She Took Me to Communion

The day my Mama died she took me to communion. I was eating, as we do when a loved one dies and we do not know what else to do. I was standing in the kitchen, the taste of potato salad a ghostly presence in my mouth.

The chalice was a stainless-steel pot clutched in my shaky hands. There was no wine. The blood of Christ manifesting as a soothing pool of pot likker holding a mess of collard greens. If the kitchen can be said to shelter and sustain, then this one was church. I could see it overlaid on my sore eyes. She was sitting at the organ, absorbed, smiling. For fifty-one years, she had played it for the church she grew up in.

The voice called, summoning us to the rail. I worried that we had no bread. She was unconcerned.

My shadow had not crossed the threshold of a church to worship in more years than I could recall. Yet to be there, that was the important thing. The kitchen ceiling raised up. Becoming warm wood, the cross on a wall of brick. Without knowing it, I knelt. The pot was too heavy for its size. I lifted the warm metal to my lips. Salt and iron. Green intensity as wine soothing the gullet. The taste of such a thing revealed to me the meaning of the term “soul food.” I drank, thirsty and grateful and knowing that we were loved.

I would no longer have the blessing of sharing that love with her as we gathered around the table that evening. I did know this: She slipped away peacefully. That is a blessing few of us receive. Far from home, tears trickled down into the greens upon my plate. I ate in a bit of funeral silence except for her voice whispering to me that someday we will all be home, and we can take communion.

Memento M(ug)ori

I woke up this morning, but unlike Jim Morrison at the roadhouse, I did not get myself a beer. Instead, I had coffee. Smarter choice, that. Pandemics may change the rules. It is reasonable to assume that does not mean open containers on a morning drive are suddenly okay. I will admit that the thought of surveillance video showing me swigging on a forty while getting my cash made me laugh. Safe bet that would end up on the internet in no time. Andy Warhol whispered “fifteen minutes” in my ear. Tempting? Yes. Smart? No. The drive to the bank would be dry like Moore County.

Dry from alcohol, that is. Coffee was a different matter. My usual morning beverage of choice is black tea. Today the gray and drizzle made a persuasive case for a cup of strong black comfort, so I poured it. I like the sound of demerara sugar sliding off a spoon. Sweetness like gentle rain. A few slow sips are the ballast to the chop of the morning. I set a spell, savoring, then poured the remainder into a travel mug for the short drive. Stepping onto the porch I felt breeze on my skin, cool air filling my lungs. A round little wren perched on the worn wood fence. It cocked its head to peer at me with consternation. I tried to show I was no cause for alarm. The bird, like me, understood caution as a motivator. It flitted off to join some cousins in the shrubs across the street. 

Leaving the neighborhood for only the second time in a month felt like an overdue vacation. The weather was less than sprightly, a mottled silver-gray sky letting go a soft drizzle. Hands on the steering wheel shone like Wedgwood china. Nitrile has a way of catching the eye and troubling the skin. At least it would save me some time in the teller machine line. Funny how a touchscreen could be the stuff of bad dreams these days. Literally could be a case of your money or your life. Or is it your money now, your life later?

That thought troubled me only a little as I drove, mask dangling from the rearview and swaying gently. The blue and white cotton seemed muted compared to the nitrile. Putting it now felt like wrapping my face in fear. Anxiety and prudence slugged it out behind my eyes. Anxiety was putting up a good fight, but I sensed prudence planning a knockout once I had to open the window. Mama hadn’t raised no fool. The mask would be worn.

I was in a mood, as the kids say these days. When in a mood music is a frequent accompaniment to the noise in my head. Today was no different. I had plugged my phone into the tuner, set to play on an album that had recently caught my attention. The music was from 1995. Memory of it had bobbed up from the dark water of mind a short time ago. It played in my head incessantly until I gave in and bought it. The album unspooled through the speakers to land on my favorite song¹. Alone in the car, the volume upped to borderline discomfort, I sang along loudly and badly. The steering wheel morphed into an impromptu drum kit. Bass thrummed through the seat. I could feel the crunch of power chords in my mouth. It was good.

I was alone at the drive thru teller, too. A good thing in the face of the pandemic. I looped the mask strings over my ears. The touchscreen presented itself with corporate anonymity overlaid with distrust. There was no accounting for how many hands may have touched it before my arrival, nor for any cleaning that may have been done. I rolled down the window. The card slid silently into the slot. My blue left hand typed its way through all the screens. I wondered all that time over probabilities, disease vectors, and low-level fears. The sound of the bills extruding from the machine was surprisingly cheerful. I took the money and ran.

Driving home I had the song on repeat. The volume a little louder, the singing a little more amped up. That coffee graced my gullet, sips taken with gusto between stanzas. The drive back home seemed a little less fraught. The landscape was a little less threatening. I did something I had not done in ages once I pulled up to the curb in front of my house. I put the car in park to finish listening to the song. Volume down some, of course. I had no desire to annoy the neighbors. The song faded out. I finished the last of the coffee. My eyes teared up at the sight. This mug was a gift from my daughter years ago, adorned with artwork of her creation. What it lacked in technical brilliance it more than made up for in exuberance, in wonder. It shone in the pearly light. The mood stirred again. I absorbed the colors of the mug. It came to me that if I am blessed to be treated like a pharaoh when I depart this mortal coil, this mug is coming with me into the afterlife. It has to, holding as it does a piece of my troubled heart.

¹For the curious, the song was “Stars” by Hum. It is in heavy rotation.

