The Last Supper

The Last Supper

My nape is welcomely cooled by the soft breeze, gently rolled-in by the steady hand of the darkening August sky as it is pulled cautiously overhead by the weakening strings of sunlight at a pace mindful not cause their breakage, thus avoiding the suspension of darkness over those rising to expectant daylight, and dis-affording us the singular opportunity to watch the surprised look upon freshly rubbed eyes as they find darkness where sunlight should be. The grass is a quiet shade of green, having lost its brittleness for the day, and though it is not wet, it has been softened by the incoming shadows and it feels moist to the touch, and I fear its residue on my knee will be telling. The air has a sweet smell of purple about it, though from time to time its violet scent is mildly interrupted by the evidence of canine ownership on this odd-shaped shrub, which, having lost the robustness of summer, may very well, too, give me away. It is in this precarious, but all too ordinary setting, that we happen upon a lesson. Yes, the lesson is in progress, but you may, nonetheless, wish to crouch here next to me, for there is still much we can observe.

The middle-aged teacher is occupying the otherwise empty scene before us; that is to say, if not thus occupied our view would be filled with nothing, which would not have captured our attention for nothing fills most spaces at this time of day. His name, if I did not, out of common courtesy, offer it freely, I would force you to great lengths to learn it from his attentive, though enunciately challenged audience, and you may come to think his name to be soowowskee, or zalaskii, or some clearer but no less rhythmic derivative of Tzolarsky. His first name, though more aptly characterized as a given name, for our last name must always be our first, as it is inexorably ascribed when we are but a twinkle in our father’s eye, is unknown to me, for I have not once heard it uttered, though I have heard him referred to as Zolak. Tzolarsky’s class has been assembled and his dispensation is under way.

We are far enough removed that his exact words escape us, for the force of the wind, though sufficient to raise the few hairs he so carefully spreads across the relative vastness of his balding crown, is insufficient to carry the weight of his words as far as our outstretched heads, and they rise before us, as if inflated with helium, sent to join so many other words that have died a similar death and perhaps to weave and entwine and mingle and mix and some day to be reborn as verse or prose or perhaps as a brilliant flash in an otherwise uninspiring conversation. Tzolarzky himself, though he contributes actively today to that great inventory of words, borrows just as frequently from the words of others as they fall to him from above, though they have failed entirely to maintain the common congruity of form with which they were graced when first offered in sacrifice.

If we did not fear intrusiveness we would find ourselves within range of his musical speech, and we would know that his words bear a magnificent degree of eloquence, each carefully chosen for their apparent independent descriptive posture, yet strung together, with the level of care manifest in the hands of a watch maker or an artist as he strings square beads and round beads and oval beads and beads whose shapes we cannot easily describe, to form a contiguous chain of beauty, words strung together to form brilliant concepts, concepts far beyond the limited understanding of his wide-eyed students. His arms wave with the rhythm of a engrossed bandleader, each stroke moving the audience through his legato molto crescendo, sucking them to the edge of their earthen seats. Each word follows the other with no more or less pause than is absolutely necessary to allow his audience to exhale. He is as captivating as a skillful master amidst an orgasmic concerto. His dusty-jeaned, cross-legged audience, like attentive dogs, respond to the master’s every gesture, to his every word, to his swooning hands, to his natural rhythm. Heel, boy, heel.

If it is true that he who sings prays two times over, then we should all be pleased to ride Tzolarsky’s faded rosary to salvation, leaving behind that withered olive branch we have grasped for far too long.

The congregation, in their primary year of attendance at this institution for higher learning, are seven five year old boys from a neighboring private school. Their un-tucked shirts and mis-parted hair is all the evidence we need to determine their official school-day is over; their ever-lengthening east-bound shadows will corroborate the lateness of the hour, should such confirming evidence ever be of use to us. The dusty theater is but a rundown schoolyard, its monuments of pleasure tattered by generations of attendees with matching wear on the seats of their pants. The speaker, by the generosity I have bestowed upon you, you have come to know as Mr. Tzolarsky, an outpatient at the local institution for the clinically insane. Oh!, did I fail to label him fully? Does a rose planted on unsteady ground smell less sweet? Perhaps the whiff of urine is somewhat distracting. Please do not fret that I purposely misled you as to his inferior social capacity, for if I had described him such, when you first happened upon me, you would have thought me a fool for encouraging your ear. But now you are captivated, having heard nothing but the absence of words, but having heard enough to crave all the more.

Listen, the wind avails us now and you can hear what I have known all along, his speech is nothing more than meaningless gibberish, like that attributed, in jest, to politicians and other masters of pointless rhetoric – a veritable word salad, carefully tossed and presented in a fashion worthy of an accomplished chef. Mr. Tzolarsky, using the common currency of kings and beggars alike, creates a melody worthy of Mozart’s good ear. It is often said that a picture is worth a thousand words, though it is seldom true, as it is now, that a thousand senseless words can compose such a brilliant scene.

There is little movement in the skies, as we have come to describe, and you have already ascertained, by the common powers of conclusion that grace us, one and all, that the children have grown roots on this barren ground; now, if we can only get Tzolarsky to stop swaying from side to side, we might fool you into thinking you are consuming Da Vinci’s original depiction of the Last Supper, before he was reluctantly convinced that a meal of bread and wine would be of greater consequence to the written word – you thought I was going to say ‘to the truth’, but truth is in the eye of the beholder, and sometimes of the beholden, for Tzolarsky has his own truth, though we are challenged to understand it.

