When We Were Catholics — Chapter 1: son of thunder

The probability of someone being dead while still alive and being alive while still dead, of existing in two opposite states while in a single state of being, is,

well,

to put it simply

(adj. without complication)

The very same probability that Schrodinger calculated of a cat being simultaneously dead and alive while still in a microwave

(thought experiment, see Schrodinger’s cat).

It's also approximately the probability of God existing.

How can the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit

be three and one at the same time?

Archbishop Frank Sheed knows,

(Theology and Sanity, Frank Sheed, published 1995)

I mean it’s quantum mechanics.

And what about chemistry?

Consider this.

You’re in the same orbital and you’re managing to contain two electrons with two completely opposite spins based off the mere precept that opposites attract,

Which,

by the way,

is very, very sad, because, when thinking about it, wouldn’t you rather be with like-minded individuals than with someone or something that completely disagrees with you,

It’s kind of like finding a gay fat priest in the middle of lower west village holding on to his coveted brown bag of bagels (scallion cream cheese, hold the jalapeno peppers, too spicy, and I want fried eggs or no tip)

or meeting him again in a sandwich shop in Chelsea where he chomps on his favorite fried chicken with spicy mayo and gochujang sauce slathered all over the buttered bread

(the best fried chicken sandwich in manhattan, but unfortunately it’s closed now because of soaring rents),

dribbling hot sauce all over his messy, unkempt (adjective. Not well maintained) blonde beard.

Bagels and fried chicken sandwiches aside,

I’m a straight woman.

I’m a straight Asian woman.

And I’m a straight Asian CATHOLIC woman.

What’s the probability of my existing?

In NYC?
In America?

That’s offensive.

To doubt the state of my existence is an existential crisis that I go through approximately three times every two weeks. And that will approximate to 78 times a year, if doing math the Republican way.

Does that equate to the number of times I contemplate suicide more than the average number of suicidal attempts of young adult professionals under the age of 35 in the united states?

Is that any of your business?

Point made.

But, as of late, I do find my depressive state mitigated by the amount of saintlike intervention I’ve been receiving of late. While lighting a candle in the greatly esteemed St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan and offering a prayer to St. Anthony of Padua, I’ve noticed that the biggest bang for my buck can be found in the dimmest of places. Specifically, in the Rockefeller Plaza during the holiday season where tourists crowd the streets, holding up their smartphones to capture the glimmering lights of the rather ponderous and prestigious Rockefeller tree.

Do you know how many brand name clothing stores are in this area?

Do you know how much money I’ve spent on donuts after mass in this area?

Do you know how much money I’ve given up for tithes to the many catholic churches I’ve been attending in the last 3 years?

You do not want to know.

Why?

Let me walk with you on my memory lane…

-

It’s 7pm. That means what you think it means.

In Vino Veritas.

I’ve wondered on the meaning of this phrase. Dominican friars are known for quoting Latin in their homilies, and for explaining what their Latin verbiage means in laymen’s terms. But no one has bothered to explain to me what In Vino Veritas means.

With my rather abundant imagination just spilling out of my brain, I’ve contemplated the meaning of this special time of the Holy Day of Obligation…

“A Truth in Wine.”

“A Truthful Alcoholic.”

“A Very Truthful Drinking Game.”

Indeed, there is a rather sentimental, nostalgic truth to be found in getting drunk with a Dominican friar at the alehouse several blocks away from the parish I visit most Sunday nights. And when I mean nostalgic, I mean that in the most purest form.

Not of the diabolic, satanic variety in which sex and stripping is involved.

But where there is alcohol, there must be good times.

“Let’s talk about Thomas Aquinas.”

Fr John, a short, strapping, handsome man in his late 30s who sports a trim dark beard and is always clad in a white habit (noun. A white robe that Dominican friars wear) saunters around the room, surrounded by an army of catholic/atheist/protestant/agnostic/satanic young professionals sitting on armless plastic chairs of an insignificant color.

