atolls

chapter one: The Manner By Which Porfiry Nekrasov Passes Into Death

Dawn threw it's harshest face onto Porfiry Nekrasov, piercing though the apartment window with a malevolent countenance. Porfiry turned his eyes away from the bright dawn light and struggled for a moment against the mechanics of nature, the tyranny of the waking world, but he did this with a desultoriness that conceded victory to nature before the fight began. Porfiry accepted that he was awake with all the apathy he could muster. He stayed in his chair.

He was pleased to discover that he had woken up in the chair. When he was a younger man, new in the States, he was terrified of nonconformity. He slept in waterbeds when his neighbors slept in waterbeds; he surrounded himself with pillows and matching sheets sold together in a bundled package; he bought linen constantly, because it was the American style. God, he must have spent a third of his life in outlet malls, looking for a cheaper down comforter.


Those were halcyon days. He was older now. When he found his way into the leather chair more often than he found his way onto the floor, that was good enough for him. Porfiry felt more comfortable in the chair than he ever had in a bed, anyway. Porfiy's nightmares had ceased since he migrated to the chair, and the notable aches and spasms that plagued his middle age were barely worth noting now. There was no room but his room in the chair, no empty space he felt obligated to occupy. He was a key and the chair was a lock. There was only the Chair, and Porfiry. He much preferred the cohesion of the Chair to the Bed, and... Well. And - the Other, yes. Porfiry, the Bed, and the Other.

Porfiry loved the comfort and safety of that chair, loved to feel his body perfectly settled. He believed he loved the chair, maybe. Turnabout is fair play: If a chair could feel love, then his chair would loved him. Yes, but... if a chair could love then... it would have to have a reason to love. It would have to think about its' relationship with the bottoms that occupy it. It does not do that, because:

Chairs cannot think.

Porfiry continued to out-think his chair with his drowsy mind. He discovered, after a few minutes, he was glad the chair was incapable of love. He decided he could not accept the love of anyone now, let alone the love of anything. It was fundamental truth, and he thought about it, all of it, with the full weight of his intellect. He was unsure if he could give love if he could not accept it, but...

But yes, Porfiry loved his chair, certainly more than he loved his son.

Once, he had a wife. Well - more than once. Thrice, he had a wife. The first two wives were sweetly exuberant, joyful and passionate. By his third marriage, exuberance, joy, and passion could all go to hell, as far as Porfiry was concerned. Porfiry wanted a chance to be comfortable, and he got it in his third marriage: Dozens of comfortable years, comfortable years of mutual contempt and understanding. Each had glided by so easily. Porfiry could barely remember what she looked like. Sitting alone in his stripped, naked, barren apartment now, Porfiry thought of his chair. It was the best part of that second marriage, getting the chair on his third wedding anniversary.

Porfiry tried to remember his gift to his second wife in their third year of marriage. Oh, yes - he bought her radial tires and a few cans of pork and beans.

Porfiry began to stir in his resting place. He was fully awake now, but he still held some slight hope that this sunlight was nothing more than a terrible nightmare. He prayed he was asleep, recumbent in the recliner. He prayed he wouldn't wake up once on this day. He thought of his last wife, and of his chair, and a few moments passed in this manner, Chair, Wife, Wife, Chair. Wife-Chair. Chair-Wife. Chairwife.

On the floor next to his chair a formidable stack of loose paper stood, etched with ink from Porfiy's clean shorthand. It was his magnum opus, completed.


Porfiry, alas, had to move. The day is going to lap me again, he thought. He raised himself up and out of his chair with considerable effort. Every joint creaked; every tendon ripped; every orifice flared open. He felt his heart stop.

It took no more than a second for Porfiry to gather himself and his bearings - each small heart attack he endured trained him to suffer the next one in silence. He barely noticed the chest pains any more.

With something resembling haste, he began ambling over to the window blinding him with daylight. The black velvet sheath taped to the windowpane had come unglued sometime during the night. Porfiry fixed it with denture adhesive and started towards the washroom.

