Confession

Well, the Reverend Father Alabaster Fudge had gone viral.  A video of his catch was making the rounds on the internet, every social media platform, all the late-night talk shows, you name it.  Even those turkeys on Fox News and CNN had gotten hold of it and, can you believe it, were trying their best to spin the situation into an abortion issue (of all things)—like, “Did you see the blue and pink brooch pinned to the backside of his pants? A universal symbol that this brave priest is staunchly pro-life!” No, yeah, I’m pretty sure he just sat on a wad of bubble gum—or, “See the way he grips the ball as he proudly displays it to the crowd? An evocative gesture of the closed, raised fist that has come to embody the pro-choice resistance!” Yeah, no, he just made the luckiest catch of his life, that’s all.  Word on the street was that the state’s March for Life chapter wanted Rev. Al to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at the annual game between the legislature’s anti-abortion diehards (enough of them to field two full teams—with subs—so take that for what it’s worth); Planned Parenthood wanted him to come sign baseballs at one of their clinics while highlighting the importance of safe sex (how, you might ask? by rolling condoms onto miniature baseball bats, of course!).  He even made a video call-in appearance on the midnight edition of SportsCenter with Scott Van Pelt, and, like anyone born before the Ford administration, had absolutely no idea how to work the volume or the computer camera.  But SVP was a professional, as always, and did his best to work with the fool, like, yes, we can hear you, Father, but you don’t have to scream into the microphone, and for the love of God, scoot back a bit, your mug’s certainly nothing to write home about, but all we can see are those wiry hairs inside your schnoz. 

But like most viral moments, the buzz died down after a few days—though if you’d seen or spoken to Al at the height of his fleeting fame, you would’ve thought he’d just successfully performed the Heimlich on the Pope, or rescued an entire class of school children from a burning bus teetering precariously on the edge of a bridge suspended over a waterway chock-full of marine life bloodthirsty for third-graders, indubitably punching his ticket for entry through those pearly gates—which was funny, considering Al himself never missed a chance to warn others of the dangers of the deadly sins, was always mindful to evoke an image of the thick and heavy fog in which one’s soul would become enshrouded if such ungodly affronts were left unforgiven.  Well, he’d finally come to his senses, had been overcome by the fear that if he did not change his ways and repent, the tiny flame of his soul would be snuffed out by the pyroclastic flow of his vainglory, like a cottage on the north flank of Mount Saint Helens mere seconds after she blew back in 1980.  At least that’s what I’d thought when he called me down to the church the other day, all Sterling, I really need to speak to you like.  Surely, he was going to apologize for being such a self-righteous prick the last few days, no?  Ask for my forgiveness? 

Wrong!  When I got down there, he wasn’t in his office.  I did, however, stumble upon Ms. Spigot, the choir director, and she smiled at me through her timber-colored dentures as she told me to check the confessional.  Christ, I thought, I was all for forgiving the fucker, but I wasn’t sure about bestowing it upon him in that dark and cramped box.  But I’ll confess something here myself: I wasn’t exactly sure where the damned thing was; so, I simply smiled back and stared at Ms. Spigot, aptly named given her wickedly hooked nose, and hoped she’d supply the necessary details without my having to ask, which, thankfully, she did: in the alcove to the right of the sanctuary.  Ah, yes, of course, in the sanctuary, and, you know, just as a total hypothetical, Ms. Spigot, if one happened to be looking for the sanctuary, they’d be able to find that…where?  But, no, I didn’t ask that of dear Ms. Spigot.  I left her to attend to her choral duties, which must’ve included soaking her removable teeth in a cup of black coffee as she went through her vocal warmups and other throaty exercises, and I set about finding the confessional. 

