Bad Habits (8 page)

I can only imagine how many of them were complaining about how awful their husbands were as they pulled Kleenex from their heaving bosoms to wipe the crocodile tears of loneliness from their lying bedroom eyes and Bambi lashes coated with waterproof mascara. What a scene it was.

A few months into Father Andrew’s debut, a wickedly entertaining competition started to unfold. Which family would Father Andrew choose to become close friends with? The rectory in the church soon became filled with Bundt cakes, oatmeal cookies, rum cakes, and a multitude of other confectionary fancies to tempt him into people’s homes.

But Father Andrew was no dummy. He was Irish. He went where the booze was running thick—my house. The McCarthy house was filled with laughter and the smell of scotch.

I remember thinking,
Wow, this is really fun
. I also remember being a bit confused by the fact that gluttony was considered a sin, yet alcohol and desserts were given to win someone’s affection. It was just one of the many contradictions in my childhood.

Once word spread that the McCarthys were in the lead, the Baruchs decided to throw a welcome party for Father Andrew. Yes, the fucking Baruchs. I even caught word that they hired a Christian rock wedding DJ. When someone hires a DJ to a party on the South Side of Chicago, it’s like the Holy Grail. It doesn’t get more classy than that.

The neighborhood was all up in arms as to who would be invited. Clearly not us. So, being the clever and competitive woman that my mom is, she decided to throw a party on the same night. Now it was up to Father Andrew to choose where he wanted to go. Being the dignified diplomat that he was, he promised both families that he would make an appearance since we lived only a couple of houses away from each other.

Oh no,
I thought.
Game on.

Remember the movie
Annie
when Annie and the other orphans scrubbed every inch of the orphanage while singing “It’s the Hard-Knock Life”? Well, that was my sisters and me. We scrubbed and scrubbed the house in preparation for this party. My dad even erected a new bush outside our home that had been recently destroyed by a drunken uncle who fell into it.

The McCarthys were going all out.

As the day grew closer, Father Andrew came over to talk to my mom.

He tried to encourage her to bury the hatchet by extending an olive branch to Mrs. Baruch. I remember peeking around the corner to eavesdrop and covering my mouth to keep from laughing out loud. There was no way in hell my mom was going to give in to that wench of a woman.

With clenched teeth and a fake smile, she said, “Father Andrew, I would really enjoy that and would love to have her join us at my home to have one celebration instead of two.”

I heard that Mrs. Baruch was given the same speech by Father Andrew. But, as expected, the parties stubbornly remained on the same night in separate houses. When I woke up for school the day of the party, there was a buzz in the air.

Parties were given only for graduations, but seeing that this was a special occasion to keep up with the Joneses, everyone was invited.

During school, I ran into Diana Baruch in the hallway. She had her usual “don’t fuck with me” look on her face. She snarled and said, “Just so you know, I invited the entire class to my house tonight, so don’t be expecting anyone at yours.” Then she flipped her hair in my face as she walked away.

Could she be right? Would everyone go to her house instead of mine? This would be a huge blow to my social status as a seventh grader. It was scheming time. Think, Jenny, think. Then it hit me.

I ran through the hallways looking everywhere to find Blaire Starecki. She was more Polish than a Polish sausage and I knew her grandma had a stash of Polish liquor in the attic. I never drank liquor—well, except for church wine—but I knew a lot of my friends were already experimenting with drinking.

I quickly found Blaire and talked her into going to her grandma’s house after school in hopes of scoring a bottle of the Polish stuff. Blaire liked the idea, so I quickly spread the rumor to my friends that I would get them some alcohol if they came to my house for the party. Needless to say, everyone RSVP’d quickly.

After school, Blaire and I successfully pulled two bottles of liquor from Blaire’s grandma’s house. I had never heard of this kind of alcohol. It had a homemade label on the front of it with a handwritten word:
MOONSHINE
.

I ignorantly asked, “Is moonshine some type of vodka?”

Blaire replied with an equal amount of naïveté, “Hell if I know.”

Then we made our way to 7-Eleven, stole ten Big Gulp cups, and took them back to my place.

I had never seen my house so clean. You could have performed brain surgery in the living room. My mom had her best church outfit on while preparing her famous cocktail meatballs. I could tell she was nervous and excited about hosting this very special event in the neighborhood. It was like Vanity Fair’s Oscar party vs. the Acme party. My mom wanted ours to be the Vanity Fair party, of course. It had to be.

The Baruchs’ party was first up that night. All the neighbors could be heard dancing and singing with the DJ. Even though we had two hours before our party was scheduled to start, my friends who had RSVP’d for alcohol were already at my house.

My mom was freaking out that her Vanity Fair party was looking more like a Nickelodeon party, so she shooed us all to the basement, which was fine with me because I had some bartending to do. Once down there, I passed out the Big Gulp cups to my friends and filled them all up to the rim with this moonshine stuff. I also topped off my own cup and proceeded to drink. The next thing I remember, I was standing in our now-crowded living room with my friends and neighbors, violently puking everywhere. And by everywhere, I mean everywhere. Furniture, walls, people—even Father Andrew. I remember people screaming because all of my friends started riding the puke train, and soon enough the entire room was Jackson Pollock’d in vomit. It looked like a scene from
The Exorcist
.

Then I faintly recall waking up from being dragged away by my hair. I’m pretty sure it was by my dad. I also remember puking all over him and the bathroom for what seemed like two days. I definitely remember my mom giving me a bath and not enjoying the realization of that.

