Date: Sat, 03 Feb 2007 18:23:05 -0700 From: Joseph Farrin Subject: THE VICAR OF BLANCHARD THE VICAR OF BLANCHARD PART ONE I was born in Brooklyn and lived there until my mother died of influenza during the winter of 1985 when I was twelve years old. My father didn't think he was capable of continuing both working and raising me. So he sent me to England to live with his parents, whom I'd never seen. I was one mixed up kid the night my dad took me to JFK International and, after much reassurance mixed with many tears, put me on a night flight to Heathrow -- London. I had a window seat next to a well-dressed, young man -- probably a businessman. Despite my stress, I began to drowse and the young man buzzed the stewardess and asked her to bring a pillow and two blankets for me. His placing the blankets around me and tucking them in was my last conscious memory until, some wee hour of the morning, I woke and looked out the window onto an icy cold looking, blue colored world with just enough light that you could see the curvature of the earth. It was a spectacular sight but, at the same time, vacant and eerie -- even a little frightening for a twelve year old. Shortly thereafter, the pilot announced over the intercom that we were approaching the north coast of Scotland and would be landing at Heathrow within an hour and ten minutes if there was no problem in getting a landing clearance and the stewardesses would now start serving coffee and breakfast rolls. The businessman stayed with me until we reached the customs counter and my Nana started waving and hollering "Morgan, we're here!" and pointing to the man standing next to her, said, "This is your grandpa!" My seat partner called back, "We have to wait for our luggage to arrive and be inspected. I sat next to Morgan on the plane and he did fine." After Nana gave me all the hugs and smooches only a grandma can give, the man I'd sat beside introduced himself as Jeff Montgomery and grandpa reciprocated with introducing himself and Nana as John and Mary Townsend and me as Morgan Townsend. We all shared a taxi to London, as we were all traveling west by train from Paddington Station. After Grandpa, Nana and I arrived in Torquay I was amazed when I saw Palm trees. Grandpa explained that Torquay's location on the English Channel was at the tail end of the warm waters of the Gulf Stream after it traveled north along the east coast of the U S from the Caribbean, turned and crossed the Atlantic at some point and continued down the coast of Ireland and entered the English Channel, giving Torquay a sufficiently warm climate to support the only Palm Trees on the British Isles. After a good life with my grandparents, who both loved and spoiled me, I told them six years later that I'd had several conversations with our local Vicar at St. Anne's and had decided to attend an Anglican seminary in Canterbury that he recommend. Believe me the impact could not have been greater if I'd told them I'd accepted employment as a garbage collector with the Torquay's Department of Sanitation. I'll never understand exactly what takes place when a young man announces to his family that he is going to take the first step toward becoming a priest. I just know that at first they go berserk, absolutely berserk -- first my grandparents, then my dad, then my two uncles, then my older cousins. Then they settled down to lecturing me about the lifelong commitment I was making and trying to dissuade me. Finally came acceptance of the fact that they would still see me, they could still write letters to me, call me on the telephone, and we could spend time together during my vacations. In the end they all conveyed the pride they felt in my becoming a priest. PART TWO The end of the story about the seminary in Canterbury took place the day I was ordained a priest in the Church of England. All my relatives, including my father, attend the ceremony to watch my ordination, which included all those being ordained lying face down on the cold marble floor of the cathedral as we recited our vows before the Bishop of Canterbury and received his blessing. Later, the reception turned out to be a time of congratulations as well as a time of more tears, at least for everyone except me. I now perceived myself as a priest and it was both a good and a happy perception. Whether it was customary or not, everyone slipped me a greeting card which, when I later opened, contained checks that, to me, totaled a small fortune. Grandpa and Nana also bought me a new Mini Cooper. Gas was purchased by the liter at a price that would equal $8.00 per gallon in American money. I was happy at their choice, as it was one of few cars I could afford to operate. After a two-week vacation in Spain with Nana, grandpa and my dad, I received notice of my first assignment. It is customary in both the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches to assign newly ordained priests to locations other than those they had been raised in to avoid all previously formed, local impressions and opinions and to give the new guy on the block a fair chance to succeed. My first assignment can only be explained by the fact that the pastor of the place where I was assigned had just died. And that is how I became Vicar of Blanchard. PART THREE I'd never heard of Blanchard and actually had to look at a Road Atlas of Great Britain to locate it. Blanchard turned out to be a village of 195 persons located in the northern part of Britain, on the very northern border of County Durham in Northumbria, and looked to be on the Atlas about eight miles from