The path to the church was worn and muddy.
There had been severe rainfalls the past days, sheets of dirty water seemingly unloaded from the sewers of heaven, but most probably regurgitated by the clouds above the steady toiling and boiling great river.
Father Williams, dressed in his priestly attire including wet white collar and long black raincoat muttered un-Christian curses under his breath as he made his way toward St.Peter's, the local house of God, the center of his dwindling parish.
Under the protruding roof of the run-down building made of white-painted boards and pillars with a joke of a cross on top, he stopped and grabbed something from his bag which without he couldn't do this job today. A small brown glass pipe with a substance he had obtained from an illustre character he would rather forget. Shaking his head in disbelief he sighed, lighted the foul drugging device and inhaled deeply, coughing while exhaling smoke into the fizzling September rain. When it hit him, he almost stumbled but immediately felt a blissful sensation running through his brain and veins and suddenly the world and this forsaken day felt good again.
Adjusting himself, he enters the church. "Good morning my brothers and sisters, the mass will begin soon." he smiles into the benches. After reaching the room behind the altar, he discards the coat, dries himself with a towel, does not look in the mirror and welcomes the altar boy. Which is no one less than Hank Lester Jenkins III, local white trash of 64 years who's parents had had great ambitions. Hank is stooped, slightly deaf and blind and takes an excruciating long time to get into his robes. Then, the pair steps outside to serve the children of the Lord.
Between dizzy and delighted, Father Williams begins the ceremony and says prayers of welcome and thankfulness. Hank moves towards the steps in front of him and kneels down, bones creaking, in his red and white gown. Throughout the ceremony he ever so slowly gets the wine and oblatas, rings the little bell and listens intently to every word of the Father, sometimes polishing his little glasses with the copper wire frame. Meanwhile Father Williams feels his chosen poison leaving his body and plays the church organ via tape-recorder only to leave the holy stage for another hit of "heavenly bliss". The organ pounds away judgementally as Hank Lester Jenkins III sways away to the works of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Returning to the area of action, Wiliams, infused anew with "the holy spirit" commences communion and steps forward, oblatas in a wooden bowl, ready to deal out the Body of Christ, an illustre character himself now with sunken eyes, shaky hands and sweat running down his face, ever-trusty Hank at his side. And even the drug cannot disguise the fact, that as for so many days, no-one has come to Saint Peter's house of God. The service has been held before entirely empty benches and the memories of believers past since two years ago.
When she had spoken out. About his advances. Heather, the wife of the priest of the other church in town, Innocence of Christ. She had made a fool out of him, that beautiful thing and they had all wandered off to the other man. The man God, the churchgoers and Heather seemingly preferred, loved more and looked upon with heartfelt respect and care. Why she had come on to him in the beginning he would always fail to understand. Had it been a scheme or true interest? Her red hair and blue eyes had enticed him from the first moment on and he had committed the sin of wanting another man's wife, of which he should have been warned by his many bible studies. Now, he was alone. A junkie in a forgotten ruin, a captain without a crew, a sinner without much hope.
Father Williams sighed heavily, rubbed his eyes, threw the wooden bowl into the far corner of the dusty hall, bellowing words which should not be bellowed on hallowed ground and moved towards the room behind the altar to grab his coat and call it a day. Until he turned and looked into the teary eyes of Hank Lester Jenkins III, glasses misty in his old hands, mouth trembling with fear and utter sadness. "Father, I do not understand. Did I make a mistake? I really practiced all week and shined the silver. People might be coming." Mouth agape, Williams stares at him in disbelief and a sudden deep feeling of empathy, until a new type of shame mixes with the drug in his brain and veins, a burning shame though, good shame, boiling and toiling like the dirty old river, righteous shame.
He looks at the pipe in his hand and crushes it beneath his leather sole, curiously watched by Hank to whom he says: "Brother, you are so right as rain. The Lord and Saint Peter be with us, we shall summon the people with our devotion and hard work. This is our life, this is our job. And with you at my side, we shall succeed and bring joy again! No more groveling in front of the Devil!" Hank grins insecurely about this sudden change of manner, but the Father always had been a strange young fella.
Although withdrawal and relapses should occur the following weeks and months, the unlikely pair found their peace again in their doings, and soon the churchgoers and a red-haired lady took notice and some passers-by wondered just what had happened that made those two maniacs smile and serve through every rainy day. And there were many more to come, and, me, who was the only unseen witness and churchgoer on my road trip that day-
I still blame the ole wise dame Mississippi.
Comentarios