The Bass Wore Scales (The Liturgical Mysteries)

by Mark Schweizer

  “Do you have a plot yet?”

  “Not yet, but that’s never stopped me before.”

  I drove up to the Chartreuse Chapeau and flipped the

  valet a sawbuck. The Chartreuse Chapeau was out of my league, but I was here to make an impression. I took Betsy’s arm and walked her toward the doorman. She smelled like the bus station by moonlight.

  “Now tell me, Toots, what’s your problem?” I asked once we were seated.

  “What about dinner?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Sorry. Order whatever you want.”

  I hoped she wasn’t too hungry. After the valet, the doorman and the maitre d’, I had about six bits left. Luckily, I had a dead woodchuck in my pocket. I figured that dropping it in my salad and covering it up with a slice of tomato not only guaranteed splendid service, but a couple of free meals as well.

  “I’ll have the Lobster Picador,” said Betsy to the waiter. “On the hoof.”

  “I’ll have the Penguin Platter,” I said. “And a salad.” Then I turned my attention to Betsy. “You wanna tell me now?”

  She nodded. I waited, then waited again.

  “It’s my husband,” she said, the tears suddenly streaming down her face, her shoulders heaving with tiny sobs, like the sound of Snuggles the Fabric Softener Bear getting his leg caught in the lint trap. “I think he’s being unfaithful.”

  I sighed. The old unfaithful husband routine. “Tell me about him.” I tried to sound sympathetic, but I knew this night was going nowhere fast.

  “He sings in the church choir,” she sniffed. “He’s a bass with real low notes.”

  “Low C?” I asked.

  “Low A,” she said. “He’s been highly recruited.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “They call him Fishy Jim.”

  “Fishy Jim, eh?” said Meg, looking over my shoulder. “I suggest you come up with something better than that if you want to win the contest. Sheesh. Fishy Jim…”

  “This isn’t my actual contest entry,” I reminded her. “I’m working on my detective story.”

  “Fine,” she said with a toss of her black hair. “I’m going to get another beer and put the sauerkraut on. Care to join me?”

  “On my way. I think the bratwurst is about ready for grilling.”

  * * *

  “I was talking to Elaine and Mother, and we’ve agreed that we should meet every once in a while and read each other our entries. It might be good to get some input from each other.” Meg plopped the sauerkraut in the saucepan, scooped in a small spoonful of black current preserves—an old Konig family recipe that Meg found as delicious as I did—and put the pan on the stove.

  “Nervous?” I asked. “Starting to feel the pressure?”

  “Not at all,” Meg said, “and if you’d rather not, we girls will be happy to meet without you.”

  “Nope. I’m in. I need to keep track of all of you.” I reached into the refrigerator and pulled out a coffee can that had a large note duct-taped to it. The note said simply “Archimedes.”

  “Have you fed him today?” Meg asked.

  I shook my head, put the can on the counter and glanced around for a small white saucer. “I looked for him this morning, but he wasn’t around.”

  “Better give him three then.”

  “Okay.”

  I opened the can and carefully shook three dead mice onto a saucer.

  “Are you going to put them outside,” asked Meg, “or wait for him to come in?”

  “I’d better put them on the sill outside. He hasn’t wanted to come in for a few weeks. I think he’s enjoying the weather, but he still drops by every day or two.”

  Meg nodded and waved her hand in front of the window by the sink. The electric eye activated and the window opened. I reached through and placed the saucer with the mousey victuals on the windowsill.

  Archimedes is a barn owl. He’s been a resident of these two hundred acres for a couple of years now. Archimedes showed up one evening outside my kitchen window, and since I happened to have a couple of dead mice handy (I’d just cleaned out the barn traps that afternoon), I opened the window, enticed him into the kitchen and fed him supper. He visited so frequently that I installed an automatic window so he could come and go as he pleased. Archimedes spent much of the winter indoors, ignoring Baxter who had become quite used to the sight of an owl flying through the house. Come spring, though, and he was out and about, hunting squirrels, mice, rats, the occasional snake, and whatever else suited his fancy.