Had Da Vinci painted this immortal scene our concealment would forever be etched behind this paling shrub and though our presence would be no less real than what lies beyond this frame, we would be nonetheless forgotten, and once the paint had dried, we would be free to move at will.

The framed students, however, sit attentively, motionless, their eyes squinting as if attempting to predict the scope of the emerging visual before them, though you may freely speculate it is because of brightness of the setting sun. They are hypnotized by the rhythmic movement of his arms, a rhythm uninterrupted by the intermittent re-setting of his incredibly thick spectacles, which slip down his nose with regularity, for his hunched posture is much better suited to one with a pensive profession, than a bashful orator, though with careful scrutiny you may come to conclude, as I have, that he is just now noticing the green thread he used to repair the toe-hole on his red socks, as it glares back at him through his open-toe sandals.

Mr. Tzolarsky, now bathed in the gold of the setting sun, not only assumes an air of deity about him, but, until the shadows reveal it otherwise, he is graced in temporary uniformity of color, masking the haphazard fashion in which he combines argyle and tweed with a touch of plaid, and, if you care for greater description, we can ask him to remove his leather-elbowed jacked to find that his sweater has been rendered sleeveless in a failed attempt to create a vest. I must warn you, however, with the removal of his plaid jacket, though it satisfies your craving for greater detail, you will also be graced with vivid disclosure of his bathing habits, which I shall only describe as lacking in regularity. It is thus cloaked that he preaches his newfound gospel to a pagan, planted, congregation.

Nonetheless, the boys listen with the intensity of first year calculus students, their brows knitted in hope of divine revelation, in unfulfilled hope that the familiar ‘two times two equals four’ will spring from his calculated speech. The boys are, nonetheless, elated with their lesson, unconcerned that their instructor is spewing gibberish, since, like most five year old boys, they extract sufficient meaning from gibberish to devote their attention.

And the master is gentle with them, demonstrating unabridged patience at their lack of capacity, at their apparent inability to grasp the simple concepts he puts forth. And, with great ease, so as not to break the rhythm of his oration, nor disturb the tentativeness of the skies about him, he repeatedly returns to previously entertained concepts to ensure the fullness of their impact. He does this with the utmost eloquence and understanding and with no hint of bereavement for these obvious intellectual inferiors.

I trust you are intrigued, for you have not once moved from your crouched position, but for placing your finger over your lips inciting me to soften my narration for his jumbled words are challenge enough to your upturned ear; or perhaps you are simply blocking your olfactory senses from the fullness of detail we skirted above. Sshh…he continues…

What does it matter that his genius is lost on these young souls? They listen attentively, all the while learning a true lesson of respect, patience, compassion and human kindness, a lesson, indeed, re-enforced by their lack of understanding. What consequence may come from the failed understanding of truth that would not otherwise come, twofold, from the willing acceptance of ignorance? And they listen to his every word. Each verbal stroke of the brush adds a new dimension to the unfolding scene, though clearly some words have fallen back from above, their duplicity rejected, but, nonetheless, cleverly re-used on this canvas to add yellow to the sun, to brighten the duskiness of the day. But darkness never fails to come on time.

As the lesson, like the hosting day, draws to a natural conclusion, that is to say when each boy determines that he has gained sufficient new knowledge for one afternoon, a conclusion fortified by the grumbling of their impatient stomachs, each boy falls in-turn, excusing himself from this celestial table for a meal less meager than bread and wine. Mr. Tzolarsky, however, continues his lesson, uninterrupted and unperturbed, well beyond the last of his apostles, thinking himself Columbus, who surely would not abandon the helm of his ship as it approached a new world, simply because his crew had taken to sleep. And he speaks until he fades with the coming of dark.

Elated and fortified with knowledge the boys make for home with great haste, so as to not let time and distance, those barons of intellectual demise, separate them from what they have learned, at least not until they have had an opportunity to reveal the same to their awaiting parents. But we need not follow them home to know that what is fresh on the canvas will fade in time, and what they have learned in a puzzle of words is not easily convened for the congruity of speech. A lesson learned is not easily taught and this lesson will elude explanation by the time they reach the familiarity of their own front steps. We should be pleased to retain it ourselves.

We can now rise and make our own way home, and do not bother to mark our spot, for these children will not return. The paint was much too fresh when they ran off the canvass, and they will be scolded by the wholly rhythmless hands of their provincial parents for attending a joker’s lesson - the fresh canvas will be diluted white, as will the beauty of this lesson; Zolak is a moron and a fool and surely does not deserve the kindness and respect held in reserve for storekeepers and other strangers. And tonight this plaid, plump lamb will be sacrificed on the uneven altar of justice, though its tender flesh will not be offered in communion, for the sacrificial lamb must not be consumed but by the maggots of the earth; and Tzolarsky, too, will eat at his own uneven table, though he thinks it is his plate and he will fiddle with it all evening, perhaps as much hiding his anxiety as off-setting a slant. His elderly mother will muster what little strength she has left to rub his shoulders, knowing full well she lacks the power to rub deep enough. And Mr. Tzolarsky will be ignored at his podium tomorrow and possibly even sneered at, and he will supper alone, with no hope of an audience for a season or more. And, as winter approaches, the needles of our shrub will fall to the ground, adding our absence to the rest of the empty space.

Perhaps if we hurry we can challenge our own children to the thresholds of our homes, and we can then embrace the full color of their lessons today, be they formal or otherwise learned. And when we sit in communion, let us square our tables, and offer wine and fairness to all those who have taught us well, and let us, too, lower our heads and wonder what truth fills the spaces we cannot see.












PRD 6/99