Driving Lessons

by DC Stanfa

It was the first summer of my recovery from the brain spanking of parochial elementary school. After eight years in the perpetual dunking booth of holy water, I'd seriously considered continuing my ecumenical imprisonment, since most of my friends were going to attend the all-girl Catholic high school. Much like a child raised by wolves, it felt safer to remain in the pack rather than face the wild jungle of puberty alone. The bad news was that fate had other plans for me. The good news was, fate had other plans for me.

The Good News?

The story unfolded after the eighth-grade graduation ceremony. My best friend Shelly White and I snuck away to the church parking lot while everyone else was herding into the church basement for the reception. Crouched down next to a new, brown-on-brown, 1973 Buick, I lit a Parliament, took a drag, coughed and passed it to Shelly.

"No way, Big Red is not leaving St. Peter's to be Principal at St. Cecilia," I exhaled in a puff of disbelief.

The war between Big Red and the students was long, legendary, and often led by me. She especially despised me for my stubborn resilience, and she'd exploded in frustration over my abject refusal to be blindly led out of temptation without thoroughly examining the temptation first.

"DC, my mom talked to the Vice Principal at St. Cecilia yesterday when she turned in my admissions paperwork," Shelly coughed as she passed the smoldering butt my way. "Big Red will never let you into St. Cecilia's."

"SAME NUN, DIFFERENT SCHOOL," read the headline in the Catholic chronicle of my mind. Determining the coast was clear, Shelly shoved the pack of matches into her maxi-dress pocket. I placed the crumpled Parliament pack into my A-cup bra, where there was still plenty of room, and we casually walked back toward the church basement.

"Forget Big Red not letting me into St. Cecilia's, I couldn't survive another day with her, let alone another four years."

"Like it wasn't enough to make everybody miserable in grade school, now she's going to ruin high school, but I don't have any choice. My parents say I have to go to St. Cecilia," Shelly said, opening the church door. "You're lucky your parents won't make you."

"You're right, I should be happy, but Big red is ruining high school for me because now I have to go to a different school.

.

The summer swam by like Mark Spitz in a lap-pool. But this was a year after he made his gold medal splash in the '72 Olympics. '73 had not been gold medal summer for me and Labor Day weekend signaled summer's end, not much chance to improve it.

Greased up with iodine and baby oil, my sister Lori and I sunned our "Twiggy" bodies on the garage roof. I was contemplating the sins I'd already committed and those I might commit. Number one, it was Sunday and I hadn't gone to church, still a venial sin according to Catholics in those days. Looking outside church doctrine, as I often did for greater spiritual truth or less guilt, I concluded that according to the Ten Commandments, I was sinning only if I didn't keep the day holy. Vowing to keep my thoughts pure, and pleased with finding this loophole, I flipped from my back to my stomach. The big goal of the day was to keep the tanning session even.

Mentally I reviewed the rest of the commandments. According to Big Red, I was a stubborn, blasphemous, heathen child, but that was only her opinion. Up against the Ten Commandments, I thought I didn't look so bad. I felt pretty smug and relatively holy in my Toledo backyard.

I thought, I wish we had a pool like the Butlers. Coveting my neighbor's goods? Maybe it was just a venial sin.

Frying in 80 degree heat and baby oil, coveting didn't seem like that much of a sin. I got by with a fairly clear conscience, but got guilt-struck on commandment number seven. Okay, I stole money from an ex-con who was scamming people out of money, and I did try to find some of those people to give it back. Only I didn't find them.

Does it still count?

I wondered.

When I admitted the sin to Father Boyer, in the confessional, he told me to say three Our Fathers and six Hail Mary's, and it was my idea to chip in twenty bucks to save a Pagan baby, which we named John Paul George Ringo. (Catholics are allowed to have four names, after all.) While most of the commandments seemed pretty clear, I felt further clarification was necessary for number six, "honoring thy mother and thy father".

.

Lori, like me, had opted against Catholic high school. She was more opposed to the all-girl thing than the other Catholic constraints. She liked boys. Not that I didn't, the difference was that I had crushes on boys that I worshipped from a distance, and Lori had real, not imaginary boyfriends. I was Jan to her Marsha.

Freshman year for Lori was student council, a new boyfriend, choir, and a slew of new, popular girlfriends. I'd tried to tag along a couple of times when she had friends over, but other than these few hours on the roof, she wanted nothing to do with me.

