Times of Uncle Ernest -

Chesapeake City and Beyond – Patti, Chapter 3

       "Then we drove to the top of a mountain and looked down on that great city by the river. The view was incredible. As the light diminished, we were in each other's arms, enjoying the intimacy I had been waiting for. We were girlfriend and boyfriend at last, and held each other until dawn. During the night we talked about a lot of things. I asked her why she didn't seem to like me on the day we met. 'Oh, Ernie, my Ernie,' she whispered, 'I loved you the second I saw you, but that remark hurt me—made me think you were making fun of me.'

       " 'What remark, sweetheart?'

       " 'The poem about my face being brighter than the sun. I thought you knew that the sun is our main god. It wasn't right for you to compare me to god and, besides, I'm dark complected.'

       " 'I'm sorry, Baby. I meant that as a sincere compliment—didn't know about your religion.'

       " 'We're a god-fearing people, Ernie dear,' she said, laying her head on my shoulder. Then she told me all about her faith. Besides the sun, they had a menagerie of animal gods: snakes, crocodiles, hawks, lions, cats, and a slew of others. She said that she even had a cobra named Aspi that she fed and worshiped every morning at dawn. I asked her if she ever worried about being bitten, and she said that it had almost happened once, but since then she had been more careful.

       “Patti and her people believed that when they died they would go on to an active afterlife, where they'd need everything they had while alive: food, drink, shelter, domestic animals, and slaves to serve them. And, by golly, Moose, that's really a good belief system, all those gods especially. In Chesapeake City, you know, most of the churches have only three gods: a Father God, a Son God, and a Ghost God. There's one church that's a little better because it also has a Mother God. And that's really lame, Moose, compared to Patti's multiple gods."

       "Yeah, Unk, that makes sense, the more gods the better. You never know when you're gonna need one."

        "You bet, Moose, but Patti and I talked about those thousands of slaves owned by her country. 'It's so sad,' she said. 'They're awfully deprived, having only one God.' She said that technically they're called 'Isrollerites,' and according to her, they wanted to leave the country and settle in some promised land of their own.

       “Anyhow, Moose, to shorten a long story, they had a leader named Mo, who once tried to provoke a rebellion, actually organized all of them for an exodus. But Tootie's army was able crush the uprising. This Mo was always stirring up trouble, using his supernatural powers to plague the country. One time, Patti told me, he summoned millions of frogs to pester the land. Yeah, the buggers messed up their picnics something terrible and—except for those who liked frog legs—were a real pain in the butt.

       "But, you know, Moose, I discussed the slave problem with Patti for quite a while that night, and I convinced her to help me set them free, that it would be better for her country in the long run. We made up our minds to set them free the next day. But, unfortunately, something awful was to happen that next day, something that made us postpone our freedom plans for quite a while. And so, Moose, if you'll sit tight, I'll tell you the painful story after I fill this empty, lonesome glass."  [To be continued Friday, 7/6/2012]