Verge

Benny still goes to church every so often, for the show. Sit. Stand. Eat Jesus. Pray. The continuous cycle intrigues him, almost to the point of a way-too-uncomfortable arousal. Watch closely as Benny shifts his right leg awkwardly over his left during the benediction.

He’s been dating Delia. She’s black. Benny’s not, and it garners stares from central Caucasia (main export: khaki). Delia pretends not to care, but she secretly does. It makes her like going to church with Benny every so often. People there intend to stare, but at least pretend they don’t. The 900-year-old woman who sits in the front pew every week even though it takes her an epoch to get there often just focuses in on Delia’s long, laced-up boots. The woman smiles assuredly and limps away, “good to see you again” resonating in the nave.

This week, see Delia stay home to cook Sunday brunch for Benny’s parents. Benny should stay home and help, but Delia understands the way unreligious champions of religious zealotry get when their obsession is threatened. So she lets Benny go to St. Milo’s on his own.

Benny dresses ludicrously, with a newsboy cap, a plaid scarf, and a trench wool jacket. He wears a button-down red shirt and a Peanuts tie underneath. Delia ruffles his 30-year-old head of disheveled black hair on his way out the door. He eyes an uncorked bottle of red Bordeaux lying on the kitchen counter waiting for a pasta lunch and quickly returns for a sip, one final taste before it becomes the blood of the dead for a while.

He walks into church and bumps into Thom. Thom is a greeter. He likes to pretend he knows Benny and shakes his hand and asks how the kids are. Benny revels in this odd assurance of anonymity and plays along.

“How’s little Donnie?” asks Thom.

“He’s doing good. Straight As again this year. Teacher says his bowel movements are nearly regulated,” replies Benny.

“Good, good,” says Thom, emanating a horribly perforated version of him caring. “And Sarah?”

“Eh, not as good,” says Benny. “Pregnant again. We’re thinking abortion this time. Make up for just abandoning the last one at the mall...”

“That’s too bad,” says Thom, trying to move past Benny to greet the Hendersons and their bratty little demon child. As Thom greets them, Benny looks back, adjusts the crotch of his pants, and grabs a bulletin from Mr. Collins.

This week’s theme: love.

Taking his usual seat eight rows up on the right near the window, Benny sprawls out and begins his ritualistic scan of the congregation. A slight mathematical savant, Benny counts the members, guesses on each age, and determines an average. This week, it’s a little low at 42.

A young, chubby Latina girl takes a seat on the same pew as Benny, but with the usual sacramental assurance that they are both sitting at completely opposite ends. She catches Benny staring and scanning and counting delicately with his precise lips. She giggles a bit and begins filling out a visitor information card.

Benny’s scan eventually brings him around to the young woman. He spots her filling out the card, glances at the clock (still got fifteen minutes or so), and takes a miniscule scoot in her general direction. “First time?”

The woman looks up. “Yeah,” she says, nodding shyly. “Well, to this church, I mean. Not to church-church, you know?”

“Not exactly cryptic,” says Benny, draping his arms over the back edges of the pew as if he should be holding a cigarette. “What brings you by?”

“Home for the holidays,” she says, finishing up the information card and setting it on the end of the pew, not far from a softly lit candle.

Benny nods and resumes scanning. A few new arrivals have trickled in, including 900-year-old front row woman. Now that she’s started down the center aisle, she should be right on time for the postlude.

Next, Benny does the formality of thoroughly examining the bulletin for any discrepancies from last week’s issue (besides the former topic being “compassion” instead). There are none and Benny’s mouth cribs upwards.

The Latina woman has been stealing glimpses of him the whole time. “What are you so excited about?”

“Word on the street says Martha’s having a potluck.”

And the two continue chatting lightly and quietly up until the priest comes out in his magnificent robe and dazzles his way to the pulpit. He lifts a hand to silence the crowd and begins conducting them in a forceful rendition of the Agnes Dei.

