Incense and the little buddy

BY DAVID J COEHRS

Friday afternoon Benediction service. Standing on the altar, dizzy and wobbly. I'm holding the chain of the incense receptacle, which is swinging lazily near my feet. The overwhelming fumes rise straight into my nostrils.

I'm a fifth-grade altar boy. I have just returned from lunch at home - an egg salad sandwich, chips and a glass of strawberry Kool-Aid. I came back while recess was in full swing, so Dan Martin and I play Gilligan's Island. Dan's a big, gentle bear, and I could get blown over by a fan, so we're the Skipper and Gilligan, respectively. We play this because Dan loves to call me his little buddy, and I love that nobody will dare beat me up while I'm with him.

However, I don't love that Dan enjoys picking me up and spinning me like a top. He yells "Whoop! Whoop!" while he's doing it, and all the blood drains from my face and my lunch gets sloshed around. I've told Dan repeatedly the Skipper never, ever spun Gilligan, but Dan isn't the sharpest lead in the pencil box.

So the bell rings, and we obedient Catholics trudge into the church across the parking lot and fill the pews according to our designated grades. I run to the sacristy behind the altar and throw on my vestments with the other altar boys. My blurry vision from spinning hasn't quite cleared up, so I put them on backward and get razzed.

Although Benediction is a routine service every Friday I've never understood it. It's fifteen minutes of singing church songs and praying, and kneeling and standing, and then we go to our afternoon school session and learn about fractions and The Great Divide and mess with watercolor paints. I secretly believe Benediction is meant to grab us by our morals and give them a final talking-to before we're released for the weekend.

The good priest who will officiate tells the altar boys to stop fooling around and fire up the incense. He's led our particular church for a good 425 years, and even at his creaky age always finds a church service invigorating. The smell of incense makes his feet tap.

Altar boys love firing up the incense because we're male and it involves matches. We huddle around the small receptacle and toss in charcoal shaped like a hockey puck and torch it. When the edges turn white with heat we dump in incense crystals, and the room fills with a funky, fragrant smoke that stays in my nose for years.

It's decided I will carry the receptacle, a big responsibility. At proper times during the service I swing the receptacle by its long chain, releasing potent clouds of the alternately sweet and spicy incense so that everyone benefits from its almost hallucinogenic effects. The problem is that between those proper times the incense swings at my feet.

Usually that's okay; the rising smoke tendrils curl into my face and the heady mixture sends me into an almost hypnotic trance. But the Skipper had spun me around minutes earlier, causing my egg salad, chips and strawberry Kool-Aid to balk. Now it's becoming quite evident they don't appreciate an intrusion of incense, either.

Both dizzy and nauseous from the fumes, I plead with God to let me not be sick in front of the entire school body. That would seriously jeopardize whatever minuscule amount of social standing I might have, not to mention Jennifer Binney would see, and I've had a crush on her.

Suddenly, the good priest is beside me, holding me steady and saying, "For Heaven's sake, go in the back and sit down." He takes the receptacle from me and hands it off to a second-string altar boy, who whiffs the incense and immediately spaces out with a smile. I toddle to the sacristy, where for the remaining minutes of the service I lie on the floor and, between groans, thank the good Lord for His gentle mercy.

I was never again entrusted with the incense The good priest put me back in the minor leagues, and Dan Martin never spun me again.

As for Gilligan's Island, I always thought Mary Ann was cuter than Ginger.