God-Is-Gracious

God-Is-Gracious*

Two-to-the-tenth is ten-twenty-four.

At this thought, Bradley’s shoulders shuddered as he heaved a great, tear-punctuated gasp and let it out in racking sobs. He hated that thought, hated it because he didn’t really mind it at all.

Katie looked on, trying desperately not to be embarrassed for his tears, trying desperately to erase from her mind the conception of males as the strong, rational ones. She averted her eyes, looked at the clock. 10:24. To her it was just a time. Hours followed by minutes, and nothing more. Soon this night, the heart of darkness¹ for them both, would pass.

One thousand miles and twenty-four hours later, they stood facing the casket. Each had a daisy pinned on ner² shirt, to match the many daisies in the arrangements –placed to mask the smell of death, and so she’d have something nice to see and smell³ - around the open casket. He and she were separate black pillars, bearing the same weight. He paced. His thoughts were lofty and dark, higher than the rest of the mourners’. Hers were not. She thought of what was expected: of love, of loss, of emptiness, of unity. She was aptly named and born: ‘Pure’, beneath the winking stars of Virgo. She watched Gregory-Degory, and tears slid down her cheeks as he gazed into the waxen face.

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m having a wonderful time.”

She sat on the closed toilet seat, only a little self-conscious of her bra-less breasts, their shape clearly visible beneath her pajama shirt. He paced before her in the long, pink bathroom, the rhythm of his steps intricately balanced with the flow of their voices. They spoke, as they so often did, of Life, of the Universe, of Everything⁴. Their conversation drifted easily between topics - family, death, and gayness as obvious undercurrents - and provided some much-needed catharsis for both. They laughed a lot. There’d be plenty of time to sleep tomorrow.

* * *

Greg held his dad as he cried. Held his dad because he needed his mom. He needed his mom to make it better. What needed bettering was the fact of her not being there to better it.

“I got the brown-socks blues in the morning. I got the brown-socks blues at night…”

Amy, her soft, feminine laugh and cascading golden hair, her gentle, young-motherly smile, wrestled with Greg on the periwinkle-blue carpet. The countless tea-sets watched from the wide, white windowsill as she exerted a huge, playful effort to pin his chest beneath the weight of her body. Only she realized that this wild game was her last before she was to become the Matriarch, the last of her days as the Daughter-of-Her-Mother.

…when you are finished recording, you may hang up, or press one for more options. Beep. Hey Am’, it’s Greg. Just calling to make sure you all got home safely, and to see how you’re doin’. (Sigh. I sure do miss her, Am’.)⁵ Gi’me a call if you get the chance. Love you.

* * *

He spread his seven-year-old legs wide. “Come on, Isabelle! A bridge! Hurry, crawl under!” he said smilingly, with a chuckle in his throat. She scampered across the room, and hastened under the bridge, smiling her beautiful three-year-old smile. She was meant to play, and it made her happy⁶. Her eyes sparkled; her little black-and-white-checked funeral dress crinkled. “A double bridge!” encouraged Miles, pressing his open palms to the floor. They repeated the charade, in need, like everyone, of some relief from all this black-clad severity.

Amy led them to the kneeler. Miles knelt. He understood. They thought he wouldn’t – he’s smart, but simply too young⁷. But it was his youth that let him see. His mind was as yet unclouded by pain, and fear, and guilt, and he saw no reason to fear Not Being. Or Being elsewhere. He could always direct Car Wars Elsewhere. But he was a Little Man, and he imitated the dark looks of the Uncles.

Isabelle stood on the kneeler. She gazed at Grammy, that body which used to grunt and moan but which was now quiet. It looked nice, wrapped in that soft, white blanket. She knew it was soft – she felt it. And then she turned and took a daring jump from the lofty kneeler, smiling with satisfaction at the sound of her tiny patent-leather shoes smacking the tastefully carpeted floor.

“Rabbit-Rabbit.”

* * *

There were lots of smallish dim rooms. And lots of oldish nice people inside of them. Not many open seats, though. Katie and Bridget made their way around the restaurant, checking each room for two empty chairs, not wanting to face the prospect of making individual small-talk with distant friends of distant relatives. Ah, so you’re Greg’s. Which one is Greg, again? Well, how lucky you are to have had Jeanne as a Grandmother. She was a wonderful woman. It was a beautiful mass. Maybe if we stand in the middle and try to look helpless, someone will invite us to sit down. If we’re really lucky, maybe they’ll not even ask whose daughters we are. Oh, there’s a coupl’a chairs, over there. Must’ve missed that room, somehow.

They sat down, smiling at the oldish people at the table, who inclined their heads with friendly disinterest. “Napkins on your lapkins.” They carefully cut small coldish bites of filet mignon. They chatted, and each gazed distractedly at the tasteful art behind the other, both of which portrayed dignified, rustic men at long, oaken tables, with various household items scattered about. Katie and Bridget were glad when Brad came in, hands in pockets, looking content. He sat down, and followed the girls’ eyes to the art.

“Where d’you figure the guys in that painting are? Not Earth, obviously. The lighting outside the window is definitely not terrestrial.”

“Well, yeah,” said Katie. “I guess it’s probably artificial. I suppose they’re living underground. They’ve been banished.”

“For Suspicious Table Activities. Involving a teapot, a book, and a tilted basket.” Brad continued.

“And now they’re plotting their return to the surface.”

“Yes, by building a fish-powered time-machine.”

“Well, that much is obvious. But their supply of fish seems to be running short.”

