Woke

Grace Lutheran - side door*

 Woke 

When it’s nice out – when it gets above 50°F and it’s sunny – Axel and I get together in the courtyard of the church. It has bought three metal lawn chairs so Axel can meet people six feet apart if he needs to. He hasn’t needed to though. He sings the service in front of a cellphone on a tripod each Sunday. He preaches a short sermon, “five minutes tops,” he says. He’s done six funerals, outdoors in the cemetery, just for family.
     I’m always cold, so even when it’s fifty, I’m wearing my long winter overcoat over a hooded sweatshirt and flannel lined jeans; thick socks, hiking boots, wool gloves. Too much. I’m always cold when I set out, and I’m always sweating by the time I get home. Axel wears a windbreaker and a stocking cap and he keeps his hands in his pockets.
     We sit more than six feet apart. Roz approves now Axel is living alone again, and there still isn’t church at Grace. “You both need the company,” she says. She wasn’t a big fan of Axel the first time they met, “but he has grown” on her, he “has his purposes,” I think is how she puts it now. The main purpose is someone for me to talk to; otherwise, I wouldn’t talk with anyone but her and Uncle Albert, and Dr. Feight once a week on the phone.
     But mostly it’s Axel that talks.

“There’s a lesson in this for all
of us.” - L. E. McKibben

He talks about living alone again since Nils left early in the pandemic, and moved in with Bel Monk. Which Axel didn’t see coming** though that’s beside the point now.
     What is the point now is that they are leading each other off the deep end: They have become, Axel is saying, “conspiracy theorists – woke and apocalyptic.” But Axel’s voice can wander, even as he is talking in a straight line. When I ask him what that means, “woke” and “apocalyptic,” he says, “Google it.” I tell him, “Okay,” that I’m willing to google “woke,” but “apocalyptic” is a theological term, so he needs to tell me what he means by it: He’s the theologian in the room. How does he define it?
     He tells me he’ll get back to me. And I say, “When?” I mean to say, “Why?” but I say “When?
     “In the next millennium?” I rush to say. He shrugs his shoulders then shakes his head:
     “Next time we meet he says.”

* * * * *

This conversation was a couple of days ago, Wednesday, I think. Axel called this morning: Friday (I think). He’d been making a list, he said, but he wanted to run it past someone.
     “What kind of list?”
     “The apocalyptic temperament,” he said.
     “Oh,” I said.
     “Not by you,” Axel said. “I don’t want to run it by you.”
     I waited. Then, I said, “Good.”
     “Who’s that friend of yours whose family runs Rantrage Press and is writing that dictionary?”
     “Gaspar,” I said.
     “Right.”
     “Stephens,” I said.

 “How do I get in touch with him?” Axel asked after another minute of dead line.
     “BR-549,” I said.
     “Very funny,” Axel said.
     “I’ll email you his email,” I said.

* * * * *

Here is what I sent to Axel:

     pastor@GraceLS.net
     “Gaspar”

          Here’s G. Stephens’s email: Gaspar@Rantrage.com. You can tell him I sent you. – t

And here is what I sent to Gaspar:

     Gaspar@Rantrage.com
     “inquiry”

          My friend Axel has a question. Have an answer, please. And thank you. - t

  01.09.21

_______________
  * Cellphone drawing with photo by mel ball.
** Even after they started experimenting with वज्रयान.

Dramatis personae:  Axel, Roz, Nils, Bel.