Father Jared

One of my old fraternity buddies is now a Cath.ol.ic pri.est. No, it was not a service fraternity. In fact, while Father Jared was a member, they got kicked off campus, then disbanded totally by both the university and the national fraternity headquarters, or whatever you want to call it. I'm still trying to wrap my brain around it, and I think the seminar.ry and all the shit they have to go through afterwards takes a minimum of six years.

The first time I heard he was taking this particular life path, I was at an outdoor, town-wide music festival. A group of us were gathered outside the beer tent, and someone made a joke about his new vocational path. I was confused, because he was never a particularly caring, or tactful person. In fact, he had a big mouth and told everyone any privileged information he heard. I was pondering these personality traits and how ill suited they are for a supposed leader and confidante. Of course, the little boy and gay jokes were made. I tried to keep it civil, and just mentioned that I supposed he'd finally given up on women. My natural follow up to that was, "I guess that means he's still a virgin, huh?"

Everyone stopped and stared at me. One guy said, "You know he's not." I thought about it a bit, trying to remember a possible suspect. I couldn't come up with one that should be obvious to me, so I asked who. They told me it was me.

Now, I've been drunk. I've been blacked out and woken up naked in strange places, (and occasionally not so strange places) and assumed how my memory hole was filled. *ahem* Not once had this guy ever been in a position where I'd even question myself. I remember him trying, by using a "come tuck me in" trick that had eventually worked for one of his pledge brothers. I also remember turning my head so he slobbered all over my cheek as I stood in his dorm hallway (three doors away from where I went in with someone else) and then went home.

I remembered being his date to numerous fraternity functions when he couldn't convince anyone else to go with him. I remember both of us leaving with other people, and no hard feelings. I still did not remember de-virginizing Jared. I said so. No one quite believed me, because apparently he told them all I had during his freshman year. The other guys had been mentioning it, apparently out of my earshot, for the rest of their college days. Except it never happened.

They asked why I thought they called him Papa Jared. I shrugged and said it was because he was nice to my daughter and made sure no one said anything remotely off color near her, and tried to teach her how to play pool. I guess they thought I was smarter than I am, because no one believed that truth. Eventually, I pointed out that I got a huge kick out of de-virginizing guys, and I surely would have remembered if I had, and most likely would have brought it up in conversation repeatedly. The truth of this statement hit them, and they begrudgingly let the topic die. I'm not sure how many of the guys still think I slept with him, but ...

All those years I put up with his crap because I felt bad for him not fitting in, even amongst the misfits, and he was just perpetuating a lie. I got ragged on all the time, and it didn't bother me. Most people were just kidding, or thought it was fun to see how much I'd take before my claws came out, and I'd start ripping new assholes. It was always different with Jared though. I never felt like he was doing it to include me, but rather, to include himself. His "jokes" had a sharp edge that made even his fraternity brothers pause. Then he'd hug me, or pat my back and make sure to tell everyone he was just kidding and that they all loved me. Too bad he missed out on the fact that the same was obvious until he went too far. I always let it go because I could tell he was just trying to be impressive, or fit in, or something foreign to me that I could almost put my finger on, but not quite.

Anyway, this is a very long winded way of saying that I find it horribly ironic (for lack of a better word) that a man who has taken a vow to never have a family feels he can control the rights of other people's family making decisions. I'm having a very hard time letting his youthful bad decisions stay in the past when I have the opportunity to feel like I'm showing his par.ishioners how little he knows about life, and leadership and compassion, and how listening to him is just foolish. I know it is worthless though. I know the faithful will ignore or excuse the same things about him that I myself have ignored and excused. I know I will look petty and vindictive against a man with bad character who is now seen as a pillar of his society. I guess I can take comfort in the fact that everyone outside of his church knows he's still an asshole. ;)