Gestas and/or dismas

The church was empty when Joe entered. Its thick wooden doors, with those blackened iron divots protruding out in a semi-circle fashion, opened with barely a squeak of age. There was age to the place though, his family had come here for generations. From his mum right down to where the amount of ‘greats’ in the title got a bit too many, this place had stood for years. Its flaking brickwork repatched, pew’s stained and re-stained with a glossy sheen, the panel flooring changed from dark oak, to spruce, and back again. The whole place was the religious sanctuary equivalent to the Ship of Theseus, a new version of the building for every new generation of Joe’s family, yet still the same. He put out his cigarette by the entrance, and walked somewhat solemnly towards the front. Slowly. Like in each step was a thought of what to say and how, but also steps of memory. He was pretty sure he had been in each of these pews at some point in his life. There, the second one from the back-left, that had been his first Mass in primary school. He was in Year One probably? They had just learnt to sing Follow Me about an hour before. After home-time prayers, he was given a ‘well done’ sticker for remembering all the words. He hadn’t been so happy before in his entire life. His mother was so proud.

Fifth pew on the right, that was…confirmation? It had to have been. He told everyone that the Saint’s name he had chosen was Saint Nicholas because it was his Dad’s name. Really, he chose it because of its connotations to Santa Claus. Thankfully, it's an optional choice to use the name or not. Joe chose to stop using it after a while, after his mother no longer chuckled at the thought of it.After that, it was few and far between. A few Christingles here and there, a few funerals, a wedding perhaps? God the drink was making it hard to remember. He just knew he had never come when it was this silent.

His mothers burial…

He had never come feeling this angry.

It waited for him at the front. A cheap, fake-plastic carving of a suffering man, hung on the wall. The statue’s face was one of pure agony, a pain so physical, but also more. Emotional. A face of betrayal. Of a pained forgiveness. But those eyes. Wide. Screaming, misted by blood and sweat.Whoever made this, this tacky sculpture, they knew how to do faces at least. The body was just curves, trying to imagine what muscles looked like. Even the nails in each wrist were barely visible. Beside the statue, in two stained-glass windows of vibrant design, hung Gestas to its left, and Dismas to its right. Fuck, why was he here? He had drunk so much spirits. How did he even get here? Did he walk? God, he just needed to go home and shake this off, nothing would come from shouting to a damned statu-

“I always saw myself as Dismas, you know.” The words seemed to tumble from his lips in a loud mumble, unexpected, even taking Joe by surprise.

“You see, I could question all of it, right? The Church, the priests and their whole kiddy fantasies, the death and war and hunger, and two year olds dying of HIV in some third world shithole forgotten by The Vatican, but I n-ev-er did! You know why?”.

Silence. Joe continued.

“Because this!”, Joe gestured wide with his hands and span slowly in a circle, taking in the glossy pews, the white walls and dark oak panel flooring, and facing right around to the Altar, pointing at the reddish leatherbound Bible that sat atop it, “but especially that, was my law. You weren’t just Judge, you lived in the Jury’s hearts, and the executioner had every right to hoist poor Dismas and the fool Gestas up that cross if he went against the law.”

He took a cigarette out of its packet, and lit it. Fuck it, if he was going all out, he would go all out. The smoke mixed with the taste of Jack Daniels and bottled-up rage. He pointed his cigarette towards the stained glass Dismas.

“You see, right, you see ‘im and Gestas were shown as the same, yeah? Criminals, who broke the law, God’s law, written on stone an’ shit. But Dismas? He ‘ad humility. He praised you. He knew he was wrong, an’ in the end he begged for forgiveness.”

Another big drag of his cigarette, stumbling backwards from the intake.

“But all tha’ didn’t matter in the end, did it? Cause after all of that, even after bein’ forgiven, he wa’ still stuck on that cross, bein’ jabbed by the Romans and bleedin’ from ‘is sides an’ wrists. And then he died. Just like Gestas, just like the one who lived exactly how he wanted.’

The cigarette fell from his hand to the floor, he couldn’t focus on it now, no he needed his mind for this part, even if it was spinning and throbbing with words that felt as if they would crack his skull from all the thrumming.

‘You see, I lived ‘ow I thought you wanted me too. I prayed, you know? Every night, little Joe prayed on ‘is fuckin’ hands an’ knees to you. Keep me safe, keep me family safe from ‘arm, bless our lives with your love, your fuckin’ love. And look where it got me!”, Joe gestured wildly to his surrounds. He just stared down at Joe, screaming in pain. That made Joe angrier.

“No, no you don’t get to do that. To scream in pain, to look at me for fuckin’ pity”, spit flew from Joe’s mouth, vitriolic and anguished. It splattered under the eyes of the statue.

“‘But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us’. Romans 5:8. You were supposed to save us. Where is the savin’ then, ay? Where was it when me mum could only afford to feed ‘er kids and she went hungry? Where was it when I payed with tears in me eyes beggin’, pleadin’ for you to take me instead of ‘er. You coward, you liar. You’re a Prophet of a false law, an’ now she lays six feet fuckin’ under because you couldn’t love er’ ‘ard enough!”

His fists swung at thin air. Silence filled the room alongside the rasping breathing of Joe. His eyes were wet with tears. And so, he laughed. He laughed the laugh of a sorrowed man, a man who was placed to die alongside the one who was meant to save him.

“Look at me. God, look at me!” Joe gestured his hands towards himself. The statue’s eyes stayed wide and screaming out.

“All tha’ drink an’ smokin’to try and drown them thoughts of meetin’ mum again. Thirteen years its been, plaguin’ me for thirteen years. Every damn thought, just ‘er face, thin and weak, god you could see ‘er damn skull. And you weren’t there as she clutched ‘er damn bible, quiverin’...”.

The laughing stopped.

“But I eat well now, ay mum…for both of us”.

Joe stopped for a moment.

“I could ‘ave lived a better life you know? A life where that kid singin’ hymns in the back prayed harder for you to listen. Where I encouraged me younger siblings to give some of their food to mum so she could eat. Then perhaps she wouldn’t ‘ave gotten sick.”

Joe looked back up at Him, tears now streaming down his eyes.

“But I got to scream at ‘ya, I ‘av to yell and scapegoat ‘er death on you. Because I dream you know, that I am on that cross beside you, shoutin’ and cursin’ your name. An’ before I wake up,” Joe’s knees began to shake, “I ‘av that horrible realisation that I’m on your right.”

Joe fell to his knees, slowly looking up towards Him, he managed to get one more sentence out before his sorrow got the best of him.

“An’ I realise all this time…All this time I’ve always been Gestas.”

Joe sobbed. He wailed into the empty church, which echoed his pain between the pews and along the grooves of the panel flooring. And as Joe sobbed, Joe’s spit rolled down the cheeks of the statue, as it screamed its silent agony alongside Joe, weaving it within the echoes that now filled the church.

‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.’
Matthew 5:4