Joseph Lezza By Joseph Lezza
Editors’ Note: We suggest you listen to George Michael’s “Faith” before or while you read this story because why wouldn’t you want to?
The school seemed so much smaller than it used to.
Harris cringed at the fact that he was capable of such a trite observation. For someone once heralded as “a promising young voice in the age of new media,” the idea of such an unoriginal thought—or any, for that matter—made him feel like a plagiarist. The prolific part of his mind, having gone belly-up, had provided nothing more that false starts and dead-ends for a solid year. Still, it wasn’t a wholly inaccurate notion. Through the windshield of his Ford Cougar, the visage of Monsignor Flanagan High School looked like a dried-out sponge, a structure far less skyscraping than it had appeared from that same driver’s seat a decade ago. This did not, however, make it any less intimidating. In fact, the idea that the walls were closing in made Harris short of breath. With twelve hundred students and a staff of fifty, there was no way that building could hold enough oxygen to sustain human life.
Before the self-induced asphyxiation could completely take hold, a buzzing from the cup holder knocked the wind back into him. It could only be his mother. And, in fact, it was. Offering up another in a long line of motivational platitudes always served with a piping-hot side of religious guilt.
Ah, yes. In lieu of the therapy he could no longer afford, Harris found himself beholden to the life-affirming, pseudo-psychological exercises his mother plumbed from the depths of the Internet during her late-night Google binges. Every few mornings, he’d wake to find a new print-out slid under his bedroom door—each one ripped from the blog of some wellness influencer/med school reject, each one about as profound as a motivational missive found on the inside flap of a cereal box. Today’s nugget of insight, from a site called Pause-itive Reinforcement, was entitled:
Harris had made it as far as the subheading before wadding up the paper and trashing it as soon as he’d left the house.
Perhaps in a moment of weakness, and with no one around to see, he found his head falling backwards against the seat. And, in closing his eyes, breathed in the frustrated air and exhaled. “Today,” he whispered through gritted teeth, “I am victorious because—”
Whatever was to come next was blown out of his ears by a surge of organ music, blasting the vehicle with an intensity that sent the wiper blades rattling. At first, it appeared to be coming from the church not more than ten yards from his parking space. But, stepping outside, he found the entrance doors to be locked and, pressing his ear to the lacquered wood, caught no melody resounding from the nave.
It was coming from behind him. It was coming from his car.
With each step he took towards the vehicle, the volume ticked higher and higher until, back in the driver’s seat, his eardrums seared. Harris fumbled with the radio, twisting the knobs and punching every button on the console. Anything to silence the bellows that were sure to shatter the glass at any moment. Nothing worked. The sound only amplified.
Options were minimal. For a minute, he considered running out to disconnect the battery but the fear of drawing the ire of the entire neighborhood stopped him from opening the door. Still, he couldn’t think. Over this noise, it was impossible to hear his own thoughts. Seeking to muffle the sound, he smushed his soft lobes into his ear canals like they were Play-Doh. But, in the chamber of his own head, any semblance of critical deduction was pummeled by the terrified beat of his own heart. The muscle thwacked against his ribcage as if it was trying to shoulder its way out of his sternum. As Harris curled into himself, prepared to yield to what was surely a heart attack, the organ music brayed into a high-pitched ringing…then cut out cold. And, in its stead: the sprightly strum of acoustic guitar.
Harris unplugged his ears to make sure it wasn’t a hallucination. Sure enough, unmuzzled, the gravelly tenor of George Michael’s “Faith” wriggled against his eardrums.
He was almost certain it was coming from the radio but, from the way the tune rolled its hips against the insides of his skull, it sounded like George was singing all around him. About bodies. About hearts. About fools and devotion. About faith. Nevertheless, the dulcet tones weren’t any less concerning a presence than what had come before. It wasn’t out of the norm for the car to act up. After years of disuse, the beater consistently came up with inventive ways to glitch out, all of which required equally creative fixes. So, as George warbled his verse to a close, Harris smashed his fist into the dash.
