Midnight Mass or How the Priest Stole Christmas!

Christmas midnight mass was always a wonderful experience for me; the smell of incense, the soft lighting, the beautiful creche, the pretty altar boys and handsome priests. But the memory of one midnight mass always makes me smile and it had nothing to do with handsome priests. The story starts in a hospital room, with me and some friends visiting our friend Terry.

It was a few weeks before Christmas and Terry was in the hospital to have his wrist operated on. In high school Terry was a roller skating queen. He was elegant on the boards, zipping around with arms outstretched and wrists slightly limp. He could do anything on skates, jumps, turns, reverse. . . he could do it all. But one day Terry fell and broke one of those elegantly limp wrists.

So there we were visiting Terry the day before he was scheduled for surgery. The room was filled with gay boys; me, Jeff, and two brothers who I hadn't met before; Robert and Lloyd Carmack. We were having a wonderful time joking with Terry about his limp wrists and how the doctors were going to finally straighten them out. But in the middle of our revelry, the door opens and a priest in black suit and roman collar enters. The room went terribly quiet. He was certainly not someone any of us had invited in. You could tell immediately that Terry was not pleased that he was there. But, ignoring the obvious chill in the air, the priest asked us to let him have a few moments alone with Terry. Being the good Catholic boys that some of us were, we complied without arguement. We told Terry we would be outside waiting and would come in when the priest was finished.

It took only about 5 minutes alone with the priest before Terry was literaly screaming at the top of his lungs for the priest to GET OUT! It was a race between the gay boys and the nurse on duty to see who could get into the room first. The nurse won! By the time we got inside, the nurse was telling the priest to leave. She also kicked the rest of us out so that she could calm Terry down.

Outside of Terry's room, wondering what the hell had happened, we milled around waiting for the nurse to let us back in. The priest was also still there and in some inexplicable way recognized me as a Catholic boy worthy of exploitation. When he asked me if he could talk privately with me about Terry, I didn't have the intestinal fortitude (as the nuns used to say) to say fuck off, so I followed him into a small office about the size of a big closet. It was a small nurse station but with a door and no window.

Inside this tiny, confined space, this priest and I sat facing one another across a small desk. He began his interogation with questions about Terry and my relationship; how long had I known Terry? Were we just friends or special friends? I swear to God, that was the term he used. By this time, I was so embarassed and blushing so badly I was ready to pass out. I was so appalled by his questions, I couldn't even answer. I just stared at him. The final straw though was when he reached across the desk and took my hand in his. He covered it with his other hand and began to slowly caress it, softly but very firmly. The questions took an abrupt turn into an area that completely took my breath away. "Do you masturbate, Steve? Do you and Terry masturbate together? I can help you get through this, Steve. Let me help you."

But before this forced, pseudo-masturbatory confession could climax on its own, the door to the room was suddenly and unexpectantly opened by a nurse looking to use her office. Suddenly I was released from the hypnotic influence of this sick old man and jumped out of my chair and fled for my life. I grabbed my friends and made them leave with me. I couldn't stay and look that man in the face. I couldn't even stay to tell Terry why we were leaving. I just knew I had to get out of that hospital and away from that jaded old man.

The next day, after Terry recovered from the wrist surgery, he told us that the man was one of the priests that served the Catholic Cathedral in northwest Portland and that Terry's parents had sent him to try to "help" Terry through this homosexual phase he was supposedly going through. Terry had gotten hysterical because of the horrible things he had said to Terry about the evils of homosexuality and how Terry and all of his friends were destined to go to hell if they didn't repent.

We were all incensed at both Terry's parents and the dirty old priest who had obviously taken great libidinous pleasure in questioning me about my masturbatory habits. We figured we had to somehow get revenge on this hypocrite and come up with some sort of plan to get him.

We settled on going to midnight Mass at the Cathedral that Christmas eve. We knew that all of the parish priests concelebrated that particular mass and he would be there. We arrived early enough to assure ourselves of getting strategic seats in the very first row of pews so that we were very visible to the celebrants. When the priests and acolytes entered for mass, we were in luck. There he was. Our plan was simple: none of us would take our eyes off of him through out the service. We would stare him into shame. And it worked. Well, we're pretty sure it worked to an extent. He definitely noticed us and he knew who we were. You could tell he was somewhat discombobulated and uncomfortable. But whether or not he ever really felt our anger over his hypocracy and complicity, we felt we had done something to avenge both Terry and me.

Today, I think every single one of us would have gone straight to the bishop and cried abuse! But in the 70s, there was no way it would have helped. We would have been laughed right out of the bishop's office. Hell, let's be real. We would have never even been allowed an audience.