Wait Till Next Year: A Memoir (13 page)

The day’s work was just beginning as we walked into the Main Banking Room, a cathedral of commerce, with its multicolored marble floor, stained-glass windows, and a ceiling of golden glass mosaic from which hung elaborate chandeliers. Customers were already beginning to line up at the teller windows as we took an elevator to the secondfloor offices where my father and his fellow examiners worked. Beaming, I stood alongside him as he introduced me to about a dozen of his male colleagues and to several female secretaries.

After joining the banking department of New York State in his mid-twenties, my father had risen from bank examiner to senior examiner to principal examiner and eventually to supervising bank examiner, the highest level attainable for a civil-service employee. He was responsible for examining the top banks, such as Williamsburg, Morgan Guaranty Trust, Bank of New York. Examinations often took two or three months, with fifty or more examiners working under his supervision. In the 1940s and ’50s,
the exams involved a physical audit, a tallying of the cash on hand, and a field inspection of the collateral held on loans. There was a camaraderie between the examiners and the bank officials; often evaluations of the bank’s loans would not begin until there was a bottle of rum or scotch on the table. On many occasions the examiners would talk informally with the bankers, telling them what steps they could take to prevent problems from arising. Despite this “old-boy club” atmosphere, my father never forgot that he was a public servant working for the people of New York and protecting their interests by making sure their banks were following sound practices.

“It’s the greatest job in the world,” he repeatedly told me. “I get to work with the best bunch of examiners. I never have a set routine …get to travel around the city every few months renewing old acquaintances, and at night no one’s calling me saying, ‘Kearns, get down here!’ Why, you couldn’t pay me to leave this job.” At the time, it was commonplace for top examiners to be offered executive jobs with various banks, and on several occasions my father was offered the presidency or the vice-presidency of a bank he had examined. It would have brought him considerably more money, but when he claimed “you couldn’t pay me to leave this job,” he meant it.

My father found me my own desk with a comfortable leather chair. Completely satisfied, I tried to read the book I had brought along,
The Hidden Staircase
, while my dad went about his work, but I was happily distracted by the lively commotion all around me. My father took me to lunch in the executive dining room, with linen napkins and genuine silverware, and before the day ended, he led me into the giant vault. It took the clerk several minutes to spin the dial and open the enormous door, which was almost as thick as I was tall. Inside, my eye was drawn to
hundreds of rectangular boxes where, my father explained, customers kept their most valuable possessions. We kept walking until we reached another door, which led to an interior vault; here I saw what seemed to me the riches of the world—bundles of ones, tens, fifties, and hundreds all neatly wrapped and piled in stacks that reached up almost as high as the ceiling itself.

We arrived home about six o’clock. My friends, as usual, were on the street playing, but the neighborhood seemed to have shrunk during my absence. Before this day, I had felt that my father and the other men had moved in a world of interests inaccessible to me; now I had glimpsed the other side, and I resolved someday to enter that larger world. I would go to work like my father, and yet I would somehow keep house the way my mother did, preparing lunch when the kids came home from school. How I would accomplish this I did not know, but the desire stayed with me.

Of more immediate importance, the trip to the bank with my dad brought my daily fears about the commuter train to an end. The images of the crushed bodies began to fade, and I no longer panicked when my father was ten minutes late returning from work. Whenever the gruesome memories flashed through my head, I simply substituted the images from my trip to the bank with my dad, replayed in my head the conversations I had had with the other men in the smoking car of the train. It worked. As ever, my father had understood the best way to calm my fears.

M
Y
F
IRST
C
OMMUNION
was scheduled for a Saturday morning at the end of May. As the big day approached, my preparations intensified. Over and over, my companions and I rehearsed proper behavior at Mass: how to make the
sign of the cross, how to genuflect correctly, back held erect, right knee bent almost to the floor. We were drilled on when to sit and when to stand and when to kneel. For me, the hardest part, as ever, was keeping silent, the requirement that we not talk to our seatmates through the entire Mass.

