Church Meetings

I step outside into the seemingly abandoned streets and pause just outside the door. The sun has been hidden behind a dark and heavy curtain of clouds for most of the day but has finally seceded behind the tall buildings in the city’s skyline. Through the spaces between the walls and pulled shades I can see the other motel occupants going about their routines of watching television, arguing and eating take out. I pull my mask out from my pocket, place the elastic bands around my ears and open my umbrella against the falling rain. It’s been storming on and off since I arrived a few days ago and the sound of the water flooding into the sewer drains has become a background noise so comforting that it lulls me to sleep every night.

Why is it that every time I am assigned, there just so happens to be inclement weather? Seems like a cherry on top of this already cruel and unusual punishment and I imagine the society board all laughing at me. When I arrived at the Russian Flu, it snowed for a week before letting up. And not just those playful little snowflakes that silently dance through the air while you try to catch them on your tongue. They were giant snowflakes with a violent plan of attack, landing with a small thud and accumulating inches by the hour. During my Smallpox stay I encountered three tornadoes, two were F0 to be fair but one was an F4 and it felt like a joke I wasn't in on. The Swine Flu and Ebola were both during heat waves over 100 degrees and resembled hell on earth. I should know, because I’ve been to Hell and sometimes wish I’d stayed.

So really, in comparison to the rest, a little rain isn’t so terrible! Especially when measured against the current state of the world aside from a global pandemic. I spent the morning at a small diner close by my motel drinking coffee. Due to the new capacity ordinance in the city, I was lucky to get a booth by the window. There’s something soothing about sitting inside watching quietly as the world goes by. Maybe that’s why this life isn’t so hard for me, because I’ve always lived like this, in a way. On the bar counter top next to the pie there was a small older television with the news on. There I saw reports of bombings, war, police brutality, protests, political uproar, wildfires and the death of the coral reef. So yes, in comparison, the rain is minimal and unimportant, just like me in the grand scheme of things. We are both just passerby in all the cities, going unnoticed and being recycled over and over.

Water is starting to soak through my sneakers just as I arrive at the church. The meetings are always at a church. And all the churches in all of the cities during all of the pandemics have remained pretty much the same and I am grateful to not be the only constant. They're always stories high and glare down at me like God himself, taunting me. It can be frustrating for the others but I enjoy the irony. I pause at the bottom of the wide steep staircase and peak out from under my umbrella. I try to keep track of individual rain drops falling to their death before they splash at my feet. The concrete ground is grey, the stone church is grey, the sky- you guessed it- is grey. The sight of the rain hurdling towards me over the steeple is grand in its own way though, reminding me again that I am small and my problems are insignificant- a temporary relief in the stress of it all. Out of the corner of my eye I see a two people huddled underneath one giant yellow umbrella as they are hurrying through the rain pour towards a side entrance. I assume they are here for the meeting and follow quickly.

On the door is a sign that reads "AA, private meeting". Since most Alcoholics Anonymous meetings do not have a sign on the door, giving away the anonymity, and do not claim to be closed to the general public, this is how we know it’s the right place. This AA meeting is for a different type of demon, those under Alternative Action, meaning an alternative solution for low level criminals. Burning in eternal hell is luckily for the worst of the worst. Meaning the rapists, the murderers, the pedophiles, the terrorists etc. The rest of us who fall somewhere closer to the middle get a special kind of punishment. We are able to live a more transient lifestyle, some, like those at this meeting, bouncing around from pandemic to pandemic. Other group meetings aid those moving from mass extinction to mass extinction, war to war or genocide to genocide. We are the lost souls who have committed victimless crimes that don’t allow us passed those pearly white gates but condemn us to live a kind of short term purgatory. Common offenses often include drug trafficking, embezzlement, insurance fraud, adultery, bribery and racketeering. While this type of “probation” (as the society will often refer to it as) can be frustrating and repetitive, we are still able to live a relatively normal life by death’s standards and can eventually be released under good behavior.

The church basement is warm and cozy. There are cookies, coffee and hand sanitizer on a metal folding table against the wall and matching folding chairs are arranged in messy rows facing a dark wooden podium. A tall broad shouldered woman in a blue suit stands up at the podium and clears her throat as she looks around at the group. She has big dark almond shaped eyes with small lines around the edges and a pale complexion. Her hair is pulled back tightly and she isn’t smiling but her demeanor is kind and compassionate.

