Apocalypse of Jude

Jude turns from putting bottles of beer before two weathered men at the bar to a morose looking Caul, sitting at the opposite corner of the bar. He leans his elbows on the bar, coming close as if in confidence.

“You asked me cousin, why I sold this property to Paul? Look at me. I’m like a priest here. This bar is my church. My Magnus Martyr. The closest I’ll come to Ionian white and gold. I’ve got my vocation back. To all who come here, I offer placebos for their hurts, absolution for all their guilt feelings. I offer them the flesh and blood of the broken world to see it come alive in them again. And they think I’m a miracle worker.”

The colour of Caul’s morose face pales as a shiver runs through him. He curses himself inwardly again for his self-righteousness that has blinded him to realising that Paul has worked Jude to be the priest at his rite with Mae.

/jude cannot be the priest / /when my stepfather died/ /that right passed to me/ /im both priest and avatar/ /he has to kill me first to be priest/ /and who will then take my place as consort to mae/ /paul/

Caul hides his double horror by turning away his face. He notices the silence of the bar.

“Play us a song Mr. barman. How about some blues. It fills up the air so well.”

Jude pushes himself up off the bar and moves to the tape deck. After a moment, blues starts to whine its pleasant melodrama through the bar, where the chatter of expectation mixes the evening’s first alcohol with blood, and the clatter of a pool game goes on in the room alongside.

The music creeps over Caul as he recalls the waters of the ocean along the Strand, and then his drive up Queen Victoria Street to bringing him inexplicably once again to this bar. Caul looks to his right at a jovial Gary sitting one seat removed from him, joking with the two old fishermen stumped by life, on the right corner of the bar. Swivelling on his stool he looks down at the two tables alongside the maroon walls, where jugs of beer stand and the lewd conversations of young sailors and merchants in pursuit of the world, are being carried out. Jude meanwhile, takes a position of leaning up against the back of the bar, arms crossed, looking at the panelled ceiling into which surrounding cigarette smokes dissipates.

At the scuffle sound of the door, all of them look up to see Janice walking into the bar with Audrey in tow. But none of the men’s eyes leave Janice. Jude, relieved for the game, grins like the Cheshire cat.

“Gentlemen, please rise. The Lady of the bar.”

Wasteland Mix: Fragment 73