W RITER’S BLOCK
by
JOHN W . HARTMANN
Copyright © 2014 John W . Hartmann
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced by any
method without the written permission of the author, except for short
passages used in critical reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real places, events, or
people living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Interior design by Steven W . Booth and
www.GeniusBookServices.com
DEDICATION
For Fr. Evasio DeMarcellis
Writer’s Block
MY CONFESSION
My name is John. I am a Catholic. I have a confession to make:
W hen I was young, I stole the crucified Christ.
Catholics have a class called CCD they must attend if they wish
to be confirmed and recognized as adult members of the Catholic
Church. I attended CCD from the first to eighth grades, during the age
of malaise, 1973 to 1980. I always attended class at the same time on
Sunday morning, right after 8:30 a.m. Mass. I never learned what CCD
stood for— but that was really par for the course because I didn’t learn
a lot in CCD.
I remember one day sitting in my second grade CCD class,
which was held in a dusty third floor classroom of St. Paul’s Elementary
School. I was sitting in one of those old, marred metal school desks— the
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kind used on the movie set of Hoosiers. I was next to a kid named
W illiam, and I recall W illiam very well. W illiam was always smiling
and flashing his pearly whites. W illiam was like Fred from Scooby-Doo;
he even had Fred’s blond hair and Nordic features. I don’t know why he
was so happy, he just was. If W illiam were my friend today, I’d
probably come up with an obnoxious nickname for him, something like
“Teeth” or “Grinning Willie.” But I was a nice kid and didn’t think like
that in second grade, so I just called him W illiam.
Our CCD teacher was speaking. “Children, pretend you are
floating on a cushion in the sky among fluffy white clouds. God is the
cushion,” she informed us.
“Whooowww,” all 20 students said in unison.
“Children, who is God?” the teacher asked.
Like a tightly wound jack-in-the box, I raised my hand. My
teacher called on me.
“God is the cushion!” I proudly said.
“Very good, John,” my teacher complimented me.
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I always had the right answer in CCD.
It should be noted that our teacher wasn’t making this stuff up
about the clouds and the cushion— she was reading it right out of our
Catholicism-meets-Cat-Stevens workbook. It should also be noted that
this was a little more than a decade after Vatican II and things were
already going downhill— fast.
My teacher was a young, pretty woman, probably in her early
20s. I don’t remember her name. She wore glasses. I also wore glasses,
the brutally thick, dark plastic glasses; the type worn by either a mad
scientist, Henry Kissinger, or Drew Carey.
Because my teacher was pretty, nice, Catholic, and was a
kindred glasses-wearing soul, I had a mad crush on her. Toward the end
of the school year, I vividly recall her coming to class without her
glasses. W hen we had assembled, she informed us she was wearing
contact lenses. I was crushed and felt betrayed, but eventually I got over
it.
My CCD teacher’s brother taught at the grade school I attended
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during the week. He had longish hair, a beard, and sideburns, and always
wore an Army jacket— he was really cool. I also forget his name.
One day I was waiting for the bus after school and my CCD
teacher’s brother was on bus patrol. He was lounging on a wooden
bench, leaning back with his hands behind his head. As I walked by he
called out to me, “Hey, John.”
“Yes?” I replied.
“My sister says you are in her class,” he nonchalantly mentioned.
I nervously stuck my hands in my pockets and answered, “I am.”
“She says you are pretty smart,” he continued.
My face lit up. “Thanks,” I responded.
“Hey, John.”
“Yes?”
“Look after my sister,” he said.
“Okay,” I wholeheartedly agreed.
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I will always remember that brief conversation. That was the first
time anyone ever told me to look after another person. The only things
I had ever looked after before were my two pet hamsters, W oodrow and
Franklin, whose names paid homage to my favorite presidents,
W oodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt. Back in second grade, I was
a Democrat.
After that sacred investment of trust, like a medieval knight I
looked after my lady in my own little 7-year-old way. Every time I saw
my liege at the bus stop, I earnestly assured him, “I am looking after
your sister.”
M y CCD teacher’s brother would inevitably be sitting on the
bench, dapperly clad in his green Army jacket. W ith his longish hair
blowing in the breeze, he’d look at me, nod, and say, “Thanks, John.”
