Skipping Church by Jason Bussman

It was a good plan until it wasn’t. I mean, how were we supposed to know the church would send a statement of total donated money at the end of the month? How were we supposed to know the Catholic Church was a business and a religious entity. That piece of paper arrived in our mailbox and informed our parents that they had donated exactly zero dollars into the coffer. The church could smell our sin as if it was bacon fresh off the griddle. It allowed our transgressions to go on for exactly twenty-three days. And our parents were not happy about this ruse. Not one bit.

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I slam the door behind me not out of frustration or anger, but because the house door sticks unless you hip check it with your whole body. Or at least that’s how it works for me. I am all of sixty pounds, burdened with my heavy winter coat and big bonking winter boots. I always get yelled at for not picking up my feet in these boots, but I can barely even walk in them. I don’t drag my feet on purpose. I’m just too little for these monsters. So, there it is: bonk fwishhhhh bonk fwishhhhhh bonk fwishhhhhh. “Dude….” My brother stands in the driveway. His boots are half covered with the freshly fallen snowfall from last night. “Relax. You’re gonna get us both in trouble slamming the door like that.” 1 Mike is just about six years older than me. Taller. Stronger. Faster. He stands in the driveway waiting for me to catch up like he has done this a thousand times already this week. I am the little brother and I know I am annoying because I am slower and it takes me much longer to do the same things he seemingly can do in fifteen or sixteen seconds. He is always waiting for me. I am aware of the burden I cause him, but there isn’t much I can do about it. “It’s not fair,” I whine into the cold winter air. “Why aren’t THEY going to church? I don’t wanna walk —” A groan from my older brother cuts me off. His fourteen year old self has perfected the art form of the eye roll, and the one that he produces is a doozy. Top the eye roll off with the groan and I stop immediately. His black hair falls in his face as his neck cranes at the sound of his little brother whining yet again. It’s one of those haircuts that was in fashion in skateboard circles in the 80s. Shaved all around the head except the top and the bangs. Let those go wide and long so you can flip your hair around in the air as you do a McTwist on a half pipe or throw your head back during a kick flip. Just in case people are watching. And no, he is not wearing a winter hat. He never dresses for the weather. He complains about Buffalo and the cold and the snow, but he never dresses for it. As if he’s had enough of me already, he turns and starts the walk down the driveway. He knows I’m right. It’s not fair. They make us go to church every Sunday because if we don’t go we will go to hell. Our souls will dry up and shrivel away to sin. But they don’t go with us. They used to, but now they don’t. That doesn’t seem right to either of us. To him, it’s one more thing they do to treat us like little kids. For me, it’s more religious. They should be coming 2 to church too. Their souls are just as much at stake as ours. I’m just looking out for them and the prospects making it past those Pearly Gates. Or at least that’s what I tell myself. “Shut the fuck up,” Mike’s big ass-kicking SWAT team tactical black boots begin the trek through the frozen terrain with or without me. “Seriously, I can’t take your shit this morning.” “But you know I’m right,” I start my deliberations on fairness. They force us to walk one mile both ways to church and back — no, not uphill — in the blistering cold. They force their children to sit, stand, kneel, and pray for an hour and fifteen minutes on a Sunday morning. When we could be doing anything else. They force us to be in good graces with the Lord and Savior. And yet, they don’t go to church with us. They don’t even drive us. They don’t do anything except tell their children its time to go to church: giving us exactly twenty minutes to be out the door before mass begins. That’s how long the walk takes. Twenty minutes. And we have to be in a pew before mass starts. “Why can they only go to Christmas and Easter and we have to go every week?” I rant and ramble on about the our predicament while my brother walks a few to several steps ahead of me. Clearly ignoring his annoying lawyer of a little brother. We clump clump clump on down Main Street. The heavy boots that are so necessary in this weather. I never slip or stumble in these things. The whiteness of the landscape reminds me of the planet Hoth from Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back. I envision tauntauns rounding a corner up ahead. Their snowy white coats and horns distinguishing them as the helpful beasts that Luke and Han rode in the opening scenes of that film. I imagine the Empire’s walkers and AT-ATs striding behind the houses across the street looking for us. I envision Han and Luke adventuring in that snowy world. And that is exactly who we are: I am Luke Skywalker and my brother is 3 Han Solo. Luke is the hero, the kid who saves the day and finishes off the enemy with a photon torpedo and using the Force. He’s blond haired like me and is naive in his thoughts on good versus bad, the Rebels versus the Empire. Of course he is me in my mind. I am the hero of my own story. Han Solo is the mercenary, the hired gun who decides to help the cause because it benefits numero uno in the end. He doesn’t sign on with the rebellion until the last second and in that moment he comes through and plays the hero card. It is the last possible moment. Of course it is. It’s more dramatic that way. Before that, he’s extremely difficult and refuses to be labeled a good guy. He gets the princess despite even trying. Of course he does. And that is my brother to a tee. Mike does not want to be seen as a good guy. Mike wants to be that aloof Han Solo-type who does his own thing, and that just so happens to be the right thing in the end. But, he makes everyone uneasy wondering if he will pull through. He’s the wildcard. My brother loves that role. My brother is Han Solo. Always has been.