Hexham and another four on to Hadrian's wall. The wall was built by the Romans and crossed the island from the North Sea to the Irish Sea to keep out, as the Roman's called them, "the hairy men from the north" now known as the Scots and which wall still stands. The wall was named after the then Emperor of the Roman Empire and marked the last and most distant expansion of the Empire from Rome. It is still an engineering marvel, considering the time, location and available materials at the time it was built. It was something I wanted to see someday. Blanchard turned out to be an "L" shaped courtyard surrounded by a continuous row of one-story cottages, stonewalled and roofed. There were a few stores at the north side of the courtyard that catered to tourists, along with an impressive Entrance Arch for a two-lane road that continued across the courtyard to an opening at the south end and a bridge crossing the River Derwent. At one side of the North Arch was the King's Arms, a hotel, pub and restaurant. To Blanchard's credit, both the village and the surrounding countryside were beautiful and unique enough that it never lacked for tourists and the small, stone church was included in all the daily tours. The church was located north of the courtyard as was the school, a few row houses and the vicarage. The church's heating system consisted of four-inch diameter, steam pipes laid atop the floor at each end of each row of pews -- it was ineffective as a heating system but very effective as something to stumble over. It seemed the parishioners couldn't remember the pipes from one Sunday to the next. The vicarage, too, had it's shortcomings, all mitigated by Maggie Partridge, who was a left over from the previous vicar and came every Friday to clean and do the washing then taking the ironing home. She also brought a chocolate cake or Cornish Pasties with her every week. She was a Godsend, she truly was. The furnishings belonged to the church, such as they were. Dishes, glass and silverware, cooking utensils, bedding and such was left over, unclaimed property of the former priest. After I got settled in Maggie went shopping for new cookware and bedding. I went shopping in Hexham for new table linen, silverware, glassware and china. Maggie said the former priest had been ill for the past few years and gave up all thoughts of delivering good sermons, mixing in with the community or making a home of the vicarage, so I should look for new carpeting when I could find time and put it on the expense list for the Vicarage. Blanchard turned out to be the coldest place in Britain if you excluded Northumbria's North Sea Coast to the east and the Pennine Mountains a short distance to the west. No Palm Trees grew here -- that's for sure. PART FOUR My first personal friend was an elderly parishioner named George Fisher who arrived one evening with a canvas bag that had handles on it and was used for carrying groceries or other items home from a store. It contained six bottles of Newcastle Brown Ale and we drank all of them before he left. He was a good storyteller about the antics of some of the more colorful, past parishioners and past vicars. After his first visit he came every Monday evening. Next came James Killian, the school principal who I first met in the lounge of the King's Arm during afternoon tea one Saturday. Third was Michael Longley, who I met in the local grocery one Friday afternoon, a place I went to on occasion when I'd forgotten something in Hexham or Consett, a small market town east of here that had a supermarket. Maggie, however, was in and out of the place every day. Michael asked if I was the new Vicar. I asked if he was a member of my parish, to which he replied in the negative. I was fascinated with the boy and asked if he'd like to have tea with me at the King's Arms. He replied he would if he could get in. I told him underage persons were admitted to the lounge and being in the company of the local vicar was a key for getting into a lot of places. I lost track of the number of cups of tea he had and the number of trips he made to the serving table for more scones, cakes and the other goodies being served. I fact, I wondered if it was the first food he'd eaten that day. During tea, he asked why I'd chosen to come to Blanchard. I told him because the Bishop requested me to come here. I asked him if he knew the history of the village. He said he'd learned at school that it was built in the mid 1770's by a company that owned a nearby Lead mine. So, it was not old as English villages go. The mine was now defunct; however the ruins of the main building still existed. Later that night, I was sitting by the fire, watching the TV, when I heard someone at the door. Someone calling at this time of night generally meant an illness or a death had occurred, so I couldn't have been more surprised when I opened the door and saw Michael standing, shivering on the stoop, still in his shirt sleeves. "Morgan, may I come in?" PART FIVE "Of course." I wanted to reach out and pull him inside and out of the cold. Once he was in I draped one of my wool sweaters over his shoulders and told him to go sit by the sofa in front of the fire and I'd make him some hot chocolate. He asked if he could have something to eat instead. I again told him to sit by the fire but he followed me to the kitchen, sat at the table and watched as I prepared spaghetti with butter and grated Parmesan cheese sprinkled on it. I put the dishes in the sink, turned out the light and we returned to the sitting room. "I'm glad you decided to pay me a