Sketch № 5: Inside the Glass Church
There are two main churches in little Applewood, Connecticut: Pastor Beauregard Sweeney runs Our Lord of the Ascension, and Father Jack Evandrus is housed at the Newman Community, a church affiliated with the liberal arts Fairburne College just inside Applewood’s border. Father Jack’s Table, a charitable organization that feeds those in need, opened its doors the night of the Quake to help anyone whose home had been ravaged by the initial upheaval or the ensuing “rot,” which has decayed every home and business except the Café Confictura.
Volunteers for Father Jack’s Table haven’t slept since that first night. It’s been a little over a month. They were expected to exhibit signs long ago of sleep deprivation, madness, illness. Yet their eyelids don’t grow heavy; their minds have not been chewed up by insomnia. They seem driven to continue feeding the displaced, though peace warms their every smile.
In my ongoing quest to blog the stories of this town and its people as they sift through the quite literal rubble of their lives, I’ve talked with several Father Jack’s Table volunteers. I’ve asked how they feel, why they think this insomnia has hit them and no one else, how this has disrupted their world. They only ever talk about the people they help, and they don’t say much before getting back to it. In fact, I was in the middle of one conversation with a volunteer who’d come into the café for a quick coffee break, when, as we stood in line waiting for her order, the bells of Our Lord of the Ascension pealed with all the shrillness of a child’s tantrum.
Mrs. Creaverton bustled out from the café’s kitchen and took off her apron. She snagged Violet on her way out from behind the front counter. “Time for Sweeney’s neighborhood chastising — I mean, meeting,” Mrs. C said, rolling her eyes.
I quickly excused myself from the volunteer and scurried after Mrs. C and Violet.
Our Lord of the Ascension is across the street from Confictura. But unlike the café’s homey lemon-hued house, untouched by the Quake or the rot, the church was not spared.
It is a glass chapel, all windows, but they’re frosted so the view inside is obscured. Its façade and entryway are narrow, its crossing tower reaching high toward heaven.
The Quake cracked most of the exterior window glass, and the story that floats along whispers in the café tells that the glass-enclosed sacristy keeps cracking, despite repairs.
There’s another story that floats there, too, one of dark mysticism in the hands of Pastor Sweeney, which is what fractures the sacristy, but this story slips behind innuendo and rumor and so it’s yet been difficult to grasp in full.
We met up with Roscoe Belesprit on the church steps, then filed inside with people who were either part of Sweeney’s flock or who lived and worked on this side of town and had heard about the meeting. I, and several others, find it rather a remarkable coincidence that this meeting, “to address the crises of the Quake and the apathetic youth refusing to help our hardworking Applewoodians during this difficult time,” as Sweeney’s flier said, was called two days after a member of Roscoe’s literary salon renewed her devotion to her writing in place of the manual labor Sweeney had suggested she do.
Thus far, my friendship with Roscoe is about as deep-rooted as astroturf, but my newswoman-turned-blogger gut told me he wasn’t going to sit silently if Sweeney attacked the young adults in the literary salon.
I didn’t have to wait long to find out my gut was right.
It’s hard to miss Pastor Sweeney. His thinning white hair looks perpetually windswept, yet it is motionless as though frozen by ample hairspray. He offers his smile like diplomacy but snatches it away if his demands aren’t met. Shortly after he climbed the steps to his pulpit, wearing blue suit pants and a white dress shirt, sleeves rolled up, he dove into his sermon.
“Friends,” he said, spraying his smile over the congregation, “Proverbs 12:11 says, ‘Those who work their land will have abundant food, but those who chase fantasies have no sense.’ I am deeply disturbed when I see our young people and other neighbors eschewing the practical needs of our town in this troubling time and turning instead to idle pursuits. What right does one man have to leisure while another toils to rebuild? What right do some young adults have to dally with their heads in the clouds while others are yoked to the earth, their hands bleeding from work?”
Next to me, Violet’s French accent oozed as she whispered, “What right does one man have to steal all the melodrama in the world for himself when many, many soap operas are in need?”
“What right,” Sweeney boomed, hands heavenward, “does one doctor have to waste valuable skill on researching nonsense when the sick and wounded must be treated now?”
