Nunzilla Was My Mother and My Stepmother Was a Witch Read online

  At times I would try to catch the priest’s eyes, certain that he was really my father. I thought he was under some sort of spell and didn’t remember he had kids. I was positive that if he and I could look each other straight in the eyes, he would snap out of it, but he never did. The priest did actually resemble my father. He was approximately the same height, had the same coloring, and similar black curly hair.

  When the priest tried to sing, I forgot all about the possibility that he was my father and giggled along with the other girls as his lousy voice rang out through the church—especially on Holy Saturday when he had to sing three Alleluias in succession in full voice. If you can imagine a hound dog baying at the moon in extreme agony, you‘ll have a close approximation of how he sounded. Sister Rosita, the choir nun, would bang hard on the organ to give the priest the correct notes. Her attempts to get him back on key and into some semblance of a melody were a complete failure.

  The resident priest was Father Hettinger, but other priests also came to celebrate the mass at times. There was Father Mason, a great favorite of the boys because he played football with them; Father Colton, a favorite of boys and girls; and a Jesuit or other missionary priest during the annual retreat. The Bishop came on very special occasions like Confirmation Day, Easter, Christmas, the occasional Jubilee celebration for an old nun or priest, and funeral masses.

  We had several funerals for nuns while I was at SVO. The dead nun would lie in a casket in the main library at least a day or two before the funeral mass. Though we did feel sad as we filed around the casket to view the body, as soon as the nun who had brought us for the viewing wasn’t looking, we’d poke at the corpse to see how a dead person felt.

  The funeral masses were always very sad, solemn affairs. When we sang the Dies Irae in the girls choir, I imagined all the dead joining us, moaning and weeping right along. It was one of my favorite funeral songs.

  Sometimes we’d be so emotionally drained after all the praying and solemnity of a funeral service, or after intensive religious periods like the annual retreat, that we’d enter the church with joy when we saw that Father Colton was going to celebrate the mass.

  Father Colton’s masses only took half as long as other priests' because he said the mass lickety split. We would almost choke trying to hold in our laughter as he yelled out his prayers, which you could barely understand because he swallowed them up almost as fast as he shouted them out. He shoved the communion wafer at you almost faster than you could open your mouth, and I was sure that one day he would end up hitting one of us in the face.

  It was especially difficult to control yourself if you were sitting at the end of the pew when Father Colton stopped to recite the Stations of the Cross. When he stopped at your pew, his bellowing voice thundered down all around you, and you had to concentrate on the sorrow of the crucifixion to remain in control.

  One of the more sacrilegious things we did in church included occasionally reading what were called “Big Little Books,” which were books about Tarzan or other cartoon characters that someone got from a relative on visitors day. We’d hide the book inside our prayer missals so the nuns who sat behind us wouldn’t know we weren’t following along with the service.

  Neither did the nuns know that we had developed our own finger alphabet, so that you could converse with the girl next to you in church or in other places where we were expected to be silent. Another way we fooled the nuns and amused ourselves was by substituting similar-sounding smart-alecky English words for Latin during church services. For example, instead of the litany response “terragamus audi nos,” we’d chant “Terry’s got a snotty nose.”

  A favorite summer diversion was to clasp your hands together as though in prayer, until a fly landed exactly between your upright thumbs. Then you could grab him quickly and gently by his legs and watch him flutter his wings trying to escape.

  Sometimes, when all else failed and the church service seemed endless and unbearable, a little playacting would be in order. I’d jump out of the pew and run out of the church with my hand over my nose and mouth, pretending I had a nosebleed or was about to throw up. Since I had frequent nosebleeds outside of church services, it was easy to get away with it if I didn’t do it too often. I couldn’t brag about my achievements to my friends, because they might have tried it too. This would have ended my escape ploy by bringing the whole farce to the nuns’ attention.

  One of my more memorable playacting episodes in church started out sincerely enough, but then I got carried away. That day, my place in the pew was just in front of the Virgin Mary, and I began admiring her beauty and meditating on her life and her role as the mother of Jesus.

  Then I guess the devil got into me. I stepped outside myself and thought how holy and religious I must look, gazing at Mary. I wondered if the girls around me had noticed, and if they were as impressed with me as I was—especially with the light streaming down on me from the stained glass window up above. To ensure their admiration, I decided to enhance the drama a bit more.

  I had seen nuns facing the altar with rapt expressions on their faces and their arms outspread, praying with an expression that suggested they were seeing a vision. I wanted to do the same thing, but didn’t think anyone would go for the outspread arms. Besides, I didn’t want my little drama brought to an unbelieving nun’s attention and have to face her subsequent wrath. I very much doubted I could convince her of my great sanctity; so instead, I made myself cry while staring with rapture at Mary.

  It was enough to convince the girls around me that I was having a profound religious experience. They were so moved by the scene that they began to cry in sympathy, although they didn’t have a clue as to what was really going on. I don’t know which pleased me more—looking so holy to the other girls, or knowing I had the power to affect others’ emotions.