  I took the bratwursts out to the gas grill and laid them over the flames in a neat row. Then I went back into the kitchen.

  “Have you heard anything about the service tomorrow?” I asked. “It’s Pentecost, you know. I thought I’d go to church and see how things are going.”

  “I was going to ask you if you’d heard anything.”

  “Moosey told me that he was helping with the birds. Do you know what that’s about?”

  “No, I don’t,” said Meg. “I haven’t been privy to the internal workings of the Worship Committee.”

  “Do you know anyone who has?”

  “Sure,” said Meg. “Carol Sterling, Bev Greene, Joyce Cooper, Father George and, of course, Princess Foo-Foo. Any of them can probably tell you. I’m not on that committee.”

  “It’ll probably be better if it’s a surprise.”

  “What?”

  “Whatever’s going to happen on Pentecost.”

  Chapter 4

  The feast of Pentecost (named for being the fiftieth day after Easter) is the birthday of the Church and has traditionally been a lively occasion at St. Barnabas. It has always been difficult to reenact the appearance of the Holy Spirit descending and manifesting itself as tongues of flame resting on the heads of the Apostles, but that, essentially, is what liturgy is all about—representing our faith through symbol and ceremony and making the encounter meaningful to modern worshippers. Charismatic churches reenact the glossolalia experience on a weekly basis, although I’ve never actually seen, or heard stories of, tongues of fire coming in and resting on the heads of the congregation. Episcopal congregations, however, not fully embracing the gift of “speaking in tongues,” attempt to reenact the original Pentecost in other ways.

  “Remember when we were doing helium balloons?” said Meg. “That was kind of good.”

  “Ah yes,” I said, recalling the Ghost of Pentecosts Past. “I remember the balloons. I also remember the banners and the streamers. I remember mimes and liturgical dancers. I remember sparklers, kites, red carnations, and wind machines. I even remember the fire baton.”

  “That was excellent,” agreed Meg. “Well, until our twirler dropped the baton and lit the carpet on fire. As I recall, we had to replace the whole center runner. We don’t seem to be able to get a handle on Pentecost. How did they do it in the old days?”

  “Let’s see,” I said. “In France, it was customary to blow trumpets during the service. You know, to recall the sound of the mighty wind. In Italy, rose petals were dropped from the ceilings of the churches to bring to mind the miracle of the fiery tongues.”

  “Why don’t we do that? I like rose petals.”

  “You know,” I added, “there’s an old English custom of having boys crawl into the vault of the cathedral and drop bits of flaming rope soaked in tar onto the worshippers.”

  “I don’t think we’d like that.”

  “It’s not all about what we like. Sometimes we have to do what’s best for the congregation.”

  “This is all Princess Foo-Foo’s fault, isn’t it?”

  Yes, it was true. Pentecost was a mess, and the Christian Education Directors were to blame. I tried to assign the priests their share of the responsibility, but it wasn’t really their fault. In my experience, a priest could be talked into anything. It was the Christian Ed Director. I imagine it all started in Assisi when Isabella, the resident CED, said “Listen, St. Francis. We need to have a living nativity scene in the churc
h, and it needs to have a real camel.”

  So, given all our history, I wasn’t a bit surprised by what happened.

  The morning started out like so many other Sunday mornings. Meg and I walked up the front steps to St. Barnabas just as the prelude was starting. Benny Dawkins, St. Barnabas’ champion thurifer, was warming up on the steps outside the church. He hadn’t lit the incense yet, so the smoke wasn’t billowing around him, but he was going through the motions of some of his signature gyrations. Benny had been to the finals of the International Thurifer Invitational for five years running and, although, he’d never won, he was recognized as one of the top pot-swingers in the world. Benny only worked on major feast days since some of the parishioners complained about the smoke, but, as far as I was concerned, the more smoke the better. If the altar disappeared altogether while he was censing it, I was happy.

  “Morning, Benny,” I said as we passed him. “What are we going to see today?”

