"Purge the Evil" - a novel

by Bill Dunn

(Note: this is a work-in-progress attempt at writing a novel. Feedback, critiques, plot suggestions are more than welcomed.)
 

CHAPTER 27

Saturday, November 20th, 4:25 p.m.

            The black velvet curtain silently slid open. Mrs. Margaret Duffy carefully shuffled her tiny 89-year-old body out of the confessional and made her way slowly to the first pew in St. Lawrence Church where she would pray her penance, three Our Fathers and three Hail Marys. Inside the center section of the confessional, Fr. Dan Cavanaugh closed the small partition through which Mrs. Duffy had just spoken, turned in his chair, and opened the partition on the opposite side. A nervous teenager, there only at the behest of his persistent mother, opened his mouth and hoarsely squeaked, “Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It’s been six months since my last confession.”

            As with most Catholic parishes in America, Saturday afternoon confession at St. Lawrence did not exactly generate standing room-only crowds. Two people who had just finished praying their respective penances walked down the main aisle and out the front entrance of the church. Besides Mrs. Duffy, the only other person visible in the church was a man in a red fleece jacket sitting in the last pew on the same side of the church where the confessionals were located. Ignoring standard church decorum, the man in the last pew did not remove his floppy fishing hat when he entered the church. Although it was rather dark inside the building, he also did not remove the wide wrap-around sunglasses covering half of his face.

            After a few minutes, the teen exited the confessional as if shot from a cannon. A look of pure relief was on his face as he slid into a pew a few rows behind Mrs. Duffy and began speed-praying his assigned ten Our Fathers.

            The man in the fishing hat glanced around the church to see if anyone else was near the confessionals. There was nobody. He got up and walked forward quickly, then pushed the black curtain aside and darted into the tiny chamber. He snapped the curtain closed behind him as he awkwardly tried to half-knee and half-sit. Fr. Dan opened the partition and sat back in his chair with his eyes closed.

            The man cleared his throat, removed his sunglasses, and said in a low, wavering stage whisper, “OK, I remember this. Um, bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been—God, I don’t know—it must be about 20 years since my last confession.”

            “Well, the Lord is very glad you’re here today,” Fr. Dan said quietly in a soothing tone. “Just relax and tell God your sins.”

            Pit Bull Peterson wasn’t far off. It actually had been 23 years since his last confession. He was a parishioner at St. Mary’s Church near his home in the upscale northern end of West Hartford. He usually went to Mass only a couple of time per year, reluctantly accompanying his wife and teenage son at Christmas and Easter. Going to confession was out of the question. If he were to be recognized in either St. Mary’s or St. Lawrence’s, it would not have been because of regular attendance. It instead would have been because of his status as a media personality in the region. The one thing Pit Bull did not want at this moment, however, was to be recognized. Just to be on the safe side, he decided to visit a church miles from his neighborhood.

            “Yeah, OK, Father,” Pit Bull said nervously. “I, uh, well, if I told you all my sins from the last 20 years we’d be here all night. So, uh, I just want to focus on one particular sin right now, all right?”

            “That’s fine, my son,” Fr. Dan said.

            “And you, um, you’re sworn to secrecy, aren’t you?” Pit Bull asked.

            “Oh yes, the confidentiality of the confessional is sacred,” Fr. Dan said. “I will never say a word of anything that is ever confessed to me. Please go ahead.”

            “Oh man,” Pit Bull said as he exhaled. “How do I say this?” He clasped his hands together tightly in front of his chest to keep them from shaking. “OK, here goes. Father, I, uh, I killed a man.”

            There was silence in the confessional for a few moments. Over the years Fr. Dan had heard people confess to killing someone. Many were those who either had or had help someone else procure an abortion. A couple of times he heard the exact phrase, “I killed a man.” But in both cases it was the result of a drunk driving accident. In all his years as a priest, Fr. Dan had never had someone confess to committing an outright, willful homicide. At first he did not think this was the case with the nervous man who sat three feet from him, separated only by a mesh fabric screen.

