Marlow’s Coastal Empire

Wednesday last week, a local morning paper ran a brief story about a missing statue of Jesus. The statue was last seen on Monday on the Blessed Sacrament parish campus overlooking Victory Drive (a major East-West thoroughfare

in Savannah) close to Waters Avenue.

Jesus used to stand tall right next to the old parish rectory, where the priests resided. When school and parish construction began last year, they put the 70 year old statue right by Victory Drive.

Since his arrival in Savannah, your scribe saw the Savior at his Victory Drive perch each time he drove to the Home Depot or the grocery store. Perhaps its new location was to calm people down during the daily traffic jams along

US route 80. Jesus made it through Hurricane Matthew unscathed.

Weighing in and over a quarter of a ton, no one thought to screw or glue the King of Kings down. Church officials did say that those who took the statue had already been forgiven. They asked that the statue be returned. No

questions asked, no confessions required.

BOLO: Missing Jesus

Meanwhile, another Savannah statue had a more Halloween type impact on this writer. “Scary Mary” is a bit of an urban legend around here. She appears to be a depiction of Saint Anne. According to locals, Scary Mary was the

inspiration for the statue in the Savannah-centered novel, comic books and movie “The Dangerous Life of Altar Boys.”

Located in the glass encased catwalk between the St Michael’s parish church and parochial school, Scary Mary is all but invisible during the day and night. At night, the crosswalk is quite dark, but there is just enough illumination

to make out some of her facial features hovering in the blackness. During the day, all that are discernible the outlines of an indefinite dark shape.

It is rumored to be a rite of passage to drive new students though the dark alley that runs beside the catwalk for this dark figure’s disembodied face to freak them out. Some students report that her face seems to change and her eyes

move. A few claim to have photos with her hands in different positions.

What do you think?

Scary Mary with visibility enhanced via Photoshop.

Here are my thoughts after contemplating Scary Mary through the 67-year-old lens of Roman Catholic hocus pocus:

Scary Mary, peering down in dimming light,

A specter appearing only at night;

From Saint Michael’s walkway

Completely invisible during the day.

What cassocked-mind crazed beyond compare

Placed you there for us to scare?

To what devious goal did he aspire

To fan the flames of this old soul’s guttering fire.

No Disney nor Hollywood art,

Could twist my guts and my heart

And when my heart began again to beat,

My eyes searched for grasping hands, dead feet.

What the hell? Was this a game?

A blast furnace briefly smelted my brain.

Fearing next an anvil’s grasp,

Was this his final casting at last?

Scary Mary, peering down in dimming light,

Appears as a specter only at night;

From Saint Michael’s walkway

Completely invisible during the day

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