Well it takes—
And, George was gone.
The world seemed to freeze in midair for a moment then settled like dust around him. Everything back in place, Harris clawed through his jacket pocket and retrieved a mangled pill sleeve. The thing leapt and crinkled in his still-shaking hands, but he eventually managed to pop the last tablet through a foil partition that read LUMENOX. He tossed the pill onto his tongue and, fetching a half empty can from the cup holder, chugged it down with some old Diet Coke. Then he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.
“That was a new one.”
****
Stepping into the school building felt like putting on a sweater that had shrunk in the wash. It looked more or less the same, but no amount of stretching would make it fit. Harris imagined slipping it over his head and watching his arms bust through the brick walls.
Sitting in Mrs. Fletcher’s office, he realized the building might feel the same way about him. The room appeared exactly as it had when he was back in uniform, interviewing to be a school ambassador. Not a thing had been moved. To left of her desk hung her prized Franklin Mint Twelve Apostles spoon collection, framed and matted in red velvet. From their perch, the lot of them expressed their displeasure at Harris’ appearance, staring him down as if he were Judas. Even Spoon Judas himself.
“Well, Mr. Roberts.” Mrs. Fletcher held up his résumé as if she were reading it, but the eyes through her oversized bifocals were trained only on him. “I must say, I was surprised and excited when Samantha called and said you might be interested in serving as a substitute teacher for us.” She was transfixed, awash with the mix of curiosity and bewilderment often seen on zoo patrons’ faces when silverback gorillas start going at it in their pen. “Big city video tuber coming back to his old alma mater. Didn’t I read in the newsletter that you’d recently won some award? What was it? A Dilly?”
“A Digi,” Harris replied, going up on his inflection. Squelching his instinct to condescend left an ache in his jaw. “It’s a digital media award. For a short-form content series I wrote…co-wrote. The credit is shared with my writing partner, of course.” He figured a little show of modesty might appeal to her more saintly nature, though a small part hoped they had no place for him.
“Mmmm.” Fletcher feigned impression, as if she had even the slightest idea of what he was talking about. “Well,” she said, setting the paper on her desk and folding her hands. “It does strike me as a bit of an unorthodox departure for you. One might wonder what’s led you down this particular path.”
“It’s for a book.” A lie. Harris blurted it out faster than a cobra’s tongue. He’d certainly rehearsed it enough.
“Oh?” Fletcher leaned back in her chair.
“Yes. A young adult fiction idea I’m exploring.” Another lie. The unemployment checks had dried up three months ago, and his savings couldn’t add fries to a Happy Meal. “It takes place in the school environment and looks at how social media has forever impacted the way students interact with each other and with their teachers. Mostly research for now. A lot has changed since I’ve been here, and I want to immerse myself. You know, Ted Conover took a year off, riding the rails and disappearing into hobo culture before he wrote Rolling Nowhere.”
Mrs. Fletcher just sort of bobbed her head in incredulity, inciting a need within Harris to fill the silence with more bullshit.
“So, I took a sabbatical to devote myself to the work.” Harris wondered how many lies he could pump this woman with before the walls began to bleed. To be fair, “sabbatical” wasn’t an entire untruth. More of a glamorized interpretation. Forced-hiatus-due-to-emotional-distress-that-impedes-any-and-all-ability-to-function-in-a-corporate-setting was a bit of a mouthful and there was no need to encumber her with extraneous details. Deceptions aside, the chance to improvise was unexpectedly invigorating. This was as close to being a writer as he’d felt in some time.
Tapping her fingers on the desk, Mrs. Fletcher took a breath and reclined into her roller chair. “As fascinating as that all sounds, it goes without saying that the primary responsibility of substitutes is to protect the students’ welfare as well as uphold the curriculum. Any pet projects will need to come second to all of that.”
