Back again with a here-and-now post…of sorts. A lot of this story is related to my past, so it’s in that mid-zone. I always tell people I am a Catholic by birth and a Buddhist by choice and that’s the absolute truth. However, I am not what I would call a ‘religious’ person. I’m a spiritual person, but not a religious person. I have great disdain for organized religion. I always tell my kids that it’s not God, or Buddha, or Mohammed or whomever your particular deity is that causes the problem. It’s what people do once they get hold of that religion and try to shape it in their own image and likeness.  It’s the organization of it by mortal men (and women) that I take issue with.

From the folks who brought you The Crusades and The Spanish Inquisition

The Catholic faith does not work for me on many levels. Right off the top, the church’s steadfast opposition to anything LGBT will rule Catholicism out. I really do not want my children exposed to the bigotry within those teachings. The incredible hypocrisy surrounding the whole issue of pedophilia is huge for me. I really think it’s over the top to condemn homosexuality when the church has spent years protecting pedophiles. It’s not so much that there are pedophiles in the church. I can see that happening. Becoming a priest gives them access to children and a great cover. Nobody questioned the Catholic church when I was young. Nobody. We didn’t know, but somebody did: Those in power. Instead of cleaning the mess up, they shuffled these sexual predators to new parishes and kept it hidden. I take issue with that. They should all have been prosecuted as perpetrators and accessories. Instead, when the story broke, they painted these sexual predators as homosexuals. I’m very much in command of two words in the English language: Fuck them.

Then, there are the nuns: Terrorists in penguin suits. I’m not sure how things are now, but when I was young we were terrified of them. I remember I wrote a story once called “Nuns with Guns.” I wish I could find it now. They ruled by intimidation when I was in grammar school. (By the time I got to high school, I wasn’t afraid of them anymore.) They also made you terrified of God. One false move and He’d smote you. Half of the problem was the outfit. It was like a klan outfit for the holy. Black and white. No gray. Appropriately enough, just like their teachings.

I was turned off to the Catholic religion for one other reason — a very personal one. This incident happened well before the whole church sex scandal broke. The catholic priest in my parish refused to come and give my dad last rites when he was dying because he had a golf tournament that day. In reality, the Catholic church lost me that day.

A brief foray into Judaism proves my theory of organized religion

For a while, Beth and I toyed with Judaism. We even began the process of conversion by taking the interfaith course in Westwood. The Rabbi teaching the course was a pompous, pretentious putz. It was when he got to Leviticus that I became uncomfortable. If you think the Catholics are tough on gays, try Judaism. During the time we were looking into Judaism, we were also trying to choose a temple to associate ourselves with. This was my second bad experience with the Hebrew vision of homosexuality. I’m not exactly sure what temple we had chosen. I’m thinking it was one on the north shore, since were were living in Beverly at the time. We were sitting in the Rabbi’s office and discussing the whole gay issue when he asked which one of us “plays the man.” Now, that was a real W-T-F moment for me.

I remember just looking at him and asking — in a very exasperated tone — “What?” He sat back and looked at me. “One will obviously be the mother, so who will be the father figure?” You know, ask anyone, I’m a very patient person. I’m loyal to a fault. My friends practically have to try to murder me to get me to dump them. I’m just not patient with this crap. I wasn’t going to try to talk to this guy and get him to understand because he clearly thought his question was perfectly logical. I remember saying to him, “Our child will have two mothers. Neither one of us will play the father. That’s not what this is all about. Thanks for your time. See you later.” I think Beth got up and followed me simply because she wasn’t expecting me to do that.  See, she’s a processor. I know she would have stayed there and tried to reason with the guy ad nauseum. No way. He did not want to “get it.” Sayonara, Judaism.

Those were the only two mainstream possibilities for me. The others, like Mormonism and Christian fundamentalism, have too many whack jobs per square inch for me. They are too overbearing and are always in “high conversion” mode.

Why Buddhism works for me

I chose Buddhism because I like its principles. It doesn’t ask for you to blindly go forward. In fact, it encourages you to question.

“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who said it, no matter if I had said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.” (Buddha)

That’s what I like about Buddhism. I also like that Buddhists, including the Dalai Lama, don’t for a minute believe that Buddhism is for everybody. The Dalai Lama doesn’t force feed anyone his ideology. He puts it out there. If it works for you, fine. If not, fine. Buddhism also teaches that its followers should never look down on anyone else’s religion. That’s a far cry from what you get with the Catholics and the Jews.

