Losing My Religion
Being Chapter 4 in the tale “The Only Way Was East.”
“So… did that make you uncomfortable?”
“No, I was just fucking hungry. And oh my god, he wouldn’t stop talking! Plus, the way he kept asking us if we ‘wanted to see what they do in the tower’ was just creepy.”
Calluna sat across from me in the lounge as she said this. A blue halo of American Spirit smoke floated around her. The azure hume came from her own cigarette, the one she had given me, the pipe from the shadow-chief who had come alive on the box, and everyone else in the sala. It caught the spotlights pointed at the empty stage. It swam across the crowded room of friends crammed into rickety tables. They were all laughing in Spanish. Drinking their drinks, smoking their smokes, and contributing to the form of the ghost of the naked cerulean lady dancing above them.
“OK, you know what?” She said. “Yes. Actually, I was a little uncomfortable. I’m not trying to become another number in the looooong list of women of color killed by a white man.” She said this without anger. Smiling wisely and taking a long drag before blowing out another sky-colored swirl into the room.
“Well damn. I guess I wasn’t thinking about that kind of thing.”
“I have to think about that kind of thing all the time,” she said, still smiling. “Everywhere I go. All women do. ‘Why is he looking at me? Did he put something in my drink? Is he trying rape and/or kill me?’ ” And she took another drag. She looked like a spy the way she let the stogie dangle from her fingers and sputtle out its sapphire exhaust.
“Well shit,” I said, struggling to gulp down another sip of my beer and feeling drunk before it even hit the back of my throat. “Then I’m glad you asked to leave when you did. I probably would have gotten us into some kind of situation. Regardless of his intention… You know how I can be.” Maybe my guilt was showing. There was something I wasn’t telling her. About what I saw in that castle. And what I took when no one was looking.
“OK, Look. Old-Man-Jerry was probably harmless,” She said, “but still — oh hold on a second. Con permiso, dos cervezas más por favor,” She said, holding out two fingers and a big smile.
Our waiter, who was running by, nodded and sprinted off. He was one of an army of clones. All of them in tight white shirts and ties that turned turquoise in the light. All of them with haircuts that looked like black rubber moulds of DJ Pauly D. All of them sprinting with more urgency than I had on even the day I lost my virginity. All of them absolutely beautiful male specimens.
The band took the stage and the crowded room began to cheer. After one four-count from the drummer, guitars were clanging and toms were banging. The singer closed his eyes. He was a hefty man, but still very handsome, with long black hair and a leather jacket. He took a deep breath, and with a full and raspy voice he began to sing:
“Das mi in de corner.
Das mi in de espot. Light.
Lo-sing my religion…”
That made me smile. I was so buzzed from the one beer that I began to giggle.
“Calluna!” I yelled to the side, “How fucking hilarious is it that the Mexican-Vanilla, Atheist-Catholic who got his religion from the same culture he was here exploring would go to Mexico and the first live song he would hear would not only be one in English, but Losing My Religion!?” I said amidst burps and hiccups. “I mean, the power of the mind to create patterns and coincidences. It’s absolutely astounding, isn’t it??”
She didn’t answer. She was looking up at the band, smiling and bobbing her head along to the beat. “What?” She said, seeing that I was looking at her.
“Nothing!” I yelled back over the loud drums. “The bassist is my favorite!”
“What do you mean?” She yelled back. I could barely hear her.
“His fingers must be ten inches long!” I said, already going horse. “And look at the way he uses them to-” But I couldn’t finish my sentence. I saw something in the mirror behind the band that made me stop dead. Standing at the back of the bar, not 20 feet behind me, was that same priest from earlier in the day. The boy was with him, too. Patiently staring.
He was naked except for a tunic wrapped around his waist and the leather strap keeping the straight hair out of his face. The heavy hand of the priest lay on his shoulder. The boy was covered in bruises. A few scars from the whip were on his chest, but I could only imagine that his back was scored with them. From the reflection, I could see that he was looking at me, but without emotion or interest. Apathy and emptiness were in his eyes.
I couldn’t see the face of the priest. It was blocked by the large sun hat he was wearing, even though it was hours past sundown. He must have been very pale because what I could see of his face (which wasn’t very much) was the same color of seafoam as the white shirts on the waiters.
Both his hat and brown robe were made out of an ancient and scratchy material. A material made to be uncomfortable. Made to tear him away from the pleasures of the flesh. He wore a large crucifix of gold that glinted in the barlights, weighing his neck down and causing him to slump. And although I could not see his face, I could tell that he was grinning.
When I looked at them, the centers of my palms and feet began to burn, and the sad green excuse for a flame that floats above my head shrunk even more.
Who is that man?, I thought. I know him. I know that I know him!
“Oh my god,” said Calluna “Look! I didn’t know they let priests in here.” and she pointed behind us.
“So you see him too!” I said, spinning around in excitement to see where she was pointing. A man and his friends were taking tequila shots at the bar for a bachelor party. They were all dressed as nuns and the groom was dressed like a Halloween caricature of a bishop.
“Of course I see him,” Calluna Said. “What do you mean?
I nervously huffed away at the cancer stick as the band continued to play. I tried to drown my anxiety out in the waves of sound and music being shot at us. I tried to force myself against all curiosity not to turn around and look. Just ignore them…just fucking ignore them.
But the stolen object from the castle weighed heavy in my pocket. I felt their eyes on the back of my neck. I had the sense that they knew what I had done, and were there to judge me for that and other sins.
Even though I was not a believer, I still felt like a sinner with a priest in the room. I still felt dirty and guilty and worthless. I thought about how undesirable I must be to everyone I meet. I thought about what a sinner I had been in my life. And goddamnit my hands and feet kept itching. I thought about how I must be destroying my lungs the way I aggressively puffed that cigarette, being unaccustomed to them as I was. Sucking in the cobalt smoke so fast I got an instant headrush.
The waiter came by and shook me from my stupor to say something in Spanish. But I was quite buzzed by that point and the music was blaring. Try as I might, I could not understand him. We went back and forth for a while until he threw his handsome hands up in frustration and walked away. Oh great, I thought. Another failure. Mexican-Vanilla boy can’t even speak Spanish when it really counts. And I heard the voice in my head, but it didn’t sound like me, not fully. Familiar, but not me.
I sipped at the new beer he brought for me, burping every few seconds, thinking this is awful, why am I doing this to myself. Not so much because drinking was a sin, but for the simple fact that I hated the taste of beer.
The waiter came back with the bill and slammed it on the table before sprinting away again.
“Oh great, that’s perfect timing. Let's go find somewhere we can dance!” She threw down a few pesos, stood up, and chugged her beer in one gulp. “I got this round, you get the next one OK?”
As we walked out of the bar she opened up her pack of American Spirits, snuffing out the pipe of the smoking chief on the cover. She pulled one out and lit it. She pulled another one out and pointed it at me.
“Do you want one?”
I looked back at the far end of the bar. The Priest and the boy were not there, and it seemed as if they never had been.
“Yes please,” I said. “I’ll take two.”