He had to climb over the chair to get there. The apartment had been designed to accommodate his lifestyle. It was a simple lifestyle. 80% of his day was spent doing one of two activities:
1. sitting in his chair
2. shitting someplace other than his chair.
The other 20% was less scheduled.

Porfiry crawled into the creased outline of his decrepit body, perminantly indented into the chair after so much use, with huge ambitions. His ambitions dissipated after he remembered what chair he was sitting in. With extraordinary precision he cranked the wooden handle on the side of his chair and began to recline in earnest.

The movable foot rest extended the entire width of the bathroom door. Porfiry leaned back, until the chair was fully reclined. His upper torso was in his living room; his legs were in the washroom.

He had been forced by circumstances outside his control to break the washroom door off its' jam, weeks prior. That day, a white envelope addressed to him came in the post. The return address

Inside the envelope, however, was a typed letter from his youngest son.

He read many extensive passages written by his boy, his rage growing exponentially. It grew so great the old crippled man kicked his door. Hard. That is when he discovered his chair could recline into the washroom, and also when he discovered he could live a full life without taking more than a dozen steps in any direction with his chair in the doorjamb. But he never could bring himself to throw that door away, and now it lay on his bed. The door had a lock, and Porfiry remembered how he sometimes lock himself in washrooms for hours, back when he was married. He had loved locking himself in the washroom while everyone else was out shopping, or meeting others, or having affairs. The door seemed a physical manifestation of willful ignorance. Willful ignorance was, to Profiry, a panacea for all problems.

The door, the chair -- chairwife, he thought --, the washroom. The Trinity. The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Or the Son is Wallace and The Holy Ghost, Tina.

Porfiry shuttered, and for a moment a terrible white noise drowned out all other thoughts . He wanted to give up this unpleasant and circuitous line of thought, so he did.

He turned his attention to the basin of the sink and to some leftover, stale shaving lather stuck to his straight razor. It had been a few days since he had last shaved. His beard did not grow with fullness or vigor, as it had when he was a young man; it was the feral beard of youth, thick with circular tufts of black stubble the consistency of steel wool. Now there was nothing but a bushel of stringy, thin whiskers above his mouth, and a shock of runny, discolored grey on his chin.

It didn't matter. Porfiry had spent many years tenderly maintaining his whiskers. It was a matter of pride. He could not bring himself to leave his apartment without taking a few moments to clean up his face. As he shaved, he thought to himself, the funniest man I ever saw and the saddest man I ever knew.

For some time, he gazed into his reflection and emptied his mind of all other thoughts. A few other stillborn ideas crowded into Porfiry's conscious; he wanted to suppressed them, and was happy to find them suppressed. The funniest man I ever saw and the saddest man I ever knew.

He knew W.C. Fields said those words, but he couldn't remember who the man had been talking about. Most likely he was talking about himself.

He finished up at the basin, then took off his underwear and glanced downward at his torso and dangling penis, catching sight of cotton on the floor underneath the basin. He pulled the relatively clean pair of underwear from behind the sink, and slipped them on.

He sighed. The sound of white noise filled his mind. It enraged him. The drone sounded like the sounds guilt and shame and loss would make, were guilt and loss and shame sounds. For the past two decades, Porfiry had been vexed by this inarticulate whine, but lately the drone came to him far more often, and more violently. A sound of a horrible laughing God; a sound of irrevocable things; a klaxon blast.

He looked at his washroom, turning his head slowly. Clothing, ledger papers, mousetraps, and purple highlighters were all piled haphazardly around the chair. Porfiry hadn't opened the shower door in years. an avalanche of moth-eaten clothing

Porfiry glanced at his watch and realized he was running very late. His pace quickened and he started dressing himself urgently, picking articles of clothing from the flotsam lying on his bathroom floor: undershirt, slacks, black socks, black shoes, Oxford dress-shirt, belt, rumpled tie, jacket. He took one more glance in the mirror - forgot about the hair, but there's no time for that now - and then sped past his chair. He focused all his attention forward, hoping to squeeze as much momentum from his scrawny body's inertia as possible. He hurried to the mezzanine and he snatched up his travel suitcase, still overflowing with the finest suits available in the old U.S.S.R.

ozens of volumes of Profiry's poems and stage plays, most of which he had published himself, He swooped down to the bag with a natural elegance, like was a bird of prey. He remembered how, when he was with his second wife, he thought of hawks digging their claws into field mice whenever she came. Or pretended to come.