“Understood,” Harris blurted, practically stepping on the end of her sentence. “I am a top-notch multi-tasker.”
“Glad to hear it.” Mrs. Fletcher looked down at her intertwined fingers then back up at Harris. Her face sported a familiar sympathy. “Now, while I don’t delight in bringing up a sore subject, it was brought to my attention that you’ve recently suffered a loss. Your father?”
A dousing so unkind even Carrie White would have bristled. “Yes,” he replied.
“Samantha brought to my attention that, since then, you’ve been embroiled in a bit of a crisis of faith.”
Harris cracked his knuckles, each one an ignition charge just needing a little gas to combust. A controlled explosion he’d tuck away for the next time he saw Sam.
“Firstly, let me express my deepest sympathies.” She pouted. “I know what it’s like to lose a parent, and it’s difficult at any age. But, I bring this up only because we are a Catholic institution, as you’re quite aware. As a substitute, you might be asked to cover any number of religion classes, which require carrying on lessons and engaging in theological discussion. And, no matter where you stand personally, I need to verify you’re comfortable with that before signing off on you.”
From his vantage point, it almost seemed to Harris as if every solid sterling silver apostle bent forward in earnest to hear his response. The question wasn’t unfair, much as he wished it were. Neither was her analysis. In the face of such candor, he succumbed to a moment of frankness.
“I am comfortable with the philosophy of it. And, I won’t inject contradictory opinions as long as I don’t have to chastise a student who might offer one.”
Harris sat there as Mrs. Fletcher scanned him. He could almost hear her mind process his answer, groaning and trilling like an old CD-ROM drive. Until, finally, she spoke.
“I think we can work with that.”
****
He wasn’t outside the gates for more than fifteen seconds before Harris went digging through his pockets, hoping against hope that in his rush earlier he’d miscounted the number of punctured chambers in the pill sleeve. In freeing it from the depths, however, that notion was quickly put to bed. At the most inopportune of times, a sinister clarity had sliced through his foggy recollections. The hollowed-out pack sat in his hand, fluttering in the breeze, edges curled. A dried-out husk no different from the corpse of a silverfish, one of many still piled in the traps his father had set in Harris’ room. The traps no one could bring themselves to toss.
Just behind him, something tugged at the hem of his trousers. Spinning around revealed a tongue at his feet. Red paving stones, lapping at his toes, twisted back towards the entrance of the school, bit down upon by metal and brick. The façade was a face, gaping, so bent on consuming everything in its path that it appeared to be swallowing itself whole. The past was a hellmouth from which nothing escaped. It had gotten a taste for Harris. Now it wanted the rest.
Crumpling the foil in a trembling fist, he dumped it in a nearby trashcan while fishing his phone out with his other hand. A missed call from Samantha. He pressed his thumb to her name and a chipper voice swelled in his ears.
“Hey! How’d it go?”
“Do you have any more pill packs?” Harris grouched.
“Let’s try that again.” Samantha feigned the sound of a tape rewinding. “Hey! How’d it go?”
“Dandy. They’ve added me to the sub pool. It’s everything I dreamed my life would be at twenty-seven. Now, do you have any more pill packs?”
“Hare, you know I don’t.” Samantha’s chirp softened. “I already broke a handful of rules by giving you those samples. But, you were in a rough spot, and I was worried about you.”
“I know. I get that, I do.” Harris tried to sand the edge off his tone. “Not even one more lying around? Just to get me through the week?”
“To be honest, Harris, I’m a little concerned that you’re out already. The Lumenox are benzos. They’re essentially tranquilizers. In fact, they are tranquilizers. They’re a short-term fix, and you’re only supposed to use them when you feel a panic attack coming on.”
“Sam, my whole life is one big looming panic attack.”
“Ok, but how often are you using them?”
“Some days not at all. Some days…ya know.”
“Some days what?” Samantha’s voice dropped an octave.
