DOING IT IN THE ROAD.(Short Story)

I spent part of every summer until I was ten with my grandmother, who lived in a working-class suburb of Boston. The neighbors were devoutly Catholic, and they occasionally took me to Mass at their parish church up the hill. On sultry August afternoons in that era before vernacular prayers and air-conditioning, my friends and I used the sanctuary as a place to cool off and to play the confession game. One girl would tell her sins and the others would invent her chastisement. We were fond of the word "flagellation." Peggy, who was pale and fat, entertained the fantasy of scourging herself for a mystic bridegroom. I considered converting, so as to be eligible for sainthood. ...