The jeans-and-sport-coat clad man barely noticed the plunking of the water drops falling inside the iron downspouts. Beneath him, the streetlamp glow reflected inside the puddles along the alley’s cobblestones. Our man walked beside his friend, their shoes scuffling against the square stones. If they stretched out their arms, they could all but touch the brick buildings on either side, the tenement walls pressed against one another like elderly lovers, all their rigidness and pretense softened by the long passing years.
“Nathan, where are you taking me?”
“Just be patient.”
“I despise this part of town.”
“I know.”
“No respectable person would be caught dead down here.”
“We’re almost there.”
Hidden between the occasional streetlamp umbrellas of light, secluded in the space between, his friend stopped and turned to the wall. Our man’s sight slowly adjusted like scales falling from the eyes. He attuned to the shadows and soon saw a long-ago hewn door, so insignificant that one need step down just to pass through it.
His friend raised his knuckles and rapped the weathered surface: rap, rap-rap, rap-rap. Our man heard his friend say beneath his breath with each knock, “And, also, with you.”
As his “scales” continued to fall, our man saw, sunk into the stone lintel, as if chiseled by a divine finger, “CONFITERI.”
Shunk!
A small slit in the door slats slid open. All he saw were two small flickers of light reflecting off what he assumed were eyes hidden inside, mere sparks that bounced back and forth between the two visitors.
“Confess,” grunted the darkness.
His friend looked wryly over at our man and winked. He cleared his throat and moved his lips closer to the slit in the doorway, “Elisha’s axe head didn’t float.”
Shunk! The slit closed.
A clack. A grinding sound. A bang and finally a loud click. The door slowly swung, making no sound as it opened, revealing a descending stairway within.
Warm light and warm sounds radiated from the base of the stairs. The two friends descended the stone steps with rounded front edges, hands dragging along the walls on either side. They soon reached the sunken space below, then followed the passageway beyond and came in time to a space the size and personality of a speakeasy. Guests had already started to arrive. A dozen round tables scattered around the floor, a few still holding up-flipped chairs, four legs pointing to the softball-sized bulbs dangling from the ceiling, fifteen feet above. At the far side sat a frumpy stage, bored and sullen. And to their immediate right a small bar, home to a single tender, cleaning out glasses with a bar towel, humming while sizing up the two strangers.
A waistcoat and rolled sleeves, a wink and a “chik-chik” from the corner of his mouth, “What can I getcha’?”
The center of our man’s eyebrows raised and his lips pursed slightly.
The tender slapped the towel over his shoulder and in a single motion slid a small leather folder down the bar where it stopped against our man’s just rested hand.
Inside, the selections included Trappist beer, Celtic whiskey and Sacrament wine.
“I’ll take a beer.”
“Me too.”
Two frothy English pints were poured and passed. The friends gave a smile of gratitude and moved across the room to take their seat at a table, center left.
The distaste and disgust our man had felt in the alley took the first baby-steps of dissipation as he settled in for whatever the evening might hold.
Nathan asked our man, “What do you think?”
“Hm?”
“What do you think… Do you like the place?”
“Have you been here before?”
“Yes, a handful of times over the years.”
“Years?
“The first time was five years ago.”
“Five years?”
“Yeah.”
“That would be right around the time…”
Nathan never looked at his friend, eyes fixed forward, “Yeah. Right after that time.”
“Oh.”
“That’s why you are here.”
“But I thought you were past all that.”
“I didn’t say you were here for me.”
“What?”
A tumult tumbled down the stairs, through the hallway and into the speakeasy. A quick stream of a dozen or so danced in. Some appeared wide-eyed and off-balance like our man imagined he had been. Others tugged at their lapels or strutted, chin-up and expressionless; they were quick to find a table or order a drink.
The room was filling quickly. Our man felt the chill leave. He removed his scarf and placed his spectacles next to his beer, not caring that their rims rested in the rings of ale his frothy glass had left on the flat surface.
He took a long draught. He felt the foam fizz upon his skin in between the stubble of his unshaven lip. The smile that appeared surprised him.
Drinks dispersed and chairs filled, a slightly overdressed man in a fedora stepped up and sat upon the stool at the stage’s center. His whiskey-neat placed gently on the flattened music stand to his right. He pulled the boom to his lips and winked at the bartender who flipped a switch behind the bar and with a warm hum the microphone came to life.
