The
Wall of Saint Francis
By
Nathan
Poole Shannon
The town I grew up in was filled with Catholic
churches, so I guess I
shouldn’t have been surprised when I started seeing ghosts.
There were seven different Catholic parishes in
Brownsville. My family
never attended any of them—the God in our house had no name—but I was
captivated by them. The Gothic architecture, the gargoyles, the stained glass.
I found the stark appearance of the churches intimidating when I was young, and
even to this day, I still do, somewhat. Religion is always shot through with
fear.
When I was a kid, I had a blue bike that I rode
everywhere in and around
Brownsville. The city, then, was only mid-sized, and easily covered by preteen
legs pushing pedals. I had sped past those churches so many times, that I felt
like I almost knew the story of Jesus solely by whizzing past the rows of stained-glass
windows.
The house I grew up in was on North Rogers Street.
If I got on my blue
bike and rode two blocks down and three over, I would pass St. Francis church,
closest to our house. A few of my friends lived over near there, and as soon as
I was granted enough freedom, I would ride over to see them and pass St.
Francis nearly every day. This is the church that sticks out the most in my
memory.
From the street, the church rose, huge and stone.
There were six or seven
low, wide steps leading to a landing and the heavy oak doors of the church.
There was a Latin slogan inscribed on the brick ringing the doors, and beyond
that, the wall was made of rough-hewn granite that was very uneven and had lots
of gaps between the blocks. On the outer wall, above the doors, there was a
twelve-foot crucifix with Jesus on it. The crucifix had been on the wall for
forty years back then, and was a topic of hushed conversations of the local
worshippers. When I was maybe six or seven, my mother once had a friend, Mrs.
Kirkpatrick, over for tea and I overheard them discussing it. Mrs. Kirkpatrick
hated that crucifix so much she was considering switching parishes.
She was telling my mother about how it had come
to be on the wall. The
priest at the time was a puritan, Father Lowery, a man firm in his primal
belief in God. He was a fundamentalist and near-radical in his belief of an Old
Testament, vengeful God who would strike sinners down. He believed that people
sinned because they had lost sight of God, and thought that the sight of Jesus
on the cross, peacefully dying, his eyes rolled to Heaven, wasn’t a strong
enough image to convey the power and the gravity behind the symbol. He ordered
the crucifix to be sculpted as soon as the parish got its fiscal budget in
March 1926, and the result was hung in June of that year.
The older, weatherbeaten cross was pulled off
the wall by a construction
crew, and replaced with the new one. Even forty years later, in my youth, the
image was striking and terrible. It loudly proclaimed Lowery’s message long
after he passed away, and served for many years as a great intimidator.
Christ, standing above the doors of St. Francis,
was captured by his
sculptor in the grasp of a scream of death-agony. This Jesus found no peace in
death, of returning to His Heavenly Father. He was wracked with terrible pain,
and it showed. His chest, swollen with breath to feed the screams, was crossed
over and over with bleeding lashes, the gash in his side rendered in terrific
detail. The crown of thorns upon His head dug in and tore at the sculpted skin,
trickling incredibly realistic blood into the Lord’s eyes, clenched shut in
pain. The spikes in His wrists and feet were rusty, the wood of the body pushed
inward under their force. His mouth was frozen wide in a scream, and all the
cords and muscles in His neck bulged, straining to give voice to His horrific
death.
When I was young, this crucifix frightened me.
I’m not ashamed to admit
that at all. I like to think of myself now as a practical man, not given to
spooks and specters, but that crucifix was absolutely terrifying as a child.
Many of the adult parishioners didn’t like it. More than once, I heard of
grownups—grownups! —having nightmares in which the suffering Christ was after
them. But even as a young boy, when my fear was greatest, it was always
tempered by curiosity.
In my youth, I had a friend, Robby Hutchence.
He and I went to the same
school and he lived close by. We chummed around a lot, playing seasonal sports,
rode bikes around aimlessly. One time in the summer when I was 12 (which would
have been 1965, for anyone counting back on their fingers), he and I were out,
riding around to no place in particular. We passed St. Francis and Robby, ahead
of me on the sidewalk, suddenly swerved and hit his brakes. I had to stop or
else I would have rear-ended him and probably warped a tire.
