Two Monks Walk Into A Bar In Little Aleppo

No one on the Main Drag paid any attention to the monks. Little Aleppo had seen far stranger. Escaped zoo animals gallivanted down the street to cheers at least once a month, and there were always men with bloody noses wearing tuxedos at eleven in the morning, and it was an odd day when you did not see at least one naked person moseying along the sidewalk. There was Iguana Don, who was never seen out of his skintight green leather suit, and a biker gang called the Kiss My Dicks. Various pedestrians were on leashes: children who wouldn’t do what they were told, and perverts who enjoyed being told what to do. Little Aleppians did not stare at weirdos: first off, because the weirdos might be aggressive or–even worse–friendly; and second, because the weirdos might be partnered up with pickpockets who would use your distraction against you.

(The one abnormal activity that locals paid attention to was when workmen started humping large glass panes around; it surely meant a car chase was imminent.)

It was sunny and the clouds were high and innocuous. Business was going on everywhere: selling and buying and appraising and fencing and trying to include the extended warranty. Senegalese music skipped from the speakers outside Randy’s Record Barn; it was good morning music; it was sidewalk-bopping music, and not too loud but the sound carried all the way up to Town Hall–just barely–which fronts Mount Faith, where St. Sebastian’s Monastery is accessible via a brambly, crumbly goat path.

“How do we do this?”

“Walk? You should have learned how in high school.”

“Our robes,” Brother Lopsang said. “How do we walk down without tearing up our robes?”

“We take them off,” Brother Yup answered.

“We’re gonna walk through three miles of pricklebushes and thorns in our underwear?”

Brother Yup untied the simple knot in the rope that bound his brown robe tight to his waist. He pulled the whole heavy garment over his head, and Brother Lopsang looked away in horror. Then back.

“You’re wearing clothes.”

“Yeah, we’re walking down the hill. Of course I’m wearing clothes.”

He was in the jeans he had worn when he came to the monastery. Their cuffs were flared. Long-sleeved tee-shirt advertising The Snug from back on their first headlining tour. His everyday sandals with his everyday thick gray socks. Brother Lopsang clapped her hands in front of her.

“So.”

“You really didn’t think about this? We meditate for hours. You had more than enough time to think about this.”

“I’ll go put something on.”

“Yeah.”

“Wait here.”

“Duh.”

They were standing outside the monastery, right by the massive double doors which had a human-sized cutout at which supplicants made their cases and were admitted within the walls. Brother Lopsang set her canvas bag–Brother Yup had an identical one–down on the soft ground and disappeared into St. Sebastian’s. There was a rock, flat and lowish, that the supplicants sat on when they were denied entry for the customary three days. Brother Yup sat on it, dug in his bag. Half an uncut loaf of bread from the bakery. He ate it while his skin felt the sun rise.

It was almost ten by the time the two hit the Main Drag, having replaced their robes once they emerged from the foothills. Off to the west was Crater Street, where Brother Lopsang used to live when she was named Karen Blitzstein. She did not look over. Brother Yup was smiling, and nodding at everyone he passed.

“God bless you. And you. You, too. Don’t think He forgot about you down there.”

He pressed his hands together in front of him.

“Bless you, sister. Bless you, mister. And your dog. Bless your dog.”

“Don’t do prayer hands.”

“It plays.”

“It doesn’t. You’re indicating.”

“They love prayer hands.”

“It’s a bit much,” Bother Lopsang said.

“It only looks weird because you’re not doing it, too. Give it a try.”

“Absolutely not.”

“More fun than it looks.”

Brother Lopsang reached over her shoulders and flipped the hood of her robe up over her head. Her brown hair was a year long; she had buzzed it all off down the scalp when she entered the monastery, even though all the other monks told her she didn’t have to. Some gray had come in with brown.

“Good morning. God bless you. Peace be unto you. What a lovely tie.”

“I’ve never seen this side of you. I don’t like it.”

“We’re emissaries for St. Sebastian’s. We should let the people know that we love them, and that they’re welcome in the monastery.”

“But they’re not welcome in the monastery. That’s the point of a monastery.”

“You know what Brother Finn teaches about monasteries?”

“Nope.”

“Buildings are not necessary for a monastery; just monks.
But the monks will get very cold at night without buildings.”

“He was truly wise.”

Brother Yup swung his overpacked canvas bag from one shoulder to the other.

“At least take the hood off. You look like an axe murderer.”

“You didn’t know me before I came up the hill. Maybe I axe murdered.”

“Not a chance. You don’t have the hips for it.”

“What do hips have to do with it?”

“With axe murdering? The hips are everything. That’s where you generate your power.”

