A Piece of Cake
You fulfill your dream to migrate, and for all intents and purposes, and to all and sundry in the place called home that you have left behind, your life is now a piece of cake. Cake is usually a great analogy because it inspires images that go well beyond the mundane ‘milk and honey’ to flavors that really excite and inspire the taste buds such as German chocolate, red velvet, and buttery carrot cream, three of my personal favorites. But, as one reality TV show asks, Is it cake? Is it really cake?
Permit me to provide a well meaning caution. Behind the scrumptious scenes of what appears to be the ‘piece of cake’ of resident alien existence lies a less enticing tale. Like on the TV show, it may be cardboard or tough leather or something else designed to bring misery to even the least discriminating of palates.
One of my earliest experiences of resident alien life in America is deeply intertwined with the deceptive nature of cake and membership in those hallowed halls of everlasting goodness and godliness – the church.
Like every new arrivant seeking community, I registered my son and I as the two latest parishioners of the Trinity Catholic Church, the one in closest proximity to our new abode. Yes, I styled myself as a devout Catholic, and my son, not yet being of age of majority, had no choice in the matter and seized upon every opportunity to demonstrate that fact. Trinity held a welcome reception in the parish hall in our honor that Saturday. Everyone rejoiced, bestowing us with their welcoming smiles, questions, and chatter. The parish hall was packed with devotees eager to please. Meeters and greeters with identifying rosettes on their lapels shook our hands vigorously, and some even did the French make believe ‘muah muah’ both cheek thing! We endured with mixed feelings. Flower ladies, the ones my mom would have called ‘Porteau l’eglise’ were busy installing vases of colorful blooms for that evening’s vigil mass such that would please ‘Father,’ while the servers, mainly the teenage children of said ‘Porteau l’eglise,’ weaved their way through the gathering expertly balancing silver plated platters of goodies on palms held aloft.
To show good leadership, as every good ‘Father’ ought, the parish priest, let’s call him Fr. T. (name change to protect the innocent) loaded with a platter of yes, pieces of cake, demonstrated the skill of serving to the novices. I saw him coming in my direction just as I was saying to my son that I am sort of liking this warm reception, and maybe, we’ll feel at home here at Trinity. Meanwhile my son was checking my watch to see if it was a prudent time to stage our departure, while, needless to say, sampling from every platter. What is the rush, I wondered. Going to the basketball court to shoot some hoops with his new crew in the apartment complex can wait.
The cake, a dark colored chocolate looking besprinkled beauty with some sort of white icing, beckoned enticingly, but I was full. At that time I had not yet acquired the sweetish tooth I was later to develop with the onslaught of Type 2, I politely declined while the younger delayed his departure yearning long enough to help himself to an adult-sized slice.
Father T. was having none of my demure niceties .
“Nonsense !” His voice was firm most likely prepared to ward off any possible dissent. “Come on! You should at least take a small slice,” he said,”It’s better than sex.”
My head spun in his direction with whiplash rapidity. What? Did I hear that right? How would he even know, huh?
My imagination proceeded forthwith on a journey down pathways I’d rather have left unexplored. But there it was. In my defense, I know many people who ate renown for having one-track minds, that track more times than not being a dirt track. But I was not one if them, remember. I was the leader of the Women’s Bible study group and editor of the church bulletin at my church back home, a praying-in-tongues Charismatic, returned-to-the-fold prodigal born-again daughter of the most sanctified persuasion. Did I mean a true Porteau l’eglise, the little guy with the trident, the matching tail, and the fiery red body suit sitting cross-legged on my left shoulder wanted to know. “He said it; I didn’t and you know I’m not making this up.” I protested. “so Get thee behind me!” . In a show of defiance, I took a small slice, and prepared myself to be the final judge of the veracity of Fr T’s categorical adjudication.
A few minutes later, stepping on the accelerator pedal a tad harder than was necessary, I swore beneath my breath, or so thought, as I swerved suddenly to avoid a pothole in the otherwise neatly paved road to home that the driver ahead of me had either not seen or had seen too late and was thus determined not to be the only fool caught in its trap. “Sin verguenza! What an idiot!” I muttered. Definitely not my day!
“Mommy,” said the young one whose presence had momentarily slipped my mind. “Do all drivers swear?” I had to think a minute. It was not a matter which previously I had regarded as fodder worthy of serious cogitation, but now that he had asked. . .
