The Third Place

     Finally I came to the Third Place, the Place that I'd told the Effervescent Priest about in the beginning, the one that he said was too far away, the Place I would have visited First if I'd been organized.

     Not far from the Third Place there is a street sign for "Podunk Road." If I were two people and one of me had a camera, I would have asked the other me to stand under the sign so I could take a picture of me there.

     We met in the school. The weekday children had made banners and pictures celebrating their favorite Saints. There was St. Margaret Clitherow - "crushed with rocks," said the picture, although it was more gruesome than that. Even the first Queen Elizabeth paled a little when she heard. A little nun with a very big smile hugged everyone as they came in. I smiled at a frazzled girl, and later, she told the whole retreat that she couldn't believe how many people had smiled at her; she didn't know the world had nice people in it anymore.

     There were so many young women cluttering all over, and talking all at once, and waiting, 10 or 12 at a time, for the restroom. Woman-y sleeping bags, some already full, were sprawled in every available spot of every classroom floor. Woman-y calves and toes, hands and elbows. There was an overbearing woman-y sameness in the world; why did they all have to clump together in identical soft slouches, and why did woman-y fingers have such a bizarre tendency to narrow into little candy teeth on the end of fluffy hands? Some of them had mantillas on their heads and others wore mantillas as skirts; either way, there was lace, and whenever someone said "Steubenville" they screamed and cheered. How could I ever enter a community full of women if I was sick of seeing women everywhere?

     The odd swooshing noise was there when I unrolled my sleeping bag, and it was there  again when I came back from the lecture. I finally realized that it was a sound that I ought to do something about. I looked behind the shelf and there was a girl trying to pump up a full-size airbed with a bicycle pump. We took turns making the swoosh-noise until the mattress was solid enough; it was for a girl with the bad back.

     In the library where I slept, there really and truly were copies of just the books I wanted, "The Princess and the Goblin" and "The Princess and Curdie." I was not yet detached from the imposing green wall of the Complete Original Works so it was comforting to know that this might possibly be a safe haven for them. (They are now safely a part of the curriculum at 'Sacred Heart,' which I thought was the appropriate name for the appropriate place for the collection that was no longer appropriate for me.)

     Confession took five hours.
     I'd never seemed to have permission to go often to Confession; if it wasn't strictly necessary it was just wasting everyone's time. The Sisters seemed to think we had permission and ought to be going regularly. They also gave us permission to eat way too much; there was always coffee, punch and candy sitting out, and various kinds of pretzels, and when it was time to eat there was always an absurd volume of food. The boxes of pizza arrived stacked on several handcarts, there was that much food, for that many women. Women waiting for pizza are more endearing than women waiting for the restroom.

     And they played games. Get-up games, where you have to try to steal other people's prizes. I didn't get up, one of just a few, because I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I did. As it was, I knew how to sit crookedly in a plastic chair and make the coffee cup go back and forth between my mouth and the middle-air; I did not have to wander aimlessly, pretending to be interested in taking somebody else's presents. The Sister said, "You look peaceful, just drinkin' your coffee." My present was chocolate; it was sitting in front of me. I liked chocolate as good as anything I might be able to steal. I said so, and the Sister laughed, and then someone stole my chocolate.

     So I went to their school and I bought their T-shirt -- two shirts, neither of which got worn very much -- and I slept on their floor and ate their food and drank a few gallons of their coffee and was very quiet in their chapel next to the friendly girl with hazardous breath who seemed to like being somewhere in my vicinity and I confessed to their priest and waited in line for their restrooms again and again and then I gave them a donation when Christmas came and that was that.