“Creepy, isn’t it?” he asked,
straddling his bike, staring up at the
crucifix. “Who wants to go to Heaven if that’s what’s waiting for you?”
“It’s not so scary,” I said,
lying through my teeth. I hoped Robby had
just stopped to tie his shoe or something—it was nasty when a loose shoelace
wrapped around the bike chain—and wasn’t planning on staying. But, being twelve
and filled with the simple bravado that only came to boys that age, I would not
be the one to suggest leaving.
“Yeah, right, Delorme,” he snickered
at me. “That thing’s meant to scare
people on purpose. Don’t you know that?”
“I know,” I answered indignantly.
“And it doesn’t scare you? Not Ronnie
Delorme, Iron Balls?”
“Not a bit.” I hoped my colour was
okay, because I felt flushed. Robby
turned his back from me and looked up at the crucifix again. He stood like that
for a moment, and turned to face me again. He was smiling a wicked,
Robby-Hutchence-has-a-wonderful-idea smile.
“Why don’t you climb up at touch it?”
“What do you mean? How the hell am I supposed
to get all the way up
there?”
“Climb the wall, stupid,” he said.
This, apparently, was the most obvious
thing in the world. “Look at those stones. You could climb that with only one
leg.”
“I don’t know,” I said
doubtfully. I wracked my brain for a reason not to go up. “What if the priest
catches us?”
“He won’t catch us. What’s wrong,
are you yellow?” I half-expected him to
stick his thumbs in his armpits and to the Chicken Dance. “Scared, Delorme?”
“I’m not scared,” I said. “Watch
this.”
I’ve mentioned that I’m a rational,
practical man. I see my doctor every
six months. I don’t smoke or drink to excess. I’m a sensible person by my own
estimate. But for the life of me, I have no idea what came over me on that hot
July day in 1965, because I kicked my bike over and marched towards the church
wall.
The only thing I can rationalize my actions with
was hoping Robby would
call off the dare. I knew he was scared (not as badly as I was, but scared
nonetheless) and I hoped, in my heart of hearts, that when he saw I meant
business, he’d call if off.
But he didn’t. Of course he didn’t.
He egged me on with every step.
“Come on, Delorme, I ain’t got all
day,” he called to me when I paused
ever so slightly at the base of the steps. “Hurry it up! I ain’t getting’ any
younger over here!” I cursed him in my head for his insistence.
“Chill out, I’m going, I’m going!”
“Give him a kiss!” Robby called, laughing.
I noticed that already, his
voice seemed so much further away.
I went right up to the church wall and looked
up at the screaming Christ.
I’d never been so close to Him—it—and had never seen it from that angle. I was
thankful that at least His face was turned Heavenward, as if screaming to God
to end his torment. At least I didn’t have to look on His awful face. There, at
the base of the church wall, I wondered for the briefest second if I actually
had to guts to go through with it.
It felt almost like I were being pushed forward
by a giant, invisible
hand. The hand pressed me up against the wall, and it made my hands and feet
search for and find holds on the wall, as if I were a living marionette. I
barely noticed what I was doing as I climbed, letting the strange puppeteer
that was leading me do his work. I didn’t notice that I’d barked my shin on an
edge of a stone, didn’t notice that I was starting to sweat with heat, effort
and terror. I didn’t notice that my shirt had come untucked from my shorts as I
climbed. The puppeteer led me upwards.
Before I even realized how far I had climbed,
I was within arm’s reach of
the crucifix. I had no intention of getting any closer to it than necessary,
just a quick reach to touch the Lord’s foot and then get the hell off of that
wall. I steadied my feet on the little grooves they’d nestled in, and pressed
the tips of my right-hand fingers into the stone until they hurt. I settled my
weight as best I could, and reached out. I looked up to gauge the distance.
And Jesus looked down on me.
Time stopped right then and there, on that wall.
Silence surrounded me—it
seemed as if the world had swum out of focus. The only thing that was really
clear at all was the Lord and I on St. Francis’ wall.
