Racket

by Lisa Moore

  Our Lady of Perpetual Suffering, the fourth oldest in the diocese, was originally built during the Depression as an equipment shed for the Department of Transport’s growing make-work fleet. During the war it was annexed by the Department of Defence and turned into a munitions factory, building the recoil dampening springs and trigger mechanisms for the FG-44 rifle, a semiautomatic rifle that never saw any action because of jamming problems. After the building sat vacant for more than a decade after the war the Department of Defence sold the rifle spring and trigger factory to the St. Ignatius Arch-Diocese for a token dollar, though no money ever did change hands.

  The Diocese Association then set to raising the money to renovate the old factory into a church. They first had a frame built around the main smoke stacks to give the appearance of a steeple, then they had the building stuccoed, inside and out, to give the beam and girder sheet metal building more of a churchish look. Before too many years passed they had the giant factory partitioned into all sorts of chapels and confessionals, parish offices, a rectory, a vestibule, and a large hall for A.A. meetings, prayer groups, Wednesday night bingo, and Tuesday and Thursday afternoon soup kitchen services, and an expansive nave with thirty-foot ceilings. Several Knights of Columbus then travelled to the Southern States to purchase, at a Southern Baptist church liquidation auction, the impossibly long, and impossibly uncomfortable wooden pews to fill the nave. The Church was officially opened, named for the Blessed Virgin Mary’s sorrowful watch over the suffering of the war dead, once the secondhand pews arrived in seven flatbed truckloads. From that point, every dollar from the collection plate poured into adorning the nave with twenty-two statues of different sizes, eighteen of them of Mary, and erecting a proper sanctuary filled with alters and lecterns and choir stands adorned with the customary amount of ornate woodwork, all overseen by a twelve-foot statue of the crucified Christ.

  But the most impressive part of Our Lady of Perpetual Suffering, to the hundreds of tourists who flocked to see them each year at least, were the elaborate stained-glass scenes of martyrdom that replaced, gradually as money would allow, the sixty-four louvered factory windows. Sixty-four windows beautifully decorated with executions of every imaginable sort of sixty-four saints no one had ever heard of: St. Abundius, St. Adrio, St. Alban, St.Alexander, St.Aphrodisius, St.Apollonius, St.Apollinaris Franco, St. Atticus, St. Augulus, St. Basileus, St. Belina, St. Boniface, St. Candida, St. Daniel, St. Devota, St. Diomedes, St. Dionysius, St. Edmund the Martyr, St. Edward the Martyr, St. Epimachus, St. Eupsychius, St. Eutychius, St. Eutychius of Alexandria, St. Exuperius, St. Faustus, St. Flavius, St. Francis of St. Bonaventure, St. Francis of St. Mary, St. Francis of St. Michael, St. Gabinus, St. Gaius Francis, St. Gonzaga Gonza, St. Gorgias, St. Gundenis, St. Heliconis, St. Hermione, St. Hippolytus, St. Honorius, St. Humphrey Lawrence, St. Julius, St. Just, St. Juventius, St. Leocadia, St. Leocrita, St. Lucretia, St. Luxorius, St. Maurus, St. Maxellendis, St. Maximus, St. Moses, St. Octavian, St. Palmatius, St. Panacea, St. Pancratius, St. Peter Chanel, St. Plutarch, St. Polycarp of Alexandria, St. Polyeuctus, St. Pompeius of Pavia, St. Pontius of Cimella, St. Potitus, St.Theodemir, St.Warinus, and St. Zoilus.

  The window scenes were based on artwork submitted as part of a contest for students at Sacred Heart of Solitude High School. The students were asked to illustrate the martyrdom of any martyred saint they wished—most choosing obscure saints with the least amount of biographical details to allow for the most imaginative interpretations of their martyrdoms. In all there were eighteen beheadings, in all manners from axe to guillotine; sixteen burnings, mostly staked; thirteen crucifixions, both traditional Jesus-style (right-side-up), eight, and the less-orthodox Peter-style (upsidedown), five; twelve of the more medieval variety executions, including five drawn and quarters, four broken on the wheel, two flayings, and one boiling in oil; four stonings; and one—St. Gundenis—depicted, completely inaccurately, as the final scene from the movie Scarface, but instead of a machine gun, St. Gundenis is beckoning to his executioners to say hello to his little cross. Between Hughie Loomis’ sophomoric sense of humour, his questionable artistic talents, and the contest judging panel—a bishop, two priests, two nuns, three Knights of Columbus, and three ladies from the Catholic Women’s League—not being as up-to-date on famous gangster movie death scenes as they could have been, the St. Gundenis window had been paid for and installed before anyone noticed the similarity. The winners, even Hughie Loomis, all received a medal, a certificate, their name on a plaque beneath their window, a trip, during school hours, to the factory to see how the windows were made, and twenty-five dollars. Hughie Loomis also received the additional prize of a month in afterschool detention.

