dad said "You'll find out when you're fourteen"...

Sunderson must have been about ten and was burning up with fever from strep throat and still had to go to Sunday morning Lutheran service.  His mother had her antennae out for malefactors and only Berenice who had broken her leg tobogganing had recently succeeded in avoiding church.  It was dreadfully boring and that particular week they had a visiting pastor from Escanaba who was far too loud to allow Sunderson to drift off into a doze.  He was thinking of the sausage an pancakes that he would have at home after the service and the likelihood of going ice fishing with Dad in the afternoon.  The pastor's resounding basso boomed out the Seven Deadly Sins:  Pride, Greed, Envy, Lechery, Gluttony, Anger, and Laziness.  On the way home in their old Plymouth with the bumpers and fenders rattling with rust he asked loudly what "lechery" meant and his dad said, "You'll find out when your fourteen," a typical answer wherein all life was an unearthed hostage to the future.  He had a clue because the high school girls referred to the male gym teacher as a "lech" and there must be some connection.  When they got home he checked with the dictionary and found out that lechery meant unrestrained sexual desire.  He couldn't totally leave it alone and at breakfast asked if the sins were deadly how soon would you die?  What if you just forgot and committed one, did you deserve to die?  The doctor's son had the best bicycle in town and you would die if you wanted it.  At his age this was less abstract that sexual desire.  When you looked up the teacher's legs under her dress in fourth grade could you drop dead?  Could just looking be lechery?

-Jim Harrison, The Big Seven