the inmate’s journal : the assembly iii

while the women defined the moral circumference of that wanton and indefinable community according to their vague proclivities, the men preached and collected the money and squandered it and sat on corrupt incestuous committees and made decisions that everybody ignored.  the men were the makeup on the body of christ.  christ was the women.

 

the women.  spiritual center, tethering everyone to that chaotic unified centripetal force with their bodies’ numinous gravity.  bodies that crawled and leapt.  bodies that sang the world’s happy suffering in cadences of jagged desire.  bodies smooth.  bodies rough.  bodies gargantuan and fallen.  frontispieces to a contraband kama sutra.  contortions of splendor.  sending out ripples of the law in a smirk and a knee made visible.  and jesus, always jesus, ever jesus and forever, sent his tongue under the skirts of their minds and licked until they screamed with crucifixion’s flames.  holy copulation, gentle god.

 

the men, meanwhile, bounced between spirit and flesh like lunatic tennis balls in some cosmic wimbledon.  the women were players, judges, audience.  the men knew they were men because they were bouncing and flying and being hit, and bouncing and flying and being hit are what men are born to do.

 

praise the tennis game, its rules, its players.

praise the balls in their coarse pandemonium.

praise the judges in their vain pronouncements.

praise the spectators, for who would we be if not watched.

 

i entered the assembly for the reason almost any adolescent passes the portals of a church.  lust.  a profoundly nubile girl who sat in front of me in geography class, breasts like prize lemon tarts, nipples like riviera cherry pits, areolae like chocolate seas, buttocks dreamt by the hesperides on lazy evenings, played the organ for hour upon sabbath hour upon bacchic hour, as if she were born with keys for nails; bless her for all time.  tearing myself away from the staid liturgies of my upbringing, from my tidy weekly 70 minutes of organized god, i sucked my pride and exhaled hunger, arriving at 10:50am one moist may sunday, with the pre-service already flaming, stoked with souls.

 

they met above jake’s, a purveyor of cheap smokes and whiskeys.  in one building - everything you needed to escape.  the fire of the groin, the fire of the weed, the fire of the grain, the fire of the soul.  though, rightly, god had the upper room.  you ascended to it on a broad brown carpeted staircase that smelled of bulk deodorant and no-name hairspray, exposed to the street through floor-to-ceiling glass, the members tumbling up and down like some derelict royalty from the anteroom of hell.  that first time i was conspicuous as a refugee from the guild of the deceived, one whose ignorance permitted him to arrive after 10:20, when my otherworldly organist snuggled behind the bank of keys and became the conduit for the hymns of heaven.  i thus was alone on the staircase that first time, viewed from the sidewalk by those waiting for jake’s to open, competitors in the methods of fire; viewed from above by sister gooch, who saw and knew all things.  a little metaphysical sandwich in god’s dubious café.

 

a small foyer contained a few souls migrating between the higher functions of the pre-service and the lower functions of urine; it was separated from the sanctuary by one-way glass, whereby sister gooch and those in the senior hierarchies of love could view all ingress without being seen themselves.  some mystical panopticon.  i had the sentiment of an invisible omniscience as i approached the doors that invited me to enter like an aunt who specialized in freshly baked muffins.

 

standing at this threshold of the sacred and profane, i wondered whether lust was worth the step forward.  before me, rev. weal sat on righteous coals behind the pulpit; between, the beautiful hordes of god; the large rectangular room wainscoted to the mid-point with brown paneling; fluorescents on the 8 foot ceiling formed a descending haze that seemed to envelope the heads of the taller members.  and so it did.

 

sister gooch was upon me, having sized my soul and found it wanting.  no turning back, no turning back.

 

you might be new?

 

i might.

 

we are so blessed to have you worship with us this fine lord’s day.

 

yes.

 

might you know one of the sisters or brothers here who can be praised for bringing a new sheep into the fold?

 

i hesitated, trying to see if there was a way to refer to the body of the organist in a way that seemed wholly spiritual.  no.

 

you have come entirely by your lonesome then.  you are one of god’s brave children.  i can see his vigor in you and your heart full of longing, like a deer who panteth for the water.

 

that sounded about right.  where should i sit?  the people were standing, swaying, like some windy wheat field in purgatory’s pastures; it was hard to tell where there might be a vacancy.

 

brother larderly.  she summoned a tall stooped vulpine human of indeterminate age and sexuality.  show this young man of god …  what might be your name? … judas … what a beautiful name, so biblical … to a seat, by sister and brother freeman if you will.  they will be very friendly.  let’s talk.  and she squeezed my waist with a zeal that was not entirely maternal.