Alina’s in town and parked her car in front of St. Mary’s cathedral. St. Mary’s is a Catholic church built in a modern design. It looks like an art museum because it looks vaginal. Most churches have a bell tower or a series of spires that could be phallic. This building has four long slits. I don’t know how to describe it. Can you google St. Mary’s Cathedral, SF CA for me so I don’t have to type a thousand words? Thanks.
It’s modern. Made of concrete. Smooth and round. The organ (musical, not sexual) is floating on a concrete stalk over the pews like a Parliament concert. There are brass sea dragons on the door. The stained glass is cubist. As soon as you walk in, the holy water is bubbling down a geometric white marble fountain sunken into the floor, yet roped off so that Alina couldn’t dip her fingers in and do the stations of the cross. It was like Church was closed. God was out to lunch.
An aluminum extension ladder was propped up into the backside of the banks of pipes and one odd tone kept ringing out. They were tuning it? Then a loud chorus of “Hallelujah” came singing out of a man’s mouth as he walked from the front of the church to the doors we’d just entered. A woman working the single organ key said to the guy up in the pipes, “Hold on. I need to call security.”
What would that call sound like?
“Officer Hong, we have an incident, please respond.”
“What’s the 5-20?”
“We have a white male, approximately 35, praying in the chapel.”
“Praying in the chapel? It’s Wednesday afternoon!”
“I know. We roped off the holy water. Please respond immediately. He may have a rosary.”
We decided we should leave at that point. Somewhere hidden, perhaps in the confessional, a power drill started up.
“This is the least serene church I’ve ever been in,” I said to Alina, and she just laughed. The mythical sea dragons on the door stayed frozen in their brass sea. We walked out to find a bar and some peace and quiet.