Geoff tried to check his watch casually, ever so casually, that's right, just stretch a little and twist the neck
and look down. There. 9:38.
A.M.
Geoff struggled not to yawn. That would be rude. But, man, he'd been sitting on the pew here since a little
after 8, butt numb after fidgeting on the hard wooden bench only 10 minutes. Why couldn't they have some
sort of cushions?
He remembered going to church with his mom when he was kid. Remembered seat cushions.
He glanced again over at Ms. Eyelashes across the aisle, three rows back. He tried to wink, but it came off as more a
twitch. She still noticed him, smiled before flinching back toward the front, back toward preacher man. The man in the black
robe, whispering, shouting, occasionally pounding the podium, the slaps of the fat of his hand on wood echoing through
the sanctuary.
The man in the black robe kept spitting and shouting about blood and sin and atonement. It took Geoff back to those
childhood visits to church, to pictures of Jesus bleeding and reaching out with punctured hands, creepy statues of the man
nailed up on some high place, on the cross.
Trying anew to focus on the preacher's message, Geoff soon found his eyes wandering around the inside of the church,
looking for familiar symbols. The room was rather plain.
He glanced around at the others sitting around. They were plain, too, staring with rapt attention toward the front. He snuck
another look back toward Ms. Eyelashes. She was the only prospect Geoff saw in the whole crowd. Maybe there were other
single women who attended here, but so far he just saw the one. Hopefully, the man sitting next to her was an uncle or
father -- instead of, well, a much older husband. Boyfriend. Father.
If she did not pan out, though, the entire experiment was probably a wash. Geoff had long put off the advice to meet girls at
church, but he had worn out the tile walking in and out of bars; drunken bouts of hey-howdy were starting to bore him. It
was hard to make a meaningful connection when the boy and the girl were too bombed out of their minds to remember any
of the small talk.
After that disaster with Linda, he decided it was time to try something new.
He thought back to the first time his mom suggested it, years ago. By that point, Geoff had reached the age where he was
trying to quietly drop out of the church scene, had better things to do with his Sunday mornings -- mainly sleeping off his
Saturday nights, followed by a late morning watching wrestling and old Tarzan movies.
"Come to church," his mom would say, a desperate crackle in her voice. "You could meet some nice girls."
"I know some girls already, Mom," he would grumble, face in the pillow. He would look up and see her in the doorway
wearing that flowered dress and hat, looking like bad kitchen drapes, holding that little black purse with bent elbows, hope
draining from her face. He got tired of the look. Learned not to look up from the pillow.
Geoff still remembered the sweet relief of snuggling back in the warm bed, blissfully ignoring the slam of the front door.
After he moved out, he hoped the weekly ritual would end. But she took up the habit of calling his apartment. He learned to
shut the phone off before he went to bed in the wee hours of a Sunday morning.
Then she died and it was no longer an issue.
Now, here, eight or ten years later, here he was sitting in a little country church, wondering whether his mom was looking
down on him and smiling. Even if he were here with shallow intentions. He liked to think she was smiling.
Geoff twisted and popped his neck, louder than intended, stole another glance back toward Ms. Eyelashes. He noticed she
was dressed rather plainly, too, like the others.
His memories of the church back home were that it was more elaborate, more ostentatious than this. He wondered how
much of the difference was reality and how much was that his fragments of memory were filtered through the perspective
of a wide-eyed child.
Of course, when he decided to try the church gambit, he deliberately chose something a little out of the way for his first try at
this. Took some doing to find this little church out in the sticks, where he didn't have to worry about running into someone
he knew. That way, if he failed to make a connection, he would not necessarily have the stink of "religion" on him.
He checked his watch, a little less casually this time. Almost 10. How much longer was this windbag going to go on?
Suddenly, there was a break in the man's rhythm. Behind him, someone had started tinkering on the piano. The people in
the front row rose from the pew, made their way toward the front, escorted by stiff men in suits.
Geoff checked the bulletin he had been issued. This part of the service was listed as "communion."
Oh. Right.
Back where he came from, they served you, silver trays of crackers or whatever and little plastic cups of juice. But this
version, where you go up front, he had seen this sort of thing on TV. It struck him as sort of Catholic, like in that Steven
Seagal movie, where you kneel by the banister surrounding the altar.
As each row finished and returned to the pews, the next group was ushered to the front. When Geoff's row was granted
their turn, he was stopped at the aisle, a man gently grabbing Geoff by the elbow and whispering. "I don't think I know you,
son."
Geoff, surprised, made eye contact. "I'm sorry?"
The man regarded him with gentle eyes. "Are you sure you're worthy?"
