Casey cupped the water in his hands and leaned forward, letting the cool water cover his face and drip down his chin and jaw. He had another funeral to go to, a celebration of life, not of death. He wished sometimes he could go up on the pulpit and tell them that. But they were Catholics, and even though the church itself said that they would go on to everlasting whatever, no one thought they were ever good enough for heaven, so always thought the worst.
He went back into the bedroom and put his shirt on. Cedric lazily stretched out a hand and caressed Casey’s thigh through the cotton suit pants. “You always look so sexy like that.”
Casey laughed, “Half-dressed?”
“In a dark suit.” Cedric sat up, letting the sheet fall seductively.
Casey smiled. “You want me out of it.”
“You bet.”
“Later. I have to go to work.”
“Do you like doing that work? Does your goddess?”
“I haven’t asked, but I don’t think of the Christian god when I sing. I think of Hino when I say ‘lord’ and Soniac when I say ‘lady’. It’s the thought more than the words.”
“Surprised you haven’t been struck down by lightning.”
“I think maybe that god has gotten over the whole ‘No other gods before me’ bullshit. He’s been around long enough.”
Cedric laughed. “Maybe he’s even gay.”
“Oh, at least bi.”
“Or he could be female, like Dogma.”
Casey grinned. “That would make me happy.” He finished buttoning his cuffs, then bent down, kissing Cedric. “I have to stay for a meeting afterward. I think I get to meet Tim this time around.”
“Good luck with that.”
Casey pulled on his suit jacket. He grabbed the black trench coat and yanked that on as he started out the door.
=============
Casey lit down behind the rectory, brushing down his coat from the wind. Only one person had seen him once land there; Mrs. Montgomery, the rectory secretary. She’d only smiled at him when he came in that day and said, “How was the flight?” She had said nothing about it any further, but often smiled at him when he came in.
Today was no different. “Monty,” said Casey – she liked being called that.
“No coffee today?” She looked up at him and smiled.
“I’m wide awake.”
“Good. You have two, back to back.”
“What’s the meeting about, do you know?”
She frowned. “Staff.”
“You’re not going to be let go, are you?”
“No, but someone else might.” She sighed a little. “At least that’s the rumor. They’re saying Tim might be let go.”
“I wouldn’t want to do that to him.”
“It’s just a rumor, Casey, and rumors are hotbeds for gossip. You know how God feels about gossip.”
Actually, he didn’t, but he assumed the Lord didn’t like it. He knew Hino wouldn’t have. He went through the hallways to the rectory and found his way to the doorway to the church. He entered, and checked on the heat, turning it up a couple of degrees. Richie could perform mass in shirtsleeves in minus ten-degree weather – the man was from Minnesota, so 44 degrees in the church was nothing.
Casey took off the trenchcoat and put it on a coat rack next to the organ. He pressed three keys together, letting out the sound of what could be the croak of a frog. This was his offering to the Goddess, his opening that everything he performed here would be for Her.
It also was his way of saying “hi” to the priest, if he could hear him in the vestry. If it was before the nightly mass, sometimes the lecturn would come out and talk to him for a little while – depending on who it was. Some people thought he was taking Tim’s place. Tim had been there since before the church was even rebuilt after a major fire. He was old, retired, and he didn’t seem to want to go to the masses, weddings, or especially funerals.
Casey liked funerals, strangely enough. At about twenty minutes before the actual funerary mass, Casey would begin playing. The songs were chosen beforehand, and were all plodding and slow. The only change that was accepted was Casey singing “Abide With Me,” as the body was taken out of the church. As Richie had predicted, there was hardly a dry eye in the church when he did that.
While beginning his rotation of music, he glanced around to watch people come into the church. Some were older people who came in for mass; some were derelicts who came in from the cold. Eventually the family started showing up, and the priest came out in his proper vestments. He nodded to Casey and then had a serious look as he advanced to the front of the church.
As soon as the casket entered the church, Casey ended off his music and waited. In silence, the coffin wheeled down the aisle, guided by the six pallbearers. The priest completed the preliminaries in silence, and as he turned from the coffin, Casey gently moved into ——-, singing two verses.
He sang a few times, always quietly and keeping the organ gentle and moving. This organ had a lot of power, and Casey was very careful with it, especially during funerals. He wanted to let the organ loose once, playing “Smoke on the Water” just for the heck of it. Jesus would get a kick out of it, he thought.
After the funeral, the priest went with the group to the grave and Casey pulled out some sheet music for organs, mostly from Bach, some Mozart, some Beethoven. Again, carefully and quietly, he played a few bars of Fantasie in C Minor.
An older woman came closer and sat down directly across from him in one of the pews. Casey was lost in his music for a while, until he saw the woman. Actually, he saw her aura.
“Lady,” he said quietly, stopping the music and bowing his head.
“No,” she said, her voice trembling. “Continue.”
He continued, finishing the piece, and looked to the woman. “The Lord enjoys such passion and grace.”
“Thank you, my Lady,” he said, bowing again to her.
“We hear you from on high and below,” she continued. “You bring us great joy.”
He looked down at the keyboard and, for a moment, they looked muddy. He raised his head proudly, but the woman had disappeared, and the priest was coming down the aisle from the front door. “Ready for – are you all right?”
Casey smiled through his water-filled eyes. “Yeah. I had a visitor who said she liked my playing.”
“You’re staying for the staff meeting, right?”
“I’m hoping to.”
“Good.”
Off to the left of the church side entrance was a small room that was often used as a break room for the workers. The maintenance men and the rectory staff usually gathered here. The altar attendants also used this room to get their assignments.
Casey liked this room. A few stained glass pictures of a paid patron saints were hidden in this room, waiting to go up in case one of the other smaller pictures along the walls were ever broken somehow. Old vestments, old books were located here. Casey found an old catechism question and answer book and smiled at the answers.
The priest entered the room and everyone stood as if on automatic. Richie motioned with his hands to have everyone sit. Casey had given his chair up to one of the older parsons and leaned against the wall.
“Thank you all for coming. I wanted to put to bed a few rumors I’ve heard circulating.”
People looked at each other as if to say, “I didn’t do it.” Casey only smiled, thinking that his goddess had approved of what he was doing.
“First of all, it’s true we are running over budget. The Diocese has asked that I either cut staff, cut salaries, or get more volunteers. I really don’t want to do any of it. I did get a call from Tim, and he sent in his resignation a couple of days ago.”
….stuck…
But 1364 words!