Uncommon Glory

By James Hugh Comey

Christoper McCarthy, a 12-year-old Irish-American kid from just outside Philadelphia (PA), defies a psycho altar boy and is beaten senseless in a graveyard. When he comes to, he discovers he can speak with the crucified Christ in his church.

 

It's spring 1957. Life is slower, families are stronger, and friendship lasts forrever. But, violence swirls around quirky teenagers and adults as rock and roll pulses from the radio. Chris must open up and redeem the lives of others, while he struggles to make sense of his own. Moby Dick, a devilish teenager who carries a nightstick, Mr. Peanut, a suicidal teacher, and Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour (the '50s version of American Idol) are woven through this sad and funny story.

 

Loneliness and hope are the backbeats in this coming-of-age novel about caring, conscience, and serious slow dancing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Hugh Comey
• Release date: Jan 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9780983105107

James Hugh Comey

James Hugh Comey is an award-winning writer and retired educator. Over 100,000 children have seen his musical plays. His CDs were awarded a Parents' Choice Award, and his adapted film received two Silver Telly Awards. He's been published in national and international journals and acted in industrial and corporate films. He taught from middle school through graduate school levels and holds a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. When not writing, he's often found riding his motorcycle on twisty, country roads. His novels are available at most sites.

Book preview

PART I

When I grow up I want to be a little boy."

Joseph Heller, Something Happened

Chapter One

Bench Boy

It was hot inside Saint Charles Church.  The overhead lights were dim except for those directly above Saint Joseph’s statue at the right-side altar.  The statue of the crucified Christ above the main altar was completely covered with a deep purple cloth.  A tall Paschal candle in a brass candleholder stood at the left foot of the main altar steps.  It was unlit.  The Sanctuary light on the left wall of the main altar was out.

All of the candles on Saint Joseph’s altar were burning.  Their glow reflected off the Monstrance directly in the center of the altar.  The Monstrance was a gold-plated vessel shaped at the top like a bursting sun.  In the middle of the bursting sun was a glass enclosure.  Inside the enclosure was a consecrated host.

Forty Hours Devotion was coming to a close.  Confessions had been crowded.  Even the most lax parishioners had shown up on this Holy Saturday night so they could satisfy their annual Easter duty by attending mass and taking communion tomorrow.

The confession boxes had been closed for some time.  It was nine forty-five PM.  Few people were coming in now for a visitation.  Most had stopped into Saint Charles sometime during the day for a quick prayer.  Each had looked at the purple shrouded figure of the crucified Christ.  Each had noticed that the perpetual Sanctuary light on the wall was turned off.

It was a time of sadness, and it was a time of hope.  The pastor, Monsignor Sullivan, dressed in solemn black vestments, had reminded them in his sermon the day before that Christ had died for each and every one of them.  He told them that Christ had suffered incredible emotional and physical anguish during His passion and crucifixion.

Christ’s death on the cross teaches us that we must be prepared to give all that we have to reach our ultimate destiny, he had said.  We must follow His example and live our lives with the absolute belief that our actions define who we are.  Christ was not afraid to act upon His convictions.  Look what His actions have taught us.  Through His passion, He has shown us the power of unselfish love.  Through His death, He has shown us the way to eternal life.

At the close of the Good Friday service, Monsignor Sullivan and the other priests had stripped the main alter of its linens, missal, and candlesticks.  They climbed two ladders on either side of the cross and draped the purple cloth over the statue of Christ.  Then a consecrated host was placed inside the Monstrance and carried in a procession to Saint Joseph’s altar.  There it would sit for forty hours to represent the time that Christ laid in His tomb before His resurrection on Easter Sunday.

Two altar boys immediately took positions before Saint Joseph’s altar.  The church was left open until ten Friday night and throughout the day on Saturday.  Hourly shifts of two altar boys had kept a watchful, silent vigil.