The day before our First Communion, we were led into the church to make our First Confession. We had been told to examine our consciences and carefully consider the nature and number of our transgressions before reporting to the priest. For most of my friends there was little to worry about besides the usual fare for seven-year-olds: disobeying parents, talking in church, losing their temper. But I knew that, in addition to my sin of entering the Episcopal church, I had committed another sin, far from ordinary. For days, I plotted the best strategy for the necessary revelation. I would, I decided, immediately reveal my misdeed concerning the Episcopal church, and then camouflage the other sin amidst a host of smaller ones.

I opened the curtain and entered the confessional, a dark wooden booth built into the side wall of the church. As I knelt on the small worn bench, I could hear a boy’s halting confession through the wall, his prescribed penance inaudible as the panel slid open on my side and the priest directed his attention to me.

“Yes, my child,” he inquired softly.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. This is my First Confession.”

“Yes, my child, and what sins have you committed?”

“Well, Father, when Roy Campanella came to town three months ago, I wanted so badly to hear him speak that I went into the Episcopal church on the corner.”

“And did you participate in a service that day?”

“Oh, no, Father, Roy’s talk was in the parish hall, and there was no religious service at all.”

“Well, then,” he said, echoing what my father had told me at the time, “there is nothing here to worry about.”

Oh, but there is, I thought, for I’ve only just begun my confession.

“And what else, my child?”

“I talked in church twenty times, I disobeyed my mother five times, I wished harm to others several times, I told a fib three times, I talked back to my teacher twice.” I held my breath.

“And to whom did you wish harm?”

My scheme had failed. He had picked out the one group of sins that most troubled me. Speaking as softly as I could, I made my admission.

“I wished harm to Allie Reynolds.”

“The Yankee pitcher?” he asked, surprise and concern in his voice. “And how did you wish to harm him?”

“I wanted him to break his arm.”

“And how often did you make this wish?”

“Every night,” I admitted, “before going to bed, in my prayers.”

“And were there others?”

“Oh, yes,” I admitted. “I wished that Robin Roberts of the Phillies would fall down the steps of his stoop, and that Richie Ashburn would break his hand.”

“Is there anything else?”

“Yes, I wished that Enos Slaughter of the Cards would break his ankle, that Phil Rizzuto of the Yanks would fracture a rib, and that Alvin Dark of the Giants would hurt his knee.” But, I hastened to add, “I wished that all these injuries would go away once the baseball season ended.”

Encouraged by the priest’s silence, I proceeded to describe sneaking out of the house the previous February and
the more macabre thoughts that had arisen since the train wreck, when my sinful thoughts had expanded to encompass a desire that the train carrying the Yankees to Boston would fail to stop at a signal. My scenario left no permanent injuries but put the entire team out of action for the year, so that the Dodgers could finally win their first World Series.

“But how would you feel knowing that the victory wasn’t really deserved,” the priest asked, “knowing that if your rivals had been healthy your team might not have won? I promise you, it wouldn’t feel anywhere near as good as if you won in the proper way. Now, let me tell you a secret. I love the Dodgers just as much as you do, but I believe they will win the World Series someday fairly and squarely. You don’t need to wish harm on others to make it happen. Do you understand what I am saying?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Are there any other sins, my child?”

“No, Father.”

“For your penance, say two Hail Marys, three Our Fathers, and,” he added, with a chuckle, “say a special prayer for the Dodgers. Now say the Act of Contrition.”

“Oh, my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins….” When I finished, the priest made the sign of the cross and murmured the official Latin words of forgiveness. I left the confessional that day buoyant, my soul spotless. My First Confession, received by a baseball-loving priest, had left me closer to my church than ever before.

