Father Scowlypants and the Long Hot Summer

Ah, summertime.

Although I’m working more than ever, and spending most of my time these days outside the borders of New York, there’s one thing about summer in the city that hasn’t deserted me: my Friday mornings still feel like they come with a free pass. The sun rises, the city stirs, the impending weekend is finally in view, and nothing I do at work in the ensuing hours will really matter. I can pull on a pair of jeans and bide my time til 5pm.

This morning was like that; I put cheerful, chirpy music on my iPod and stepped out my front door. It was cool and sunny, happy people were riding bicycles down the street, shopkeepers were sweeping their stoops, and for a moment, I felt very much a part of some movie musical’s opening street scene – the kind where a lone oboe plays a few sleepy notes, and a baker waves from his doorway, and then everybody suddenly bursts into song. The scene was set, and a complete cast of characters seemed to be assembling. There was the guy picking up trash in the park; the young couple wheeling their cherubic baby in a Bugaboo; the grizzled proprietor of our local coffee shop; a beery-smelling homeless chap asleep on a bench.

I was beaming with joy at the sheer perfection of it all when suddenly, only a few yards ahead, I spotted the final player on my Stage of Fancy. He was coming toward me, walking at a brisk pace, the unmistakable geometric outline of his white collar clearly visible.

My heart positively exploded with neighborhood pride.

A priest! On my street! It was so lovely, so vibrant, so diverse, so emphatically Brooklyn. As he neared, I was suddenly and irreversibly buoyed by a rising tide of bonhomie. I looked eagerly into the face of the clergyman, smiling at him as I wanted to smile at the whole world.

The priest, seeming to feel my gaze, looked up.
Our eyes met.

And the motherfucker scowled at me.



After careful consideration, I've decided that we're dealing with one of two possible scenarios:

Possibility 1: Rogue priest.
Possibility 2: Incontrovertible proof that God does, in fact, hate me.

... and I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as a rogue priest.
But at least it's Friday.