Clerical

Chapter Twelve

The classic London black cab pulls up outside the Luciano Casino. The casino itself is located in the north side of the city.

The casino isn't something out of Las Vegas; there are no in-your-face bright lights streaming into your eyes like an alien invasion. This casino portrays an element of class with it's sleek grey colour scheme and suit wearing bouncers.

Barry takes it in, thinking to himself that the old man must have a fair amount of coin on him to be able to afford even the slightest flutter in this sort of place. Personally, he's never been much for gambling. "What a waste of money" has been his go to thought throughout his life, but to be fair he's been a miserable cheap-skate for as long as he's drawn breath.

He muscles the courage to walk to the front door with his grandfather, who is in high spirits, possibly because of the level of alcohol in his blood stream.

Gabriel tweaks his mouth and pushes out an unconvinced little noise. Barry notices.

"What?" Barry asks.

"Well. We don't really have time for this." Gabriel responds, as the bouncers pat down Grandad.

"Oh, no? really? You don't say?" Barry responds sarcastically. "It's not like there's a f*****g clock ticking down to my own death or anything Is there."

"Aye, alright. We shouldn't really go in there anyway. One den of sin is enough, even under the veil of charity it's gonna be a tough one to spin."

The bouncer pulls out a switchblade from grandad's pocket and raises an eyebrow at him.

"That's from the war, mate." Grandad says.

"You can't bring a knife into a casino, sir."

Barry shakes his head at the encounter.

"You know what, Gabe. I don't wanna see my Grandad stab a bouncer in a war flashback, so, what do you suggest."

Gabriel ponders for a moment and flaps his lips. He looks over at the old man, who's seemingly convinced the bouncer to let him in.

"Leave them too it?" Barry suggests. "They'll be fine."

Barry's Grandad, from the distance, raises his arms. "You lot coming or what?"

"You alright on your own, old timer?" Gabriel asks.

"'Course I bloody am!" He shouts back before walking with his girlfriend into the casino.

"Problem solved." Barry says with a smile. He notices the concerned look on Gabriel's face. "He's more than capable of looking after himself. You saw the size of that knife he had on him."

Gabriel nods. "Probably for the best, anyway." He says, checking his watch. "Mass starts in ten."

Barry scoffs, "I beg your pardon, guv?"

"Mass. Midnight mass. You need to do a confession and s**t. I'm sure the priest won't mind doing one this late. Looking after the flock and all that gibberish."

"I need sleep, Gabriel! I'm tired! And I'm not a catholic."

Gabriel laughs. "It's just a formality, buddy."

Barry isn't amused. He's certain that this is all unnecessary, and even in the event that it's not, surely doing something he doesn't believe in won't help him in the slightest.

"I don't care, Gabriel, I'm not doing it. Times short as it is, I'm not wasting it to sit through a 45-minuet doom and gloom lecture telling me that I'm going to burn in the fires of hell. Because, unless you've forgotten, I've seen heaven, and it ain't all that anyway."

Gabriel holds his hands up, surrendering. "Alright, alright, calm your britches. Tell you what, I can probably administer the confession, I'm sure it's fine. We do need to do this though. Something doesn't feel… right."

"What?"

"Somethings…. Look, I'll explain better if we're not out in the open. We can go to my place."

Barry scowls. "Your place? You have a place?"

"It's something of a communal thing. Look, come on, let me show you."

Gabriel flags down a cab, and gestures for the uncertain Barry to follow him.

*****

a little after midnight just outside of Eastern London, the cab pulls up outside a house in a relatively middle-class neighbourhood. Semi-detached houses line both sides of the streets in this respectable seeming area of the city.

The house that Gabriel has brought Barry to is number 56, a two-story white brick home that has that distinctive "built in the 70's" copy and paste look. It looks well kept, all the houses on this street look that way. On the front lawn is a sign planted in the grass that says, "All welcome in our loving grace".

This street is a world away from what Barry is used to. It's quiet, and there's not a drunken lout or screaming couple for as far as the eye can see. He hates it.

Gabriel motions for Barry to follow him towards the front entrance of the house. He carefully follows behind, too tired to take in the bizarre nature of the signage on the lawn.

Gabriel stands by the front door and turns to Barry with a big smile.

"Welcome." He says with a nod of his eyebrows before proceeding to knock on his door with a very specific, almost coded, knock.

A few seconds go by before the door opens. Barry counts five young hippy types immediately behind the door, all dressed in flowery and loose clothes. In unison they all excitedly say "Gabriel! You return!" and welcome back the angel with hugs and back patting.

Gabriel greets them all in a similar manner and introduces his honoured guest. "This is Barry, gang, the man I mentioned the other day."

The strange collection of people all sound off in awe and welcome. They shuffle Barry into the house and shut the door behind him.

Gabriel leads his friends through the ground floor of the house to the living room. Barry notices that lit candles are everywhere, and bibles lay idle on side tables. The only lighting behind provided is the luminescence of the naked flames, but as there are more in here than in a 9th century monastery, it's perfectly easy to see clearly. Barry also notices the art on the wall, which is a weird mix of religious fine art, and Andy Warhol style pop art.

Barry feels very uncomfortable as he's led into the living room. His worry about the mental capacity of these people is exaggerated upon being greeted to yet more freaks sitting in a circle on the floor. The people sit on their knees, with candles and strange objects in the centre.

"Our Gabriel has returned, family!" One of the more confident ladies of the group announces.

Once again, a rejoice is heard from the kneelers and none kneelers alike.