“Here is my simple religion. There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart are temples; the philosophy is kindness.” (The Dalai Lama)

This works for me. The whole belief in Karma works for me, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t got issues with the “organized” side of Buddhism. I have issues with it. For one thing, they raise too much money for nonsensical things, like giant statues and ornate religious symbols. I understand the importance of the deities in Buddhism. I get it. Beth and I even have an altar with some deities on it. Medicine Buddha is very big in our household, for obvious reasons. It’s not an alter you pray at, by the way. It’s where you make offerings. But the Buddhists spend too much time raising money to build hugely ornate statues and temples. There is so much more they could do with that money…like feed their monks who basically subsist on nothing but rice, and eat just one meal a day. That’s crazy.

The other thing about Buddhism is the number of wealthier people who are involved in it because it’s seen as “fashionable” to be Buddhist. That’s not really anything that Buddhism itself can control, actually. I used to go to the Kurukulla Center in Medford every once in a while and you could see the hangers on. None of these people upheld the basic tenets of Buddhism. They had attitude. They were snobs. They weren’t nice to those less fortunate than they are. Those aren’t Buddhist qualities in the least. I really never get there anymore and I honestly do not feel as though I’m missing anything. I can be Buddhist here at home. After all, the Dalai Lama says so!

I’m a big fan of Mark Twain, and my favorite quotation from Mr. Twain also happens to be on my Facebook page right now. It reads:

“Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool.”

I happen to feel that way about religion. Now, before all my Christian brethren get freaked on this statement, I’m not talking about spirituality here. I’m talking about religion. This is entirely different. To me, ‘religion’ is what man does with spirituality once he/she gets hold of it. It’s the part that mortal men (or women) play in delivering spirituality to the masses. I’ve always felt that way about religion, even when I was a kid. That is why it’s so weird that I spent nearly 14 years in Catholic school. I say “nearly 14 years” because I spent the first half of the first grade in public school. That’s because Immaculate Conception in Revere didn’t have space at the beginning of the year. So, in a nutshell, I’ve always had issues with authority and nuns and priests (mostly nuns) represented “authority.”

My sister Jo-Anne felt the brunt of my dislike of Catholic school, simply because she was already a student at Immaculate Conception once I arrived. Every time I did something wrong, she would get the call. I can’t remember every single incident, but I do remember one time when I absolutely refused to stay at the school for lunch. My house was just down the street, dammit, and I wanted to go home for lunch. It was, of course, a Friday and the absurd Catholic rule of “no meat on Fridays” was in force. See, that’s what I mean about mankind delivering religion. WTF does what you eat on what freakin’ day have to do with believing in God?

Anyway, things really began to go downhill when the homeroom nun (okay, I can’t remember specific nun names back that far). It could have been Sister Honorius. She was one of the nuns I had at Immaculate, but I can’t really remember what grade I had her in. She said, “Come on, Deborah, tell me a fish story.” I know I began my response saying, “I’ll tell you a fish story alright…”  But everything that came after that is a blank. However, since my sister was called down to the room, it could not have been very nice.

I know my sister (not ‘the’ sister) pulled me outside in the hall to talk to me and I know she was pissed. But I also know that I went home for lunch. My mother fed me (of course, it was Friday so I had a tuna fish sandwich), and then promptly delivered me back to school…with a warning. Needless to say, I ate lunch at school for the rest of the year. But I didn’t like it.

I didn’t have the opportunity to stay at Immaculate until the bitter end. My dad died and I stayed at Immaculate until we settled somewhere else. I remember that I’d get a ride from my evil Aunt Buddy back and forth to school until we settled in. As it turns out, we ended up living with my evil Aunt Buddy in Medford. That’s when I enrolled at Saint James Grammar School. (This is where I met my partner in crime, George.) I cannot remember in-classroom specifics here at all. I’m not sure what that means. I do remember one incident. I used to sing in the choir, and one Sunday my friend and I were tossed out because we were leaning over the railing and spitting on people’s heads as they walked in below us. The only other thing I remember is getting everyone to skip church and go to the park for an hour instead. See. Great disdain for authority of any type. And religion in general.