Mrs. C leaned forward and looked at the rest of us. “Is he talking about Doc Graham?” she whispered. “What’s his beef with the doc?” Dr. Graham Teek, as full of compassionate verve as Sweeney is of the Spirit, has diagnosed Syndrome 43 — a new, deadly illness that came after the Quake. Mrs. C has it, and right now, Doc’s research is the one thing that might keep her alive. No other doctor in town has given Syndrome 43 any credence, and Doc Graham has started feeling the chill of loneliness as he searches late into the night for answers.
That was when Roscoe stood up. His hair is thinning and his brown skin is light enough so we could see his head turning red. “Pastor Sweeney,” he called, “excuse me, but may I ask what project you’re currently working with your hands to complete?”
A buzz flitted around the congregation at this interruption, and Sweeney waved his hands down to subdue it. “My son, I do the work of our Lord day in, day out. I’m not just here on Sundays,” he said lightly to a smattering of laughter.
“I would argue,” Roscoe continued, “that my literary salon, and anyone using their talents to shed light on our unique situation, works as hard as those using their talents in a capacity more — ”
“Useful?” said Sweeney.
“Manual in nature,” Roscoe snapped.
Sweeney’s smile was gone. “The Holy Spirit came to me in a dream, my son, days before the Quake, foretelling of the tribulations we now face.” His voice rose with fervor as he thundered to the congregation, “I was shown the rot, the illness, the loss of life and livelihood. Then I saw the faces of those who would thwart our best efforts to revive our town, and those same faces appeared when I asked the Holy Spirit who was to blame. We are being punished, my children! We have allowed the deadly sin of sloth to permeate our town, and this Quake is our test, our last hope to show we will work the land dawn to dusk and are worthy of walking in the Lord’s light. Will you stand aside while our town suffers, while the dalliers and dawdlers daydream and doodle?”
My snort at Sweeney’s showy and aggravating alliterative assertion was buried by boisterous and bothersome, um, cheers.
Above the congregation’s support of their leader came Roscoe’s voice once more: “And what would you have us do, Pastor Sweeney?”
The crowd quieted.
Roscoe added, “About this ‘apathetic youth’? What would you have us do?”
To his flock, Sweeney replied, “In the coming weeks, we will explore exactly this question. I see many new faces here today — an encouraging sign. I hope you return to our humble parish each Sunday as we call on the Bible for guidance in identifying and correcting those who would impede our hard work . . .”
His eyes fell squarely on Mrs. C. “And holding to account those who would squander their considerable blessings by offering refuge to those souls who wander astray.”
“He’s talking about the café,” Violet whispered to Mrs. C, who kept a steely gaze on Sweeney. “He says Confictura is on blessed ground. This is why Nessie wants it for herself and tries to kill you, I keep telling you but you ignore me like you ignore me now.” She tossed her hands up, frustrated, and flopped back against the hard pew, her straight black hair jerking back with her.
Roscoe said to Sweeney, “Is there no room for interpretation of your vision, sir?”
With the gravity of a stone tablet dropped from above, Sweeney set down, “All things are absolute in the eyes of God.”
Roscoe nodded. “‘He that tilleth his land shall be satisfied with bread: but he that followeth vain persons is void of understanding.’ That is also Proverbs 12:11, but it’s the King James’ edition. I believe you chose your interpretation from the New International Version. Or was it one of the other several dozen translations that are accepted?”
A thin grin unfurled on Sweeney’s lips, directed to Roscoe, and then the pastor addressed everyone. “I would encourage those who care about our town to show it. You will know how.”
This was no pep talk, no simple inspiration in the name of town pride, though of course that’s the spit shine Sweeney is putting on it. This was a call to arms.
His eyes fell on someone else then, and he said, “Do not be afraid. You are doing God’s work. Let us pray.”
I followed Sweeney’s gaze to a woman across the aisle from us. “Who is that?” I whispered, elbowing Violet.
“Ouch, you pointy person.” She pouted and rubbed her side, then looked where I nodded. Her face turned serious.
“That,” she said, “is Nessie.”
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This and any related blog posts are works of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Any reference to living or dead public figures, entities, places, events, and the like, are of a fictional, opinioned, and/or parodic nature. No healthcare professionals have been consulted in writing this. Any advice given or inferred is anecdotal and used at your own risk. Consult your doctor in all healthcare matters.
Clarissa J. Markiewicz is the author of Christmas In Whimsy — a heartwarming, fun novel readers compare to Hallmark Christmas movies, and recipient of Readers’ Favorite 5-star Seal — and the genre-bending new-age mystery The Paramour Pawn.
