buttonhole merengue

The Sunday creeped onto the calendar, I hadn't seen anyone in weeks or months. Let alone years, I felt buried, I had no friends, nor did I feel an urge to make some. Alone I was at my best, my best man for a fucking white solo wedding.
When I was a kid I still went to church on Sundays, I sat in the last rows to better be able to observe all the lying faces that passed by after the service was over. I waited for them to leave before I went after burning some candles for my uncles and aunts who had left the World for another place.

It started when I was a kid, I remember attending my very first funeral. The cemetery was next to the church, the coffin had to be rolled through the side door on the northern end of the church.

We weren't family, acquainted, my mother and brother, dad was at work. We waited for the first people to take to the outside, they formed like an honorary corridor of curious faces. My mum took my hand and my brother's and she led us out only shortly before the family of the deceased would stroll out behind the clergy and coffin.

When we walked through the corridor of faces I felt awkward, all these faces, judgmental looks, lying eyes. Some sniffing, some wiping a tear, some torn apart for their own losses which that day they were reminded of. All those lying eyes. These people were only there because they had to, had to pay their respects for the living or the dead. Maybe they hadn't seen or met the person in question for some three to four years or more.

She, as I remember correctly, had been ill for those years. I remember us visiting once and her telling my mum she felt lonely. She felt lonely because she and her husband had had so many friends. But now that she was ill they didn't show up anymore. She said she felt like a leper.

That year was 71, I was 6 years old, it was the very first time I heard someone say something which questioned the sincerity of people in friendship.

Then she died and we showed up at her funeral.

I was a kid, had never been to a funeral before, I asked questions, I asked why all those people were wearing such awkwardly funny faces. Faces like they were ashamed, faces like they had something to hide. Faces like in a bad dream when people watch you. A dishonesty displayed for all to see, a dishonesty reflected in their eyes.

Those same sanctimonious faces I had seen before, and I would see 'm until I was twelve. These were the faces of fathers who battered their wives, dads who committed adultery, women who played their men, cried their dramas in front of the school yard, parents who molested their children, terrorized their families, but on Sundays they played the charade, they went to church in their Sunday best, maybe they even confessed. I never did.

After church some of 'm went home, some bided their time at the local cafes.

I lied, I did confess once, catholic boy as I was. I confessed about seeing these faces. I confessed to have seen these masks people wear. I observed and just saw their lies, their lies having been projected on their canvas of their goody-goody white skin. Such diaphanous sell out skin. I still remember the smell and the taste of too cheap perfumes, bad smokes and menthol cigarettes. The odor of tooth decay and alcohol ingested marinated mucous membranes. Too loud laughter followed by sideways smirks, blinks of several eyes if one, yet anyone paid attention.

This fucking prick priest I confessed to just said I should forgive them, that was the best thing to do. I said that I didn't know what for, I said to him that these people don't forgive themselves, that was my bloody confession, three Hail Mary's and an Our Father. I prayed to the in-laws.

They asked me if wanted to be an altar boy, I said no. I never had said no so resolutely before. I said no because I knew I wanted no part of that World. I didn't believe in the guilt they prophesied. The repetitiveness of their indoctrination, the conditioning with the bread as a reward.
I didn't even like the cheap trick wafer. The ones on the milk bread of the local baker tasted much better.
The wine wasn't shared, budget blood.

The weekly absolvent send off.

When one of my uncles died, my grandparents wanted to have him mentioned in mass. The clergy refused because he had had his own hand in his passing. So they had a special ceremony said in the chapel next to the church. The leper had come to their doorstep and they had denied entrance. These are the people who tell you to forgive.

I've never forgiven them ever.