Palm Sunday

The lines were drawn in the sand.  The event that pitted one parent against the other; once lovers and now, for all intents and purposes, slighted enemies.  My mother, ruined from the divorce in one corner.  My father, ignoring everything and going on with life in the other.  I wonder sometimes about my father.  How he can do so many crazy, shameful, debaucherous things and keep going on as if none of it occurred.  I wonder if it keeps him up at night, with him tossing and turning, going over one instance after another of his devious schemes and miserable failings.  I do not know, and frankly, I don’t think that I want to.  It would probably just break my heart a bit more.

The event was Palm Sunday.  For all you unreligious people out there, Palm Sunday is a semi-major holy day in the Catholic church that occurs a week before Easter.  It was when Jesus was still a hero and not yet a zero, riding triumphantly into Jerusalem to throngs of eager supporters.  These peeps were so eager that they laid down palms for him out of respect.  Or something like that.  All in all, it is supposed to be a major event in the Catholic Church and a chance for palms to get there fifteen minutes.

Specifically, for Catholics, they go to mass that day and walk away with a palm branch.  Most keep the Palm branch as a symbol of something, hanging it up somewhere in there house.  Or they may not; I am just generalizing and going off of what we did every year that this came round.  Looking at this event now, and the Catholic Church in general, this all probably seems pretty absurd to an outsider. 

Take my friend James.  We go a long ways back, and for shits and giggles he decided to go to Church with me.  Because of my mom’s semi-devout faith we went to church every Sunday.  Hell, my grandparents go every day.  But as James had never gone to mass before he decided to tag along to see what all the fuss is about.  Mass is business as usual, and we bounce after communion because who has time for the end?  Anyway, were walking in the parking lot towards my car when James whips out of his pocket the Eucharist, the wafer Catholics eat during communion, the supposed body of Christ.  Like this little, round, flat piece of stale bread is the body of Jesus Christ to Catholics.  And we eat it every Sunday.  James looks at me, hand out stretched with the wafer in it, and says “What am I supposed to do with this?”  To me, at the time, I was shocked.  I didn’t know what to do.  Or how to react.  I remember looking around frantically, hoping to God the catholic police weren’t watching me.  Frantic to get rid of the evidence I told him to ditch it.  And he did just that, tossing it off to the side in the grass.  Shits just crazy.

So this annual event comes around yet again.  And again, my siblings and I are dreading going to Church with our mother.  Usually on such super important to Catholic holy days mass goes on forever.  Or forever to a child, which is usually just a mere fifteen to twenty minutes longer.  But due to our age and perception of time that shit seemed to last for an eternity.  Time stood still.  I felt like I could watch people age whenever we went to church with my mom, all the old peeps hurdling towards death.  It was that horrible, or at least seemed that horrible, at the time.

But on this particular Sunday, due to events unknown to me, we got to stay with our Dad.  The courts had decided that we were to spend an equal amount of time with our parents.  We would stay with mom for half the week and then with dad, and go visit dad every other weekend.  Shit worked out pretty well.  And it just so happened that this weekend was palms in yo face Sunday.  Usually weekend visits went as follows: we get picked up by pops on Friday, hung out and did whatever we wanted, and then Sunday morning head back to moms to go to Church.  Always church.  It was unacceptable to miss it and we rarely ever did.  Mom just didn’t fuck around when it came to getting our church on.  She was raised a god fearing woman and she was going to do her best to instill that fear in us as well.

So the weekend fast approaches and then arrives.  I remember our Dad picking us up; as soon as his car pulled into the driveway we would hurriedly say goodbye and then bolt to get the fuck outta dodge.  We just loved going to dad’s house, but alas, that is a story for another time.  However, on this occasion, my mom came out.  Again, because of the divorce and general debauchery on the part of my father, the relationship between my parents post-divorce was far from amicable.  It wasn’t even civil.  It was kind of like a relationship between a murderer and, let’s say, the victim’s father.  But the murderer got off on a technicality and the father has to see this motherfucker sauntering around town.  Frankly, I believe she hated my dad during this time.

