Memoirs of an altar boy.

I will go up to the altar of God The giver of youth and happiness.--Psalm 43

I missed one Mass as an altar boy--the Tuesday dawn patrol, 6 a.m., Father Dennis Whelan presiding. He was a good-natured fellow, a cigar smoker, although he was a little young for it, that kind of guy, but he was furious when I trudged back to the sacristy after sitting through the second half of Mass in the very last pew.

Where were you?

I was late, Father.

You miss another, and you're out of the corps.

I'm very sorry, Father.

It's no joke to be all alone out there.

Yes, Father.

I knew why he was peeved; I was the key to his famous 22-minute Mass. He pulled off this miracle week after week, without ever looking at his watch. His Mass drew the faithful by the dozens, especially businessmen trying to catch the weekday 6:30 train into New York City. One time Whelan had the 6:00 on St. Patrick's Day, and we had nearly 50 people in the church--still a record for our parish, I bet.

Working with Whelan was a pleasure; he was a real artist, someone who would have made his mark in any field. He had all the tools--good hands, nimble feet, a sense of drama, a healthy ego, the unnerving itch to be loved that all great performers have.

He did not rush his movements, mumble, or edit his work. He was efficient, yes--he'd send his right hand out for the chalice as his left was carving a blessing in the air, that sort of thing--but every motion was cleanly executed and held in the air for the proper instant, and he had astounding footwork for such a slab of meat.

He was 1 or 2 inches over 6 feet tall, 250 pounds maybe, big belly sliding around in his shirt, but he was deft at the altar and could turn on a dime in the thick red carpet. He cut a memorable double pivot around the corners of the altar table on his way to his spot, and he cut that sucker as cleanly as a professional skater before a Russian judge.

My job was simple: I was the wizard's boy, and the whole essence of being a great altar boy was to be where you needed to be without seeming to get there. Great altar boys flowed to their spots, osmosed from place to place. They just appeared suddenly at the priest's elbow and then vanished like Cheshire cats.

There were other arts--quick work with the hands, proper bell ringing, a firm hand with matches and candles, the ability to project a sort of blue-collar holiness on the stage, that sort of thing--but the flowing around like a 5-foot-tall column of water was the main thing, and it was damned hard to learn.

Rookies spent their whole first year, and often two, lurching around the altar like zombies, a tick behind Father's moves, which led to, horror of horrors, an irritated Father gesturing distractedly for what he needed.

Extra gestures from the wizard were the greatest sins, and we recoiled in horror when we saw them when we were at Mass with our families and out of uniform. At such moments, when the clod at the altar forgot to ring the bells, or brought the wrong cruet, or knelt there like a stone when he should have been liquiding around the altar in a flutter of surplice sleeves, I closed my eyes in shame and in memory, for my rookie year was a litany of errors too long to list, and my graduation from rookie to veteran was a source of great pride to me.

Almost always I was at the church before Father Whelan. I would hear his steps in the courtyard and smell his cigar. He smoked villainous cigars, execrable things that smelled like peat moss and burned fitfully if at all. He was always at them, lighting, re-lighting, puffing determinedly, moaning with despair at the shoddy plug that hung like a zeppelin between his lips.

He got them from the tobacconist in the village, a seedy man with a harelip who gave the priests a break, 20 percent off, probably in exchange for future considerations.

I knew the price because I once bought a box for Whelan after Mass; he'd been caught short, and, after thrashing his pockets like a man with bees in his pants, he sat me down in the sacristy.

I need a favor, son.

Yes Father.

It's unorthodox.

Yes, Father.

I need cigars.

Cigars?

Cigars. A box of them.

Yes, Father.

You'll have to go up to the village. You have a bike.

Yes, Father.

Get a box of panatelas. Here's a fiver.

Yes, Father.

Don't smoke any.

No, Father.

Keep the change.

Yes, Father.

None of those coronas, now.

Yes, Father.

What?

I mean no, Father.

Whelan ran his Mass like clockwork, and God help the boy who was still sleepy, because the man knew our marks like they were chalked on the floor, and he expected us to be quick with the equipment of the Mass--glassware, towels, smoke. Cruets were to be filled to the neck, incense respectfully removed from the boat and properly lit in the thurible, hand towel clean and folded over the left arm. Mass book open to the right page, bells rung sharply at exactly the instant he paused for the sharp ringing of the bells.

He also liked his wine cut with water in advance, half and half. Most priests liked to mix it themselves during Mass. Some drank mostly water with only a touch of wine for color and legitimacy; some drank the wine straight, with barely a drop of water. Few priests drank a full load of wine; even the heavy hitters found cheap burgundy distasteful at dawn.

We did, too, although there were more than a few boys who drank wine in the musty stockroom, and every altar boy at some point gobbled a handful of Communion wafers to see how they tasted fresh from the box. They tasted like typing paper. After I discovered that the hosts came wholesale from a convent in New Jersey, the consecrated Host never tasted quite as savory again.

After Father Whelan was on his mark, facing the congregation from behind the altar, Mass was under way. The pieces of it snicked into place like oiled parts of an engine. Opening prayers, prayer for the intention of the day, gospel, Eucharist, serving of Eucharist along the rail, left to right and back again, cleanup and closing prayers, back to the front of the altar for the brisk procession back into the sacristy.

As Whelan ducked back under the sacristy lintel, he was a different man, and even before he was across the room you could see the steel go out of his body. At the counter, he took off his alb and hung up his rope belt on the inside of his closet door.

Then he peeled his surplice off over his head like a boy yanking off a sweater, and then he sat down on his stool and lit a cigar. By then my amice and cassock were hanging in my locker and I was sitting in one of the two chairs by the door. It was considered bad form to leave the sacristy before Father left. Some boys waited impatiently by the door, but I rather liked Whelan and enjoyed the postmortem:

Good job out there, son.

Thank you, Father.

Could do the bells a little sharper.

Yes, Father.

Then still them with your off hand.

Yes, Father.

Are we on next week?

Monday for me, Father.

Ah, that'll be Father Driscoll.

Many a time I was alone, when the Mass was all over, when the rail birds had gone from the rail, when the businessmen were walking briskly to their trains. When the audience was gone, the janitor would whip through the church slamming the kneelers back up and slipping missals and songbooks back into their racks behind each pew. Then he would bow before the altar and slip out a side door toward the school.

I would wait for the click of the side door closing and then wander out of the sacristy and sit down in a pew and think and listen and wait for something to happen. The building groaned and creaked, the candles fluttered and sizzled, bees and flies bounced off the windows. In the windows were the saints, red and blue and green and pink, their faces and bodies and fluttering hands outlined in lead. After a few minutes I would walk down the aisle, past the empty pews and kneelers and missals and Stations of the Cross, and push through the massive oak door and into the broad fat light of the new day, dazzled.

By BRIAN DOYLE, editor of Portland Magazine. This article is excerpted from an essay that first appeared in The American Scholar. [c] Brian Doyle.