Quiet Mountain Essays
Copyright ©, 2004
Lent
by
Theresa Schmits Earley
On Fridays, we ate fish. “Ate” may be an overstatement because I could not eat it at all.
Traditions long before my birth chose the type of fish: carp. In the South, in Georgia, for
example, people do not eat carp. Like catfish, it is a bottom feeder and is considered unfit for
human consumption. In the North, in Minnesota, for example, carp is only eaten smoked.
In their lengthy smoking process, the thousands of tiny bones are melted into edibility. My
family, from the Mississippi River Valley, neither considered where the fish fed nor the
multitudes of tiny, choking bones. You had to be tough in my family–you had to be careful
when working for your sustenance.
Fish can be prepared in many ways. One could bake it or broil it, pull it through soft flour
with salt and specks of pepper or roll it in cornmeal before frying it. Carp came “filleted”
which meant the raw, pink meat attached to the skin had been sliced away from the spine
and scored at even intervals to remove the bones. Why they did that, I can not say, because
it did not work. My mother and father had a fondness for dredging the stuff in cornmeal
and frying it in Crisco shortening. They fried it hard. When it was done, not only was the
meal dangerous with unseen bones, but it was also hard-crispy.
With the carp, we had french fries–baked in the oven after being removed from a package
originating in the grocery store’s freezer section. Dry on the outside and nearly not there on
the inside. Then, cole slaw. The one thing straight from scratch. Shredded cabbage, a few
carrots, and sweet glue sauce. I hated Fridays, fasting, and fried fish. I hated the
hopelessness of the still winter landscape and the predictability of the meal.
After several years of picking through Mother’s carp, I picked through Father’s carp.
Mother was ill. So ill, she could not cook anymore. But the detested Friday night ritual went
on with Dad cooking through every Lent. Carp, fries, and cole slaw.
Early on, I ate what my family had picked through for me first. A small pile of ground fish
lay on my plate amid the fries and seeping slaw. That, I could eat. Once someone’s fingers
had been through the main course looking for sharp bones the baby could choke on, it was
safe. But once I was older, my family expected me to sort through the cooked white flesh
and pick out the bones, myself. Hunger took over a few times and I simply bit. It was a
lesson hard learned.
After having spit out chewed fish, I removed fish bone from my gums, cheeks, and once,
throat. That was the last time I ate carp. Choking to death was not a viable option for me–I
would rather starve.
Lent was about death–my own at the hands of my cheap-fish-buying family or the fear of
Mother’s death. Or else, the gruesome death of Jesus surrounding us on the walls of the
church stations of the cross and on the pages of my religion book where in our daily classes
Sister Patricia lectured that Jesus would appear to us in some form–maybe a person or
animal or inanimate object–before our deaths to see if we were ready. Death, still, in the
world between St. Rose School and my home in the still snow, still slush, still sleeping spring
with the sun setting early and red and the wind making my eyes water. Then, to top it all,
the dreaded Friday night meal, turning the glorious beginning of weekend into cold, hungry
misery.
A rebellion loomed inevitable. After ten years of Lent and dashed hopes for Mrs. Paul’s, I
screamed out my frustration and left the house viciously slamming the storm door behind
me. My mittens, still wet from playing on the way home from school, froze my hands. I
stuffed them into my pockets and sulked down Spring Street, vaguely in the direction of
school, watching the 4:30 sun low and orange behind the bare trees. In the shadows, where
the sun had already disappeared behind aluminum-sided Victorians, blue and gray melting
snow contemplated refreezing and my toes pinched in cold dampness.
At 20th and Spring, a voice surprised me, “Excuse me!”
I whirled around and saw an elderly woman, complete with white hair covered by a
patterned sheer scarf, beige trench coat, stockinged legs, and galoshes, making her way
through the uneven pattern of frozen footprints on an unshoveled 20th Street walk
I walked back to her, my anger vaporizing in trained politeness, aware that I was going to
talk to a stranger.
“Can you tell me where College Avenue is?” Her blue eyes alternately magnified behind her
nearly rimless glasses and disappeared as she moved her head while speaking and peering
up at me. “I’ve been walking all afternoon trying to find it. I live at 1680 College Avenue,”
she said in that proud way of the pre-depression era people.
Impossible, I thought. It’s so easy. Broadway, Spring, Oak, College. How could anyone not
know that? Especially in this place. But then, I remembered how the college cut through
College Avenue and where a street was supposed to be between 18th and 20th, there was
nothing but a pattern of sidewalks between buildings on campus.
