Jesus attended the funeral in a black leather vest that said “DUDE” across the back in neo-gothic type. He grabbed me by the arm and inspected the pinprick scars of my snakebite, my stigmata. He made a ‘k’ sound, then hoicked a jet of Red Man spit through a crack in the floor. Again, this is not Jesus the Christ.

He kept a Bowie knife strapped to his outer right thigh, the leather scabbard in dark relief against washed denims. I asked him if he expected any snakes at the day’s proceedings, to which he simply shrugged and then asked me why I was so sweaty all of the sudden. Jesus slipped away to take his seat at the rear of the chapel, by the door.

At the front of the chapel, beside the lectern made from bashed up fruit boxes, where a photo of the deceased might be placed at an ordinary memorial service, sat Mama G. She wore a long, simple dress, like something out of Little House on the Prairie. She was still, her eyes sunken and her head cocked very slightly to the right. By all appearances she was already dead and stuffed, taxidermied and displayed like a bobcat. While I watched, Denny Colsmith approached her and checked her pulse with a finger to the neck.

He nodded: alive. Denny’s boyish face bespoke worry, or maybe fear. Behind him, the Brewster Trio were assuming their places behind the lectern with their guitars and blank stares. I mused that the three of them together might be considered a fully sentient adult human.

The air of the chapel was not celebratory, as I had hoped, seeing as we were gathering to celebrate the Cowboy Church of Loving County’s founding mother’s life in the face of her imminent death. The congregants, as they shuffled into the chapel, greeted each other in hushed tones, somberly. They were more on edge than when Denny preached about tithing. There was a smell, too. Maybe it was something dead trapped under the floorboards of the chapel (it wouldn’t be the first time), or the smell of mothballs that clings to the skin of the old. Something else, too: sweet and sharp, that burned the nose.

The church assembled, members twisting and leaning in the pews to speak to those seated nearby, their quiet voices reaching a critical mass. “Heard she’s being punished for the Reverend.” “Skin peeling like an onion.” “Doc says my bull’s got an STD.” “Hair fallin’ out.” “I was once alive.” The words mingled, jumbling, coalescing in my head. It was like a roaring wind, and I was a flapping, tearing phonebook.

I marched to the front of the chapel and stood behind the lectern, my ears full of whispers. Eyes and bodies swiveled toward me, boots clomping and spurs jangling against wood. The wind of voices stilled as the church lent me its ear. I leaned forward onto the rickety lectern, unsure how to begin. I hadn’t really planned to speak at the funeral, just assuming Denny would step to the plate. But alas, someone had to begin the proceedings before the guest of honor croaked.

“Howdy,” I said. A good start.

Then, with a crack, the lectern splintered and crumbled underneath my weight, nearly sending me face first into the Colsmith family. I regained my composure, graciously accepting the titter of laughs from the congregation. Eric Brewster strummed a sour chord from behind me. His comedic timing needs some work, but at least he’s trying.

I began again. “Well, we’re gathered here to celebrate the life of ― ”

“I was once alive.” There it was again! That muffled voice. I looked around for the speaker, but it seemed that no one else had noticed. They all stared at me, a fleet of eyebrows beginning to raise. I was suddenly aware of how sweaty a man can get.

“ ― celebrate the life of Mama G, a great lady.” I gestured to my side, toward her. She took a deep breath in, as acknowledgement. “She has been very gracious to me in my time here, and I know she has been like a mother to many with us today.”

A few quiet yeehaws cascaded from the pews.

“Yeehaw indeed,” I echoed.

I noticed out of the corner of my eye, Mama G motioning feebly toward me. She tugged at my shirt sleeve with the force of a blade of grass, and so I bent my ear to her.

She whispered, “Be thou my mouthpiece, child.”

I shuddered at her cold breath on my ear. “Mama G would like to say a few words,” I announced, “so I will broadcast.”

Mama G swallowed, the sound like a footstep on gravel. She said, and so I spoke aloud, “Some of ya’ll’s been good to me. Some ain’t so much.” She drew in a wheezing breath. “I lived a pretty durned good life. But I’m dying a real bad death. Y’all best pray.”

Mama G fell silent. She wasn’t dead yet, evidenced by the slight rise and fall of her shoulders with each painful breath. Her eyes were unfocused, face limp. The congregation watched her with mingled pity and confusion, awkward fidgets making the pews creak. Her cryptic final message had seemed to discomfit the crowd.

I signaled for the Brewsters to strike up a song, and they complied with an up-tempo, hootin’ rendition of “I’ll Fly Away.” A bit on the nose, but I’d have accepted anything to break the tension. As the congregation began to stand and join in the song, I moved to stand by Denny Colsmith at the front pew, and asked him if he’d like to close things out and get everyone moseying along before Mama G went for the public bucket kick.

It was obvious something was eating him, orbs of cold sweat dotting his hairline, eyes darting around the room. Denny chewed his lip, leaning toward me.

“Something ain’t right.”

I nodded. “Did you hear the voice?”

“What voice? But you smell that, right?”

“Some glad morning,” the church sang, “when this life is over!”

