I went to Tampa last weekend to celebrate the marriage of two friends in an obscure and arcane ritual known only as a “catholic wedding”. The wedding, of course, took care of itself, but I did kill a cow and bathe in its blood shortly after arriving in Tampa, just to be safe. (It was the lord’s idea. One of the cows was making faces at him. The other cows thought it was funny up until I vaulted the fence with my machete in one hand, my bible in another.)
Anyway, God was consulted, and the Lord was thanked, but the Holy Spirit, a.k.a. Dark Lord of all that is chaotic, spooky, and formless, was completely ignored. I didn’t realize this until I was asked to lead a prayer during the wedding rehearsal. A dove fluttered into the front of the church with malicious intent in its one-red-eye, and then the groom leapt into action, “NO! um… not, well, I just would rather someone else do it.”
My surroundings dissolved away and I was no longer in the “Church” but was standing alone among the ruins of an ancient roman like cityscape; it was cold and a red eye peered down at me from where the moon should have been. “What the hell do you want,” I asked pointing at the sky. “Look I made the sacrifice, if you want more than a cow you’re just flat out of luck buddy.”
The Holy Spirit: “You didn’t even make it a baby cow? You could’ve had one of those orgy things too…”
Saint Garion: “That’s the kind of shit that got you thrown into timeout in the first place, inspiring people to do all kinds of crazy shit with their cousins and livestock.”
The Holy Spirit: “Well just you make sure they say something nice about me during the ceremony…”
Saint Garion: “OK. Can I go now? I feel like people are starting to look at me funny.”
The Holy Spirit: “I can’t believe you are in a Catholic church, don’t you know they’ve been horribly corrupted? And HOW THE FUCK did a friend of yours go Catholic?”
I attempted to shrug meaningfully, “Well you see there is this bride of his and her family is Catholic so to make things smooth with her family…”
The Holy Spirit: “UNACCEPTABLE!!!”
The cityscape I was standing on started to shake. “Look you’re opinion doesn’t matter you big green bitch. I’m going back now. I’ll make sure they say something nice about you and I’ll steal the little ring tray and use it as a coaster. Will that make it better?”
The Holy Spirit: “You’d do that for me?”
Saint Garion: “Sure, it’s all about maintaining the peace among family after all.”
Back at the church I stood still while some woman continued to lead us in prayer, and the dove one-red-eye (the Holy Spirit in disguise) took a nice shit in the holy water by the door.