He looked out his from door into the commons of his apartment complex. Although he did not feel much like working, Porfiry walked towards the farmer's market across the street from his building, straight towards a gargantuan white tent in the center of the square. It was Porfiry's tent in the farmer's market. Although an old man, Porfiry was a hard worker, and his stand always turned a small profit, even though he couldn't sell any vegetable or fruits. Porfiry delighted in this fact during his walk: not once had he sold anything, edible or otherwise, in that gargantuan tent.

He had acquired a small plot of land from the local farmers co-opt lot when he was still with his third wife.

Porfiry swelled. He jutted his chest, and the brittle body inside his filthy clothes puffed up like a ballon. Porfiry was little more than a forgotten old man, but he still thought of himself as being an infamous Russian revolutionary artist, the only true Knight of God. His clothing was his coat of arms; his suitcase his kingly sword, and he wanted the other tenants to see he was not crippled by his fate or his poverty, but rather that he was an inspiration. The only person looking at him, however, was Ming, the super of the complex, who was trimming the overgrown hedges in the commons, and all Ming saw was his friend, the silly old Russian, a man still enraptured with himself.

Ming waved at Porfiry, who acknowledged Ming's gesture by pretending he didn't see it. Ming put down the gardening clippers and walked over, intercepting Porfiry from his rear flank. Profiry, who continued towards his intended destination, stared into the sky.

"Hello there!" Ming shouted.

Profiry, who still did not see Ming, hesitated and turned. "Excuse me - the hearing is not so good as it was --" he said.

"Salutations to you!" Ming said, loudly.

"Oh, you must forgive, Ming! I would never have expected for you to walk over to greet me like this. Greetings to you as well."

"It is not a problem, not at all. I hadn't seen you for days, but I knew you'd hate being bothered when you stayed locked up like that. But, oh, you've missed the commotion staying in that room of yours. Terrible events! It was almost a disaster to your tent!"

"Oh, Hera! What was it?"

"The farmers started talking of tearing your canvas palace down, seeing as they think it's an eyesore and you hadn't been by in nearly a week. They were gonna put it to a vote, even! I had to go over to tell them, and I told them 'he's not dead yet, and you don't want him angry at you no matter what, dead or alive.'"

"I see it stands now -- my friend, my comrade, thank you kindly for standing up for my interests -- for I was so busy, much too busy finishing my latest work to prostitute myself on that corner these last few days."

"Did you finish another pamphlet? I haven't gotten around to the last one, I confess."

"Oh, nothing so silly as that. You could say it is my magnum opus."

Ming recoiled in astonishment at hearing the news.

"I can't even believe it, you picked it back up again?" he said.

"It shocks even me, but I did. Oh, thank you, thank you for making me promise not to destroy it, when I was lost in my grief and rage! I cannot bear that I ever held the intention any longer; it would have been as good as taking my own life to have destroyed the manuscript."

"And a good thing I did, too, because now I just know this will get you on undergraduate syllabuses in all the colleges, where it'll stay, 'till long after your death. I just got a feeling. You won't be forgotten much longer."

"One has to be remembered to be forgotten," said Porfiry.

"The tastes always come back around to the great ones."

"Perhaps you are right. God forgive my pride - I rather like the idea my name will live on."

"Oh, it will, it will, and mine will be a footnote in history, which is all I would want anyway. I'll be the man who helped to save your masterpiece... even back then, when I thought for sure the manuscript had already been destroyed, I couldn't bear to think my building would be the sight the great Profiry Nekrasov burned his greatest work. Could you imagine all those slack-jawed tourists that'd attract? They'd have sullied up this whole damn place, right down to the clocks!"

"Perhaps you could have charged for it, if just to cover all my debts to you."

"Oh, tosh. I don't think I've even sent you a bill but the first month of your residence, just to make sure I knew you weren't pulling my chain or stealing a name you saw in the history books."

