By Mick Martin

My parents introduced my brother and I to religion later than most.

I was baptized into the Catholic Church, I think, at 9 or 10. It was around the time that kids' faces started showing up on milk cartons, and since then my mother confessed something kind of morbid. Religion was never particularly important to her or my father, but with what she thought was the increased threat that my brother or I might be kidnapped, raped, and left headless in a field somewhere, she thought it was important we were on good terms with the Great Beyond.

We were given our choice of religions, but what the hell did I know about religion? I knew there was Christianity and Judaism (and I didn't even know the word “Judaism;” if pressed I likely wouldn't have been able to come up with anything more than “being Jewish”). And I had no idea there were other Christian religions beyond Catholicism. All I really cared about was that Christmas seemed way better than Hanukkah.

For a while, my parents brought my brother and I to St. Theresa's in Albany, New York every Sunday. I was an altar boy and usually my brother and I did service together. I loved all the robes. They made me feel special; rich. We had rope belts and they made me think of colored belts people got when they learned martial arts. I remember holding the gold disc under chins when people got communion. I never understood why, given the choice of taking the wafer in their hands or on their tongues, so many would choose their tongues. That just seemed gross. My most enduring memory is serving mass with my brother and letting out a big yawn that turned, involuntarily, into a belch. My brother and I giggled, but afterward I wondered if I had imagined it. No one else reacted. Nothing but lowered heads and horrible silence.

After Church we would go for bagels. We walked down New Scotland Ave. past my grade school, PS #19, and past some two-family houses to a block of small businesses. The exterior of Bagel Baron wasn't particularly appealing. The outer walls were a deep brown and from the outside the interior always looked dark. Without the sign stenciled in the front window, you might think it was a bar. My favorite part of the sign was the picture of a plane – the old kind, the kind Snoopy flew in his dreams – doing loop-de-loops through the hole of a giant bagel.

Next to Bagel Baron was a gift shop and they had a spinner rack of comics. Usually, either before my family went into Bagel Baron or while they were eating, I was allowed to go to the gift shop to grab a few issues.

I remember the dark, fat thumbs of the guy who used to serve us at Bagel Baron. He was a bigger guy, loud, and not thin. He always wore striped, collared shirts, not quite long enough to keep his belly in. His hair was shiny, black, and always looked like the youngest thing about him. When he asked me what I wanted I was always scared. There was no “Good afternoon” or “Welcome to Bagel Baron, may I take your order?” It was a bark. It was a demand. “Whaddaya want?”