“Their only method of obtaining fish is through a trapdoor which leads through the center of the Earth. To China.”

“Specifically, the South China Sea.”

“But the trapdoor is being guarded by those other guys, in that painting. They’re the Enemy.”⁹

Bridget laughed along, but they all knew she wasn’t really a part of the story. Katie wanted to feel bad for being so exclusive, but she didn’t. Brad, the individual, who would exist inside himself indefinitely, all alone, needed Katie. Katie knew his secrets. Bridget didn’t even know he had any. Katie - Pure One - liked it that way.

* * *

Peace be with you. And also with you. We lift up our hearts. We lift them up to the Lord. Let us give thanks to the Lord, our God. It is right to give Him thanks and praise. All powerful and ever-living God, we do well always and everywhere to give you praise. Look not on our sins, but look on the faith of your people, as we lift this joyful hymn of praise. Holy, holy, holy Lord…

Uncle Father John held aloft the blessed bread and wine. The others responded, and felt special. Though they stood on the periwinkle-blue carpet, beside the wide white windowsill with the teapots looking on, they prayed the same prayers as the people at mass in Rome, or in Louisville. They were a proud family of Catholics (never mind that some in their midst had their doubts, and others among them rejected the faith completely). The big things - like God (or lack thereof) and faith (or lack thereof) - didn’t matter right now. The small things alone – the “Amen”s and “Peace of Christ”s – mattered immensely¹⁰.

* * *

Amy cried. Her shoulders heaved, and she sniffed with unwittingly feminine sniffles. She turned to Erin, and Erin also cried. Her nose quickly grew pink and shiny, and she wiped at her tears with the heel of her perfect, hand-model hand. They held each other, woman and girl. Aunt and niece. Sister and sister. Amy couldn’t figure why she was so sad. Why should she be, when her mother was really no deader now than she’d been for the past six years? Erin didn’t know, but couldn’t have been more pleased that beautiful Aunt Amy had had to ask. Had cared enough to weep on her shoulder. Pray that I may have the strength to let you be my servant, too.

Then Amy had to go cry with her dad. She held her Dad because she needed her mom.

* * *

They got back into the steely grey limousines, feeling perfectly literary in their long black coats and tear-stained cheeks.

Each had had the idea in the back of ner head for hours, if not days. But Brad said it. Aunt Amy approved, and it was done. The windows went down with a soft automatic buzz, and the arms were extended into the cool sunny morning, and the Harris wave began. Three steely limos of family members waved slowly back and forth at the blue tent, which was blue for no real purpose (Brad had asked the representative from the funeral home), and kept waving all the way down the steep hill. This time no one wished they would drive faster, no one wished for a corner to turn, and all waved until well after the tent became a blue dot upon the green hill and disappeared from sight. It was certain now: Jeanne Harris Gibbons – God-is-Gracious – was gone.

________________________________________________________________________

*Mr. Kalb, as I think you will see this story is very personal and mostly non-fiction. I know that a lot of it will not make sense to readers. However, I did as you said and wrote it the way I wanted it to be written, though I do think that there are some significant connections to the book. I hope that you can take my word for the fact that there is more meaning behind some of this than you might be able to see, and that I wasn’t necessarily trying to allow the audience in on everything. Thanks.

The central structure and tone of this story have some similarities with The God of Small Things. My over-arching purpose in this story is to examine the relationships between the members of this family using moments from the time of the grandmother’s death. I use the filter of this occasion to look closely at some specific relationships using short tendrils of thought and description, which gives it a tone similar to Roy’s. In this story, I focus particularly on the sister-brother relationships, as Roy clearly does in her examination of Estha and Rahel’s family.

1. In The God of Small Things, the Heart of Darkness is the History House, the place where, to some degree, the story began and ended. GoST culminates with Ammu and Velutha making love near the Heart of Darkness, and the night in my story has the same sort of significance (don’t worry, there’s no incest): it is the beginning of one story, and the end of another.

2. “ner” is a pronoun invented by Brad Gibbons and myself, and means “his/her” or “his and her”. Obviously, the English language needs this addition – I simply couldn’t make this sentence flow without it. (Yeah, I’ll change it for portfolios.)

3. In Happiness, by Mary Lavin, it is desperately important that Mother bring daffodils to her dying husband. She wants him to be able to “smell them, and feel them, and look and look!” (Lavin 39) The daisies in this story have a similar urgency: the stench of death must be covered, and the grandmother must have flowers to smell in her grave.

4. This is unrelated to stuff we read in class. Just some Douglas Adams for you.

5. In The God of Small Things, a recurring idea is that people only discuss the Small Things - things that are easy to talk about - and leave the Big, important, difficult things unsaid. The parentheses here are meant to imply that the Big Things were left unsaid, but even more than that, that the Big Things didn’t need saying.

6. Aristotle says that when one is performing their proper function, they can attain happiness (Aristotle 7). A similar idea is used here: Isabelle is playing, as she ought to do in accordance with her function, and so she is happy.

7. While not directly related to anything we read in class, this reminded me of something Elaina said during discussion – about how children aren’t fully human, and don’t have the ability to recognize true happiness.

8. Estha and Rahel have an uncanny and unexplained ability to communicate with such ease and to play off one another’s ideas so effectively that it almost seems as though they can read one another’s thoughts. I am trying to convey a similar idea of my characters’ understanding of one another - they need few words to go off together into an imagined world.

9. This is, of course, another reference to the Big Things going unsaid, and of the Small Things being of utmost importance to keep the characters alive and sane.