Among the altar boys at Our Lady of the Assumption there were plenty rumors to go around about Father Orestes and they all boiled down to one thing: if Father Orestes ever got you alone, he was going to tickle your balls. He’d gotten Sergio, the oldest of us, in the sacristy after Easter mass three months before. One minute Father Orestes was instructing him on how to properly empty and clean the holy chalice—because only was Sergio allowed to empty and clean the holy chalice—and the next he was tip-toeing his stubby fingers up Sergio’s dress. Sergio didn’t even know what was happening until he felt mystery fingers on his nut sack and he had to laugh because shit like that tickled, he told us, no matter who was doing it.

Father Orestes had gotten Fat Marcos at a church picnic. Fat Marcos had been in the kitchen, pretending to put away leftovers but really stuffing cheese sandwiches into his mouth, five, six, seven at a time, when Father Orestes, from out of nowhere, reached around him, grabbed eleven sandwiches, squeezed them into a doughy ball and shoved the mess into his mouth. He stared at Fat Marcos while he chewed and then they both started laughing and bits of sandwich and saliva flew in every direction.

“Suddenly,” Fat Marcos told us, “dude’s got his fingers down my pants, breathing hard and calling my junk Wonder Bread!”

There were more—Jaime at a AAA baseball game on quarter dog night, Omar in the middle school bathroom during a fire drill, Ittay at a park while he was high on Elmer’s glue, Felipe the Dick in his own house when Father came over to bless his dead grandma’s rosary, etc, etc, etc—and so our holy and most revered father became playfully known as Father Orestes Molestes, though I never called him that because I was the newest altar boy, by far the youngest, and it felt wrong to call him anything other than his God given name. My mother would’ve slapped me unconscious had she heard such words exit my mouth—she’d done so for less—and besides, I’d never been alone with Father Orestes so the words didn’t belong to me anyway.

One afternoon the phone rang and my mother called out to me from the kitchen. It was a Sunday and I’d been faking homework, reading comic books instead because I was obsessed with Wonder Woman and the way her superhero underwear rode up to the very depths of her crotch, revealing the shape of everything in the universe I had yet to discover. When I picked up it was Father Orestes. My first instinct was that I’d once again forgotten to extinguish the candles that morning and because of me the church had finally burned to the ground. I was relieved when I learned Father Orestes wanted to take me to a movie. You don’t invite someone to a movie after they’ve set your house on fire.

“Who else is going, Father?” I asked because Felipe the Dick and I had gotten into a fight the previous Friday over Magic Johnson and because Magic was my favorite basketball player I’d attacked Felipe and my jaw was still sore and I didn’t particularly want to see him.

“Just me and you, Benji,” he assured me. “Unless you want to invite someone.” I didn’t.

“Which movie, Father?” I asked.

“Whichever one you want, Benji,” he said. “Mira, I have a newspaper right here.”  

When I told my mother that Father Orestes was coming to pick me up so that we could go see Karate Kid II she turned off the faucet and looked out the window. After a moment, she turned it back on.“

“I don’t want you going,” she said.

“But Mom,” I said, “it’s rated PG.”  

“I don’t care what it’s rated,” she said. “Sunday is for God and homework. Not movies.”

“But I’m going with Father Orestes,” I said. “Doesn’t that count for one of those?”

I know who you’re going with,” she snapped and despite my protests, she picked up the phone and dialed Our Lady of the Assumption to apologize to Father for the change in plans. I marched back to my room, waited for a half hour to go by, and then dialed the church myself. I would walk, I told Father Orestes. The mall wasn’t that far and besides, it was a nice day outside.

When I arrived, I spotted him in the food court, sitting alone at a table, sipping from a straw. He was wearing blue jeans and I’d never seen him—or any priest for that matter—in blue jeans. He wore white sneakers and a shiny windbreaker pulled slightly at the sleeves, revealing a bit of his arms, fleshy and hairless. On his head, a bright red baseball cap. I wanted to laugh—he looked like a child on Halloween, or the new kid on the first day of school, stupid and lost and out of place—but suddenly something grew heavy inside me, pressed against my chest until I couldn’t produce more than a guttural sound at the back of my throat. I took a slow breath and moved toward him.

“Hi, Father,” I said, startling him.

“Benji!” he said. He stood and pulled me in for a hug. “Glad you could make it. Hey, we got some time—are you hungry? They got everything here. Chinese, Italian, Mexican, even good old fashioned Cheeseburgers. We should eat something don’t you think? Eat something before the movie?”