  “I’m working on a couple of new ones,” Benny answered, not looking at me, but concentrating on the arc of the thurible. “Watch for one I call ‘Over The Falls’ on my first turn. Then coming back up the aisle, I’m planning to do the ‘Jericho Twister’ and when I get up to the altar, a ‘Triple Spin Double Back-Loop’ in honor of the Trinity. It’s a revised shamrock pattern.”

  “Sounds great,” I said. “I’m looking forward to your artistry.”

  We shook a few hands in the narthex and found a seat in the back, just under the choir loft, as the processional started. Hail Thee, Festival Day was the traditional St. Barnabas opening hymn for Pentecost and today was no exception. It was a tune that the congregation knew pretty well, although Henrietta Burbank’s rendition seemed to be a little thin, due, I expect, to the lack of any pedal notes.

  “Why doesn’t she just reverse the great-to-pedal coupler and play the pedal part on the keyboard?” I whispered to Meg in between stanzas.

  “Why don’t you go up and show her how?” Meg whispered back. “I’m sure she has no idea. She’s a piano teacher.”

  “I’ll show her after the service,” I said, “after she puts her leg back on.”

  “Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” coughed Father George after the hymn had concluded. Benny had done his job well. We could barely see the front of the church for the smoke.

  “And blessed be his kingdom, now and forever,” the congregation coughed back. “Amen.”

  “Alleluia. Christ is risen,” continued Father George.

  “The Lord is risen indeed. (Cough) Alleluia.”

  The service continued as we sang the Gloria, heard the story of Ezekiel and his valley of dry bones in the Old Testament reading and sang the psalm refrain in response to the choir’s bold attempt at chanting the verses. I was settling in for the Epistle reading, the story of the mighty wind and tongues of flame, and wondering what Father George and Princess Foo-Foo had come up with to bring the gospel to life, when the Princess stood up and invited the children to come forward for the Children’s Moment.

  “Ah yes,” I said to Meg, under my breath. “The Children’s Moment.”

  Princess Foo-Foo was the nickname that Meg had given to Brenda Marshall, our Christian Ed Director. Brenda was not an Episcopalian by birth or by choice, a fact that she pointed to on a regular basis with a certain amount of pride. Her theology, Meg was convinced, was guided by her confidence in the power of a warm and fuzzy Spirit Force with shoe-button eyes. Elaine was less kind, calling her—and I’m not using Elaine’s exact words here—“ecumenically promiscuous,” and it was Georgia that suspected that she was a touchy-feely Uni-luther-presby-metho-lopian. In addition to her duties in the worship-planning department, she taught the elementary Sunday School class, telling Bible stories with the help of a furry hand puppet named Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear.

  The children popped out of the pews and headed up the aisle to the front of the church where Father George waited for them, his hands clasped together as though in prayer. Meg elbowed me as we watched the children walk slowly to the front. There were the three or four little children from the nursery school class…and then there were the Children of the Corn…Bernadette, Moosey, Ashley, Robert and Christopher. Father George didn’t stand a chance, and the whole congregation knew it.

  “How many of you know what today is?” began Father George. All the hands went up, and we all knew that the gesture meant that the whole group had been threatened by Princess Foo-Foo during Sunday School.

  “Ashley,” said Father George, confident of his control. “Why don’t you tell us?”

  “It’s the birthday of the church,” said Ashley, matter-of-factly. “Everyone knows that!” She twirled around and sat down. “My birthday is next month. I’ll be eight.”

  “Ooo, ooo,” said Robert, frantically waving his hand in the air. “Ooo, ooo, ooo!” Father George chose to ignore him.

  “That’s exactly right. So now we have a surprise for St. Barnabas. Look! Miss Brenda is bringing us something. Can you guess what it is?”

  “Ooo, ooo,” said Robert, one arm still flailing and the other hand supporting his elbow.

  “Bernadette?” said Father George. “Can you guess what it is?”

  “Well, duuuhh,” said Bernadette, rolling her eyes. “It’s a birthday cake.”

  “My birthday cake is going to have SpongeBob on it,” announced Ashley, now reclining on the top step of the chancel.

