IVY - Part I
Pride and Prejudice
This is the first chapter in my fiction novella IVY. Be sure to subscribe to see future updates!
This was the first time I have ever lied in my life. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It was of grave matter, I had full consent of the will, and I am well aware of the despicable state of what I’ve done. In donning the cloak of the clergy, I turn my back on you, my father, the father who raised me. Only God will forgive me now.
The world was devoid of color. Gray, black, white, and the faintest hint of sage spanned before me. Marble halls echoed despite the softness of my shoeless feet. Water from the fonts still glistening over my hands, I crossed my arms over my cassock and dauntlessly braved the frigid halls. In this quiet hour, after my seminary classes had ended, I made my way to the nearest prayer shrine.
The billowing of a dulling green robe interrupted my tracks. I stopped politely at the arrival of my mentor, Father Verne, a man distinguishable by countless years of wrinkles wizening his face.
“Joseph,” he greeted me.
I merely nodded. There was often little good I could say in response. I had committed myself to a vow of silence, sacrificing all but the clothes the clergymen commanded me to carry upon my back.
My birth name was Seph, just Seph, always Seph. Father Verne preferred to call me something more biblical; I assumed a part of him hoped my full name was truly so. I had also lied about it in my records. I had lied about the Baptism. “Joseph Quark,” it was my new name now, quieter than an atom. Puzzling, how the first time I lied, cheated, or deceived in my lifetime was in undertaking my oath of the Ten Commandments.
Father unfortunately interpreted me obediently waiting for his passage as me staring. “Did you need something, Jo?”
Seph. Judgment did not do well for me. I non-verbally declined his question. He still lingered, looking at me expectantly. My frame had thinned since the last time we spoke, and my robes often needed a length of extra cord wrapped around my waist to fit me properly. He was worried.
Eventually, with my gaze boring childishly at him, he left. I performed a sign of the cross in my solitude, an apology for my slight against him. If Christ could forgive the debauched disfigure I was, perhaps I could be at peace.
My feet arrived at the charcoal carpets of our prayer room. I made no sound save for the clattering of my rosary between my fingers. Internally, a chorus of pleas began to roar. I clutched the beads of my rosary tight between cracked knuckles and performed a faultless genuflection.
Christ, I swear to you, I am ready to sacrifice all within me that is sinful. I vowed, head hung in the refreshing grace of humility. Popular boys did not always enjoy their gifted attention. I promise you I do so with complete faith, without remorse or regret.
I signed the cross again, rosary lacing my wrists, affirming those words in myself. There was so much more to sacrifice to God beyond the small piece of myself I lay before Him. Determination renewed in me to prove what truly defined me: hard work and responsibility. My heart did not require anything else.
Forgive my nature, Internally, I wailed, loud and desperate. The others have all suffered, and I haven’t; I can’t understand them! I’m a defect! Even in your Church, I’m not what I’m supposed to be. I can’t be how I’m built for being.
I surrendered to Him my body and blood, pressing my whole self down to the floor, my nightly routine. Lord, I am so sorry! Give something botched a way of repair.
Bells rang, and footsteps warned me I was not entitled to being here alone any longer. Pushing myself to my feet, I fled the altar. Dinner was served at this hour, though I had discovered a small alcove on a ledge above the halls, high beside a window through which I could observe the dining priests, where I perched to avoid the temptations of food and drink.
It was still light enough outside to send sun draping over me through aged glass panes. Their bumpy surface, dewdropped with steam from the stoves, was where my weary cheek rested as I meditated beside warbling chatter. I unwound the rosary from my hands. Flesh from my fingers had disintegrated, leaving before me naught but bones, one palm skimmed by a cut obtained somewhere among my wanderings.
A croaky voice called my name, and the aroma of baked beans awoke the growling behemoth in my stomach. I bit down hard, clamping back my tongue. On a better day, I might have joined in by entertaining the crowd with my banjo carols, but I put that longing out of my mind. It was selfish, and I wholly deserved my lengthy self-denial.
Committed to extensive fastings, I did not eat with the other priests. They made clear their earnest willingness to serve me at their table, but I humbly declined. I could not do their work without mangling it.
The sun set, the faucets ran, and the stench of gluttony was replaced with the scent of smoke. A crackling sounded in the distance as someone stoked our fireplace. I departed the windowsill, knowing I would likely die left up there in the nighttime cold.
Warmth drew me to the lounges despite them being as crowded as they were. Hushed conversation ensued between men still blessed with the ability to listen. I pulled my cassock tight around my knees, and blended the blackness of its veils against the shadowed curtains. I would make no disturbance here.
Orange tongues lashed violently as the fireplace began to bake the air. Yellow veins gleamed within, gilding the blaze with an angelic anger. Coals bled with embers red as the hearts of the men watching. Sparks danced in their dark pupils as the ashes of their scarlet letters dissolved before them.
