I killed a man when I was fifteen. It bothered me for a while, but then I got over it.
People get over things. Only the very malignant types get stuck. When you do something wrong, it’s never okay, not for anybody. But some people crumble, and others get fixated, and some others walk away like breakfast and coffee.
Now I’m not saying I’m a villain. Because nobody believes in that fairy tale stuff anymore. But without a few tales tucked under the belt, nobody would know how to build stories.
My story begins under the belt as all good things do. I was born in a nunnery in New York City to a fine and noble lady who used to be a whore. And in that nunnery, they really knew how to make a good belt; I know this for a fact because I was subject to quite a few. I mean, what they had us do was fix belts every single day out of old leather and clips, delivered on Monday mornings in giant garbage bags by the Salvation Army. There was no point to the task really. I think the head nun, Mother Beatrice, simply felt that rosary beads were a bit passe and so she decided to give us something practical to do while we prayed.
I was a pretty decent catechism student, though I can’t say I ever tried that hard. I memorized my passages as I was told and always showed up more or less on time to all my lessons. I learned early on not to talk too much because talking wins you enemies, and the last thing you want in the House of God is an enemy.
I had a best friend named Elizabeth who had a severe hearing disorder. It wasn’t that she couldn’t hear, it was that she didn’t hear correctly, and so she always found herself in all kinds of wrong situations because she didn’t get the facts down straight. And everybody felt bad for her because we all understood she really tried.
One time Elizabeth found herself in the back of a truck with a naked Salvation Army man because she thought she had heard him tell her to remove his belt and bring it to the nuns. The way I see it, she might have heard correctly that time.
Silly me, that morning, when I found that Lizzy wasn’t in our room or in the dining hall, I decided it would be nice of me to pick up her chore for her, as her best friend and all, and grab the garbage bags from the truck myself, which had been parked outside for so long it got strange. Of course, I needed some help, so I brought Mother Louisa along.
Needless to say, when we lifted the truck door, and saw in the dim April light, the gray and red panties of a frightened Elizabeth dangling over the swinging headlamp, we felt a little bit shocked.
All the nuns got horribly busy that day. Mother Beatrice stormed into Lizzy and my room and threatened to kick us both out. She brayed for an hour that it was all very unacceptable, and then she and Mother Louisa bolted us in, to have a serious meeting outside with all the other nuns.
That was the first time Elizabeth and I kissed, and it was my very first kiss ever.
…to be continued…
