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The Pedestal Magazine > Archives > ISSUE TWENTY-SIX: Feb-Apr (05) > Fiction >Steven R. Cope - Hannibal's Messiah

  
It was called Hannibal´s Messiah or something and it was like really good and I urge you to get a copy. I can´t help it, I just admired it, though it was really sort of out of whack, I mean you know funny, not funny ha ha but funny like weird, not like something you´d go see.

It was when you were just walking along lost and it was sort of dark and all and wet and cold and there was this Christ Church Cathedral (I mean it was really tall and pointed) on a street they called Market. (I know because there was like a sign on a pole.) And out of this tall and pointed church came singing, some really high singing like girl angels or something that made you feel better and better all the time. I mean if you were lost, you felt better. I´d say even if you were not.

And there was no one around anywhere so what you did was like open this big castle-looking door with this big castle-looking handle and everything and went in and it was warm as soup.

And so there you were in this like little room with this red carpet that was really thick and everything and oh yeah a great big old mirror that showed your face like it really was and a big wide room beside it with more thick red carpet and a blue zillion shiny brown benches where a lot of people were sitting but not talking like you´d think people would. And it was getting hot and everything and the roof was as high as a tobacco barn maybe over in Montgomery County and people´s eyes were facing forwards so you only saw the backs of their heads and heard them coughing and honking when they got a good chance. (I mean when the band was getting their breath.)

So what you did was like slip in behind the very last shiny brown bench and get a square (I think square) post between you and three of the people, two gray-haired old sisters or something in black dresses and white pearls and a short one in a metal chair with a fur coat and a shiny magazine. And she was just reading and everything and was probably about to burn up.

But the point is (and I know I´m jumping the gun or whatever but I also know you got to go ahead and get it out before you go off and forget to say it), the point is there was something about it. You could tell it right away. There was something about it all that you just couldn´t put your finger on and still can´t and probably won´t ever, especially after the man with a big white bloom of hair and a little stick welcomed you there for Hannibal´s sake and said he was glad you had came out. He said Hannibal wrote all the music back in 1968 or something, way before you were even born, and had died somewhere along the line. That made you sadder than you´d want to tell, thinking how he´d wrote it all and everything and had gone ahead and died anyway.

And all of a sudden you knew something, I mean way down deep in your crawl, like you´d know your mom or your dad was behind you just watching, like you´d know you´d done something wrong or something and they were stalking you and out to get you. You knew God was in it all. I mean every last bit of it, in the man with the white hair, in the band dressed in black and white and the black and white girls and boys behind them all dressed in black and white and the sisters with their furs and pearls and the red carpet thick as mulch. You knew God had led you right there. I mean you'd got off the bus you didn't know where and had headed up the road to you didn´t know where till you´d got right where you were going, right where you were supposed to be.

And when the band had kicked it off again you got to thinking even farther back how your daddy didn´t give a rip and how your mommy had took off you didn´t know why or to where or with who or for what and you just couldn´t stand it anymore no matter how you tried to fix it. And then the band (I mean the angels) started singing out real loud with this Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Halaaaaaaylujah like you wouldn´t of thought of in a million years, and if Hannibal had been there you´d of sure shook his hand.

It was like nothing you´d ever heard. It made you want to live and to feel good and even act right if you could. And that´s exactly what you tried to do until the short sister with the magazine came up and smelled like peppermint and roses and whispered did you have a ticket. No you didn´t, you said, and without saying anything else she turned you by the shoulders back towards the heavy door.

Outside the street was empty like it was kind of late but it really wasn´t. It was like it was trying to fool you into thinking it. It had some sort of shine on it like sugar that maybe came from the streetlights like it does when it´s almost morning. And there was something else you saw too, something besides the two men and the pretty lady with legs standing on the cathedral steps smoking that the short sister must also have throwed out.

You saw this great big tall building with a blue lit-up top that stood way, way off in the distance, taller and quieter and more like God than anything else in the whole town, I mean even Christ Church Cathedral. It made you want to walk towards it so you did. You walked and walked towards it until you found out something else, something you wished you hadn´t, that when something´s big and blue like that and makes you think it´s God or something it takes you a hell of a long time to get there. And when you finally do get there, it´s like not worth nearly as much as you thought. And even if it is, you probably lost your ticket, even if you did used to have one, even if you knew where you could get one and had the money for it in your pocket.









Steven R. Cope is the Kentucky author/poet/musician/songwriter and former editor and publisher. He has taught, at one time or another, at the University of Kentucky, Morehead State University, and Eastern Kentucky University. He is the author of eight books, including four volumes of poetry: In Killdeer's Field, Clover's Log, Crow!, and The Furrbawl Poems, as well as the novel Sassafras and the fable/story collection The Book of Saws.
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