Fast times at Arlington Catholic High

I continued on in my catholic education by choosing Arlington Catholic High. My mother was thrilled. I chose that school simply because all of my friends were going there. George was behind me by a grade or two, but he also ended up going there. So did Linda. Remember her? She was my first lesbian relationship experience that I wrote about several posts ago. So, it was great. Getting there was another story. Winters were brutal because we had to take three buses to get there, one from home to Medford Square. Then, a bus to West Medford, followed by a third bus that would drop us off in Arlington Center. By the time we got there, we were freezing.

Then there was the catholic school uniforms. These were dead ugly. They always consisted of a pleated, plaid skirt. In the case of good old AC high, it was a gray, red and white combination with a white shirt and gray vest — all wool. We’d die in the summer. It was absurd. It wasn’t that I was into fashion. I hated fashion. Didn’t care much for it and still don’t. But I hated that they were trying to make us all the same. That’s what the uniform felt like.

The assumption is that Catholic school kids are good kids. They don’t do anything wrong. They don’t get in trouble. Forget that shit. We were no different than anyone else at this age. Kids were fooling around in the back seats of cars. Some were drinking and smoking. Hell, the Mayor of Medford went to Arlington Catholic and he was a party animal! At the end of every school year, we’d have to clean out the homeroom we were in for next year’s incoming class. One day we sent the mayor out the window with a rope to go get us pizza.

I remember little tidbits from Arlington Catholic, but nothing in great detail. I remember that I was put into room 101 my freshman year. Any room ending in “01″ meant it was the academically advanced class. Now, we considered the kids in that class dweebs who didn’t know how to have real fun. It also meant that everything was harder. Hard work was not on my agenda at that time. I was sure of one thing: I was determined to keep myself out of room 201 next year, and I succeeded by not doing so well in a couple of subjects…like Latin. Latin. WTF kind of life skill comes from taking Latin? None. Absolutely none. We were forced to take Latin because it was a Catholic school and the Sunday Mass was still being conducted in Latin.

Sister Ruth taught Latin. She was brutal. She had bucked teeth and the spit would really fly when she was in the process of reprimanding you. All I can remember from her (at least once a week) was, “Miss Della Piana, you’re getting under my skin and making a dent.” Yeah. I’m sure I was.

And then there was Sister Georgiana. She was big, loud and quite imposing, and she wasn’t going to take any shit from any of us. I believe she taught Physical Science??? Not really sure.  All I know is that I sat in between probably the only two black kids in the entire school — Donna Bell and Paula Mont. I can remember to  this day exactly what they looked like. They were absolutely hysterical and they would just get me going. It never failed that we got caught every time we had the class. One time our laughing really got to her, and Sister Georgiana slammed her fist down on the chalk board ledge and took the damned thing right off the wall.

Out of control at Aquinas

I ended up moving on to a two-year Catholic college. There were reasons for this that had nothing to do with the fact that it was Catholic. It also had it’s share of stupid rules that I thought were oppressive, and I was determined to change them (although I complied at the beginning). Here’s a stupid rule: We had to wear skirts or dresses as though we were secretaries already employed in jobs. Absurd. After putting up with the uniforms at AC, there was no way I was going to wear dresses and skirts.

I simply started wearing jeans and cords to school. I was suspended once for that. Then again. Finally, I remember approaching the student council and urging them to start a petition to get rid of that foolish rule. Listen, we were paying to go to this school, so why should they tell us how to dress? The fact is that we weren’t working. We were students. We eventually won that battle. I was determined to have a good time in spite of where I was, and it turned into a great two-year party.

First, it was an all-girls school and it was truly my coming of age in that respect. A group of us hung around together all the time, and I was involved at various times with three of them. Of course, none of them ever knew that about each other because they were too afraid to openly talk about it. It was not easy to be gay at that time and, frankly, it was also scary to come to terms with the fact that you might be gay. My partying went well beyond that, however.

