Parting Glances
A postcard I got from my good friend the intrepid Recovering Catholic e-gadabout Sr. Serena Scatterpin, Renegade Sisters of Mary, is rather, well, phallic. To say the least.
Postmarked Tulsa OK. it's an oil well panorama. Two are energetically gushing goo into a cobalt sky of puffy white-ball, free-floating clouds. It's all rather erotic at a subliminal level — if you're into gushers. (God knows I've seen a few.) Ok-la-HO-ma!
A hasty note written in Sister's mixture of Old Gothic script and contemporary graffito longhand reads, "Hi! Prospector! Thar' she blows! I'm researching Recovering Catholic wide stance issues at ORU for the Society of Straight Doubting Thomas. Just one step closer to my dissertation. Kisses. Serena. PS: How'd ya like tha' rigs, big boy?"
Sister's card is followed by a 3 a.m. cellphone vibe, and I'm jolted awake from a sound sleep of dream sequences from Giant, with James Dean lubing my rigging with 3-in-1 oil. "Jimmy! I mean Sister, why are you calling me at this ungodly hour? Did you strike pay dirt?"
"Sorry. It's midnight here. I'm lonely as a pope in a pool hall. I've been sitting whoopee cushion since nine. Even tho' traffic comes and goes, nothing's shaking at my end. This research project I've volunteered for is going nowhere."
"And just where might that nowhere be, Sister," I ask, still not fully awake from my Jimmy Dean dream drilling. "You sound like you're smack dab in the middle of an echo chamber. You're not in a confessional are you? For old times sake. I wouldn't put it past you."
"Actually, truth's stranger than friction, I'm sitting in a stall in a tenth floor men's restroom at (hello, St. Peter!) Oral Roberts U. I know it's a bit odd for a renegade nun, but I volunteered for a little participant observer note taking to see whether as rumored in certain social work circles there's a significant difference in the wide stance median curve of Recovering Catholics versus fundamentalist Bible-belters."
"You're kidding."
"Cross my heart. It's all for a worthy cause: the Doubting Thomas Society, named after Monsignor Tommaso Stenico, Vatican psychotherapist who believes you can't fully love the sinner if you don't actually embrace his sin. Firsthand. It's called the queer, er, near occasion of sin."
"That's all bene bellissima, Sister. But before we ring off (I've got a hard day ahead) please define — sociologically speaking — what you mean by 'wide stance.' These days it's gets a lot of political mileage."
"Well, socio/economically, 'wide stance' has a very long oral tradition of upstanding academic and therapeutic practice. It's the mental distance of the akimbo positioning of male lower extremities — namely knees, feet, ankles, and double-jointed toes — when sitting in a political safe-zone adjacent to a cubicle of similar social advantage, prestige, and/or privilege — as measured by RC options versus right-wing objections — mediated through a good time can be had by all. It's actually Neo-Freudian."
"That's quite a mouthful, Sister. Any luck?"
"To be honest. It's my third psychoanalytical sit in (fortunately I always carry a thermos of dry Martinis) with not so much as one measurable wide stance — Dixiecrat or Republican — to observe. You got ideas?"
"Knowing you, Scatterpin. More than likely you're wearing your Diane Einfeste-Burg wimple and St. Joan of Crawford pumps. For born-again fundygelicals you need sneakers or combat boots. (And what's a nun without her ruler?) Anyhoo, break a leg! And, oh yes: bottoms up. Clinically speaking, to be sure."
