Neither my mother nor my father cussed and I didn't either until the summer before junior high when I heard others cuss and I grew curious. Did God really take an interest in this matter? If I cussed, would God punish me? Might I die? I had to know for sure and like a scientist I determined to give it a try. I would experiment. Twelve years old, walking alone one Saturday afternoon on Church Street in Shenandoah, I mustered my courage and right out loud I uttered the very worst words I could imagine.
"Jesus fuck shit."
Oo—
It was spooky.
I cringed and I may literally have ducked. That's how I remember the moment. I had scared myself. For half a block I walked warily and looked behind me left and right for any sign of danger and divine retribution.
Nothing.
Just a few weeks later I showed off for my friends at summer church camp. It was our mid-morning rest period and the eleven boys who shared my cabin were all lying in their bunks talking quietly among themselves of the competitive sports and games we played.
"Jesus fuck shit!" out of the blue I announced.
Whoa—
The boys were astounded, shocked, instantly silent.
Hushed.
I waited.
"I'm going to pray for you, Robert!" finally my friend Willy whispered.
Nervous I laughed.
"I am, too!" another boy said and then a third.
"Yes!"
"I can't believe you said that!" Willy exclaimed.
"Ha."
Uneasy I laughed again.
Hm.
I watched as the boys folded their hands and bowed their heads at their beds and moved their lips to their silent prayers. Their belief frightened me and I grew even more nervous. Concerned, just as before, for several minutes I looked around for heavenly warnings and threats, startled and alarmed by every unexpected noise and sudden movement. Fearful, I apologized silently in my head to God and to Jesus and also silently recited the Apostles' Creed and the Lord's Prayer and I waited.
Nothing.
That week I cussed no more.
Months passed.
The Wednesday evening before my confirmation on the coming Sunday my three classmates and I sat on high stools in the basement of the church where we were interrogated by the Reverend Lack—his real name—in front of the deacons.
It was our final examination.
I passed.
But following our inquisition the Reverend Lack pulled me aside to speak with me in private before I rejoined my father to go home.
"Why didn't you answer as we practiced?" he asked.
"What?"
I didn't understand.
"Didn't you realize that was the point of the confirmation classes?" he asked.
"No."
I didn't.
He was dumbfounded.
"You were supposed to answer as we practiced!"
"Oh."
I'd had no idea there were right and wrong answers to the questions the minister asked me. For some reason—who knows why—it had never occurred to me that our confirmation classes were a rehearsal. I have no memory at all of either the questions or my answers and I wish I did. I'd love to know what I said I believed back then—but I don't know how I responded.
Months of instruction and I had missed the whole point!
I just said what I thought.
Wait—
There's more.
Required as a boy to be an acolyte, I had one Sunday morning before the service wet my pants in the sacristy, soaking my black robe, yet I performed the ritual lighting of the candles at the altar, sat throughout the service beside the Reverend Lack, and snuffed the flames of the candles during the Benediction without anyone knowing my secret until uncomfortable, ignominious, and ashamed after the service I told my mother. I had been too scared to cross the sacred stage and pass before the congregation to the door to the basement stairs and to the only toilet in the church. Everyone would have known where I was headed and why.
I was twelve, shy, humiliated by my ignorance and fear of intimate acts.
Religion.
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