Part I: Fart of Ages

The ride home from church was always a prelude to doom. The reckoning came after the front door was closed. This Sunday was bad. I’d fucked up. The kind of fuck-up that had a guaranteed outcome. And like clockwork, Angie had rushed ahead of everyone to report my fuck-up to Dad.

I was ten. She was nine. But Angie never looked up to me or acted like a little sister. If she could sell me out for a laugh or a little power, she would, and she did—every time.

“Dad wants to see you, Ted,” she said, grinning like a narc who just got promoted.

I shrugged like I didn’t care. I did.

“Now!”

Dad was in the den with my oldest brother, Joseph, who was fourteen and wore his golden child status, Dad’s Old Spice cologne. Strong, unmistakable, and irritating.  Dad didn’t go to church. He stayed home in his underwear, parked on the couch watching Sunday news shows. The last time he came with us was during a fight with Mom, where divorce had been mentioned. He said he was Catholic, but only out of loyalty to his deceased parents and Saint Anthony. Saint Anthony was a big deal in Italian Catholic homes. The 1980s might have seen him usurped by Rocky Balboa, but he was still the man among the elders.

I tried to kiss a little ass when I walked in—nodding whenever the guy on TV praised Reagan and scowling when the other guy pushed back. Joseph did the same. Dad was a big fan of Ron, and I figured, why not join in?

But Dad kept his eyes on the screen until the commercial break. Then he motioned for Joseph to kill the TV.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he said. The whole house went silent.

“Um, I don’t know.”

“I’ve told you not to say that, haven’t I?”

He had. “I don’t know” was outlawed even when it was true.

“What kind of asshole farts in church?”

The icicle in my stomach turned serrated.

“Um… me?”

“That’s right. You’re an asshole.” He closed his eyes like he was weighing options. “The basement flooded again. Get down there and clean it up while I figure out how to deal with you.”

He turned away. Solemn. I was thrilled. No slap and no belt, which I’d already been eyeing hanging over a chair. Just the basement. I could work with that.

The basement was my bunker if Dad didn’t accuse me of “hiding” in it. It flooded constantly; I didn’t know then that it was the water heater. Cleaning it was usually my job. Dad never went down there. There were too many stairs, too many pounds, and insufficient oxygen.

Best of all, I could hear everyone’s footsteps. I knew them by heart: Joseph’s shuffle, Danny and Marty’s thuds, Dad’s heavy landings. Knowing who was coming was a survival skill. And down there, I could breathe.

But yeah, I’d farted in church. During a silent part of the sermon when Father McNulty sang “Let us proclaim… the mystery of faith,” I cupped my palms over my mouth and made it ring off the stained glass. Danny and Marty had dared me the week before. They were close, one and two years older than me.  I would never be their equal, but I thought I could make them laugh. They lost it. I liked that.

Angie laughed, too. Then, I immediately started calculating how best to weaponize it. She’d been campaigning for “Dad’s Favorite” since preschool. That contest between her and Joseph would drag on another fifteen years without a winner, even after he died.

Mom didn’t move when it happened. I think she prayed people would pin it on another kid, maybe Thomas Marinelli. He was the only other little brat capable of sacrilegious flatulence.

Anyway, I got to work. I sank the shovel into the lowest point of the floor, scooped the water into the trash barrel, dragged it to the garage, and dipped it in the driveway. I had a system. It took under an hour.

After that, I started guiding a crushed can of Fanta around with a hockey stick, imagining I was receiving a pass from Wayne Gretskey in slow motion on the news highlights.

Then I heard Dad.

“Motherfucker!”

The icicle in my gut twisted hard. I froze.

“That fucking hypocrite!”

Even louder now. I ditched the stick and grabbed the shovel again, pretending I was still working. For an hour, I didn’t hear another sound.

Part II: The Gospel According to Debbie

Danny and Marty were downstairs playing hockey. Joseph and Angie were in the den with Dad

watching Ripley’s Believe It or Not! I didn’t join them because I always figured the host, Jack Palance, for an asshole.  Mom was smoking cigarettes in the kitchen. The smoke pluming out was thicker than usual.

I was in my room with a radio pressed to my ear, barely turned up. I’d been trying to record Van Halen’s “Jump” off the radio for days. Danny had the tape, but never let me near it. Everyone settled into something. I slipped into the kitchen.