The sleepover was one thing I remember. They had this Aquinas tradition where the students spent one night sleeping over at the school. The seniors generally got to abuse us at this little event. You know, like making us roll uncooked eggs the length of the entire main corridor with our noses. Or blindfolding us and making us brush each other’s teeth. By the time we got to this, it was really late at night and a couple of us climbed out the bathroom window and headed for my car. We had stopped at Blanchards, our favorite local liquor store (and our favorite lunch spot, by the way) and bought some rum and coke. It was the perfect time to take a break. While we were out there, someone also suggested we might want to smoke a fatty since were at the far end of the parking lot and hidden under trees. We weren’t sure how we were going to get back in, but we really didn’t care at the time.

Luckily, we did get back in without much trouble. Someone had left the bathroom window partially open, so we forced it open the rest of the way and climbed back in. Everyone was pretty much settled down in the lounge in sleeping bags. Some had already fallen asleep. But we had the munchies, so we decided to see if we could find something to eat. All we could scrape up in the kitchen was a jar of jam. Somehow, and I really do not know how we found our way up there, we ended up in the chapel where the only thing we found to eat was a bag of communion hosts. We decided that they were probably still unblessed, so it would be a minor sin. We sat down and ate damned near half a bag with the jam. They were disgusting, but we were desperate for food. The funny thing is that nobody caught on that it ever happened. We simply sealed up the bag and put it back when we were done.

We knew that some of these nuns were fully capable of having a good time. We could tell. (And I was absolutely sure that Sister Carroll was gay, even though we never confirmed it.) So, one night we had Karen’s house to ourselves because her parents were at their summer house in Kingston. We decided to invite a few of the nuns over to a spaghetti dinner. I’m not sure if we ever got to the food because we got them drunk on Cape Codders. I mean, drunk. We got them so drunk that they couldn’t even drive themselves home. We had to take them home later that night (not that we were in much better shape). One of my friends drove their car back and I drove them in my car. We literally had to open the door and take them to their rooms. Then, we were so drunk we had a hard time finding our way out. It was like some kind of ancient catacomb. We continued to be friendly with this pack of nuns, but nobody ever mentioned a word about that night. We just kind of let it slide.

Sleeping with women. Eating hosts because I had the munches from smoking dope. Getting the nuns drunk. You know, if there is a Supreme Being up there somewhere keeping notes, I could be in big trouble.

By the time I graduated Aquinas in 1973, I was involved in my first serious relationship with a woman (or a girl). I was 19 years old. Marie and I had actually met in high school, but had not acted on anything until Aquinas. By the time graduation came, we were talking about moving in together. While we were still at school, however, she was living in Woburn and I was living in Medford. I spent a considerable amount of time at Marie’s house. Her younger sister was hysterical and often hung out with us. Marie also had an uncle who was a Roman Catholic priest running a halfway house for troubled youth. Sometimes he’d be in Woburn with some of the boys from the house.

Oddly enough, my oldest sister worked for the center run by Marie’s uncle. We’ll just call him Reverend Slowhand for lack of a better name. If that isn’t enough, two of my cousins were enrolled in the program there. I tell you all this because it is relevant to this story. By the time my relationship with Marie ended, it marked the most unbelievably fucked up experience of my life.  In order to fully understand it, we have to pass through a flashback experience first.

Before Marie and I were even a couple, we were part of this larger group of female Aquinas friends who hung out together all the time. Prior to Marie, I had a minor involvement with one other girl in the group, whom we’ll call Kathy. Kathy’s parents had a place down on the south shore near the ocean and we used to go down there on the weekends in the summer. Likewise, Marie’s family had a place in New Hampshire on a lake. We also went there several times with her family. One weekend, however, just us girls went there alone.

At that time, Kathy and I were involved to some extent. We had been drinking all night, and the others were passed out on the sofa in the living area. That’s when Kathy and I decided to go find a bedroom, but we found more than we bargained for. We found a staircase that led downstairs to a bedroom. I opened the door and flipped on the lights, and stopped dead in my tracks. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There was a huge four-poster bed with red satin sheets, a red velvet bedspread and mirrors everywhere, including on the ceiling. I didn’t know whose room this was, since we were told that the bedrooms were upstairs, but I knew it wasn’t Marie’s parents’ room. I started checking things out and it became apparent pretty quickly that this was Reverend Slowhand’s room. I was pretty sure this wasn’t the norm for a priest, and I knew he was bringing kids from the center up here on weekends. I might have been young, but I was pretty savvy about some things. Uncomfortable about bringing it up to Marie, I just didn’t. In fact, Kathy and I pretty much agreed to forget we even found the downstairs. Before that weekend was over, I slipped back down there during the day for another look and snapped some pictures. I don’t even know why I did that.

