Saturday Sinning

Saturday Sinning
Most Saturday afternoons when I was a teenager meant having to make your own fun. Where I use to live there was two thirds of fuck all to do. There was a skate ramp/half pipe at the local oval but the council in their infinite wisdom soon moved that to an area that was pretty much inaccessible for people without cars. They may as well have just pulled the ramp down as none of us could get to it.
One Saturday afternoon a couple of mates that lived close by and myself decided to go and kick the footy at the park at the end of the street. We had done this many times before and used the park as a short cut to get to each other’s houses.
We were attempting to be football heroes as best we could when striding across the grass toward us came the Priest from the local church and school that back onto the park.
Now I thought Priests were supposed to be nice people. But after the waving of arms, finger pointing and crap about private property and trespassing I thought this guy was a total prick. It is not like there were any fences or signs.
So a game of cat and mouse ensued. We would walk off and he would walk in the opposite direction. Just as he almost at the church we would walk back on the grass, kick the footy, get chased off and so on.
I was pretty pissed off with this Priest and over the coming weeks we would skate through the Catholic school on our skateboards. With the money they had it was the smoothest concrete surface in the neighbourhood. It was actually more like a race than a cruisey skate. The slowest skater usually had to put up with the Fire and Brimstone lecture from the Priest while the rest of us laughed from a distance.
A friend of mine went to the school there and the Priest told his mother that he was one of the culprits. Upon hearing this, his mother grounded him. It would have been funnier if he actually did it. His mother wouldn’t believe all he did was skate past the school not through it. He wouldn’t skate through it. He was scared of the Priest.
Boredom and anger lead to thoughts of revenge.
A week later we were on our bikes circling the church and school with no apparent plot just a desire to stick it to the man. I don’t know where the idea came from but soon as I heard it I thought ‘shit yeah!"
Three of us broke away from the rest of the group and road into the school grounds. We saw our destiny before us. The side door to the church was open. I was the second through and was pumped on adrenalin and quite possibly a few swigs of Southern Comfort. We rode across the front aisle up onto the platform where the alter is. Then jumped the bikes off there and between the first row of pews and the altar. Turning down the main aisle my mate in front had to hit the brakes. This caused the gleaming red carpet to bunch up and the rest of us to slow down. The laughing and wolf howls began but stopped as quickly as they started. The Priest had come in through the other side door and he didn’t look like he was ready to "spread the good word". We took off as fast as our feet could peddle us towards the main entrance. I heard my mate close behind me yelling "Go, go, go" just as I was riding out the main door I heard him yell "Protestants one, Catholics nil!"
After a non stop power ride back to a safe house with the rest of the crew demanding to know what happened and what the rush to get out of there was. We collapsed in a puffing heap and told them of our close encounter with the Devil in God’s cloth.
We were on roll, we had to maintain the rage. Full of teen angst, bravado and more Southern Comfort we made a commando raid under the cover of darkness.
I wonder what went through the Priests mind that evening as he returned from his outing? His head lights came across the front yard as he pulled into his driveway to see three mysterious figures putting his three meter Cross in the ground…upside down!!
Thank God I am an atheist.