The
Altar and The Janitor
Jenn
Onofrio
As my grandfather begins to doze, my animal-like
desire for a cigarette begins to swell. I look at my grandmother,
who is fingering an old copy of US Weekly Magazine.
“I’m going to go down to the chapel,”
I tell her.
“Oh?” she perks up.
“Yeah. I’ll be back in like, twenty
minutes.”
When I get out of the elevator on the first floor,
Open-Air and Cigarette Smoking, also known at The Entrance to
The Hospital, is to my left. God and The Baby Jesus and All
That Is Holy is to my right. I turn right.
The hospital chapel is decorated for Christmas.
It’s dark in there, which I generally prefer in churches,
and there are big red flowers and healthy Christmas trees everywhere.
Does it make sense that the only thing that’s healthy
at this hospital is the greenery? It’s a sign of hope,
I guess. I walk down the aisle and take a seat on the left side,
somewhat nearer to the front. I sit and cock my head and do
the thing I do best when in a church: I stare. I don’t
know if something traumatic happened to me in a church at some
point in my childhood, but the routine I normally carry out
is: sit, stare, breathe, cry. Repeat. And here’s the really
sick part about it: I like it. I enjoy going to churches. When
I’m in foreign countries, I seek them out.
I don’t get past the staring part of my
routine this time, though, as I’m interrupted by the sound
of small wheels behind me. I know it is some really sick old
person, coming to say one thousand novenas. I will be annoyed
and have to leave in disgust.
I turn and see, instead, a janitor-nurse pushing
a janitor cart right down the aisle and she’s headed my
way. The janitors at this hospital wear nurses outfits so when
something goes wrong there tends to be an outbreak of panic
and confusion (“I need someone to wipe him! Where should
I go?!?! Why can’t you help me!??”). This janitor,
a middle-aged Joan Baez wannabe, continues on past me with her
cart, stopping to curtsey and sign herself with the cross when
she gets to the altar. She then turns to her left and she and
the cart disappear into a room which I can only imagine is supposed
to be the “backstage.”
What is it they say? Cleanliness is next to godliness?
Unfortunately, the janitor woman allows me only
five minutes or so of spacing-out time; she returns from backstage,
looking to be ready to make a cross to center. I’ve undershot
this prediction, in reality. She begins her voyage all the way
to the far right of the church but she pauses in front of the
altar to curtsey and cross herself again. Then she continues
to stage left where, again, she disappears into the backstage.
When she’s gone, I shake my head and chuckle at her performance,
being the Devil Incarnate that I am. I love how every time she
comes near the altar she is sucked in like two magnets wanting
to make magnet love. And because I am so evil, I am now transfixed
on this janitor. I cannot will myself to sit and stare and breathe
and cry. I now only want to laugh. My eyes are glued to the
door through which she disappeared and I am waiting for her
entrance.
When she does return, she and her cart begin
another journey – to the aisle, and away??? No! She crosses
all the way to stage right, pausing in the middle to pay her
respects to God. She takes only a moment in the stage right
backstage. I think she simply forgot something. This brief pitstop
is followed by a transition to center, a curtsey and a cross
(clearly, repeated again for my entertainment), and an exit
down the aisle and off to clean up my grandfather’s dirty
diapers – because that’s what The Man meant when
he said cleanliness was next to godliness. He meant cleaning
up my grandfather's bowel movements on Christmas Eve. He didn’t
mean this ‘cleaning up churches’ shit.
....
Jenn does a lot. Read
her blog at http://carnegievandertramp.blogspot.com
for more details.
Read Jenn's: THINGS
NOT TO SAY TO THE U.S. CUSTOMS AGENCY
