It was just past eight in the morning when they got to the Presbyterian church. It was the sixth church they’d been to that morning, driving around and relying on Spencer’s memory of churches he’d seen around town during his nighttime wanderings.
Sal shook his head, disappointed. “I told you, it has to be Catholic.”
“I grew up Methodist.” Spencer turned out of the parking lot. “I always thought a church was a church.”
Sal shook his head again. “Fucking Methodists.”
Spencer was still uneasy after his vision in the grove. Even after breakfast at an all-night diner and a joint they’d shared as they watched the sun come up over a manmade lake at a city park, Spencer felt as if his frontal lobe had been scrubbed with a piece of rusty steel wool. He could feel his brain misfiring—neurochemicals depleted, receptors overloaded and blown out. He felt as if he could pull on a little corner of what they called “reality” between his fingers and yank it away, like a magician pulling the cloth from a table, revealing the howling void that awaited them all.
Sal finally used his phone and found a Catholic church just off campus, near Spencer’s apartment. As they drove there, Spencer glanced over at Sal. “I thought you didn’t believe in all that anymore.”
Sal laughed. “Shit, it doesn’t matter what I believe. I was born Catholic. That means I’m Catholic until I die.”
Ten minutes later—about half past eight—Spencer caught sight of the steeple and stained glass. They drove slowly past the church, watching congregants stream down the sidewalk and up the steps. Spencer felt a sense of foreboding. He hadn’t been to church since his grandmother’s funeral. “Do you really want to do this?”
Sal responded by digging another joint out of his box of Marlboro Reds, lighting it up, and taking a pull. He exhaled and handed it to Spencer, who took a drag then turned down a side street a few blocks away from the church. Spencer parked, and then they passed the joint back and forth as Spencer nervously watched the clock in his car move toward morning mass and listened to the last song on his playlist, Townes Van Zandt’s “Delta Momma Blues.”
At 8:45, they heard church bells ringing above the sound of the car stereo. Sal wordlessly left the car, stubbed out the remainder of his joint on the curb, and put it in back in his cigarette packet. Spencer watched Sal walk away for a moment, then hurried after him, sniffing at the collar of his sweatshirt and hoping that the overpowering odor of marijuana and cigarette smoke wouldn’t be noticeable inside the church.
Spencer caught up with Sal. The church now loomed before them, and he began to feel a violent terror that he was barely able to keep under control. He realized with a certain sense of horror that in his current state—lost in life, brain fucked up on various chemicals—he might be converted by the priest’s words.
About halfway up the steps to the church’s double doors, his fear and the absurdity of what they were about to do became too much for Spencer to contain. He stopped and began giggling, then broke into hysterical, uncontrollable laughter. He laughed until he doubled over on the steps, clutching the handrail and wiping tears out of his eyes with the soiled cuff of his sweatshirt.
Spencer was dimly aware of congregants trying to avert their eyes when he felt a jolt of pain as Sal’s strong hand clamped onto his shoulder. Then Sal put his mouth next to Spencer’s ear and hoarsely whispered, with barely controlled fury, “This is a fucking place of worship, man. Get your shit together.”
The pain of Sal’s grip and the anger in his voice sobered Spencer up. His laughter trailed off and he gave his eyes one more wipe with his sleeve. Then the two of them walked together up to the arched double doors of the church, each of which bore an ornate metal door handle shaped like Christ’s crown of thorns. Sal opened one of the doors and stepped into the church, holding the door behind him for Spencer. Spencer hesitated for second, and then followed his friend through the vestibule.
Spencer felt a feeling of vertigo as he they entered the nave. The ceiling loomed perhaps thirty feet above them, and glass windows—vivid and backlit by the bright morning sun—towered above. Then he looked forward and saw a long aisle, flanked by even rows of burnished wood pews, stretching forward toward the dais. And dominating all of it, in the center of the back wall, was the Christ figure. It had to be fifteen feet tall, mounted on a massive gilt-edged cross. As he took it all in, a snatch of verse came to Spencer’s mind, unbidden: fearful symmetry. Spencer looked up at Christ’s face, but from this distance, he couldn’t discern His expression. Spencer continued to study His countenance as he followed Sal into the backmost pew, and wondered if He was looking down at them with reproach, sadness, or perhaps compassion at their wretched state.
