Bless Me, Father
a short story
“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”
Dust swirled in and out of the sunbeams in microscopic faerie dances, hidden and revealed once more as the priest leaned out of the light toward the screen.
“Now say ‘bless me Father for I have sinned,’ and how long it’s been since your last confession.”
“Man, you know how long it’s been.”
“Yes. Do you?”
“Bless me Father for I have sinned. I went to confession last month.”
“How long exactly?”
“Are you for real?”
“Do you know?”
“No.”
“Six weeks.”
“Fine.”
The leather crunched as he shifted his weight in the chair that had seated him through abortions, adulteries, addictions, lies, perjuries, drunkenness, rape, blasphemy, orgies, gossip, envy, spousal abuse, sexual deviancy, and murder. The priest scratched his whitening whiskers and cleared his throat.
“What do you have to confess?”
After a time the boy spoke, offhand, casual.
“Sometimes I cuss. Sometimes I forget to say my prayers. Sometimes I look at bad videos. Sometimes I—”
“Just a minute. When you say cuss, are you talking the Lord’s name in vain or crude words?”
“Mostly the crude ones. I remember what you said about the second commandment.”
“But you said mostly. What words did you say?”
“So, like, a couple times I may have--said Jesus’ name when I was mad. But other times I—”
“Saying Jesus’ name outside of prayer or reverent discussion is very serious and wrong. I’m not talkin’ about the s-word or the f-word right now. These are two very different things.”
“Okay okay, sheesh. The couple of times I said it I was mad and not thinking. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not the one you’re saying sorry to. Anyway, other times you stuck to the vulgarities. Did these give scandal to others?”
“Nah man. I say ‘em with my brothers and fam. You know. It’s just like, our vocabulary. No offense taken, you know what I mean?”
“What about lewd talk?”
“Lewd talk?”
“Joking about sex.”
“Um.”
“Well?”
“Okay Father, fine. Yeah, we joke about that. Ya know, but it’s another of those ‘no-offense-taken’ scenarios. It’s all good.”
“No, it’s not all good. Second only to life, free will, and himself, sex is the greatest gift God has given to man. It ain’t something you joke about.”
“Alright alright, fine. So I joked about sex. But you better bring that up to Mario and Brennan and Caleb when they come in here, ‘cause they—”
“That’s between them and God.”
“Them and God and you, Father.”
“Okay.”
Someone else’s footsteps pattered like tiny stones in a pond off the buttresses and arches of the church, and the two lowered their voices.
“So you took the Lord’s name in vain and joked about sex. You said you sometimes forget to say your prayers. How often do you forget? Or a better question: how often do you remember?”
“Uh. I dunno, I guess I think about God every day. You know, like when I’m feeling thankful for something or I’m in a tight spot with one of my homes or mom or Kels. I pray for people. But I sometimes forget to really talk to him, you know?”
“How is your mom? You take care of her?”
“Yeah man. She good.”
“Do you go to church every Sunday?”
“You know I do, Father. And, and you’d be proud of me. I ain’t been to communion since I done some of the--the worse sins. I know communion after really bad sins is wrong til you confess.”
“Good boy.”
The boy’s exhalations sifted their smell of nicotine and barely disguising whiff of mint gum through the brown mesh.
“Sometimes you look at bad videos?”
“Yeah.”
“Like ugly ones, bloody ones? Or?”
“Okay, so like, porn.”
“What do you think Kels would say to that?”
“Ugh.”
“Right. How often?”
“How often what?”
“How often do you watch ‘em?”
“Not as often as I used to, okay?”
“Does looking at ‘em make you feel good?”
“I mean…”
“Do you jerk off while you’re watching ‘em?”
“No! Damn, you really gotta ask that? I quit so I wouldn’t hafta keep telling you about it! Shit!”
The boy’s form squirmed on the kneeler on the other side of the screen panel. How the dogs return to their vomit. Yet the priest saw his own sins in the boy, and the boy’s sins in his own. He always had. Really when you stripped away the motivation, the circumstances, the act was like the evil of anyone else. After hearing enough sin your heart gets hardened against shock and sympathy alike. Like a dentist he could behold the worst decay without batting an eye.
“Yo. Father.”
He ignored the tone of resentment.
“Waiting on you, son. What else do you have to confess?”
“Got drunk a couple of times. Smoked pot once.”
“You’ve dropped the sometimes. That’s good.”
“Ain’t you gonna bitch me out?”
“I know you know better than that, so I don’t have to.”
“I um...I told a few white lies, I guess.”
“Okay.”
“I also told a real lie.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I told Marco that Derek and his crew were laying for him ‘cause of what he said about Derek's sister, but I just said it to see the look on that fool’s face. Sorry. I shouldn’t laugh in confession.”
“Go on.”
The boy’s kneeler creaked as he rocked back and forth, knee to knee. The stream was winding down. But the bright eyes behind the screen were pointed down at his hands. The boy always looked up when he was done.
“I um...I dunno. I guess I’m sorry about all the ones I can’t remember, too. And that’s about it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yup.”
“Nothing else to confess?”
“Nope.”
The priest looked down at his own hands and the rosary threaded between them, interweaving with his fingers, the wooden beads honed to fit his knuckles.
“Did you have sex with Kels?”
The boy cleared his throat just to say “um.” The kneeler clicked on the tile.