  “How many candles does it have?” Moosey tried to look past the priest. “Huh? It doesn’t have any!”

  “Well, we didn’t want…we didn’t think it would be a good idea…”

  “Ooo, ooo,” said Robert.

  “On my birthday, I’m having lots of candles. I’m going to blow them out and make a wish,” said Ashley. “I’m wishing for a pony.”

  “I wished for a pony last time,” said Christopher, “but all I got was a baby brother. No, wait a minute. It was a puppy.”

  “Yes,” said Father George. “That’s nice. But this is the church’s birthday, so…”

  “You got a puppy?” asked Moosey.

  “No. I got a baby brother.”

  The organ suddenly boomed out the opening strains to Happy Birthday and everyone turned around and looked.

  “Not yet!” shouted Brenda from halfway down the aisle. The music stopped as suddenly as it began, and Brenda continued her journey carrying the birthday cake sans candles.

  “Is it true you have to do unto others like they do unto you?” asked Bernadette. “‘Cause if it is, I’m gonna get my little brother good.”

  “Ooo, ooo,” said Robert.

  “Can I have some cake?” asked Christopher, sticking his finger into the frosting just as the cake arrived.

  “Yes…umm, I mean no…” said Father George in exasperation. “What is it, Robert?”

  “Momma says that Daddy won’t get in heaven if he uses his golfing words in the house. She says that Satan’s gonna have a field day.”

  “Here,” said Father George, grabbing a handful of cake and handing it to Robert. “Happy Birthday.”

  The organ started up again, and this time we all sang Happy Birthday to the Church. I’m sure its heart was strangely warmed.

  * * *

  The choir sang an anthem following the Children’s Moment, presumably to set the stage for the Epistle reading from the Book of Acts. It was a little unaccompanied medieval carol using the text “Holy Spirit, Truth Divine.”

  “That was nice, wasn’t it?” asked Meg, quietly.

  “Yes, it was.”

  “But, now what?” she asked.

  “Now what” was a reading of the Pentecost story in different languages by members of the congregation. I was unimpressed. This had been done many times before. We were hoping for something new.

  “When the day of Pentecost came,” said Father George, the only one of the readers using a microphone, “they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came fr
om heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.

  Gretta Schmidt stood up about halfway back on the right side and started reading in German. “Und als der Tag des Pfingstfestes erfüllt war,” she said loudly, “waren sie alle an einem Ort beisammen.”

  “De repente vino del cielo un estruendo como de un viento recio que soplaba, el cual llenó toda la casa donde estaban.” It was JJ Southerland. I didn’t know she spoke Spanish, but there she was, standing near the baptismal font.

  “Og det viste sig for dem tunger likesom av ild,” came another voice, this time from a man I’d never seen before.

  “What language is that?” asked Meg.

  I shrugged. “Maybe Danish? Or Norsk.”

  “They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them,” read Father George. “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.”

  It was just at this point in the service that the worst happened. The church newsletter, The Trumpet, said that we were going to celebrate Pentecost in a new and meaningful way. It neglected to tell us we’d need to wear hard-hats. I found out later, after talking with an expert, that most birds actually need to learn how to fly. Oh, they will certainly flap their wings by instinct, but unless they have flying experience, once they hit the open air they’ll pretty much drop like rocks. So when Moosey tossed the eight birds over the edge of the choir loft, these birds, having been raised in captivity specifically for the Hunter’s Club Restaurant, didn’t stand much of a chance.

  It was a good bet that when Princess Foo-Foo and Father George planned this extravaganza, they were thinking about Garrison Keillor’s story about the Gospel Birds in which the birds flew gracefully around the sanctuary, doing tricks and lighting gently on each member of the congregation, bestowing God’s blessing on every person. At the very least, they were probably counting on the birds flying around for a few minutes and then coming to roost in the rafters, making for a nice, feel-good moment. This would pose a whole different set of problems, of course, but ones that could be dealt with at leisure. Unlike the Birds of St. Barnabas, however, Garrison Keillor’s Gospel Birds had the advantage of being both highly trained and fictitious.