“Some days…more. Like, no more than half a sleeve. But, that was once and—”
“Har, that’s eight pills.” Samantha blurted, a near shout that she quickly hushed. “I was very clear that you’re supposed to use them as needed and no more than one every six hours. That’s double the daily dosage.”
“I said it was one time.” Harris groaned with the insolence of a child asking to stay up past his bedtime.
“I understand,” she sighed. “Still, you can’t take that stuff liberally. I mean this is brain chemistry we’re talking about. It can have messy side effects. The best thing would be for you to see someone, and they can determine what, if anything, you actually need.”
“With what insurance?” Harris was bemused by her selective ignorance.
“We have student doctors here who you can see for free.”
“So I can be somebody’s guinea pig?” A rage began to gnaw at his stomach lining. “No thanks. I’m not trying to be a footnote in some dusty post-grad’s dissertation.”
“Wow.”
“Yea. Wow. It’s funny because I swear I remember you standing next to me at the wake and saying ‘I’m here for you. Whatever you need.’ I didn’t realize that offer expired when things stopped being convenient.”
“Convenience?” Samantha practically spat through the phone. “I compromised my own ethics and stepped into a freakishly gray area to give you those meds. Then, I stuck my neck out to set you up with a part-time job so that, just maybe, you can work your way back to a sense of normalcy. Yet, because I’m not willing to further risk my career I’m a bad friend? Is that what I’m to understand?”
“No, but—”
“But nothing. Listen, Harris. I love you. I’ve loved you ever since you offered to share your Dunkaroos on our first day of kindergarten. I’m not denying that things have been inordinately crap. But, don’t think for a second that gives you license to be a little shit to the people who are trying to help you. You wanna go on about how ‘I’ve lost my voice’ and ‘I have to get my life back’ while, at the same time, complain when someone else won’t do the work for you. Now, I’m here for you. I won’t stop being here for you. However, I will not be insulted and then be made to say ‘thank you’ for it. So, I think the best thing to do is for me to get off the phone before I say anything I might regret.”
“Listen, I—” Harris choked, cut off by the closed fist growing somewhere in the back of his throat.
“Have a nice day, Harris. Call me when you decide to wake up.”
The line went dead. But, where there should have been silence, the air scolded Harris, calling him by name in Sam’s uncharacteristic ream. Only the echo didn’t die. It grew louder, chasing him, gaining on him until it was breathing down his neck. By the time he turned to run, it was already too late. Mrs. Fletcher was tapping him on the shoulder.
****
“I’m so glad I caught you when I did.” Mrs. Fletcher clomped up the stone steps toward the second floor, a brisk clip for a woman who had to be pushing seventy. The stairwell smelled of floor wax, just as it always had, fresh and rancid all at the same time. “When Ms. Delavane informed me she had a family emergency, I wasn’t sure how quickly I could find coverage. Then, all of a sudden, I had a feeling that you might still be close by. So, I looked out the window and—poof—there you were. What a perfect opportunity for a dry run!”
“Perfect,” Harris bit down on his lip, clutching the lukewarm bottle of Coke he’d nipped from the teacher’s lounge.
“Now, it’s just sophomore Religious Literature. Ms. D has them reading select passages from the text, then they’re to spend the last half of class writing a reflection. Should be a cakewalk, but I’ll stick around for a few minutes to keep them in line.”
A buoyant din gagged itself at the sound of the door opening. Spinning in their seats, a forest of green cotton sweaters with ill-fitting khaki stumps scanned Harris from top to bottom as he sidled up next to Mrs. Fletcher at the front of the class.
“Students, this is Mr. Roberts.” Fletcher’s tone was sweet, but she could command a room. “He’s going to be filling in for Ms. D today. He’s also a respected alum, and, while he may not look much older than any of you, I expect him to receive the same level of respect paid to the rest of the faculty.”
With that, she stepped to make her home in the doorframe, leaving Harris right in the line of fire.
