By Jamey Brown
In this town even going to church can be pierced with the nails of the Culture of Death. I am sure you have all had similar experiences. On All Saints Day I take the day off from cab driving to attend Mass, but I also make the decision to really make it a holy day and to attend my first Extraordinary Form Mass. I get off the F-train across the street from Macy’s and Victoria’s Secret.
Normally I would never give it a second thought but this time of year they are gearing up for Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. My eyes flash on Victoria’s Secret Store across the street. It dawns on me a few Sundays later that this is the very store where a 17-year old mother of two was arrested October 17th for shoplifting a pair of skinny jeans. One of her two children, a dead newborn was found in her bag. Officials are awaiting autopsy reports to see if she will be charged with murder. I would think about this in the weeks to come, but today I am trying to find a new church.
I make my way past hundreds of people on the sidewalk. It is easy to tell the tourists from the natives. The New Yorkers usually have that 1000-yard stare, that dead look in the eye that sees, but does not see. The tourists have that wonder still in their eyes, open. That’s why I like picking up the tourists in my cab. They are not so jaded. They still like to talk.
Most people today on the sidewalk are wearing blue jeans and sneakers, but some have green hair or orange hair or purple hair. Some have tattoos and nose piercings or lip piercings or eyebrow piercings. Some look bizarre with spiked hair or Mohican haircuts. And then it dawns on me that I am the freak here: the only one in suit and tie and carrying a red Adoremus Hymnal. So be it.
I walk up Broadway to 37th Street. I look both ways down the street searching, but I don’t see a church. Then I make out a white cross but that can’t be it. It looks like one of those old Protestant crosses that are in front of their small and sometimes storefront churches. In desperation I walk closer and make out the words in red: Holy Innocents Catholic Church.
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