After the Wake

A church janitor familiarizes himself with the new state-of-play. The local reverend returns home to ministrate last rites. From the world of "Coupling Seam".

“Farewell, Taylor. Though your body will decay, your spirit lingers on in Roosevelt High School where your son will soon earn his diploma, and in Teawood Park Apartments where your father finds life and purpose renewed. It lingers on in the lives you touched during your days of youthful activism, and even in the hard walls and cold bars where you collected yourself and forged a wonderful new path.”

Grady Stories is wearing his uniform: a faded grape-color T-shirt and his old Dickies work pants. He doesn’t feel self-conscious for not being dressed up like everyone else. He sits a few pews from the back in the Catholic Church of St. Rita, watching the Reverend Al Trujbel finish officiating. He isn’t doing too bad a job. Not too trite, maybe a little too personal. Al doesn’t look so hot, though. The dark skin around his eyes, the flatness of his hair.

This is the first time Grady has seen Al since he disappeared. The Father strolled up from behind the choir risers and assumed his normal position at the altar. Grady did a pretty good job not overreacting. Nobody else seemed to notice the ghost of the priest returning.

The place is filled with candles. Only a few lights in the foyer and the hallway leading to the bathrooms were left on. Every shadow is stretched, long and muddled from the candlelights, and the church is pretty well-packed. Admirers, Grady surmises, many of them. People who saw the news, the magical stained-glass wings. People who think she was a hero. And there, at the far end of the first pew on the left side of the aisle, is the angriest kid Grady has ever seen. Fists clenched, knees bouncing, tears spilling. Jack Reyleigh is gonna have a hard go at it. An old man–Taylor’s father–sits in a wheelchair at the end of the pew. His skin is gray. His breathing is labored. His ball cap is in his lap, along with a white blanket. No, it’s not a blanket. It’s a server apron.

Grady stands and makes his leisurely way, keeping his eyes on the fleeing Father Trujbel all the while. He follows the Father at a good distance, into the passageway behind the gigantic organ pipes, down the church office hallways, and into the dark kitchen. By this point, Grady has noticed that he is being followed as well. He hangs a right into the combination garage/custodian’s closet, flips on his radio, and sits in his old folding chair. Dire Straits is playing on 94.9. Sultans of Swing.

Grady can’t see Al anymore, but he can hear his pursuer. He flips on the standing lamp; the shade is patterned with pastel violets. Through the door into the darkness, he sees it passing by. A glance under the brim of its navy Dodgers cap. No eyebrows, milky white almost scaly skin. A perfectly white, toothy grin. Grady forces himself to return the smile as their eyes meet for a moment. Grady knew a narcoleptic guy with albinism who drove trailers cross-country. After the accident, they put a hyper-exposed portrait of the poor son-of-a-bitch in the paper. That’s more or less what the monster looks like.

Grady waits some minutes; smokes through the back half of a Newport he left in his ashtray trying to suppress the horror of it. Then, he ambles back to the chapel. He stows loose bibles, collects prayer request cards, pushes cushions back into their upright positions behind the pews. He keeps careful, precise track of his agenda. It doesn’t make him feel better, but he needs to stay moving. The mortician needed help with the casket, and Grady volunteered. He’ll do that next.

Grady stops, scoffs, and crosses his arms. Some of the candles in the chapel are half their initial height, the wax melting down the ancient wood and stone. It’s a mess, and it has been a mess. There have been a lot of funerals lately.

There will be at least two more.