day SIX HUNDRED and FORTY THREE

Catechism

                                    Introibo ad altare Dei.

                                    Ad Deum que laetificat juvetutem meam.

We’d ask Father Logue how far

up her skirt our fingers could crawl.

We’d ask him if French kissing was a sin and

to which base we could safely go?

We asked Fr. Logue these questions

in his Marriage Class at Saint Mary’s High

in 1968. We tried to get him to say words

we weren’t allowed to say in religion class.

We loved to watch sweat-beads

form on his forehead as this good man

struggled, not with our questions, but

with his impulse to bean his questioners.

His response was forthright, unwavering:

“You will never respect yourself

unless you respect the person you’re with.

A woman is not a plaything, a toy

for your enjoyment. There are places

you won’t go because dignity prevents you,

and, of course, if she says ‘no’ you stop

because she is a child of God, just like you.”

We never asked the good Father whether

we could hold a girl down against her will

or whether Jesus would look away should we

cup a hand over her mouth so she couldn’t scream.

We never inquired about the sin potential

of grabbing a girl’s blouse and pulling it off,

or straddling her so she couldn’t pull away

from our grasp. We were, many of us,

intellectual oafs, but we knew what the word

“respect” meant. We wanted sex, lots of it,

but only on the altar of consent where

the jouissance and the mire were mutual.

--Charlie Brice