This room is also filled with the strange artwork. Barry looks around intently at it and is caught by Gabriel.

With a chipper voice he tells Barry that "They were all painted by Sister Laura." And motions to the confident girl who spoke only moments ago.

"And aren't they just bloody brilliant." Gabriel follows with.

The woman goes an embarrassed and childish red as she is flattered in unison by everyone else in the room. Well, everyone except Barry, who just manages to push out an unknown noise of agreement.

"This is my family, Barry, and together, we want to build a better heaven." Gabriel says.

"….Right." Barry replies confused and a little concerned. "And by family you mean?"

"We are a unit bonded by the love of our lord." A man with dirty, unwashed dreadlocks says with a beaming smile.

One woman steps forward holding a branch off a tree. "Look, Gabriel, we prayed for your return, and you returned to us. The twig you brought us brought you back to us." She says.

"The twig!" Some members shout.

"Ah, the twig." Gabriel says.

"The twig?" Barry asks.

"The twig is a sign of connection. We are all a family of one tree, each of us a branch of it's divine love." Sister Laura explains.

"I see. It's been nice meeting you all, anyway, but I have to go home now." Barry says as he attempts to leave the room before he's manhandled by a few more of the family who appeared behind him. They move him towards the circle and kneel him down.

Barry's concern has developed into complete terror.

"Look, I don't know what this is but please don't do anything rash, yeah? I'm not all that bad, am I Gabe? I'm not like, some evil doer or devil worshiper or anything." He says, his voice teeming with fear.

The family all laugh like kids watching a magician. Gabriel kneels in front of him.

"Don't be a baby, buddy, we're here to help you. I can perform anything a priest can, in some respects it's even more effective. So, what do you have to confess?" Gabriel says, awaiting a response.

The whole room falls silent, Barry notices that all eyes are on him. He can't count them all but he's aware that there is at least ten people in this one room, all 20 eyes fixated on him and him alone.

Barry stumbles over his choice of words.

"Confess?" He asks, not certain to whom he should project his voice.

"Come on Baz don't be thick. I said you needed to confess your sins and what have you. So come on, lets here them." Gabriel says.

"I'm not sure…"

"There's no judgement here, matey. Brother Ben over there used to interfere with farm animals when he was younger" Gabriel says, motioning to another gentleman in the corner. "Now he is all forgiven. Piss easy is this lark."

Barry relents. "Alright, fine." He says with a drawn-out breath. "Forgive me father for I have sinne-"

Gabriel holds out his hand laughing. "Don't bother with that gob-shite stuff, Barry, I'm not some stuck up catholic priest. Just tell me, from the start, what you've done wrong and regret.

Barry looks up to the ceiling and ponders for a moment before seemingly getting a stroke of inspiration.

"Ah, alright, yeah. Errm, when I was 8 I used a meter stick to look up Sarah Weldmans skirt. She had a skiddy on her knickers so we all started calling her Shitty Pants Sarah. That lasted all the way through high school as well." He says, oddly proud of what he just said. "That was pretty awful I guess."

The family share glances with each other as Gabriel clears his throat.

"Ok, good. Keep going."

Barry thinks again for a moment.

"I did the same thing a year later to her sister Tracey, except she didn't have skiddys. But she did generally smell bad so we started calling her Pongo. That was pretty harsh."

Gabriel lowers his voice. "Shall we move on to things a little more ‘sinny'?"

Over the next 25 minuets Barry describes the worst of the worst of his sins to the shocked audience. Nothing particular nasty is revealed, as Barry's life has been one of minor misdemeanours such as stealing from shops as a kid, and of course causing some minor bodily disfigurements to certain people he knew.

Put into perspective, his life hasn't been lined with gruesome acts of pure barbarianism, but one of stupid decisions, laziness, poor taste, and slothenly behaviour. All in all, once the confession is out of the way, Barry feels a lot better about his decision to spill it all out. A weight off his mind has been lifted, and it feels like it's a mighty heavy one at that.

The exhaustive list of crimes concludes, much to the pleasure of the gathering sheep around him. Gabriel seems to have switched off a little bit, but puts his hand on Barry's shoulder.

"Good lad." He says with a comforting tone.

"So I'm forgiven then?" Barry questions.

Gabriel's mobile phone rings.

"Yeah, sure, why the hell not!" Gabriel says before reaching into his pocket and raising his telephone to his ear. "Hello?"

Barry gets unwanted back pats and hugs from the brothers and sisters of Gabriel's family, but manages to beat them off somewhat, then proceeds to stand up. He's still a little uncomfortable with the odd behaviour patterns displayed by this gang. During the mass huddle, he notices Gabriel has turned away to speak privately on the phone. He seems eager to end the conversation, and when finished with the call turns towards Barry. He takes a long, deep breath.

"Now, don't flip out. But apparently that was the Casino security."

"How'd they get your number?" Barry asks.

"Your old man must have given it to them. Whatever, however, doesn't matter." Gabriel pauses. "He may have been detained by them for some sort of cheating."

Barry growls and shakes his head.

"f*****g liability. So what?" Barry says, matter of fact.

"So- leaving an old man in a casino jail isn't very….. godly, is it?" Gabriel says, his arms moving to impersonate a weighing scale. "Delicate balance, yeah?"

"Fine. Fine. Sleep can wait then, can't it. Again." Barry moves to push through the family. "Move." He demands.

The brothers and sisters all cheer their goodbyes to Barry as he walks out of the room.