“Oh! Yes. It’s a bit confusing, isn’t it? Well, you see, you just keep walking right down 20th
Street. You walk for two blocks, then you’ll see the college on your left. Just walk through
the campus–just for a block–then you’ll be on College again and 1680–well, that’s just
beyond 17th Street. You’ll see the school and the convent and you should be there.”
“Oh, thank you, darling! That helps so much!”
“You’re welcome.” And I was going to go on, having done a good deed.
But she lingered, “I got off the bus at 1:00. And I’ve been walking around ever since. I don’t
know why but it is confusing. I’ve lived here all my life. It shouldn’t be.”
I felt sorry for her, “I know. It is confusing. It’s the college. They put it right in the middle
of a street and now College Avenue doesn’t go through. But if you walk through the
campus, you’ll find it again.”
“Are you sure?” she questioned, perhaps stalling, while peering at me through her glasses,
again.
I couldn’t help but notice how beautifully blue her eyes were, “Absolutely.” I gave her one of
my most brilliant smiles.
She relaxed, “Well, I sure am going to eat when I get home. Four hours walking around
makes me hungry! I don’t know what were having for dinner tonight, but it’ll probably be
ready when I get home. My mother cooks for me.”
I wondered how old her mother must be and at their domestic arrangement. I could imagine
an ancient woman working over a stove in a warm, steamy kitchen. The thought made me
smile.
“Well, just don’t forget to turn left at the college and you’ll be home in five minutes. Go
home and eat.” It never crossed my mind that she might have to eat carp or I wouldn’t have
been so encouraging.
“That’s good. I’m hungry,” she said, again. Then, she smiled at me, said thank you, crossed
the street, and continued up 20th.
It made me feel so good having helped that old woman that I decided to go home. I had not
seen my mom since before school and I wanted to tell her about that old lady. I would just
eat fries again at dinner and Saturday morning with cartoons and sweetened cereal was close
by. As I trudged up the street toward home again, I thought about that old lady and a
prickling in the back of my mind that I could have done more began. She certainly was
confused, something I found remarkable since the Germans who planned our town laid it
out in a no-nonsense way with the numbered streets running north and south and the
named streets running east and west. It just didn’t seem possible to me to be that confused
about it. Maybe it had been a trick and she had been in collusion with child molesters who
were waiting down the street for me. Maybe they would have jumped out and grabbed me
had I accompanied her. After all, she was a stranger.
When I walked in the kitchen, Dad was frying up more carp and Mom was sitting in a
kitchen chair, looking tired and ill. She brightened when she saw me and teased about the
carp rebellion.
I told her about the old woman, then I said, “You know, I should have just taken her home. I
wish I knew if she made it alright.”
I secretly wondered if she would be mad about my talking to a stranger. To my surprise, her
frown indicated something else, “Maybe she didn’t live there at all. Maybe she was lost from
a nursing home or something and that’s why she was confused.”
“But she said she lived at 1680 College. She was really clear about it. Besides, how could she
be lost from a nursing home?”
“Those old people get senile and they forget where they live, sometimes. They sneak out of
the nursing home, thinking they are going home, but they haven’t lived there in years.”
“Maybe I should go down there and see if she made it home okay.”
Mom shocked me, “Yeah. That’s a good idea.”
My heart raced. I pulled on my coat again and ran back out the door. Hands still cold, toes
still pinched. I retraced my steps in the dusk, the sun having disappeared completely. I
would walk her route and look for her along the way. I felt that I had lost something or
someone precious to me. I felt I had failed. Panic hurried me along.
Down Spring Street, up 20th Street, there’s the college, through the maze of sidewalks all
drawing toward College Avenue on the other side. Past the school and church, to the
convent. Remember what Dad said about which side of the street has even numbers and
which side of the street has odd. No, it’s not here. Here’s the convent, built in 1880. There’s
the vacant lot. Across the street. Maybe I’m mistaken--no, odd numbers over here. Back
across, onto the porch of the convent to stare straight at the address: 1670. There is the
vacant lot.
Going back home, retracing my steps to Oak Street, I knew it was useless. I hated Lent with
all its death. I hated the hopelessness. My eyes watered with more than March.
Contributor's Notes...
A teacher of composition at the Community College of Indiana, Theresa Schmits leads a rich life of
writing, running her small business, and reading. Finishing her M.A. in English from the University of
Illinois at Springfield this summer, she plans to write more often and play with her twin daughters in her
time previously occupied with school work.