But, because of palm Sunday she went forth.  She had previously arranged with my dad that we could stay with him on this special Sunday if we went to church.  We just had to go to church.  We could not miss church.  She reiterated this point again and again and again with my father.  And she came out to do it one more time, man to man.  Apparently my mother had looked up the local Catholic church right by our dads place in the phone book and found it necessary to give said information to my father.  To dot all of her I’s and cross her t’s.  To make sure that there were literally no excuses for us missing church, that if we missed church it was entirely my father’s fault, a result of his combination of indifference and negligence.  Palm Sunday now rested in my father’s hands, similar to that of sand in the hands of a child. 

It was a typical weekend.  We went to family video and got a plethora of ultraviolent R rated movies to watch as a family.  Cathy had to work that weekend, which gave us all a collective sigh of relief.  It was just us and dad.  And we loved it.  We loved it so much.  And then it’s Saturday night.  We stayed up so late watching movies with dad.  We were all very tired and went to bed.  I had the same knot in your stomach tension that you got when you were little on the night before Christmas.  I guess this was the antithesis of that because I did not want to wake up early the next morning.  I didn’t want anyone to.  And by the grace of God we didn’t.

I remember it as follows:  I wake up Sunday morning, my eyes slowly adjusting, my mind racing, frantically assessing the situation.  The sun seemed higher than usual, the room a bit brighter.  It is quiet.  Too quiet.  I know that I am the first one awake.  I get up and creep down the stairs, daring not to make a sound just in case it’s too early, in case we have enough time to make it to church.  I look at the clock.  It’s almost noon.  Church started at eleven.  Victory.  Victory so sweet I am overcome with happiness as I strut into my father’s bedroom to wake him up and joyfully alert him of his failing.

Smiling ear to ear I nudge my father awake and coldly explain to him in child speak that he more or less fucked up.  That we missed church and that’s that.  I should have known better.  I should have known that my dad would not suffer such a defeat, not allow such a thing to happen.  He takes a moment to think, meditating on his options.  My father must have realized it was time to take the gloves off and fight dirty.

Most people in this situation, or at least I would think most people, would just take it as it was.  Explain to my mom that he fucked up, he overslept, and as a result we didn’t make it to mass.  My mom would of course be super pissed, but that would be the extent of it and it would slowly fade from memory as time lingered on.  This was not the case.  My father wakes my little brother and sister up.  He instructs us to put our church clothes on.  We protest; why put on church clothes if we’re not going to church?  Why can’t we go back to moms in our pajamas?  In that stern tone that all parents share, the do it right now I’m not fucking around tone, we silently obey and dress in our Sunday’s best.  We gather the rest of our belongings and head out the door towards the car.  My father follows with the piece of paper my mother had given to him.

We know something’s up when we head the wrong way back to mom’s house.  My father says that we are going to church.  Looking back I think that he was hoping that we could make it to the end, so that technically he could say with absolute resolve that we had indeed gone to church.  We pull into the parking lot and it is completely empty.  His plan shatters.  But he isn’t defeated yet.  He tells me to get out and look inside, see if they left any palms, or rather, any proof.  Dad just didn’t want to give up and admit defeat.  If we had palms when we went back to our moms then that must have meant that we went to church.  We would have definitive, tangible proof of our attendance.  This palm was to be our ticket stub of sorts. 

Even at that young of an age I thought it was hopeless, but minding my dad I did as I was told and headed in the church.  I open the doors and was greeted by silence.  Down the long walkway, situated between rows of pews on either side, was a table.  And on this table was a pile of palms.  I couldn’t believe it.  It was a fucking miracle, and thinking back it looked like one too.  The sun was streaming in through the stained glass windows.  It was intensely peaceful and serene, a true miracle for my father.  A bird was chirping its beautiful bird song.  Pure Moods was playing.  For whatever reason this church left all these palms on a tiny little table right in front of the alter.  It must have been fate, providence.  This one church, a church we didn’t even know existed until today, was to be my father’s saving grace.  God was on his side.  It had to be a message.  I sprint towards the table, grab a handful of palms, and book it for the exit.