I sniffed. A small room jammed with rural folk is bound to be ― to put it kindly ― pungent, and so my nose was met with a dense and very specific olfactory landscape to sift through. A few varieties of sweat, including but not limited to: your basic Texas heat sweat, stress sweat, the leathery sweat of sockless boots, stale old baked-in sweat, mustache sweat, double chin sweat, belly button sweat, chili sweat, chili pepper sweat, footlong chili dog sweat, toilet sweat, three cups of coffee sweat. There was that ubiquitous smell of manure, a cigarette smoker’s jacket, a floral perfume, and again, that sweet but stinging scent of liquid fuel. This must be what Denny was talking about.

“Kerosene?” I asked.

He narrowed his eyes, dipping his chin in agreement.

“I was once alive!” There was the voice again, ringing out, this time jubilant, as if in response to the Brewsters’ song.

I looked sidelong at Denny, who did not appear to notice the voice. I noticed a flutter of movement from Mama G, who was fishing blindly for something in a front pocket of her dress. She blinked rapidly, mustering the last of her strength. Then, behind her, a plank on the back wall of the chapel rattled like it had been kicked. It rattled again.

Someone had tied up their pigs in front of the chapel, and all of the sudden they set to squealing and yanking at their tethers, making a grand fuss. A cow bellowed angrily in the distance.

The plank at the rear of the chapel shook again, and then with a crunch, a dirty pale leg exploded through the wall, sending wood splinters across the floor. The gathered crowd gasped. Guns were drawn and aimed at the intruding leg. It was a human leg, thin, very white and streaked with black mud.

The Brewsters did not cease their song.

The leg withdrew through the hole it had created in the chapel’s wall, and in its place a watermelon appeared, pressed against the wood from outside. Just as quickly as it had appeared, the watermelon fell away, its taut green skin splitting and bleeding, then crumbling to reveal the grinning face of death itself, which pressed itself into the crack and shouted, “Heeeeere’s Willie!”

Old Stanley Milton screamed and fainted, goat-like, bowling over an entire pew in his arc toward the floor. His bullet-holey cowboy hat (another story) slipped from his head and rolled in a tight circle on the floor. As it came to rest, the whole church set to caterwauling. Screams rang out, arms and legs flailing across the room as the cowboys scrambled for the exit. A haphazard shotgun blast punched a stelliform hole in the steel roof. The two Dans lifted Stanley Milton under his arms and and dragged him out, boot heels clocking against the uneven floorboards.

The Brewster trio played on: “When I die, Hallelujah by and by!”

The resurrected Willie burst through the back wall, barely clothed in tattered jean shorts that were little more than a waistline and a zipper, and the remains of a sheepskin vest. His skin was bone white and caked with mud. His face was shriveled, lips peeled back from blackened teeth, locked in a devilish smirk, eyes lidless and swiveling furiously. A few locks of hair hung from Willie’s head, grown long in death, and plastered to his skull and neck.

Mama G slumped sideways and fell from her chair, a tiny box of matches gripped in one boney hand.

Against both my expectations and my best judgment, I rushed toward Willie, rather than away. I ran to Mama G’s side, stooping to pry the matchbox from her hand. I remembered now the final item of her will.

Willie leaned his head back and released a bellowing, rattling laugh, which turned quickly to choking as the diamond head of a rattlesnake appeared in his mouth. It emerged between Willie’s teeth, sliding sickeningly from his decaying craw, and dropped with a thump to the floor. It was followed by another, and then another, until four rattlers were slithering in a tangle on the chapel floor. Three of them turned and headed for the Brewsters, who had still not abandoned their posts.

Outside, I could hear the diesel belch of trucks tear-assing away from the church.

I gripped Mama G under the shoulders and pulled her toward the door, not stopping to check her vitals. The fourth serpent made a mad dash toward me. I steeled myself for its fangs, closing my eyes and dragging Mama G’s limp form backwards. My hip smacked against the corner of a pew, staggering me. I heard a hiss, and my head reflexively swiveled, eyes flashing open to see an airborne snake with its fangs bared at my unprotected arm, when a dark hand appeared and snatched the rattler mid flight.

Jesus, my personal savior! The snake, captured, contorted and planted its fangs in the crook of Jesus’ elbow. He tore the beast from his arm, snapping its fangs, and smacked it against a nearby pew back. It writhed in his grip. He managed to pin it to the floor with his foot, then drew his Bowie knife and took its life.

Jesus spat a wad of tobacco on the snake’s dancing corpse. Perhaps at the scent of their own kind’s blood, the three rattlers that were fiending for the Brewsters now changed course, angling at Jesus. They hissed in unison.

Jesus plucked the broken fangs from his arm, then removed his black leather “DUDE” vest. Shirtless now, he laid the vest down like a prayer rug. Two crooked streams of blood tracked down his forearm, dripping with a faint rainlike patter. He knelt on the vest, crossing his arms in front of his chest, knife blade resting against his cheek. The three living snakes coiled and sprung, arcing terribly toward Jesus’ defenseless body. They found their marks, one planting in his neck, another in his chest, and the third pierced his side.

Meanwhile, Willie was making his move. His lithe, undead form sprung over the first row of pews, lighting on the back of one and perching there momentarily, leering at me.

He said, “You ain’t from around here, bud. I can smell it on you.” He sniffed, the rotten skin of his nose flapping like wings.

I shook myself from my stupor and pulled Mama G toward the exit. Willie danced across the backs of the pews, outpacing me. He snickered. Before I could reach the door, he leapt gracefully into my path, pirouetting to face me. I stopped, gently lowering Mama G to the floor, and stood to face the revenant reverend.

8/6/2021