Kevin, one of your altar boys, has been pricking his fingers and dripping his own blood into the wine you drink to represent the blood of Christ during mass. Confront the boy and ask him if he has any questions.
“I assume it’s a compulsion,” say to the boy. “I assume you can’t help yourself.”
The boy will nod. “I felt jealous. Like my own blood was being rejected. I felt like if any blood was going to be drunk during mass, I needed it to be mine. Not Jesus’s.”
Relate to him by telling the story about how when you were a teenage altar boy you started shaving chunks of fat from your thighs, baking them into wafers and mixing them in with the communion for people to eat.
“Did you ever get caught?”
Nod. Tell him you felt shamed to the core, and that you don’t want to make your altar boy feel the same.
“But I can’t let you continue to trick me and my parishioners into drinking your blood.”
Kevin will ask, “But what am I supposed to do? I have all this glorious mead flowing through my veins. I need it inside somebody!”
Ask him, “Do you have a girlfriend?”
The boy will say yes, and you’ll coach him on the proper way to ask a partner if she might be into blood-play without scaring her off. Don’t tell him to quickly laugh it off as if he was joking when it seems she might be disturbed by his question. He needs to take this seriously, and he needs those who matter to him to take it seriously as well, or it’ll just get more out of control.
“What if she says no,” he’ll ask. “Am I just supposed to open up a Kool Aid stand on my street corner and surreptitiously drip my blood into the pitchers?”
Tell him yes. “I don’t care what happens at a Kool Aid stand. When people buy from a Kool Aid stand they know they’re taking a risk. People come to my mass, they expect Jesus’s blood. Not some awkward pubescent punk’s doesn’t know when and how to express his sexual identity. Keep it out of my mass.”
The lights will go down and the movie will be about to start (you and your altar boy are seeing “Blue Valentine”) so hush up and let your guidance sink in. He’ll be the better for it.
Happy Blood Of Kevin Day!
