THE ROADS ARE EMPTY ON SUNDAYS

8 songs ● 40 minutes 

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1

Rock, Sword, Shield 

TRACK INFO ˅ 

Vacation Bible School, 2009. Car rides with my cousins, blasting CDs of worship songs I didn’t understand the words to. Flailing my limbs as I danced, a dance I didn’t know was mass-produced and shipped across the country to other summer camps. Smiling faces. A mosquito net fundraiser I emptied my bank for. The hollow sound of a ceramic pig, every last quarter excised. Cheese Whiz. 

2

Band-Aid Crosses

TRACK INFO ˅

My CCD teacher, instructing us on a one-size-fits-all method of prayer: tracing a small cross across your heart, your thigh, your palm, with your thumb. I remember looking out the car window on the ride home at a small deer my mom—assuming I didn’t know better—told me was sleeping. I remember believing that when I made that cross, someone somewhere would listen and save the innocent creatures of the world. I began to scatter tiny crosses like rose petals for friends, flattened squirrels, and the homeless.  

3

Wow, the Protestants Have Nice Bread!

TRACK INFO ˅ 

My cousin’s church serves sourdough bread. Sizeable chunks, far more sustainable than the stale crackers I was used to. A sudden change but a welcomed one. We snicker in the back rows of the pews as if the church were big enough to conceal our disrespect. When the bread passed by, I would steal three pieces. This must have been why we moved churches, I figure, as I stuff my cheeks and pockets. 

4

Donate to Father Ray’s Welcome-Home Party

TRACK INFO ˅ 

Old women pass around a donation bin during the service, which my dad pushes away before he grabs my hand and drags me to the car. I ask my mother where Father Ray had been as we drive twenty minutes in the other direction for church the next week. “Well, honey,” she begins, stone-faced, “he almost went to prison.” 

5

Mike’s Hard Lemonade on a Hot Day at the Staten Island Block Party

TRACK INFO ˅ 

I had to fake my first sip of wine, too bitter to swallow. A single sip, but so taboo among the second grade class preparing for their First Communion. We whisper amongst each other in classrooms, asking “Are you going to do it?” as if our parents, and grandparents, and aunts, and uncles wouldn’t be there to watch every step of the way. It isn’t a private matter, and hardly spiritual. Not like my father tipping me a bottle of beer—once warm, but since riddled with heat and condensation. Surrounded by the faces of my childhood, and my parents’ childhood, and my grandparents’ childhood tucked in the corner of New York City, listening to the chirping of conversation and 2010s pop from the DJ the whole block pitched in to hire. It tastes sweeter than I expected, my first real communion. 

6

Apathy

TRACK INFO ˅ 

Everyone in my third year religion class has a story about pedophiles for priests. I think when I speak this aloud for the first time, it will strike a sour, unexpected chord. I only incite an apathetic sea of nods. A palpable question in the air: “Oh, is that all?” They encourage me to go back to church. They insist, “not all priests.” At least, until the allegations slip. Then you just move to the next one.

7

The Twenty-Eighth Time I Wished Dorm Room Windows Opened 

TRACK INFO ˅ 

A ladybug is in the crevices of my curtains. I peel it off with my fingers, chapped from the cold. The windows don’t open. The power is out. I’ll have to climb ten flights to bring the creature outside, and even if I do, it will freeze. The bug will die in this room. My thumb itches at my thigh. I still have the reflex, I realize. Even if it has no power over me. 

8

Sunday, 10:00 AM 

TRACK INFO ˅ 

Empty roads all across the city. Packed parking lots under steeples on every corner. A feeling of displacement. Broken bottles of beer cast into the ocean, grinding slowly against sand. The shards will never fit again. 

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