FREDO CORELEONE

Fredo Coreleone with the world like an older brother but in the form of a Catholic priest. Holding his head locked in hail mary. Licking the dust off of doorknobs, seeing if it was a new way to make them turn. Fredo Coreleone fancying himself a new generation of locksmith. But all the new books he read spoke nothing of doorknobs anywhere. Instead only passage for pilgrims who were not him. Into halls with windows and a dome cupped over a gathering of fire lanterns, just touching the vaulted arcs. It was a makeshift temple claiming sanctuary, making a home for all the prayers without homes. In the end a prayer is a thing lit and let lifted into the sky. But always just beyond more dust and a few more licks. Fredo Coreleone saying hail marys and casting his line into the water, waiting for Christ to call from the shore. Just one word from the old man so Fredo could cast his net of bones over the timbered hull and pull up bounty. A sack of gold and a crucifix shaped into a key. Something to unlock an underwater door marked by a ring of floating lanterns on fire.