The Parable of the Girl and the TV

My dad had God; I had Nickelodeon. That was how each of us came to

understand the world, respectively. My dad turned to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph for

guidance, structuring his every move in adherence to the ten commandments. I sought

the counsel of Doug, Porkchop, and Patty Mayonnaise, and picked up anti-authoritative

strategies from Punky Brewster. As expected, our opinions on life often clashed.

My parents were strict and highly protective, so TV was the only way I could find

out what was really going on in the world. We lived in a suburban neighborhood in
North Carolina, where the biggest commotion was the sound of lawnmowers in the

morning, and the greatest threat was a weasel in your garden. My parents gave me plenty

of toys, they gave me ice cream after dinner; they did everything they could to make me

happy, but it was the television that let me run free. I had viewing restrictions of course;

I learned how to "sneak watch" certain programs, keeping one finger permanently on the

flashback button as I amused myself with The Grind, The Simpsons, and Beverly Hills

90210. It was a whole new playing field with violence, rap music and kissing with

tongue. When my dad came into the room, I simply flipped back to Looney Tunes.

My sole greatest longing was for a house with a staircase because every family on

TV had one. The Huxtables. The Tanners. The Pickles. Everyone. I figured it would

make life more fun because life on the television seemed better than my own. We

eventually did move into a two-story house, but in the interim, I’d build pretend stairs out

of chairs, stools and boxes, and make believe I had to go up and down them in order to

get to my bedroom. I don’t know why I thought this would improve my quality of life,

but I was certain it would.

My dad had grown up in poverty. He was from Donora, a tiny town outside of

Pittsburgh, which was a dismal scene. When the steel industry collapsed in the '70s, the

mills closed and everyone lost their jobs. Pittsburgh was rebuilt, but the towns sprinkled

around it, like Donora—the veins of the city—they never saw the light of day. A dark

cloud of smog lingered permanently in the sky, leaving a similarly sullen sentiment in the

people. The towns were isolated from each other by three rivers, and most people knew

nothing beyond the cracked gravel streets that passed by their front porches. All the

houses were cramped together and it was mostly a bunch of bitter European immigrants
smoking cigarettes, and battling a wide array of addictions since they didn’t have shit to

do.

Growing up with no money and no luxuries, my dad referred to the Bible as his

guide. God seemed to fill the void in peoples’ lives like that. I often heard the

missionary people on TV say they were bringing “good news to the poor.” They were

probably telling them about heaven and how great it was going to be. That was the good

news I always heard. People wanted to know that something better was waiting for them.

They wanted to believe whatever misery, whatever hell they were living in right now, it

all would be worth it for what would come later. That’s sort of what I told myself about

the staircase.

When I was in third grade, my parents took me out of the private Catholic school

I was attending because of a raise in tuition, and moved me to the real world: public

school. I was ecstatic. No more praying before snacks and recess. No more church on

days other than Sunday. I was released to a place where kids taught each other cuss

words on the playground, and pick-pocketed lunch money in hall lines. Freedom.

Since I wasn’t getting a proper Catholic upbringing in school, however, my dad

insisted on teaching me the Bible, himself.

“And it’s going to be a whole lot harder than those religion classes you were

taking, so you’d better pay attention,” he stressed.

My dad worked out of our home from an office that doubled as my parents’

bedroom, which was tiny and cramped. “Class” took place on Wednesday nights for an

hour. I dragged my white, mini-rocking chair and Barbie notebook into his

bedroom/office for lecture. We went over the sermon from last week's mass, then move
to the textbook , which he'd stolen from the Sunday school room at church to use as a

model for his own curriculum.

In the corner of the bedroom, at an old dining room table he'd turned into a desk,

we carried forth with our study. My dad sat with a clipboard and I sat beside him, trying

desperately to overhear the TV in the other room. My mother was always watching Law

& Order, and I wasn’t really into it but anything was more interesting than scriptures.

“Can you believe Jesus brought Lazarus back from the dead?” My dad asked,

enthusiastically. Every part of the Bible was amazing to him, even the glossary. He’d

heard all the stories dozens of times, yet still was blown away.

“No,” I responded, unamused. I didn’t know who Lazarus was, and didn’t really

care if he was dead.

"Yep. Lazarus had been dead for three whole days and Jesus came and brought

him back to life,” my dad explained.

“Why?” I asked. If heaven was as spectacular as everyone made it out to be,

Lazarus should have been having a great time and not wanted to come back.