Fast forward to post-Aquinas

I don’t remember exactly how long after graduation Marie and I moved in together, but it could not have been immediate because I spent a year at Bunker Hill Community College after that. When Marie and I finally did move in together, we moved into an apartment in Malden in a building owned by my brother-in-law and other members of his family. Marie was working in Boston as a medical secretary and I was probably at Millipore by that time, although I cannot remember specifically where I was. I can only surmise that I would have to have been working to pay the rent. We lived a pretty normal life. We went to work, came home and cooked dinner, and walked our dog, a Lab/Husky mix named Sundance. All in all, it was a pretty mundane life, but her family knew there was something more than a friendship going on and they were determined to stop it. That’s when the Reverend Slowhand got involved.

Marie came home one night from work and told me that she had to go out to dinner with her uncle later that week. She really didn’t want to go and I remember her saying, “I wish they’d just leave me alone.”  This was a sentiment that she would echo every night right up until the night she was to meet her uncle. I knew she was under incredible pressure. She had to be. She had been brought up in a devout Irish-Catholic home and her uncle was a priest. The reality was that she didn’t have to go out with her uncle. Marie was in her early twenties by the time we moved in together. She didn’t have to go anywhere. I remember telling her not to worry about it, just go and listen politely and it would be over before she knew it. I told her I’d wait up for her. Inside, I was not that optimistic and I knew we were saying goodbye for good when she left.

I may have been somewhat “in the closet” in some circles back in those days, but I knew I was gay and that I’d always been gay. I also knew where it was safe to be “out” and where it wasn’t. In the final analysis, I knew I could withstand the pressure if push came to shove (although I prefer that it didn’t). I also knew that Marie could not withstand that pressure. She was still questioning herself and adjusting to who she was.

It was a long night and I sat up all night on the sofa waiting. She never returned to our apartment and I never saw her again. Early the next morning, I called her house in Woburn asking for her. I remember her mother saying to me that, “Marie is here but she needs the company of boys now. She will not be speaking with you or seeing you again.”  Then I remember her asking if my mother knew what was going on with me. That was one complication I did not want, but I also knew that Marie’s mother knew how to contact my mother (she had already moved in with my sister and her family).  I had the trump card. I had found the bedroom in New Hampshire, and I’m sure everyone in that family knew it was there. I also knew that whatever was going on up there wasn’t appropriate behavior for a Catholic priest.

I remember telling her mother that if she called my mother and told her anything at all, I would let everyone know about the existence of Reverend Slowland’s bedroom in New Hampshire. I told her I even had pictures. (I never processed that roll of film and would probably never be able to find it, but she didn’t know that.) There was dead silence on the line. I mean, dead silence.  Then the phone clicked and I was back to the dial tone. I never heard from any of them again. Events would unfold later that would simply blow my mind. I had suspicions, but even I couldn’t imagine the depth of Reverend Slowhand’s depravity.

Welcome to Pedophilia

Marie’s uncle was a virulent pedophile priest. The Reverend Slowhand was right up there with Geoghan, Porter and Shanley. By the time the scandal had played itself out in the press nearly twenty years later, the Catholic Church would quietly settle 17 cases against the Reverend Slowhand. He was accused of raping and molesting boys both at his halfway house (which he ran under state contract) and at his vacation home in Barnstead, New Hampshire. He also stands accused of molesting a family friend in Woburn over a four-year period. This abuse started when the boy was thirteen. The church dealt with Reverend Slowhand like they dealt with all the others, they just kept moving him around and giving him fresh bodies to toy with in the name of God.

I have no idea where Marie is. I don’t know if her parents are alive or dead. My most recent Internet check tells me that the Reverend Slowhand retired from the priesthood in the late 90’s and is living in his little sex parlor in Barnstead, New Hampshire. I’ve not found any obits, so I’m assuming he’s still taking in air and taking up space.