  Yet, for all the stained-glass and stucco splendour that Our Lady of Perpetual Suffering had become, no number of contractors brought in by the Diocese Association could figure out proper ventilation for the church, so on the morning of KC’s funeral, even with the main doors held open by hymnals and a half-dozen strategically placed oscillating fans going full blast, sitting in the church was like sitting in a sealed Tupperware container left on the dash of a car in full sun.

  Sealed in KC’s funeral were about eighty-seven people scattered through the forty rows of impossibly uncomfortable pews in the massive nave making it seem like the church was empty. Of those in attendance, seventy percent were friends of KC, twenty-nine percent friends of KC’s mother, plus the two elderly ladies, Estelle and Sophia, both in their eighties, who attend every service at Our Lady of Perpetual Suffering, regardless the occasion. Estelle and Sophia sat, without exception, including KC’s funeral, in the foremost right-hand pew muttering the rosary to themselves, the BlessedVirgin, and most of the congregation, for the duration, regardless the hymn, homily, or responsorial psalm being spoken or sung by the rest of the congregation or priest. It annoyed the hell out of Father Lucious when Estelle’s and Sophia’s muttered Hail Marys would trip him up mid-Sanctus and he’d include one too many Holy Holys, or one Hosanna not enough, making an ass of himself in front of the entire congregation. When this happened he’d glare red-faced for a split second at the two, think to himself, “For the love of God, shut the fuck up, you old crows,” and then go back to try and find his place. Funerals were particularly bad. Between his under-familiarity with the text, and the dead silence of small, somber, funeral crowds, Father Lucious’ missteps would ricochet around the old gun factory, emphasizing his incompetence. And KC’s funeral, with the heat and impending luncheon weighing on Father Lucious, was particularly bad, even for funerals.

  “In the name of the…uh…Father, Son, and…uh…Holy Spirit,” Father Lucious stammered through his first line, shooting s.t.f.u. death stares at Estelle and Sophia who were loudly rounding their first Sorrowful Mystery, at least ten Hail Marys deep by this point. The entire congregation, following Father Lucious’ lead, stammered along, not missing an um or an uh. “Saint… Saint…uh…Pa-Paul, in his epi—Saint Paul, in his second epistle to the Thessa—pardon me, Paul’s first letter to the Thistle…uh… Thistle…uh…”

  “Thessalonians,” eleven-year-old altar server, Rory, holding a long tapered candle before the altar, whispered at Father Lucious.

  “Thessalonians!”

  The most difficult though, of all elocutionary difficulties Father Lucious suffered through that morning, though, was KC’s name itself. The missal, in a blatant attempt to trip up Father Lucious, noted the spots in the text where he was to say KC’s name with a single, bolded, uppercase N. And that was it. N. We gather here, dear friends, on this solemn occasion, to celebrate the passing of our brother/sister N into the arms of the Lord was supposed to be read as We gather here, dear friends, on this solemn occasion to celebrate the passing of our brother KC into the arms of the Lord. But, by the time Father Lucious got through with it, it was more like:“We gather here, dear…uh…friends, on this solemn occasion, to celebrate the…uh…passing of our brother-sister N…KC… uh…into the arms of the…uh…Ca–KC…uh…Lo
rd.”

  The funeral mass, meant to celebrate the life of KC, and give comfort to, at the very least, KC’s staunchly Catholic and very bereaved mother, became in the hands of Father Lucious a funeral…uh…mass celebrating the death of brother-sister N. KC. Or, on multiple occasions brother-sister N. Clarke, N. Crake, N. Cart, more than once N. Christ, and a couple of times, in anticipation for his next funeral that morning, brother-sister N. Melvin.