I ordered a slice of pepperoni pizza. Father Orestes picked at a plate of Kung Pao chicken. We ate silently and listened to the low music coming from the ceiling.

“So how’d today go?” Father Orestes finally said. “Mass, I mean.”

“Good,” I said. “Today went good.”

“Good,” he said. “And the boys? Are they treating you well?”

“Yes,” I said.

“That’s good too,” he said.

“Felipe’s a dick,” I said before I realized it and I looked into my lap. “Sorry, Father.”

He laughed. “No, no,” he said. “Don’t apologize. You’re being honest. Honesty’s good. Tell me—what else?”

I shrugged. “Well, I enjoyed today’s reading,” I said. “I think Peter might be my favorite disciple.”

“Peter is the rock,” he said matter-of-factly. He dabbed at the corners of his mouth with his napkin. “I think that’s why he’s a lot of people’s favorite,” he said. 

“Yours too?” I asked.

He stabbed a mound of chicken with his fork and brought it to his mouth. “I guess I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll have to think about it.”

“Hey, Father?” I said then. “Why doesn’t Peter have his own book? In the gospels, I mean. How come he never got to write anything?”

Father Orestes took a long sip from his Sprite. He shrugged. “I guess I don’t know that either,” he said. “Maybe he did.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I said.

We sat silently for another moment. I ate my pizza to the crust and began moving my finger around a pool of orange grease at the edge of my plate. The music from the ceiling returned and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d actually sat down at a mall to eat, certainly not with an adult. There’d been my own father. He’d taken me here once after a report card, in the second or third grade when report card day was a day of no sweat because you’d have to be a real retard not to get some kind of love from the teacher. I’d ordered pizza then, too, and asked for quarters so that I could play the video games. When I returned my father had taken my crust and moved to Las Vegas. Sometimes it was Atlantic City. Or Amsterdam. Or Sodom and Gomorrah because my mother could never decide. Keep asking, she’d shout at me, and you’ll become the pillar of salt. This is the scariest thing you can tell a child, that with every passing second we are on the verge of becoming something other than ourselves. On my mother’s worst days, when she’d corner me in my bedroom, her mouth trembling and her eyes on fire, I welcomed the taste of my own blood, black and boiling and thick. I was alive, still blessed to be human.

“This is fun, don’t you think?” Father Orestes said suddenly. He leaned in and put his hand on top of mine. “I’m glad you could come. The mall’s fun. And movies—they’re fun.”

“Yeah movies are fun,” I said.

“I was worried you weren’t going to make it,” he said. “You’re mother sounded upset.”

“Oh,” I said, “well, she just thought we were going to a different movie. This one’s rated PG, you know. She didn’t know that. I mean, it’s about karate and stuff but not the R-rated kind. That’s what I told her—that there’s probably more talking than fighting anyway.”

           Father Orestes took his hand away from mine. He knew I was lying. Of course he did. You don’t have to be an altar boy to know that priests spend half their time in dark boxes, listening to people reveal the many shapes and sizes of their lies. You don’t have to be an altar boy to know that priests suck on sin like hard candy, slide their tongues across its smooth surface and retain a bit of color before spitting it straight back to hell.

“What will your mother do?” he said then.

I shrugged. “She’ll be fine.”

“No,” he said. “What do you think she’ll do?” 

I looked at him. I didn’t understand the question, so I shrugged again. Then Father Orestes crumpled his napkin and threw it onto his plate.

“Benji?” he said.

“Yes, Father?”

He looked at me for a moment. “We should get going,” he said. 

I nodded and began collecting our trash.

“Benji?” he said again.

“Yes, Father?”

He stood and adjusted his red cap. I watched his stubby fingers move across his head and when he brought his hands down, they barely reached below his waist. Father Orestes looked awkward then, misshapen, as if, way back when, he’d been caught at the onset of a growth spurt and cursed to move around for the rest of eternity in a body that would never be completely his. Maybe this was priesthood. Maybe this was what it meant to be called to do anything.

“You shouldn’t have disobeyed your mother,” he said. I looked at my shoes.

“Mothers,” he went on, “are sometimes all we have. That’s what I think I know, Benji. They’re as old as time. They were here before us and they’ll be here after.”