“Well?”
“Look man—”
The priest reached up and slid the screen aside until it slammed against the wall. The boy opposite him yelped and fell off his kneeler, his eyes wide with terror but not enough guilt. The priest resisted the urge to reach through and shake some into him.
“Did you have sex with Kels?”
“What the hell, man. Are you even allowed to ask?”
“Get back up here. I wouldn’t have needed to ask if you were man enough.”
“Shit.”
“I said get back up here.”
The priest leaned back in his chair and the boy crept slowly back onto the kneeler.
“Fine. We did it.”
“No, not fine. Sex of any kind outside of marriage is a sin. And last I checked, the two of you ain’t married.”
“I know, I know.”
“So why’d you do it?”
“Man, you ask the foolest questions sometimes. When you love someone you—”
“When you love someone you wait. How many times did you have sex?”
“I dunno.”
The priest ground the beads of his rosary.
“Anything you withhold in confession cannot be forgiven. And withholding a grave sin such as this will result in none of your other sins being forgiven either.”
“You gotta be shittin’ me.”
“You’re the only shitter here, kid.”
“Why I gotta say it if God already knows? You always say I ain’t confessin’ to you. I’m confessin’ to God.”
“It ain’t about making God know your sins. It’s about you knowing and atoning. Spill it.”
“You get meaner every time you drag me here. I guess you must think I’m getting worse and worse, huh?”
“The better you become, the worse sin hurts you. The worse you realize your sins are.”
“Well you don’t need to make me feel bad, man. I feel bad enough as it is.”
“Good.”
“The thing I’m most scared of is God bein’ just as mean as you are.”
“Oh, he’s far meaner.”
“Uh.”
“I’m yanking your chain, son. There ain’t a kinder person.”
“Then why you doing that to me? Ain’t you supposed to act like him?”
“Aren’t we all. Look, I’ll stop trying to make you feel bad when you start feeling bad for the shit you do all on your own.”
“I told you I already do.”
“Not bad enough to stop doing ‘em.”
“I dunno.”
“Look at me, son.”
The boy looked at him.
“I may be mean, but you gotta keep coming here. You gotta. It’s the one thing keeping you true.”
“How do you figure?”
“Because that bad stuff—that ain’t you. You’re better than that.”
“Yeah, so you tell me.”
“You can’t give up.”
“Yeah.”
“You gotta keep going.”
“Alright.”
“You need to—”
“Look man, you gonna forgive me or what?”
The priest sighed. Everything he said drove the boy further from him, from the God who loved him. And drove him further into the arms of who the hell even knew.
“You gonna forgive me or—”
“I wasn’t always a good man, you know. I had moments of doubt and despair. Of caving into the flesh. I didn’t think about what I was doing. I just did it. No consequence held me back.”
“Yeah yeah I know, and then you became a priest.”
“No. I became a priest in the middle of all that. And it made me better than I was, but I still fell again and again. A part of me still does every day, and I gotta let myself get pulled back up. I seen many bad things, lots of ‘em by my own choice. I done lots of bad things, too. I wasn’t always true to my vows, as you know. But every day I try to get better, and I think I am. By God, I think I am.”
The boy looked down at the priest’s hands and smiled.
“You confessing to me today, huh?”
“Well.”
“‘I bless thee in Nomine Patri, et Filio, et Spiritu Sancti.”
“Not bad.”
“Yeah, I learned something.”
So did I, thought the priest, looking through the open screen at himself.
“Okay, I got one more.”
“Yeah?”
The boy’s hands were clenched atop his kneeler.
“I um, I had sex with Kels four times.”
“Okay.”
“What am I supposed to say to her?”
“She’s been baptized. Bring her here.”
“She’ll laugh.”
“You laughed at first, remember?”
The boy shrugged.
“You’ll laugh better with a clear conscience.”
“Yeah.”
“That all you got to confess?”
“Yeah.”
“Well then, for your penance, pray a decade of the rosary. The Agony in the Garden. Offer it for Kels.”
The boy sniffled and nodded.
“Make your act of contrition now.”
The priest mouthed the words with him as he watched the boy. The boy was looking up toward the window, toward freedom and the light streaming through. He could see the escape shoot up in his eyes as he spoke himself closer and closer into it.
“Oh my God, I’m heartily sorry for having offended you. And I detest all my sins ‘cause of your just punishments, but mostly for having offended you my God, who are all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of your grace, to sin no more and avoid near occasions of sin. Amen.”
“Amen. God the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Ghost among us for the forgiveness of sins. Through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Your faith has saved you. Go and sin no more.”
The boy cleared his throat and crossed himself. The kneeler creaked as he rose.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me.”
“No, I mean, thank you for making me come here.”
“Hey, that’s what I’m here for.”
“Bye Father.”
“Bye son.”
The confessional door thumped behind him and the priest listened as the boy’s footsteps receded in the church that had known him since he entered it at eight days old in his father’s arms to have the holy water poured over and the oil traced across and the sign of the cross performed on his head. The priest remembered it well when he carried the boy in again every month.
Paul, I loved this. It’s pacing and rhythm are lively. The story starts fast and doesn’t slow down unless it needs to. The two characters are a perfect example of counterpoint. I chuckled throughout 2/3 of it, and nodded during the rest of it. Perfect reading for a Sunday night.