There were several things over my lifetime that pushed me away from the Catholic church. This was one of the biggest. It also convinced me that organized religion run by ordinary men isn’t the answer.  Even though I am Buddhist today and very mindful of what it means to be Buddhist, I do not spend time attending services at a center. I stay away from that portion of the program because it’s often reduced to politics and power grabs.

I have had some unbelievable things happen to me over the years. That’s why I started writing this blog. But this one incident has to be the most twisted event in my life. As my mother would say if she were still here, “This one takes the cake.”

Okay, so this title is probably totally misleading. I use this because I was less than enthusiastic about going to Aquinas Junior College (Newton, MA; now defunct and an aerial view is all I can find). Why? Well, it would be two more years of hanging with the nuns. That was the first thing. And it was a secretarial school. That was the second thing I didn’t like. I absolutely had no desire to be a secretary. I wanted to paint and write. My mother had other ideas. I had to be able to support myself and there was no room for negotiation.

Funny, all these years later, I’m thinking the same way about my own kids. My mother was 45 when I was born. She was a strong Catholic — no birth control. Let’s just say she was on the accelerated program where I was concerned. She was afraid that she wouldn’t be around somewhere down the road and that I had to learn to take care of myself. I was 43 myself when Thalia was born, and 48 for Aaron’s birth. I’m 55 now, and my children are 12 and 8 respectively. I can understand what my mother was thinking, because every once in a while I think the same way. However, as concerned as I am, their future will be their choice. (Of course, I say that now but who really knows what kind of irrational shit I’ll pull when the actual day of reckoning comes.)

Anyway, back to Aquinas. My ambivalence about college contributed as much to this decision as my mother’s concern. I did not embrace school. It wasn’t exciting to me. I could argue that the teachers were less than inspirational. That was true in some cases, but a lack of focus on my part contributed just as much. Somewhere down the road, however, I would realize that my education at Aquinas opened the door to my career in advertising and public relations, a career I was once totally happy in. But we’ll get to that.

So, I show up for my first day at Aquinas, and not a very taxing day at that. It was billed as “orientation,” so we broke into groups (according to our chosen career path), got the tour, looked around and got to eat there. I broke into a sweat when I first got there, probably from the sight of all the black and white penguin suits milling about. Nuns, nuns and more nuns…all waiting for us. However, as it turned out, we were taken on the tour by the seniors, not the nuns.

The TV lounge was great. It was big. It had two televisions (I think) at either end. There was a piano and a lot of very comfy chairs and coffee tables; it was very bright and sunny. It was actually clean. Amazing. As we walked through, I admit that I was expecting the students there to be watching Catholic television or some such thing, but they weren’t. They were watching the soaps and yelling things at the characters. We move through this lounge and on to our next destination. I’m thinking this is great that it’s all girls, but how much fun can I possibly have with that at a button-down, Roman Catholic college? I was about to get my answer.

All the way down at the end of a long corridor was the smoking lounge, or “The Smoker.” Yes, smoking cigarettes was still big in those days. Apparently, the nuns never went into the smoker because, if they did go into the smoker, they’d have freaked out. (At least, I thought they would have had to freak out at what I saw.) The room was smoke filled and loud. Some girls were just standing around talking and laughing. Others were singing to a song on the radio. However, I had very clear sightings of girls sitting on each others’ laps and kissing. Kissing. Lesbian encounters within the walls of a Roman Catholic college situated in whitebread Newton, Massachusetts were quite unheard of back then. They just didn’t happen. W-T-F?

Here I was, just 17 years old, looking around at all the goings-on. In my heart, I knew I was gay. I probably had not articulated that in any formal fashion, yet. I’m not sure I accepted that portion of the program totally at that time…until I got to the orientation. I think that day changed a lot for me. Frankly, it took a great weight off knowing that it wasn’t only me. Suddenly, it became apparent to me that I could have more fun there than I originally thought. People were actually acting on what they were feeling, and not worrying much about the consequences, I might add. I remember turning toward someone standing next to me and saying, “Hey, better living through lesbianism.” Hence, the title of the post. It’s the only comment I can remember making on that day all these years later.

I may not have wanted to be at Aquinas, but I made the absolute most of my time there. I made it through the two years and walked away with a degree, and I had an incredibly good time getting it. I never imagined, even on that day, that the two years I spent there would be where I’d get into some serious lesbian experiences. Nor did I dream that I would be graduating from Aquinas in a serious relationship with another student (a woman I went to high school with, no less), and that we would almost immediately move in together after graduating.