“Hello. My name is Thomas. Thank you for joining us.” He did not act like a DJ nor did he seem interested in hyping the room. His tone was sober. His eyes probing. But his countenance was casual… For him this was clearly nothing more than a Thursday.
“Welcome. This is the Confiteri. Let’ me start with the ground rules.” He brushed at his pants, above the knees, straightening the wrinkles. “One… No last names. This is a safe space.” He squinted against the lights to see if the room complied. “Two… no religious traditions, denominations or tribes. All that crap gets left in the alley outside along with your collars and vestments and… your masks. Three…” he took a slow sip of whiskey, the airy slurp caught by the sound system, “…three, no sacred cows, no scapegoats, no taboos. No bullshit. Say what you need to say. Got it? Oh… and leave that longwinded shit for Sundays. Ok. Who’s first?”
Without ceremony, the host grabbed his glass and climbed off the stage.
From one of the front tables, a treestump of a man rocked twice to build momentum and rose to his feet. He stepped up onto the stage. The stool creaked at his weight.
He pulled the microphone from its stand, but before he could speak…
In unison, the room said in shared monotone, “Hi, Richard” just as the treestump said, “Hi, my name is Richard.”
He smirked condescendingly at the room.
“Today, I would like to talk about women if I could.”
The room grunted in approval.
“Look, I have been in our game a long… a long time,” He resettled his girth on the stool. “I have built my personal cathedral… I have a reputation… and It’s, it’s my unwavering commitment, my, ummm… my consistency… that has been the basis of all that I am… and, and don’t get me wrong, my people love me for it…” He put his closed fist against his mouth and cleared his throat, took a beat and said, “Women.”
Our man sat wide-eyed, his hand fisted ‘round his pint, a slight white at the knuckles, still soaking in the strange space into which he had been drug. He leaned to his friend and whispered, “Is that?”
“Yup. Sure is.”
“What the hell is happening?”
“Don’t overthink it.”
“He’s a little above all this don’t you think?
“Above what?”
“Above… I mean… look at this place.”
His friend didn’t answer.
“The will of God is clear.” The treestump had found a rhythm and the cadence was building. “The Lord has placed a specific and unqualified responsibility on men… to step up… to shepherd… to lead the women and children.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his forehead.
“And that… ironclad TRUTH is not about ‘better’ or ‘worse’, Just because there are places that one group can go and others cannot, doesn’t mean the ‘others’ are ‘less than’ (air quotes). It’s not about ‘blessed’ or ‘cursed’… it is however, about order. Divine Order.” The handkerchief moved to the back of his neck.
“And for that reason, my pulpit has never welcomed a woman” -He spoke with a renewed conviction, that then tapered off just as quickly- “my elder board, only open to men… leadership only for men… as God ordained.” His voice trickled and his chin sank to his chest.
His heavy breath could be heard through the microphone. Looking blankly at the floor he said, “For man is the head of the woman...” (deep inhale) “women shall be…”
No one moved. The silence filled.
Barely above a whisper, “I watch my daughters… so lovely, so… so strong. You know what I mean?” As if buoyed by memory, his head raised and he looked into the darkness to the back of the room. “They are grown now, fully comfortable and content in their own skin. And so, so much… smarter than I.”
At this point Richard seemed to have left the room completely.
“Each of them are unassailable leaders in their own spaces. When they are home and we sit at the dinner table and they talk of their heroes, their stories are full of women… beacons of industry and poetry… commerce and inspiration.”
His mind returned to the dark room and he looked intently at the faces before him, “Women are undeniable leaders in every corner of human expression… everywhere that is, except in my church” —the handkerchief touched his lips— “and I cannot deny the inconsistency in that.”
The treestump stood and just before he returned the microphone to the stand, he bowed his head and spoke an all but inaudible, “Thank you for listening.” And he teetered off the stool and stepped down.
A din rose. Some slipped to the bar.
“I’m sorry, You are going to have to spoon feed this to me,” our man took the pause in the program to speak. “I mean, give me a break… what the hell is all this about?”
Nathan turned and looked at our man whose brow furrowed and eyes narrowed.