Profiry excused himself, invigorated and beaming with pride. He continued slowly across the commons, dreaming: of a youth in Russia; of being for a time a Someone - a minor Someone, to be sure, but enough of a Someone to feel as though his minor works guided the fates of nations; of the flight out of Russia and his exile after his first wife's murder; of his second wife and her parents; of the fire that razed the theater he co-founded with his second wife; of... of a wordless humming drone, blotching out all other thought, blinding Profiry's eyes with rage, the thought of his son, the pain at the thought of his son....

Profiry, distracted, did not see that he had traveled to the middle of the road outside his apartment complex, and he did not see the apple-red Ford round the corner of the street, and he did not see the driver of the truck, who was Ming's pudgy wife, who did not see the tiny Russian standing in the road. Ming, still trimming the hedges, did see: he saw the Russian, and then he saw his car, and then the collision between the two. He saw his wife continue to drive off, and it looked to him like she was too busy fumbling around the cabin, almost certainly searching for some lipstick, to notice something as insignificant as vehicular manslaughter. Ming took a few moments to finish cleaning up the hedges before he called the paramedics. No point rushing now, Ming thought.

chapter two: Wherein Wallace Nekrasov First Rejects His God

"Is he dead?" Wallace Nekrasov said. He had laid the telephone receiver on the floor of the chapel's dormitory, and he lay prostrate next to it. He had to do it like this. His hands had been shaking badly enough to interfere with the conversation.

"Yep, dude. Squished. He's tomato juice," the voice, belonging to Joel Thomas, Wallace's best friend, replied. "The fucker's gone, man."

"Please...he's my dad, Joel."

"Oh, fuckin' a, man! That dude is much better now that he's a chalky outline on the ground. Jackoff hadn't even talked to you in, what, a couple years?"

"Yeah, three years to the day."

"And now everyone's better off."

"I can't really argue with that part of it, you know, but I just always sorta assumed I'd see him and we'd make up and some day he'd come over to my house to see my grandkids and he'd get to harangue them about his 'Great Truths,'"

"Your grandkids?"

"Right -- right, I'm gonna have to be celibate."

"So wait, you aren't celibate yet? You've been there three months, and still no vow of chastity?"

"You only take the vow when you're ordained, but certainly I'd imagine the clergy frowns upon it's prospective priests engaging in the carnal pleasures. Plus, you know, I'm not Catholic."

"You didn't answer my question entirely there, and you know it."

Wallace paused, embarrassed and shocked. His father was dead. He hadn't seen him since the entire mess, their falling out, when he was 19. His Dad picked up and left that night, packed his stuff and left in just a few hours, and Wallace would never be able to replace the memory of their final meeting with a happier one now, and his Dad had kept the promise he made that night to disappear from Wallace's life, and Profiry never spoke to his son again. The finality of his death hit Wallace, and it sounded like cymbal crashes.

The estrangement from Porfiry had become immortal. That thought briefly blotted out all of Wallace's other concerns. But Joel knew. He had only talked to him once before that day, and only for a few minutes. But Joel knew, somehow he figured it all out, that Wallace was still fucking and still too weak to avoid fucking anyone at any opportunity.

There was only one girl he'd met since he moved into the seminary, the Spanish/Columbian grocery clerk who always took the night shift at the 7-11 right off the highway, about three miles from the seminary. Her name was Mary. Wallace assumed her parents named her after the Virgin, rather than Magdalene. But no one names their children after the Mary Magdalene, except hookers.

He met her the night he drove into town; he had arrived 10 hours before he was scheduled to enter the compound and devote himself entirely to God, and he was nervous and sick on account of finally grasping the enormity of this decision. He bought a box of Marlboros in the store around 1:00 in the morning, and smoked one right outside the store, so eager to get something other than Jesus inside him he didn't even wait until he got in his car. After he had taken a few drags, Mary left her post at the register, grabbed some Pall Malls, and joined him in front.

"Hey there," she sung, mocking a doorbell. HEY-thereeee. It struck Wallace as the cutest thing any girl had ever done. She stopped, standing on the same plane as he, close to his right shoulder.

