Last Call (5 page)

and elders including not being a tithing member

of whoever's church you're talking to

having sex with children

dancing for Baptists and Campbellites

the latter for which it is the Unforgivable Sin

not putting enough money in the collection plate

and malicious and political lying

all others are recreational and forgiveable

or just bad manners

which is why we have wives

to affect and inflict punishment

You don't think adultery

and fornication are sins

then?

I believe I have covered that topic

as well as I am able

the remainder is the parental responsibility

based on familial more' and obfuscation

What else can I do for you young potential missionaries?

Mr Klogphorne

can I ask you a personal question?

Of course you may

I am all rimed ears

so you fire away

Did yall have sex

when you were alive back then?

Young man

this being inside a churchhouse

I am bound by oath, covenant, and custom

to tell the truth, the whole truth

and nothing but the truth

so here it is complete and intact

We invented sex

It did not exist prior to our discovery

the world being dystopic and non-functional

My generation gave our youth wholeheartedly

to the definition, methodology and perfection of the practice

up to the point that it exists today

which is the legacy of trust we pass on to you

for final realization and fulfillment

If any of you have doubts whatsoever

as to the veracity of that statement

ask your parents or grandmothers

and I promise you this

Your parents will look you directly in the eye

and lie to you about the subject

as a matter of sacred protection of our mutual trust secrecy

regarding divine inspiration and creation

and your grandmothers will blush and deny that sex exists at all

then go sit somewhere in the cool shade

with a purloined Baby Jesus fan

wondering whatever possessed you to ask such a thing

and that will be your unimpeachable proof

mark my words

Brother Klogphorne

do you remember when you learned about it?

Young fellow sir neophyte

I most certainly do

every one of you in this room should know Maxine Durrant

and if you have not been in her Woman's Store

to buy your mother a birthday present

I am ashamed of, with, by and for you

as she was the most beautiful young creature

in the world since Eve when we were going

about the business of inventing sex

I coveted her as not one of but The pearl of great price

much to my avail as she had little libidinous interest in me

to my great wonder and misfortune

I will divulge this as my incidental role

in the Creation of Sex for the first time in public

She could have read me

the Tale of the Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah

or the genealogical begettings of the antediluvian patriarchs

and I would have got a hard on

Now as a result of your silence

I assume you have no further questions this morning

Mister Klogphorne

is that where the story my daddy tells

about your stob came from?

Young reverend

I did not know that event had trickled down

like the understanding of federal taxes

to the ears of Garza County Republican youth

I am embarrassed it has come to you

in a potentially contaminated form

therefore I will tell you the entire veracious rendition

of that epic tale complete and unembellished

I was in Maxine Durrant's store purchasing a transparent negligee

for my wife's recurrent twenty-ninth birthday

with expectations of forthcoming exhibition and rejoinder

when Miss Durrant made a comment upon the low riding condition

of my trousers saying I believe verbatim, Billy

one of these days your britches are going to fall down to your knees

I can't imagine what holds them up

whereupon I in Biblical language divinely inspired saith unto her

Maxine, of all people on earth

I would have thought you would know

I have a stob that holds them up

since you are the one who made me aware of it

What happened then

Mister Klogphorne?

Why of course

without further ado she took my money, gift wrapped the package

in a manner harbingering pomp and circumstance

and upon my leaving locked the door, pulled down the shades

and I would fervently wish declared first call

then poured herself a libation before Aphrodite

At least I have faith and hope that is factual

Is there anything else?

Brother Klogphorne

who was Lamech?

Who was Lamech?

Young Master Ivins of the whiplash Epimethian focus

you will need to ask your grandparents

as those legendary citizens from these parts

probably knew him

since he lived over to Justiceburg

as they might say in unspoiled Texanese

Lamech lived at Justiceburg?

Texas?

Young fellers

Acolytes Nutt and Newberry I believe

who do you think wrote the Bible?

Haven't you heard of Eden

and Palestine, Texas? Titus, Trinity and Godley counties?

The Bible was written by, for and about people

not just made up nonsense dictated out of thin air

Of course Lamech Johnston lived out south of Justiceburg

married Rayola Owens and then

Pearl Rae Higgins of the substantial bosoms

after her mama threw her out of the house for stealing

the secret of her daddy's almost perfected perpetual motion machine

and pouring out his bootleg intended home brew,

a moral and conspicious crime which earned for them the reward

of all consequent affliction and reprobation

upon which they moved to the sanctuary of Utah

somewhere west of Eden near a town originally called Hurry Cain

named after his grandfather of preceding generations

who had to rush all the way there to escape

Texas Rangers' vengeance after killing his brother

for stealing a sheep he loved in the custom they knew unto then

you can read about it

in an early edition of the Garza Dispatch

if you follow the scriptures and search out

matters of truth with fear and trembling

in a plain manner of allusionary speaking

But now I see our allotted time is up

so you gentlemen will be needing to depart

and hear words of wisdom

from our beloved pastor the Right Reverend Strayhorn

As my conclusion I fervently hope I have given you young elders

something to ponder over this morning

Brother Klogphorne

we always end our class with a prayer

would you offer it?

