Page 1 of Of Heathens & Havoc

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The Merciful

“Forgive me Father, for I have sinned,” I say, smoothing my skirt under me so it doesn’t wrinkle on the heavy wooden seat. “It’s been… Six years since my last confession.”

A stab of pain goes through my heart as I wait for thunder and judgment, for him to tell me I’m going to hell. But of course they don’t do that. I glance at the screen, suddenly wishing I hadn’t emailed ahead and asked for a confessional instead of meeting in his office. But talking to a screen seemed easier than talking to a man, especially about the kind of things I’m about to say. I haven’t told a living soul any of this, which is why it’s both easier and harder to tell a stranger.

“Whenever you’re ready,” he says when I don’t continue on my own.

I’m startled by the deep, commanding richness of his voice, the trace of an Italian accent. It does something funny to my body, and not just because I know instantly he’s not from here.

That’s not surprising. This is the only Catholic church in the area, situated at the edge of the tiny campus of Thorncrown University. There probably aren’t many seminary schools for Catholics in Arkansas. I’m sure they have to get priests from out of state all the time.

I relax a little after the initial surprise of his smoky voice. It’s easier for me to trust that I’m safe with someone who’s somewhat removed from Faulkner, a bit of a foreigner.

I take a deep breath of the incense-scented air and catch a faint trace of sandalwood and leather, as if the booth has heard rougher tales than mine, more masculine sins. I decide to just spill it all, do my penance, and get the absolution I’ve been afraid to ask for all these years. It’s part of the fresh start I promised myself when I left the safety of my aunt’s and came to Thorncrown. Part of being a godlier girl.

I should have confessed a long time ago, and I know it’s silly not to. But I couldn’t bring myself to tell one of the priests at our church in Little Rock, a man I’d see at mass every Sunday. This is a stranger, and one who will never see my face, never know who confessed to such scandalous sins.

“I go to mass,” I say, suddenly not wanting him to judge me, even if he doesn’t know me. “Not as much as I should but… I’m a good person. I try to be, anyway. I don’t drink or go to parties, I don’t swear or take the Lord’s name in vain. But this… This thing happened to me six years ago. It might sound silly, like it’s no big deal, but it changed my life. A lot of lives…”

The ache of loss fills my chest, and I wrap my fingers around the cross that hangs from a delicate gold chain around my neck. I close my eyes, letting the familiar jumble of images tumble through my mind—five hands with friendship bracelets on our wrists. My brother’s eyes full of hatred. My father’s voice condemning me. A closed casket. A rubber band holding a dirty piece of paper to a brick, shattered glass littering the living room floor like shards of broken teeth.

“I was at my best friend’s house,” I start again. “We were her room with another girl from our grade, listening to some new band she’d found and looking at pictures of them online. I’d walked there with my big brother, who was best friends with her brother. We lived just a couple miles away, so we’d ride our bikes over the tracks to each other’s houses or meet in the middle.”

I take a shaky breath, the pain building instead of lessening now that I’m talking. I told myself it was worth reliving if I could be absolved of the sin, but now I’m not sure I can go back, not because of what happened, but because of what I lost.

“They had this neighbor,” I whisper, my throat tight. I almost say his name before I remember that I’m the only one who left Faulkner after the trial. They stayed. I don’t know how long this priest has served here, or if Angel still attends. Even if he doesn’t, they’d know his family.

“We’d been friends for years,” I go on. “We grew up together. My best friend, my brother, his friend, and the neighbor. We had little nicknames, the Quint and… Others.”

I stop before blurting out the one Angel’s parents teasingly gave us—Cinco de Mercy. I don’t want anything to link this confession to me later. I’ll say these words just once, purge myself of the sin, the secret I’ve kept hidden so long. I’ll do my penance, and he’ll absolve me, and it will be washed away. No one will ever know such depraved desires were hidden in the heart of a good girl who wears clogs and floor-length skirts.

I hear the priest shift on his side of the screen, and I’m suddenly guilty for taking so long. I push ahead. “Things had gotten a little different in the past few years, as we’d grown up some. We still hung out, but when we went to the park, they’d shoot hoops, and we’d go to the swings so we could talk about boys… Stuff like that. So this day, we went to hang out, but my friend decided she didn’t want the boys there because they’d tease her about crushing on this band. They started messing with us, banging on the wall and yelling for us to turn down the music, which just made us giggle and turn it up louder. And because they were fourteen and high on that thing boys get, they took it as a challenge and decided to make us turn it down.”

“They were high?” the priest asks.

“Nothigh,” I say. “I mean, not like drugs. But you must know what I mean, Father. You must have been a boy before you became a priest.”

“I was,” he says, and I can hear a hint of amusement in his voice, a voice that does funny things to my belly. I can feel that stirring, the bad one that I’m not supposed to have. The one I’m here to expel. Once I’ve confessed this sinful thing in my nature, it will go away. I just need to trust that the father will show me how to rid myself of this burden. Let go and let God, as Mom used to say. Praying hasn’t made it go away, but surely confession will.

“Then you know what I mean, right?” I ask. “That thing that happens when they realize their power and strength, but they don’t know what to do with it yet. That’s what my dad said happened. That they didn’t know how to direct it, all that new masculine energy. That instead of using it to lead, they used it to destroy and… Dominate.”

“To dominate,” the priest repeats, his voice dropping an octave. And Lord help me, I close my eyes as I feel a flush creeping up my neck. I want to cry. What have I done to deserve this curse?

I clear my throat to ease the tightness that’s aching there. I just have to get through this, and he’ll make it go away, the relentless sin of my flesh.

“Right,” I say, my voice coming out crisp. “So, they were high on that, and we were high on the attention of the older boys, and still too young to know that male attention came with consequences. They were ourfriends.”

I pause and wipe my palms down the front of my loose-knit cardigan.

“They tried to barge in, and we were giggling and holding the door shut. It was a game, this innocent thing, but it was like we could tell there was this invisible line between us, theone that had been emerging for a few years. At some point, the scales had to tip. Some part of us must have felt that energy they had, even if we couldn’t name it, because I remember how hard my heart was beating. That even though we were laughing and shrieking and being dramatic, that some part of me sensed the danger in them. The power.”

I squeeze my cross, my heart shivering in my chest at the memory as my thumb skims over the letters etched into the back of it.

SHAME.

“I wanted them to get in,” I whisper. “Even as I was yelling with my friends for them to go away and leave us alone, it was the last thing we wanted. The boys must have felt our energy too, because they knew it. They knew we wanted them to win, to fight until they overpowered us and got to us.”

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