Originally published in Ink in Thirds, 2025

Doesn’t offer coffee in polystyrene cups or lukewarm hamburgers or solace to those who sit on hard pews and gaze up at Christ the Redeemer hanging above the altar. The church offers prayers, a mere three dollars a throw, cheap as your take-away coffee, cheaper than that hamburger you just bought and you need a prayer right now, to be frank you need more than a prayer but a prayer will do and you drive up to the window in your battered Ford, the one you bought when you had a job, and you hand your three crumpled dollar bills to the priest behind the glass and he offers you a piece of paper in return and he makes the sign of the cross and says you are blessed but there is not the slightest sign of a smile on his face and you take the paper and drive to the other side of the railway crossing where you stop the truck in front of the bank and with trembling hands you open the paper as if it were a love letter.

Help us to always choose your way, God, because it is always the best. 

You tear the paper into pieces until it resembles confetti and you remember how long ago you were married and you step out of your truck into the midday heat and you walk past the bank and into the tavern and you order a double JD on the rocks and thank the Lord it is the sweetest thing you have ever tasted.