#atsap preview

[tony-caito]

do you have another preview for atsap while we wait for the next chapter? i’m SO ready

You know what—I do!! A journal entry from when Father Burnham was still plain old Bo.

Slight Spoilers for ATSAP Chapter 4 ahead!!!

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2-20-2008

I always pictured it happening in math class.

I think people tend to think math is antithetical to art, but to me, numbers are just as poetic as words. Math requires symmetry, math poses infinite questions and presents an equal number of solutions to be formulated and worked out. I think poetry and comedy are the same way.

Others might think calculus is where artists go to have their dreams killed.

So if they were ever gonna call me out for my songs, why wouldn’t it happen in math class?

Mister Burnham (me, by the way. My offense is somehow weighty enough to warrant a “Mister”, but not the dignity of my first name) is summoned to the administrator's office over the loudspeaker without ceremony (the jeering and scattered laughter of my fellow teenage boys)

Somehow, it still feels like a death march.

Brother Mark watches me sulk in through his Jeffery Dahmer glasses.

Ma is waiting there in the office for me too, wearing her nurse's scrubs. I sink down in the open chair next to her and ask if anyone we know has died.

Silence.

Brother M clears his throat and begins by turning his computer screen towards me. There’s a thumbnail image of a lanky kid in a blue tee hunched over his cheap keyboard in his too small bedroom.

“We all know what this is about Mister Burnham” he says. Sure, we do, but the kid on the screen isn’t Mister Burnham, it’s just Bo. In my mind that’s a pretty crucial difference, but I know I wouldn’t be here if they could make that same distinction.

“Why now after two years?” I ask as humbly as I can (not very). “Unless we’re here to celebrate it hitting a million views.”

“We’re not, Bo.” No nonsense from my mother. Naturally. This isn’t a joke.

“I know, Ma.”

Brother Mark, sounding like a joyless Yogi Bear, a lobotomized Tony the Tiger scrolls through the rest of my channel and says, “These things could easily jeopardize your future Robert.”

I, the nasally idiot with the wavering courage, put on my best Big Boy voice and remind him that I’d already been accepted into three ivy leagues and NYU.

It’s not a compelling enough argument by half.

[tony-caito]

All Things Sacred and Profane-Chapter 3 (preview) FULL CHAPTER COMING SOON

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The generator's electricity is enough to keep the fridge running and supply you with a functioning coffee pot. The small battery powered lantern you’d fetched earlier illuminates your efforts.

You strain on your tiptoes, fingertips blindly seeking out the coffee mugs your grandfather inexplicably stored on the top shelf of the kitchen cabinet. You hear the chair scrape the kitchen tiles as Father Burnham rises. Then all at once he’s at your back, nearly flush against you, his towering form enveloping you with its warmth as his long arms stretch up on either side of you to make easy work of retrieving the cups.

Liar, you think, you smell like citrus and woodsmoke and rain—you smell like spring.

You turn around, finding yourself inadvertently pinned to the countertop by the proximity of his figure. He hands you the mug with a smile before backing away somewhat shyly. Your core surges with a familiar heat. Yet something about his expression coupled with his damp hair and white tee, also manages to strike you in a particularly tender place.

For a moment you can see him as he must have been before you’d met. Unfettered by the trappings of his profession. A fleeting glimpse of domesticity flashes in your mind’s eye: his body free of tension after a good night’s sleep, his hair ruffled dry by his fingers post morning shower, the hint of coffee on his breath as he kisses you before breakfast. Christ, what you wouldn’t give to actually see him like that in the light of day. It’s a pretty fantasy, but still…now you’re at least certain of one thing: even beneath the paltry lamplight, he is without a doubt the most handsome boy you’ve ever seen.

“I take it you’ll have some too?” you croak, gesturing with your mug. “I know it’s a pretty poor ‘thank you’ considering what you’ve braved to help me tonight but it’ll warm you up at least.” You trail off, shaking your head a little in frustration. “I don't even have any cream if that's how you take it.” It’s then that you suddenly remember what you do have. “But maybe I can still sweeten the pot. One sec,” you promise, crossing to the other side of the tiny kitchen.

Bending at the waist, you rummage through the bottom cabinet next to the lazy susan and come away holding a full bottle of Hennessy playfully aloft.

“If it’s not against your vows of course,” you placate. “I don’t know what the rules are.”

“Mister Hallet drank?” Father Burnham questions.

“Oh God, no. That's why it’s full,” you laugh. “This whiskey’s been sitting untouched for ages.”

Father Burnham leans back on the countertop with one arm, holding his mug out to you with the other. “Far be it from me to refuse your hospitality.”

“Perfect,” you smile. “See? I may not go to church, but I can be good and virtuous,” you say, filling his cup with coffee and something more cordial.

“Hospitality is more than a virtue; the Greeks considered it a divine right.”

“Color me impressed,” you drawl. “Do you know much about the Ancient Greeks?”

“Not as much as you.” Your face must betray your surprise because Father Burnham is quick to clarify “Your grandfather mentioned it once, that you were a classicist, if I remember that correctly?”

It’s a little more complex than that, but your grandfather wasn’t one for the pedantics or finer points of your field, not for lack of caring; your purview simply cast a wide net.

“Yeah, something like that. I was working on my master's thesis in Kos when he died. There were a series of earthquakes along the Greek archipelago that shut down the airports and left me stuck there.”

Innocently, he changes tack, “what were you studying?”

Scrubbing your face with your hands you mutter, “Funerary epigrams.”

Father Burnham does a real, honest to God, spit-take.