"Hello again," said Wallce. Without asking, Mary reached across his body to his left hand and grabbed the lighter he was fiddling with. The motion was surprising, and Wallace flinched like he just heard a nearby car backfire. Mary moved her hand away in helter-skelter, but Wallace quickly regained his composure and handed the lighter off to her, smoothly, lightly brushing her fingers with his as their hands met.

"Look at you - no one has ever been this nervous." she said, lighting her cigarette.

"I don't think I'm nervous. I think I'm frightened out of my mind." Wallace whispered so quietly it seemed to him as though he hadn't spoken at all.

"What's up?" she asked.

"Oh, nothing much," said Wallace, in a manner that told Mary that yes, in fact, many things were up, indeed. They both took a drag on their cigarettes.

"So... I'm Mary, by the way."

"Wally. Pleasure to meet."

"I don't know how to approach this, really. I never give advice, and working night shift at 7-11 is a great way to meet some people who need it. I mean - I don't know you at all and we haven't talked thought even one cigarette yet, but, what I want to say --You don't have to say anything -- but I think you need to talk, and I'm just here to listen. Not to judge or to give advice, like everyone else you know - I'm just guessing everyone tells you what to do, because it's just in your body language. Nothing but just hearing you out." she said, as though she was the same Mary with the HEY-thereeee greeting, but a few years older and a little bit wiser. Her cadence betrayed a compassionate, active mind, just the opposite of all the dumb teenagers in Wallace knew back in Anover, and as he stood next to her, he was dumbstruck and infatuated and terrified and nervous and horny and a bit sick to his stomach.

"I'm going into the seminary. Episcopalian." he said.

"Now that is something else! Congratulations, I guess... that's not something that comes up often so I don't really know the proper response."

"I think the correct response is 'what the fuck are you thinking?' but that's just anecdotal evidence on my experience, telling people so far."

"So -- can I ask you a question?"

"Is it 'why are you doing it?'"

"That's sorta it."

"I get that a lot, so I've thought this though a bit. The answer is that I don't know. Or I can't explain. It's... beyond language."

She laughed a litte. "I sorta guessed that -- the part about not knowing, at least, not about the answer being beyond language -- but there was more I was gonna ask. Something more like 'why are you doing it Episcopalian?' Don't answer that if you don't want to, no pressure. I'm just curious because I'm a lapsed Catholic girl myself, but I never really saw the appeal of the other denominations because most of 'em are so easy-going it wouldn't mean shit to lapse from 'em -" hearing this, Wallace laughed and began to ease up.

Mary smiled, too, and continued: -"That's overstating the case, of course, but still, it's like, no Methodist minister must promise, right to Him, right in his vows, that he will love and serve in His name and because his love and duty to Him are so great he doesn't need anything else. The bishops and the priests, they've all promised God their poverty, and that's pretty fucking epic right there, but then they've also taken it to a whole fucking new level and promised Him their chastity. And that's something that just awes me: To give up an opportunity like sex - but more than sex, I mean. The right to meet someone and fall in love with them and share yourself like that... that's the largest sacrifice anyone can make, I think."

"Larger than death?"

"Death could be the ultimate sacrifice, but it's kind of a cop-out if you've got enough faith. To sacrifice your life for Him, assuming He needed you to that (Wallace tried to interrupt and began raising his hand as if to object, but Mary pushed it gently back down, as though to say "I'm almost done, don't stop my train of thought") and then you're pretty much going to be with Him forever, unless it wasn't Him asking you to die in the first place."

"And I don't think He would; God is kind and loving and reasonable in his demands, from what I been taught. And if someone is tricked into believing they're doing something so genuine and extraordinary, either tricked by Satan or by feeblemindedness, and in his heart he feels - no, completely knows, in every sinew of muscle and fiber of bone - he's acting with His blessing, wouldn't He be sympathetic enough to see their faith from their actions?" said Wallace.

"Oh, fuck me, you believe all the bullshit about Satan?"

"Well -- jeez, this is a stupid fucking pun -- I was playing a bit of a Devil's Advocate there."

"No, it's cute, it really is. Go on."