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I never hurt my brother more than I did the day I lost his Han Solo action figure in the Atlantic Ocean. He still talks about it. He’s still is in pain over that loss. It was his favorite toy, which is understandable because he was and is Han freaking Solo whether he knew it then or not. I was about two and a half years old, so he would have been seven. Maybe eight. We were on the beach at Daytona playing in the sand. Enjoying the Florida sunshine on our faces. I don’t remember much, but I have been told this story multiple times. Apparently, I picked up his Han Solo toy when he wasn’t looking and went into the water for a swim with Han. I’m sure my parents — or at least one of them — was nearby. But Mike wasn’t. He didn’t notice I had Han 4 until it was too late. Until his action figure was swallowed by the Atlantic Ocean. I’m told a wave hit me and I dropped Han in the water. Almost immediately, the ocean waves scooped him up. Took him. Lost forever.

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The Catholic Church looms overhead as we finally arrive. Standing on the sidewalk in front of Ss. Peter & Paul Church, we see the masses of people all dressed in their Sunday’s finest walking into the cathedral in droves. The dual spires shooting up into the sky, the bells clanging marking the beginning of Sunday mass. Mike stands there looking up, to me it seems like he’s admiring the view. I bypass him and start to head towards the front doors. “Fuck this,” he states, which captures my attention. “Let’s go get breakfast.” With that he turns and starts down the road towards the town center. I watch him take a few steps, not quite knowing what to do. He turns to see me and says, “You coming or what?” So, I run after him. We walk side by side down the road, away from where we are supposed to be. He pushes me lightheartedly and calls me a badass as we venture towards the unknown. The unknown becomes a diner on the corner of Main Street and Buffalo Street called Jimmy’s. It’s a greasy spoon that looks straight out of the 1940s. There are booths inside and stools at the counter. The place is always packed full. The food is so tremendous and yet it slides right through you almost immediately. Butter, I find out much later, is Jimmy’s main ingredient. We saddle up to a pair of stools at the counter. Mike and Jay skipping church and having breakfast together. It’s like we like each other. Like I’m not an annoying little kid, but an equal. For the next three weeks this is our routine. We skip church and hang out, eat eggs and toast and 5 bacon, and talk. He tells me about girls. He tells me about his friends. He talks. I’m usually the talker, but these Sunday mornings I find myself listening. I listen because my brother doesn’t talk much and somehow I know I need to savor these moments. “Remember that time you slammed gum in my hair, you fucker,” he brings it up, which surprises me because it was so out of the blue. It was the same day I lost his Han Solo toy. We can laugh about it now, but it wasn’t funny when it happened.

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It’s about 110 degrees outside the car, so its probably 150 inside. The windows being down mean nothing to anyone. The glass of the front and back windshield make us feel like bugs under a magnifying glass. My parents rented a white Ford Thunderbird on this trip. Not a cool looking Thunderbird, but a 1980s version of the Thunderbird. I remember this factoid because my Mom loved this car. She used to talk about Thunderbirds all the time, or at least that’s what I remember. I could be making that up. Mike starts pushing my buttons. I am two and a half, according to my Mom, so it probably wasn’t too difficult to get me going. It was most likely after Han Solo was swallowed by the Atlantic, so Mike was most definitely pissed at me still. I mean, it’s forty years later now, and if I bring this up he still gets upset. I see my brother’s hands pushing me, pushing me in that back seat. I remember warning him to stop. I remember he doesn’t stop. So, I did what I needed to do to get my older brother to stop picking on me. I pulled the chewed-up gum out of my mouth and slammed it into his head. I must have squeezed it too because the gum took hold of his thin black hair. The next thing I remember is 6 my Dad pulling me out of the backseat by my elbow, probably to save me from the fists that were being thrown in my direction. I stood outside the car with my Dad, who was — I swear — trying his best to suppress a smile. My mother was busy using the car key as a saw to get the gum out of my brother’s hair. These moments come to me as a slide show. I remember hearing the sound of hair being sawed by a key, whatever that sound sounds like. I can still hear it. We walked around Magic Kingdom that day, my brother with a bald patch on the side of his head. Every time I looked at that patch I felt equal parts bad for causing this and proud that I stood up for myself. Maybe. I mean, I was two and a half, so maybe I thought none of these things.