Fast forward fourteen years. By then I had told everybody I knew who would lend me a sympathetic ear. In justification of my decision, I added extra dramatic flair for the benefit of those who wanted to know why I was attending St. Xavier’s instead of Trinity in my immediate neighborhood. Nineteen years had not dimmed the incomprehensibility of the event nor dulled the outrage at its offensiveness to my delicate Catholic sensibilities.
“ I guess so.” I replied, deciding that Honesty in these matters is always the best resort Accordingly, I did not volunteer an apology. We continued home in silence, the young one most likely pondering the question and the reply with a new sense of wonder while I struggled to swallow my indignation and, I dare say, my loss of auditory innocence at the cake incident and, above all, the shattering of my hitherto inviolable faith in the moral superiority of the Catholic clergy. Did he really say that? My mind shuttled back and forth between disbelief and outrage, finding no soft landing place.
It was five years later before I saw him again. It was in the parish hall/gym of the St. Xavier’s church in the next town over at which I had summarily sought refuge after withdrawing my registration from the one shepherded by Fr. T. We were standing, plates in hand, in the chow line waiting to be served our weekly $1 Sunday supper that preceded our Families of Faith’ presentation and round table breakout discussions while the kids attended their respective Sunday school classes elsewhere on the compound. We lovingly referred to Families of Faith as ‘Adult Sunday School.’ It was there that I overheard (no, I was not intentionally eavesdropping; it was just the direction in which the wind happened to be blowing) the conversation of two older bespectacled women with Caribbean accents in the queue just ahead of me.
“I hear Fr. T. is the guest speaker tonight,” the tall, straight-backed one with the tight gray bun, the white butterfly glasses and the severe black dress said.
“For true? The shorter one in the hibiscus skirt and with cracked heels overhanging her white pointy-tipped sling-back sandals clapped her hands in delight.” That is mi boi! I uses to go to his church when I did just come and uses to stay down that side by mi nen-nen before I get mi own place. Girl, that man spirit-filled. We in for a treat!” She rose up on the balls of her feet better to emphasize her point. She must have him confused with somebody rose, I concluded, but it made me think twice.
I was still pondering the wisdom of exiting the queue and heading for home when the serving ladies plumped generous helpings of Mac n cheese, candied yams, collard greens,fried chicken and cold slaw on my plate followed by cornbread and steaming peach cobbler. Too late! I couldn’t turn back now. My palate won ‘t let me. My growling stomach – the same. Besides, my son would not take too kindly to being dragged away from this feast, even though he would have been elated to skip his fourth grade Sunday School class. I made a quick determination. I was stuck. Destined to come face to face with my nemesis, Fr. T, the one who had rocked my faith almost totally off its moorings. Thank God for Fr Gabriel and the community I found here at St. Xavier’s, I had regained my Charismatic sea legs through numerous homilies on looking to God rather than to the failings of humankind, a species to which even the ordained belonged, and was again enjoying that blessed assurance that comes with knowing ‘Jesus is mine.’
As that night’s Families of Faith guest speaker, Fr T talked about a transformative near-death experience he had had (somewhere, I guess, in the five-year gap). For me, either nothing sank in, or it tried and failed to dent the coat of mail in which I had encaged that area in the deepest recesses of my mind to which he had been banished.
While Fr T. was speaking about his encounter with the shining light, the one consistent detail of all near/death survivor reports, I was jutting my pouted lips in his direction, so as not to use a more obvious finger to point him out to my friend, Esther, who was sitting next to me, and who I was regaling with a ball-by-ball commentary of that fateful event. When I was done holding court, another devout Catholic was standing at the frontera wondering which way to take at the fork We decided to make an early during the Q&A portion and go sit in the car to wait for the kids’ classes to end. We could hear the applause for Fr. T at the end of the session. Yet, only a few people started trickling out.
“Where’s everybody else? Fr. T. must be signing autographs?” We joked. “If they only knew!” We were still laughing at the ignorance of the new Fr T devotees when the kids came bounding out gripping tightly bags of candy in one hand and waving Sunday school flyers with the other.
Just beyond the nineteenth year mark, I was relaying the incident to my co-worker, Cyrlene. She doubled over in laughter and couldn’t stop. I couldn’t understand what was so funny. Her reply so stunned my doubting soul that she had to get on the internet to show me what she meant. ‘Better than Sex’ was the name of the cake.
And now, another ten plus years on, I’m still hoping I meet Fr T again. I owe him a huge apology. Believe me, negotiating resident alien life is not for the faint of heart. And it is certainly not a piece of cake.
Kalypsoul
9.11.2025
KalyPsouL@Large: Alien-Nation Reflections 