The Emperors' New Sandwich

The crowd goes wild over a pop queen movie star getting her costume jacket back from some dude who bought it an auction. Isn’t he a sweet man? Yeah, it was for a good cause, raising money for a cancer charity. That’s nice. No offense to her but why the need for headlines? Can’t do something nice without a shot of celebrity attention? Something is messed up, willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on vanity. Let’s hope they won’t scream too loud when asked to put something fair towards the common good. Ah, who are we kidding, they will howl like someone stole their SUV.

Turn up the volume on whatever is crammed into our ears. Irrigate the nostrils with mist reeking of donut glaze or cotton candy. Anything to drown out the noise and reek that are the side effects of wrecking the planet. Distraction for the senses as parts of the world literally go up in smoke, while the so-called leaders take vacations or go golfing on the backs of working people who are killing themselves to survive. Breathe in, all you mad kings, you soulless bastards, and stop using precious oxygen attacking youngsters who want a planet on which we can live. But what’s that you say? Bitches already gave you yo money? So they can step off, to die in wildfires or hurricanes while you get fat in your bunkers? Yeah, no surprise there.

Breathe in the smoke. Shelter in place under the radiant parasol of the night sky. Marvel at days brighter and hotter than they have ever been. Sirens? What sirens? The rulers of 330 million separate empires plug their ears against the din. Pupils dilated by legal speed, twitching eyes struggling to focus on the latest commercials. Corporate shills hawking the promise of fast-food nirvana. Press lever, receive drug. Repeat, while the goddamn palaces burn down around their ears. The emperors chew loudly to drown out the voices of the abused, the oppressed, the melanin-rich but power-poor. Chicken sandwiches, man. Fuck you if you get in the way of their chicken sandwiches. Courtiers shrug when someone dies fighting over goddamned sandwiches. The emperors continue to gorge on Death, golden brown and delicious.

You Cannot Evade the Knife

Never reach into foam and water through which you cannot see. Basic kitchen procedure. Familiarity begets imprudence disguised as confidence. The hands think they know what they are doing. They reach, swirling the water. Erstwhile Moses parts the sea of bubbles. Soft light over the sink limning the long blade in a nacreous glow. The left hand grabs the haft, the right a scrub brush. No offerings are made to the gods of good luck. A distracted mind is heedless. The blade turns. Swift as a viper, it lodges itself in a hapless fingertip. Kitchen air turns blue with invective in the midst of a desperate grab for a paper towel. A move to swathe the finger is put on pause by the sight of blood, bright spatters against the dull gray metal. Crimson on stainless steel is a morbid beauty, spots dotting the bowl like the bright eyes of tarantulas. The heart slows while wrapping the finger in gauze. Regret brings a newfound commitment to carefulness.

Caution is a blanket that keeps us warm. It is heavy, warm, and comforting. Such a blanket is also an imperfect armor against the knife. No amount of caution exempts us from the surprise phone call that shatters the mundanity of chores at the end of the day. A loved one has died, says the terse voice on the line. No warning, no indication, no clues this would happen. The blade finds the chink. Hot steel between the ribs and a choked shout. The pain sears. Every nerve in the body feels the edge drag as it parts the flesh. On the far side of agony, the mind boggles at the depth to which this knife can sink. The soul has not yet been quantified, but surely the blade cannot match its infinite depth. The truth is that the hilt eventually meets the torso. It is of cold comfort to survive long enough to feel it sink no further.

The razor edge evisceration of an ordinary day can be swift and savage. It is simple like nuclear fission to be shattered by trust become dust. Home from work, in a fog of fatigue, the mind cannot process unfamiliar shoes in the foyer. An open door reveals the truth. Eyes do not lie. Someone you thought you knew lies entwined with a stranger. Breathing now becomes a luxury as the blade moves up and into the heart.

The knife can make your greatest fear come true by separating you from that which you hold dearest. At the moment of cleaving this fact manifests like diamonds, clear and true. It is knowledge truly gained the hard way. It may be a slow build up to swift, blinding horror. Watching a child die is to have the knife pierce the breastbone up to the hilt, poison coursing along the blade to announce its presence with agony. To see it happen to a second child is to experience death by proxy. The body, the mind, both consumed by volcanic pain while holding the knowledge the child you love is insensible to it. Insensible to everything. Mercifully, perhaps. Machine noises fade into silence as the doctors and nurses turn off the equipment. Screens go dark. The knife remains with its point between the shoulder blades. The hilt is cold against the chest. In the coming darkness, one can contemplate kinship with butterflies pinned against cork under tired fluorescent lights.

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger” is a great sound bite but a feeble palliative with blood welling up in the cut, bright as roses. Fear grows from the soil of memory, it is broken terrain watered by blood and pain. Fear latches tight the door to life, keeping us out of the kitchen. There is no shame in wanting to keep the door shut, but survival has its own imperative. Obeisance to it makes life possible. The kitchen cannot be ignored. It is a source of critical energy even when the air is thick with fear. This is the paradox that must be overcome.

The knife will cut you. This is a fact of existence. Now, later, somewhere on the continuum, it will happen. Believing that the knife can forever be evaded is dangerous self-deception, and serves to amplify the pain when the blade finally finds purchase in the flesh. Self-deception is understandable. No one willingly wants to experience pain that threatens life. But surviving pain sometimes requires picking up the knife to increase our chances to live long enough to remain alive because we know something. This is deep knowledge, and it is useful. Embrace it. You cannot evade the knife, but with knowledge you can master it, and resume your rightful place in the kitchen.