  The nuns did their best to make us holy. It seemed we spent half the day praying. In addition to the daily mass and afternoon benediction services, we said morning and evening prayers by our beds, prayers before and after meals and classes, and twice a day prayers at Angelus when the bells would ring. Sometimes there were impromptu prayers as the need arose. We’d be asked to get on our knees and pray for the Pope, pray that God would hold off on rain that might interfere with some scheduled event, pray that the orphanage boys would win a baseball or football game, and we prayed that Franklin D. Roosevelt be elected. The powers that be were always hearing from St. Vincent’s Orphanage.

  Other Fears and Horrors

  Religious fears or the fear of inciting a nun’s anger weren’t our only concerns. Younger girls were often bullied by older girls, though you could cultivate favor with them by doing odd jobs for them or giving them some of your food or treats which relatives had brought on visiting day. If a girl got the funnies from a relative on Sunday, she became an immediate pet of the big girls, who would defend her against all the other children.

  Things could get very rough among the girls, but it was even worse on the boys side, according to my brother Frank. He once told me about a bloody fight that took place in the boys basement. This happened while I was still at St. Ann’s.

  Frank said that one of the boys said something to anger another boy, who got him down on the concrete and pounded him unmercifully while he bled. Frank didn’t remember all the details because he was only about seven at the time. The boy who was beaten died of his injuries a month or so later, and none of the other boys who had witnessed the fight dared to snitch on the kid who did the beating. Apparently, the nuns never found out the true story regarding the incident, because nothing was done to the boy who had fatally injured the other one.

  On both the girls and boys sides, snitching on another child would earn you the enmity of all. The benefits of enduring a general punishment inflicted on everyone rather than snitching was one of the earliest things you learned at the orphanage.

  The girls liked a good fight as much as the boys did, and arguments on the girls side quickly escalated to
hair pulling and fist fights. When that happened, the girls would cry, “Fight! Fight!” and a crowd of them would circle the fighters and watch with keen interest. A couple of my friends and I used to practice boxing with a bag of laundry so we’d be able to take on any challengers.

  Practice boxing was more an act of bravado on my part. I did a lot of bluffing, going around saying, “I’m not afraid of anybody.” But of course, I actually was. Some of the girls were tough and mean. In addition to bluffing, I tried using humor to ease tense moments, or I simply avoided them by spending my playtime hours reading alone.

  Mr. Berry took care of the furnace and did general handyman tasks for the nuns. He would glare and scowl at us if we so much as started toward him, and we couldn’t imagine what terrible things he would do if he should catch us. Apparently he was friendly with the boys, who were not afraid of him. Perhaps he was being careful by scaring the girls into keeping their distance; otherwise the nuns might have misinterpreted his friendliness.

  When my sister Carmela came from St. Ann’s, she was terrified of old people. On visitors day, when some old person walked hesitantly onto the orphanage grounds to where the children were playing, Carmela would hide in back of me, screaming hysterically. As young as I was, I could see the old people were embarrassed that the sight of them had such a terrible effect on a small child.

  Some things scared all or most of the girls. Most of us had no experience with animals, and stories the nuns had told us about the devil often taking the form of animals were very convincing. If a dog wandered into the orphanage, the playground erupted into complete chaos.

  The dog would get more and more excited, barking and leaping, as the screaming, crying girls ran around wildly, looking for a place of safety. Girls would shinny up the swing poles where the dog couldn’t reach them, or climb to the top of the sliding board. Some girls would stand on the top of benches placed against the brick walls, while others would climb down into what we called the aerioles, cowering there until the dog finally wandered off. The aerioles were deep trenches, excavated along the outside of the main building to allow light and air into the underground basement windows.

  We thought the glowing eyes of the dog in twilight were proof the devil had overtaken him.

  Bats were both scary and a lot of fun. There was a multitude of them living in the belfries of St. Vincent’s, and they would swarm down among the children on summer evenings. We’d scream and try to protect our heads with our hands as we ran frantically around the playground trying to avoid the zigzagging bats as they swooped down toward us.

  When the bats flew into the dormitory windows at night, they were a welcome intrusion, giving us additional play time. We ran around throwing pillows at them or chasing them with brooms, without fear of punishment from the dormitory nun.

  Although movies portray bats as horrible, evil creatures, I don’t recall that we viewed them as possible receptacles of the devil—or rats for that matter, although we were still frightened of them.

  However, we believed the boys would do almost anything, especially if it was disgusting. Some boys would put locusts (often known as cicadas) into their mouths, trying to make us gag; they’d also wipe their noses on their sleeves, or pretend to fling their snot on the ground. At least one boy I knew really did fling his snot, grossing us girls out. The boys also did mean, hateful things like grabbing a girl’s doll and pulling off its head as they were passing through the girls side on their way to the dining room. Then they’d laugh as the doll’s owner cried.

  Rats were a great problem in the old buildings built in the 1800s. You’d hear them scurrying around the overhead pipes of the underground tunnels, and they would get into Sister Christa’s root cellar or the pantries of the children’s or nuns’ kitchens.