Brother Yup watched the door, and Brother Lopsang worked in the gardens. The Tchotchke Run had belonged to Brothers Alph and Leon for a while, but Alph hadn’t come back the last time. A bar got him, the Aardvark Lounge on Peel Street. They had some Buddhas left over, and neither wanted to carry them back up Mount Faith. It was almost four in the afternoon, and so they needed to get going, but there was a healthy hum coming from the Aardvark, and the monks thought that a drunk or two might buy a Buddha, and one did, but he also bought drinks, and a good deal of the reason was Alph was at St. Sebastian’s in the first place was vodka. Long story short: Alph doffed his robe a few hours later, went back to his law firm the next day, passed out and shit himself at a meeting the day after that, and now he lives in India, or maybe Nepal or the Yucatan. Somewhere a white person would find holy.

But the Tchotchke Run must go on. Hand-carved Jesuses, and mini-prayer wheels, and Buddhas that dispensed cigarettes from their bald heads when you pushed on their chubby bellies. Giant dreidels made of smooth mahogany. Fertility statues with curvy curves, and ones with scowls and freakish erections. If you had some idolizing to do, then St. Sebastian’s made your idol. A few shops in Little Aleppo carried the pieces; they took them on consignment, and sent up special orders: a desktop crucifix with Christ in a gorilla suit, etc. There was no road to the monastery, and so: the Tchotchke Run.

“I can’t do the Tchotchke Run. I can’t even spell it.”

“You can spell ‘run.'”

“Usually.”

“Then you’re halfway there. And you don’t need to spell tchotchke.”

“Oh, no. I never engage in an activity I can’t spell. It’s why I don’t eat cantaloupe.”

“You can’t spell cantaloupe?”

“Deceptively tricky word.”

“Brother Yup.”

“Abbot Costello.”

The abbot was standing over the monk, who was lying on the grass under an improvised tent of bedsheets. The door to the monastery was in the middle of the southeastern wall, and those walls were two stories and brick. Brother Yup watched the door. A few initiates went out in the mornings a few times a week to pick berries which still grew wild on the slopes, so he let them out and then back in again. A supplicant banged on the door about twice a month. It was a cheesecake assignment, to be honest.

“The other brothers work all day.”

“So do I. That door’s never been so watched.”

“You are slothful.”

“When did that become a sin?”

The abbot wore robes so humble that you got itchy just looking at them. The Sebastianites used to wear the tonsure, but none did anymore except the abbot. The monks could find no Biblical reason for the haircut, and also they just didn’t want to cut their hair like that. The female brothers were the most vociferous about the point.

“You’ll go over to the workshop and pick up the bag they have for you, go down the mountain, deliver the geegaws, collect the money and orders, and come back. Very easy. Even you could do it.”

“I cannot leave my post. I have a duty.”

“It’ll be fine.”

“What if someone knocks?”

“Then the door will be answered by whoever’s closest.”

“You’re talking about anarchy. What you’re describing is sheer anarchy.”

“It isn’t. First thing in the morning, you and Brother Leon will leave.”

Brother Yup was so outraged he vaguely thought about sitting up, but successfully fought off the urge.

“No.”

“You can’t just say no. I’m the abbot. This is stringently hierarchical organization.”

“Not Leon. No way.”

“What’s wrong with Brother Leon?”

“He won’t shut up and the only thing he talks about is God.”

“He’s a monk.”

“Doesn’t mean he can’t be a well-rounded conversationalist. No Brother Leon. You said yourself how easy the job was, so let me take someone else. I’ll take Brother Lopsang.”

“Fine.”

“And she’ll take Brother Leon, which means I can stay on my post. Listen!”

No one knocked on the door.

“I could’ve swore I heard footsteps.”

“You and Lopsang. Leave first thing in the morning. Wear a set of earthly clothing for the hike up and down so your robes don’t get torn up.”

“Ooh, yeah. Thanks. Wouldn’t have thought of that.”

The older man started to turn to leave.

“Abbot Costello?”

“Brother Yup?”

The monk WHAPPED his palm against the great oak door.

“She better be in the same shape as I left her when I get back.”

“The door to the monastery is not a girl.”

“No, she isn’t. This here’s my lady.”

The older man turned to leave, left.

Saintly Dunbar’s was small and on the west side of the Main Drag right about where the Upside became the Downside. They sold old-time religion at Saintly Dunbar’s: everything was terrifying. All the Christs’ eyes followed you around the store, and into the bathroom, and sometimes to other shops as you went about your errands. Dunbar was skinny and had a gray vest and ears like doodleslappers.”I see you’re looking at my ears. They jus’ like doodleslappers, ain’t they?” he would say to almost everyone that walked in. No one ever knew what the fuck he was talking about. Yankees figured it was a Southern expression; Southerners thought it was something native to Little Aleppo; folks who grew up in the neighborhood would just agree with him for the sake of expedience.