visit, Michael." "You're not angry then?" "Not angry, curious yes but not angry? He started to cry. I told him to move over closer to me and I put my arm around his shoulder and pulled him still closer. After ten of fifteen minutes he's stopped crying enough to say, "My mom kicked me out and I have no place to go." I didn't know what his home situation was so I guess stunned is as good a choice as any to describe my reaction. During the next hour I was stunned several more times, as when he told me his mother was a whore, the cottage was tiny so he could hear his mom and her clients having sex, she was often drunk as she was tonight, he had only two pairs of blue jeans, two shirts, one pair of shoes, four pair of socks, no underwear, no winter cap or jacket. And worst of all, the only time he had anything to eat was when he managed to steal some of her money and buy something from the grocery that didn't need cooking. When he finished I was not only stunned but had a hard time holding back tears and, at the same time, I was filled with an anger like I'd never before experienced. I took him upstairs to a guest room, checked to make sure it had sheets, pillows and a duvet, telling him to leave the bedspread on, as it would be warmer and that the only bathroom was downstairs. He had a look of despair on his face as he asked, "Where will you sleep?" Then it dawned on me: The boy was already upset and I was asking him to sleep in a strange room in a strange house and upsetting him more by the minute, so I asked, "Would you rather sleep with me downstairs?" He replied with a smile and said, "Yes." I gave him a flannel top to a pair of my pajamas and he undressed as I put on my pajamas. In bed he asked me to cuddle up to his back. He went right to sleep whereas it took me a long time because I couldn't clear my mind of thoughts as to what I should do next. Sometime during the night I woke to find I had an arm over him and his penis was completely wrapped in my hand. I removed it immediately. He reached back, found my hand and put it back where it was. I smiled, as I knew he'd done it in his sleep. So with my hand wrapped around his boyhood, I again was wide-awake, wondering what had made me do what I'd done -- was it a conscious or unconscious act on my part and, either way, what did it mean? Was it an accident or an indication that I had suppressed homosexual desires? My God, here I was a newly ordained Minister -- I'd never had strong desires to have sex with either a female or a male. What should I do now? I knew the first thing I should do was remove my hand but I was now halfway erect. I liked holding his boy penis, it was the first one I'd ever touched other than my own and the flesh is weak. I finally dropped off to sleep for the second time and when I awoke at 7AM, my usual time to get up, we had changed positions. Michael was cuddled up to my back, his arm was thrown over me and his hand was wrapped around my cock and it was fully erect. PART SIX After a quick shower and shave I laid out a large sized, bath towel for Michael that he could wrap himself in after he showered, put on clean underwear and a bathrobe and went to the kitchen to fix breakfast in bed for Michael -- buttered toast, tea and coffee, so he could have whichever he wanted, plus bacon, scrambled eggs and a glass of bottled Orange juice. I asked him how he'd slept; he replied very well, he was warm and cozy all night and thanked me for letting him sleep in my bed. I showed him how to work the 8" long, 2" diameter, electric water heater with showerhead and told him he'd have to make it a quick shower or the water would turn cold on him. He urinated first and I couldn't help but look at his boy cock. It was around 4" long and he pulled his foreskin back to expose a pretty, pink colored cockhead. His balls were small. I hoped he didn't see me looking at his nakedness.'' While he ate breakfast, I told him I wanted to go to Hexham and take him with me but I wanted him to check in at home to see if the situation was still the same because I didn't want to cross swords with his mother. He had a chain around his neck with two keys on it -- one to the cottage and the other to his mom's post office box. The minute we entered the cottage my eyes started roaming around like a periscope taking in everything that I could, as I realized the time opening would be a brief one. I noticed there was no fire in the fireplace, but I don't think Michael did. He called out "Mom!" An empty silence was to be his only reply. Michael climbed a ladder to a sleeping balcony above the kitchen and open in its upper half to the living area below and divided into two spaces by a curtain. He leaned over the balcony and called down "Her clothes are gone, too. She's left for good." He climbed back down and we both went into the kitchen where there was an envelope on the table addressed to him. It contained a hundred pounds and a note saying she'd try and send him more every week. I asked where the bathroom was and he replied. "Out the back door and in the shed roofed add-on to the left. It's a flush toilet if you have to go." It was not uncommon in row houses, even some of the older ones in London. "Just curious." "If you want to wash your hands use the kitchen sink. If you want to bathe, there's a laundry tub hanging on the back wall and I'll draw water for you from the hot water heater." His reply, I knew, was for information only. My Mini Cooper had a new admirer in Michael and he had a dozen questions. I told him some day I'd let him drive it if we could find just the right, no