“What happened at church?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

She did, though. Mom always told me everything. I was the family vault, whether I wanted to be or not.

“C’mon…”

“Well,” she sighed. “You know your father was divorced before me.”

“Yeah. So?”

She started crying.

“Judy MacFarland doesn’t think I should be teaching CCD because it’s a sin. She says I married someone outside the Church.”

I blinked. “Judy sucks.”

“She’s been talking to Father McNulty. For months. And I just found out today.”

“That’s retarded.”

“There’s something else.” She lit another cigarette. “But you can’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t.”

“Your father and I didn’t get married until after you were born.”

I waited for the impact. It didn’t come.

“So?”

“It’s a sin. I had children out of wedlock.”

“What the hell is wedlock?”

“Don’t say hell.”

“You just told me I was born in sin or sin born, or whatever, and I’m not supposed to say hell?”

“Just don’t tell your siblings. Or your father.”

“I won’t… but he knows.”

“Just don’t tell him I told you.”

Large families have two types of people: secret keepers and secret brokers. I was a keeper, usually against my will.

“But how did Judy even know?”

“Sue told her.”

“Big Sue?”

She nodded.

“Sue-mo?”

Still nodding.

Sue Gregory was Mom’s large, beer-bringing friend. We had nicknames. Mom usually scolded us for them, but not this time.

“Why would she tell Judy?”

“Probably to score points.”

“With Judy?” I asked. “Why? She sucks.”

“She makes Father McNulty’s offering plate much heavier than we do.”

It didn’t make sense, but I didn’t need it to. Mom had been teaching CCD once a month, and that was the only time we got a babysitter. She took it seriously, prepared all week, and liked doing it.

I didn’t know how to help, so I kept insulting the people who hurt her. It was all I had.

For now, I was glad I’d farted in Father McNulty’s church.

Walking in the next afternoon after school, I knew something was off.

The kitchen door was closed. That never happened. The air was thick with smoke, heavier than usual again, and not just Mom’s Newports this time.

I pushed the door open with my shoulder. At the table sat a woman I vaguely recognized: thin, bangs teased into opposing wings, cigarette in hand. Marlboros. Not Newports.

“And which one is this again?” she asked.

“This is Ted,” Mom replied.

“Ah, yes.” She smirked. “The one who broke wind at your church.”

She smiled like I owed her something. That’s when I remembered her—Debbie. Our neighbor’s daughter. The one who once enthusiastically announced my fly was down at a Christmas party full of drunk adults.

“Ted, remember Debbie? George and Marge’s daughter? She just moved home from Florida.”

“No.”

“Well, this is Debbie.”

“I guess Florida smells better now,” I said, grabbing Ritz crackers from the cabinet.

The two of them exchanged a look.

“Your mother and I were about to pray,” Debbie said. “Would you like to join us?”

“No.”

“Seems like a good time with you stuffing your face with God’s bounty,” 

“Oh, we do pray before dinner,” Mom offered quickly.

“You’re supposed to pray before every meal,” Debbie snapped.

“This isn’t a meal. It’s a snack.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Her eyes narrowed. “Do you know where those crackers come from?”

I looked at the box. “Nabisco?”

“They come from God!”

I set the box down in front of her.

“You can have them. They’re pretty good. And they were made by Mr. Nabisco. Or Papa Smurf.”

Part III: Cartoon Lust and Baked Beans

Debbie was back the following afternoon. The smoke was emanating from the closed door again. The smell was even more potent, like she had been there all day. She’d already ruined one snack, so I bypassed the kitchen. Dad used to call a specific type of person a “yahoo,” and I had never quite understood it until then. Debbie was a certified fucking Yahoo. 

 Angie and I sat in the den watching  Woody Woodpecker. It was the episode where Woody dresses a bomb like a woman. He outfits the device in a blonde wig and thick red lipstick, and Wally the Walrus falls head over heels in lust. He puckers up, the fuse lights, and boom—he’s blown into cartoon shrapnel. Then, of course, he’s back in the next scene. No harm, no foul.

I loved this one.

Debbie had wandered by, paused, and watched with Angie and me, unaware. 

“Hi, Ted,” she said.

I stared at the screen.

“Hello, Ted.”

“Does anyone hear something?” I said.

