It looked like a castle, round and comprised of blood-red brick and black stone, but this was a church. Dr. Mince's The Church of the Sacred Martyr. Cacti and other desert indigenous plants sprawled along the grounds as if desperate and in search for water or something to quench their desires.

I sat quiet in the passenger seat of the station wagon with my hands clenched and wooden between my legs. I thought of my first communion. My father was gone and I was seven. My mother, complaining all the way, insisted I have my first communion even though we had not been church-goers for months and I had not been to one religion class. But when mother read in the church flyer that the ceremony was the following Sunday she called the Father and insisted I be allowed to take part. So I had to go see Sister Margarita on Friday afternoon to learn in an hour what the rest of the seven year old Catholics had learned in six months.

Sister Margarita stood impatiently over me as I tried to echo her attempts at singing. Her demeanor scared me. She was gaunt and harsh like a hyena. I felt like she could pick me up and eat me at anytime.

Sunday came and I knew no one, I didn't know where to stand, what to say, or when to say it. And the other seven years olds had not quite developed their empathetic skills. It was the reality of nightmares-- forgetting to put on your clothes before going out the front door.

"Greg, Greg!" the voice called. I seemed to have been spacing out a lot lately around Dr. Mince.

"Yeah?" I looked around and we were parked. It was time to go in.

It was hot and my feet dug their way through the loose stone parking lot, kicked up dirt and coloring the air. Two oversized metal doors, tightly closed, protected the house of God. He opened the door.

A priest stood at the pulpit and about ten parishioners filled the first two rows. It didn't seem like a mass but some sort of meeting. Dr. Mince pulled on my shirt and indicated for me to follow him. We went up the aisle and snuck in the third row. He genuflected in prayer; I did not.

The priest was old, stern, and cataracts diseased his eyes. I wondered how much he could actually see.

One of the parishioners was speaking-- a woman, middle-aged-- wearing green polyester pants and a matching shirt. She announced "I think no sexuality at all should be talked about. Their minds should stay on God. This is where they will find strength for abstinence." There was no inflection at all in her speech.

I leaned over to Dr. Mince, "You've got to be kidding?

"You're not so far from this, " he whispered. "Just give it a chance. At least a new baptism. That would be a sure sign of your commitment to yourself, and that's all we ask of you-- to support yourself!"

His words came together well and I stayed. I felt he did care about me, about my happiness, or why else would he do all this? I nodded.

"You should do it before the wedding."

I nodded some more and the green women continued talking about not talking about sex.