It has been unseasonably hot on Holy Saturday.  The night had brought little change in the temperature.  The shopping district at 69th Street several miles away had been packed all day with traffic and people.  It was starting to close up.

Penneys and Gimbels and Lits and the dozens of other big and little retail stores along the long sloping street had stayed open later than usual to catch the last-minute Easter outfit and candy shoppers.  Kids had been lined up most of the day at a wooden shed painted with bright spring flowers in front of Woolworths to talk to a costumed Easter Bunny.  The box was locked up now.  The Easter Bunny was cooling off with a Pabst at Reilley’s Bar and Grille on Marshall Road.

The two movie theaters, The Tower, at the bottom of 69th Street, and the 69th Street Theater, a half block from the Upper Darby Township police station, were filled.  The Tower was showing The Bridge on the River Kwai.  The 69th Street was showing Sayonara with Marlon Brando.  The Chez Vous Roller Rink on Garrett Road was jammed with skaters spinning their wheels on the wooden floor in time to Be-Bop hits by Paul Anka, Pat Boone, Don and Phil Everly, Bobby Darin and Neil Sedaka.

Trolleys were pulling into the tracks inside the Terminal and departing for different parts of the Delaware County suburbs.  An elevated train, called the El, squealed its steel wheels against the tracks as it dead-ended its Market Street run out of Philadelphia at the far end of the Terminal closest to the city.

The Hot Shoppe on Market Street, just up from Sears and Roebucks and the 63rd Street El station, was crowded with teenagers.  They were squeezed four across into booths drinking black and white shakes and cherry cokes and eating fries and burgers.  The jukebox played non-stop.  Newly washed cars cruised around and around the parking lot.

It was Saturday night on the outskirts of Philly.  People were out enjoying themselves.  It was springtime, the night before Easter, 1957.

Chris McCarthy listened to the sounds of the empty church.  Earlier he had listened to the creaking of kneelers while people prayed in the pews behind him.  Occasionally coins clinked into the box on the wrought-iron candle holder.  There had been the faint undertone of voices in the confessionals at the back of the church.  Feet had shuffled in the aisles while people waited in line to confess their sins.

Now, to his right, outside the open stained-glass windows, Chris could hear the low rumble of far-away thunder.  He was scared.

Chris was less than average height for a twelve-year-old.  He was on the slim side like his dad.  He liked to climb trees and, although his parents didn’t know it, he had been on the trolley trestle over Darby Creek twice.  He was given to serious moments.  This often attracted some of the girls in his sixth-grade class, although they didn’t know why.

He and John Malloy, an eighth grader and a Server, knelt on two wooden kneelers covered with worn red cushions.  They were just inside the altar rail.  The overhead lights were directly above them.  They were both hot.

Chris was a Bench Boy.  He had been on Forty Hours duty since eight o’clock.  Tommy DiAngelis, another sixth grader and a Bench Boy from Clifton Heights, the next town over, hadn’t shown up at nine o’clock to relieve him.

Chris’s back hurt from kneeling straight for so long.  Sister Regina Agnes, an eighth-grade teacher who was in charge of the altar boy program, had told him that she had picked only three Bench Boys from all the altar boys to serve on the Forty House vigil.  Each of the three had been selected because they knew most of their Latin and had excellent attendance at the nine o’clock children’s mass.  She had scheduled him for the Saturday night eight o’clock spot.

Some of the Servers didn’t like it when the word got out.  They felt that Forty Hours devotion spots should be assigned only to Communion Boys and Servers.

Bench Boys were the grunts of the altar boy program.  They had to come up through the ranks, serving their time by sitting quietly in their white surplices and red cassocks along two long rows of benches off the main altar during nine o’clock mass.  There they followed the Latin spoken by the priest and two Servers on a plastic card.  The priest’s lines were printed in red, the servers in black.

The next step was to apprentice as a Communion Boy.  When selected by Sister Regina Agnes, four boys left the benches and helped serve communion at the main altar and two side altars.  Their basic job was to catch the hosts with the round communion plate that old people with dry tongues and little kids who hardly opened their mouths dropped.  Their other job was to try and stay out from underneath the priest’s feet.

