The Whisky Blot
Journal of Literature, Poetry, and Haiku
The curtains were glowing when Camilla’s alarm woke her, and for the first time in her life, she cursed the sun. She decided that, for once, she was going to get what she wanted that day. She knew it was Sunday because Sunday was the only day she got up early. She rose, hobbled over to the toilet, sat down, and remembered that she still had not learned her solo sequence for Mass that morning.
She walked back around her snoring husband and went outside to get the newspaper. The neighbor’s evergreen clashed with the pale Bermudagrass around it. It was a bad tree for that yard. Anyone could see that. What was wrong with those people? Twigs were growing into branches and the tree was calling to her (in a waltz cadence): I'm getting bigger and you can do nothing, you can do nothing, you can do nothing! I'm getting bigger and you can do nothing, you can do nothing, you can do nothing! She dropped the newspaper. With slippers flopping on the pavement, she pushed through the gate to her backyard, opened the shed and grabbed the rose pruners. She walked straight to her neighbor's tree and started trimming. One branch, two, three, four... She held branches in her left hand, but most of the cuttings fell to the ground. Then she gathered everything into her arms and retreated, ignoring how the branches irritated her skin. She threw them into her yard waste bin, picked up the paper and went back inside. Ah, satisfaction! She squeezed through the darkness of her living room. The "den of dreams," her husband called it. The sofa and TV were pushed up against the wall and she had not seen the fireplace in years. A treadmill, grand piano, harp, nautilus fitness set, harpsichord, cello, organ, and stair master filled the room and made it all but impossible to use. She squeezed past the items and into the kitchen, brewed herself a cup of coffee and made breakfast. She ate, went back upstairs, showered, dressed, and made herself up. She piled her hair so that it swooped straight up and back. She knew that the eye shadow made her look like the Bride of Frankenstein, but without it she would look much older than her 68 years. Her ears sagged, but earrings covered up most of that. She puckered her mouth into a tight wrinkled smile, and saw, once again, that it looked ridiculous; but she still believed that this smile endeared her to others. A red Cadillac awaited her in the garage. Her husband stopped coming to church with her long ago. Damn him! She could not use his cravings anymore since he did not have them. At least he got her a nice house close to the cathedral. At least she could still give money, time, and direction to the church. After zipping through desolate daybreak streets, she parked outside the parish office, pulled out her keys and slipped inside. She went to her mail slot. Camilla was not an employee, but she was on the Finance Committee, the Environment Committee, the School Board, and the St. Vincent de Paul Steering Committee. Her own slot had nothing, but the Music Director's box held a fat envelope. She wondered what was inside. The envelope called to her (with a bouncy, playful, taunting rhythm): I know something you don't know, you don't know, you don't know! I know something you don't know, you don't know, you don't know! The song thumped through her head, and she started dancing to its beat right there in the office, pumping her feet and her fists in front of the mail slots. Then she looked around. It was still early, long before the first Mass. No one else was in the office, and she had not turned on the lights. She took out the fat envelope and opened it. It was (ugh!) youth music. Who in their right mind would sit for that repetitive crap? Copy by copy, she tore it all to shreds, putting increasing muscle into each successive octavo. Pieces of paper fluttered to the floor in a widening circle around her. When she finished, she was gulping down wheezing breaths. She got on her hands and knees, gathered the torn music, and stuffed it all to the bottom of the receptionist's waste bin. She took deep breaths to calm herself and walked out the door without looking back. Ah, satisfaction! As Camilla opened the door to the empty rehearsal room, she remembered once again that she still had little clue how she was going to solo the sequence that morning. Then she saw a guitar hanging on the wall. She knew where that guitar came from. It belonged to the lead guitarist for the Spanish Mass. Those Mexicans. She once attended that Mass for a presentation of the St. Vincent de Paul. The Mass was a mess. Vendors sold sweets by the doors, children roamed the aisles during the sacred liturgy, and the constant din of talking never ceased. Those people met for other services during weeknights in the parish hall. The sound of a plodding bass intruded on her meetings with the finance committee and the school board. Those people were irreverent and destructive. She wanted nothing to do with them. That guitar hung on the wall like a dead chicken, an insult to music and the sacred liturgy. It did not even have a proper guitar strap. Instead, an orange nylon rope drooped from the neck, and, on the other end, hooked into the sound hole. The hook was scraping away at the guitar’s face. What a horrible way to use such an instrument. The instrument sang out its defiance to her (in a Hispanic accent, and with the trumpet blasts of a Mexican Hat Dance): I play for those you despise, whether you like it or not! I play for those you despise, whether you like it or not! I know that you don't like me, but it's just too bad, too bad, too bad! I know that you don't like me, but it's just too bad, too bad, too bad! She marched across the rehearsal room with her hands outstretched and tore the guitar from the wall. She grabbed it by the neck and raised it high, smashing two fluorescent lights in the ceiling by accident. White powder and thin glass rained down upon her head, but she had a pressing task at hand. The guitar came crashing to the floor, again and again. By the time Camilla finished, she was left with the guitar’s neck in her hands, strings swinging freely, and wood fragments strewn about her feet. Ah, satisfaction! Cleanup was the price to pay. She pushed the pieces onto some sheet music and threw it all into one of the cabinets in the back of the room. The debris covered up a set of bongos. Now, what had she been thinking about? Oh, yes, that solo. It was a chant. She hated chant, especially Gregorian. And all chant sounded like Gregorian to her. Other people might say they liked it, but other people did not actually have to do it. Camilla had complained, and it seemed, for a moment, that the pastor might relent and allow the hymn instead of the chant. But then he made up his mind. Pastors could be such pains in the butt. She took out the sheet music for the sequence. It had two sets of lyrics: English and Latin. She would do the English. She hated Latin. She did