Geoff stammered a second, unsure how to answer. Catching site of Ms. Eyelashes looking his way, he was puffed up with
the shallow bravery that comes with fear of public humiliation. "I'm cool." He exhaled nervously, nodding a little too
vigorously. "I can do this."
Ms. Eyelashes had better be single.
Catching up with the line at the front, he found a space at the end of the half-circle banister, knelt on the carpeted step. He
was embarrassed by the crack of his knees, surprised by the hardness of the step. Maybe the cushions wouldn't have
helped the pews, either.
He waited for the pastor or priest or whatever to come up with the felt bag, heard the man mumbling some chant each time
he served someone, the same cadence each time he bent and mumbled in the ear of the congregant. One by one, each
person reached into the felt bag.
The black robed man reached Geoff. held out the bag. Geoff reached in, was surprised it wasn't crackers or bread. He
looked up and saw dead eyes as he heard the man mumble, "One blood for all." Geoff fumbled in the bag, brought his
hand out with a small, smooth object.
A marble. A marble?
The others in the row were rising up, leaving the carpeted step and banister in quiet numbers. Geoff was about to follow
suit when the preacher or priest or whatever pressed a cup toward him, "goblet" might be the word, purple liquid sloshing.
Geoff was nervous about germs but, trying to avoid another scene, politely sipped.
The man pulled back the cup, stepped back, lowered his head. Geoff rose from his perch, awkwardly, butt still numb, his
legs following suit. Black marble in one hand, he grabbed the banister with his other hand and pushed himself up,
surprised the liquid didn't taste more like grape juice. It had a weird milky taste.
As he walked past the front row, heading for his own pew, he noticed more sets of dead eyes tracking his movement. He
glanced down, saw them displaying white marbles in open palms. Weird that, Geoff thought, wondering why his marble
was different.
He only got as far as the third pew before he stumbled. He fell to his knees, a man in a suit grabbing him by the elbow and
yanking him back up. Geoff drunkenly glanced over at Ms. Eyelashes, but she stared straight ahead. She had the same
sort of dead eyes. How did he miss that before?
The room began spinning wildly. Geoff was escorted out the back door, a bonfire growing in the outer yard. Nearby, some
sort of big tree stump had a hatchet lodged in it. He wondered what the locals had planned after service. The last thing
Geoff heard before he blacked out was someone in the back murmuring, "One blood for all."
and look down. There. 9:38.
A.M.
Geoff struggled not to yawn. That would be rude. But, man, he'd been sitting on the pew here since a little
after 8, butt numb after fidgeting on the hard wooden bench only 10 minutes. Why couldn't they have some
sort of cushions?
He remembered going to church with his mom when he was kid. Remembered seat cushions.
He glanced again over at Ms. Eyelashes across the aisle, three rows back. He tried to wink, but it came off as more a
twitch. She still noticed him, smiled before flinching back toward the front, back toward preacher man. The man in the black
robe, whispering, shouting, occasionally pounding the podium, the slaps of the fat of his hand on wood echoing through
the sanctuary.
The man in the black robe kept spitting and shouting about blood and sin and atonement. It took Geoff back to those
childhood visits to church, to pictures of Jesus bleeding and reaching out with punctured hands, creepy statues of the man
nailed up on some high place, on the cross.
Trying anew to focus on the preacher's message, Geoff soon found his eyes wandering around the inside of the church,
looking for familiar symbols. The room was rather plain.
He glanced around at the others sitting around. They were plain, too, staring with rapt attention toward the front. He snuck
another look back toward Ms. Eyelashes. She was the only prospect Geoff saw in the whole crowd. Maybe there were other
single women who attended here, but so far he just saw the one. Hopefully, the man sitting next to her was an uncle or
father -- instead of, well, a much older husband. Boyfriend. Father.
If she did not pan out, though, the entire experiment was probably a wash. Geoff had long put off the advice to meet girls at
church, but he had worn out the tile walking in and out of bars; drunken bouts of hey-howdy were starting to bore him. It
was hard to make a meaningful connection when the boy and the girl were too bombed out of their minds to remember any
of the small talk.
After that disaster with Linda, he decided it was time to try something new.
He thought back to the first time his mom suggested it, years ago. By that point, Geoff had reached the age where he was
trying to quietly drop out of the church scene, had better things to do with his Sunday mornings -- mainly sleeping off his
Saturday nights, followed by a late morning watching wrestling and old Tarzan movies.
"Come to church," his mom would say, a desperate crackle in her voice. "You could meet some nice girls."
"I know some girls already, Mom," he would grumble, face in the pillow. He would look up and see her in the doorway
wearing that flowered dress and hat, looking like bad kitchen drapes, holding that little black purse with bent elbows, hope
draining from her face. He got tired of the look. Learned not to look up from the pillow.
