All the Good People

 All the good people

The bell tower of the church dominated the skyline in that area of the neighborhood. When the bells rang they sounded sonorous and commanding. This was at a time before churches used tape recordings of bells played over loud speakers placed in bell towers. Such notions then would have been considered ridiculous. You could rest assured if you heard  bells, high above bells were actually swinging to and fro, and huge clappers were actually striking metal to create the somber tones.

Four times each Sunday morning the bells boomed out to beckon worshippers, and all the good people thronged to church as though draw there by magic. Most of the people walked, those who were of sound body, as it was also a time when people considered it lazy or profligate to use their cars when the church was only a few blocks away. They all began as stragglers after they left their homes, but as they neared the church they clumped together in to small groups only to have to thin into single file lines when they enter through the church’s three entrances.

Inside the church the pews slowly filled beneath the vaulted ceiling. Each scrape of shoe sole on the tile floor as somebody sidled into place in a pew seemed to echo out of every corner of the church. Every harumph of somebody clearing their throat was cause to look around. Every whine of a child too young to know the import of silence in this hallowed place drew impatient frowns from every pew. Soon the church was filled, women wearing colorful hats, men wearing solemn suits or shirts and ties, children wearing clothes they always wore but immaculately clean. There was the silent shifting and shuffling of humanity in the hush of the church. High above the bell had quieted, the last reverberations fading into an eerie nothingness. They patiently wait for the beginning of Mass, as each person in the sacristy of his mind thought thoughts that had little to do with prayer.