Fallen Angels

I often go to Fannie’s On-The- Beach which is an ocean front restaurant where my carnival-of-friends congregate on a daily basis. Some people go to Mass. I go to Fannie’s. Both gatherings involve wine, bread, and the passing of the peace, although the later is spelled differently depending on the location. Both have someone holding court saying how things should be while the crowd pretends to pay attention. And both invoke the name of God countless times during the course of the gathering.

There are, of course, differences. One has angels, the other has Roma. One has a cleric who pretends to be above reproach and the other has Johnny O who isn’t above much anything. One has sinners seeking absolution and the other has sinners seeking Absolute (vodka). One has the ringing of bells and the other has bells being rung. One has organ music and the other has organs being exposed. You get my point. They are similar, yet very different.

My friends Jenny Orr and Christy Alan have decorated the place and I love it. A plaque reads “Travel is fatal to bigotry and prejudice,” a quote by Mark Twain. The place is a funky, hip, seaside place where it is always “Time to Eat!”

Above the bar though is a framed poster that I love. It is two angels, portrayed as two cherubs, chubby white cheeks with blond curly hair, naked and sitting at a bar, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. One is looking heavenward as though asking “what have I done?”, while the other seems to be enjoying the moment. The caption on the poster is “Fallen Angels”.

I am there a lot but on Thanksgiving I finally made Fannie’s annual Thanksgiving feast. It was closed to the public but open to the regulars (and anyone else who wandered in). A pot-luck was held but the kitchen was busy pumping it out too. And everyone who had no place else to go or who would have rather been there than anywhere else gathered and the place reeked of holiness.

It is hard not to invoke Billy Joel’s song and quote “I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the Saints” and that is certainly the case when I gather with my friends at Fannie’s. We laugh. We laugh at most anything, including government, religion, Tybee Island Parking services, tourists, locals, and one another. Especially at one another! Last time that I was in Mass, no one laughed.

I hang around a lot of Fallen Angels in my life and I like it. Every day in my work I observe sinners and saints sleeping side by side in the beds of homeless shelters. They extol one another in the respite care rooms of the J. C. Lewis Health Center where they have been discharged from the hospital. They hold hands at Phoenix Place where they have recently discovered their HIV diagnosis. They cry on one another shoulders at Parent & Child where they have been referred by the courts and they are scared to death at what their futures hold. They share their food in the Barnes Center because this is the first real family that they’ve had in years. And they make room for more in the Kole Center because the place that some were staying was closed and the only other choice was back on the streets.

Come to think of it, the only angels that I’ve ever met have been fallen ones. Save perhaps those on Sunday morning television or cable where no one ever sins. In my life, I’ve actually met some of those never-fallen sinners, you know like Jim and Tammy Faye, and in reality they had all fallen just like I have. Just like everyone that I’ve ever met has. I’ve never figured out why so many people try to pretend that they haven’t. We all share that in common just like we all share birth or breathing or lust or sorrow or happiness or death.

So today is another day with my friends the fallen angels. And those who pretend that they have never fallen. I cannot imagine hanging around any other kind.