Incidentally, this relationship would thrust me into the middle of the most disturbing and freaky occurrence of my life. Stay tuned.

This is one for the books. It will show the folly of youth, and the incredible greed in which students engage just to have party money. More dough means more trips to the “packie” as we used to say. (Or, of course, two bags of Jamaican in those days.)

So, I graduated from Aquinas and it’s 1973. For lack of anything else to do, I enrolled at Bunker Hill Community College. I don’t even remember what I took, probably liberal arts because I was teetering between art and writing. [Of course, I ended up at Aquinas to begin with because my mother spent many days and nights trying to convince me that there was no future in either.] Anyway, this little Charlestown adventure — to a school where the most fun we had was throwing rocks at the water rats and then slamming the door shut before they went for your throat — lasted one year. In 1974, I’d join Millipore Corporation. That’s for later. That’ll give us 23 years of stories.

So, we’re sitting in the cafeteria at Bunker Hill on an unbelievably snowy day. It was really coming down. The drive had been treacherous. Then, after we spent all morning getting there, they decided to send us all home. Idiots. We were talking about the new movie, The Exorcist, when somebody asked for a volunteer to go see the movie alone. We all asked what was in it for us. The response was too good to resist. The ones who didn’t go to the movie would pool their money and give the volunteer $50. The volunteer would have to bring back the ticket stub. I took it. Little did I know that — this one event — would bring home to me just how incredibly powerful my Catholic education and brainwashing had been.

I drove in a raging storm into Boston. It was windy, the snow was piling up quickly and it was freezing. I was really happy to get inside the Music Hall parking garage. Back in those days, and in that weather, the investment was worth the payoff. I went inside and bought a ticket, carefully putting the stub inside my back pocket after going past the attendant. I was literally alone inside the theater. There were maybe 3 other people. That only made it worse. Here’s where I came out:

I was completely freaked out, scared to shit. You know, I read the book and it was bad enough, but seeing it on the big screen was horrifying. It was scary and outstanding, right down to the music. I know that the movie kind of destroyed Linda Blair’s career before it even got started, but she was brilliant in that movie. Actually, they all were, but she really stood out. She had so many ways of scaring the shit out of you: The flopping around on the bed so completely out of control; the levitating; the evil shit she said; the impression that she even smelled bad; and the bile colored puke were just too much for me. Those individual scenes were some of the most frightening I’ve seen on the big screen, and I’m a big horror fan. But it was the overwhelming reality that she was so completely in the control of someone or something so evil was the most frightening part of the movie. She wasn’t even a bad kid. She was benign. She did not invite Satan in. Even the image of Satan that they use inthe movie is exactly as I had envisioned him all of my young life.

I lived in Melrose at the time, right next to some railroad tracks. It was on the commuter line and the stop was called Melrose Cedar Park. I did a pretty good job after the movie telling myself it was just a movie. I went to bed normally that night, at about 10 p.m. because I had school the next morning and wanted to cash in — especially since I had psychologically screwed myself by going to that foolish movie. It was fine until about 11:30 p.m. when the first train went through…and my bed shook, as it always had. Of course, after The Exorcist, that shaking was a bit tainted. I sat bolt upright after coming out of a dead sleep and was terrified that my bed was shaking. I immediately jumped out of bed and turned on the light. After that, I slept with the light on for nearly four months. And I certainly did not go back to bed that evening. I turned every light in the apartment on, made myself coffee and watched television until I had to leave for school the next morning.

To this day, I can’t even bring the movie into my house. I tried renting it about four years ago and ended up leaving it in the trunk. I was convinced the next morning that I was going to be possessed as soon as I sat in the driver’s seat. I dropped it back into the drop off box on the way to work. Totally irrational, I know. But the nuns had me for fourteen years at that point and they scared the shit out of me. The worst thing was that they made you as afraid of God as they did Satan. That really sucks. No solace anywhere.

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. The little girl, Reagan, was using a Ouija Board at the beginning of the movie, and that’s when all the problems start. My Ouija Board went out in the trash the next morning…after I bent and broke it into pieces. I had that thing for years until that movie. Permanently scarred, I tell you.