July's Creation

Our writing group's July assignment was to take this story's start and finish it. My contribution follows the text. The only other thing you need to know, because I reference him in my version, is that Bob Applegate, our group's creator, wrote the first part. So here goes. (Whoops, one other thing. After I cut and pasted, the blog decided to print my version with its own ideas of paragraph breaks and such. I edited and fixed it, but when I asked it to "publish" it put every thing back where it was the first time. It still reads okay though.)

The church bell began to toll on Sunday morning at no exact time. You could tell it was a real bell, not some recording or carillon, as it squeaked from obvious lack of lubrication with each pull of the rope. The clapper hit the side of the old bell exactly ten times, the strength of the pull on the rope waning towards the last three peels of the bell. The second tolling was very nearly half an hour later.
School kids, not in their daily school uniforms, and large ladies in homemade dresses and hats lumbered slowly up the slight hill to the one room pioneers chapel, the oldest church in the valley. Men, already sweating in pressed long sleeve white shirts with too tight collars, hurried to the open doors where they were waved in by the smiling pastor.
Kids chased and laughed in the churchyard until the stern looks and crisp one word barks of mothers called them into the already sweltering block building.
The first church had been of wood but regrettably burned and was replaced on the original foundation by the block structure that had stood up to the tropical weather for the last 30 or so years. Cars were parked helter skelter on the sparse grass of the churchyard. The old horse trough had been pushed off into the tall weeds years ago to accommodate the cars as they replaced horses.
A tall, very blond, very white man, dressed in a white guayabera shirt, stood in the weeds just past the trough slowly smoking a cigarette. His head was cocked back and to one side slightly, he did not smile. One woman briefly cast a suspicious eye on him as she herded her kids thru the church doors. He returned her gaze and did not change his expression.
The General’s car arrived after everyone was in the block church, everyone except the tall stranger in the weeds who stood unnoticed to the driver and guard who emerged from the car first. The General then wrestled his supremely rotund self from the back seat, stood and pulled at his clothes in a vain attempt to straighten what was supposed to be a smart, waist length jacket, over his girth. His medals on his jacket, most of which he had created, jingled lightly, sparkling in the near noon sun.
In less than an hour the kids were back out in the yard, all colorful in their once a week, Sunday best shirts and dresses. Whenever their play took them too close to the ominous black car the driver shooed them away. Some of the bolder boys laughed and taunted him. “hey driver mon, what you tink you do? You be da beeg fahtie’s spayshall boy wit da beeg fahtie car?.” The tall man in the bushes smirked and stubbed out his cigarette in the dry grass and moved over to the shade of a strangler ficus tree.