Spencer heard organ music begin, and out of habit looked over at Sal, hoping to exchange a sardonic smirk. But when he turned his head, he saw Sal singing from an open hymnal. Spencer watched Sal in wonderment; he’d heard Sal scream along with heavy metal bands—Slayer or Deicide—but had never heard him sing like this. His voice was beautiful and pure, and his face looked strangely young as he looked down at the hymnal.
As the white-robed priest ascended the dais, Spencer watched as the congregants—perhaps forty or fifty in all—began to cross themselves. He was reminded of a recurring dream he’d had, in which he was on stage in front of a packed theater without any lines or stage directions. The priest began his homily and Spencer tried to pay attention. But his mind kept returning to the void he’d seen, the ravenous maw of oblivion.
“Vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!” The priest’s booming voice broke Spencer’s reverie and he looked up with a start, filled with a sudden terror that perhaps the priest, along with the rest of the parishioners at morning mass, would be staring at him. To his relief, the priest continued with his sermon. But Spencer felt rebuked, and tried to focus on the priest’s words for the rest of the service.
During the priest’s liturgy, Sal leaned in close to Spencer. He whispered, “Communion’s going to start in a little bit. Have you taken communion before?”
“Years ago.”
Sal demonstrated for Spencer how to hold his hands out, and how to cross himself. “At the end just make sure to bow and say amen.”
Spencer recalled some ancient piece of trivia. “I thought you weren’t supposed to take Catholic communion if you weren’t Catholic.”
Sal gave a dismissive little wave of his hand, then whispered, “Fuck that.”
The ritual began, and Sal and Spencer left their pew and took their place at the end of the line of congregants. As he waited, Spencer again considered the long stretch of the aisle and the rows of wooden pews, all converging on the statue of Jesus. But Spencer no longer felt the awe that the sight had first inspired. He noticed that the tiling under his feet was dull, cracked, and scuffed. The varnish on the backs of the pews had been stripped away in places by the hands of an endless succession of parishioners. As the line moved forward and he approached the priest, Spencer noticed he was old and hobbled. As he got closer, Spencer looked down and saw that under the priest’s majestic white robes he wore orthopedic shoes with thick, clunky soles.
Sal’s turn finally came, and Spencer watched, trying to memorize his movements. Sal approached the priest, head bowed, then crossed himself and took the wafer. After performing the ritual, Sal headed back to their seats in the rear of the church, leaving Spencer alone before the priest.
As Spencer stepped forward with his hands cupped to receive the communion wafer, he looked past the priest and up at Christ’s face again—staring up toward the heavens, His face wooden and unchanging. Spencer looked back down and felt acutely aware of his reeking sweatshirt. But all he could smell was the treacly smell of cheap wine coming from the chalice. His mind flashed back to the bottle of Robitussin he’d taken the night before.
The priest dropped the communion wafer into Spencer’s hands and said, “The body of Christ.” Spencer looked at him blankly for a moment, all of Sal’s instructions forgotten. Then the priest, one eyebrow arched and the faintest hint of a mocking smile on his face, made a downward nodding gesture with his chin. Spencer was transfixed by a shaving nick on the priest’s chin until the priest continued.
“The blood of Christ.” Spencer dipped his wafer into the silver chalice, put the wafer into his mouth, and hastily retreated from the dais.
He chewed the wafer as he made his way back to his seat, avoiding the eyes of the other congregants. As he sat down, he could feel the remnants of the wafer sticking to his molars. The congregation began to say the Lord’s Prayer, and he used the nail of his index finger to dislodge the remnants of the sticky cracker from his teeth.
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