The monastery made low-interest saints for the shop. You could get a statue of St. Peter or Paul anywhere, but if you wanted St. Bubbalicious, the patron saint of uncomfortable dinner parties, then you had to go see Dunbar. Gangulphus the Meek, patron of book thieves? Mordecrumb, who was the patron of catch-and-release fishermen? Only Dunbar had ’em.

“What happened to Alph and Leon?”

Brothers Yup and Lopsang smiled, dopily, and then covered up their mouths with their hands.

“Vow of silence. Gotcha. Wow,” Dunbar said. The icons were exchanged for cash; the whole transaction took less than a minute; the two monks backed out the door, both doing prayer hands. When they were back on the sidewalk and the door had closed behind them, Brother Yup said,

“Wow, that totally worked.”

“Told you.”

“I wonder what else we can get away with? We should tell ’em we took a vow of getting paid double.”

“In and out. I wanna get back up the hill.”

She threw up her hood again, and they headed south. The Tahitian was open again, Brother Yup noticed. It was shut up the last time he came down. He wondered if they still made John Wayne movies. He hated John Wayne movies. Cleaner, all of it. And more storefronts open–no darkened entryways bracketed by plywood windows at all, actually–and far fewer drunks and junkies laying between parked cars. Even a skyscraper. Comparatively.

“That is an affront.”

“Tower Tower?”

“Its name is Tower Tower? That’s stupid even for this neighborhood.”

“Its real name is the Gildersleeve Spire.”

“Ugh.”

“Right. Guy who built it is named Tower Gildersleeve,” Brother Lopsang said.

“No, he’s not.”

“You’re right. His real name is Gary Spumanti.”

“He just makes all sorts of terrible decisions, doesn’t he?”

Tower Tower was 12 stories tall–18, according to the elevator–and mixed offices with condos; the building also mixed modernism with post-modernism: the lower half was poured concrete with razor-slit windows and faceless facades, and the upper half was stainless steel that looked like a crysanthemum trampled in a stampede. The architect was trying to evoke a torch, and succeeded in one fashion: the polished metal was folded in on itself so many times that it created an amplifying effect with the sunlight, essentially turning the building into a death ray. A special anti-shine polish had to be created. You still couldn’t look directly at it in the afternoons.

“When did they build it?”

“After the earthquake.”

They came to Why-o Terrace and turned west and there was Tobacco Flo’s. She had glass devices for smoking tobacco out of, and plastic, and carved wood pipes, which were to be used for tobacco. Everything else in the store was for pot smokers, but the gadgets you could actually smoke pot out of were only for tobacco. There was a sign about it on the counter and everything. The monks entered, and Flo asked about Alph and Leon, and they did their mime routine, and then the exchange and out the door. Flo had the brothers in the warehouse make her Buddhas with secret compartments in their bellies. Big enough for about a quarter. It was the perfect piece of merchandise for her clientele, she thought: stoners loved Buddha, and they loved stuff they could put their weed in. She moved a dozen a month.

“We should stop for lunch,” Brother Yup said.

“Nope.”

“But I want pizza. There’s no pizza at the monastery. And no one will deliver.”

“You’ve tried?”

“They just hang up the phone once you say ‘goat path.'”

“Since when do we have a phone?”

“There’s one in the abbot’s office. Rich guy took the orders a while ago. Brother Cab. Good guy. Obsessed with ice skating. Anyway, like I said: he took the orders, but he needed a phone. Big Wall Street guy or something?”

“How can you be a monk and a Wall Street guy at the same time?”

“By paying for a complete restoration of the monastery’s walls.”

“Yeah, okay,” Brother Lopsang said.

They were the same height, and roughly the same build: identical but that his head was exposed and hers was not.

“More of a rebuild. The original walls were put up by the brothers. Pious men and women. Turns out masonry cares not for your piety. The place was falling apart. Anyway, he had the phone company run a line up just for him.”

“They’ll do that?”

“They’ll do anything you want if you pay ’em enough. It’s like Brother Finn wrote:”

 What good is money?

All it can buy is food,
Shelter,
Safety,
Status!

What need has a man of any of these things,
Except to survive?

Stay away from money, trust me on this one.

“He was ahead of his time,” Brother Lopsang said.

“Truly.”

