My Secret History by Paul Theroux

and smoking his first Fatima of the day.
    “He’s from New Jersey,” Father Flynn said.
    “God’s country,” Father Furty said.
    “Ah, you reminded me!” Father Flynn said, and laughed and shook his finger in excitement. “The Boss received a postcard yesterday from his brother in Ireland—you’ll never guess the message!”
    “Don’t tell me you read it,” Father Hanratty said, but he was more interested than angry.
    “If you weren’t meant to read postcards they’d be in envelopes.”
    Father Furty said, “You’re keeping us in suspense.”
    “Postmark, Cork. Message, ‘Greetings from the land of faith.’ I swear it! Have you ever heard such a thing?”
    Father Furty laughed, but gently—it was still early morning and he was not yet himself. He said, “That’s enough. You’ll confuse the boy.” He turned to me. “You won’t get any intellectual stimulation here, son. They’ve never read Danny. Father Flynn here reads the racing sheets, while Father Hanratty struggles with the
Boston Globe
. And of course they read the Boss’s postcards.”
    “And what do you read, Billy?” Father Flynn said.
    “Eldridge’s Tide and Pilot Tables,” Father Furty said. “And I see that High Water in the harbor this Saturday is at the civilized hour of twelve noon. You’ll be coming along, won’t you, Andy?”
    My mouth was full of toast, but I nodded eagerly yes.
    We sat, and I listened to their banter, and I was the more excited for not understanding it, because I was so flattered to be included. I had the strong impression from their comedy, which was always a little forced and desperate, that they were outcasts, and that I was one of them. So at last I had a place at Saint Ray’s.
    “Too bad you have to go,” Father Furty said, when I got up to head for the pond.
    He sounded as if he meant it!
    “Why not serve for me tomorrow?”
    It was the only day I didn’t have a mass.
    “I’ll add your name,” he said. “Listen, I’d appreciate it!”
    That made it a full week of serving early masses, but I began to see a point in the routine. Instead of the masses being an interruption, the other hours in the day seemed an interruption; the masses were regular, dignified, austere and orderly on those cool bright summer mornings: the muffled church, the few people in the pews, the whispered prayers, the two tearlike droplets in the chalice; four masses, and then my second funeral.
    We went to an afternoon movie, Tina and I, because I wanted to touch her. It was
All That Heaven Allows
, with Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman, and we held hands until they were so hot and sticky I was glad to let go. That year the girls wore several petticoats that filled their skirts, and Tina must have been wearing two or three because they crunched in the narrow movie-seat, I suppose it was the starch, and aroused me. I reached for her leg but her hand was there already and snatched mine away. I put my arm around her and kept it there until it went to sleep, and when I yanked it back, we knocked our heads together. The movie ended at five-thirty and we went out and were blinded by the sun on Salem Street. I had a headache, my feet were tingly from sitting. We bought ice-cream cones at Brigham’s, then I went home and had meatloaf. It was always meatloaf. I was glad that Tina had not let me touch her: there was nothing to confess except the impure thought. She had saved me.
    “You’ve been smoking,” my mother said, putting her face against my hair and sniffing hard.
    I denied it—it must have been the musty stink at the Square Theater.
    “Where have you been?”
    “After work I went to the library.”
    Wasting a glorious day in God’s sunshine!
she would have said if I had been to a movie.
And where did you get the money?
If I had told her I had gone with a girl she would have squinted at me and said
Why?
And she would have kept asking why until I admitted that it was a waste of money, a waste of time, and very