  After a not entirely graceless homily about the tragedy of sudden life…uh…death, and the eternal promise of the insurrection… uh…resurrection of KC…er…Christ, and an equally bungled Liturgy of the Eucharist, Father Lucious breathed a heavy sigh of relief when the final hymn, “Were You There When They Nailed Him to the Tree,” kicked up and the six pallbearers—KC’s uncle Randy, KC’s cousins Charlie, Larry, Louis, and Gino, and KC’s best-friend Morton—whisked KC’s casket, full of everything KC except KC, down the aisle and out into a waiting U-Haul Van, a standin, provided by the insurance company, for the hearses lost in the Goolie’s Fire the day before.

  KC’s KC-less casket was driven, through the last remnants of morning rush hour, seventeen blocks to Our Lady of Grace Under Pressure Cemetery on Cemetery Road. At the cemetery the procession of a dozen cars, lead by the U-Haul hearse, took a left turn at block 17-B, when they should have taken a right, and ended up stuck at a dead-end by the War Dead Memorial. One-by-one the cars had to back out of the corner they were wedged in. With a wide disparity of reversing talent among the respective drivers, not all graves were spared desecration by turns made too wide or too tight.Though, thankfully, and not by much, no headstones were upended entirely, only adjusted on their bases slightly by the reverse procession.

  Between the stumbled through mass and the cemetery traffic jam, Father Lucious was late for the start of Melvin Goolie’s funeral mass back at Our Lady of Perpetual Suffering by at least ten minutes by the time they had KC’s KC-less casket resting on planks over the hole dug fresh that morning just for him. The plot, between KC’s father and KC’s grandmother, under an overly pruned maple, had been reserved for KC’s mother, but, she figured, KC needed it more than she did at the moment. Besides, the nearest available plot was on the far side of the cemetery, in the newly opened section that looked like a soccer field, and a mid-field plot cost nearly $1, 500.

  In a rush, and unencumbered by muttered aloud rosaries, Father Lucious flew through the internment rites. Not taking a breath through the entire dust-to-dust-ashes-to-ashes bit. When time to do so, he swung the incense thurible with such manic vigour that a thick black cloud of smoke engulfed the gravesite, choking the mourners, throwing several into serious, prolonged coughing fits, including those nearest the grave: KC’s mother; KC’s pallbearers—KC’s uncle Randy, KC’s cousins Charlie, Larry, Louis, and Gino, and KC’s best-friend Morton; the eleven-year-old altar boy, Rory, and Father Lucious himself.

  Once the cloud of thick incense smoke had settled and the coughing had subsided, Father Lucious took a long, polished brass, cylindrical container from his pocket, unscrewed the lid, and poured charcoal ash in the shape of a cross on the lid of the casket in roughly the spot KC’s head would be, were KC’s head there at all, while hurriedly repeating the dust-to-dust-ashes-to-ashes bit in his tourist phrasebook Latin. The charcoal ash cross was the cue for the two gravediggers, one named Graves—no joke—and the other named Ernst, both in matching work boots and dull green coveralls, both caked in the grey-brown-orange dirt from KC’s grave, both carrying long steel jack handles, to emerge from seemingly nowhere (actually from behind the backhoe parked a respectable distance from the grave, where they had been smoking cigarettes and talking about hockey and women throughout the entirety of the internment ceremony). They politely excused themselves through the crowd, shooing the mourners to either end of the grave so they could remove the planks from beneath KC’s casket. With the planks removed—though, not without some difficulty, one of the more ornery planks required Ernst to push the casket nearly over on its side, with his heavy, dirty, work boot, to create enough space to free the plank—Graves and Ernst inserted their long steel jack handles into the appropriate orifices of the casket-lowering apparatus, which was suspending KC’s casket over his grave with two seatbelt-width green straps, and began cranking what was left of KC into the ground.

  The thick black incense smoke from Father Lucious’ overzealous thurible, however, had left a coarse soot covering the polished brass casket-lowering apparatus. As Graves and Ernst cranked, some of this soot worked its way into the works of the apparatus, jamming the gears on the foot-end. Graves, at the head-end, continued cranking while Ernst, on the foot, leaned his not-inconsiderable heft on the end of his long steel jack handle, without success. By the time Ernst had quietly gotten Graves’ attention and got him to stop cranking until the jammed foot gear problem could be sorted, much of Father Lucious’ charcoal ash cross he’d left on the lid of the casket in roughly the spot KC’s head would be, were KC’s head there at all, had slid off the casket lid and wafted gently into the darkness below. All that remained of the cross was a dusty smudge on the Alice-blue casket.

