Memoir (if I ever write one) Opening

I was standing in church, in the middle of mass when I realized that I was going to burn in Hell for eternity. And this was no fault of my own. I could be the best goddamn Catholic on the planet but I would still be dipping my toes into the sulfuric fumes of Hades forever – that was when I figured out that it was no use. I was seven.

My damnation begins with a happy memory: my father and stepmother’s wedding ceremony. I was the ring-bearer, not a necessary role in a wedding, usually a responsibility of the best man, but if you have a shaved monkey that can be put on display for the admiration of the gallery, go ahead.

My father stuffed me into a shiny, grey tuxedo – a perfect match of his. My hair was gelled and parted to the side, a battle that would be fought my entire life until that same hair began to fade from existence. I stood in the back of the church, looking at my father and my uncle standing at the alter. A quick glance to my future step-mother brought to me an awkward smile from her lips; a sad and forced smile as if I was a reminder of my father’s past: his sins.

When the crooked finger of my future step-aunt poked me in the back, I walked down the church aisle. The “aahs” from my family, future family, and friends of my parents emanated into my soul. I breathed it deep into my lungs, my pride. I could taste it on my tongue – the incense of my college years would do the same and cause flashbacks of cheap tuxedos and the smell cheap cologne splashes among the groomsmen.

It was a Catholic wedding, meaning that my father and stepmother stood before a priest who had to rectify the wedding. They had to get his permission and one thing stood in the way – me. I was a child from a previous marriage that had to be removed from record.

Nulled.

This would make me a bastard in the eyes of my God: a lost soul without a rudder surrounded by seaworthy captains. While the other parishioners would spend eternity feeding from the teats of God and his greatness, I would be cast to the upper levels of Purgatory (if I was lucky), feeding or changing the diapers of the anabaptized babies until Jesus showed up with a “Get Out Of Eternal Suffering and the Pity of Your Peers Card” in hand.

But there I was. Seven. Standing before God, recognizing my own illegitimacy with my father in false prayer to my left and my off-key singing Irish Catholic step mother basking in His glory, a tear forming in her eye. I was a reminder of my father’s past. An error. I was nothing but a misspelling on paper without an available eraser to my new family.

There was no point in me being there, I was destined to suffering because of my father’s denial of my mother, of their once binding love, and the relationship that brought me into this world. Denied and erased. I gave up on finding God on that day when I was seven, our divide ever widening. I was looking into the closed eyes of the Jesus statue as he suffered on the cross, now he was another man, a son tricked to sacrifice himself in the name of his father.
Him. I could relate to Him. I could relate to that.