la Bochalema Norte de Santander

When the man in the hat was a boy he wore knee-highs with short socks and a woolen cap with forest earflaps. His mamma, making sure he was tightly dressed, feared he might catch his death from a cold or get run over by one of the many bread trucks that ripped up and down the streets at breakneck speeds. Long before the day when the sky fell for the first time, he played leaner’s up against the wall of the Church of the Perpetual Sinner, a molly-faced priest chastising him for being a little devil. ‘…you, my son, are the devil’s breed, and boys like you never amount to anything…’ said the molly-faced priest, the skin around his eyes tightening, ‘…scat…!’ He ran until his chest hurt, until he felt like his lungs would explode; he ran like the devil’s son, his woolen cap pulled down over his face.

The guardians of la Bochalema Norte de Santander wear short pants with knee-high socks. La Bochalema Norte de Santander is kept under lock and key in the sanctuary closet next to the altar, where no one save the young boys and the cantor’s assistant have access to the priest’s vestments. Lela’s great-great granddad, an elder of the Church of the Perpetual Sinner, started out as the priest’s dresser, costuming father Jacob in robes and liturgical shawl every Sunday at 9 am sharp. On Friday mornings at half-past nine the Mercury Fish truck delivers 27½ pounds of whitefish to the back gate of the church, the vicarage cook collecting the boxes from the back sled of the truck.