  Graves left his post at the head to add his also not-inconsiderable heft to the end of Ernst’s long steel jack handle. The casket-lowering apparatus creaked and moaned under the collective not-inconsiderable heft of Graves and Ernst. Creak and moan. Moan and creak.

  All at once a loud shot rang out and Graves and Ernst collapsed in a pile, Ernst atop Graves. As the casket-lowering apparatus buckled, KC’s KC-less casket gave a wild buck and pitched violently foot-downward, slipped from the casket-lowering apparatus’s two seatbelt-width green straps, and plunged the final five feet into the blackness of the grave, landing with a hollow thud on the bottom. The casket landed on a face-down angle so that, being roughly the same length as the grave was deep, the bottom corner of the head-end, where the back of KC’s head would be, were KC’s head there at all, was level with the surface. The violence of the tumble jarred open the lid of KC’s casket, spilling its contents into the bottom of the grave.

  The foremost mourners, including KC’s mother, KC’s pallbearers—KC’s uncle Randy, KC’s cousins Charlie, Larry, Louis, and Gino, and KC’s best-friend Morton—Father Lucious and his eleven-year-old altar boy, Rory, and the two gravediggers, Graves and Ernst, collected themselves and leaned over KC’s open grave to survey the wreckage of KC’s casket. Slumped in the bottom foot-end of the grave, spilled from the casket, was a deceased elderly gentleman, perhaps in his eighties, in a nice navy blue suit.

  A Drawer Full of Guggums

  Sharon Bala

  DOROTHEA’S MOTHER HAD been a fan of George Eliot. I was named for the foolish girl who chose the wrong husband, she said. Dodo. Call me Auntie Do.

  Cait sat, upright and uncomfortable, on the very edge of the armchair. The stranger, who she must now remember to call Auntie Do, sat across from her on the love seat. She was a shrunken woman with the limbs of a bird and brown skin like worn leather. A rice belly muffined out from beneath her sari. She wore a cardigan (correction: jumper). Her hair was plaited and hung over one shoulder.

  At the door, she had repeated Cait’s name like a foreign word. Cait-lyn.This is your name?

  And Cait had felt awkward, not quite annoyed. Then it occurred to her that she was expected to have a traditional name. Saraswati after the goddess or something unpronounceable like Mangaiyarkarasi.

  When Cait said she was from Vancouver, Do quizzed her about Simon Fraser University. Cait had graduated from the University of British Columbia four months earlier. She hadn’t realized SFU had international street cred.

  Do brought out tea on a silver tray. The cups and saucers were delicate. They made Cait feel like she too might be a character dreamed up by George Eliot.The saucer lay cold in her left palm as if it had just come out of the fridge; the cup was hot. Princess Diana smiled shyly out of a circle of ivy, head tilted in one direction, eyes slanting in the other. Dodo. Cait had an
intense urge to laugh. She made Diana face away and then there was Charles, ears like a trophy.

  Do asked about her studies and Cait explained about the Pre-Raphaelites.

  Ah, ah…these pictures with the knights and ladies.

  Cait knew she was thinking of the wrong paintings but the flat was in London proper and it didn’t seem worth it to correct her. They were sizing each other up and Cait was catching glimpses, trying to knit them all together into some kind of gestalt. A flowered love seat, not even a full-sized sofa.A gorgeousVictorian fireplace, all bricked-in. The walls were covered in cross-stitch. Stick figures kicking up their heels glared at Cait, giving her the stink eye. Do had moved to London in 1958. Forty-four years and not a single photograph.

  For two hundred pounds less, Do said Cait could share the master bedroom. The room was dim and suffused with a fragrance Cait associated with Sri Lankan aunties of a certain age, a quaint perfume, cheap but inoffensive. There was a double bed with a pink coverlet and, inches away, a narrow single—light blue sheets with hospital-crisp corners. Cait filed it all away for later, an amusing anecdote to email home.

  I really need a desk, she said. Can I see the other room?

  There were no rubbish bins in the London Underground. A collection of tissues and Orbit wrappers accumulated in Cait’s pocket. She got a job filing papers at the Tate and another washing dishes at a pub close to Do’s flat.

  Between work and classes, she studied in a vacuum-sealed reading room at the British Library. It was a terrifying place with a deficit of oxygen and an imposing domed ceiling. People were constantly nodding off, then jerking awake to glance around, sheepish.