“I don’t,” Angie replied.

Debbie sat down like she owned the place. It was not enough to steal Mom; now she wanted my cartoons, too.

“Oh God. Turn this off,” she said.

“What? No!”

She lunged for the TV. Angie got up and turned it back on after she left the room.

Wally was back on his feet. Lovestruck and oblivious.

Debbie came to the TV again, but this time I blocked her, hand over the button. She grabbed my arm and started yanking it like she was wrestling a demon out of me.

Danny walked in.

“Leave him alone, you weirdo.”

“Mind your business, Danny.”

“Eat shit.”

“Fuck you Debbie, go home,” Marty chimed in.

Mom showed up right on cue. “Everyone, stop!”

“Maureen, I was trying to turn off this horrible show,” Debbie said, holding her wrist like she’d just survived a riot. “Ted wouldn’t let me. Now my hand’s hurt.”

“Oh, cut the shit,” Danny said.

“Ted, apologize to Debbie,” Mom snapped. “TV stays off. Everyone, go do homework or something.”

“Whatever,” Danny muttered as the room cleared.

Debbie looked pleased. Mom stood next to her. The teams had been chosen.

I stayed behind, stewing, then stomped into the kitchen, grabbed the box of Ritz crackers again, bowed my head, and said:

“Dear God, thank you for the crackers. And please make Debbie go home and stop being a jerk. Amen.”

Debbie shook her head. “Don’t mock God. And I promise you, the Lord doesn’t want you watching that show.”

“He was fine with it before you got here.”

“Well,” she smiled, lighting a cigarette, “maybe that’s why I’m here.”

I blinked.

Debbie explained how Woody Woodpecker brought damnation into our home. 

She wasn’t kidding. 

It wasn’t the explosion.

Not the fake romance.

Not the dismemberment of the walrus, or the fact that Woody was a cartoon sociopath.

No. The problem was lust. That Wally got a little too excited about a bomb in lipstick.

I looked at Mom. She nodded like that all made sense.

Dinner that night was hot dogs and baked beans again. Mom knew I hated it. Still served it. Even now, the smell of baked beans makes me gag.

We were a classic “finish everything on your plate” family. Last time, I’d stayed at the table until almost midnight, rolling beans under the stove, hiding some in my milk, flinging a few behind the fridge whenever Dad wasn’t looking. Danny and Marty made fake gagging sounds all night like they were auditioning for a new Tv show called “How to fuck with Ted.”

But this was a school night—no time for theatrics. I’d have just to eat the damn things.

Dad had come home angry.  He launched into a tirade about the electric bill and that we left the lights on, like it was our mission to bankrupt him. He said we could  “live in the dark” for all he cared.

“You better pay attention, Ted, or I’ll smack you into the middle of next week.”

I kept my head down, stared at the phone on the wall, and tried not to breathe through my nose.

First bite. Shoulders up. Legs tingling.

Second bite. Gagged and swallowed it.

Third bite. I threw up, right into my lap.

Sometimes, I got off the hook when that happened. Sometimes I didn’t.

That night, no one said much. I went to bed early, the taste still in my mouth. Danny and Marty made puking sounds as they came in later. I pretended to be asleep.

Part IV: Rolling with the Holy Ghost

Debbie was at the house every day that week, and Woody Woodpecker went unwatched. Bibles and cigarettes were always on the kitchen table. I’d stopped passing through, opting for the basement after Debbie asked if I wanted to accept the Lord into my heart, whatever that meant. 

On Saturday, Dad was in a good mood and at dinner announced that we were going to a “Holy Roller” church with Debbie in the morning.  He looked amused. 

“What’s a Holy Roller church?”  Angie asked. 

“All I know is you praise the living shit out of Jesus.”

Mom looked at him and smiled. She was happy, and I was good with attending church again, even if it was Debbie’s church. I just hoped she wouldn’t sit with us.

When Sunday came, not only did she sit with us, she met us out front, introducing us to everyone she could before deciding it was time to go inside. The building was immense. A balcony circled the rows below like an arena. You could remove the chairs and host two full-court basketball games. There was a big stage at the front, and another off to the side where a band was setting up. Brass, a drum kit, a bass, and an electric guitar. We’d only ever had an organ at our old church. I was cautiously hopeful. Maybe Sunday would stop being so dull.