Well Lord up there wherever

to say it delicately and in trochaic synesthesia

I certainly hope it was larded odoriferous

with the septical fragrance of churchhouse proselytization

that will linger in these boys' memory for up to nine seconds

then flow down to this community

unadulterated and abridged for time immemorial

and if that is the resultant actuality

I will leave this earth a delighted and thankful man

Amen

Now you boys have yourselves a real nice Sunday

endeavoring to persevere in the effort

not to squirm or squiggle in your pews

but give your devoted attention to matters

of behavioral hegemony and high consequence

* * *

Did you understand that? said Roy Don Staples

I didn't understand nothing

but that part after Sodom and Gomorrah said Jarvis Griggs

It's Sunday School, you're not posta understand it yet said Bobby Hudman

I don't think it was pure scriptural said Charles Ivins

How do you know? said Walter Bloodworth

I know it in my heart said Charles Ivins

You don't know Jack Shit said Monroe Newberry

You caint say that in the churchhouse said Roy Don Staples

Nah uh said Monroe Newberry

Yes I do said Charles Ivins

* * *

Billy Klogphorne strode

from classroom to apse to

aisle to mispronounced foyer

through the church house front door

drove home without an acknowledgment

of sermon or scripture or hymnsinging or prayers

or communion or mandatory collection plate passage

his job as substitute Sunday School mentor and Professor

completed indubitably terse, thorough and Texas true

his lesson to the male youth of Garza County taught

his etched inscription into the permanent memory

of our community established satisfactorily

finally, indelibly, permanently

once and by god for all

amen

That year I'm thinking about

the popular bubblegum set-in-Italy

movie of the season had Troy Donahue

having overthrown and tossed away

Sandra Dee with the summer's morning garbage

a venal and moral sin of an unforgivable nature

to the unsophisticated and uninitiated

post-pubescent likes of moi, in which he,

courting unabashedly Suzanne Pleshette

I believe, and whilst so doing

used the term
al di la
Troy-translated

as
beyond the beyond
that being I suppose

a Swahili or Reformed Egyptian term of endearment

certainly not Italian or technical Romantic

upon finding the current operable

teenage love of a lifetime

with such linguistic power it secured

an immediate and for some Young Republicans

lifetime addiction to the expression

so that:

every Texas girls' 1962 high school annual

was signed
All de Lah
by the current

or aspiring suitor to which there was a clamor

of tearstruck emotional overthrow

at any female suitee gathering of the clavern

for purposes of stratification alignment

of eternal phylogynous commitment with an expiration warranty

of 1 June, some assembly required

by all those both signed and unsigned in that manner

which:

directly leads me to the matter

of contemporary reflective personal poignancy

ergo my undeclared adoration that very season

for the senorita bonita Eva Saenz

to and for whom I refused usage of
al di la

already in my self-proclaimed maturity

deemed trite to the shaven rimrock of cliché

whereupon I cast about for an appropriate

foreign, exotic and to the 10th power romantic

term of endearment

      but

having poor personal macaronics in my equipage

I by force of choice turned to a source

of higher wisdom upon which and whence

I trundled to my friend and her brother Gabriel Saenz

who suspected my infatuation with the lovely Eva

and queried him for the exact Spanish or Mexican

poetic maxim I should use to win

her undying love for a lifetime

    upon which

he told me not
te quiero
as that profession

must come much later after I had secured her heart

but that the
te
and familiar tense would certainly

create an atmosphere of reciprocity

therefore

after a long eight seconds spent in heavy ponderation

he opined

I will give you an amorous expression

steeped in the art of courtly love

Andreas Cappelanus notwithstanding

guaranteed to create Love's flight straight to her soul

but

you understand these words must never

be spoken in daylight and always

            whispered

sotto voce
softly and distinctly into her ear

as I recall

and I said Fine, give it to me right now, I'm primed

and he said

In a loving voice gently murmur

tu eres una pendeja
and your words

will strike her heart like St Teresa's

flaming arrow of lightning

            perhaps

the truest statement uttered on this planet

since the Sermon on the Mount

as Eva

upon hearing my love psalm

turned directly and with her soft hand

folded into a love knot like she held

a roll of dimes for tithing

       smat me a lick

whose smiting resounded as thunder

to shake Mr. Milton's throne of heaven

it was two years before she spoke

to me again and a year after that

before I found out what her sonofabitching brother

invoked upon me, an event perhaps seminal

in the focus of our lives, perhaps all for the better

as we were doomed at best to be star crossed lovers

between eras of acceptability

and now with Marvell's winged chariot at my back

I can only turn to the marvelous Mr. Nims

for solace

It was love lost

And a year lost of the few years we

Account most

truly beyond the beyond in the language of recuerdos

and adoration, a mental hiatal hernia

that being pretty much all I have to say

on that subject for the time at hand

so I'll ask you not to bring up the tragic matter again