"Can I say this to you? You are fucking impressive. No one talks about their fucking faith, really, like it's somehow an affront against God to think about Him too deeply, but you sorta have. Oh - why I'm Episcopalian. I bet you could guess why..."

"You're parents were Episcopalians."

"Close. Grandparents. My Grandmother's father was a priest - an infamous one, actually: Father Robespirre was not only related to the famous Frenchman of the same name, but he also embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from a senile old Andrew Carnage - and therefore her son was fated to the priesthood. Symmetrical, see? But first she needed a kid, right? And everyone thought my Grandmother was barren or my Grandfather was sterile, but really they just hated each other. Almost from the moment they married, really. I bet they only had sex once, on their 10th wedding anniversary or something. It must have been pretty awful stuff, and I'm amazed they got all the parts in the right place, frankly. Then came my Mother, 9 months later. She was a huge disappointment to Grandmother, having gone above and beyond Original Sin by committing this unpardonable Secondary Sin of femininity, or something, but soon after Mom got married and I was born, and Grandmother went to work on me."

"So.. you were guilt-tripped into hearing the calling of faith?"

"Yes. Guilt, and her money."

"Those are pretty impure reasons for committing your life to God."

"Let me rephrase a bit: I initially wanted to become a priest because the guilt and the money, and then because it became a necessity for my survival. And some of it was faith, some of it was faith. Grandmother said a million times, she said she promised me that she would give all of it away to charity, every dime to causes I didn't support, unless I was on a path to the parish. I wish I could've laughed it off, but Mom married this Russian poet just to spite Grandmother..." Wallace thought of his Dad and his head throbbed in pain and sorrow, the pain of loving someone so much and knowing the love would never be reciprocated, the guilt and regret of one act that was never going to be forgiven, one act that never could be taken back...

"So she married a Russian poet." said Mary, after Wallace had drifted into his personal agonies.

"Oh, sorry, yes -- my Dad, the sort of guy who'd brag about his poverty to passersby.And he was just the worst thing on this earth to Grandmother: a Jew."

"So, a poor Russian Jew poet married your WASP mother."

"They eloped just a few months after they met. Everyone remembers it as just this pure fucking passion, just this white hot infatuation. They would stay up for weeks, because they gave each other so much energy, and they ran all over the country and fucked in every inconceivable place we can't conceive of here, and Dad wrote this epic verse poem with my Mom - he wrote it on her body so that his greatest work would become a part of his greatest love and inspiration. They both memorized it before it faded away, but neither one has ever spoken it to anyone, save to each other. I mean, they were just wild kids."

"Can I borrow your lighter again, Wally?"

"Yeah, of course, let me get it for ya."

"But your dad was just this poor vagabond?"

"Here ya go. Yeah, when my parents met he was a happily destitute 'starving artist,' sort... sort of political, I guess. But it was complex - he wouldn't have had it any other way - he always loved to have obscure motivations behind his behavior. But he ate out of dumpsters and slept under bridges -- and not because he couldn't afford a meal or a place to sleep. He could, especially after he married Mom. He loved the American Communist Party and sometimes he helped organize open shops, and he wrote a lot about equality and brotherhood. But he also idolized people like J.P. Morgan and William Randolph Hearst - well, he idolized everything except the money. Being poor made him so happy, he nearly choked."

"He liked being poor?"

"Well -- it was like a religious thing, the starving ascetic thing."

"Wait -- I don't get it. So was he a Buddist? A Marxist?"

"God, he hated Marxists. And Cambodians, for some reason. But no, no, he wasn't a Marxist or a Buddist. He was more... trying to live his life like a Dada collage."

"A what? Dada?"

"Yeah, Dada. It was this art movement right after the first world war, mostly in Germany and Denmark. Michael Duchcamp - the guy who put a urinal up in some prestigious art gallery and named it Fountain and caused a big stir way before we were born- he was part of it."

"I've never heard the name before."

"It isn't really a big deal if you know what Dada is or who Duchamp was... I think I was just dropping names, trying to impress you."

"That's kinda sweet of you, actually -- but back to 'Dada'."

