Coral Nelson crawled through the cloying mud. Come hell or high water, she was going to get to rehearsal. There was no way Janet Morse was going to beat her out for that solo in the Easter cantata, not after Mercy Fairweather had upstaged her at Christmas. Seething with resentment, she dragged herself upright in the rain, and shambled toward the street.
Elmore Benton III grimaced as he pulled clots of dirt from his hair. Really. People respected his flawless judgment. If they ever saw him in such disarray, they’d begin to question his opinions and he couldn’t abide that. For instance, Coral was standing in the street, unable to cross. She didn’t know why, but he knew why. Running water. The storm drain was choked with leaves. He picked up a stick and approached the drain. Two sharp thrusts and the water tumbled harmlessly away. This was what the world depended upon him for. Judgment. Firm action.
Elmore gestured with the stick for Carol to precede him across the street – noblesse oblige – to the stone walls of the church, where others were filtering in by ones and twos. It should be a splendid rehearsal, in spite of the fallow youth of the choir director. Of course, the director would be late again. Elmore shook his head in disgust. He couldn’t abide tardiness.
* * *
An old man sat in the shelter of a stone doorway, taking a swig from the bottle cradled between his forearms, watching the rain and the figures passing into the church. They’d be singing again tonight, he knew. He shook his head. He had been fresh from the conservatory, eager to take up the ministry of music in his first parish, Soli Gloria Dei, but from the first rehearsal, he had known something was very wrong. For one thing, it was clear that God was the last thing on his singers’ minds. Oh, everyone mouthed the right words with the correct phrasing, but their hearts seethed with resentments and grudges, striving for position, the right to stand in judgment.
And he had done nothing. He’d lacked the courage even to challenge the authority of their traditions, singing the same anthems each season, year after year, in fierce competition for solos, following in lock-step with the two year cycle of the lectionary. If he’d spoken up, he might have let a little light in. “But it makes sense,” they had said. “This way, every year, our performance of each piece gets more perfect. Perfection. That’s what matters.” No, instead, he found excuses to delay his arrival so he could stride in and get them singing, silencing all the stabbing little polite phrases that continually poisoned the air among them.
With a mirthless laugh, he stared across the street at the graveyard. They’d had no idea how powerful the force of willful, determined habit could be. He wouldn’t be there tonight, but they’d start singing anyway. Elmore would see to that. Elmore saw to everything. They’d gather in their tattered robes, open the mildewed folders, and sing, as they always did. And he’d be here to listen. Listening was his penance for taking a posting in a Christless church and then doing nothing about it for fear of failing, of being sent away. It wasn’t a matter of faith anymore. He had long since abandoned grace. Now there was only regret.
He took another swallow, staring up at the blackened beams and the empty stone shell, roofless and open to the sky. He’d been late again that night, fifty years ago, and the fire had started in his absence. He had tried first to battle the flames, to work his way down to the basement. He’d dragged Janet up the steps as far as he could, but in the superheated air, her robe went up like a match head. He trembled. In his dreams, he still saw her screaming face. He took another swig and the tremor stopped.
In the end, he hadn’t saved anyone, not even himself. He stared down at the stumps where his hands once were. The firemen had dragged him out, the only survivor, but the fire had taken his hands and his voice. It hadn’t taken his faith; he had relinquished that himself. Without hands, he couldn’t hold both his faith and the oblivion-giving bottle.
An electronic steeple clock chimed the hour at the wooden church down the street, some place that had sprung up, not Baptist, not Methodist, not Episcopal or Congregational, not even Pentecostal. He drained the bottle, as soot-stained voices began singing, with rigid precision but without feeling, the joyful songs of resurrection. He dropped the empty bottle, which shattered on the stone steps. Tears staining his cheeks, he crushed his stumps against his ears and commenced to scream.
Copyright © 2015 by Ralph A. Mack