Debbie was holding Mom’s hand when the lights went out. A deep bass thumped five steady notes. Arms went up. People clapped in time. The yelling started from the balcony and rained down on us—boom… boom-boom… boom-boom. A woman in front of me shouted, “Praise Him! Praise Him!”

“Okay!” said Marty, “Jesus, already.”

Spotlights hit the stage. It got deafening. I looked down our row. Debbie was launched into an awkward dance like she was lost in a forest housed in a telephone booth. Mom swayed. Marty was grinning. Danny, too, but he looked like he wasn’t sure if it was okay. Angie looked dumbfounded.

Then a short man in a three-piece suit with too much sandy hair appeared at stage right. The church roared louder. He strutted toward the microphone. A guitar blasted feedback, and he jumped in front of the mic like a wrestler entering a ring:

“I BELIIEEEEVE!!!”

The woman shouting “Praise Him” fell beside her in a man’s arms.

Something inside me popped. My legs went numb, and I gripped the back of the pew in front of me. People were jumping, falling, and yelling in rhythm. The band launched into a song. It helped. The chorus was something like, “Just like a tree standing by the water, I shall not be moved.” It was kind of good—something I wouldn’t have minded hearing on the radio.

Then I looked at Mom. She was in a trance, as was Debbie, arms raised, eyes closed.

The song ended, but the crowd didn’t settle. A cheer morphed into mumbling. No, babbling.

The woman in front of me dropped again and stayed there.

“Yes!” Pastor Jack called. “Yessss!”

People around us were muttering gibberish. I turned to Mom.

“Mom?”

“Fumbalumba… ajumble-nauk nauk nauk…”

Part of me thought maybe she was faking it to belong. But mostly I was terrified.

“Mom!”

“Egalumba egulamba…”

“Debbie?” I tugged her arm harder than I meant to.

Her head whipped toward me.

“What is she saying?”

“She’s speaking in tongues.”

“What?”

“The Holy Ghost is speaking through her,” she said, annoyed.

“What?”

“It’s God,” she snapped.

I took a step back, nearly tripping over Marty’s foot. He looked at me with wide, possessed eyes and a funhouse grin.

“Fee-fi-fo-fum, dickhead.”
Heading for the aisle, Angie said something I couldn’t hear. “What?”

“What the fuck,” she said, and kept looking ahead. I fled.

I walked through a sea of cars for at least half an hour before I found the station wagon. I sat on the hood and watched cars pass on the road, going anywhere else. I tried to think about the girl I liked at school. Van Halen. Even being home. But I couldn’t stop thinking about Mom.

When the Holy Ghost talks through someone… does it stop? Would she speak normally again? What if she didn’t? The Holy Ghost could talk threw Debbie’s ass for all I cared. But this was my mom.  

It started to rain as I saw my family walking toward the car.
“Where the heck have you been?” Mom asked, clearly angry with me.
But I smiled. Relieved to hear actual words.
Back home, Dad was in the den watching golf. Angie blew it immediately. “Ted walked out,” she said.

“Thomas!” Dad shouted.
I showed up in the doorway.
“Why’d you leave church?”
“Bathroom,” I said. “I had diarrhea.”
Angie: “Eww.”
Marty and Danny laughed from the kitchen, making fart noises. “Did you feel the Holy Ghost’s power?” Dad grinned.
“Yeah,” Danny said. “In his ass.”
Everyone laughed, except Mom. She didn’t chastise us when we swore around Dad, but I got the feeling that would change. 

It had worked, and I logged it in my survival book. Diarrhea could shut down future investigations. It made me the punchline but got me out of the room.

Predictably, I couldn’t sleep that night. Mom was watching a late-night TV show, and I went to join her but I stopped when I saw the same Pastor on television. The show was called “Come to the Water.” I wanted to go back to bed, but I stood in the doorway and watched. 

Pastor Jack’s voice. Softer now. The crowd was gone. The lighting was dim. He stood alone, speaking into a camera in an empty sanctuary.

“God is always watching,” he said. “He sees your actions. He hears your words, and he knows your thoughts.”

“He keeps it all in your book.  It’s being written right now.” He paused.

“When the time comes… will your book be an application for Heaven?” “Or an application… for Hell?”

