By William Currens Devol
Copyright 2011
Michael reached across the table and grabbed one of our unlimited breadsticks. He took a bite, chewed, swallowed, sipped his beer, and then assumed his deep-thinking pose.
He stroked his beard with his head tipped back and his jaw jutted forward. “Why do more people see the image of Jesus Christ on a slice of toast than on a communion wafer?”
“There’s more surface area on a slice of toast,” I said. “Your mind gets more detail to play with.”
Andy swallowed a big mouthful of Chicken Marsala and wiped his mouth with his napkin before he put his two cents in, “Hell, more people eat toast than go to church; it’s a much bigger pool of idiots.”
Michael and I both laughed. That encouraged Andy to continue.
“If you think about it,” he said, “People see Jesus on toast, pancakes, and tortillas. These things are all made from flour, so I propose that Jesus visions are carbohydrate-induced hallucinations. I wouldn’t be surprised if the two of you didn’t start seeing Jesus because of all the bread sticks you’ve been packing away. Come to think of it, poor people eat a lot of carbs and Napoleon once said something about religion being invented to keep the poor from killing the rich, so I also suggest that the rich make sure the poor keep eating high carb diets as a way of promoting religion and keeping the poor more worried about the next life than the one they are living.”
“As conspiracy theories go,” I said. “That’s pretty good, but I am the fattest of us all and I’ve never seen Jesus after carb loading a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter.”
“Yes, but,” Andy said. “You are a heathen atheist liberal socialist who would be more predisposed to see Satan or Karl Marx than Jesus. Now, Michael here, he comes from a very religious family, so I’d expect he’d be the one to start seeing Jesus.”
Michael grinned from ear to ear. “Damn, Andy, you’re right. I think I see Jesus in the Marsala sauce left on your plate.”
Andy grabbed his fork a made a couple of quick passes through the congealing sauce. “Ta-DA,” Andy said. “It’s Jesus.”
With those few strokes, Andy had created what could be construed as two eyes, a nose, and a beard in the sauce on his plate. He we all chuckling when the waitress stepped up to the table to ask us if we wanted more of anything.
“Dios, Mios,” she shrieked. She dropped to both knees crossing herself and praying feverishly and loudly in Spanish. “It is Jesus.”
Just that quickly, the plump but cute waitress that I thought was flirting with Michael when we first sat down, was consumed with religious ecstasy in the middle of a chain Italian restaurant in Mentor, Ohio.
“No,” Andy said. “I drew that; no, please, I’m sorry.”
The girl paid no attention to Andy. She began crying and saying “Ave Maria, Madre de Dios” over and over again.
This attracted two bus boys clearing a near-by table. They both stepped over to see what the girl was screaming and crying about. They both fell to their knees and began making the sign of the cross and adding to the religious din.
A middle-aged woman with bleached blonde hair wearing a blue dress was the next to fall to her knees. She produced a rosary from her purse and began praying an fingering the beads quickly with a practiced movement.
Other patrons left their tables for a quick peek, more than half fell to their knees. Some began reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Some began speaking in tongues.
A group of African American women began clutching at their chests with one hand and waving their other arm back and forth in the air above their heads. They went from table to table testifying about the miracle of Jesus in the Marsala sauce.
When the kitchen staff pushed their way into the knot of people that crowded around what had been our dinner table, Michael, Andy, and I started backing toward the front doors.
The last thing we heard before we backed out of the restaurant was, “Look, that pasta is the crown of thorns.”
The doors of the restaurant closed on a new chorus of religious exclamation.
We stared at each other for a time. No one said a word, which was unusual for our crowd. After what seemed like 30 minutes, Andy spoke up, “Who knew we were having supper in the deep end of the pool.”
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