Rectory Recuperation

I woke up.  Yes, I know, we have to stop meeting like this—my waking up, my coming to—but I don’t know where else to begin: I woke up.  And I woke up feeling like how I imagine a caterpillar must feel during that phase of its metamorphosis, when it’s wrapped up tight within its chrysalis, doing whatever the hell it does in there, some kind of black magic, so that it comes out a butterfly, completely transformed, like a homeless man after a trip to the barber shop, a sheep to the shearer.  But the thing about a caterpillar is that it forms the chrysalis by twisting and spinning itself in its own spit—or, in other words, it makes that bed itself.  Me, on the other hand, I most assuredly did not make the bed in which I found myself, and, if bugs aren’t your thing, let’s shift analogies—how about Mexican food—because I was wrapped up in there like a goddamn chimichanga, all hot and sweaty and tight like I’d just been pulled out of the deep fryer and put onto a hot plate, ready to be doused with molten cheese and delivered to the fatso at Table 4.  The coverlet was so taut, its top so smooth, it only made sense that it’d been stuffed back under the sides and the foot of the mattress after I’d gotten in the bed—which obviously meant someone else had done it. 

And that someone else, I soon discovered, was Ms. Spigot, the church choir director, who was sitting in a leather armchair at the foot of the bed.  I flinched, and her sudden presence was all the more startling considering I felt like a straitjacketed maniac, helpless and constricted, unable to move.  I twisted and squirmed beneath the coverlet and registered a dull ache in my feet.  I quickly realized they’d been pinned in an unnatural downward flex by the coverlet for however long I’d been out.  Then Ms. Spigot croaked, “You mustn’t wiggle.  You mustn’t wiggle, Mr. Worm.”  I looked over at her.  She was wagging her index finger but facing the blocky television set, which was tuned to some obscure daytime program, the image grainy, the sound staticky.  Admittedly, I was unsure if she’d been speaking to me.  The old crone was ancient, so she could’ve been speaking to anybody, dead or alive, real or imaginary. 

She reached into her cardigan and pulled out a small, frayed box, lined in faded streaks of red ink.  For a second, I thought it was a pack of cigarettes, that Ms. Spigot, too old to remember that we were indoors, or too gone to care, was fixing to spark one right there in front of me.  It would explain her yellow fingers, her wooden teeth, but then she licked her finger and opened the pack, and I realized it didn’t contain cigarettes but playing cards.  She then proceeded to lay the cards face down in a grid on the coverlet, caring not for the smooth and rolling ridges created by my knees and my shins, allowing the ones she placed there to slide askew.  After she finished a wonky five-by-five, she slowly began flipping them over one by one, letting out the occasional ah! and argh!  I tried following along but couldn’t discern the objective.  Suddenly, though, she flipped over a card and let out a triumphant AHA!  She revealed it to me, the ace of spades, and then she announced, “Behold, the Black A,” and then: “You lose, Mr. Worm.”  She played several more hands, and I lost every one of them once she flipped over the ace of spades.  I asked her if she’d ever lost the game, if it was a game she could lose, and she assured me oh yes, Mr. Worm, she’d lost plenty of times, that this was just a particular streak of good luck. 

But Ms. Spigot eventually grew tired of winning.  She gathered up the cards, placed them back in the box, and deposited the box back into the depths of her cardigan.  She then stood up and wandered out of the room.  Almost simultaneously, her departure was followed by Rev. Al’s arrival.  “Ah, Sterling,” he said, bustling into the room and setting down a briefcase.  “Ms. Spigot just told me you were awake.”  I asked him if Ms. Spigot was alright, if perhaps her drawstring had slackened and she’d lost a few of her marbles, no?  Al gave me a curious look and asked what I meant.  Well, I don’t know, I said, she just seemed a bit…off?  Not that I knew what her “on” looked like.  Sure, I didn’t know much about the crazy old bird except that she was the choir director, a title she’s held onto despite the fact that the choir was disbanded ages ago.  (Being forced to listen to a group of elderly ladies try and upstage one another with their shrill vibratos was not something the congregation really cared for…).  Nevertheless, Ms. Spigot was a fixture at the church, and stripping her of her title, however gratuitous it was, would be akin to murder considering it was a well-known fact among the congregants that she’d simply die without it.  She was like a jigsaw puzzle, one you’re pleased to have finished, but then it’s just sitting there on your dining room table, and you have no way to move it without it crumbling apart, so you just leave it there, where it loses a little bit more of its luster with each passing day.  So, yes, Ms. Spigot was still the choir director, and sometimes the church would even let her bang around on the organ up in the loft during the least busy of the holiday services. 

“You’re crazy, Sterling,” Rev. Al said.  “Ms. Spigot is as sharp as ever.  Of course, I told you about the carrot cakes she baked me while I recovered from my near-blindness, yes?  If you’d tried a slice, you’d understand.”  I didn’t bother reminding him that he never offered me one.

Anyway, I’d managed to free my arms from under the coverlet, and I reached over to the bedside table and felt around for my phone.  Ms. Spigot and Rev. Al were a tough one-two punch with which to contend so soon after waking up.  The only person I wanted to talk to was Kelley, which was impossible without my phone.  I asked Al about it, and he said all of my personal belongings were downstairs in a baggie and that he’d ask Ms. Spigot to retrieve them for me. 

“I know you need your rest,” he continued, “but I wanted to bring you this.”  He unclasped his briefcase and withdrew a brown wooden picture frame.  His eyes went glassy, and he stared at the front of it for an awkward several seconds.  I tried to suppress my discomfort by counting the triangular teeth of the hanger on the back.  Al finally snapped out of his trance and then turned the front of the frame to me, revealing a portrait of a bearded man with a thick but fading yellow band on his head, which looked more like an exercise sweatband than a halo.  When I didn’t say anything, Al explained, “It’s St. Anvil.” And then again, after a few seconds of silence, he added: “Of Severny Island?”  Yes, I said, I remembered him, of course.  Well, because St. Anvil had played such a huge role in his own recuperation, Al figured and hoped that he could perhaps play the same in mine, and that hanging his portrait in my room was the first step in seeking his saintly intercession.  I’d have to make do with just the portrait, though, Al said—and prayers, of course.  (Following his episode with the sacral horn, a furious Archbishop Mologna had stormed down to the church and retrieved the relic, roaring on about how he was going to explain this to the Conference of Bishops). 

Anyway, also from the briefcase, Al withdrew a hammer and a single nail.  He picked a spot on the wall in front of the bed, and, after a couple quick pounds, he had the nail in the wall.  As he held the frame against the wall, trying to bite the nail with the teeth, Ms. Spigot returned, frantically wondering if someone was at the door, what all the knocking was about.  She noticed the portrait of St. Anvil and immediately quietened.  She closed her eyes, blessed herself, and fell to her knees in supplication, where she began a series of hushed murmurings.  Al got the portrait hung—a tad crookedly if we’re being honest—looked at Ms. Spigot, and then looked at me.  He gave me a knowing look that said See? See the power of prayer and St. Anvil? and, careful not to disturb the saintly energy being brewed by Ms. Spigot, he exited the room without a word.  It was only after he’d been gone for about a minute that I realized I still didn’t have my phone, that I still hadn’t talked to Kelley, and that I could no longer see Ms. Spigot.  I peered over the foot of the bed and saw that she was no longer kneeling but lying prostrate on the floor, the sounds coming from her mouth not murmured prayers but snores.