“Like roaches,” I muttered and suddenly Father Orestes slapped me hard across the face. My ears rang out. I brought a hand to my cheek and felt the blood surge beneath my skin, heat up and then boil until I could no longer keep my palm there and then, as quickly as he’d struck me, Father Orestes took a knee and wrapped his arms around my body.

“I’m sorry,” he cried. “Oh, Benji, I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me. I’m so sorry, Benji. Forgive me, Benji. Benji, do you forgive me? Please, Benji.”

He sobbed against my chest, driving the top of his head into my chin. The pain in my cheek soon went away, replaced by a white and blinding embarrassment, as I suddenly remembered where we were, and so I snaked out a hand and patted him on the back until he let go.

“I’m okay, Father,” I said. “C’mon, Father. I’m fine. Let’s go. I don’t want to miss the previews. They’re the best part.”

He took my shoulders and studied me for a moment. Then he smiled and laughed and snot poured out his nostrils in clear streams.

“Yes, Benji,” he laughed some more. “The previews are the best part.”

“I know,” I said. “I know that.” 

The theater was empty and we sat in the very middle and shared a large bucket of popcorn. I chewed slowly because my jaw was sore again and I decided that, come Monday morning, I was going to sneak up on Felipe the Dick and kill him in front of everybody he knew and loved and hated, too.

The movie began and Father Orestes put the bucket aside. He shifted in his seat until his shoulder was touching mine. I sat up a little, widened my legs and I put my arm on the rest so that it was up against Father Orestes’. He patted my wrist and then removed his arm and I suddenly recalled that in all the rumors the moment had come as a complete surprise, so much in fact that it was the funniest damn thing we’d heard in our entire lives and how many times had I grabbed my belly and laughed myself into cramps while Fat Marcos went on about Father Orestes Molestes, the ball tickler from Planet X? There’s no preparation for some things. I closed my legs and watched the movie. I watched the Karate Kid drink chocolate milk in a blue tuxedo, throw away the carton and leave for Okinawa. I watched him fall in love with a beautiful Japanese girl, break a stack of ice with his bare hands, dance to “Around the Clock”, and survive a great hurricane. I watched the beautiful Japanese girl quiver at the feel of a blade against her soft skin, watched the Karate Kid leap across a river, save her, fight for his life in front of a thousand screaming strangers and somehow win. Suddenly this was growth and it was wonderful as it was terrifying as it was absolutely ridiculous.

The credits rolled and Father Orestes didn’t move. After another minute I pressed against his shoulder, thinking maybe he’d fallen asleep, but he was awake, staring blankly ahead.

“Father?” I whispered.

He jerked back to life and reached for the bucket of popcorn.

“That was good,” he said, patting my thigh. “Good choice.”

In the parking lot, Father Orestes offered me a ride but I told him I’d better walk.

“So that was fun, right?” he said as he stepped into his car.

“Yes,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “I thought so too.”

“Well,” I said. “See ya, Father.”

“Benji?” he said just before I turned. “Don’t tell anyone, but I don’t think I like any of the disciples very much. No, I don’t think I like them one bit.”

I looked at him for a moment and he looked at me. Then he burst into laughter and there was nothing left to do but join in, so I did. Together, our chests heaved, our eyes watered, and we filled the parking lot that afternoon with our laughter and after I’d caught my breath I told him that his secret was safe with me and he laughed even harder because he knew I was telling the truth.

By the time I got home, I’d invented a bulletproof story to explain the mark on my cheek, which I didn’t have to see to know was there: I’d walked to the park to play basketball—something I’d done many times before—and ran into Felipe the Dick, who started talking all kinds of shit about Magic Johnson and we got into another fight because I loved Magic Johnson, as if he’d been the one in my driveway teaching me the jump shot, and it all sounded so true that even I began to believe it. But my mother didn’t ask. She walked into the kitchen and returned with a Ziploc bag full of ice. I thanked her and she disappeared into her bedroom and closed the door.

The next Sunday, before mass, I told Sergio and Fat Marcos that I’d been to the movies with Father Orestes.

“And?” they said together.

And, I told them, the two of us had seen Karate Kid II and by the end of the movie, Father Orestes was karate chopping my balls like a real ninja master.

“Orestes Molestes,” I just about sang and Sergio and Fat Marcos laughed wildly and squeezed my shoulders and messed up my hair because we were altar boys and we had our stories and they all boiled down to one thing and that, thank God, thank God, is what we knew.  

 

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