A Sunday, Long, Long Ago

I tried hard to get out of going to church that Sunday so long, long ago. My mom came into my room wearing her Sunday best and literally tried to drag me out of bed. I resisted by grabbing the headboard. 

"Mom, I feel sick, really sick. ........ Here, feel my head."

For once I was not using the "I'm sick" routine to avoid giving God his/her weekly due. I was actually ill; stomach gurgling, head on fire ill. 

Seems I had overstepped my reliance on that lie too often in the past. She was having none of it. She was determined to see me in church wearing that new suit she made me try on at Penny's the previous week.

"I did not get up early and spend an hour putting on my face to let you laze away this beautiful Sunday morning. Now, get up or I call your father."

Invoking the threat of my father's wrath indicated a level of commitment on her part I could not ignore.

"Okay, okay, I'm getting up."

Mom turned and started to leave my room but stopped at the door way. She turned around, leaned into the jam and focused her best evil eye on me. I did my best to respond in kind. But I was not up to the task. I capitulated, averted my gaze and threw one leg over the edge of the bed signalling my honest intention to get up. 

"Really Mom, I will be down soon."

Still burning a hole through me with that eye of hers, "Nah, I don't trust you. You'll go back to sleep before I make it to the kitchen. I am standing right here and watching you get dressed."

I went into immediate panic mode. It had been at least a few years since my mother watched me get dressed. I had become used to the security and safety of my own space. To add to my discomfort over dressing in front of my mother was I was a prepubescent boy just beginning to come to grips with the upcoming changes in my body and my attitude. Morning boners had become a regular and disturbing thing for me. I certainly did not want to, nor would I ever show my mom what had happened to me overnight while I slept.

"Mom, please, I will get up. Just leave okay?"

I wasn't sure if it was the obvious panic on my face or my desperate grip of the covers over my crotch that clued her in, but her hard face softened. She backed up into the hallway and grinned. 

"See you downstairs. Be quick. We don't want to be late."

My panic subsided and I put both feet on the floor. Sitting up reminded me of how sick I felt. A wave of nausea hit me and I puked a small bit of bile in my mouth. This incentive to head as quickly as possible to the bathroom kicked into gear a rush response on my part. I quickly gathered my clothes for church and using them as a shield to hide the embarrassing abnormality God had cursed me with, I made a dash for the bathroom.

Fifteen minutes later I was in the back seat of the family station wagon wishing I could die. I did not dare to look out the window at the sunny world buzzing by at its usual nauseating pace. Each time I peeked out the window, my stomach flipped. So I stared at the trash on the floor behind the front seat my litterbug hating parents refused to throw out onto the highway. I was reminded that I better clean the car out soon, or no allowance this week. The swap of focus to chores that needed doing allowed me enough of a distraction that I was able to avoid blowing chunks on the way to St. Albans Episcopal Church.

Sitting through the service was torture. My head was burning up. My stomach was alternating between cramping agony and threatening to enliven the somber proceedings with a technicolor yawn. I was miserable, but I had toughed it out. Now all I had to do is make it through Communion. ..... Yeah, Communion; the most ceremonial part of the service when the priest is in all his glory as he shares the pompous wonders of God's love and then puts hands to all who genuflect before him.

I look up and see that our row is next. Telling myself I can do this, I follow my parents to the barricade around the Altar. I kneel down and wait. I am sure our row is the longest one in church that morning as it takes the priest forever to work his way to me. In the meantime I can feel another wave of nausea building in my golliwots. I bite my lip in desperation to hold it in. It is almost my turn.... I feel I can make it ....... He holds out his hand  and, and, ................. I puke all over the priest from his knees down and cover his previously shiny shoes with the typical green gruel, vomit characteristically displays.

Mom was on one side of me. Dad was on the other. They both turned their heads and looked down at me. I wiped some residual barf from my mouth and looked up at one and then the other. Dad was grinning. Mom had that horrified and indignant look on her face she usually reserved for the lowlifes she might encounter occasionally in public. I looked up at the priest. His mouth was open, his eyes had bug eye look and he had stopped that nonstop mumbling of religious tomes he mumbled every Sunday. 

I jumped up and fled stage left, out the side entrance and slunk back to the family station wagon to await a sure execution when I got home.

Some minutes later, my parents showed up at the car. Mom was silent and stiff as she got in on the driver's side. My dad however, got in on the passenger side and turned to me sitting miserable in the back seat.

"You all done with the puking?"

I nodded my head. "I think so."

And those were the only words spoken on the way home until I puked on all that trash on the floor in the back seat a block from our house. 

My mom slammed on the brakes, pulled up the emergency brake and got out of the car. "I can't stand it." She looked hard at my father. "Bob, you know how I am about vomit." To emphasize her displeasure or commiseration with me, she held a hand over her mouth and began walking in the direction of home. "I'll see you at home."

My father slid over behind the wheel, released the brake and turned to me in the back seat. 

"Looks like you have a real mess to clean up now."

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A Post Script - The barfing in church story is true and the unasked for erection story is also true. They happened at different times. I just thought it would be convenient to kill two boners with one post.

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There was only one song that made sense for this post. It is by a band that was at least regionally famous on the Atlantic Seaboard back in the 1970s. I saw him once in B-More. An acquired taste maybe. Banned from playing certain venues maybe. But there is no doubt his band was talented.

Here is "Boogie Til You Puke" by Root Boy Slim & His Sex Change Band, along with the Rootettes.