Seven more stops on or near the Main Drag all the way to the Downside, and then a quick walk back up; they watched the banks turn into check-cashing places going south, and the liquor stores turn into wine shops coming north. Brother Lopsang had agreed to pizza; Brother Yup was fairly running. It was a little before two, and they made a right onto Robin Street to go to Cagliostro’s. They would share a half-pepperoni, half-cheese pie. They would order a pitcher of soda. She knew this because Brother Yup had been talking about it for almost ten blocks. There had, around block six, been a discussion of calzones, but that was abandoned as ludicrous almost immediately. Brother Lopsang had only seen the man once, but she recognized him coming out of the coffee shop across the street from the pizzeria. He was balding and tall, white, and his nose was too small for his face. Maybe he had it fixed, she didn’t know. He had a name, but she wouldn’t say it or think it. Let him keep his fucking name. He came in and plead guilty and then they took him out again. She had not read the papers or watched the teevee news, and the cops had not shown her a picture of him, so when he came in to the courtroom was the first time she saw what he looked like. The judge gave him ten years, but ten years had not passed. It was barely three. He was wearing a business suit. Maybe he was a businessman.

Brother Yup was ten paces beyond her when he noticed she had stopped. Brother Lopsang’s hood was up and it rotated with the man across the street; a fixed relationship between two points. He disappeared around the corner, and she stood there, just another broken-hearted monk on the sidewalk.

He put his cowl up just like hers and said,

“Come.”

They go back to the Main Drag, and up a little bit, and then across the street onto Widow’s Way; halfway down, there is a doorway jutting out into the sidewalk about eight feet, black and windowless. The outside curtain is made of rubber that is flat like soup noodles and thick. There is another of these barriers halfway down the corridor, and then a final one at the true entrance to the Morning Tavern. They’ll let anything in but sunlight at the Morning Tavern. No one blinked at the monks, but the bartender made them take down their hoods and show her there weren’t shotguns hidden in their blowsy sleeves. She had fallen for that trick before.

“Brother. Sister,” she said.

“Oh, we’re both brothers. It’s a long story based in a minor ecclesiastical debate that lasted seven years and turned violent. Trust me, you don’t wanna hear it,” Brother Yup said.

“Okay. Hello, brothers.”

“Howdy!”

Brother Lopsang tight-lipped a smile.

The Morning Tavern is long and narrow, with a bar along one side and tables the length of the other. The bathroom bears grudges. There is a jukebox the size of the American Dream, and more chrome than the Surgeon General would recommend for indoor use. The darts for the dartboard had not been given out in a very long time. There was a stain on the ceiling that looked like your national hero, no matter where you were from: the British saw Churchill, and Brazilians saw Pele. (This feature helped smoke out a Soviet spy in 1978 when a man going by the name of John Cornfarm looked up and said, “Man, that stain looks exactly like Lenin.” This raised suspicions, but someone in the crowd asked, “Do you mean Lenin or Lennon? Commie or rock star?” and everyone figured he’d say John Lennon, so everyone lowered their suspicions, but he said, “The Commie,” and all the suspicions were now on the ceiling alongside the stain that had started all this bullshit. It was a storied stain.) There was a disco ball that hung from fishing wire; it was lopsided, and could not spin.

“Wow, I haven’t been in a bar in forever. I don’t even know what drinks cost nowadays.”

“Depends on what you want, Brother.”

Brother Yup had been holding the money the two monks had collected on the Tchotchke Run. He dug in his pocket and came up with a ten.

“Is that enough for two shots of Braddock’s and two pints of Arrow? And the proper tip, of course.”

“It is, Brother.”

He pulled the rest of the money from his deep pocket, counted it, drew off about a tenth of the pile, put that back in his robe, laid the cash on the bar.

“Is that enough to buy a round for the house?”

“Enough for several.”

“God bless.”

The bartender rang the bell behind the bar, and Brothers Yup and Lopsang suddenly had so many new friends. When the scrum had died down, and their backs were no longer being patted, they turned back to the bar and towards the bottles behind it.

“Why did you do that?”

“Two reasons.”

“Okay.”

“Brother Finn teaches us this lesson:”

Let the Lord guide your every step:
So only drink while seated.

“You looked like you needed to sit down a while.”

“Maybe.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

“Vow of silence.”

The two monks clinked their beers together, drank.

“Second reason?”

“I never want to have to make the Tchotchke Run again.”

“You’re a deeply lazy man.”

“No, no. I’m spiritual.”

The brothers were bought drinks. Multiple plurals of drinks, and they were tossed out at dusk shitty like the rest of the patrons, like the rest of the saints, and they wandered the neighborhood looking for flashlights. They were bloody and laughing hysterically when they hammered on the front door of St. Sebastian’s around nine o’clock. There was no answer, and the two monks curled up on the ground outside the monastery walls and slept in their robes among the juniper and sage and thistle covering Mount Faith, which is one of the seven hills overlooking Little Aleppo, which is a neighborhood in America.