Our man continued. “What does he think that accomplished? Give me a break. ‘Women are less than men, but women are just as capable!.’ I mean seriously. Choose a side, You Fat Blowhard. I swear, I have always hated that guy.” He took a drink, shaking his head back and forth. “Don’t get me wrong, different people see these things different ways, but Jeez! Physician, heal thyself! Know what I mean?”
Thomas stepped to the corner of the stage, whiskey still in hand. He didn’t walk to the mic stand but shouted instead. “Alright people, who’s next,” and then returned to his seat.
Static silver hair, perfectly styled, stepped on to the stage. She was tall. Her suit tailored.
“Hello, friends,” a few muttered hellos returned to her from the floor. “My name is Shelah. I am in from out of town and learned of your little, well… experiment… here and thought I might experience it myself.”
She smiled, amused that she was apparently the only nonanxious person in the room. “I commend brother Richard for his struggle. ‘Press into it, my friend.’”
“Speak for yourself. ONLY yourself” grunted Thomas.
“Right… sorry.” Apparently not used to being scolded, she adjusted the mic stand and stood straight. “It seems to me that some of us overcomplicate this whole religion thing. Let’s face it, we are paid to have faith, am I wrong? Simply put. Not just paid for it… It is demanded of us. Hell! Half of our people don’t have any faith of their own, so we have to manifest enough of it for the lot of them.”
She smiled and let her charm wash over the room.
“’Manifest’… now that, that is an interesting word. Manifest: to bring into the present or to bring to life. Does that mean it was dead before? Or maybe it just means, like a magician, it means to make it… appear to appear.” Her eyebrows raised and she looked up, perhaps fearing she was communicating poorly.
“Like maybe many of you, I was given a creed when I was young. One that was spoken and an even more complicated one that was unspoken. And I was offered a terrible crossroads and so I made a choice… maybe you did as well. My deal was… Manifest it all or reject it all. The old ‘all or nothing.’ And ever since I was a girl, I was taught that my place in my spiritual family depended upon whether or not I chose correctly… whether I, um, toed the line, as they say.”
“Well,” deep inhale/exhale, “I decided some time ago that they were right. They were right! In the great tradition of this place, I can say it here, because god knows I can’t say it out there,” her arm gesturing across the top of the room toward the world above and outside. “I rejected it long ago. All of it… divinities and magic books, parlor tricks and peasant rabbis, spiritual ceremonies and raised bodies. All of it. So--you may be wondering—what do I do? This here is the rub.” She took a moment to catch eyes with each person in the room. “That, my beloved strangers, is simple. Like a children’s theater teacher, I direct the pageant and play along. And no-one need be the wiser. You see, in a world where I must: accept it all… or reject it. I simply choose both. On the inside, I choose reality, not magic… but on the outside I have a job to do… and so, I let the pageant go on.”
Our man finished the last gulps of his first beer. He let the numbing sensation fill his stomach. “Tell me again, why am I here?”
“I didn’t tell you the first time.”
“What the hell was that?” he thrust his hand toward the stage, struggling to keep his voice at only a strained whisper, “Inside it’s reality, outside it’s theater! What the hell is that? She’s even worse than Fatty.”
“I thought you might have gotten something from Shelah.” Nathan stunned our man. “If we could take a picture of your insides, I suspect there is quite a hole there.” For the first time, Nathan turned to our man and looked him full in the eyes, “After Richard you said, ‘Physician, heal thyself.’ Perhaps you ought to heed your own words,” and he looked again away.
Our man’s face twisted.
“Hi. Hi. Hi everybody.” Her energy was so effervescent that the stool strained to contain her electricity.
“Hi. I’m Tabatha. Ummm, First time. Haha. I wasn’t sure if I should speak but then again, what the heck, you know what I mean? When in Rome.” She shrugged and stretched her arms out wide, as if she was hugging the whole room.
Our man guessed she was forty-five-ish, but if you closed your eyes, you would swear she was only eighteen.
“So, let’s see. I am definitely a lover… big time. I love everything. I love faith. I love people. I love life… you know what I mean?”
The room couldn’t resist her and many heads spontaneously nodded with her sing-song voice.
