing his throat several times my dad was able to say something. “Son, your Aunt Judy is in bad shape. She is in the hospital up in Worcester, and it doesn’t look good for her. Your mother is still up there with her.”

The silence was deafening.

“It looks like she is not going to make it. I have to go back up there and pick mom up on Saturday. Father Myers said it would be fine if you spent the weekend at the rectory.”

You can’t believe how I felt after he spoke those words. My own father was about to deliver me back into the clutches of that perverted priest.

“Dad, I would like to go with you.” I said with a trembling voice.

“Aw son, that’s nice, but you don’t need to. You would be bored to death.

“Please dad, let me go with you. I really want to.”

My father seemed perplexed with the passion on my plea. Normally, I would jump at the opportunity to go sleep over at the rectory.

“Well I guess you could sleep on a pallet in the living room. Ok, you can go. Maybe we will leave a little early and try our hand at the little stream along the way.

“Cool, thanks dad.” I breathed a little easier, besides, I loved fishing with my dad.

Twenty-five years later…

I got home from work, kissed my wife Ruth, changed clothes, and got a cold beer. The day at the shipyard had been a rough one. We were quickly approaching the deadline on the “Newport” project, and if it weren’t completed on time, heads were gonna roll.

I flopped down in my worn out recliner and flipped the TV on with the remote.

“We are going to have some beef stew for dinner. It will be ready in about an hour, so don’t snack or it will ruin your appetite.” Ruth called from the kitchen.

“Ok, babe” I answered.

Eyewitness news had just started. I turned up the volume a bit.

“The Boston Archdiocese announced today that it was suspending Father Nicholas Myers, age 75, from all ecclesiastical activities. Father Myers has been accused by several men in the Boston area of sexually abusing them between the years of 1975 to 1992. Father Myers just celebrated his fiftieth year in the priesthood, and spent many years as the director of the South Boston Catholic Youth Center.”

The news made all of the memories come flooding back into my mind. Only one person other than the father and I knew about that terrible night in the rectory. Ruth has helped me get it out of my system. All of the worry, fear, and self-incrimination were gone. I no longer had to doubt my sexuality, or my masculinity.

Now, the world knew what my wife and I had known that for all these many years, Father Myers was an evil man. For years and years I fought self-pity, and self-doubt, now I just pity his other victims. Hell must have a special fire for people like Father Myers.