“Right,” he said, numb from the waist down and doing everything in his power not to audibly fart. “It’s nice to meet you all. Feels a little Twilight Zone-y to be standing up here.” Harris kicked at his feet and nervously twisted the bottle cap, letting out little spurts of air. “But, instead of going around and doing those cringey introductions that everyone hates, why don’t we jump into the assignment?”
On the podium, Harris found a note from Ms. D next to a roster. “Looks like we’ll be reading passages from the diary of St. Maria Faustina. Starting on page sixty-five.” Over a concert of thwapping pages, he ran his finger down a list of names. “Let’s start with…Mr. Alvarez.”
“I was in a misty place full of fire in which there was a great crowd of suffering souls.” A monotone of youthful disinterest recited from the back of the room.
Harris followed along, stealing sips of soda to stay alert. It continued much the same way for a while, every couple of paragraphs a new name from the list would continue the chronicles of St. Faustina’s visions of purgatory with a similar lack of vigor. Once it seemed he had control over the proceedings, Mrs. Fletcher gave Harris a half-wave and slipped out into the hallway as the latest verse came to its close.
Another student closed out their half-hearted reading with, “Know that you will have much, much to suffer, but don’t let this frighten you.”
“Ms. McKenna.” Harris’s call was answered by a mat of bronze curls at the front.
“You will accomplish my will and my desires. My mercy does not want this, but justice demands it. Iustitiae petit eam.”
The abrupt shift in language had Harris checking his copy of the text, thinking he’d lost his spot. But, it was entirely in English.
“Ms. McKenna, I think you may be on the wrong page.”
Lifting her head from the book, the girl met his gaze, dead-eyed, and repeated herself. “Iustitiae petit eam.” She didn’t move or blink. She didn’t breathe. She just held her hot metal glare, boring holes into his skull.
Unsure of the tactic, Harris got the sense that this might be some stereotypical prank on the sub; a pretentious honor student was simply condescending to whom she perceived was a dimwit.
Refusing to take the bait, however, he moved to the next name in line. “Mr. Chen.”
A lanky, bespectacled boy in the second row rose to his feet and met Harris with a stare, again vacant. “Miserere mei, non vis hoc. Iustitiae petit eam.”
Before he could clap back with some incendiary retort, Harris watched as, one by one, each student stood up from their seats and began to parrot the indecipherable phrase in the round.
“Miserere mei, non vis hoc. Iustitiae petit eam. IUSITITAE PETIT EAM.” With each repetition, they grew louder and louder until they joined in shrill unison, extending their arms and pointer fingers in leagued accusation. “YOU WILL HAVE MUCH, MUCH TO SUFFER. IUSITITAE PETIT EAM.”
Try as he might to shout over them, it was like taking on the New York Philharmonic with a kazoo. From his perch, the gaggle seemed to loom; pillars of polyester dwarfed him. With each foot they grew, a familiar tightening gripped his neck. No matter how deep his breaths, the air could not seem to satisfy.
He pitched himself toward the closest bank of windows and unlatched the first one he could grab, but the thing wouldn’t budge, not even a crack. Harris could feel his lungs throbbing for oxygen, yet his rasping was met with only leers and admonishment.
“YOU WILL HAVE MUCH, MUCH TO SUFFER.” The horde seemed primed to pounce on him at any moment; faced with that reality, he threw himself towards the door.
Knees buckling beneath him, Harris lurched into the hallway and bashed his shoulder into a row of lockers. The echo of the infernal brigade’s chanting spilled out onto the tile like a flood, sending him running. Despite the pain radiating down the right side of his body, Harris took the corners and stairs with the precision of a gazelle.
Wheezing and clutching his chest, he burst through the first-floor doors and narrowly evaded a gathering of students huddled by the nearest exit. Not wanting to incite a new brood of demons, he rerouted himself through the “dungeon.” The underground arts wing would be deserted during the day. Barreling down the corridor, his gasps for air were the only thing drowning out the voices that called after him. As he galloped, the double doors at the far end grew closer until, with his last scrap of stamina, he slammed against the handle, and the door gave way, emptying his limp frame onto the floor of the church narthex.