As I said, he was really cool.
Another cool guy was our bus driver, who also had long hair and
sideburns. But instead of a full-blown beard, he sported a goatee. I
forget his name as well. He had returned from Vietnam a couple of years
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earlier and was always telling us stories about “Nam.” Now that I think
about it, our bus driver’s stories were wildly inappropriate for 6-and 7year-olds, but who am I to judge? After all, I stole a crucifix— but all
that comes later.
One afternoon our bus driver told us how Charlie almost got him
with a hand grenade. He dived into a bunker in the nick of time, but took
some metal to his jaw. At a stoplight, he threw the big yellow bus into
park and turned around. Our bus driver then grabbed his jaw with his
right hand and gave it a short, quick yank. The bus was filled with a
sickening cracking sound. He then moved his unhinged jaw in an
unnatural way to the right and left.
“Whooowww!” all 20 kids on the bus shouted.
Before the light turned green, he cracked his jaw back into place
and put the bus in drive.
“I got a purple heart and a free ride home for that one,” our bus
driver proudly shouted over the rattling school bus engine as he merrily
drove down the road.
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There were a lot of cool guys with long hair, sideburns, and
facial hair walking around during the 1970s. The ’70s were the golden
age of cool facial hair. Here is another case in point. One day my friend
Fred was over at my house and we were outside playing. My mom was
inside. W e lived in a house on the corner of a busy road. On this
particular day, Fred and I were playing by the side of that busy road. As
we were playing, we noticed a guy with long hair, sideburns, and a short
beard sitting on the curb next to our property. Since he was complete
stranger, we decided to talk to him.
“Hey Mister, what you up to?” Fred called out.
The man turned slightly around, looked over his shoulder, and
said in a non-committal voice, “W aiting for a friend.”
W e both approached him. As we got closer, Fred and I noticed
the stranger had a small revolver tucked neatly into his belt. W e became
suspicious.
“You and your friend going to rob a bank?” Fred asked.
The man chuckled, “Naw kid, we’re just going to go talk to
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somebody.”
“That’s cool,” Fred answered.
Fred and I then went off to play in a big dirt pile on the other
side of our property. About half an hour later we returned to the busy
road. The stranger was gone.
I always wondered how that conversation went.
Now, don’t get the wrong impression. Like today, in the ’70s,
parents told their children never to talk to strangers. My parents told me
never to talk to strangers. The only difference was that in the ’70s
parents didn’t really mean it.
It was the same way with bullying. Back in the day, people were
always talking about how bullying was wrong— but nobody meant it.
W hen I was a student there were two categories of school kids: bullies
and hapless victims. If your kid was the bully— good for him. If your kid
was the hapless victim— too bad. I was always the hapless victim.
In second grade, I was bullied by this kid named Kendall
Hamilton. His name I remember. Kendall Hamilton had the disposition
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of an iron maiden and he was a jerk, a big jerk. He was always either
bullying me or some other student in the class. I remember one day
when he came up with the original plan of taking my milk
money— except it wasn’t for milk, it was for an un-carbonated orange
drink that came in a small cardboard container and cost a nickel. Every
day for a week, Kendall and one of his grade-school goons accosted me
in the playground during morning recess and threatened to beat me up
if I didn’t fork over my nickel.
By Friday, my teacher noticed I was drinking a cup of water at
lunchtime and asked me what happened to my orange drink. I informed
her of Kendall’s shakedown. That afternoon after school, the teacher had
a talk with Kendall Hamilton.
The next Monday morning, while waiting for class to start, a
grinning Kendall came up to me in the classroom. He told a classmate
sitting at the desk next to me to beat it. The kid turned Frosty-theSnowman white, gulped, and scampered away. Kendall sat down in the
vacated desk and started to talk to me. He had some good news.
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“John,” Kendall said. “I have some good news. You don’t owe
me a nickel a day— I am cutting it down to a penny a day!”
That was good news. This new arrangement struck me as very
reasonable. I was relieved.
He then offered me a payment plan (his father was a banker): either a
nickel on M onday to cover the whole week or one penny a day. I
thought about it for a second and opted for the latter arrangement.
