The Moose in the Closet: Contracts, Sean Maher (again) and My God: Communion

Matt Dembicki has a new Small Presser up. It's all about getting ready for cons, go read it.

I’m developing a new idea. Just something to get the juices flowing again. I’ve been sort of thinking about it for a while, I’ve been working on this one character in a completely different story, decided to move him to this new story and it just sort of came together. It is a prose project, serialized chapter books so I can finish the first one and get back to some comic writing. Working title is “Contracts” and it actually has nothing to do with assassins, fanboy. It’s an office-drama – sort of inspired by my own job but with more interesting characters and situations. A prick, an overzealous idiot and the wiser, older leader – the former two jockeying for position, lying, cheating and stealing. The fun dichotomy comes from their home lives, where they’re just a couple of sell-outs. I’ll probably be hitting up some of you for reads soon, the usual suspects, so be on guard. I actually thought of trying this as a comic and then said, “Fuck comics.” I’ve been saying that a lot lately.

And while I’m on it, I’m probably going to be in the market for a prose editor soon, if anyone knows one. Not just for this chapter book idea but also for the eventual repackaging of this website. I’m thinking of trying to distribute at least one of them myself. If anyone has any good recommendations please let me know. It’ll be a paying gig.

Quick plug to Sean Maher. It’s been a while since I linked to him and he’s changed blogs since. His new one is quite awesome, it’s just dedicated to the books he likes and he talks them up with the usual energy and enthusiasm that makes me say, “Ok, ok...I unfuck comics – for now.” This week he’s doing a great theme (the theme week is catching on): comics to read on the crapper. If you’re going to check him out, do it now.

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For us little CCD tikes, Communion was about as exciting as Christmas. No shit. We start CCD in kindergarten and spend three full years building up for Communion and by the time it came around we were so pumped to dine on the body and blood of Christ that you would think we were going to chase it with a three-foot long pixie stick while playing “Wonder Boy in Monster Land” with the Easter Bunny and bathing in Strawberry Quik.

We had all the plans, there was going to be a little party back at the apartment with sandwiches, ice-cream, cake and presents. Man, Catholics love to give presents for Communion. Good ones too; toys, cash, scooters, video games – everything a 2nd grader could want. I got my Pogo Ball as a Communion present. What better way to celebrate Jesus accepting me into his arms than with the most ingenious pogo-stick variant ever created?

So there was all this tension built up, I was ready to explode. I wanted to eat Jesus and carvel cake so badly – top it off with some Zaxxon, maybe Space Harrier 3D if I was really lucky. It was like a second birthday this year except doubled with the whole “one step closer to Heaven” thing.

Two days before Communion I get Scarlet Fever. Seriously, who the fuck gets Scarlet Fever? That’s like saying I got polio. Sacred Hearts/Saint Stephen’s Church was visible from our dining room window and I sat there, rash all over my body, holding My Pet Monster (the aptly named “Creepy”) and crying while I watched my friends come out of the church, little soldiers of God. At the age of eight my God decided to forsake my ass. Me, an alter boy, his devoted servant. Forsook.

Eventually the rash went away and I was no longer in quarantine so I got to reschedule my Communion. Father Michael called me up and told me that we’d do it at the next mass I served.

I mean, I guess that was fine and all but it sort of took away the “oomph”. For the past year I practiced what to do at Communion. When to stand, when to sit, what to say – the whole thing. And now, after all of that practice, I get to toss away everything I learned and instead just sort of walk up to the priest in the middle of mass and receive my first Communion. No special mass – nothing. All because I had Scarlet Fever.

My mom had to talk me into it; I had no desire in taking part of what would become a celebrationless ceremony. I calmed down by the time mass came along. My family still came out, everyone in the church was wondering why my father was video taping this random mass. I went up and received my first Communion and the pictures were snapping and I have to imagine my Aunt Denise cried (because she always does).

I ate of the body of Christ and nothing happened. It was stale, left a weird taste in my mouth. I made the sign of the cross and said my prayers – I didn’t feel any different. I don’t want to call it a let-down, but I think it was my first eye-opener. You hear people talk about eating the Eucharist and they feel enlightened when they pray, closer to Jesus. Some people, when they hear this story and don’t believe it, think that the Eucharist eaters are crazy. I never looked at it that way. At a very young age I started to realize that religion and its customs are what you need them to be, not what you’re told they are.

After the mass the family came back to my parents’ place. We had sandwiches and carvel cake; I’d guess Cookie-Puss but Fudgy the Whale popped up occasionally at our family functions as well. I got some video games, some cash – the Pogo Ball as mentioned.

Continued on with CCD, straight through Confirmation and then stepped back and assessed what I needed religion to be. But that’s tomorrow’s story.

Labels: mitc

Contracts, Sean Maher (again) and My God: Communion

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

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