Then: silence.
On the marble, the world was cold and tasted like O negative. The hard landing had found a significant portion of his right cheek clamped between his back molars. It had already begun to swell, rubbing against the side of his tongue like overcooked burger meat. Reaching for the back of a pew, he hoisted himself off the ground and hurried his way down the aisle. The place was mostly abandoned, save for a smattering of ladies hunched over and whispering into their rosary beads.
On the altar, a priest cleared the remnants from morning mass. Conspicuous as his entrance may have been, it hadn’t seemed to register with a single member of the gathering. The ladies’ prayers were unbroken, the father unmoved from his tasks. Harris was invisible and, for once, he felt blessed to go unnoticed.
Claiming an empty row, he sat in an attempt to collect himself. He clasped his trembling fingers together and buried his nose between them, wetting the chasm with manic exhalations. Nothing more. To the observer, Harris seemed just another reverent parishioner. To himself, he was every bit the unwelcome intruder, the heretic, the lost. And, lost he was. All around him, the closed-eyed muttered their thanks and petitions. Blind belief in action. But, behind his lids, he saw.
He saw a phone screen lit up with “DAD” in big, block letters. Saw himself, selfish child, roll his eyes and roll the call, off to voicemail-land as his friends slogged through a drunken chorus of “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now.” Couldn’t be bothered. Not on awards night, his night, not for another request for another dopey mixtape that could wait for another day. That’s what the young believe, that there’s always another day.
But, then, he saw white cloth draped. He saw the casket on his shoulder, felt it pushing him toward the ground. There, among the floating debris of his life, he’d still sooner tread water than climb into the lifeboat of his attacker. Because lifeboats are flimsy. The smallest shift can make them capsize. Even if they manage to stay upright, you can’t question the oarsman because he’s the only one who can read the stars. So, screw it. If he was going down, at least he wasn’t going to waste his last breath on a God who never had to answer for His actions.
Harris couldn’t hear himself over the sound of his own indignation. For once, he didn’t care. Because, for once, someone in a church was making sense. That anything at all made sense was a miracle in and of itself. A reason to rejoice he could shout to the rafters, even if it was blasphemy. For the sake of the mixed company, he opted out, choosing to embrace the stillness revelation brought. But, churches are the soundbox of unspoken words. They scream them right back in your face.
At once, Harris was knocked from his seat, bowled over by a wave of sound that tore through the nave. From the floor, he recognized it instantly. It was the odious organ music from earlier that morning, back in stereophonic resonance. So intense was the bray that the missalettes were sent clattering in their cubbies. It didn’t even resemble music anymore. This was an unholy groan from the pits of the earth. Clambering to his feet, he ran towards the back of the church, past the worshipers blithely unruffled by the goings on.
The knob of the great wooden door wouldn’t turn, not a whit. Neither would the other. It was as if they were welded shut. Across the narthex, the metal doors that led to the school were just as unyielding. Amidst the loathsome opus, he flung himself against them—each time rearing back further for more momentum, each time just as painfully unsuccessful. He punched the glass and smashed every ounce of his weight into the surface until his body was one giant bruise. It was no use, though. As the organ swelled, he clutched his ears, leaning back against the door and sliding to the floor. The tonal torrent boiled his blood and ripped at his insides until he was certain this was the end of the road.
With all the strength he could draw forth, with tears bathing his cheeks, Harris turned his eyes toward the ceiling and shrieked:
“What do you want from me?”
Silence. Again. Then a guitar, a tuneful pluck, right on cue.