  At night you sometimes heard scampering feet running up and down the stairs outside the dormitory, and you’d pull your feet and hands back under the covers. It was a constant battle to eliminate them with traps and rat pellets. Sometimes we’d see a great big gray or black one lying dead at the bottom of the aeriole. We heard that the boys liked to chase and kill rats for sport, but since we were segregated from them, I never saw them do it.

  It was scary getting up at night to go to the bathroom because of our fear of rats, ghosts, or the devil.

  The Bums of SVO

  Double Take

  The orphanage dispenses charity,

  and the beggars sit like crows

  in the basement hall

  off the corridor where the orphans

  have to pass.

  The orphans close their eyes

  and run

  past the mutual hungers

  and reflected shadows –

  from the future spun

  through old crystal eyeballs.

  The orphans close their eyes

  and run!

  But the beggars tremble too

  and, looking back,

  close their eyes.

  The girls side of St. Vincent’s had the “bums” because it was on the side with the main building and the children’s kitchen. The men we called bums were actually poor, hungry men out of work in the midst of the depression, but we didn’t know that then. We were terrified of their gaunt, empty-eyed expressions and raggedy clothes, and tried to keep out of their way

  The men would come to St. Vincent’s to beg for a meal, which would be provided by Sister Annella from the children’s kitchen. They’d line the benches outside the boiler room, in the pathway through which we had to pass to get from the dining room to the playground. We’d close our eyes and run by them or cling fearfully to the opposite wall as we passed. It must have been demoralizing for them to see the horror and fear they incited in us.

  Orphanage Pets

  Mother Cat

  There’s only a hole

  where Mother Cat

  used to wait for me

  outside the refectory.

  Now I only stub my toe

  or kick at the weeds

  when I am through

  with all my responsibilities.

  I sort of had a pet cat at the orphanage. I never knew if the cat had just wandered onto the grounds, or if it was brought into the orphanage to help with the rat population. The cat, which I called Mother Cat, just seemed to appear one day with her one kitten.

  The kitten was cute, but it seemed a little stupid. I was impressed that Mother Cat was so patient with her child. Even when the kitten was too old to nurse, Mother Cat would put up with the kitten trying to nurse anyways, at least until the nursing seemed to hurt her—then she’d just move away. One day the kitten was gone and Mother Cat seemed lost. I felt sorry for her.

  One day, when I was working in the children’s kitchen, I heard Mother Cat screeching out in the hallway. I looked out where some girls were trying to walk the cat like a wheelbarrow by holding up its back legs. I yelled at the girls and chased them away, rescuing the poor Mother Cat. She and I became family from then on.

  Mother Cat was smart. She learned to play hide and seek without me even having to teach it to her. One day I was looking for her and finally saw her under a counter. When I spied her, I suddenly turned and hid behind a door. She then came looking for me. To my surprise, when she saw where I was, she took off running and hid under the counter again. Back and forth. Back and forth. Soon she learned to vary her hiding places as I changed around to different locations. She really was a fun cat. Sometimes when I was working in a different part of the orphanage, she would be waiting at the bottom of the stairs, where she knew I’d be coming after my work was finished.

  The only thing I didn’t like was when she decided to bring me mice that she had caught. Once she brought me a mouse that was still alive but whom she had crippled. It was squeaking pitifully as the cat tossed it between her paws and into the air. I couldn’t stand the poor mouse’s suffering, so I chased the cat away while I set about killing the mouse. I cried and covered my eyes as I hit the little mouse with a b
room. Mother Cat just looked at me as though she couldn’t understand such behavior.

  One day, Mother Cat disappeared just like her kitten had. I really missed that cat and never found out what had happened to her. Sometimes I would hang from the top of a swing pole to look over the wall or peer out an attic window to see if Mother Cat was out on the street. I was sure she was crying for me. She was the only animal I ever loved.

  Many kids had pets, more or less, if you count locusts, grasshoppers, spiders, and caterpillars. We played with them and kept them in little containers, so it’s almost the same thing. We would tie a thin string around the fat body of a locust and laugh as it tried to fly away, looking like a tiny airplane; or we would tickle its stomach so that it would sing for us. We would hold grasshoppers tightly between our fingers and command them to spit tobacco juice, and sure enough they’d spit out some kind of brown stuff into our hands.

  We found spiders very amusing, especially in the way they would come running when we threw a bug into their webs. Then we would watch the bug—sometimes an ant or small worm and occasionally a fly—struggle to get free of the sticky web. We’d pull off the fly’s wings and throw it in the web for the spider’s dinner.

  Caterpillars were fun because they tickled, and some of them were pretty. We’d sit and watch them crawl up our arms or legs, giggling as they came near the opening of our sleeve or headed up under our dresses.

  About Sex

  At the orphanage, we were never to show any part of our bodies except for our arms, hands, and head; we even changed our clothes under our blankets. This led us to think that the human body was dirty, disgusting, and altogether sinful, something best not thought about. I would have been as horrified to see another girl’s body as she would have been to see mine.