"DC, I'm going to a party later at Janet's. You need to call Sherry at Trina's and tell her to come home for dinner."

She was ordering me around, as usual.

Sherry, our little sister, had two years to go at St. Peter's. Lucky for her it would be minus one mean nun.

"What time are mom and dad coming home from the hydroplane races?"

"I don't know, around 9:00, I guess," Lori said, popping the Billy Jack soundtrack cassette into the portable player. One Tin Soldier Rides Away, lulled the lyrics.

.

I didn't have any plans for the afternoon or evening—or ever, for that matter, though I was hoping my first week at the public high school would change that. I'd given up on my Catholic grade-school friends, at least for awhile. I had only myself to blame for my lack of plans. No, make that my mom.

Having a cool mom can backfire. At least it still could in the early '70s. As a Saturday night ritual, a group of five or six friends would meet at the local movie theater. It didn't matter what was playing. Unless it was banned by The Catholic Chronicle (the real publication, not the one in my mind) we were there. Parents took turns with drop off and pick up. The girls would meet up with a group of boys from St. Peter's, pay no attention to the movie, and often get kicked out. Then we'd hang out in the parking lot, acting cool or coy, and smoking cigarettes, (cigs). Other than the occasional hook-up or break-up of a new St. Peter's "couple," the routine varied little.

One Saturday late in June, my mom came to pick us up after Lion in Winter. It was an historical, period piece. Boring. We got kicked out, on purpose, early into the flick. We smoked a lot of cigs, and when we got into the car my mom told us we reeked of smoke. I told her that it was some other girls in the bathroom and the smell just got on our clothes. She didn't buy it.

"You know girls, smoking doesn't make you look cool, it makes you look hard and rough. I'm embarrassed for you when other people see you. DC, if you really feel you must smoke, I'd rather have you smoke at home than in public."

"You mean I can smoke at home?" I asked, shooting glances of delight at my friends in the car.

"Only if you promise not to do it in public."

Wow. Neato. I'm so grown-up and my friends will really think I'm cool.

Little did I realize that her attempt at reverse psychology would backfire. It would do as much or more sociological harm than the Surgeon General ever warned about physical damage.

Mom didn't really want or expect me to smoke at home. She probably figured if she eliminated the danger of getting caught, and the bond of secrecy with my friends, the habit which was not yet a habit would lose its thrill. She could never have predicted the awful outcome.

All of my friends, chums since first grade, went home that very night and told their parents how cool my mom was, letting me smoke at home at the age of thirteen. How terrible that must have sounded, as they say "out of context". The parents passed quick sentence. No one from St. Peter's was allowed to hang around me anymore, officially. The rest of my summer I spent sunning on the garage roof, babysitting, and mowing the lawn for extra money, and nighttime pool-hopping with a couple neighborhood friends.  (Yes, that was trespassing, but ok because I didn't remember any commandment on this.)  I also improved my unicycling skills and taught myself to juggle. I was preparing to run away to Clown School if the public high school didn't work out.

Ironically, I didn't smoke in front of my parents. I'd still sneak, down in the basement, or in the park. Mom was right. Smoking openly at home took the pizzazz out of the deed. Besides, if he had seen me, my dad would have looked at me like I was a stupid kid trying to be a grown-up, which of course I was.

I routinely got my cigs from Ron's, the neighborhood carryout. At these little mom & pop stores in the '60s and '70s—the precursor to chain convenience stores—every family ran a "tab." Credit before the card. And it was convenient to charge snacks, Pepsi, and cigs for the entire family. I'd been charging Parliaments for my parents to our account since I was 7 and only recently for myself which I justified as payment for making the trip to the store. Although Kools were cooler, it was easier to acquire the family brand.

Mom was sympathetic to my social exile and attempted to come to the rescue by calling some of my friends' moms to explain, but the damage was done. Their parents had had their doubts about me ever since I introduced the theory of evolution to sixth-grade religion class. I'd always thought that as you got older the world opened up and you got more freedom. I was wrong. Instead, my options seemed to be closing in ever tighter. My friend world had imploded and I was confined by the smoldering remains.

I had a back-pocket strategy I was putting into place, which was slowly infiltrating the "Chapel Veil and Bingo" set. I was openly repentant. A few times I volunteered at Sunday school and I told my Catholic friends that I had quit smoking altogether. With such open penance, it would only be a matter of time before the moms would soften.

Conclusion—»