“So I am in the perfect spiritual family… for me, that is. We, ya know, we love everything. And we will let you know it, yes we will.” She tried to make her face really serious and wagged a finger at the room, but within a second her smile burst back and filled her face. “I mean we love whales and march for whales aaaaaand… we give money… and sign petitions, ya know?” She playfully wagged her finger again, “Let’s not kill any more whales, people!”
“That’s the kind of community I come from. We stand up for things we love. We love rainforests. We love spotted owls. We love the oceans. We love the glaciers.”
“We love soldiers.” (finger wag) “No more war, no more killing people! We march for them. Let’s bring ‘em home. Love our soldiers. Love the other people’s soldiers. We want them all to live. That is just the way we believe. Love old people. Love foreign people. Love different people. Love poor people. Love children… We even try to love politicians.” She giggled at the thought and seemed to lose her train of thought.
Then a sobriety settled, “We march for women too. For women’s rights. For women’s bodies. And don’t get me wrong, nobody has any rights over my body besides me. Stay away from my body, people!” She wagged her finger again, but this time seemed less invested in it. “We march for so many, many things…” She paused and continued, “but you know a march I have never been invited to? A march I have never heard of, at least not by my people…” She nodded across the room. “A march for as few abortions as possible, ya know?… I mean… no one would say it this way, but basically we march for more abortions. Everywhere else it’s more: More owls. More forests. More whales, but here it’s less, less fetuses. Does that make sense… This love thing sometimes seems so complicated.”
Our man slumped in his chair, “Well, she has a point there.”
“You are only saying that because she is so damn likable, and you basically agree with her.”
“I guess so, but it’s all so damn depressing. Can we go?”
“I’d like to stay.”
“I want to go.”
“I’ll buy another round.”
“Okay, we’ll stay. Oh, and a shot.”
The beer flowed and the stage never stood empty for more than a minute. It seems that someone was always shuffling back and forth to the bar or the bathroom, but by and large the room stayed attentive to the testimonies.
On and on they went, a parade of confessions, that it seems never could be whispered outside these walls. Some admitted that their thoughts were half-formed and apologized for droning on. Others stated succinctly that their livelihood could be in jeopardy if anyone betrayed the sanctity of the Confiteri.
A lanky man prattled on and on about the centrality of the historical liturgy and then, in the end, admitted his suspicion that the very concept of the clergy was a manmade construct to endow power to a spiritual upper-class, and subsequently his paycheck, in stark contrast to the teachings of the Bible, that seems to advocate for a classless priesthood for all.
A mousey man, with spectacles on the end of his nose, befitting a professor, described how he had recently stood on stage to debate a secular adversary upon the existence of God. He explained in intimate detail his enemy’s arguments for a humanist and material view of the universe. He articulately listed each point with an audible scoff and a condescending shake of the head… and upon the conclusion of his recitation, just as everyone awaited his rebuttal, the mousy man merely shrugged and walked off the stage.
A woman of considerable status considered how the story of the cross might be the most overrated story in human history…
And the awkward, often meandering, self-examinations went on into the night.
Thomas refereed when people strayed. He was also quick to meet people as they stepped down with compassionate eyes, a handshake or a pat on the shoulder.
“What’s his deal?” asked our man and pointed toward Thomas.
“He is a cautionary tale, that one.”
“How so?”
“He was a pastor, a fairly famous one, you know, one of those hip young churches that draws all the disillusioned lemmings and grows really fast.”
“Yeah, I’ve lost more than my share of members to those churches.”
“Well, when he first started, he was saying crazy stuff… stuff like he suspected ‘the teaching of the Buddha are just as divine as the Bible,’ and maybe ‘hell wasn’t real’ ‘and ‘parts of the Bible are mythology’ and ‘socialism was the culture of the early church’ and stuff like that. And it didn’t matter, because the rooms were small, half the time he was just sitting in a pub or college chapel. Then the church exploded. And slowly, he couldn’t say just anything anymore. His elders were on him. Then they had to take a bunch of money from some big organizations to sustain the growth because… you know that twenty-somethings don’t give, but they are happy to take, but you have to keep growing.” Nathan’s shoulders drooped. “I’m gonna get another beer.”
The two got up and walked to the end of the bar and ordered.
