Charleston would not exist if not for the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. At least it would not be as much as it is. Located between Bremerton and Port Orchard Washington (two other places that have the same condition of existence) on Philo Bay. Charleston, like Rome, is a city of hills.

Torqwamni Hill stands higher, but “Holy Hill” is a close second. It is marked by an impressive pile of bricks that is the Catholic church and school complex, which can be seen from just about everywhere in town. But the pope doesn’t stand alone. The crest is topped by Anoka Avenue, which runs about six blocks north to south and is heavy with religion. The Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists, Seventh Day Adventists, and a Synagogue were up there when Tess and I grew up–since, a Mosque and Sikh Temple have joined the fun–but the Buhddists, Iglesia Del Cristo and Mormons built on the other side of town. And there was the Presbyterian Church at which “Good News Club” was held on Wednesday afternoons.

Most communities had the decency to run Good News Club apace with the school year; but Charleston was an especially godless town so Good News ran year around. Turned out that all the Christian churches (except the despised Catholics, who had their own thing, and didn’t like the competition, either) were in on it and took turns hosting what’s best described as a booster shot of Sunday School–just in case the urge to since rebounded by mid-week. Not that Tess or I knew anything about Sunday Sunday School–we’d never set foot in a church of any kind before, but that was the gist of Good News.

And there we were on Wednesday. Tess was sparkling and pretty in one of the two school dresses that still fit her. While I was in my “uniform”–jeans and white tee shirt for summer, cords and sweater for school. The Charleston school system had announced that girls no longer needed to wear dresses to school, we just had to be clean. A new era had dawned. The high school even erected a “smoke shack” for the students–so they wouldn’t sneak off into the woods behind the school and set the bushes on fire. Those were forward thinking times.

It was we because Tess had lucked into an easy way to get me to come along. Her charm had nothing to do with my attendance; she had found a brand new Swiss army knife just lying there in a parking lot on Saturday–ten times the quality of any we had ever found in a vehicle and not the sort of thing stores made easy to take. The little witch seized the opportunity to trade it for me accompanying her to Good News–and not to ditch at any time unless it was her idea.

The meeting room was in the clean, well lit basement. About half the size of a regular classroom, the walls were that faux knotty pine paneling you could not get away from in the seventies. There were three rows of folding chairs facing a lectern that had a portable blackboard behind it.

“Bet they serve shortbread cookies,” Tess said.

“And lemonade that looks like pee.” I replied.

The defining theme of the room, surprise, was Jesus. Although the sober Presyterians had hung only one picture of the Lord on the wall, it was big and inescapable. Tess whispered that he looked like George Harrison with John Lennon colored hair; I thought he looked constipated. Seems to me there was a copy of the Ten Commandments hanging somewhere, as well as a poster containing the Lord’s Prayer, but I really don’t remember. I do recall that there were no plaster crosses, Madonnas or anything else that could be interpreted as a “graven image”–none of the stuff you see in a Catholic home.

The other kids ranged in age from seven to thirteen. They were the usual assortment of scrubbed goody-goodies and spazzes that I associated with obedience. Some had been hit with the Jesus stick so long that they radiated auras void of individuality.

Tess was a social chameleon who blended everywhere; I always appeared to be up to something and my reputation caused far more people to talk about me than to me.

Some people are addicted to the idea of belonging to something bigger than themselves. Maybe joining teams and clubs that require you to attend meetings when you’d rather be elsewhere are just in the blood. Could be we all are supposed to feel that way and I may be a freak for never wanting to belong to any structured environment by choice. Early on I spied a certain amount of butt kissing expected in every organization from the Brownies on up to Heaven. Something about hierarchical set ups smelled wrong–especially those that gathered children to exalt a higher power of some sort. And although nothing like it happened at our local Good News, history shows that an inordinate amount of sex perverts are attracted to mentoring opportunities.

But my aversion to such things ran deeper than my views on secret handshakes and participating in bake sales–and even deeper than the universal hate of pedophiles. For I’ve always known that giving myself to anyone or anything else other than Tess and her memory would diminish my devotion.

Mrs. Graydon and an old biddy (whose name I never learned) in support hose that concealed monumentally swollen ankles, ran the meeting, which was scheduled for two sharp. It was still a few minutes before the hour when Mrs. Graydon and the biddy entered, both carrying platters of shortbread cookies that the Thriftway bakery sold for a quarter per dozen–or free–if your hands were fast enough. One of the spazzes got excited over the cookies. Even Jesus can’t take some people anywhere.

Mrs. Graydon saw what I was wearing and it shitted on her attitude. She approached and whispered just loud enough for everyone to hear, “Susan, I thought I told your mother that we wear our Sunday best for the meeting.”

I don’t recall ever having respect for adults. The minute I was fast enough to outrun them and big enough hit back with meaning, whatever fear I had for them dried up–but I did have the sense to avoid the I Don’t Give a Fuck hardcases that inhabited our neighborhood; the guys who observed no standards when it came to victims. I used to think there was something wrong with me–for example, right then, her ugly moon face hovering near mine, I wanted to bury the main blade of the Swiss knife I had in my pocket deep into Mrs. Graydon’s neck just to see the look on her face. Fortunately for her, I had some measure of impulse control, and foresaw consequences not worth the experience.

“This is what I wear on Sunday.”

Tess just sat there and gazed at me with I told you so eyes. The other kids had that jackal shine in their faces–which comes when a grown up is on a kid’s case but you are not the kid in trouble; a perverted twist of the sympathetic heart, which knows all about the being on the spot feeling but enjoys watching the screws put to somebody else for a change.

This was where Mrs. Graydon could have ended it with a reminder to dress properly in the future. I’d hate to think what a stone bitch she might have been without the Lord’s guidance, because she didn’t let it drop. She pushed.

She sighed and shook her head. Mrs. Graydon savored the little moments of power that entered her life and seized every opportunity to play the Big Shot. Like the rest of us in our neighborhood, she couldn’t help being born poor anymore than she could help coming out stupid and ugly. But she could have helped the cheap little meannesses that flowed from her frustration, she could have pulled back and not do her best to embarrass people in order to feel better about herself.

“All right, Susan–we have charity dresses upstairs in the office–follow me–”

“My name is Sarah,” I said.

I had been saving that for the two years or so the cow had got it wrong. For a don’t fuck with it moment that had finally arrived. Mrs. Graydon didn’t have enough inside to take being wrong even about the smallest stuff without it fucking with her in some deep and reachable only by regression hypnosis sort of way. It has always pained me that so many of the people who practically beg for a beating can’t take a punch. The hurt little expressions in their secret faces, that show for just a second, make me feel as though I’m stomping an infant to death. And for a second it appeared that she was going to challenge me for knowing my own name.

Before Mrs. Graydon could bounce back, I stood and handed the Swiss knife to Tess.

“No deal.”

I left and that was the end of my relationship with organized religion.