The Convert by Christopher Ananias

I stood alone at my stepmother’s funeral, fondling a plant, watching rain bead down the fogged window. The funeral parlor’s black walls, and black curtains were heavy-handed leaning too much on the death knell. Ten lines of bright red chairs clashed with a maroon carpet. The organ music droned like it always did—my whole life.

My cousin Neecy charged up to me. Like I had been touching a child instead of a plant. She said, “Go stand by him!” Him, being my father, standing alone in his only black suit, under the lights, by my stepmother’s shiny white casket.

I stood in the customary spot. Feeling like an invaluable member of the family. Neecy had her head down sitting in a chair, crying like a sad little wallflower. I thought, is she crying for Dad’s loss, or for how I disgraced him? I should go over and ask her. Get all the details.

My father, not seeing me, held my Aunt Gloria’s wilting hand, accepting her tears. I hovered over Dad’s shoulder like an unfocused picture. People look at me with a spear point of judgement in their eyes, but they can’t see me at all.

I am the younger him with brown thinning hair and the same wire-framed glasses. We both have that nerdy sort of pear shape with small white hands like flippers on a fat dolphin. If you need someone to set up your dot matrix printer. I’m your man. Sorry, I’m stuck in a time warp… Now I’m much more careful with those urges and downloads, since prison. I’m fighting them.

Auntie Gloria’s face of sadness flashed into anger. I smiled and reached out like Dad, trying to mimic him. I say like Dad, “So glad you came.”

She reared back, her eyes were green daggers over dark circles. She’s had a hard life since her son’s suicide. Drugs. Can’t blame that on me. Tony rode the pink pony. Now he’s graveyard chow mein. Just say, NO.

I had no feelings for her or anything that went on. She stiffened, like a mean old cat that hates being touched on the head. Her thin miserly lips turned white, and left my hand, as they say, “Hanging,” and walked.

I said again, like a parrot, a parrot that might say anything, “Glad you came.” I should say, Fuck off and die. Dad looked at me then down at his scuffed Florsheim’s. He reached out and laid his hand on the cool casket. Like it held a comfort for him. He spent all of his money on that dirt diver.

Our blue eyes met. His, full of some kind of disturbance. Like he was working on one of those impossible math problems in WORDS about travelling salesmen. How far and fast did they go? Was the trip home quicker? Dad’s eyebrows sank down—hang dog, and he said, “It might take a while for everyone to adjust.”

“Sure, Dad.” I said from a green spring of optimism.

Old Mike came up, one of Dad’s friends. Snow white hair, a ruddy man of the outdoors. He once took an interest in me. We walked around his pond, where he invited us to fish, and through the woods on a spiritual journey. Mike was a Blackfoot Indian, another agent enlisted by Dad to help me. He said the Indian words that floated on the air and became a part of nature like caressing a tree or petting a bug. The variegated sunshine flashed through a canopy of the green full summer leaves, and there was a sense of peace and the possibility of healing. I still meditate on that day.

Sometimes he exaggerated and talked Indian. Not saying obvious things like “How,” or “Me do this.” More in his stunted almost blurted words and forceful tone. I think it was a cultural thing like Ebonics. A way to survive the extermination and appropriation of his culture. He gave me an eagle feather, which the white man made illegal. I smashed it between the pages of a King James Bible like a flower. 

Mike no longer appeared friendly toward me. I thought he might even hit me for a second when he got too close, expostulating his coffee breath. I could almost see a brown vapor.

“Hey, Chomo.” Dad didn’t hear that, consoling Aunt Gwen. His sisters were crying more than he was. 

“Hey, Mike.” I smiled with a sort of vacuous glow. I’ve heard every insult imaginable—beat—and raped in prison. The guards put dead cockroaches on my bologna sandwiches. The cook, a little street negro, jacked a starfish of semen onto my cornbread. Yummy. I like cornbread with ham and beans topped with raw onions—just another day.

Mike’s face softened a little. I could see that he still wanted to help me. Some people never give up…

There was a kindly Methodist preacher in the prison chapel. Reverend Rohrs, a short, forty something man with a black widow’s peak and a constant smile on his round face. He found his mission in the correctional system. “The Rev” had been working on me, hard. He said, “Even the worst people can be forgiven. We’re all bad.” I took note, kind of hard to miss, but it gave me hope. I wasn’t always a pariah.

One day, I sort of offhandedly converted and agreed to pass out the sacraments on Sunday to get out of my cell. He was so proud of me, but more proud of himself after this wonderful breakthrough. I felt a little ashamed to see how happy he was. He kept saying, “Isn’t it great! To be born again!” A true believer is something to behold, they are every bit the joyful, Jihad.     

If he could redeem a vile creature like me. His mission was real and worthy. It was kind of embarrassing to see the devotion in his eyes. He was on my side. Then I stole his car keys, and sunglasses from his coat, and they put me in the hole. After I got out looking like a grey slack skinned corpse. Reverend Rohrs, said. “I forgive you, we are all thieves.”

I still think about him, too. I miss the chapel. There was a moment in the chapel under the cross’s power, literally shining on my forehead from the skylight that affected me in a bewildering and wonderful way—nothing less than supernatural. I felt God’s presence, and it was the cleanest, warmest feeling I’ve ever had. My soul felt as light as a butterfly flitting from flower to beautiful flower. Jesus is real. I loved him for that beautiful moment, but the red stripes of my past bull whipped him out of my heart.

People are right—you know—about us. We can’t change. But ever since the chapel I felt like I could do the impossible. When in doubt, I tell myself how Ted Bundy accepted the Lord.

The funeral organ played a little too loud from a speaker cocked up in the black tapestries sounding almost like, “The House of the Rising Sun,” (The Animals). Then the tempo changed, and it sounded horribly, like HERE COMES THE BRIDE. I imagined The Bride of Death wearing a black veil standing at a bloody golden altar taking vows with the Devil.

My feeling as an invaluable member of the family waned, as the strange event of paying respects and disrespect continued. They would come to my Dad and shake his hand, see me, and do a wide circle or an about-face. Every time like Dad, I would say to a departing mourner. “I’m glad you came.” I was doing my part no matter if they shunned me or not, I was there for my Dad. You can’t take that away.

I saw my cousin Jenny and her two kids walk up. I said, looking away wincing in a terrible guilt, like they were made of some blinding angelic light. “Got to go, Dad. You know my conditions of parole.”

“Glad you came.” I thought he was talking to me, but I saw him smiling at cousin, Jenny. He looked happy in his sadness.

Christopher J. Ananias

Image: A shiny white coffin with a sheaf of white flowers on the top from Pixabay.com.