That night I asked my father to give me 6 cents a day instead of
5 cents. W hile it was only an extra penny, it was a 20 percent increase
and my dad asked why. I told him about Kendall and how we worked
out a reasonable payment plan. My father looked at me and laid down
the law.
Like a five-star general ensconced in the rear exhorting a young
private heading off to the front to fight to the death, my old man told me
that we (meaning me) never give into bullies. Dad then lectured if we
(meaning the world) had stopped Hitler after the Sudetenland instead of
waiting for Poland, W orld W ar II never would have happened. So no,
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he would not be giving me one extra red cent for tribute!
I didn’t like how our father-son talk turned out. I didn’t know
who Hitler was, but I knew he could not possibly be worse than Kendall
Hamilton. I doubted Hitler would leave me hanging by my underwear
on the playground basketball rim, swinging in the breeze.
The next day, as soon as the bus let me off at school, I made a
beeline for the sanctuary of my classroom. Kendall was known to arrive
early to collect his money, but this day he failed to intercept me. He was
occupied, busily working over a first grader in the boys’ bathroom.
Breathless, I burst into the classroom. The only person in the room was
my teacher, sitting at her desk, bathed by early morning sunlight that
filtered in from a corner window. Like a vision of the Madonna, she
looked up at me and smiled. I gathered my breath, wiped my brow with
my sleeve, walked up to her, and spilled my guts.
Later that morning, as our teacher was about to let us outside for
recess, she asked Kendall to stay behind. W hatever she told him worked.
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Ten minutes into recess, Kendall Hamilton joined me at the
monkey bars. He had more good news.
“John,” he growled, “you don’t owe me anything.”
Now that was good news.
***
I continued with my CCD classes. The years from third to
seventh grade are a blur and I don’t remember a thing. Teachers,
students, and lessons, all lost in the fog of time.
However I do remember eighth grade.
Eighth grade was the culmination, the end of the road, the big
year— eighth grade was the year I got confirmed. Confirmation is the
sacrament where Catholics prepare to assume the role of disciple and
witness to Christ. To be honest, I just pulled that last sentence out of The
Catechism. W e certainly weren’t taught anything like that.
My eighth grade teacher was Mr. Benedetti, and he was one of
the greatest men I have ever known. The year he taught my CCD class
was the year he retired as a guard from Trenton State Prison. That was
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the year he began his ministry and for the next three decades he served
St. Paul’s Church as a deacon. Mr. Benedetti was the best deacon— ever.
He passed away suddenly a couple of years ago in his home as he
prepared to leave for the weekday 7:00 a.m. Mass. Mr. Benedetti should
be made a saint and if somehow I find out he didn’t go straight to
heaven, I am grabbing a black felt tip marker, taking the Ten
Commandments, crossing out every “not,” and making the emasculated
commandments my bucket list because if M r. Benedetti didn’t make it,
I certainly won’t.
So Mr. Benedetti prepared us for confirmation. The way
confirmation works is that each candidate selects the name of a saint he
or she wishes to emulate in life. I selected St. Thomas More, the patron
saint of lawyers. St. Thomas More was the chancellor of England in the
1500s. He stood up for his beliefs and stood up to King Henry VIII.
Thomas More was probably the last honest politician who ever lived and
ironically, he was beheaded. This being the life I wished to emulate, I
chose the name Thomas. So Thomas should have been my confirmation
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name, but it didn’t exactly work out that way.
Canon law requires you be confirmed by the bishop. Our bishop
at the time was a very, very elderly man. In fact, he was ancient. Our
bishop made Methuselah look like a spring chicken in comparison. If
someone had told me our bishop had been with Jesus and John the
Baptist at the River Jordan, I would have believed him.
Confirmation happens at a special Mass at the parish. All the
children getting confirmed dress up in their best clothes and when the
time comes, they line up and kneel at the altar rail. The bishop then
starts at one end of the rail and works his way down the confirming line,
individually bestowing the students with their new confirmation names.
It is all very quick— the bishop states, “I confirm you _____,” gives a
blessing, and moves on down the line.
Having the bishop come to St. Paul’s was a big deal so we had
a practice run the night before our confirmation. All the students were
given a specific place in line where they were to kneel. To assist the
bishop, 3 x 5 index cards were prepared. Each card contained a
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candidate’s confirmation name and they were arranged in the order of
students lined up on the altar rail.
