Max laid in his bed praying. Please God don’t make us go to church.

He made sure to be still, breathing in and out so his stomach wouldn’t even hit the covers. He needed to pee but he couldn’t risk waking his parents, so he held it. Infection was well worth the risk. Maybe they’d slept in, it was already a quarter past nine. Max dozed off again but woke to footsteps creaking in the master bathroom. The shower turned on and seconds later a knock on the door confirmed his worst nightmare. “Hurry up and get ready, we’re going to mass.”

It wasn’t that going to church was all that bad. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t torture either. Max and his four siblings would inevitably zone out during the service, easy enough. It held a low threshold of participation. Standing, sitting, kneeling, repeat. But boredom wasn’t the issue. Dull wasn’t the thing keeping the Jenkins kids up at night. Something else was causing the tears in the back of the van on Sunday mornings. Towards the end of mass one of the kids would have to do the unthinkable: hold a stranger’s hand for the Our Father. 

Just the thought of it gave all five Jenkins kids the willies. It was a barbaric ritual and an issue the Catholic Church had fallen far behind on.

If the kids let it, and they most certainly did, imagining the potential stranger was far more horrifying than the real stranger itself. It could be any kind of monster extending their hand towards one of the children. Fat man in tight shorts, fat lady with a runny nose, or worse yet, Jana’s fat husband, Raul. It was Russian roulette with the worst strangers imaginable, and it happened every Sunday morning as the Jenkins pulled into the St. John’s parish lot.

On this particular Sabbath, the family walked into church and things seemed hopeful. Max’s dad, also not a huge fan of strangers, chose an empty pew and positioned himself at the very end corner. Max caught the edge but the pew remained empty when the congregation stood and greeted Father. Max felt blessed and nodded to his older brother who reached over and gave him a congratulatory pat on the back. But just before the first reading, the Lord tooketh away the good fortune and presented Max with a stranger of mythical proportions.

The poor little boy almost fainted as a lumpy man in his mid-seventies and brown sweatpants entered the row and sat five feet away.

As he sat back into the creaking wooden pew, the stranger’s ample gunt jiggled in the full-capacity sweats. Dear God, this can’t be happening Max thought. Oh, it’s happening God responded as the stranger’s hairy toes squirmed around in an old pair of Tevas during the Responsorial Psalm. His unclipped toenails were yellow and brittle and Max heard them scratch against the rubber sandal material during Father’s silent prayer.

The Jenkins’ siblings weren’t helping their brethren. They snickered amongst each other, and delighted in Max’s brutal misfortune. It was a worst-case-scenario-stranger and even Max’s dad snuck a look down the row and smirked to himself. He elbowed his wife in the ribs to look, but she shook him off and looked ahead with a straight face. If she cracked, the others would follow suit and they’d be singled out and possibly removed from mass by Father. So her strength endured for the family’s honor.

On the other end of the pew, Max had switched to mouth-breathing. The stranger’s body odor was overwhelming, and the faint hint of Speed Stick back-fired and only aggravated the musty nose-banging. With every reading, the stakes were raised as stranger danger coughed like a sick walrus. He held a crumpled up napkin in his hand-holding hand and sniffled into it with every other breath. When the tissue reached the maximum capacity of mucus, the stranger stuffed it into his pocket and wiped his hands on his faded brown cotton sweatpants. From then on, he’d wipe his nose on his dark green turtleneck sleeve. The little boy closed his eyes and prayed as hard as he could. If David could beat Goliath, if St. Michael the Archangel could slay the demon, then surely the Good Lord could give Max the strength to survive such a stranger.

After the homily, Father returned to his throne for a moment of thought. Max put it to good use. And when the congregation rose again, the ten-year-old boy made an unprecedented and controversial move. He excused himself to the restroom just minutes before the Our Father. His mom resisted at first but Max threatened to crap his pants on the spot. She couldn’t deny the fear in his eyes and begrudgingly granted his request to spare a public shitting. Max looked down at his six-year-old sister, Ellie, as he scooched by her. A look of betrayal washed over her face as the reality of the situation dawned on her. She would have to hold the fat, hairy, smelly, sniffly stranger’s hand. Max’s father nodded in disappointment as his boy passed him and exited the pew.

He didn’t make it to the bathroom. Max entered the front lobby and looked back through the stained glass window of Judas.

Tears ran down his little sister’s face as the stranger held her hand during an abnormally long-winded Our Father. Half of Max was mired in guilt, the other half smiled from ear-to-ear. When he returned, Ellie sniffled and looked blankly at the back pew. She was in shock and only time could heal an incident like this. Ellie didn’t acknowledge Max and she wouldn’t talk to him for the next three weeks. 

From that moment on, the rules of engagement changed. There were no guarantees, all decorum was lost. If there was a stranger’s hand to be held, all bets were off. When their parents enacted a no-bathroom-during-mass policy, eleven-year-old Julie, took it to another level. She sat for most of mass with a mouthful of chewed up muffin, and then fake-puked on a hymnal right before the Lord’s prayer. The bold move got her out of holding a male classmate’s hand. It was remarkable discipline and creativity, but it was also the final straw as far as Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins were concerned. 

After that, Max’s parents invoked a stranger’s hand rotation. Everyone would have to take a turn. Except them, of course.

Weeks later when Max caught a clean edge, the rest of the kids protested, saying it didn’t count if you didn’t hold a stranger’s hand. The altercation escalated into an Indian burn fight and three crying Jenkins kids. From there, rotation rules became nuanced and every ride to church was contentious. Then Max got caught accepting his sister’s birthday money to take her spot in the rotation. It was getting out of control and it needed to stop. And then one weekend, it finally did. 

Mrs. Jenkins found a 3:45 mass on Saturday afternoon that was held at St. Vincent’s hospital for the patients. The makeshift chapel was in the cafeteria, the tables moved to the back, and the few dozen chairs facing a small altar. The Jenkins were a couple minutes late and had to sit by themselves in the back near the vending machines. During mass, Ellie looked back at Max and they shared an overdue smile. Max tilted the bag of chips that he bought during the first reading and they shared some Fritos, too. There would soon be a no-buying-snacks-during-mass policy, but for today the Jenkins kids could crunch away during the homily. It was the first time in years the kids weren’t squirming, complaining, or sitting with fear in their hearts during the service. Mrs. Jenkins smiled to herself, grabbed the Sunkist from her eldest boy, and wet her whistle before communion. Today was a celebration, for thy stranger’s hand was nowhere to be found.

Amen.

CREDITS: MUSIC

Celestinoanthony: “Jesus Christ Coming Soon Suspense Bass Samples Video Film Cinema”

Klankbeeld: “Horror Ambience 10”

Klankbeeld: “Horror Prayer Roman Catholic”

Caquet: “City: Organ.”

Dobroide: “choral » 20110520.TLVictoria_Hosanna.in.excelsis”

Aeonemi: “Church: Creepy Organ Sound”

Ramagochi: “Binaural catholic gregorian chant mass liturgy”

Setuniman: “cinematic finales » farewell 0_G13”

Setuniman: “inner world » hard life 0U_51p2”

Zbylut: “121110_Gniezno_Sanctus.wav”

CREDITS: SFX

Suburbanwizard: “Demon-Chant”

170134: “Sick Old Man Cough”

BeeProductive: “Lords Prayer”