THE BISHOP'S (?) BESTIARY, Chapter 4

bestiary, a medieval collection of stories, each of which was based on a description of certain qualities of an animal, plant, or even stone. They presented Christian allegories for moral and religious instruction and admonition. Encyclopædia Britannica (1975)

Editor's Note: Herewith is the fourth post in a series that originated with a comment letting us in on the secret behind "One-Hand Dan's" freakish creature chronicles in the "Bishop's (?) Corner." According to our informant, Li'l Daniel uses violent incidents starring the cult's feral cats and their blood-spattered quarry to externalize his grievances.  A reminder of our format: we first quote verbatim from a "Corner" and then interpret it to reveal Dannie's hidden message.

CRITTER CAPER I

We'll start off with a witty correspondent's favorite animal anecdote. Here's what the Wee One wrote for Pentecost VI 2017:

The cats are both eating and sleeping more in the heat. Puccini believes in tithing when it comes to small rodents.

"He didn't even bother replacing the obvious allusion to the Gerties' giving him money (tithing) with a more subtle word," marveled the sharp eyed observer of the Mitered Maggot's prose.

Yes, indeed, the word was so obvious it didn't need much deciphering at all. Just a keen awareness of the Dirtbag's priorities. But the real question for PL is:

Why was His Blatancy so transparent this time?

Usually it requires some head-cratching to puzzle out his meaning.

We'd say Dannie Boy abandoned his characteristically cryptic tone because the cult's hurtin' for money. He can't afford for the increasingly tight-fisted Gerties not to get the message. You'll recall we've reported a string of weekly collections coming in under $4,000, which is not enough to sustain the declining cult center or its "clergy's" outsized appetites. Wee Dan's worst fears were realized on the very day he delivered this fable, for the July 16 take, reported on Pentecost VII, totaled a poverty-level  $3,212.

Like Li'l Daniel's kitty comrades, the Gerties are taking the hot, un-airconditioned summer off, finally treating themselves and their families to road trips "down home," stuffing their hideously asymmetric faces with fast food, and installing a fan or two in their shacks.  (Some may've been able to afford to hire an exterminator.) Absent from sweltering $GG, they're putting to good use the windfall of extra cash that's now available since they stopped heeding Dannie's demands for their money.

Bad news for His Appetency.

Soooo bad, in fact, that the situation called for the cats to come to his rescue in the guise of male idlers who irresponsibly turn over to the cult masters what by rights belongs to their wives and children. "One Hand" is tired of the Dirty Gerties' giving irregularly and stingily. He's also peeved at the deserters' refusal to make up for the collections they've missed while AWOL from the dying cult center.

If he and the Cheeseball are to have any chance at a luxury vacation this year, the cultlings have got to pony up. Hence the not-so-subtle "tithing," with its almost tax-like suggestion of regular, fixed, unavoidable payments for the comfort of the overfed but undereducated "clergy."

We'll have to wait to see whether the culties got his drift or whether they'll ignore him.

CRITTER CAPER II

The same "Corner" carried the following eerie allegory, which isn't at all hard to decode either:

A mourning dove crashed into my bedroom door light, and lay dazed on the deck for awhile. Its mate sympathetically surveyed the scene and waited for recovery. They both then flew off, but silently and without their mourning cry.

Dannie's been losing cult couples lately, and all he can do is stand around watching in agony as dollars vanish.

The stunned dove is a cult-addled spouse attracted to the glittering theatrical lights of "One Hand's" Sunday big shows.  The patient mate is the loving husband or wife who waited for the spouse to return to sanity as soon as the truth about the cult masters became known.With the one partner's senses finally restored, the couple could then cancel the insurance policy naming $GG the beneficiary (the "mourning cry") and head off for a better climate, never to be heard from again.

CRITTER CAPER III

The foregoing tale of escape and redemption is not what Wee Dan expected, hence his rueful tone. The Low Sunday 2017 "Corner" detailed the usual procedure for dealing with wounded souls that find themselves trapped on the SW Ohio cult's dismal property:

The Fathers were waiting for me Wednesday evening for dinner after the High Mass, when Puccini appeared with an Easter offering. He deposited the still live bird in the convento, and then flopped down on the floor, the very picture of detachment. The bird flew about a bit, but then met its end. Puccini is a remarkably quick cat on occasion. Ars Gratia Artis is ever his motto.    

The struggling, soon-to-be dispatched prey in the feral cat's clutches represents the few Gerties who flew off in moral outrage at the 2009 $GG $chool $candal yet came winging back after the Ham Sandwich spoiled. Back at the cult, cynical "priests" keep a close watch on the untrustworthy migrants so they'll never fly the coop again or take others with them if they do. Whenever the returning birdbrains get sick of the nonstop fundraising, divisive troublemaking, and smug hypocrisy,  the cult masters are ready to intervene at once to prevent them from flocking around the anxious Gerties.  Educationally, the malformed "clergy" aren't too swift, but when it comes to suppressing the truth about themselves, they're faster than a fat kid chasing an ice-cream truck.

Times are tough at the destabilized wasteland of $GG. The cult masters can't afford another uprising, thus the unspoken moral of the fable: if you spread your wings, then it's "Bye Bye Birdie."  The kingpins have never forgiven the Gerts whose exodus deprived $GG of an income to match the aspirations of its grasping "clergy."  The last seven and a half years have been lean ones, requiring "One Hand" to make nice to the returning turncoats on account of their money and their propaganda value.  But he won't let 'em get away again. The "clergy" are ready to pounce catlike at the first sign of unrest.

Ars gratia artis ("art for art's sake") really isn't the cult motto. Dannie came up with that one because he's seen it on the MGM logo and wanted to pretend he knows Latin. Plus he was eager to boost blood-thirsty Puccini's ego by comparing his feline familiar to the studio's Leo the Lion. No, the cult's motto is, even if the Latin text escapes His Deficiency, nemo me impune lacessit ("nobody calls me out and gets away with it.")

How could Dannie ever forget a brown-noser's candid advice to get rid of Tony Baloney in 2009? Whenever can the offended Wee One banish the remembrance of all those fliers permitted to circulate at the Sunday big show right after the $GG $chool firings? We bet he still can feel the sport coat lapel crumpling in an angry palm. And he continues to burn, secretly, at the sanctimonious weasel who loudly left the cult as a result of witnessing the unedifying contretemps.

You don't need us to tell you he didn't forget any one of these or any other slight.

Some very nasty creature is waiting to fall upon the neck of the prodigal sons or daughters who might dare fly off with their money a second time.  What's been found, won't be lost again. No other ecclesiastical hustler will get a chance to devour the prodigals' substance. Dannie means to consume it all by himself.

He has to. The run is almost over for SW Ohio's amateur production of American Horror Story: Cult.