Daisy Duke. She was all over my book. In class, I passed the time imagining her pulling up outside in her jeep. The sun glistened on her tanned legs that flowed from her cutoff jean shorts. Often, she wasn’t wearing a shirt at all. I’m in deep shit now. I’d jump in her jeep and head off to the farm. I tried to count how many sins were packed in that daydream, in that book. 

Part V Bob Backlund, Savior

That week, I started doing my homework. I stopped swearing, and I did the best I could to leave Daisy behind. When I tried to convince myself that Pastor Jack was wrong about God’s bookshelf, I thought about people falling in church. Maybe I needed to speak in tongues. I prayed to God to erase my book, but I didn’t figure him to use an eraser or white out. So I prayed for forgiveness five or six times a day, and yet, I felt like a serial sinner. When Easter came around, it didn’t feel like a holiday. It felt like a deadline.

The Easter service started like every other one: shouting and falling. I tried to speak in tongues. If it truly was the Holy Ghost speaking through you, then where was he? I tried to conjure him, but it felt like I was trying to poop.

 Eventually, the lights dimmed, and the music faded. Pastor Jack began to preach, slower now, his voice lowering into something theatrical.

He told the story of Peter’s denial, Judas’s betrayal, and the crucifixion, and the whole room leaned in.

Then he moved into the part about the woman caught in adultery.

“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

The way Jesus spoke to her seemed kind, gentle, and without shame. Not only that, it was like the Big Guy was pissed at her detractors—the Debbies. 

The knot has been entombed in my stomach since the Pastor’s book revelation, the speaking of tongues, or the cancellation of Woody Woodpecker unwound a bit. 

I leaned in to Mom and said I needed the bathroom.

“He’s gonna shit again,” Danny whispered.

I didn’t respond.

I passed Debbie and muttered, “Pharisee.”

She snapped her head toward me, but I was already moving.

Outside, the sun was bright. Cars passed calmly. Nobody was in church, and no one looked like they were going to Hell.

Maybe the man walking across the street didn’t know it was Easter.

And maybe that was fine.

I sat on the steps, listening faintly to the pastor’s voice still rolling through the bricks. He sounded like a man giving his whole heart to something I had wanted to make sense.

If Jesus died for our sins, then I should be sure I was worth dying for.

The words formed in my head and brought an estranged smile to my lips..

I stood up and walked around the building. A staircase led to an unlocked side door. Inside was an office—books, a desk, and a ladder bolted to the wall leading up to the lights.

I didn’t think. I climbed.

At the top was a scaffold. From there, I could see the whole church.

Pastor Jack was telling the story of Mary Magdalene finding the empty tomb of Jesus, who had risen again.

I spotted my family. Marty saw me first, then Danny, and then Angie, who buried her face in her hands.

Debbie saw me too, and froze. Then pointed, furious.

And I smiled.

I spread my arms wide.

Some people thought I was worshipping.

“He died for our sins…” Pastor Jack boomed below.

I dropped like a puppet—head tilted, tongue out.

“…and rose again, so that we may live.”

I rose.

Arms to the ceiling. Slowly. Reverently. Then I started pumping my fist. Patted myself on the back like Bob Backlund did after a good match.

From my heavenly viewpoint, my siblings were dying. I didn’t even check on Mom.

Later, outside, Debbie yanked me by the arm and dragged me to Pastor Jack.

“Tell him what you did, Ted,” she barked. “Tell him.”

“Um. I sinned.”

“He was up on the scaffold acting like a clown!”

Pastor Jack looked at me. “You were up there?”

I nodded.

He smiled. Patted my shoulder. And moved on to hug the next parishioner.

Debbie was furious. “You ought to be ashamed. You better beg God for forgiveness.”

“It seems like the Pastor doesn’t give a shit, Deb.”

She stormed off. I was a lost cause. And for the first time, it felt good. 

In the car, Danny, Marty, and Angie were still laughing.

“Were you doing Bob Backlund?” Danny asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

“That’s what I thought.”

“I saw him first,” Marty added. “I was like, ‘Holy shit.’”

“Debbie’s face,” Angie said. “That was the best part.”

They all agreed.

I looked out the window at a stoplight and saw a man getting on a bus. He was going the other direction.

I looked back at my siblings. Tears welled up in my eyes. 

Soon, our father would know everything.

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