try to learn this sequence the previous Wednesday, the one evening she had free. She had no meetings with the any of the committees. She was not visiting her mother, nor ushering at the theatre, nor having dinner with friends, nor working at the antique shop. That evening was free. She tried to plink the sequence out on her grand piano while the handlebars of her exercise bicycle dug into her back. After ten minutes she gave up. But she did get through the first three verses, kind of. The director promised Camilla they would go through the chant together at the end of rehearsal. But they both forgot. As Camilla shook her head and paged through the chant, choir members started arriving. The director was late. Margaret, one of the altos, had a new pair of small wire rim glasses. She asked the others if she looked like a schoolmarm. Joe and Mona had just returned from their vacation in Santa Fe. Their photographs of the cathedral, the mountains, and the local street vendors showed a lovely town accustomed to tourists. Nancy's doctor had prescribed her a new anti-inflammatory that was working pretty well. Erin, the director, arrived twenty minutes late. "Sorry! I had a hard time getting up this morning!" "Overslept again," thought Camilla. They rehearsed the Psalm, the Acclamation and the songs selected for that Mass. Then it was 7:52 and Camilla had to go. She flipped through the book one last time and blurted out. "Erin—I need to practice the sequence!" The director looked confused, then concerned. Then she sighed. "I think you're just going to have to wing it," she said. "Remember what I told you about sight reading." Camilla closed her eyes and exhaled. Then she slapped her music book shut and walked off to the sanctuary. She sat in the cantor’s seat on the right side of the altar and reviewed the sequence again. The assembly would be following along in their missalettes. They would understand the words, but would they understand the music? She hoped not. Monsignor Crowley waved from the back, signaling time to start. She got up to the podium and made the announcements. She led the opening song but was not thinking about that. The Psalm went okay, even if it was dreadful and slow. Then came the sequence. After the introductory notes from the organ, she began. The first three verses seemed to go okay. For the rest, she simply raised the pitch of her voice when the notes went up and lowered it when the notes went down. The organ tried to accompany her, but it was getting one chord wrong after another. The words were interminable. Eight verses. The assembly sat quiet and stony-faced. Even the small children lay still in their mother's arms, dense as rocks, staring at her. Camilla spent the rest of the Mass re-playing the chant in her head, trying to count how many mistakes she had made. The assembly looked at her, but no one else did: not the pastor, nor the director, nor anyone else in the loft. How bad was it? She wanted to get out of there. After Mass she was alone in the musician's side of the sacristy, putting away her mic and talking on the phone with her old friend Dolores. The 9:30 AM Mass had already started. Brittany, a new cantor, began the sequence. Her voice was clear, young, and beautiful. It rang with undiluted confidence as she chanted in Latin. The voice itself spoke to Camilla, provoking her (like a 1980's hard rock song, with lots of guitar distortion): You can't sing like me, poor dear! You can't sing like me, poor dear! You can't chant and you sound like an old lady! You can't sing like me, poor dear! Brittany's voice was loud, and Camilla could hear nothing else. She looked around, went to the sound board, found the slider for the cantor, and turned it down. Brittany's voice faded to nothing. Ah, satisfaction! Camilla slipped out the back door of the sacristy. A young man and woman were coming down a walkway. The woman was pushing a stroller with a lovely baby. The woman asked the man, "What did you think of that Mass, dear?" Camilla hid behind a pyracantha bush and listened. The man pushed his hands through his hair, and then let them slap down on his thighs. "The Mass was fine, except for that awful cantor. Good heavens, how can that poor girl still be singing at the cathedral?" Camilla stopped breathing. She circled round the bush as they passed, careful to remain hidden. The man went on. "And that sequence was the worst! I don't think she got a single note correct! What a laughable disaster!" After they rounded the corner of the presbytery, she emerged from behind the bush. A song in her head pounded like dynamite. (Screamed to the grinding refrain of a typical alternative rock song): They hate you! They hate you! They think you're shit! They hate you! Camilla watched the young family from behind the corner of the presbytery. "Who are they? Who are they? Where do they live?" She had to find out. She saw the couple put their baby into a white Sienna and climb inside. The last three letters of the license plate said "7C4." The car pulled out of the parking lot and onto the street. Camilla tromped to the office, head whirling with such vigor that she could not walk in a straight line. The receptionist would not arrive for another 30 minutes. Camilla pulled out her keys and let herself into the office once again. She whipped through parish records, tearing pages and letting folders fall to the floor. She gulped heavy breaths as she leaned on the file cabinets. Then Camilla remembered the parish directory with family photos. One was lying on the receptionist’s desk. She collapsed onto the chair and gawked at every photo, nose only a few inches from the pages. Her vision was becoming like a dark tunnel, but she had to find that family. Faces and words marched by, and her world closed around that book. Finally, in the letter M, she found them. The McNamara family photo had a lovely husband, wife, and baby girl. She looked around the desk for something sharp, and her hand swooped down and grabbed a ball point pen out of a large cup. She accidently stabbed her wrist on a letter opener and blood started to flow. The office was tilting. She clung to the desk with one hand and raised the other hand high. It came down, again and again, smashing the point of the pen onto the photo of the family, leaving gashes across the father, mother, and baby girl. Camilla’s blood got all over the desk. The walls spun and Camilla fell to the floor. The fluorescent lights were the only thing she could see. The rest of the room was turning black. She could not draw breath. The world was sliding away but she had gotten her satisfaction. Mike Neis lives in Orange County, CA and works as a technical writer for a commercial laboratory. His work has appeared in Amethyst Review, Rind Literary Magazine and elsewhere. Besides writing, his outside activities include church music, walking for health, and teaching English as a second language. Comments are closed.
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