Geoff still remembered the sweet relief of snuggling back in the warm bed, blissfully ignoring the slam of the front door.
After he moved out, he hoped the weekly ritual would end. But she took up the habit of calling his apartment. He learned to
shut the phone off before he went to bed in the wee hours of a Sunday morning.
Then she died and it was no longer an issue.
Now, here, eight or ten years later, here he was sitting in a little country church, wondering whether his mom was looking
down on him and smiling. Even if he were here with shallow intentions. He liked to think she was smiling.
Geoff twisted and popped his neck, louder than intended, stole another glance back toward Ms. Eyelashes. He noticed she
was dressed rather plainly, too, like the others.
His memories of the church back home were that it was more elaborate, more ostentatious than this. He wondered how
much of the difference was reality and how much was that his fragments of memory were filtered through the perspective
of a wide-eyed child.
Of course, when he decided to try the church gambit, he deliberately chose something a little out of the way for his first try at
this. Took some doing to find this little church out in the sticks, where he didn't have to worry about running into someone
he knew. That way, if he failed to make a connection, he would not necessarily have the stink of "religion" on him.
He checked his watch, a little less casually this time. Almost 10. How much longer was this windbag going to go on?
Suddenly, there was a break in the man's rhythm. Behind him, someone had started tinkering on the piano. The people in
the front row rose from the pew, made their way toward the front, escorted by stiff men in suits.
Geoff checked the bulletin he had been issued. This part of the service was listed as "communion."
Oh. Right.
Back where he came from, they served you, silver trays of crackers or whatever and little plastic cups of juice. But this
version, where you go up front, he had seen this sort of thing on TV. It struck him as sort of Catholic, like in that Steven
Seagal movie, where you kneel by the banister surrounding the altar.
As each row finished and returned to the pews, the next group was ushered to the front. When Geoff's row was granted
their turn, he was stopped at the aisle, a man gently grabbing Geoff by the elbow and whispering. "I don't think I know you,
son."
Geoff, surprised, made eye contact. "I'm sorry?"
The man regarded him with gentle eyes. "Are you sure you're worthy?"
Geoff stammered a second, unsure how to answer. Catching site of Ms. Eyelashes looking his way, he was puffed up with
the shallow bravery that comes with fear of public humiliation. "I'm cool." He exhaled nervously, nodding a little too
vigorously. "I can do this."
Ms. Eyelashes had better be single.
Catching up with the line at the front, he found a space at the end of the half-circle banister, knelt on the carpeted step. He
was embarrassed by the crack of his knees, surprised by the hardness of the step. Maybe the cushions wouldn't have
helped the pews, either.
He waited for the pastor or priest or whatever to come up with the felt bag, heard the man mumbling some chant each time
he served someone, the same cadence each time he bent and mumbled in the ear of the congregant. One by one, each
person reached into the felt bag.
The black robed man reached Geoff. held out the bag. Geoff reached in, was surprised it wasn't crackers or bread. He
looked up and saw dead eyes as he heard the man mumble, "One blood for all." Geoff fumbled in the bag, brought his
hand out with a small, smooth object.
A marble. A marble?
The others in the row were rising up, leaving the carpeted step and banister in quiet numbers. Geoff was about to follow
suit when the preacher or priest or whatever pressed a cup toward him, "goblet" might be the word, purple liquid sloshing.
Geoff was nervous about germs but, trying to avoid another scene, politely sipped.
The man pulled back the cup, stepped back, lowered his head. Geoff rose from his perch, awkwardly, butt still numb, his
legs following suit. Black marble in one hand, he grabbed the banister with his other hand and pushed himself up,
surprised the liquid didn't taste more like grape juice. It had a weird milky taste.
As he walked past the front row, heading for his own pew, he noticed more sets of dead eyes tracking his movement. He
glanced down, saw them displaying white marbles in open palms. Weird that, Geoff thought, wondering why his marble
was different.
He only got as far as the third pew before he stumbled. He fell to his knees, a man in a suit grabbing him by the elbow and
yanking him back up. Geoff drunkenly glanced over at Ms. Eyelashes, but she stared straight ahead. She had the same
sort of dead eyes. How did he miss that before?
The room began spinning wildly. Geoff was escorted out the back door, a bonfire growing in the outer yard. Nearby, some
sort of big tree stump had a hatchet lodged in it. He wondered what the locals had planned after service. The last thing
Geoff heard before he blacked out was someone in the back murmuring, "One blood for all."
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| "Little Country Church" |
| Originally published at INFUZE ... May 2005 |
© 2005 Chris Well
StudioWell
| ©2009 Chris and Erica Well |
STORIES and ART
