revealing waves of tattoos that spread across the entirety of his arms,
each some intricate metaphor, an act of violence, a cry for help, a gentle
reminder of some faraway memory and our very own prim and proper
head sister, her pale arms barely showing, glowing against her black
habit, but certainly untainted, certainly a clean, pure white that revealed
nothing. Our sister, a big black spider spinning messages out with thin,
almost translucent web. A colorful man waiting to die, squinting at some
barely visible message, some vague meaning that seemed to appear only
when, by chance, some light, having snuck its way through the cracks in
the white bricks happened to land on the suspended angel hair threads.
Something lucid that maybe he thought existed for a while, thought he
made out, but couldn’t be sure. The sister only told us once, in a low
voice, what Jerry was in for, but I’ve forgotten that detail. I’m sure it
was something terrible. Still, all I can remember is the way sister’s voice
sounded, “Don’t worry kids,” the way her eyes flitted aimlessly above
our heads, “Jerry was punished for it.” The chill that ran down my back,
the quick glances exchanged with classmates as her hell fell, tapping in
finality against the classroom’s dirty tiles.
For years Jerry wrote to the head sister, he told her all about his
thoughts, his feelings his life; as it had been and as it was at the time. She
wrote back and she prayed. “Let’s take a moment, if you don’t mind sister,
to talk about exactly what prayer is.” proposed Mr. Crossen. I raised my
hand, looked at the nun, but didn’t wait to be called on. “Prayer,” I said
in defiance (what was I rebelling against?) “is an action. It’s painful and
unrelenting. Jesus sweat blood, you know?” Mr. Crossen’s eyes lit up, he
nodded his head in approval and mouthed Gethsemane. “Prayer is using
every ounce of your own strength, will, and wit – believing in yourself.
Struggling, crawling, begging…doing anything to survive. That’s prayer.”
I looked around at my classmates, “It’s doing everything in your power,
never giving in.” I wondered if Jerry prayed. I felt that he was overcome
by quiet insecurities, blinding rage and violence swelling up like the
tattoos that, in my imagination, were strange and beautiful things that
infested his arms.
In my mind his arms were intricate and planned; there was a
math to them, a science. Just like the parking lot outside, his arms had
angles and sets, patterns that I couldn’t always discern. When I turned
my head to look out at the vast, black cement space it seemed eerily out
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