The Long and Storied Life of Jose Montoya

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The Long and Storied Life of Jose Montoya 78and they all piled into waiting automobiles. Jose was squeezed next to Eudora, and the sensation of herbody pressing sideways against him was almost overwhelming. He was sharply aware of each point ofcontact between them, from their shoulders to their hips to the outsides of their thighs. Even though theautomobile was so tightly packed that she could not have moved away from this contact even if she hadwanted to, Jose clutched her hand tightly for the entire ride to keep her in place. She clutched himback, just as tightly.When they arrived outside of the church and he was able to unfold himself out of theautomobile, Jose gave everything a careful eye. The building was a brick affair, plain, with a cross ontop but no steeple. A stone set into the corner of the foundation read A.D. 1900. The double doors inits face were propped open, and a man stood next to each handing out the program for the morning.Jose smiled and accepted the paper. Pulled along by Eudora on his arm, Jose took a deep breath andpassed through the doors.There was no holy water in the vestibule, and no one was genuflecting. The vestibule openedonto the main sanctuary, and Eudora led him only a short way down the central aisle before guidinghim into a wooden pew near the back. The back was fine with Jose, who did not want a crowd ofpeople behind him observing all his mistakes as he fumbled through whatever rituals were to come.Eudora sat down and slid close to him on the pew.A piano was being played at the front of the sanctuary. Its tune was strange to Jose, and itsounded more like a popular song than any music he had ever heard at Mass. Possible lyrics suggestedthemselves to Jose, but none were appropriate to the setting and so he let them slide out of his mind.He looked around. Crosses were everywhere displayed, a large one behind the altar echoingthroughout the motif of the rest of the sanctuary. Jose found this comforting, feeling that they could notpossibly be the bloodthirsty heretics of his imagination if they displayed so many crosses, even if hewas slightly troubled by the fact that on none of them was displayed the battered and bloody body of
The Long and Storied Life of Jose Montoya 79Christ that he was used to seeing.As he was turning this fact over in his mind, everyone stood and started to sing along to themusic of the piano. The words were in a hymnal which Eudora held up for him, and they were not atall similar to the ones that he had begun composing in his mind. Singing was followed by praying, astrange free-form prayer that seemed more like a one-sided conversation than the Latin intonations thathe was used to. Praying was followed by more singing, which was followed by even more praying andsinging. Sometimes they all stood and sometimes they all sat, but never did they kneel. Jose decidedthat not kneeling was okay with him, since he had noticed that the pews in this building had beenconstructed without kneelers anyway. Perhaps it was an oversight in construction, or perhaps it was asmall mercy from God, but either way Jose was happy about it.After a variety of songs had been sung and prayers prayed and money collected, a stern warningwas given about the tiny cups of grape juice and the chalky little crackers that were being passedaround. Jose decided not to sample them; he was already slightly afraid for his immortal soul, and afterthe threatening introduction to them he decided it was better not to risk it. Eudora had no such qualms,however, and he watched as she threw back the shot of grape juice. She immediately closed her eyesand bowed her head. She didn't look at him as she did so, but she did lick her lips once, which wasenough to send Jose into his own brief reverie.When everyone had done their shot, the mood in the building seemed to lighten considerably. Aman who seemed analogous to a priest made various announcements about various things, and thenused a pair of jokes to launch himself into a long lecture that seemed to be primarily about how bad ofa person Jose was. Jose took it personally for a minute, until he realized that he was not being singledout; the lecture was actually about how bad everyone in the whole room was. Looking around, Joseobserved that no one seemed offended by this. Instead, people were nodding their heads in agreementthat yes, they were in fact bad people, just as the priest was saying. Jose did not feel like a bad person,
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The Long and Storied Life of Jose Montoya

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