The Makeshift Tabernacle
A makeshift chapel.
Every mortuary has one: a room dedicated for the spiritually endowed. Lord knows they’ve been nothing but generous to the undertakers of the world. More often than not though the room’s just for show, completely devoid of any real sacred value. There’s often a designated priest or rabbi in the morgue’s directory but it’s not uncommon for the funeral director’s themselves to officiate whichever last rites the bereaved may have requested; and Slug’s parents are no exception. Though to their credit, the Merryhill Morgue’s “house of worship,” is perhaps the most picturesque Unitarian Universalist-themed faux-sanctuary this side of the Mason Dixon.
Just past the double, red, gothic doors lies a skinny velvet-blue carpet runner, dividing the chapel into two halves with four rows of balsa wood benches for each aisle. The pews have all been hand painted to resemble frozen red waves of mahogany. The walls are a compilation of grey faux-stone slabs facsimile to that of a medieval torturer chamber but without the chains, skeletons, and stench of stale urea. Instead theres a collection of dwarvish stained-glass windows bearing the likenesses of “historic champions of humanity,” so sayeth Slug, at least. Among the small but vibrant leadlights are the likes of Socrates, Mahatma Gandhi, Bill Watterson, and of course, Frida Kahlo.
Whenever entering the Merryhill Morgue’s Tabernacle Nora’s eyes always seemed fixed on Frida’s window first. She’s still not completely certain why.
The M. M. Tabernacle’s makeshift apse stands in the far back of the makeshift chapel’s interior, just past the end of the blue velvet. There on the floor, a Bergama prayer rug with cherry red lotus blossoms woven into the fabric. Atop this horizontal chef-d'œuvre, a poodle-pink casket, complete with a photograph placed between the head and foot panels. The gold leaf frame bares the smiling face of the late Mary Luanne Luzzatto.
Behind the “altar,” hanging on the wall, a simple oaken bimah marked solely by a filigreed star of David. Looming over the bimah (and the pink coffin of the late Mrs. Luzzatto) a gargantuan cross. A crucifix, basking in the unnatural light of the ceiling’s fluorescent fixtures, minus a savior. Nora sneers at the cross like an adult vampire bumping into the teen-romance novel section at the local Barnes & Noble.
“Where’s ‘sexy Jesus’?” Inquires Nora with tremendous disdain, “Don’t tell me the lad’s gone and raptured himself off, again.”
The girls march across the blue velvet carpet runner en route to the fake chapel’s real emergency exit; illuminated by the neon-green sign hanging overhead in the far right corner of the room.
“Pop said a formal complaint had been filed by a particularly sensitive family of Jehovah’s witness threatening to sue. But I think that was a lie ‘cus I’m pretty sure they eat their dead. We’d gotten concerning letters before, some more aggressive than others, but nothing crazy. Then I get a call from Pop telling me I can have the day to myself after school-”
“-That’s right, we shot The Guinea Pig Massacre at Trevor Noah’s sister’s studio.”
“-And after we were thrown out and called it a night I decided to cut through the cemetery, because: fuck the extra mile, right? But when I get there, the place’s swarming with cruisers, firetrucks, and ambulances with every light flashing and all. There was even a bomb squad. I didn’t feel like sticking around, so I kept walking and didn’t stop until I got home. I called you immediately after, remember?”
Nora could only recollect memories of splicing together close-ups of rodent-gnashing and action shots of bloodied appendages flailing about as if they’d been electrocuted. Nora nodded anyway, as not to appear rude.
“I still don’t know if anything actually happened, but it made my folks loudly yell and cry throughout the night, which lead to a mess of other audible sounds I’d care not to elaborate upon. Fast forward to the following morning and Pop’s concluded that sexy Jesus has earned his severance package and was more than worthy of an ‘early retirement.’ It nearly took us the whole morning just to pry the fellow loose because the damn bolts had rusted all to hell. But, ‘twas not at all in vain, for in the end the morgue wasn’t exploded and I ended up with a hot new roommate that can rock a loincloth like no other.
“Slug, I was in your room two days ago and there wasn’t a prophet, nor hunk to be seen.”
“Well, of course YOU didn’t see him. He hangs out in my closet. It’s the only place he can fit. You know I don’t have the wall space."
“So now there’s a messiah trapped in your closet? I’m more surprised it hasn’t happened sooner.”
“I take offense to that. In no way is my boy toy trapped. He has the freedom to come out of the closet whenever he wishes. Just so long as he stays in my room cus my Baba’s creeped out by his exposed, flaming heart.”
The girls reach the emergency exit and Slug gives it a swift front kick to the door’s push bar switch, swinging it open with a resounding CA-CHUNK!
A flash of light.
Outside!
Blinding and white as the exposed buttocks of Sister Mary.
Nora’s pocket jingles with the sound of jangling screws as she removes her notebook and brings it to her brow. A makeshift visor, but effective nonetheless. Her eyes begin to adjust, the vague skyline of a cemetery. THE cemetery. Headstones and ash covered by a dull, infinite sheet of overcast.
“Hey…” Nora speaks, hesitant to return to the hollowed grounds.
“…Remember last December when we snuck into the episcopal church down on the corner of Russell and Braddock and swapped indoor Jesus for outdoor Jesus, just to see if they’d notice?”
Slug sighs, holding the door open for her friend with a leg still extended.
“Well, considering that fact that St. Joseph's ‘outdoor’ Jesus belonged to their yuletide nativity scene, it was never a matter of if, only when. Now go outside so we can talk about your feelings.”
“Fine!” Nora groaned like a hands-OFF kitty in the arms of a spinster, stepping out into the washed-out wasteland.
“But I don’t think you’re going to like what I’m going to say.”
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