Father Verne pushed another stake of molded mail into the firepit. His fellow clergymen watched somberly, one unable to keep his eyes on the lashing handwriting. Insult mail, and we emptied stash weekly.
I stared at the fire with complete apathy. What came to me was only a tinge of fury, or rather, envy, which I suppressed. My soul was then left in an oblivion, no empathy able to be gardened.
Father Verne noticed me, and, fanning the smog away with a newspaper, asked, “Joseph! Did you hear about what happened in Florida?”
I remained entombed in silence. No, of course not. I was the rich platinum-blondie, the basketball jock, the Valedictorian elite, cushioned by the damned-lucky suburbs of a state where support became smothering. Someone had probably torn down a school poster, called it “hideous,” or something, like I had done at my high school prior to my enrollment here.
Father Verne reviewed what was left on the table, finding our load of trash thoroughly extinguished.
He slid one last clean envelope towards me, “Joseph, this came from your father.”
Everyone else’s father had either an overdue arrest warrant or his name melting to cinders. I motioned to discard the letter from mine with contempt.
“May I read it to you?” Father asked. I shrugged.
He peeled the envelope open and previewed the first lines of the letter for himself, “Seph, I wanted you to know I love you, and I will always support you, no matter who…”
I left the room. Father Verne watched me with pity, while the others watched me begrudgingly, grumbling about how rarely I managed to complete any proper work. I could feel I had let them down. Disappointed father, every time…
My father. How was I supposed to be the man he wanted me to be if he kept treating me like this? I was supposed to be grateful I was spared from abuse. I closed my eyes, trying to picture the blunt of a belt, the scream of a slur, the venom of vicious glares, but saw nothing. I could not picture anything but a fantastical plastic-perfect reality which refused to seem anything but all too real to me.
Father Verne stopped me before I reached my bedroom.
“Joseph,” he sighed. He was holding a pot filled to the brim with piping hot baked beans, “You have to eat, or we can’t keep you here anymore.”
I shook my head and swung the door open behind me. Father Verne stood in the doorway, refusing to let me close it.
“Jo, please eat,” he spared me too much compassion. “Fine. You don’t have to talk about it, you don’t have to work. But you have to eat. For me.”
He pushed the pot into my hands. I let it slide onto my nightstand before it spilled. With my back to it, I sat down on the edge of my bed.
“I’m not designed to live without suffering,” I finally broke my silence. Sometimes, words were needed.
My gaze fixated on me unstringing the ropes tying my cassock, revealing a sea of drapes three times my size. I wasn’t hungry.
“You aren’t broken, Joseph. Not one any worse than all of us, anyway,” Father insisted.
I was seething. “Why can’t you just throw me out for once?!”
Father Verne sat beside me. Stuffing a spoon as full as he could get it, he pressed tepid broth against my lips and insisted, “Eat. Then I’ll answer that one.”
I let the bittersweet juices spill inside my mouth, then forced myself to swallow. I refused the sight of it, wincing my eyes shut.
“God did not make us to torture ourselves, Joseph,” Father Verne explained. “It would be wrong for me not to help you. You wouldn’t deserve abuse no matter what it is you think you did.”
I recoiled away, self-consciously tucking the overflowing robes against my chest.
“Could you tell me what it is?” Father asked.
Instead, I signaled my refusal to answer by plunging the spoon into the bowl, wolfing down another share of my meal.
“I have a feeling. I know you know you aren’t supposed to be here. If only so I can keep an eye on you, I’ll give you a pass,” he said with a frustrating twinkle in his eye. “You’re father’s an old friend. Wills Clarkson. It’s funny. You hardly resemble him, Jo… Your grandpop had to drag him into Mass some days, and yet, you came to me practically camping out on my doorstep.”
I guzzled my nourishment down like a glutton now, willing Father Verne to leave. When he realized I would not reply, he continued with his unsolicted homilies.
“When you’re ready to speak, Jo… Please come to me. Pardon my intrusion, but it’s more than obvious why you’re here. Your friends Father Rick and Father Zach…” They aren’t my friends. “Well, you have the exact same look as they did when they first came in.”
Hearing him tell me that… I wanted to be invisible. The quicker I ate, the quicker he’d leave. He exited my dwelling taking a bowl cleaned spotless with him.
I locked my door tight. Blinds stretched to their limits to cover the entire extent of my window. Any speck of light breaking in, I extinguished. I wrapped a double layer of blankets over my body, curled into a ball, drowning myself in the blackness.
“It’s impossible to conceal,” my father had insisted. And whatever that meant, I was supposed to be living it out boldly. Yet, I struggled with every ounce of effort left in me to hide my light.