the chapter on baptisms (religion 101)

“you’re lucky, i saved you from being baptized a catholic,” my mother would intone whenever i brought up any of the big questions (heaven, hell, sex.)  she would then recount how i was born in a catholic hospital (würzburg, germany) & how the priest would come to visit the newborns & automatically sprinkle them with holy water & POUF (pun intended) just like that you’d be a catholic forever & ever.  which by implication was an error one would never be able to reverse.  the ‘lucky’ part was that she was there the day the priest came through (i had been adopted before i was born) & was able to decline his offer of eternal life in the bosom of god, the virgin, her son & the holy ghost.

i don’t believe my mother was against catholicism (she voted for kennedy) but that she was against baptism of any kind.  this notion of being an anabaptist didn’t resurface again until the summer of 1968.

i spent that summer with mary in colorado springs.  at the time mary was completely immersed (the true baptism!) and in the sweaty grip of a brimstone-and-fire southern baptist preacher & his wife (shown above with an impressionable teenager.)  it came to pass (so biblical!) that i, too, should be mesmerized by their message of eternal salvation if i, robert patrick, would but take the true christ into my heart & testify, yes lord, testify to the tribe (congregation) of my sins & my desire to be delivered from them.

that’s a pretty powerful promise for a young, confused gay child.  now, i don’t mean to imply that the preacher (whose name is lost to time) was ever but proper with me, but i longed for his touch.  because, as you may have gathered, i longed for a man in my life & a strange man (not a relative) touching me, holding me, staring into my eyes, convincing me of my need to cleanse my soul through full immersion baptism would be for the betterment of mankind, was, to me, heaven.  a man was interested in me (a complete conflation of desire and repulsion, he said, sighing. )

when told of my intentions (a long distance call that to this day i regret), my mother flipped, wigged out, threw a hissy fit, cried, cajoled, yelled (at me & at mary), hung up on me, called back sobbing that this should not come to pass (my baptism.)  was it really what i wanted?  she brought up saving me from the damnation of a catholic baptism.  had i thought it through?  did i understand the implications?  the commitment?  yes, yes, yes, i had.  i was convinced that it was the one true path for me.

(back story on my time in colorado springs the summer of ’68:  all the while i was being the good, southern baptist boy-child, i was carrying around my dark, horrible secret, “i like men.”   to make some extra cash that summer i cleaned apartments in mary’s complex, one of my ‘accounts’ was an army lieutenant, single, whom i fantasized about continually, so much in fact that i masturbated in his apartment once when i was cleaning it, his scent such a powerful aphrodisiac.  all of this, of course, i could not share with anyone, who was there that was like me?  no one, i thought — i was wrong, of course, but youth’s sight is narrowly focused & not prone to paying attention to anything outside their narrow purview.)

the date of my baptism was set.  my mother drove down for the big day.  i had testified in front of the congregation the sunday before & today i would don a white robe & wade into the baptismal pool set up behind the altar, where the preacher would be waiting for me, his strong arms lifted in praise to the lord almighty.  the curtains pulled back & we were revealed to the congregants.   standing in a glass-fronted pool (the better to be witnessed) he placed one hand on my chest & the other on my back (his wet body tight against mine) & lowered me slowly backward into the water & held me underwater for minutes (o.k. probably not minutes, but it seemed forever.)

my heart was pounding (he had to feel it) & as he raised me out of the water i could hear “hallelujahs,” “amens” and wild applause from the sanctuary of the church (a mega-church, whatever.)  he pushed me from behind toward the steps out of the pool (there was another soul waiting for their turn at salvation) & i climbed the steps out of the pool (& ‘off-stage’) & into the towel-bearing arms of his assistant.

coda:  the moment i moved away to college i shed religion like a snake sheds his skin.