It was terrible. His mouth was still set in that
sculpted scream, His eyes
still screwed closed in pain. His head was bent so far forward I thought it
might topple off and fall on me. But as if in answer to my fear, the rest of His
body began to move as well, and it became clear to me in that instant that the
terrifying crucifix had come to life.
His shoulders writhed, and His head began to slink
side to side, like a
snake angling to strike. His hands began to move around the spikes that held
them in place, as if He were trying to reach the spikes and pull them out. The
creak and moan of the nails moving was the only sound I could hear, heavy and
wretched, like a door in a haunted house. With every movement, the spikes in
His wrists loosened, as each movement of the wooden iron in His flesh drew
fresh blood that ran from the wounds and dripped off towards the ground below. His
knees flexed and bent, and I could actually see the crucifixion nails sliding
outwards as His movements wriggled them loose. My hand was but eight inches
away from Jesus’ squirming, working feet, and the thought of touching them (or
them touching me, which seemed more and more likely) filled me with a dread
I’ve never felt again. But I was transfixed, held still by the puppeteer. I
could only watch.
Jesus’ eyes opened then. They were blank
and sinister, made of empty wood.
No pupils or irises had been carved beneath his eyelids in 1926, and there were
none there in 1965. Jesus’ horribly blind eyes stared down at me in a
terrifying rapture as He tried to free Himself from His prison on that stone
church wall.
I don’t know what caused me to see that
crucifix come to life that day
when I was twelve years old. I never had an explanation for what I saw, and
I’ve never been able to find one in the forty-some years that have passed
since. I have tried to explain it away as any number of things—a waking
nightmare, a hallucination—it had been a very hot day, and maybe I’d had some
sort of heat stroke on the wall. The idea that Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
was coming for me was ridiculous. But I’ve never been able to explain what I
saw that day.
I don’t have any better clue as to what
finally broke the rapture between
the crucifix and I. One second, I was on the wall, feeling my heart racing at
breakneck speed, frozen in terror watching Jesus try to free Himself from the
cross. The next, everything snapped back to normal. It was almost as if nothing
had happened. I clung to the wall, frozen, wondering if I could move, if I
should move. Then I did.
I reached my hand over and touched the feet quickly.
Low and near the
toes, not any closer to the carved crucifixion nails than needed. It did not
feel like flesh; it felt like carved, painted wood that had been outside
through nearly forty Brownsville winters. And I jumped down off the wall. It
must have been twelve or thirteen feet to the ground, the cement landing before
the church entrance. The impact vibrated and quivered up my legs to my spine.
It hurt, badly, and I was sore for most of a week afterwards. I was so glad to
be down, and away from that awful thing, that I barely noticed at the time.
The force of my fall sent me into a rolling somersault,
and I skidded to a
stop against the side of a stone flowerbed built into the landing, near the low
stairs. Again, I looked back up at the crucifix, and it was normal. As if there
were anything ‘normal’ about that terrifying image.
“Man, you do have balls!” I heard
Robby say, laughing. His voice still
seemed distant, but clarity was returning. I turned towards his voice and saw
him walking towards me. His bike was toppled over next to mine, and he was
smiling broadly and clapping his hands. “I wouldn’t have done it!”
“That’s me,” I said, wincing,
feeling the shock of my landing in my knees
and legs. “Iron Balls, right?”
“I guess so!” he agreed, laughing.
His expression hardened as he knelt
beside me. “You okay, Ronnie? You’re pale.”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I lied. “Just
spooky up there. How long was I up there,
anyway?” It had felt like hours.
“I dunno,” Robby answered. “Ten
seconds? Fifteen? I don’t have a watch
on.” He slapped his wrist to prove it to me. “Why?”
“Oh, just timing myself.” That bravado
was already creeping back in. “I
hope to have that trip, up, touch him and down, to under ten seconds by end of
summer.” I fake-smiled. I couldn’t tell him why I wanted to know how long I’d
been up there, because I was worried if I told him he wouldn’t want to be my
friend anymore. “Think I can do it that fast?”
