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“Well – you were shocked.You hadn’t expected that reaction.”
“Don’t make excuses for me, Father.I swore at that man.He had nothing.And I cursed at him.I felt awful about that.Still do.”
Well it beats Mrs.Kerrigan and the three Kevins.
“Well, there’s always a better word than a curse word, except when you drop a hammer on your toe!”Father Thomas chuckled at his own joke, but no sound came from the man.“Look, as sins go —"
“I felt so bad, I went back to find him later.I recognized his tent, army green, he kept it a ways off from the others.”
“You went back to apologize for swearing?Or for offering the money?”
“Not to apologize.To make it right.”
“Right?”
“He was right.What good were fifty bucks?He’d still be in that tent.If I wanted to help him, I had to help him properly.”
“Properly?”
“That miserable existence.A proud man, a soldier reduced to that.He should have died in battle.Entered heaven as a hero.It wasn’t just, Father.”
“What do you mean by entering h—”
“I poured diesel all over him as he slept, Father, and I poured a trail of it along the pathway.Twelve or thirteen feet away and then I lit it.”
The priest felt hot and cold.The hard little seat seemed to shift underneath him.
“Listen –” he said hoarsely.He cleared his throat.Was this a wind-up?
“It went up like a firework.Have you ever seen such a thing, Father?The noise it makes?”
“I don’t know why you’re telling me this but I— ”
"You serve God, don’t you?"
“Yes, but if you’re telling me the truth, I can’t give you absolution, you—”
“Oh, I don’t want absolution.”The man laughed, a high squeal.“Judgment comes from someone higher than you.I want you to recognize that, Father.Know it.Know it at last and let it set you free.”
Suddenly he opened the door and slid out of the box.Anxious to get a look at the man, Father Thomas pushed his own door.He found it jammed shut.
“Feck!”
Almost in answer, the church door slammed.The priest hammered at the confession box door, barged it with his shoulder, stood stooped in that tiny space and booted it with all his might.The fecking door.Wouldn’t move.
It was locked.
He realized, just before the man had slid into the confessional, he’d heard a soft click.But there was no key in either of the doors.
Therewasa key.An old, four-toothed number that worked on both doors.A couple of years back, some of the local kids had started clowning around with it during the long summer holidays.Locked the little McCleod girl inside for a joke. Ever since then, the key had been in the Vestry, in an old box full of odds and ends.
Hell.It was only a flimsy door.He rattled it.Elbowed it.Formed a fist and thumped it.That hurt.
He tried to stand.If he could wedge himself against the back panel of the box, he could get his right leg up against the door and boot it.
He booted it.Thathurt.The door wasn’t as flimsy as it looked.
The smell now hit him full in the face.He tasted it.Garage forecourts.The loading dock at the harbor.Mother of Christ.Diesel.
