In the Gadda Da Vida

Father Pierce sat back in the easy chair with the lack of difficulty usually associated with the name. A long Palm Sunday, and now that the aisles had been swept clear of the goddamn palm leaves, he had the whole damn building to himself. At his left side, a basket full of milk chocolate reserved for the Sunday school cherubs, which he groped pornographically, regularly shovelling bite-sized peeps of the purest cacao into his mouth, periodic ejaculations of molten chocolate erupting from every side of his mouth. At his right side, a good ounce-sized baggie of a particularly sought-after herb that wasn’t the common constituent of any good spice cupboard. The things that came out at confession! The guilt, the sorrow, the wriggling pleasure of spiritual exhibitionism! Lord, the shit was good.

“Lord,” he said, choking ever so slightly on grey vapours, attempting vainly to keep it in his lungs, “the shit is good.” On the seventh day, the Good Lord lit up one, and the shit was great. “Pfff-ucking-A.” he giggled, burping out a blue-white pillar.

The father’s lap held something more delightfully squeal-eliciting. A laptop and microphone, the laptop and the microphone, the bastion and periodic recipient of all the tearfully blurted-out sins and confessions of the past while, sat carefully just over his holiness’ groinal tenders. Thank Christ he’d manage to encourage his flock to loudly end off their admonitions with a good old “Lord hear my contrition”. Not only would He be able to finally turn down His hearing aid and get the goods on Mrs. O’Flaherty’s filthy fling of a Valentine’s Day picnic with Mr. Cassen and his lovely wife Judith so that the lot of them could get the Lord’s blessings as they went forth to sin some more-- but it also was a good signal for the good father to wake his weary head from rest, Amen.

The sauciest material (he had an iTunes library full of favourites, fun for the whole fan-damily) was carefully ferreted away from the prying eyes and ears of those gossips in habits, those penguins with their tight morals but loose lips, the nuns. Sister Serene, for one, kept a regular wiretap on all comings and goings in the church, usually looking to gloat over the pubescent boys’ notes that described in tumescent detail the structural perfection that was Sister S’s habit-forming bosom.

“Pride before the fall, Serene,” he muttered, pursing his lips for another toke, “pride before the fall.” Father Pierce looked up at the stained glass, and the wholly hellish expression that was his Christliness up on the sticks. “Cheers!” shouted Pierce, rocking back and forth in his robes, liberally belching out smoke now, “The father, th’son, and the holy toasted.”

Amen.