Leo

I was eleven years old beside my buddy, Scooter. We sat in the back of the church, where the cool kids sat. The Sunday evening service was winding down, and the two of us were like exposed wiring, sparking shocks in the dim prayer closet of mass bowed heads. We passed notes, played with the rubber lining pulled from communion cup receptacles, and made faces at each other between whispered comments. The thrill was the only attraction to our rebellion--we weren't bad kids. That night our squirmy impiety crescendoed to a level neither of us was familiar or comfortable with. Our stifled giggles turned into bolts of laughter. Our surreptitious glances at each other escalated into gruesome pantomime. Neither of us felt good about what we were doing, but we each did it anyway, impressed by the other guy's daring and creative mockery of the sacred environment. Surrounded by closed eyes and folded hands, we thought ourselves impervious, removed, and untouchable.

We both felt a sudden weight on our shoulder. Two hands--large, bony, and worn with decades of manual labor--grasped us firmly and pinned us to the back of the pew. We stiffened and turned to see only the top of a head thinly covered with wisps of white hair. A deep voice rumbled the seat beneath us as Leo, an old and respected layman, prayed at a volume we were certain the whole sanctuary could distinctly hear.

"Dear, God," the rumble shook, "bless these boys. Make them strong men of God. Keep them faithful to your Word. Help them to be obedient to their parents. Bless them someday with good jobs and good wives."

He went on for some time. We could feel his strong fingers gripping our deltoids with the sinewy power of a man who had worked with his hands his whole life. Yet the grip trembled. In all their power, the fingers had a tremor that matched a tremble in the old man's voice. It was a quiver of sincerity and old fashioned fear of God. Leo was praying for us with all he had: head, voice, and hands. And the shake in his fingers was matched by a shake in the hearts of Scooter and me. When Leo finished praying, he gave both our shoulders a firm and gentle squeeze and sat back in his pew. Scooter and I both turned around, our faces flaring with blushes. "Thank you," was all we could say. Leo faintly smiled at us from behind moist eyes. I quickly turned away, realizing that my own eyes were wet too.

We didn't fool around for the rest of the service. We were mortified at having been caught, we were confused by the old man's method of correcting us, and we sensed that we had both inherited something special, not unlike the Sunday school lessons of the patriarchs laying hands on sons and grandsons. We both sat quiet with our hands in our lap, working hard to store up the memory of the old man's blessing. We didn't talk to each other again that night, except once, when Scooter leaned over to me and said in a hoarse whisper, "That was really cool."

"Ya," I managed to croak back.