Well I guess it would be neat
If I could cleanse your body
I’ve had a word with God and
He has His eyes right on you,
uhh
It was George Michael. And, yet, it wasn’t. Peeking from behind the back pew, Harris watched, agog. The priest—an elderly, impish fellow with a Pooh Bear potbelly—stood upon the altar, arms raised toward the crucifix, swinging his hips. Out of his mouth, a dead ‘80s pop icon and the star of DAD MIX 6 – BRITISH INVASION, crooned in a gritty vibrato that sent the stained-glass rattling.
Of course it’s no small price
To give your heart and soul away
There ain’t no greater sum to pay
I know, I’ve been there, too
The church surged with heavenly accompaniment, lifting Harris to his feet. Whether it was by his own curiosity or some unseen force, he found himself creeping up the aisle once more, if only to make sure he wasn’t the only one seeing this. To his left and right, the lady congregants remained. Heads lowered in adoration, each one proceeded to ball their rosaries up in a fist, shaking and jangling the beads in percussive exultation. To his front, the priest shimmied around the pulpit, snapping in rhythm and proclaiming in verse.
Oh but you
Need to reckon with your devotion
Time to dig those heels from out the floor
This was it. This was a nervous breakdown. A gay icon in clergical form had come to strip him of his last bits of sanity. Though it was surprising how lucid he felt, Harris was sure of it. This morning had been a warning tremor. This was the earthquake. At any moment, the ground would split open and engulf him whole, leaving nothing but a wet spot where he once stood.
If he was being honest, it wasn’t a completely unpleasant way to go. That is until the priest locked eyes with him and began to make his way down off the altar.
Show your God ya have faith
Oh, have ya got faith?
Show your God ya have faith, faith, faith
Oh, have ya got faith, faith, faith?
It was all well and good when they were ignoring him. However, the sudden awareness of Harris’ presence was unsettling. The priest’s eyes betrayed a glint of hunger, the eyes of someone dying to share a secret. Whatever it was, Harris didn’t want to know. He spun around in an attempt to bolt, but his escape was stopped short by a blockade of church ladies. Having risen from their seats, they stood in neat formation, wagging their fingers in disapproval as they smacked their prayer books to their hips. Perfectly in sync.
Baby
I know you’d love to walk away
But please, please, please don’t go astray
You know you’ve got a lot to lose
Manic priest to the back and ungodly girl group to the front, he was trapped. The tips of his fingers went numb, and his throat constricted. As far as hallucinations went, he had nothing to compare it to. Still, going crazy always seemed like it should be accompanied by a euphoric detachment from worry, not full of terror. Honestly, something seemed very off about having a panic attack in the middle of some sort of demented episode, especially one to the tune of a bop that would echo down two flights of stairs nearly every time his father took a shower. All at once, as his face flushed and his brow glistened with sweat, the illusion waned and things began to feel uncomfortably real.
Before this sinner
Becomes an-nointed
Before you take an oath you can’t un-swore
Eyeing the empty rows to his sides, he wondered how easily he might snake through before the crowd could catch him. Even if he made it to the exit, there remained the problem of the immovable doors. In the time it took him to consider, the point became moot.
As if predicting his next move, the ladies broke ranks, spreading out and pirouetting until they’d completely encircled him. To melodious fanfare, the daisy chain of disciples linked arms, kicking and sliding, orbiting Harris as if he had some great gravitational pull. With each revolution, they wound their way further up the aisle, taking him along for the ride. Harris spun with them, not only because watching them made him dizzy, but also to search out a weak link, some gap in the chain he might be able to slide through. But, just as he completed the round and brought his eyes back to the altar, his body froze.
Let go of your disbelief, or
Be disappointed
Give yourself to Him completely
That’s the cost, and nothing more
The circle had broken, and where it opened, the priest waited at the bottom of the steps, standing over a baptismal font that had sprung from the floor. Father George Michael continued in song, bending towards Harris and offering a hand to beckon him forward. Reluctant as Harris was to answer that call, his will was immaterial. Jesus’ fly girls had, once again, joined hands. Only this time, they were closing in on him. With each step they took, the circle narrowed, forcing Harris forward.
