A Shrine to an Unknown God

THIS IS MY BODY

content warning: alcoholism, drug abuse, death of a parent, suicide mentions. this is also just a generally rlly rough chapter so just a general content warning too

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EZRA GOES OFF on a long-winded, rambling, nonsensical at times tangent. At several points, he just breaks out in tears. I have to have him repeat himself and clarify what he meant during several occasions.

***

THE FIRST WINE HE DRANK was during communion at church. Just these little itty-bitty plastic cups of wine, snuck to him by his mamma. They were always stained with condensation and barely the size of his thumb. Later on, he'd realize they were the same size as shot glasses.

This is my body...

A stale-ass cracker Ezra always choked on. You'd think Jesus'd be tastier.

This is my blood.

The kids all got grape juice. Growing up, so had he. But he was twelve now. Practically grown up. The adults—all those over 21, of course—got a little bit of a very low alcohol content boxed red wine. His mom snuck two from the tray, and when she handed him his, she put her finger to her lips. Shh. A secret. Her lips were painted red.

This is what he remembers about his mother: The golden cross at her neck, her cowgirl boots caked in dry Texas mud, her voice warm and thick as honey. The little songs she'd sing to herself as she went about the mundane tasks, how soothing this was to him. Her recipes. All the food he knows how to cook was passed down from her.

He took a tentative sip. To him, it just tasted like bitter grape juice. He screwed up his face and his mom put her arm around his shoulder. They were smooshed side by side in the pew.

A Plath family right of passage, she told him with a wink.

Her hair was so blonde it looked like a halo.

***

AFTER THAT, his mother started regularly sneaking him drinks. She was a bartender, it was her business, it was in her blood.

Those Europeans have it right, she always said.

Just little sips of things here and there. A bit of wine at communion. A taste of her strawberry daiquiri at a pool party. A little bit of a margarita while he waited with her while she cleaned the bar after work.

He developed a taste for alcohol, a healthy appreciation for it. Nothing more. Not yet.

***

THERE WAS ONLY ONE TIME he drank excessively or without his mother present. He got absolutely shitfaced on the hellish concoction the senior boys mixed with a two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew at one of his theatre's cast parties. It was just after the closing night of Little Shop of Horrors. The actress that played Audrey was attempting to initiate a full-cast-and-crew game of spin the bottle.

Ezra was not yet out of the closet, but he was very aware of his own queerness.

He lived in Texas. He went to a Catholic school. Even his theatre had a prayer circle before each performance.

Nobody else could know.

The idea of kissing a girl made him sick to his stomach. The idea of kissing a guy made him even more sick to his stomach. In his little small town theatre, there weren't any outwardly presenting non-binary people for him to even possibly consider kissing, but looking back on it now, he's sure that would have made him just as sick.