If only I had a camera.  The look on my father’s face when I burst through the doors was priceless, a mixture of disbelief, then relief, then devilish happiness.  I was smiling.  He was smiling.  We were all elated.  We had our proof.  We had our palms.  But it wasn’t over yet.

Like all criminal masterminds we had to get our stories straight.  We were still young and impressionable enough that even though it seemed like we were about to lie to our mother, it really wasn’t lying.  Dad said that we technically had been to church as we were all on church property.  Why did it matter if we didn’t go to mass?  We had our palms, it was Sunday, case closed.  He bolstered out confidence.  He eased the tension.  He was our dad, we loved him, and we were going to do what he said.  If it was a war we would have died for him.  Thinking back now it can be alluded to the love felt between a charismatic, charming cult leader and follower; an undying bond of allegiance, a willingness to do whatever it takes, to go above and beyond the call of duty, to fall on one’s sword.  And we kids were up to the challenge.  We were going to be victorious.  We were going to do it for dad.

Sprits were defiantly high when we pulled up to mother’s house.  Dad gave us a final once over before the torch was passed from his hands into ours.  It would soon be up to us, and if successful, no one would suspect a thing.  We were all feeling good.  Too good.  I should have known it was not to be this easy, that like Icarus we had flown to close to the sun.  We leap out of the car, kissing dad goodbye, and head into moms house.

I would like to think that as we entered it resembled a villain scene from some Bond movie.  Our mother sitting in the corner, waiting, her body illuminated yet her face masked in darkness.  Smoke lingers in the air.  A fire is going in our non-existent fire place. It is warm, uncomfortably warm.  The door closes behind us.  We enter in the lion’s den, the lair, and we’re trapped.  It is so tense that you can feel it in your chest.  It becomes hard to breathe as the reality of the situation crushes down upon us.  Mentally gasping like a fish does out of water, as the truth of our predicament slowly seeps into are tiny children bones.  It may not have been as tense but you get the picture. 

We went into the house and throw our stuff to the side.  Mom must have been reading as there was a book next to her.  She tells us to come into the living room and join her.  To stay awhile.  We do as were told, palms in our hands and at the ready.  She asks how church was.  We said good.  She asked us if we went to church.  We say yes, and show her our palms.  So far, so good.  She pauses for a moment, assessing the situation, eyeing us up.  She must have remembered who our father was and the things that he does, because she then hit us with a curveball so violent our little minds immediately exploded the moment she finished her question.  And that question was what was said at church.  As a side note, all catholic churches follow the same stories from the bible during the year.  So the story that she had heard earlier at her church would be the same story from the bible that we should have heard at our church.  But since we didn’t go to church we were in the dark.  At that moment she must have known that we just lied to her as we all instantly became tenser, more shifty. 

Iris looks down.  Nathaniel looks down.  We are all terrified and all searching internally for some way out.  Dad did not prepare us for this.  There was no contingency for such a divergence in the plan.  It was supposed to be an in and out mission.  No bullshit.  A cakewalk.  It seemed so easy.  It should have been so easy, but alas, it was not to be.  Where is god when you need it.  The palms just weren’t going to cut it, mom wanted the facts and yet we had no facts to give.  I feebly tried to bullshit, telling her church was about God, and Jesus, and palms.  Kids are generally terrible at this.  When caught lying children will throw out the wildest shit, say anything, tell any story for an out, no matter how farfetched and stupid.  I knew it wasn’t going to work but I just had to try.  My mom looks like a statue.  Jesus, her face.  It is a face full of incredible anger mixed with equal parts sadness, disgust and disappointment.  Immense disappointment.  It was like it was boiling all together just beneath the surface of her skin, tearing apart the inside of her body and soul. 

The rest is a blur.  I don’t know who broke down, but one of us did and the truth was out.  We didn’t go to church.  We had lied to her face.  Dad was to blame, but again, so were we.  We should have known better.  We should have just told the truth.  She didn’t raise us to act like this and we knew it.  She leaves the living room to go call my father.  We can hear them arguing, and then the slam of the phone, and then we can hear her softly cry.