A Lie Well Stuck To is as Good as the Truth (based on a true story)

“Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee and I detest all my sins because….because…” Hap always got stuck on the word because.   

Henry Alexander Prescott, the youngest Prescott boy, looked up toward heaven for the next line in The Act of Contrition.  In a few minutes he’d have to say it to Father Fidelis.  

His family sat in this same pew every Sunday.  “Front and center,” his mother would say. “That way I can watch the priest and the priest can watch you.”   According to her, Hap and his brothers were always being watched.  Above their heads in the middle of the church’s domed ceiling was a painting of the four archangels -apparently keeping an eye on them as well. Mama liked to say Hap and his brothers were were her very own four Archangels.

Hap sat between his parents and snuggled up close to his mother. The smell of her powdery perfume relaxed him.   Four archangels, Hap thought to himself.  Many times, he’d wished Mama only had three.  Life would be sweeter without his brother James.

He pulled on the front of his collar trying to get some room between his throw-up button and his clip-on tie.   The queazy feeling in his stomach got its start way up in the back of his throat. 

“Fear makes you throw-up,” James had told him a thousand times before.

Fear and incense, Hap thought, catching a cloud of the scented smoke in his windpipe.

Mama reached down and wrapped her long, soft fingers around his clammy hand.  

“You okay, Angel?” she asked.  It was more of a statement than a question.

“Yes ma’am,” he lied.  

Lying.  That’s what he would tell Fr. Fidelis.  “Forgive me Father for I have sinned, this is my first confession and I lied about stealing.”  It was really two sins but it sounded better than saying he lied and he stoled.

He remembered back to the day when he sat at the kitchen table, a pile of stolen candy in front of him. “Contraband” his mother had called it.  The sugary scent of Sweet Tarts and Pixie Sticks, two of his favorites, suddenly sickened him.

“Did you break into the concession stand with your brother, or not?” his mother had asked for the guh-zillionth time. 

In the next room, Hap could hear dominoes knock and slide against each other on the table.  He’d been under interrogation for at least two games and a fist fight.  But dominoes wasn’t the main thing going on in the den, James and his friends were eavesdropping. 

“One wrong word,” his older brother had warned him, “and I’ll tell everybody you still wet the bed.”  James was the bed wetter.  Not Hap.  But nobody would believe that either.

“No Ma’am, Mama, I wasn’t there,” Hap answered, careful not to shift his eyes or scratch his nose. His mother claimed to have all manner of ways for knowing if her boys were telling the truth or not.  Outside of God’s four Archangels that is.

Her small frame sagged.  She stood from the table.  “There’s nothing worse than a liar, Hap,” she’d said. 

He didn’t blame her for asking all these questions.   If James had just clipped his pocket knife back on his pants after he’d used it to pick the padlock on the concession stand, Hap might be eating this candy instead of fighting with the smell of it.

He didn’t blame James either.  Their mother’s idea of sweets was dried apple rings and mango chunks from the health food store.   For breakfast, she’d buy them naturally sweetened cereal.  Hap and his brothers improved on their mother’s fiber-filled feast with a touch of vanilla extract and a half-dozen packets of Sweet’n Lo.  They would slurp up the saccharin-flavored flakes, leaving behind a soupy sandcastle of sugar. Almost every night, when Mama took her bath, James would sneak into the medicine cabinet and serve up spoonfuls of Demazin; cough syrup, or as the Prescott boys called it, “dessert”. 

But not in the spring.  In the spring, the baseball park at the end of the block was open for business.   With every game came the lure of the concession stand.  Candy, the real stuff,  Sugar Babies, Boston Baked Beans, Lemon Heads, Ring Pops, and Razzles seemed to call at Hap, chattering like outfielders taunting a batter.  

Hap had figured, with his allowance he could afford about 4 things from the concession stand per week; one item for each night the park was open.  But the money never lasted that long.  He’d told Mama he needed more allowance since the days were longer in the Spring.  A request that only earned him a laugh.

The park manager knew the boys well, and when he’d found the pocket knife with James’ name engraved on its handle just outside the ransacked concession stand, he walked it right on over to the Prescott house and gave it to Mama.

There was no question James was involved.  But she wasn’t sure about Hap.

“I don’t even know what contraband is,” Hap had answered her, honestly.

Hap should have known what she’d say to that.  “Go look it up in the dictionary,” she’d told him and left the kitchen.

It was unclear if she believed him, but the conversation ended there.  

Or so Hap thought, until he brought the notice home that the 2nd grade class would be making their 1st Confession.  That’s when Mama tricked him.   “Come sit on my lap,” she’d said.  It was safe, James and the older boys were at football practice.  She spoke softly, she was saying something about trust.  She stroked his hair and rubbed his cheek with the side of her finger.  Hap’s eyes were locked on hers.  

“… tell Fr. Fidelis about the concession stand,” was all he heard.    

“Whuh? What about the concession stand?” he asked, feeling like someone had changed the channel in the middle of a good movie.

She took one of her deep breaths and said, “Let’s not go over the whole thing again, Hap.” 

Fr. Fidelis stood in front of the altar now and said the 2nd graders could make their way to the priest of their choosing when they felt ready. The church seemed warmer than usual.  Maybe it was because he was sitting so close to Mama or maybe fear makes you hot, too.  He shrugged his shoulders about, trying to get a little air under his suit coat.  

Hap scanned the front of the church.  There were priests stationed in different nooks and corners.  Each station had two chairs; one for the priest – the other- facing the priest.  In the back of the church were the confessionals with the curtains and the screens between the priest and the sinner.  The confessionals were for sissies. 

He uncrossed his arms, rose from his seat, and was the first one to reach the two-chaired station of Fr. Fidelis.  

Hap recited his well rehearsed lines.  In the end, Fr. helped him with The Act of Contrition.

It was late by the time Hap and his parents returned home.  Mama dressed for bed and sat at Hap’s side on the bottom bunk, in the room he shared with James.  

“Good job tonight, angel,” she cooed.  She kissed him goodnight and tiptoed from the room.

“Good job tonight, angel,” James sang in mockery from the darkness of the upper bunk.

“Shut-up, James,” Hap hissed, feeling assaulted by his brother’s eavesdropping and cruelty.

“What’d you confess, anyway, punk?”

“None of your business,”  Hap answered.

“Seriously,” James said, his voice softening as he hopped off the top bunk with his pillow and settled in at the foot of Hap’s bed.  “Did you go to Fr. Fidelis?”

“Yes,” Hap said, succumbing to his brother’s questioning.

“Did you go face-to-face?” James asked.  “I told you I went in the confessional, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, you told me that.  I went face-to-face.” Hap answered. 

“Whoa!  So what’d you confess?” 

“I told him I robbed the concession stand.” Hap said.

James slammed his hand down onto the bed. “What are you talking about, Hap?  You weren’t even there!”

“Mama thinks I was.” Hap sighed

“So you just made up a sin?”  “That’s crazy, Hap,” he snorted.

“Yep and you shoulda seen Mama.  She was so proud of me.”  Hap said snuggling down into his sheets, “I lied for my 1st confession James, and that’s the God’s honest truth.”