First Communion day broke with dazzling spring sunshine. My mother curled my hair, and I struggled into my new white dress with matching white anklets and shoes. My father took a roll of pictures before we left for the church, probably assuming that I wouldn’t stay neat for
long. One snapshot taken in our backyard caught my friend Eileen Rust and me standing together like two miniature brides, our hands clasped in prayer, looking straight at the camera with contented smiles. In another picture, I stand with my friend Lainie Lubar and her brother, Jeff. Though Lainie was Jewish, she, too, wore a white dress her mother had bought for her so that she might share in the celebration of our big day.

In the hallway of the school building next to the church, we were organized by height, girls in one line and boys, dressed in white jackets and white pants, in another. All together, there were about 150 children, desperately trying to remember everything we had been taught, concentrating on how to walk in perfect rows with our palms flat together and our fingers pointing upward to God. Led by two older girls dressed like angels, the procession left the school building and entered the church. I fervently wished that one day I could be chosen as an angel, but I knew that honor always fell to a St. Agnes girl rather than a girl from public school.

So intently did I fix my eyes on the floor tiles which served as our markers to hold a straight line that I almost tripped when I reached the proper pew. I settled in my seat and quickly turned my head to locate my parents, delighted to find them only ten rows back. Excitement mounted as the Mass proceeded, reaching a climax when the moment came to kneel before the priest, stick out my tongue, and receive the Host. I left the communion rail with the wafer in my mouth and stole a glance at my parents, who proudly smiled back. Fearing that the Host might fall out if I opened my mouth, however, I was afraid to return their smile. We had been told that we should swallow the Host whole, but my mouth was so dry from fasting—I had refrained even from water since the previous
night—that it took me a long time to dislodge it from the roof of my mouth and maneuver it to a position where I could swallow. When I finally did swallow it, I was so relieved that I turned toward my parents, and stuck out my tongue to prove my task complete.

The nun at the end of my row cast me a withering look. I feared I had spoiled everything, for me and for my parents. But just at that moment, the most beautiful light—half red, half yellow—danced across the open page of my missal, and stayed with me as I turned the next page. It was simply the sun streaming through the stained-glass windows, but at that moment, I was certain that, despite my embarrassing lack of decorum, God had signaled His love on my First Communion day.

S
INCE ONLY
the truly blameless went directly to heaven, I knew I would have to spend some time in purgatory on the way. Given this inevitability, I was comforted by the doctrine of indulgences, which allowed me to reduce my sentence in the next world through suitable acts in this one. Almost every night I would recite three sets of prayers. The first set was to bolster my own spiritual position. The next set was for the poor souls already in purgatory who needed my help to move toward heaven. And the last was for my family and the Brooklyn Dodgers. At the end of each week I would add up the credits I had earned by the first set of prayers so that God might have an accurate record. “Dear God, I have said thirty Hail Marys, twenty Hail Holy Queens, forty Acts of Faith, and fifteen Acts of Hope, for a total of three hundred and fifty-five years off my life in purgatory. Please put this figure to my account. I live at One Twenty-five Southard Avenue, Rockville Centre, New York.” I was less meticulous about calculating
the worth of the second set of prayers. Souls in purgatory probably kept better track of these things, I decided, having little else to do.

The mysteries of Catholicism contained less mundane and quantitative means to salvation. We were taught that if, at a certain point in the Mass, you looked at the cross with absolute reverence in your heart, you would receive a full remission of all the sins you had committed. At the appropriate moment, I would hold my breath, and stare unmovingly at the crucified Jesus with all the reverence I could summon. Unfortunately, it was impossible to know if your reverence was adequately intense. So nightly prayers remained necessary, at least for peace of mind. On more than one occasion, however, I awoke with a start, still kneeling by my bed, having fallen asleep in the middle of my lengthy attempt to cover all the bases.

Chief among my prayers for the Dodgers was my wish that they win the World Series before too many years passed by. “Please, God, let this year be the year. My father has been following the Dodgers since he was a little boy and he’s never seen them win the Series. I would like that for him. And I would like it for me, because it would feel so great to wake up in the morning after the victory and know that the Dodgers were the best team in the world. Thank you, God.”