“Man, you don’t have to do it again,”
he said, slightly awestruck. “I
didn’t even think you’d do it once! But, I mean, if you wanna crawl back up
there and have a chat with the Lord, you go right ahead. I won’t stop you.”
“Ah, we’ll see,” I said. I had
absolutely no intention of ever getting
close to that awful thing again. As I recall, after that I treated St. Francis
like most kids treat a nighttime graveyard. Fear and a little respect. The
keeping of distance. I wouldn’t ride my bike by it unless it was unavoidable,
and to this day I still know all the alternate routes around town so I don’t
even drive by it in my car.
“Listen, man, I gotta get going. It’s
getting late,” Robby informed me. I
looked up and somehow the sun had dipped behind the roof of the church. “If I’m
late for supper one more time, my mom’ll skin me alive. No fake.”
“I gotcha,” I told him. I’d
been late myself many times, incurring my own
mom’s wrath. “Get outta here, then. I just need a second here. My knees are
killing me after jumping down.”
“You sure you’re okay?” I assured
him that I was, and he stood up. We made
plans for the next day, probably hitting fly balls at each other in the Station
Yard. We said our goodbyes then, and he went over, picked up his bike, and was
gone.
I didn’t know then—couldn’t
have known—that Robby Hutchence would never
fully outgrow the child I was with that afternoon, and most of that summer. Six
years later, just weeks after his eighteenth birthday, he and his girlfriend
were out on a date. It was never fully explained why, but the story went that
the car left the road, crashed through a guardrail, and into a rock cut. Both
of them were killed instantly.
Thankfully, Robby’s funeral wasn’t
at St. Francis. I’m not sure I could have
gone if it had been. I remembered sitting in the pew, picking at my too-tight
shirt collar, and thinking how he’d always be Robby to everyone, and never
Robert, or Bob. He would always be a boy, never a man.
After my friend left that July day, I tested my
aching knees. They seemed
to be okay, but hurt like hell. I stood and duck-walked over to my dumped bike.
I pedaled slowly home, trying to think of anything but the sheer terror I’d
felt that afternoon. As I rode along, gently swerving side to side due to my
aching knees, I glanced down into my lap. My shirt had come untucked during the
climb, and I could see in the crotch of the shorts I’d been wearing, a dark
patch about the size of a softball. I had been so scared on that wall that I’d
wet myself.
I got home, and awkwardly scuttled into the house.
As quick as I could
with my aching joints, I scampered up the stairs to my room, avoiding my
parents. I changed quickly out of my wet shorts, soaked them in water to try
and hide the spot. I shoved them down towards the bottom of my laundry hamper
and went downstairs for supper.
As only a kid can, I started to forget about what
I’d seen. That night I
dreamed of it, but faintly, like it had been a show on TV where I’d seen the
thing move. Come for me. The next day I didn’t dwell much on it. I never did
see the crucifix move again, and I always kept such a busy schedule that I
didn’t leave myself much time to think about it. It began to fade.
But a couple of days later, in the downstairs
hallway, my mother accosted
me and it came screaming back. Tucked under her arm and balanced against her
hip was a basket full of laundry.
“What do you have to say for yourself?”
she asked me, more frustrated than
angry. My mind scrambled, trying to think what she was talking about, and I
remembered the shorts I’d wet on St. Francis’ wall. My face flushed hot and I
looked down at my feet, terribly, utterly embarrassed.
“I’m sorry mom,” I said meekly.
“I couldn’t help it.”
“Couldn’t help it?” she asked
incredulously. “My word, Ronnie, what have I
told you about going around with that awful Marsh boy? Mark my words, he’s
going to grow up to be a serial killer! How do you explain this?” I was
confused, and she thrust a piece of my clothing at me. Not stained shorts, but
a stained shirt. I took it from her, recognizing it as the one that had come
untucked on the church wall.
On the shoulder, and just below the collar, there
were several
nickel-sized drops of dried, stained blood. The blood that had fallen off of
the crucifix as its wounds reopened under the strain of movement.
“I can’t explain this, mom,”
I said flatly, and went upstairs to my room.
I stayed there.
The
End
