It's Hard To Be Holy

EP. 73: Chapter II (Cont'd)

Coarse and Offensive Language. Reader Discretion Advised.

A torpid silence followed his lengthy pronouncement. 'Happy' was a rather poor choice of word, let alone two 'happys', for the onlookers expressions. 'Perplexed' fit better. It had never so happened in any of the parishioners' memories, that an Intruder could be heard to call St. Gregory's 'wonderful' and beautiful'. It gave them all pause, and mutters and mumbles passed between the tables and the booths as the St. Gregorites openly debated both was to be done about this...as well as the sanity of...well...this!

There were those, like Bobby Sullivan and Mrs. Fitzgerald, who refused to change their initial judgements and would have gladly driven the man out with fire and fury. But there were others, a majority, that remained decidedly undecided. Those waffling independents, who wanted to know above all else what was in it for them. They dithered in their unhappiness, at a loss as what to make of this...was it a person, or a collective, demonic apparition, who had come to the parish to torment them all with his way of speaking? But as demons go...he was...was...unique, wasn't he? Comical and charming and swarthy and detestable all in one go, not dour by any stretch, not like the morose, (God rest his soul!), O'Toole, who had tended his bar as a child does a chore. So if it was a comparison, then...this...had to be an improvement, surely. And he spoke of St. Gregory's with such a zealous passion that they had only heard from themselves who had endured, and that had to count for something...it had to...right? What had he endured in life to make St. Gregory's such an oasis? What had he witnessed and been subjected too in those far off countries and places that could have made him so comfortable with people clearly verging towards murder? Despite his accent, his lacking familiarity with the parish—by tradition, facts enough to convict someone to banishment or death!—and his liberal usage of cologne, (not perfume for it was an abrasively masculine smell on his clothes), there was nothing inherently threatening in his presence, not in the ways they had come to believe all foreigners and intruders were threatening. He was a dramatically eager man, and eagerness in the face of such doldrums is intoxicating and infectious, even when every educated atom of your being instructs you to reject the advances.

What to do? What to do?!

It was Colin Malone who came up with the solution, as only Colin Malone could do. He stood at once without any provocation and pointed a pudgy fingers towards Ohannes. 'Do ya have any references?!'

'Yes, yes!' said the undecided. 'References! Show us your references!'

'You is wanting my referrings to be owning a bar?' asked Ohannes, rightfully bewildered.

'We wanna know you know what you're doing!' said Harry, husband of Lena.

'Yes, yes!' chorused the parishioners. 'Do you know? Do you know?!'

Ohannes wavered, wringing his large hands together, and he must have thought that God had put him in the path of the world's silliest people.

'See?!' said Mrs. Fitzgerald, now using her own digit of fat to point. 'He doesn't know!'

But Ohannes had survived too much and had come too far to be kept down for long. He recovered himself in a matter of moments and rushed to take a position behind the bar. 

'Come, come,' he called, 'come and see!'

Colin volunteered to be the first to approach, and he came to the bar with his shaggy head held high with conceited grandeur. 'Give 'em a show,' he muttered out of the corner of his mouth, and the barkeep understood.

'You see, my friends!' called Ohannes, taking a thick glass from the orderly shelf. 'This is my referrings—'

'References,' coughed the old man.