Franky the Reverend

It was tipsy eve again and Franklin wanted to shout so loud. Shout to all the rooftops, and back alleys and to all the alley cats … Well!! What did you think? That this was some kind of Edelweiss in the Swiss alps?

No! Franklin was drunk again. He staggered a step or two into a dark corner of the alley up against the dumpster and the cold brick wall. He leaned his check into the brick, which felt good on his bruise.

He took great care to unzip himself and work himself loose from his under garments. Two days ago he hadn’t been careful and his bottle, the sacred bottle of wine went tumbling and shattered, regrettably, on the pavement and he had wanted to shout then, in fear and rage.

Instead he spent the night on a cold slab of steel in the county jail shakin’ with the tremors.

Tonight he was careful, pretty careful, reasonably careful, as careful as a drunk man could be. His dick rasped over his zipper and he cursed out loud about that but he was happy that he had been careful enough that he didn’t drop the sacred bottle.

You are laughing by now and I laugh too, thinking back on the time I was known as the Reverend

… I was Franky the Reverend and people came up to me all the time for the benediction.

“Give us a sign Franky,” “Give us the blessing,” “How about a swig,”

I grew up Catholic and I remembered a bit of the Latin and so I’d say a few words at someone and they’d take a swig —No, it wasn’t sanitary, but that was hardly a concern in those days. I’d say a few words in Latin and they’d get this look in their eyes.

I don’t know how to describe it really, kind of like they’d seen something, something special, felt something, attained for a brief moment, a kind of grace, a peace. I was happy I could help people. I like that, didn’t know what I was doing really but once and awhile it worked.

I remember one time these two guys were going at it … fightin’!! A little bit of a crowd had gathered and some blood was starting to fly. I came up beside this melee and called out ‘boys’. Maybe too quiet the first time, because after I shouted -‘BOYS’ they both stopped and I started in on the Latin and they got quiet, then I offered up the wine and they each took a swig.

Seemed to work a miracle and they went off, arms around each other’s shoulders, back into the bar.

After Franklin got his dick passed his zipper, and made sure his sacred bottle of wine was safe, the next thing he had to worry about was peeing on his shoes.

Aside from dropping his sacred bottle. Aside from his coattails getting swept into the stream by the wind. Aside from the flashlight of the officers patrolling the alley. Aside from tomorrow’s hangover and his mom giving him shit for not amounting to anything other than a back alley reverend which Franklin thought was a bit mean spirited.

But to be fair to his mum, he realized that she hadn’t seen the faces of his parishioners after a benediction.

How was she to know.

The Admiral’s Boy