She clears her throat again “If everybody could please take a seat, Saturday’s meeting is about to begin.” She allows a few moments for everybody to shuffle around to find a seat before she continues.

 “As I’m sure you can assume, I am from the Selective Situation Society board. My name is Maude Valentine. Quite a few new faces tonight! Welcome, welcome. For those of you who don’t know how this works, I will run through our purpose and practice quickly before allowing our first speaker.” Maude takes a sip of water and clears her throat again. “This is a support meeting for those placed in the Alternative Action Plan by the Selective Situation Society. You have all been granted an alternative plan for your afterlife due to what we see as forgivable special circumstances before you can progress to Heaven. If you feel as if you’d like to talk about anything- your crimes, your passing, your placement experiences, feel free to just come up to the podium.” With that she stepped down and took a seat in a folding chair in the front row.

As somebody who used to be in “regular” AA, this is actually not that far off. Most people will stand up, state their name and list their troubles while we all nod and pretend to empathize while in actuality we are all just waiting for our own turn to speak. The podium stood empty for a few moments and the room is uncomfortably quiet. It has been a few months since I last got up to talk, two weeks since I’ve been at COVID and my first time at this meeting so I decide to speak first. I walk casually up to the front of the room, step onto the little wooden stool and clear my throat like Maude.

“Hi, my name is Virginia”

“Hi Virginia” the group says in bored unison. To be honest, these meetings would be more interesting if they were for the bad criminals. I've spent endless hours listening to middle class assholes talk about their white collar crimes and it makes me wish I had just murdered somebody. Preferably one of them.

“I died in a hospital following a car accident leaving the bar. I heard the nurse say my blood alcohol level was .18 so I wasn’t even that intoxicated but I forgot to turn my headlights on and couldn’t see around the corner.”

I see a couple of people smirking, probably because they think .18 is very high.

“I have been arrested twice for solicitation, once for public intoxication and once more for driving without a license.” I take a deep dramatic breath, pretending as if it feels like a huge weight has been lifted by being able to expose my sins to a group of understanding strangers. I go on to describe all the inconvenient weather throughout my placements and joke that I think that it’s part of my punishment. Smiling I look at Maude to see if maybe it’s true. She chuckles with her whole body and says “When it rains it pours, my dear.” I’m not sure if she’s saying it is or isn’t purposeful but everybody laughs with her and it really does feel like a weight has been lifted now. I take a deep refreshing breath of the stale basement air and quietly return to my seat.

The next 45 minutes is filled with talk of burglary, larceny, tax evasion, arson and gambling. People describe their experiences at the Plague of Justinian, The Spanish Flu and the Third Plague. I’ve been to the Plague of Justinian and have to agree that it was one of the hardest to endure so far. The rats and the fleas were unbearable and they sent me there for a three full months! I have yet to make it to The Bubonic Plague. I’ve only heard one man talk about it and he cried while describing the grotesque scenes that plagued his memory, literally. For the most part it’s always the same stories at these meetings: the loss of loved ones, the regret for their crimes, and most of all the loneliness and the helplessness of watching history repeat itself over and over while not being able to change it.

Tonight a young man named Phillip says he is concerned with how normal he still feels after dying. How the joys and pains of his day to day have now transferred over to his life after death and I know exactly what he means. For a while I thought that maybe I had always felt dead in life and that that is why I still feel the same now. But Phillip’s interpretation feels a little more lighthearted and is easier to accept so I try to switch my perspective to match. Either way, I like to think that the similarities make the transition a little easier. It makes it less challenging to fit in with the living as we all go about our day to day. Do I miss my old life? No, not necessarily, but I do find comfort in the close resemblance. While I do miss not constantly living in times of great peril and having to only endure my own personally pernicious life that I at least had some control over.

At 9pm Maude stands back up at the podium and announces the end of the tonight’s meeting. She encourages us all to take some free hand sanitizer and disposable masks on our way out, reminding us that while we cannot die again, we can become ill. She quickly adds that she hopes to see us next week while we all stand up to go our separate ways. Some people immediately head back out into the night alone, some gather under the awnings to chat before going back to empty motel rooms. I stand at the metal folding table drinking coffee I wish was gin and imagine this were just another regular AA meeting.