That night, I cried myself to sleep like a baby.

To say my mom was mad at me was the understatement of the year. She was humiliated and furious. I completely ruined her night to shine.

I tried my best to throw everyone else under the bus to lighten the punishment, but it didn’t work.

Once I recovered from liver failure, my mom made me go apologize to Father Andrew and confess my sin.

As I sat with him experiencing my first and worst hangover ever, he wanted to know why I would think that getting liquor would make my friends like me.

I replied sincerely, “Well, that’s why you became friends with our family in the first place. I saw my parents buy you liquor and it worked. So I thought it would work for me.”

The sheepish look on Father Andrew’s face made me realize how dumb he felt. Children do learn from watching adults, and no doubt he was guilty himself.

We sat in silence for a minute, and then he said, “Looks like I need to be doing a penance rosary with you.” He knelt down next to me and recited the rosary with me.

I had so much respect for the fact that Father Andrew saw his own sins in my actions.

I wished all adults were like Father Andrew.

I was thirteen.

“What now, Jenny?” asked Sister Harris.

“I’m confused.”

“What else is new? What are you confused about now?”

“I’m confused about the First Commandment: ‘I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not have strange gods before Me.’ I don’t understand exactly what that means.”

“It means we should worship only God, no one else,” Sister Harris explained.

“Okay, define ‘worship.’”

“To praise and adore. You shouldn’t put a picture of an elephant on the wall and praise it as God.”

“What if God is an elephant?”

“God is not an elephant,” said Sister Harris.

“How do you know God is not an elephant?”

“Because I know.”

“But how?”

“Enough.”

These were the back-and-forth conversations I had with nuns at the school that my dad worked his balls off to afford. I quickly came to realize that nuns weren’t mentally equipped for my investigations, so my questions were not well received.

I was truly stumped by the First Commandment. I was stumped by this rule as to who God is. If the Catholic Church doesn’t know what God is, how can they tell me not to worship other gods? What if I accidentally bought the wrong snow globe with the wrong god inside it?

I raised my hand again with more question marks floating in my head. “Sister?”

“What?”

“Jesus always referred to God as a ‘He,’ so that’s why the Church believes it’s some sort of a male species, right?”

“Yes, Jenny.”

“Well, we refer to a boat as a ‘she.’ So maybe Jesus was calling God a ‘He’ like a gendered pronoun.”

“What is wrong with you?” said Sister Harris. “Why do you ask these questions?”

“Um, because we’re in religion class right now.”

“Why do you question your faith?”

“Because I’m trying to understand it.”

“But that’s where faith comes in,” Sister Harris said. “Trust that the things you don’t understand were already understood for you and have faith we are right.”

“Really? So believe everything you say and don’t question it?”

“Just have faith.”

I left school that day totally committed to God as a dude with a beard and a staff. I was going to have faith! I wasn’t a troublemaker. I was a truth seeker.

I was tired of the nuns dismissing me as if my inquisitive nature just brought piss and vinegar to their classrooms. The truth was that I just wanted to be more self-aware of my religion so I could continue being a good person and avoid accumulating unnecessary sins. It was in their best interest if they wanted me to remain holy as a subservient Catholic girl!

Now I’m fourteen years old.

I’m in my new high school. It’s the first day of school at Mother McAuley, a prestigious all-girls school taught by nuns, of course. I loved that school. I’m proud to have gone, but I suffered some major hard times there.

Many of the girls came from affluent families, but my family made the sacrifice to spend all of their hard-earned money on our education. When the other girls found out my family was struggling financially, they used it as a tool to belittle and torment me. It took me a long time to find my core group of trustworthy girlfriends.

The first girl I became friends with was Christine Higley. She had a dollface and the hottest older brother, Alexander. Christine was timid, a real quiet one. I quickly learned why. Her family was not only extremely religious; they were ridiculously overprotective. I thought my parents had me on a tight leash. Christine was on house arrest. Her mom used angel cookie cutters to shape sandwiches and included handwritten bizarre “godspirational” quotes in her lunch every day.

I remember sitting at the Higleys’ dinner table and observing how disconnected their family was. Christine would try to have an open dialogue with her mom to talk about things that were more interesting to her than God, but she was quickly dismissed and ignored. Coloring outside of the biblical lines was strictly forbidden.

After several teenage years of isolation and resentment, Christine ended up moving to Las Vegas and becoming a showgirl. But the back pages of a Nevada newspaper clearly illustrated that that wasn’t enough excitement for her since she went a step further and became a full-on dominatrix. Her brother was destined to be gay, and he finally came out of the closet a year later. It was their parents’ worst nightmares come true.

The point is, Christine was a cry for help and Alexander was way too hot to be straight.

It was around that time that I came to understand that it was possible to tip your God scale. Everyone needs balance. What was enough to make God proud? What was too much to live by? I had so many questions.

I constantly looked for guidance and still remember the conversation I had with my new teacher, Sister Nancy, in high school.

“Girls, we will now refer to God as the Creator, not as the Father,” said Sister Nancy.

I nearly lost my uterus when I heard this.

“Yes, Jenny?”

“What do you mean you changed it to Creator instead of Father? I thought God was a He?”

“No, we believe God is not a sex. God is a Creator of all. God is.”

“Since when?”

“Since now,” Sister Nancy replied.

“Says who?”

“Says us.”

“Who’s us?”

“Different sectors of Catholicism.”