"Oh, yes. The best thing is to let them describe it: a lot of people associated with the Dada movement called it an 'anti-art.' Everything art stood for, Dada was against."

"So they devoted themselves to what, making senseless drawings and ugly paintings?"

"That was part of it -- but it really was a whole way of life. Just a total rejection of reason. It was, like - Europe had just finished reasoning it's way into a gigantic fucking bloody war, wasted nearly an entire generation during it. So what were the scientists and doctors going to do next to their countries?" Wally reached into his pocket and pulled out another cigarette.

"But they were nearly right! It was a bit like the scientists and doctors lead the Jews into the gas chambers, with all that talk of eugenics, of naturally stronger people. And maybe some biologists and surgeons thought it wonderful to experiment on the Jews, operating without any fear of reprisal or imprisonment." Mary said, excited to have something to interject after upholding her promise to Wallace. Her promise to listen to his story.

"That is part of it -- no, that is really most of it. I mean, Dada isn't a complete way to live, but it has some intrinsic value."

"Yeah, but having a Dada Dad like that... must not have been too much intrinsic value in that."

"That was why I was mostly raised by my grandparents -- my mom died before I ever got to know her. I think I was about six months old when it happened."

"I... I'm sorry. I really am, and I really wish I had something to say other than pithy statements of empathy, but all I promised to do was listen to you, right? Jesus, I didn't think you'd be so forthcoming when I saw you smoking and twitching alone out here."

"I'm making you work."

"Just like all the rich white folks. You all just love making the Latino do the work."

"Well, I could stop talking to you now, and just drive off and worship God forever. I'll know how it will feel to be bathed in Divine Love and feel orgasmic joy all the time - hopefully I'll learn in a couple of days, and I'll come back to tell you how you can do it too."

"If you stop now I might hate you forever. I will never meet another person with a Dad like yours, and if you don't tell me about him tonight I might never hear about it again."

"But you'll at least still have a good chance to hear it -- I'm moving into that seminary over the hill, right over there. Starting tomorrow, I'll be living right near here."

"But starting tomorrow, you'll be another fucking mouthbreather living in that fucking awful place, sneaking over hear at midnight, getting cum all over the tittie mags while ogling my tits."

"So I'm not just another fucking mouthbreather tonight?"

"No, you're a fucking mouthbreather with a good story to tell."

"And beautiful eyes, don't forget." said Wally.

"Shut the fuck up -- you've got a name like 'Wally,' so don't pretend like your some sort of cool dude with charm and confidence. In fact, this whole thing with the grandmother is kinda fucked up; you don't even have a grandmother, most likely. In fact, I bet that kids threw rocks at you for having a name like 'Wally,' and that's why you're retarded enough to go into this parrish.'" Mary said.

"I want to see you tomorrow. If I have more to tell, you won't ditch me."

"Well, I'll be here -- or rather, I'll be in the store. Doing my job."

They said goodbye to each other, and Wallace came by the next evening, and the evening after that, and eventually he picked her up at her house and he drove her to work and they had sex in his back seat before her shift.

Fuckin' A, Wally.

Wallace had permission to enter town freely, but he snuck out of the complex anyway, climbing from his window and rappelling down the large Oak that sat adjacent and quietly sneaking over the shoulder-tall brick and mortar walls that encircled the compound. He was certainly drawing more suspicion from the headmaster than if he simply just did it, just nonchalantly walked though the front gate and got in his car and picked up his date and came back and fucked right in front of the building, but Wallace needed to sneak around, he needed to feel guilty, because he was doing weak, immoral things.

Wallace realized he was still lying on the floor, telephone next to his ear, and that he'd been staring off into space for a rather long time. Joel was coughing over the line.

"Are the funeral arrangements complete?" Wallace finally said, interrupting the uncomfortable silence.

"Yeah, your grandparents have practically been tripping over themselves to see him off to the next world. The sooner he's set, the sooner he's in hell, I guess."

"Please don't say things like that, Joel, and I'm not kidding about it. Whatever his sins, he was too good as... an artist to deserve eternal damnation. Anyway, he's my father, and God forces me to love him. I would imagine He'd use all the violence at his omnipotent disposal , if He felt like he had to. And if, you know, he reneged on the 'free will' thing."

