Carioca Fletch

Fourteen

The tall, slim, naked young man stood in the dead garden, the rain pouring down his body, his feet wide apart in the mud, his face up to the rain, his arms held high as if to catch the sky.

From the back porch, Fletch heard what Toninho said to the sky:

With God he lays down; with God he rises,

With the grace of God and the Holy Spirit.

May Thine eyes watch over him as he sleeps.

Dead, will You light his way

Into the mansions of eternity

With the tapers of Thy Trinity?

Fletch went down to Toninho in the garden.

“A prayer.” Toninho’s face and arms lowered. His shoulders sagged.

Then Toninho looked over the hedges, out into mountain space in the rain. “Not a worry.” Fletch could not make sure if there were tears mixed in with the rain on Toninho’s cheeks. “When you die copulating, you are certain to come back to life, soon.”