A man with stylishly quaffed hair and shining white teeth stood at the microphone and explained that God wanted everyone to be rich and healthy if only they believed and gave… but recently he had been unable to reconcile all the stories of suffering and poverty in the Bible and in church history.
Quietly, Nathan continued, “Anyway, Thomas had to clean up his act fast. Everyone was threatening to pull his funding if he didn’t get his words under control. So he bottled it all up. He took the money and stayed on script. And the stress and expectations kept building.”
“What happened?”
“What do you think? He blew it all up. He started drinking. There were other things that have been alluded to, but I have never wanted to ask about. He lost his wife. Lost his church.”
“Shit.”
“That’s right. Shit! He just walked away” They walked back to their table.
On stage, a simply dressed man wearing a black hat, was explaining with much apologizing that he is wondering if it is okay to play gui-tars (that’s how he said it: an emphasis on the “gui” and then an elongated “tars”) in church.
“So what happened?” Our man begged.
“Well, one evening, Thomas and a friend were given tickets to one of those fancy comedy clubs in the city. And the evening did its work to distract him from his grief for a few precious hours. Toward the end of the night, after three other comics had killed, the emcee came on stage and announced that that one really famous comedian, you know, from that sitcom, the one who ends every joke with, ‘Can you believe it?”
“Yeah, I know the one you are talking about.”
“Okay, him. He wasn’t on that night’s billing, but he apparently had just showed up and wanted to come on and tryout some material for a few minutes. So they let him perform a short set.”
“What happened?”
“Well, he bombed.”
“Bombed?”
“Yeah. He was terrible. Timing sucked. Not funny. And at the end he said, ‘Can you believe it?’ And, even though the set stunk… every single person in the room stood up and clapped and whistled. Our guy, Thomas up there, he was the only one that stayed in his seat. He spun his head all around to watch the response to this man who had dared to share his half-baked material and people still loved him for it.”
“A week later Thomas found this space.” Nathan pointed all around the room. “It took him a year, working alone, sweat drenched, in the dark and the dust before it was ready to open. When I first came to it, it had been open for about a decade. Only word of mouth. The rest of the world can’t know this place exists.”
“Why can’t people know?”
“People would lose their jobs. Lives would be crushed.”
Our man returned his ear to the stage. He just caught the ending words of a notably skinny man saying something about purity culture and his own duplicity before bowing humbly and stepping down. Our man felt genuine regret that he had not been attentive to the skinny man’s confession.
Thomas stood and waved his arms back and forth above his head.
That was when the lights came up.
Thomas came back on stage and pulled the microphone to his face. “Well everybody, that’s about it for tonight.”
Our man looked around and it seemed that the tables were just as full as they had been when the evening began.
“Everyone be safe gettin’ home. Be kind to yourself tonight.” All the piss was gone from Thomas’ voice and his eyes welled with compassion. “An experience like this can open up some really tender places in people, so again… be kind to yourself. Try to sleep in tomorrow. Eat something healthy. Don’t drink too much. And if anyone needs a taxi, we will call one.”
Most everyone was already on their feet, collecting coats and hats. A line had formed at the bar waiting to close their tabs.
“I’m going to pay for our drinks. Tonight’s on me.” Nathan squeezed his friend’s arm they went to the back of the line.
Thomas collected glasses on a platter, moving swiftly from table to table.
The room was a beehive, two dozen conversations being had all at once. The competing sounds all slowly rose to fill every crevasse of the underground space.
Then unexpectedly…
A loud TAP TAP TAP pierced the din.
Nathan looked back but his friend was not to be found. His head swung back and forth around the room.
There on the stage our man stood, tapping his index and middle finger on the heavy microphone. “Hello?”
Like water through a drain, the cacophony dissipated. No one moved. Every eye turned toward the stage.
“Hi, my name is Mark and…”
“Hey Mark,” said the whole room warmly and in unison.
“Hey. I’m sorry about this. It’s just… well… there are some things I need to say… and if I don’t, I’m really afraid I might not make it…”
Without the slightest scuffle of a shoe, everyone eased quickly to their seats and the bartender killed the music.
Mark continued…
The End
Top-notch storytelling, as usual. May we all seek the courage to find and frequent our own Confiteri.