“Because Lazarus’ entire family prayed to God to save him, and God answered

their prayers, as He does for everyone who believes. Jesus just lifted up His right hand,

said a word to our heavenly Father, and then Lazarus walked out of the grave still

covered in bandages.”

“Like a mummy?” I asked, half-spooked, half-intrigued.

My dad stared at me for a moment, his head slightly shaking with irritation, then

began flipping to the next chapter in his book.

My dad felt the Sunday school book we were using as our textbook was a little
elementary for what we were trying to achieve. The book would condense the stories of

Noah, Moses, and Jesus into brief, child-like tales with art activities to accompany them

as learning tools. These looked great to me, but not to my dad.

“Those are silly, Court,” he'd say, when I asked if we could do the "Journey Out

Of Egypt" connect the dots, or the Noah's Ark pop-up art that came in the textbook. “We

don’t have time for games.”

Games were for kids, and I, apparently, was on the fast track to the convent. He

started combining the textbook study with analyses of various passages from the Bible to

further my learning experience.

“Who were Ahab and Jezebel,” he asked.

“Witches?”

“Well, they were wicked rulers, not exactly witches.”

“Oh.”

“And what did they do?”

“….”

I didn’t have a clue. There were too many people in the Old Testament with

similar names and they were all doing terrible things. If he wanted to know who the

rapist was on tonight’s episode of Law & Order however, I'd narrowed it down to two

suspects, and was just waiting on a few autopsy reports before I could provide an answer.

“What did they do?” He repeated.

“I forget.”

“What do you mean ‘you forget’?

“I just forget.”
 “Don’t forget.”

A sweat broke down my back. My dad stared at me intently, but it wasn’t there.

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Ahab and Jezebel were wicked leaders who spread cult worship of the pagan god

Baal all over Israel, and tortured their people," he sighed. "Jezebel’s servants ended up

throwing her out of the bedroom window onto the street below, and her body was eaten

by dogs.”

I began to envision the horrific scene. I used the wicked stepmother from Snow

White as Jezebel, and Gaston from Beauty and the Beast as Ahab. I chose Doberman

pinchers with spiked metal collars as the dogs. Jezebel fell screaming in terror from a

tower made of stone like the one in Rapunzel, and everyone in the village watched while

the Dobermans raced up and began pulling her to shreds. They cheered and toasted

glasses of apple juice. When the dogs moved on, the people hung her skull on the tip of a

broomstick and paraded around Israel.

“Really!?” I said, finally. This was getting more interesting. My dad said I

needed to start paying better attention or my television privileges would be revoked.

That shook me up a little, but I didn’t really believe him. He didn’t have the nerve.

The worst part of my dad’s lessons was that every Sunday afternoon, when most

families were at the park or having brunch, I had to take a test. The test was hand-written

on a couple pieces of paper ripped from his yellow legal pad. It usually consisted of a

few multiple-choice questions, a few true/false, and a ton of fill-in-the-blanks; they were

all very tricky. For example:

Which was not a plague against the Pharaoh in Egypt:

 a. Locusts b. Frogs

c. Boils d. Diabetes

And,

True or False: The three wise men gave Jesus presents because they were

hoping He would give them free passes into heaven.

One question I remember as being particularly difficult was the following:

Before Mary Magdelene gave her life to Jesus, she was a __________.

In hindsight, the answer was so obvious, but, at the time, I commonly mixed up

names and faces.

“A virgin,” I wrote, and, as it was the last question on the test, handed it over my

dad for grading. He'd been sitting right beside me the entire time, monitoring me as if

there were other students around for me to steal answers from.

“A virgin?!” He replied.

“Isn’t that right, Daddy?”

“Absolutely not, far from it. Haven’t you been listening at all?”

“Yes.”

“Well then what’s the correct answer?”

“I dunno.”

“Think.”

We sat in silence. He must have expected me to have some divine revelation, but

that didn’t occur. After a few minutes, he snapped again.

“Well…what was she?”

“I dunno.”
 “Why not?”

“Are you sure she wasn’t a virgin?”

“I’m positive. Actually, she was the opposite of a virgin.”

I didn’t even know what a virgin was.

“Was she a teacher?” I guessed.

“No.”

“An actress?”

“No; why don’t you think about it before you just say whatever comes to your

mind.”

I thought about it, I really did, but nothing reasonable came to me. I looked at my

feet.

“I’ll give you a clue,” my dad said. “Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a virgin.”

I knew Jesus’ mother was good; she was the best person in the entire Bible except

for Jesus. Mary Magdelene must be the worst thing in the entire bible then.

“I know!” I exclaimed. “The devil!”

“What?” He said with frustration.