traffic, rural road. That cheered him up, but not all the way, his "feel bad" was really feeling bad at the moment. I'd brought him to Hexham to bUy him some clothes -- blue jeans, colored tee shirts, a couple of dress shirts, Reeboks, sweaters, a heavy jacket and a stocking cap. He selected stuff in a hurry, probably basing his selection on what he'd seen other pupils at school wearing that he liked. I picked out three packets of white tee shirts and thong shorts plus a pair of black dress shoes and a black and grey dress coat in a herringbone pattern, plus two pair of pajamas. He questioned the need for the black shoes and the dress coat. I told him they would be his "go to church clothes alone with a pair of blue jeans". The clerk that checked us out looked first at Michael, then at me with a "You dirty old man look." Michael had been calling me Morgan, not Dad and I hadn't worn my vicar duds. Once back in the Mini Cooper, I asked Michael if he was desperately hungry or if he could wait until I drove to Consett for fish and chips. He'd never had them but had heard others talk about them, so he said, "Let's go." He enjoyed every Brit's favorite food as much as I did, although, technically, I was still an American citizen, and we walked around the corner to the supermarket where I picked up a few things I needed. We went home by a direct road that, more or less, followed the south side of the Derwent Reservoir, where I stopped at my favorite parking area, always deserted, above the dam at the east end of the four mile long reservoir. He'd never seen it from this angle and I think he was impressed. "Michael, speaking earlier about church, have you been baptized?" "I think so but I'm not sure and have no memory of where or when." "Would you care if I baptized you again." "When?" "Right here, right now?" "You mean in the reservoir?" "No I mean with a vial of Holy Water that I keep in the boot of the car in a bag full of needs for sick or death calls. Silly?" We stood by the car and I baptized him making the Sign of the Cross over his body and sprinkling him with Holy Water. He'd remember the where and when of this baptism, I guarantee you, because as I performed the Sacrament, three American fighter planes came zooming across the reservoir, gained a little altitude at the damn and roared directly over us, turning south to return to their base. There were several American air bases in the south of England and they seemed to use the trip to the reservoir and the return to their base as an occasional practice flight. "Michael, do you mind sitting here a minute longer. My housekeeper Maggie won't let me smoke in the vicarage, so I only smoke when I'm out somewhere." "I don't mind, if you'll let me smoke too. I do, but only when I can swipe some of my Mom's or have enough money to buy some." As if the planes flying overhead hadn't been enough, a farmer walks by with a flock of sheep -- one black ram and twelve ewes, guiding them back to his farm. He nodded at me and I waved back. We'd seen each other before when I'd parked here. This time, though, it seemed almost symbolic. Blanchard was about six miles away. After we passed the small village of Edmundbyers, I pulled over onto the left shoulder, told Michael to get out and go around to the left side of the car and he could drive the rest of the way. Most boys his age knew as much or more about autos as many adults. I had only two driving tips for him -- do everything gradually, nothing rapidly or jerky and don't look at the road right in front of the bonnet. Look ahead at least a hundred feet or more. When we came to the south gate of the Blanchard courtyard, he asked, "Where shall I stop?" "Just keep going, stop in front of the garage and I'll park it.'' When he stopped he put it in park and turned off the ignition, saying, "God, I hope some of the kids I know from school saw me driving through the courtyard." I don't know if I shared his hope or not. After dinner he tried on some of his new clothes and when it came time to the pajamas he left them on so I went to the bedroom and put mine on, too. We sat, side by side on the sofa and kept switching the stations until Michael found a move just starting that he hadn't seen. From my childhood I still call called it "watching TV or television." Michael, being British called it, "watching the telly." We knew what each other meant, though. Before we settled down, he leaned over and kissed me on the mouth and said, "Thanks Morgan. Thanks for the clothes the fish and chips, for baptizing me, for letting me drive your Mini Cooper and for everything else. This has been the most exciting day I've ever had." Then the little bugger lies down and puts his head right atop my crotch. He could not help but notice he'd given me an erection but he kept changing positions every so often and even put his hand under his head as if to make himself more comfortable. Then I noticed his boy hood, fully erected, poking out the fly of his new pajamas. Whether it was right or wrong, he'd given me no choice, so as he'd done last night, I reached down and wrapped my hand around it. He responded with a question, "Morgan, are you really into this movie. If not let's turn it off and go to bed." I guess you know the purpose of Baptism -- to remove the stain of mankind's original sin between Adam and Eve. So here I was, a very few hours after his Baptism, carrying him, with his arm over my shoulder and one of my arms under his legs; to my bedroom with the full intent, despite me being an ordained Minister of God, of having sex with a twelve year old boy.