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“What about the time that Joe Citizen guy found out how badass my little brother is?” We are laughing almost too loud at Jimmy’s Diner now. We were walking down the street, heading home probably. Heading somewhere. Taking the long way around town. Mike pushes me as I’m walking next to him. I get away and he kicks my left foot into my right, so I tumble to the ground right outside Joe the Barber’s little barbershop. The street bends here, and a middle-aged guy on a bicycle is heading our way on the other side of the street. I get up and move, only to get pushed down again by my bigger, stronger older brother. No clue how old we are, but we’re walking around town so it has to be before he got a driver’s license. “Hey, cut it out!” A voice stops us both in our mock fight. Looking around, we see the guy straddling his ten-speed bicycle. In my memory he’s wearing one of those bicyclist spandex 7 outfits that only people in the Olympics should wear, but he’s probably in jeans and a t-shirt. He definitely has one of those aerodynamic helmets on. He does not look cool. Or tough. We both see him. He sees us. He’s watching us. For how long I don’t know. “Leave the kid alone,” the guy goes further. “You want me to come over there and even things out?” I don’t know if this was a question for Mike or me. It could have been either I guess. So, I answer the guy. “Why don’t you mind your own fucking business, Joe Citizen!” I yell across the street. “Come on over here and we’ll kick your nosey little bicycle ass!” The guy’s face contorts as he processes this. Here he is, coming to my defense, and here I am telling him I’m going to kick his ass. He jumps back on the bike and speeds down the sidewalk, away from the crazy little kid getting beat up. Mike punches my arm. “You’re such a badass!” He booms into the street. “Joe Citizen nosey little bicycle ass? Where do you get these things?” “You,” I say as we both continue our journey down the road, this time with hugs and noogies (knuckle to the head) instead of trips and pushes.