Sunday At The Pioneer Chapel
By Doc Walton

The church bell begins to toll on Sunday morning at no exact time, unless you consider 9:12 a.m. an exact time. I mean it works for me and it works for the Hunchback. Close enough is our motto. You can tell it’s a real bell because you can see it up there in the tower swinging back and forth like a bell is supposed to and also because it squeaks from lack of lubrication. I mentioned this squeaking to the Hunchback just the other day and he handed me an oil can and pointed up the rickety old ladder. The Hunchback is a big kidder. I decided right then that they are not so bad really, the squeaks, and besides, you can’t hear them outside the church. So anyway, the clapper hits the side of the ancient bell exactly ten times, if by ten times I mean eleven, and the tolling wanes a bit towards the last three peels. We cut the old Huncher some slack here as he’s not as young as he used to be and, c’mon, that thing weighs a ton! We have a second tolling about a half hour later to remind the villagers this is Sunday and they need to get a move on.
I watch from a window in the lower part of the tower as a rowdy bunch of school kids freed from their orange jumpsuit school uniforms – uniforms, I suspect, that are preparations for their futures - and their large – nary a svelty in the group - mothers and aunts and sisters in homemade dresses and hats - somebody needs to send these ladies an Elle or a Cosmo – come lumbering up the slight hill to our one room Pioneer Chapel, the oldest church in the valley. Of course it’s not a big valley and there’s only one other church, the Catholic one, which we like to call Our Lady Of Michelob Consumption, but hey, ours IS older. Sweaty men in long sleeved white shirts with too tight collars, God what idiots, it must be ninety out there, lead this motley contingent to the church doors which I swing open to let them in.
The brats stay outside and continue laughing and chasing each other in the churchyard until stern looks and crisp barks from their mothers drag them reluctantly in. “Get in here you little puta, it’s time for church” was my favorite of those. Actually, I feel kind of sorry for the tykes. I mean be serious, how much did you like church when you were a kid?
I’m told the first Pioneer Chapel was made of wood, but it had been eaten by bugs or burned or carried off by natives needing lumber for rafts to get the hell off the island - there are lots of stories – but the Hunchback and I weren’t here then, so I can’t say for sure which is true. The latest model, a cement block puppy, was put on the original foundation and it has held up to the tropical weather for the last 30 years. Nice, but damned hot inside. (Sorry about that “damned” God, but we could use some AC.) We have a parking lot out back, but the parishioners who arrive in cars usually park them helter skelter on the sparse grass of the churchyard in front. My theory is most church goers like to be poised for quick getaways. There used to be an old horse trough out there as well - I’m guessing for old horses- but the Hunch and I had to shove it off to the side and into the weeds to make room for more cars.
As I close the doors after the last of the arrivals have arrived – it’s good when arrivals do that - at their usual time of precisely nine something, I notice a tall, very blonde, very pale man dressed in a white guayabera shirt standing in the weeds just past the trough. He’s smoking a cigarette and his head is cocked to one side like it has a crick or something. He isn’t smiling, but then neither would I if I had a crick or something. One of our church ladies briefly casts a suspicious eye his way, either that or a wink, I’m not sure which, she has a kind of a reputation, as she herds her kids into a back pew. He returns her gaze, but does not change his expression. The crick might have something to do with that.
I have the doors just about closed when I see through the last crack the general’s car pull into the front yard. I reopen the doors to give him time to enter. What the hell, (sorry again God) he’s a good tither. Besides, there is no late in my church, there is only really early for the next sermon. I hear some shuffling of feet and watch necks craning as everyone turns to see who’s coming. Everyone except the tall, blonde white guy standing in the weeds. What IS his problem anyway? The driver emerges first from the General’s car. The General, that’s the only name he goes by, then wrestles his supremely rotund self from the back seat. I say supremely rotund because this is a guy that John Goodman would stand next to if he wanted to appear thin. He rises and pulls at his clothes in a vain attempt to straighten what was supposed to be a smart, waist length jacket over his girth. A band of white shirt as wide as a sash remains visible at his middle. The General is wearing a row of medals on his jacket, all of which he had made for himself, and they jiggle as he lumbers towards the church. I want to say these are the Undistinguished Service Cross, the Medal of Dishonor and a couple of Purple Livers given to those wounded in late night revelries, but then I remember it’s Sunday and I have to be nice even if the General is a putz. When he is at last seated, I climb the few steps to the podium and begin my sermon.
“Today’s lesson is from the book of St. Ludicrous, chapter 12, verses 9 thru 10 in which the Lord sayeth ‘suffer unto me the little children, but not for long because I’m real busy today’ and the book of Acts Out in which He further says, ‘Let he who casts the first stone have a good arm and not throw like a girl.”’
In less than an hour I get to the part where the grown-ups start drinking the wine and the kids are released back into the yard to screw up all their Sunday best clothes. I am wondering around out there myself with my third plastic tumbler full of Concha y Toro’s 2005 vintage Sangre De Dios, you know giving thanks here and there, when I over hear one of the kids talking to the General’s driver. He’s saying, “Hey driver mon, what you tink you do? You be da beeg fahtie’s spayshall boy wit da beeg fahtie car?” To which the driver looks confused and says “What?” Kid just walks away shaking his head and mumbling that nobody listens to Bob Marley anymore.
I catch a glimpse of the tall, blonde, white guy in the bushes smirking and stubbing out his latest cigarette. I wander over his way and introduce myself. He makes no effort to say who he is, so I ask him and also why he’s here, what’s he doing and like that. He hesitates a while, looking confused and then says to me like an amnesia victim just realizing his plight, “I …I…I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? What do you mean you don’t know?” I ask. “You must know something. There’s a law against church lurkers” I tell him. “You can be put away until you can say church lurkers five times fast without screwing it up.
“Well, it’s like this,” he says. “Some guy named Applegate, if you can believe a name like that, I mean it sounds like a political fruit scandal to me, put me here for no reason and said don’t move until I order you to, or unless some other people give you further instructions. That’s all I can tell you. I’ve been standing here ever since, chain smoking and getting a mean sunburn.”
I thought about this a minute and considered the poor guy’s fate if it was left up to some of the weird strangers with laptops and notepads I saw visiting the church that day. It might not be good. Dude could be in for a rough ride. “Come on inside,” I say to him. “Get out of the sun for awhile. I’ve got a Hunchback pal you’ve got to meet might be able to help you with that crick. And besides that, there’s wine… I mean blood.”

The tall, pale, blonde guy looks tentatively around like he’s considering options, then nods and follows me into the church. Truth is, he has no choice.