Sun shone through the stained-glass windows that dotted the length of the church, bathing the nave with warm, kaleidoscopic light. Wherever it kissed him, the glow stopped Harris’ skin from prickling; it filled his veins with tranquil phosphorescence. Until, finally, Harris no longer stepped toward the font out of coercion but of his own volition.
Peering into the water, he met his own gaze, reflected off the bottom of the metal basin. Only there were no puffy eyes, no dark circles from sleepless nights. It was Harris as he was and as he wanted to be. As he leaned closer to admire his reflection, the priest placed a hand on his back and pushed his head down.
Show your God ya have faith
Oh, God, ya have faith
Show your God ya have faith, faith, faith
Oh, God, ya have faith, faith, faith
There was a bracing, cold splash, and, as the water filled his ears, so did the world wash under—all of it reduced to nothing more than a vibration. Whatever the note, whatever the frequency, it was the exact calibration that finally, after many long months, refracted the shouts and bellows of a daily reality that seemed determined to press him and press him until it had squeezed the juice from his bones.
In their absence, Harris found relief, a silence into which he could speak and actually hear himself, if he so chose. A silence that would merely echo, not chastise. A silence he could believe in. Even still, even in this space where he might live, where he might stand to live, it soon proved subject to the gravity of a troubled existence that clutched him at the ankles and yanked him toward the surface. No time to take stock. No trail of breadcrumbs to leave. Nirvana swirled to a pinprick as the water rushed through his hair, over his head and across his eyes, as the pressure from the force threatened to split his skull and flatten his lungs. There, millimeters from mincemeat, he was spat back into the light in a crash of bubble and fizz.
White. A cocoon of white enveloped him, crackled, and popped. For a moment, Harris feared he would suffocate and, by reflex, tore his mouth open to gasp. But in the time it took for the air to skim droplets across his tongue and for his taste buds to buzz his brain, the cocoon had run down his face and cleared his vision. As droplets pooled on his upper lip, he followed one as it dove, gracefully, landing and rolling down the length of his forearm to reveal the mangled corpse of a Coke bottle clenched in his bloodless fist.
“…Bruh?”
The call of a recently pubertified voice drew his gaze forward, where twenty-four sets of eyes made clear he was very much not alone. Twenty-four glazed expressions betraying slight bewilderment as they took in their rabid substitute teacher actively foaming at the mouth.
“I’m,” Harris tried to jolt what remained of his wits back into their respective grooves, “sorry.” He loosened his grip on the bottle, and the warm rush of circulation returning his fingers accompanied his search for any plausible cover. “I must have been so, um, taken by the reading that emotion clearly got the best of me.”
An uncomfortable titter from the back of the classroom offered little comfort as he stood there, dripping the remnants of delirium and soft drink. He pressed on.
“Apologies. Let’s pick it back up. Can we take it from that last part?”
Roughly half of the class kept their eyes fixed on Harris. The ones who could look away looked to each other for confirmation.
Soon, one brave boy from the middle row spoke up and read aloud. “Don’t let this frighten you.”
Harris stood and listened as the sugar water crystallized on his cheeks. He stood and listened and regarded the words as if this were the very first time he’d ever heard them strung together in such order.
Don’t let this frighten you.
Joseph Lezza is a writer in New York, NY. Holding an MFA in creative writing from The University of Texas at El Paso, his work has been featured in, among others, Variant Literature, The Hopper, Stoneboat Literary Journal, West Trade Review, and Santa Fe Writers Project. His debut memoir in essays, “I’m Never Fine,” is due out February 2023 from Vine Leaves Press. When he’s not writing, he spends his time worrying about why he’s not writing. His website is www.josephlezza.com and you can find him on Twitter @lezzdoothis.
Why we chose this piece: We love Joseph’s voice—he’s hilarious. The humor juxtaposed with the impact of grief on mental health is a really specific form of catnip for us. Funny + poignant is always a win for us.