            “I see,” the priest said, breaking the silence. “Please be more specific.”

            “Well, you see, I, uh, I killed a man. I, I shot him…dead.”

            “Oh,” Fr. Dan said. He sat up a little straighter in his chair. “Was it self-defense, or an accident?”

            “Um, it was kind of an accident,” Pit Bull said quickly. “It was really the wrong g—. Uh, I mean, yeah, it was an accident…but not really, I guess.” Pit Bull was beginning to get flustered, and tears welled up in his eyes. It had now been well over 24 hours since he last slept, and he was not thinking too clearly.

            “Well, my son,” Fr. Dan said as he leaned forward. “This is very serious, as I’m sure you know.”

            “Yeah, I know,” Pit Bull groaned, his voice struggling to hold back a sob. “If I had only known beforehand, I wouldn’t have agreed to—”

            There was another pause. “Agreed to what?” Fr. Dan asked.

            “I can’t tell you,” Pit Bull replied. “And you can’t tell anyone about this, remember?”

            “Oh yes, don’t worry about that. I cannot and I will not tell a soul. But my son, this is extremely serious. God is very merciful, there’s no doubt about that, but in order to be forgiven you must repent and be truly sorry for your sin.”

            “Oh I’m sorry, Father. You don’t know how sorry. The guilt is tearing me apart.”

            “So you are truly sorry and repentant over this sin?”

            “Yes, Father. Definitely.”

            OK, that’s very good,” Fr. Dan said. “God is merciful. He is willing to forgive any sin—even the sin of killing another human being. But I must remind you, God is a God of justice, too. He will forgive you and cleanse your soul, but sometimes we all have to pay a temporal price for our transgressions. Do, do the authorities know you did this?”

            “No, and they can’t know. That’s just not gonna happen, Father,” Pit Bull said forcefully.

            “Now, of course, I cannot force you to do anything,” the priest said. “But if your sin before God also happens to be a criminal offense before your fellow man, godly justice demands that you own up to it.”

            “Look Father,” Pit Bull stammered, “I, uh, I just can’t do that right now. Maybe later on, OK? When things calm down a little. So are you going to forgive me, or not?”

            “Well, my son, I certainly will offer absolution, as it’s not my place to judge. But God knows your heart. And if you’re not truly sorry or if you refuse to face the consequences of your actions, then it’s hard to say whether God can cleanse your soul. It’s really up to you. Do you understand?”

            “Yeah, I guess so,” Pit Bull muttered.

            Again there was silence in the confessional. Fr. Dan said softly, “I really think you should turn yourself in.”

            “Oh, c’mon, Father,” Pit Bull said. “You’re making my head explode. Please, just absolve me, OK?”

            “OK, I will, my son,” Fr. Dan said. As he offered the prayer of absolution in Latin, in the back of his mind the priest thought, “You’re making my head explode”? Where have I heard that before?

            Before he could suggest an appropriate penance, Fr. Dan heard the curtain slide open. He glanced through the mesh screen, something he had trained himself over the years never to do. The confessional was empty.

            With his sunglasses back on and his fishing hat pulled down low, Pit Bull hustled out the church and walked quickly to his car, which was parked in the far corner of the parking lot. Cars were beginning to pull into the lot, parishioners coming for the 5 p.m. vigil Mass. Pit Bull drove home through the descending dusk, his vision impaired by both his sunglasses and his tears. He felt no better than when he had entered the church. His frame of mind was as gloomy as the autumn sky.

            Fr. Dan sat back in his chair and exhaled. After a lengthy pause he closed the partition over the screen he had just glanced through and opened the partition on the opposite side. A kneeling middle-aged woman immediately began to speak, “Bless me Father, for I have sinned…”

            As the woman rattled off a long list of minor offenses, Fr. Dan heard her words as a muffled drone because his mind was focused on other words. “It was really the wrong…” The wrong what? “I wouldn’t have agreed to…” Agreed to what?

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