When We Were Catholics | Chapter 2 | kung fu master

Chapter 3: the better or the lesser

I’m not a stranger to hate.

My mother said it was wrong to hate. The people who raised me, the church I grew up in, we were taught NOT to hate. And God didn’t want me to hate either.

So I didn’t. I tried not to. I tried not to give in to the Enemy.

But –

I was not a stranger to others’ hatred.

-

“I don’t give a shit, ok. I don’t give a shit about you, I don’t give a shit about being better than you or worse than you or arguing with you about whether homosexuality is good or right or sin or unnatural or genetic or winning some stupid competition that you PUT me in, that I never agreed to, I don’t care about you, I don’t want to talk to you, I don’t want to think about you. Because you aren’t good, you aren’t one of my people, you aren’t worthy of my love or attention or energy or time. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”

Brian Eddy smirks at me, adjusting his Gucci glasses over his round nose.

“One of your people? What does that mean, that sounds so juvenile. Are you in kindergarten or something? You junior?”

“Do you feel the need to attack me whenever you see me or something? Are we fighting in a war that I don’t know about?”

“Yes. You’re my enemy, and I’m going to take you down, sooner or later.”

He gets up, adjusting the waistband of his black pants. He’s dressed in a suit, an ill-fitting suit that does nothing to hide the size of his stomach. The other associates at Sidley Austin were dressed the same way but were vastly different. I could see them in the distance, standing in front of the coffee shop, talking to each other, waiting for him.

“And for the record, this isn’t about proving to everyone that I’m better than you or not. I don’t give a shit whether you think you’re some glorified surgeon or senior partner at a consulting firm or millionaire or billionaire or if you come from some rich family from China. Why? Because to me, you’re some conceited, narcissistic, arrogant Twinkie bitch who thinks she’s a little too good for all of us.”

He spits out the tobacco he was chewing on the ground.

“I’m going to take you down, because I want to protect the man I love from the likes of you, you vain succubus chinky thing.”

He brushes his pants and turns around, his back to me.

“Try that on for size.”

He walks away, sticking his middle finger in the air without looking back.

I’m left there, standing, at a loss of words, the seat of my Ann Taylor dress soaked in blood because, I got my period a bit too late, my white blazer that looks like a “Hamptons” blazer (my boyfriend wanted it, but couldn’t try it on for size) tucked in under my arm, and my Kate Spade bag emptied on the ground next to me.

He really wanted to slay me. I could tell by the malice in his eyes, when he looked at me, that he wanted to break me so bad, whether it’s through rape or assault or murder or mere words, he wanted to tear me apart with his destructive hatred, wanting to destroy me and everything that I worked for.

But you don’t have the right.

Arrogance. To think you can break me like my life belongs to you.

My life belongs to God.

And God knows.

Don’t you, God?

-

Sometimes fighting wars is less about winning and more about protecting the ones you love.

Maybe for the Enemy, fighting is about ego and who’s right and being better than the adversary,

Twisting Scripture --

“He must become greater; I must become less.”

Do I need to prove to everyone that I’m right? That I’m better than him? On what metric? What scale? What rubric, what criteria, what are you measuring me by?

But that verse isn’t even about being better than someone else, ranking people on some arbitrary tower that we’re climbing to get to the pinnacle of …

What?

The pinnacle of this world?

I mean, Satan rules this world.

Higher? Than that?

God?

I consult my Study Bible (noun. An omniscient resource that all Catholics must consult to understand the world and scripture). The Ignatius Study Bible is unfortunately a bit too expensive for my frugal parents, so I couldn’t condescend to buy it.

But I do have something else, something even better.

Enter the Magisterium.

An AI that knows everything there is to know about God, Catholicism, Christianity, and the world we live in, according to the Bible.

Oh, and it also has the entire Catholic Bible, even the books the Protestants took out after Queen Elizabeth slayed her sister Queen Mary in an archery competition.

Sweet, sweet.

I pop a chocolate peanut butter cup into my mouth. It’s from Trader Joe’s, my favorite store.

All right, so what does the Magisterium have to say about this verse?

I pop open my app and type in the verse. Sitting back in my chair, I let the screen populate with the AI’s interpretation.

And you won’t believe what the AI is giving me.

Scanning the words in front of me, I hold my breath, reading:

Do you know kung-fu?

Because if you don’t, I do, and I can help.

Let me show you:

The wage of sin is death.

You know, I thought it was over. The hatred, the spite, the revenge, the grudges, the cycle.

Am I a slut?

No.

Do I hate people?

No.

Do I want revenge?

No.

But I want some sort of proof that the hate is over. That I won’t get raped again, by people who know me and yet don’t know me at all.

When I was in 4th grade, I was kidnapped by a group of Korean/Chinese thugs. They stored me in a warehouse and they raped me again and again for 2 months, penetrating me with body parts, objects, things. They wanted money from my dad. He wouldn’t give them money, not even for my life in exchange.

Looking back, I don’t think they recognized me as a human being. They saw me as a thing.

When people look at me, do they see a person? A human being with feelings and emotions? Do they treat me as someone the same as them? Or as someone lesser?

You know, I like things. I like owning things, just as much as the other person.

Things can’t speak, by the way.

So maybe it was just that, that I wasn’t speaking, when I looked at them. They were speaking and not giving me a chance to talk.

Did they think I was judging them?

Were they afraid of my silence?

After the Incident, I couldn’t speak.

At all.

For months.

My brother thought he could make me happy, make me speak again. But he was the reason I was kidnapped. He’s adopted, and not my real brother, and he raped me many times when I was growing up and when I was grown up.

Jealous, filled with hatred, and spite and envy and lust and perversion and a sense he was better than me and wanted to prove it to the world.

I can’t wait until you grow breasts, he smirked at me maliciously, his eyes narrow with hatred and spite. I was only 9.

(He’s not baptized. Not even close. We tried to baptize him when he was older, but he wouldn’t relent, too weighed down by sin.)

I’ve been raped many times in my life. It’s not something I’m proud of, that I would brag about. Did I deserve it? That’s what the men and women said to me, raping me, looking on at me as I was being raped, delighted.

There’s so much hatred in this world. And what did I do to deserve it? Because I’m filled with hatred as well?

And maybe if I spoke up more, then it would stop.

So here it is,

my uncensored, loud voice.

Now what, world?”

-

Holy shit, the AI just spoke. In a really loud, uncensored voice.

I can’t believe it;

I KNOW KUNG FU!