Finally, if they passed all of Sister Regina Agnes’s oral Latin tests and memorized the alter boy’s movements for high and low masses, funerals and weddings, some made it to the rank of Server by seventh grade if they were sharp.  Most didn’t make it until eight grade.  Some didn’t make it at all.

Four of the Servers, all eighth graders, had surrounded Chris and Tommy DiAngelis and Greg Martin as they were leaving the auditorium underneath the church after Good Friday service.

You three Bench Turds aren’t gonna show for your times, said Andrew Thompson.

Drew was a big kid with close-cropped brown hair.  He was already shaving above his lip.  His father worked the middle shift at the cloth mill at the bottom of the dead-end road that ran down off the Drexel Hill side of the Lindbergh Bridge.

You’re all gonna tell your old ladies you got the shits.  Have them call your regrets to Regina Agnes.

The rest of the altar boys stopped and listened.  They knew what was coming.  Some of the Servers seemed to forget what it had been like to be a Bench Boy once they reached the top ranks.  And some, like Drew Thompson and his boys, were very nasty individuals who like to beat on people.

Tommy DiAngelis started to walk past Drew.  Tommy was a good altar boy, but he was no angel.  He had been in fist fights with kids in Clifton Heights since he was eight.  He had won most of them.

Drew snapped out his arm to strike the base of his palm against the bridge of Tommy’s nose.  He knew that if he hit Tommy’s nose square on, it would bleed all down the front of Tommy’s white school shirt.

Tommy slipped his head to the right and shot an uppercut straight at Drew’s chin.

Less than a quarter inch from contact, an elbow struck Tommy at the bass of his neck.  He fell with a low grunt to his knees.

Will Daniels rubbed his meaty left hand around and around his elbow.  Will was the starting linebacker for the last two years on Saint Charles CYO football team.  In August, he was going to try out for the freshman team at Monsignor Bonner, the Catholic high school for boys.  He had to graduate from eighth grade first.  Things weren’t looking all that positive.

Damn, you got a bony neck, DiAngelis, Will said.  I’m thinkin’ I’m gonna have me a little tenderness on this arm.

Drew saw Sister Regina Agnes coming toward the crowd out of the corner of his eye.

Any of you three Bench Turds show up this weekend, you’re gonna meet us when you leave the church.  Understan’?

The four eighth graders melted into the crowd.  Sister Regina Agnes moved her way quickly through to the center of the circle.  Chris turned to help Tommy up.  Tommy was already halfway through the door disappearing outside.  His father was a Philly cop.  Tommy knew his old man had enough headaches dealing with the problems on the Philly streets.  His old man sure as hell didn’t need any more at home from him.

Sister Regina Agnes grabbed Chris and Greg before they could move away.

Christopher. Gregory.  What’s going on here?  There was a fight, wasn’t there.  Who started it?

She eyeballed both of them as only she knew how to eyeball.  Her eyes were big and expressive.  Framed by the starched, white coif and veil of her black habit, her face leaning down close, she could make a kid’s mouth move before his lips knew what they were saying.

Greg shot Chris a look.  If they told, they’d be beaten up by Drew Thompson and his boys, then shunned by all the rest of the altar boys.  If they didn’t, but came to their assigned devotion, they’d be beaten up even worse.  If they lied to Sister Regina Agnes, and she caught them, she’d smack them silly.

No fight, Sis’tr.  We were just looking at some new baseball cards, said Chris.  That’s all.  Some of the guys were showing new Phillies that just came in over at Doc’s Pharmacy.

She held them both with her eyes for a full ten seconds, then waved them off.  Chris was certain that she didn’t believe him.  He didn’t know that she was aware of her group’s unspoken code.  Altar boys didn’t squeal on altar boys.

