My Father’s Thoughts on the Church
Conspiracy theories and castration
Of course, that morning, I was the only non-religious person that attended church. My grandmother insisted I came with her. And so I spent hours listening to Pastor Miguel’s commandments on eating pork and giving fifty percent of your income to the church.
I must have dozed off because I woke up lying on the pews and there were knots of Baptists around me. They gossiped, shared personal struggles, right after the holy mass, right before they said their goodbyes, and return to their normal, boring lives with more gossip to spread.
Ah yes, pastor Miguel. There he was with the first lady of the church, auntie Mary. They were talking to a weeping woman about her dead husband and she was inviting them to pray for him. Miguel stood behind Mary like a lost child, like me. All the confidence, I thought, switched off just like that.
Back home, my father held his station on the couch.
“Ma!” he screamed. “That you?”
Grandma walked straight to the kitchen and made lunch. I ran up to my father and kissed his cheeks. He rubbed my head and whispered: “He spoke, but you didn’t listen, yes?”
I nodded.
“Those are the devil’s words, boy. Devil’s words, I tell you.”
I nodded again.
At lunch, he asked: “That Miguel fellow still preaching?”
“Yes,” said my grandmother.
“You know he got his balls cut off, yeah?”
“Oh,” she said.
“I’m telling you ma, the pastor’s got no balls, I’m telling you.”
“You ought to go to church,” she said. “It’s once a week.”
“Once a week’s too much,” he said.
“You ought to go to church.”
“I’ll go to church when they change the pastor. I’m not listening to that eunuch.”
“You ought to pray.”
“Listen, ma. He’s a eunuch. It’s not even his choice. No sir. It’s that damn wife of his!”
“Okay,” she said.
“That damned wife of his. I know Miguel, he’s good-looking, worked as police chief for years. Any woman would want him, married or not married. I know him.
“She convinced him to get his balls cut off. When the balls are gone, the urge goes away too. That’s right, no more fantasizing. No more adultery. I’m no doctor, but that makes sense, right?”
“I don’t know, Noel,” said grandma.
“Everybody looks up to him like he’s the head of the church. No sir. The wife controls him. She controls the church. The wife’s the devil. The devil controls the church. See how it’s all co — ”
“That’s enough of that,” grandma said. She stood up. “You ought to go to church, like your son, instead of spewing all this nonsense in front of him. Lord forgive!”
“Nel’s smart, he knows what I’m talking about. He can take it.”
Father slugged back to his couch in front of the television and dozed off as I did at the church.
It had always fascinated me how fragile a man could get without his testicles. My father’s words of wisdom didn’t help quench this intrigue. Of course, I could always look it up on the internet. But somehow in the following years to come, I never did. I don’t plan on doing so anytime soon either.
Some things are better left alone.
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