this was when the coral stone catholic church in the island I grew up in was only four hundred and three years old.
from its campanile, three unburnished but massive bells lolled, punctuating without irony, perhaps a bit too earnestly, the highlights, if you could call them that, of our niggling island lives. the end of the morning mass, the wedding of this poor fisher folk couple from the islet across the sea grass green lagoon, the burial of the hated tax assessor, the end of day angelus.
but for my mother, a second generation dyed in the wool protestant, who was trying quite punishingly to raise me outside the orthodoxy of the catholic church, the sonorous clanging of these bells amounted to clarion calls to proselytize me even harder in the fallibility of the representatives of the holy see in our island.
strangely enough, I, during what must have been the nascent stages of my teen rebellion, grew very fond of these bells, affectionate enough to christen each three of them.
mr. bombast, the slut and the raspy one. mr. bombast was the biggest of the three bourdons and usually started the day while the slutty one was the one whose peals lingered for a tad too long. my favorite though was the throaty one.
he would start quite confidently but towards the tail of his arias, he would just crackle and fade, like he just had some throat infection. oh but the splash he made, it had promise like annunciating a very sunny day only to find it wet and smotheringly humid later.
the bell ringers must have abhorred him because they hardly gave him any solo part. his knells only came out quite clearly, plaintive and doleful, during the ten o'clock pealing at nights which my friend said was dedicated to those dead people who still have not realized they are already of the incorporeal world.
coming out from the grocery earlier today, I was accosted by a jehovah's witness street evangelizer. she must have been trying to talk to me for quite some time now but with my ipod blaring, I only heard her, gnarly and surprisingly snarky for an evangelist, in between tracks and she was saying something like end, near, ready.
every first friday of the month during elementary, a volunteer catechist would barge into our classrooms and ramble on anything roman catholic.
I remember this very earnest pimply seminarian making attempts at poetry. he told our class, quite impatient for the midday recess to be called, that the crown of the bell symbolized the celestial sphere and the round ball, the orb bell clapper stood for our world. it was only when heaven and earth met- should it rather be collided, clashed, struck each other?-that the voice of god is heard.
I had two messages in my answering machine when I got back to my apartment. I was certain, now that he is gone, they were all from telemarketers or nettlesome relatives of the previous owners of this phone number.
arranging the milk, the soda, the juice inside the fridge, I could still hear the faint beep, beep of the answering machine, a good ten paces away from the other side of my apartment. I decided to get out again.
I had no idea where to go to. the groceries for the week were already bought, the laundry was already dropped off in the laundromat. but I kept on walking until I saw the street evangelizer again. I decided to cross the street to avoid her. and then I heard, like a discordant riff over this rap track I was digging, the shrill of a car honk, raspy, grating and quite livid.
unperturbed, I gave the smoldering cabbie hardly a glance as I continued to navigate toward the other side of the street. I walked on and on, the heels of my snow boots beating against the icy pavement, each time making piddling, ungodly squeaks.