“That’s wrong?”

“A prostitute! She was a prostitute! Haven’t you learned anything?”

Evidently not.

“What’s a prostitute?” I asked.

“It's a woman who sells her body. You should know that by now.”

How could someone sell their body? I imagined a market place with rows of

wood stands containing fruits and vegetables, and an array of dry goods. There was one
stand with a bunch of people, all sitting on the tops of barrels, with price tags hanging

around their necks.

He went on grading and, as it turned out, I’d missed a lot more.

When the prodigal son returned home after running away, what did his

father do?

a. Gave him a spanking for disobeying him.

b. Sent him to his room for a month.

c. Threw him a big party.

d. Made him do extra work in the field.

Answer: D

Babies are born with their dad and mom’s sins.

How did Judas reveal his betrayal of Jesus?

a. He kissed Jesus

b. He hugged Jesus

c. He punched Jesus in the stomach

d. He threw stones at Jesus’ head

Answer: D

After enduring the agony of watching my dad cross out answer after answer after

answer, shaking his head in disgust each time, the test finally came to a closure.

“No TV for a week,” he said, handing it back to me furiously.

“WHAT!?” I yelled, standing up from my rocking chair in protest. It was May

Sweeps.

“You heard me. You can spend that time studying.”

 I started to cry. “But that’s not fair! Give me another chance! Please! I promise,

I’ll do so much better! I promise.”

“I know you will because you’ll have lots of time to study.”

Bawling, I stomped out of his bedroom/office, past the living room where my

mother was watching football and my baby brother was building a giant tower of blocks,

and into my bedroom, slamming the door behind me. I sat on my bed and continued to

cry for several minutes before deciding to pray to God for a new dad, or, if that wasn’t

possible, to do cruel things to mine.

“He’s so mean,” I said to God, down on my knees. “He makes my life

miserable!”

After my devout plea, I felt better. If nothing else, at least God was aware of what

was going on down here. He would have no other choice but to punish my dad

accordingly.

I wondered what He might do though, and considered Jezebel's avengement. A

few minutes passed and I started to worry. I didn’t want my dad to die, of course. God

seemed to have a pretty bad temper. If there was anything I’d learned from my dad’s

religion classes, it’s that you typically got what you prayed for, and every malicious deed

resulted in extreme retribution.

I got back down on my knees again, and decided to reverse my prayer. After all, I

could just have my mother tape my favorite TV shows or watch them on rerun. Anything

would be better than finding my dad’s bloody head in the kitchen garbage can the next

morning.

“Dear God,” I said, “Please ignore my last prayer. I changed my mind.

Hopefully, it’s not too late. Thank you. Can you also please show reruns next week?

Amen.”

I felt better. I thought maybe God was on my side now. I noticed a lot of times

my prayers were answered—most of the time in fact—so I was a believer, too. I decided

someone had to be up there listening or it wouldn’t make sense. Maybe it was God or a

holy messenger. I used to think there was an operator up in Heaven who took down all

incoming prayers and only passed along those of highest importance. When I would pray

for things like an Easy Bake Oven for Christmas or shiny, black tap shoes, my requests

would go further down in the queue, after other prayers like needing a new heart or

assistance out of poverty. I swear though, my prayers still got answered. I received most

everything I asked for. I started wondering if the hungry people didn’t know they should

pray to God for food; or if they did, had the operator screwed up their messages?

Everyone in my dad's family was extremely religious. They were a bunch of

temperamental Spanish and Italian folks who lived on little means and stressed the

importance of prayer and going to church. They insisted God made everything better, yet

to me their lives were so bleak. I wanted to ask them what exactly they prayed for

because my mom’s family down in Florida had much nicer homes and more money, and

they weren't nearly as devout. They skipped church all the time. My dad told me to pray

for forgiveness though, and for good health. Pray to go heaven, he’d say. Heaven would

be a hundred times better than life on Earth. I did do this, but I also prayed for Barbie

dolls to make Earth more enjoyable. From the Bible, it seemed like life was not supposed

to be great, that we had to wait until Heaven to find such bliss. But I thought God would

want me to have a good time with the life He gave me.

 After the failed test incident, I started studying a lot more, as I was terrified of

how my dad might use God to take away my beloved TV. Nevertheless, when I finally

got my staircase, it didn't end up being as spectacular as I thought, especially since

lugging a book bag up it every day after school was a real bitch. It never made me as

happy as Stephanie or Rudy. It didn't change anything in my life for the better. I'd been

fooled, it seemed. Bamboozled. But I still kept watching. And I still kept praying.