Benny’s favorite part is when they sing. All in unison, except the one guy who’s really loud, really powerful, and really a couple beats ahead. They sing from the heart, all together as if to scream aloud a secret that they can’t admit to in the real world. On rare occasions, a set of arms will go up, reaching for the sky, as if a light will suddenly open up from the edges of the black ceiling fan and Christ will descend with hugs for everyone. This week, Benny is not stoned and the idea connotes something more ironic.

Benny’s thoughts as the service progresses (in retrospective order):
      1) I wonder what Delia’s making.
      2) I wonder what this woman next to me is really doing here. No Latino families live anywhere near here—she must be as new to the area as the crumbling Perkins on Fifth.
      3) Few experiences are better than sledding.
      4) ‘Giv’n’ is totally a cop out, especially when you’re just using it to find a rhyme for ‘heav’n’.
      5) Now I’m hungry. I hope they have the honey wheat Jesus today.

And Benny’s pew rises to get the Eucharist. Benny steps aside so the Latina woman can make her way through to the side aisle. But she isn’t moving. She just stares forward, as if hoping she’ll suddenly blend in with the wooden finish and disappear forever. Benny sighs, steps towards her, and reaches out his hand.

After a few seconds, she acknowledges the gesture. She stands up on her own and walks past Benny into the side aisle. Benny quickly stuffs his hand in his pocket and moves back out into the aisle behind her.

The walk to the altar is long and challenging. Take note as Benny nearly trips on a bunched up section of crimson carpet. He catches his spill on a thin metal pole that’s raising a candled offering. The queue halts at the fake golden edge of the matted stream shortly after.

The woman nods to the usher as he directs her up to the long cushions overlooked by a crucifix, a Mary statue, and a stained glass window of Jesus with his arms out. Waiting for those hugs.

The woman tilts uncomfortably in front of the pew. With a smirk, Benny quickly makes eye contact and kneels on the cushioning. The woman giggles a bit at her own absurdity and kneels beside him. She watches him the rest of the ceremony, mimicking every move he makes. She cups her hand as what she suspects might be a Necco wafer is placed in it and then taciturnly sips wine from a chalice, trying to pretend she’s unshaken by the obvious germ potential.

Benny grows more concerned with watching the woman’s exactness and her unique yet commonplace reactions to engage in his usual observance along the cushion as he watches the chalice go down the palate like dominos. There’s an indistinguishable vitality to the way she exists—an unbounded hesitancy marked by ephemeral assurance. Consider how Benny thinks it’s religious.

He peeks over his shoulder momentarily to see the clock hanging on the back wall, drudging forward to Delia. To the things he loves when he’s not being ridiculous.

The woman rises and is herded away from the altar, Benny soon in tow. They proceed past a robed altar boy and down the central pew. Benny nods at a couple of the usuals, missing a few that he probably would recognize if he were looking at the backs of their heads. The sea’s not the same when it’s not flushed with Supercuts and mullets.

As Benny sits back in his pew, he once again begins watching the woman absolutely. She stares forward, facing the altar. Without turning to Benny, she whispers, “Sometimes I feel like her.”

“A virgin?” Benny responds, the two never knowing that she was indicating Mary and Benny was considering the 900-year-old woman.

“An emblem,” the woman says, probably wanting ‘icon’.

Benny rubs the front portion of his leg and catches the zeal in her face. He smiles at the Hispanic woman and watches the array of icons herding past the altar to dine on the Son of God.

No uncomfortable arousal this time as the benediction commences, followed by the stagnant organ music playing the actors off stage. The Latina woman instantly disappears into the crowd, a blur that will never be featured at church picnics next to the three-legged manna race.

Benny drags himself out, ignores Thom and the priest, ignores the way the light droops in an ironic and menacing way over the bell tower (he usually laughs at it and then flicks it off as he drives away), and ignores his parents’ car in the driveway. He walks in through the front door, sneaks up behind Delia at the kitchen counter, and suggests they buy a black ceiling fan.