You probably see where this is going, but in case you don’t, I
will finish the story.
Mass the next day was proceeding smoothly. After the sermon,
we were called up to be confirmed. As we had practiced, we approached
the front of the church and knelt in our assigned location. I was toward
the end of the line and there was a girl kneeling to my right. The bishop
started working his way down the line.
For such an old guy, the bishop was quite dexterous. He went
through the confirming line like a buzz saw goes through plywood.
Soon, he was right in front of me.
“I confirm you Elizabeth,” he said in one quick breath.
“Whaaaaat?”
Before it completely dawned on me what had just occurred, the
bishop had already finished and was heading back to his seat behind the
altar. Somehow the index cards given to the bishop were placed out of
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order. Everyone received the confirmation name of the student kneeling
to their right. Since the student kneeling next to me was a girl, I received
her confirmation name, which was Elizabeth.
I guess you can call me a cross-confirmant.
At our last CCD class of the year, we discussed the theological
question of our actual confirmation name. Mr. Benedetti assured us that
in heaven we will have the confirmation name we selected— not the one
the bishop bestowed upon us. This is a relief, because I have enough
problems already and I don’t need St. Peter looking at me cross-eyed.
You might think the story ends here, but it doesn’t. I still have
to explain how I stole the crucified Christ.
For the purpose of the story, you have to know I was by far the
best student in Mr. Benedetti’s class. It goes to show that a really good
teacher can have a profound impact on a student. By the year’s end, I
was the only student in class who knew how to recite by memory the
“Our Father,” the “Hail Mary,” and the rosary, including the sorrowful,
joyful, and glorious mysteries.
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So there I was, at my very last class CCD class ever. I had done
my time, served my tour, and my educational obligations to the church
were over.
During the school year, Mr. Benedetti brought a crucifix to every
class. It was a standard crucifix— nice, but nothing special. The crucifix
was plastic and about 10 inches long. It was made in Italy, which was
good— Italians make the best crucifixes. As with all crucifixes, Jesus
was on it. At every class, Mr. Benedetti would take it out of its simple
cardboard box and place it on his table at the front of the classroom. It
was a calming presence.
At the end of class that spring morning in 1980, Mr. Benedetti
put an empty shoebox on the table. Like a ball player cleaning out his
locker after the final out of the season, he said to us, “Children, I’m
going to be giving away my class cross. You are all going to draw for it.
Everyone put their name on a piece of paper and place it in this
shoebox.”
Then M r. Benedetti made his mistake. He continued, “Because
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John is our best student, I am going to let him pick the name of the
winner.”
Now, let me tell you a little about my family history. One of my
mom’s grandfathers was a Democrat ward leader in Philadelphia, and
the other was a Republican ward leader in Philadelphia. (I guess when
my mom’s parents were married it was sort of like Romeo and Juliet
meets the Hatfields and the McCoys.) In other words, there isn’t a guy
more genetically predisposed to stealing a ballot than me. Election fraud
is coursing through my veins— thick. The other kids never had a chance.
Jesus was coming home to casa de John.
W hen it came time to put my name in the shoebox, I placed it in
one easily identifiable corner. Anticipating Mr. Benedetti shaking the
box, I jammed the slip deep in the corner. Before dropping it in the box,
I also wet my piece of paper with my tongue to make it stick. No amount
of shaking was going to move that ballot. Oh and the piece of paper I
wrote my name on was about three times larger than anyone else’s.
After the last name had been cast, Mr. Benedetti went through
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the motions of shaking the box. After all, who could be so depraved as
to try to steal a crucifix? Next he asked, “John, can you pick the
winner?”
“It will be an honor, Mr. Benedetti,” I replied.
I went to the front of the room toward Mr. Benedetti. He held the
shoebox up high and I reached with my sticky fingers stretching for the
spot. I carefully picked the preordained, inordinately large, slightly
moist ballot stuck in the clearly identifiable corner. I took it out of the
box, opened it up, read it to myself, and said calmly, “I won.”
I then showed Mr. Benedetti the ballot so he knew I wasn’t
lying.
“It’s a sign from God!” a beaming M r. Benedetti said. “It could
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