Faithless and Fucked

I spent most of my teenage years trapped in a Catholic hell known as a boys preparatory school.

Back in those days I spent almost every morning standing motionless in the shower and wondering why my parents had, with such unflinching certainty, decided to send me to such a place. They aren't sadists, my parents, but they do seem to have an annoying tendency to follow what I refer to as "packaged truths".

A "packaged truth", or "PT" for short, is a piece of information handed down from on high by a venerable institution such as the church, media, or law enforcement or a playful amalgam of the three. "An all male high school will prevent teenage boys from being preoccupied with sex" is one such statement, "suit coats and ties keep young men in check" is another.

And would you be surprised that I know of at least one former classmate who was murdered in a drug deal gone wrong and a whole shit ton of others who have kids born out of wedlock? Perhaps my cliche' mid twenties alcoholism or trendy drug habit would sell you? Well, either way, most of us ended up this way. Some dead, but most of us just normal, working away at some lame addiction in order to to keep ourselves sane. Not failures really, but nothing special either.

All in all, I'm bitter about high school and Catholicism, sure, but at least I didn't get caught up in some steamy priest's love den, though I can't say the same for everyone from my class.

In fact, I can tell you that one of the excessively touchy priests, who had a particular fondness for calling a certain boy from my Geometry class into the hallway at odd times, mysteriously disappeared one day. This was just before the Catholic church exploded with pedophilia driven sex scandal after sex scandal, and before "no fags allowed" became a life or death issue.

I remember telling my mother that attending Catholic school was to blame for my loss of faith, she shook it off as playful rebellion at the time but five or six years later when they started yelling "fags aren't people" she took a seat at my table.

We had a cup of coffee that Christmas morning and pretty much agreed to leave it at "oh well".