There is a breeze, a whiff, a colour surrounding him. He emanates a raw aura, reeking of charisma and passion and personal magnetism, and, dare I say it, of Holy Spirit. As the fulcrum, he functions the room. All eyes are drawn to him, admiringly, lustfully, lovingly, passively, reluctantly. The room revolves as we revolve around him.

An exposition of sorts.

I briefly picture the last scene of Gladiator in the colosseum with Russell Crowe, which Fr John bears a slight resemblance to.

But then, he stops and turns around, his revolution around the center of the room slowing down as he reverses the tidal force.

“Thomas is a good guy. Who knows about him?”

A question. Is it rhetorical?

“Wasn’t he the guy that said… evil is necessary?”

Laughter fills the air. A quizzical look or two. A smirk, a shake of the head, a pose of questionable posture.

“The guy who said what goes up must come down.”

“Wait, wasn’t that Galileo?”

“Close. Newton,” Fr John waves his hand, his sleeve falling to his elbow, revealing his white alabaster flesh. As if it was made of marble, the colour of purity, of things unstained by sin.

Is he sinless?

Or…

Is he….

Gay?

I briefly entertain the thought.

Hope he can’t read my mind.

But as if he could read my mind, he stops sauntering and stands right in front of me.

Eyes lowering to a point on my forehead, on my pineal gland, beneath my third eye where there’s a chakra center,

except, let’s not go there because we’re not

Satanic.

We live in a fallen world, ruled by Satan, the prince of air and darkness.

Was it this, a Cassandra Clare young adult fantasy novel?

Close.

But not cigar, not even the kind my parents import from Shanghai, the expensive kind that costs $20 a cig and exudes a customizable fruity aroma, quite reminiscent of the jolly rancher candy I had when I was a toddler.

Except we don’t smoke, do we.

Not anymore, at least.

I take out my hand sanitizer. Bath and body work, strawberry pound cake, I got it for $1.99. I flip the lid open and inhale, closing my eyes. The aroma fills my nostrils and I am calmed.

Nerves. Can’t kick it.

Without opening my eyes, I say,

“Thomas Aquinas was a Dominican friar, possibly one of the greatest theologians to have ever lived.”

“And…?”

I open my eyes and see Fr John in front of me. He points a finger to his temple, cocking the trigger.

“He’s dead?”

Laughter, again.

I’m dead?

No,

But definitely Russell Crowe is dead, he just exhaled his last dying breath, lying down in a field of flower petals next to the woman who never could be his wife.

Forbidden romance?

Good grief.

-

Back when Fr John was quarterback of a Big Ten university’s football team, pregaming was for the blondes with fake tans and frat boys with red solo cups. I swear by my left arm that I’ve never gotten out of a pregame not drunk. And definitely not half naked, hanging by a bikini strap. I mean, it’s fall, who goes around half naked and wearing a bikini?

(Answer – a chronically sleep deprived premed who dances on the edge of psychosis and insanity)

Sorry to say, the man of the year loves to saunter around half naked showing off his six pack with a six pack of german beer in his hand and a hot blonde in the other.

“YO. MR. QUARTERBACK.”

I yell, dangling from the shoulders of a huge black man.

The quarterback yells back,

“I ANSWER TO JOHN. AND JOHN ALONE, I AM.”

“Ok… then, SON OF THUNDER… didn’t see you at mass on Sunday. Where were you?”

The knighted son of thunder turns around, raising his eyebrow ever so quizzically.

“The real question is… where were you when I scored a touchdown in the last thirty seconds of last week’s game.”

I swing and leap off the back of the huge black man and wedge my body in between hot blonde (noun. Tridelta sorority girl) and the man of the century.

“Like, studying orgo?”

“Ugh get away from me, premed!” The blonde girl flips her hair over her shoulder and latches onto the next eligible frat guy.

Premeds get a bad rep. People think premeds are overly neurotic, super Machiavellian, try hard do gooder, gunner types who obsess over each hundredth of a grade point and each missed point on an exam. But you kind of have to be, if you want to get into a T-20 medical school. Be part of the 99% percentile and achieve your life-long dream, or…

“Die?”

Oops, I didn’t notice I was talking out loud.