"I thought you were in seminary to learn stuff like 'Pride is the worst sin of all,' padre."

"I'm not a Father yet."

"Doesn't sound like you're ever gonna be one, with an attitude like that. You know I talked to Terri for the first time since you guys spilt up? She can't believe you'd give up fucking, not for anything. You know what she said to me, she said 'no God I'd worship would take someone that eager to give oral sex off the market.'"

"Please..."

"Alright, I'll back off. All I do is get high and eat Funyons, anyway. You got yourself a calling in life and shit, so who am I to say you've made a huge fucking mistake and deserve all the misery you'll encounter the rest of your life? Who am I to judge?"

"You're my friend, and that's what gives you the right to judge (of course, only God has the right to judge, I know, I know, shut up, I'm making a point). And trust me when I tell you that I need to hear your objections. I need to hear everyone's objections, because I do forget how fucking serious taking a step like this is. Maybe it hasn't sunken in, yet. But -- well, if Terri couldn't convince me, you're not going to convince me. I mean, no offense to you but -- she had breasts."

"And I don't?"

"Yours aren't symmetrical. Also, they're flabby as hell."

"Oh, you're a saint, Wallace."

"Only Catholics are saints, Joel. While I got you on the phone, and before I forget to ask, when's the service?"

"Two days from now -- I'm surprised your grandparents didn't call to break the news, especially since they're going though all this trouble with the funeral and everything and since you're pretty much the only connection between them and our dearly departed now."

"It's weird. I don't think they ever talked to him after Mom died. And they never liked him much before then, either."

"I think that might be a wee bit of an understatement, Father, considering everything. Like the trail, and all."

"Yeah - at least everyone was acquitted and the none of the lawyer's bills was unreasonably large. And stop calling me 'father.' You're gonna jinx it."

"Good."

"I don't think it's good."

"You will."

"Shush."

"So when you getting back in town?"

"I'm not sure if I can. On such short notice, especially."

"Uh - yeah, you can. As you said, he was your father."

"But..."

"Man, what kind of Church would withhold permission to go attend someone's own father's funeral? It's not like it'll be the only one the dead guy's gonna get - oh, wait, yes it is."

"The Episcopalian Church, apparently."

"Nuts to that action."

"But I'm gonna try to make it out, and hell -- I'll leave, even if admission isn't granted. What, is the Church going to damn my eternal soul for attending my father's funeral?"

"No, but they'll kick you out."

"They might, they might. Shouldn't be the end of the world. The lamb will still have a lot more seals to break after that."

"That is a pretty flippant response, considering this is your life's calling or whatever."

"The real truth about it is - this seminary needs me right now. I'm the only priest they're training right now."

"Fuck you, no way. In this holy-as-fuck country?"

"Everyone else dropped out."

"How many enrolled with you?"

"I don't know -- 17?"

"So only been three months, and these 16 other well-meaning, pious young souls have gotten the fuck outta Dodge?"

"Maybe it was 18. I never did a head count, actually."

"Okay, how about this: you've only been gone three months, and already I've been getting all Sylvia Plath here. Like, I'm alone all the time."

"Oh, you're totally different - Sylvia had her kids to keep her company."

"Whatever, man -- the point is, I need your company to keep me away from the oven."

"Oh, you still can't bake?"

"I don't care if you ever do become a priest -- you're going straight to hell, man."

"Please don't say that."

"Whatever, man. I gotta go, but I will -- let me repeat this as if I was making it an ethical duty -- I will see you on Friday. This is not a question, it's a universal human rule of law. You will be here, Friday. You will attend your father's funeral, with me. Then - I don't know, you can watch me eat Doritos or something?"

"It would be the priestly thing to do."

"What?"

"Genesis says, "And on the sixth day, He enjoyed his Doritois and said, 'If I did not enjoy these, then why make them so plentiful?"

"Yeah, whatever. I gotta go."

"Take care, Joel." Wallace picked up the receiver, pushed himself up, and hung up.