Greg didn’t show for his two PM devotion time on Saturday.  His mother called in to say that he was complaining of stomach cramps.  Tommy DiAngelis hadn’t shown either.  He didn’t call in.

John Malloy came into the church at eight fifty-five carrying his black cassock and white surplice over his shoulder.  He had expected to serve the last hour of the devotion alone.  After the nasty shot that Tommy DiAngelis took, he knew the Clifton kid wouldn’t show up to collect more trouble.

He had stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Chris McCarthy kneeling in front of Saint Joseph’s altar.  The kid really had brass.  He was also just plain stupid.

Despite himself, John felt sorry for the kid.  Chris wasn’t very big for his age, and he didn’t have much meat on him.  That wouldn’t stop Thompson and the others, though.  Chris was going to get a beating anyway.

As he rushed to get dressed, John tried to figure out is there was anything he could do to help the Bench Boy.

John had played guard on Saint Charles CYO basketball team.  He was used to giving and taking hard knocks.  He had spent a lot of after school and weekend hours playing pick-up games at the public-school playground where the high school kids played.  John knew he could stand up to Thompson if Thompson fought him fair.  No sticks or rocks and no cheap shots from friends.

But he knew that Thompson didn’t fight fair and that his boys wouldn’t stay out of it.  And Thompson always traveled with his boys.  John didn’t know what he could do to help the kid.

Chris had almost decided three times not to show for his devotion.  He had heard stories about Drew Thompson and the guys he hung around with.  On the altar, Drew was alert and always did a first-class job.  Because he was big and gave a clean appearance, he was often picked to carry the small cross on tope of the wooden pole at the beginning of processions.

He also was rumored to favor using a knotted stick in fights so that his parents and Sister Regina Agnes wouldn’t see any bruises on his knuckles.

Chris didn’t want to find out if the stick story was true.  But every time that he started to tell his mother that he wasn’t feeling good, he kept hearing Monsignor Sullivan speaking inside his head.

We must follow Christ’s example.  We must live our lives with the absolute belief that out actions define who we are.  Christ was not afraid to act upon his convictions.

Chris was very afraid.  He couldn’t eat anything all day.  Twice his mother asked him if he was feeling OK.

He knew that if he served his devotion, Drew Thompson and his boys would get him.  If they didn’t catch him that night, they would lay for him somewhere else.  It could be when he was coming around a corner at the playground.  Or walking down Burmont Road on his way to or from school.  Maybe he could stay in at recess until they all graduated in a couple of months.  And he could walk a different back way to school every day.

The more he thought about it, the more he knew it was pointless.  They would track him down.  And when they did, they would beat the hell out of him.

Drew Thompson had won.  He had scared Chris into doing what he was told.  Drew’s actions proved the strength of Drew’s convictions.  Obey me, or I’ll beat you senseless.

At five o’clock, Chris stood behind his mother to finally tell her he couldn’t go to church because of stomach problems.  He started to open his mouth when a thought struck him so hard that he bit his tongue.  Blood ran down the back of his throat.

Christ showed up.

The clarity of the thought stunned him.

The night before He was killed, Christ was so terrified that He sweat drops of blood.  He could have stayed inside and hid with the apostles.  He could have had stomach problems.  He didn’t.  He showed up.

At six o’clock, Chris’s mother told him that if he didn’t eat something, she was going to call and tell Sister Regina Agnes that he wasn’t coming.  He forced down some dinner.  At seven-fifteen, he dressed in a white shirt and black pants.  He picked up the black cassock and white surplice that his mother had ironed and promised to walk right home after the devotion.

His father was a gasoline dispatcher at the Esso Terminal and Refinery on Essington Avenue in South Philly.  Weekends he moonlighted sometimes as a carpenter.  Tonight, he was helping out his brother-in-law.  They were refinishing his brother-in-law’s basement with knotty pine paneling.  Chris’s mother didn’t drive.  It was only nine blocks to the church.

And nine blocks back.