John’s still raising his eyebrow. I’m not sure what his eyebrow game is. But I do know what his football game is.

He’s the undefeated quarterback for 4 whole years. When he got recruited and played his first game as a college freshman, Coach Pat (noun. a straight shooter bulwark of a man and a “hell of a decent” coach), predicted that “it would be a golden era for us Wildcats”.

Quarterback John took the world by storm, scoring touchdowns like no other black footballer.

Except,

he’s not black.

He’s white as fuck.

Bred in Cincinnati, Ohio which his younger brother Sam “Mr. Nose Job” deems the “California of Ohio,” he’s part Irish, part French, part British,

And 100% white.

A cradle Catholic, baptized as a baby, confirmed in junior high school, avid attender of mass and all things Catholic.

“So what are your plans for after college?”

“Finance. I got an offer from Goldman.”

“Sweet baby monkey, I didn’t know!”

He smirks and quits the eyebrow.
“I’m a math and English major. Not a premed cop-out.”

He thinks that people only go into the premed track because they have nothing better to do with their lives.

Well, those people don’t have my mom.

Funny how things change. As we grow old, plans change, dreams die.

How did Fr. Jonah go from being a corporate finance bro to a priest?

God only knows.

-

Sometimes I have conversations with Fr John in my head.

“he’s gay, isn’t he?

“who? Fuckface?”

“yeah. he’s gay.”

“no he isn’t. he’s a priest.”

“he’s gotta be gay for you.”

“he’s not gay for me…”

“then why did he rape you?”

And the conversation ends with him walking away, just like that.

Just like that,

I start remembering. It’s like the last season of single’s inferno, only except showing cinematic scenes of two hot Koreans coyly flirting with each other,

It’s giving a play-by-play of the battle royale,

The 2009 National Collegiate Debate Competition.

Call him fuckface, call him thor, call him thundergod, heck, even call him pika-pikachu,

But,

The reigning champion of National Collegiate Debate Competition for three years running is the one and only,

Brian Eddy.

My arch-nemesis.

Three times my size in width, ½ my height, and older than me by at least five years,

Brian Eddy can convince a rock it’s alive.

Delivering logical syllogisms one after another, but still so filled with cognitive biases and flawed mental heuristics that you wouldn’t be able to distinguish him from Ku Klux Klan (triple-K? more like triple threat), Brian Eddy is a force to be reckoned with.

My sparring partner Matt thought he had the hots for me. And thought it would be a good idea for me to “jiggle” and “nudge” my boobs every time we were at the podium, thinking it would distract “Fatso” from his arguments.

But, little did Matt know…

Brian Eddy doesn’t have the hots for me.

He actually has the hots for…

“You gay for me? My girlfriend says you’re gay for me.”

Argue yourself out of that, thunderfucker.

“Does that make… sense to you? That I’m gay? I’m Catholic, how can I be gay?”

He’s squirming. And salivating. And cross eyed under his thick Gucci glasses. Knew it was a good idea to steal Matt’s shirt, so he had to go around shirtless, showing his sizeable six pack.

“You fucking bastard. You creep me out.”

And so Matt stomps out, dragging me with him, giving “zero visible fucks” (he hasn’t given a fuck since The Great Sexual Offense of Spanish Class of seventh grade legend).

“Are you serious?”

Fr Jonah grins at me incredulously.

“That really happened.”

“Yes, THAT really happened.”

“Fr Fuckface is really gay? I thought he just raped me because I was getting antsy and wanted to take the pastor position from him.”

“Stop being sarcastic, you saw the way he was dribbling saliva all over his ugly beard after I showed that picture of you with a six pack and a solo cup on the big projector screen after my awesome presentation for Goldman Sachs at the Hamptons that summer of 2019 after we met somewhere near the White House in a green pasture with no cows and Father Brian as my escort.”

(“Best run on sentence ever”)

He takes another Mike’s Hot Honey chip from the bag and chews on it.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

And that was when it started.

Our conspiracy to take down the one and only undefeated…

Thunderballs.

Pika pikachu!