Sometime around the age of 11 or 12, I learned to dislike religion. Much of this had to do with the cleverly disguised torture known as catechism class, after which I was always left feeling blue in the car on the way home. In the backseat I would sit morosely, picturing my soul to be just like the one in our catechism book. It was an invitingly heart-shaped organ sitting inside my chest, but it was becoming indelibly blacker each time I burgled my nose or sneaked a Triscuit after hours.
During those Sunday journeys home in our Oldsmobile 98, my older sister might occasionally nod my way, getting my hopes up that we'd joke around and temporarily dispel my concerns, but she'd only tell me something mean, like I smelled of onions from last night's pizza and grossed her out so much that milk might run out of her nose. I usually corrected her in a number of ways, first by educating her that this particular joke refers to milk or other school cafeteria beverage that might seep out of the noses of unruly students when they laugh really hard about something, and that, moreover, she wasn't laughing. I also mentioned that she wasn't currently drinking milk, and unless those pubescent boobies had something they needed to tell us, she should probably shut up and practice her pom-pom routine silently while Daddy drove home and Mother sat nervously picking small lint balls from her acrylic dress.
Catechism classes, arranged after Sunday morning church services were, I felt, created to give our parents an hour and a half on their own to shop, screw or argue, and always taught by witches. Never by men, and never by a woman under 60. And there was always the tell-tale wiry dark hair growing out of a bump on the chin, nose or other strange facial phenomenon.
Now I know these women were witches, despite their professed religious affiliation, because I was a healthy child, albeit small in frame. I knew from the way they looked at me that they wanted to eat me. To eat me was to kill me, and like many children brought up with the Bible, Grimm, or other literary mechanism that was used to scare people into behaving the way the originators of those documents wanted, I lived in fear of death.
I was popular with women, that I know. I reckon that's because, being a very nice boy, impeccably dressed and having shaken their hand ever so delicately upon our beautifully executed introduction by whomever (only fellow Southerners will understand that), I would comment on how interesting I found the houndstooth weave in their jacket, or the evocative nature of the little squiggle of a scar on their knuckle. But mostly they adored me because of my hair. I also figured out (despite my insanely overly protective, sheltered approach to the world, the boundary of which was breached only by my voracious reading of Truman Capote, Stephen King, Joyce Carroll Oates and other authors my parents told me were unacceptable), that they wanted to cook and eat me.
I learned from an early age, thanks to Looney Tunes, that witches like to eat the flesh of boys, especially those with good hair. I had exceptionally thick, blonde (hence the nickname), healthy but belligerent hair. I abhorred it, wishing instead I had Leif Garrett's unruly feathered locks, but my hair was like crack to these women. I'd have much rather they pinched my cheek, but instead they had to run their fingers through my fucking hair, hair over which I had slaved with brush, comb and blow-dryer. Often, I would even risk death by sneaking into my sister's room while she was in the shower to take advantage of her curling iron, pre-heating on her dressing table. Only I didn't want curls. I wanted straight, flowing, evenly parted hair. I burned myself more than once trying to make a curling iron do that for which it wasn't patented.
With older women, I felt like a religious icon. Hell, maybe that's why I'm gay, because dozens of them fondled my head regularly, simply to touch my hair...hair which they would sell their first-born to have. Or at the very least, pay a fair amount of money per visit to their local salon to replicate. I should have found myself a grotto and charged admission.
But back to the witches. Thing is, I foiled them and their plans. These Sunday school sibyls looked at me like I would be way too much work, regardless of how long I boiled and bubbled in their cast iron pot. My meat would be much too lean and flavorless. Plus, they would have have to fight off their friends, just to keep them from stealing my scalp that was hanging in their trophy room.
I'm digressing. I like the quote by Bill Maher that the above picture references.
