The name of the church was “The City” and it seemed like it so I went in there one day when it was 75 degrees and sunny. Now, it might seem like a stupid thing to do, go inside and do something indoors on such a nice day. But outside, everywhere you went, was evidence of the socioeconomic disparity — everything owned, all the houses and buildings locked or lockable, all of the streets policed by a force that outlawed theft.
It was a little bit dark inside the church and it seemed like once my eyes adjusted from the extreme light, the first things I saw were whites of eyes on me. I started to nod and gain acceptance of the human camaraderie I was absorbing but then I saw them — another one, and another, and another, another set of eyes, with fixated gazes and molten smiles, all beholding me and awaiting my next move. And I thought, this is it. I know what’s happening here. I imagined the churchgoers all having labored through ceremony after ceremony, mass after mass, seeing the same individuals in the premises and worshipping that same white figure with long, blonde hair, every Sunday. I saw a man with shaking hands and a steepled smile, laughing and nodding at everything, kissing the elder Sister Delores on the cheek before enjoying her complimentary oatmeal cookies in the celebration afterwards. I saw routine mentions of these entities, “God,” and “Jesus.” I saw men holding hands with men holding hands with women holding hands with women, dancing and singing, tears welling up in their eyes as they beheld their shared struggle in this world that is as hard as it is vulnerable. And all of this had happened but life was in corporeal form, the true directives were of the flesh and the art of the face and now I was the center of attention, a newcomer who came in without a thought on my mind but the 75 degree day the lord had given us. To me, a white man, he was a lord — I’d had the chance to go to college, do crossword puzzles, receive blow jobs on strangers’ beds and learn the difference between Renaissance and Baroque paintings.
A stout woman took a step toward me and said, “Hi.”
I said “Hi” back, barely able to get the word out in a moribund whimper. My hands were shaking.
“I am Pamela, congregation director. It’s so nice of you to join us today. Are you a man of God?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
“Oh, good,” she returned, her face warming up into a half frenzy and hands clasping together as if she were starting a fire. “Well then you’re one of us. Come join us in a prayer.”
I walked over and clasped one of her hands and one of this elder black gentleman who was dressed in a suit and a straw fedora. An organ player started in the corner and they began in on a song I must admit I didn’t recognize and so didn’t sing along to. But it didn’t matter that I wasn’t singing, that I didn’t know the words. What was galvanizing was that I was another body in there — I was corporeal, was living, breathing with a beating heart and I was going to die someday. I think we all envisioned that day. We’d all had enough of the hackneyed objectives and the fakeness, so now we thought we’d let fakeness rule our lives and drown our identities in mythology. I looked over at the suited man without a thought or agenda on my mind and I truly forgot myself and I truly forgot Pamela, who was still over on my left side and whom I will never really know.