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I could always count on that Millennium Falcon — that Cutlass Supreme — coming through at the last second to save the day and send my own personalized Darth Vader of the moment tumbling into distant space. “You think you’re funny, huh?” The ninth-grader stood up and started walking over to me. He was about a foot and a half taller than me, had a buzz cut and wiry muscles. It didn’t take 8 much to be stronger than me back then though. I was short for seventh-grade, most of my friends loomed over me. I got called skin-and-bones too much for my liking, despite being an endless pit of chicken wing consumption. It was late June and both of us were waiting for rides outside the school gym doors. There were a few other students sitting on the grass or cement sidewalks waiting too. We all just finished whatever final exam we had that morning. Not having cars or driver’s licenses yet, we all were at the mercy of our respective families. There was no bus to take anyone home this morning. The sun was blaring heat down on us as we sat in various stages of sweat. I don’t even know what I said to him to be honest. Mumbled something under my breath which I’m sure was rude and inappropriate. But I wasn’t expecting him to hear it. Apparently I said it too loud. He heard it. I had a big mouth in those days. A big mouth with no filter. I did my best impersonation of someone who doesn’t know what’s happening. My head swiveled around looking for who this too-tall ninth grader was talking to. In doing this, though, I minimized any chance I had of escape. Miscalculating the length of his stride, he was upon me in a microsecond. “Try saying that again,” he spat into my face, craning his neck down to almost touch noses. I still can see his crooked teeth as he was exercising his dominance over me. “What did I say?” Looking up at him with those puppy dog eyes that worked on my mother. They were not working in this moment. “You know exactly what you said, smartass,” he was so close I could smell his halitosis. I winced from the stench, crinkled my nose and furrowed my brow. If there was one thing I learned in my twelve years of living with my older brother it was this: If you are going to get 9 beat up, take it like a man. Don’t grovel. Don’t whine. Don’t make excuses. Just take your lumps and the bully will eventually move on. At least save your dignity. I can’t even count the number of times I have been beaten up. My brother. His friends. My friends. Sure, I dished out my share of lumps too, but this one was going to be a bloodbath. The kid had at least fifty pounds on me. “Dude,” I don’t really know what I was thinking but I remember saying this exact phrase. “Did you brush your teeth this morning? Your breath fucking stinks.” With that, too-tall grabbed my shirt and lifted me off my feet. How was my shirt staying in one piece? Why didn’t it tear like Hulk Hogan’s spandex before a wrestling match? But the shirt held. I was in this ninth-grader’s grip, my t-shirt collar crumpled into both his fists as he was holding me at least a foot above ground. And that was when we both heard the rumble. It started off low but I knew exactly what it was even before the Cutlass rounded the corner. I have heard that engine so many times. In our living room, that rumble almost shook my Mom’s Precious Moments off the shelves. That rumble woke me up from being fast asleep at 2 a.m., especially if my window was open. So, there we were: this ninth-grader holding a seventh-grade me up by the collar, face to face, both heads turning simultaneously towards that custom racing exhaust system my brother put in himself. And there it was. The Millennium Falcon to the rescue. My brother’s Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. The car was going too fast for the run into the parking lot. The tires squealed as he cut the wheel into the parking lot. Squeal and roar. My savior. We watched the Cutlass turn that corner. 10 We watched as the Millennium Falcon of a car rocketed halfway into the school parking lot. Then it stopped. The car bucked to a halt about fifty feet from where we stood. The engine stayed running as the car door was kicked open. The first thing that emerged were the work boots. Tan and unlaced, both firmly planted on the pavement. Out of the now purring Oldsmobile rose a figure. Black hair in his face, he swiped his hand to pull it back. He had on his trademark black leather jacket. Mike stepped from the car and all he had on downstairs were boxer shorts. No shirt. No pants. He must have just woken up. Just heard his little brother’s frantic voice on the answering machine complaining that he was late. He was ridiculously ripped back then too, like an Adonis from Greek Mythology. My brother was blessed with muscles you only see in comic books, and this was before he even started trying to get big. So there he stood. A human version of the comic book character Wolverine, even equipped with a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. His mouth snarled as he locked eyes on my attacker. Head down, he started stalking forward. Too-tall now became the hunted. “That your brother?” He asked me, still holding me in the air by the collar. “You’re fucking dead.” I breathed out. It was enough. Next thing I know was I’m on my own two feet again and the ninth-grader was throwing open the gym doors. Little did he know that being on school property wouldn’t stop my brother. At this point he was a senior at the high school, but he would gladly have served a week or two suspension if it meant he got to beat the shit out of a ninth-grader disrespecting his seventh-grade brother. 11 He didn’t even acknowledge me as he started to pursue his prey, eyes intent on the escaped attacker. I held out my hand and firmly planted it in the middle of his chest. Surprisingly, he stopped. Like I just soothed a wild animal, he turned his gaze on me, which softened a bit. “Don’t,” I said. “It’s all good. He’s nothing. Plus, I kinda deserved it.” Mike’s smile lightened his face and he said, “Sorry I’m late. I overslept.” “No worries. Let’s go home.” And with that we both turned around and walked back to the still-purring Cutlass Supreme, idling in the middle of the school parking lot. “You coulda at least put pants on,” I laughed over the roof of the car. “I didn’t know I was about to get into a fight.”

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The invoice in her hand, our mother stands taller than her five-foot frame and slowly asks a question she already knows the answer to. “What happened to the church money we gave you?” Our Dad is in his recliner, ready to jump in if one of us even so much as dares to answer mom with a smarts retort. We don’t dare him. “We went for breakfast instead,” I admit it before I can stop the words from escaping my lips. My mother’s face starts to process what her youngest son just told her. “Jimmy’s Diner.” “Who’s idea was that?” I don’t know which parent asked this. I do remember Mike’s silence. Snitches get stitches. He would have taken this secret to the grave. He would have never given me up. If I only shut my mouth, this case would still be open today. 12 I immediately point at my older brother. And just like that, it was over. Twenty-three days from the first time we skipped church. Our parents were not pleased. They felt betrayed. Worse yet, my brother felt betrayed. It was fun while it lasted. Not a long run but a good one.