Flickin My Bic: Part Two ©

The night was cool with a slight breeze.
I got to the church and I could see hundreds of cars.
This is one of the few religious holidays that brings out the whole Greek community and other Orthodox worshipers who are always welcome to our church.

I remember as a kid the church then was an old stone building in the center of the city that held about 100 people but over the years as more Greeks, family of those already here, started coming over, the church proved to be to small to hold every one.
Today there are ten thousand members of the church and boasts a community hall and they also own the surrounding houses that they have bought over the years expecting to some day expand.
Recent chatter is that they might be buying the synagogue next door as they have now built a new bigger one somewhere else and moved there.

I drive around for about ten minutes before I found a spot to park the car.
Grabbing all the candles I stepped out in the night air and made my way towards the church.
I walked up the stairs and into a crowd packed tight in the foyer already because the church was packed inside.
I made my way to the side and bought some more candles and a bottle candle figuring it would be a lot easier driving back home holding that instead of a candle dripping hot wax all over my hand and besides…..while driving to the church I remembered how hungry I was and if I went home first my father would bitch about me taking the car out again then try to feed me the lamb guts he had cooked up in tomato sauce.
So I figured I’d go out first for something to eat, then go home after and spare myself the pot of innards.

Taking the armful of candles I went to the alter and lit the ones that I was leaving there then made my way to doorway that looks into the church where I saw a sea of people looking at four priests, two chanters and a choir.
There were over 1000 people in there.

I decided to stand in the hallway for a while and just listen and watch, besides I needed enough people to see me to tell my mother I was actually there and not in some bar drinking beer and lighting her candle with my Bic on the way home.
I wouldn’t do that anyway, I don’t have a Bic lighter.

After about 45 minutes of standing there checking out the hot women in their Easter dresses walking in listening to the lovely sermon I went outside for some fresh cool air, it was kinda hot in the church.
There were a couple of hundred people standing outside waiting for the procession to move outside at midnight for the rest of the mass and the fireworks.
I picked a nice spot that put me in the middle and close to the back for a quick get away as soon and I got my mother her light.

At midnight I saw movement from the inside of the church and two alter people walked out, we have alter boys and alter girls.
They were followed by the priests, choir and the people that were inside.
As the priests passed they walked into the crowd outside lighting peoples candles.
I got the two I had with me lit, I figured it was better having two instead of just one with the wind picking up the way it was.
When the priest finished that first part and said those who wished to stay another hour and a half could, I disappeared into the night like two bouncing lights getting dimmer as I got farther.

At the car I decided to blow out the candle and just keep the bottle candle lit because it would be easier to hold and drive.
I thought of putting it in the cup holder but with all the potholes around and with my luck something would happen so I figured the safest place was in my hand.
I started the car and pulled out the CD from my pocket and slid it into the player before I pulled out of the parking spot as the music started pouring out of the speakers.

I first time I heard this song I was standing next to my parked car listening to the music while I had a smoke outside the Russian church waiting for my girlfriend to come out from Easter mass so we could take off for the rest of the night.
Just as the clock hit Midnight and the church doors opened with people pouring out celebrating Easter.
Just then, like on cute the song you are listening to started pounding out of my speakers which I had on full blast.
Everyone stopped and just looked at me.
It’s not like I did it on purpose or anything like that.
It was the radio's fault.
I jumped in the car and put down the volume to sort of cover my ass a bit but it was to late for that.
Ever since that day, I make sure I play this song on Easter.
Not for it’s lyrics but just as a reminder of that day.

I pulled up to the front of the church ready to pull out into the street and Mike’s sister was standing there with her son and boy friend.
All stood there, eyes bulging, probably in shock at seeing me at church.
Smiling at them, I hit the automatic window button lowering the window replacing the night’s silence with AC/DC’s “Hells Bells”.
They started laughing just before I hit the gas and tore up the street.

As I was driving towards home my stomach reminded me that I was hungry so I decided I would go to the pub for a beer and grab a couple of chicken shawarmas.
I looked at he candle and realized that if I went home first I would have a headache over the car so the light would just have to out with me.
It’s not often I get to say I went out with a hot date on a Saturday night.

I walked into the pub and sat at the bar and told the barmaid I’d like a Guinness.
She looked at my candle and I told her the headlights went out on the car and I had to put the candle on the dash to see so I can drive home.
She gave me a weird look and went to fetch my beer.

As I was sitting there enjoying my 1600-calorie beer Lou spotted me and he staggered over, he look like he was ready to hit the sheets if he managed to get home that is.
Dropping in the stool next to me he stared at my candle and asked if it was my birthday.
I told him no it wasn’t it was my mother’s Easter candle.
He sat there quietly thinking for about 30 seconds then told me that it was one hell of a good candle to still be burning after a month because Easter was last month.
I told him that I was Orthodox and it was Easter that day.
He sat there quiet again then stood up and told the bartender to cut me off because I had enough to drink then staggered off to his table.

Finishing my beer I paid the barmaid and took my candle then walked across the street to the Shawarma joint to get my sandwiches to go.
I stood infront of the counter looking up at the menu holding a candle in my hand and 40 people in the restaurant staring at me.

The owner who knows me walked over and asked how I was doing and nodded at my candle and asked if I just got out of church and I said yes and was bringing the candle back to my mother but I was hungry.
He told me not to worry and went and made my order personally and I was out of there within ten minutes of walking in.

I walked back across the street with my beacon in one hand and two chicken shawarmas fully loaded with anything fattening, I was starving and the sandwich wrap was in danger of being eaten to if there was sauce on it.
I opened the car door and got in carefully so not to accidentally put out the candle.
From here I was only five blocks from home and my sandwiches so I slowly headed off home.

I pulled up the long laneway behind my house and shut the engine off then picked up the bag with my dinner and opened the door.

I gust of wind blew in and out went the candle.
FUCK!!!!!!!!!!
All the trouble to get the thing lit and while I was on the step of pulling this off, a stupid wind ruins it all.
Well there was no fucken way I was not going in the house without the candle being lit.
Who’d know?
I’m going to hell anyway, right?

I close the car door and sit in there trying to think of what to do.
I didn’t have a lighter on me so I hit the cigarette lighter in the car and waited for it to pop out.
How bad could it be?
The candle was still smouldering and hot to the touch, I was just going to kick start it up again.
The light popped out and I put the hot end to the wick and blew on it at the same time like I was trying to light a campfire.
Nothing.
I pushed the lighter in again to try once more.
Again I tried to light the candle but nothing doing.
I was screwed.

I open the glove compartment and go fishing through there to see if by some chance my father had matches in there.
He didn’t smoke so I couldn’t see a reason for him to have any but anything is possible with my father.
Just then I found something, a Bic lighter.
I don’t know what he was doing with one but at that moment I didn’t care.

Taking the lighter I spun the wheel and sparks lit up the inside of the car but no flame.
Over and over I spun the wheel lighting up the night but still no flame.
I put down the candle and holding the button down with one hand I started spinning the wheel as fast and hard as I could until I saw a small tiny flame.
The lighter must have been out of gas.
Quickly I grabbed the candle and held my breath and I held it upside down over the tiny flame.
I don’t know if it was the lighter that ignited the wick or my piercing stare but the thing fired up.
I put the candle in the cup holder and place the Bic back in the glove compartment then slowly opened the door to make sure I didn’t put out the candle once again.
Using my jacket to shield the candle I went into my mother's house to give her the light but the place was dark but for my candle that is.
They had all gone to bed.
Sigh
I stuck the candle in the sink still lit and went off home to eat my dinner before I headed off to bed.
Tomorrow was another day.

In the morning I went next door to my mother’s place to wish my parents a Happy Easter and they were waiting for me there.
My father said he found the candle still going in the morning and it was smart of me to put it in the sink.
I am not a big fan of having lit fires on while I am sleeping so I figure the safest place was in something that can’t burn, the stales steel sink.

I sat around the kitchen watching my father cook the lamb and then he went outside in the yard to Bbq some chicken.
As I sat there with my mother she asked me how it was at the church and I told her my feet hurt but it was ok.
She said my uncle and aunt saw me there.
See I told you she had a spy network and would check up on me.

Then she asked me if I had any problems bringing home the lit candle.
I looked at the TV and told her that I had no problem getting the candle home, which was true; it was lit when I got home, it went out after I got home.
Then she said she was just wondering because she saw flashes in the yard last night as she l ay in bed around the time I got home.
I told her there was no problem.
Then she said it’s weird.
Every year it’s the same thing even when my father goes to get her the fire from the church.
She sees flashing lights coming from the yard when he comes home.
Hmm……..

My father came in to get something and I gave him a dirty look and he asked me why I was looking at him like that.
I told him I wasn’t staring at him and went home to wait for dinner.

So that was pretty much my weekend, a little shopping and a lot of family.

Have a nice day

Walker