Whether by divine intervention or by pure blind luck, I began my search at the altar, beneath the titled gaze of the man Himself, suspended there—nailed, rather—on that cross, sad and exhausted, sure, but remarkably relaxed, given the circumstances, and I turned to the right and, voila, there it was.  Easy peasy.  I didn’t even have to resort to St. Anthony of Padua, the one up there in charge of lost and stolen articles, the one to whom I was told to turn and pray (and I would, with the energy and fervor of a strongman attempting to set the deadlifting world record) several times during my childhood when I couldn’t find a lost toy, a missing sneaker, a schoolbook, only to awake the next morning with the blasted items still as lost as they had been the previous day, if not more so, with each unanswered prayer turning my retarded ten-year-old self into a bigger skeptic than Cicero, so much so that at one point I even asked Sister Mary Margaret (M&M, as the class would tease behind her rather broad backside) if St. Anthony wasn’t stealing the fucking things from me himself!  A real operation your man St. Anthony is running, Sister, taking our toys and holding them for ransom and, even if paid, oftentimes still not returning them, like negotiating a hostage swap with a terrorist organization.  Ah, but in fairness, I’m not sure how much help he would’ve been this time anyway, given that I hadn’t actually lost or misplaced the confessional, and, sure, I didn’t even know I was looking for the thing until I’d run into Ms. Spigot. 

Anyway, I moseyed on over to the confessional.  I was about to, I don’t know, knock on it I guess, when I heard murmurings coming from the inside, followed by the unmistakable voice of Rev. Al as he told the unknown confessor that, instead of taking the Lord’s name in vain, perhaps he could try saying celestial water barrier or divine beaver impoundment.  Al then concluded his act of absolution by charging the confessor with five Our Fathers, three Hail Marys, and one Act of Contrition before sending him on his way.  A little shuffling, and then the right-side wooden door creaked open and out stumbled, of all people, my junkie neighbor Clive S. Roosevelt—a.k.a. Meth Man—with a look on his face that can only accompany a man whose slate has just been wiped clean, a man with an unblemished soul—for the time being, at least (go watch one of his homemade rap music videos, and you’ll understand my cynicism).

“God da—I mean, divine beaver impoundment!” he shouted, his voice bouncing off the brick walls and rattling the stained glass of the sanctuary.  “Fancy seeing you here, Sterling.”  His greeting must’ve alerted Al to my presence, as the other wooden door swung open and out waddled Al, still sporting the dorky glasses and walking cane.

“Ah, Sterling, you made it.”

“It’s like the barbecue all over again,” Clive said.  He then leaned in closer.  “Delicious dogs, by the way, Sterling.  It’s funny, I was actually just telling Father here that I couldn’t help but notice the slightest hint of, oh, forgive me again, Father, erm, how do I put this…ejaculate perhaps?  Is that a curse word, Father?”

I wasn’t sure how talk of my hotdogs or my barbecue made it inside the confessional—or, more importantly, how Clive recognized the taste to which he was referring—but I assured him that the culprit was not the wieners but rather the clump of Bradford pears in my backyard (mercifully no longer in bloom), and I also explained to the moron that our sense of smell is nearly entirely responsible for our sense of taste, so, no, Clive, while the backyard sure as hell smelled like jizz, the hotdogs didn’t taste like it.  I mean, Jesus Christ, just what was he accusing me of?  What in the hell did he think I could’ve done to those dogs?  I have some thoughts on the matter, but I won’t reproduce them here.

Well, Clive lurked for a little while longer before pissing off, and then Al asked me to follow him to the shrine, said that he had something he wanted to show me.  I hoped there wasn’t another confessional in the shrine.  Like, if he planned on apologizing, I preferred that he got it over with, right then, right there.  But we made our way over to the shrine at a snail’s pace, exiting the sanctuary out into the nave and then down a side hallway.  Along the way, Al made sure to let me know that, while he continued to suffer from the occasional debilitating migraine, his eyesight was improving each day, thanks be to the Lord—and, he added, to Ms. Spigot, who’d baked him a carrot cake for each day of his convalescence.  Yes, I agreed, the power of prayers and vegetables in confectionary form.  Anyway, we entered the shrine, and Al directed me to a round side table, on top of which was an object hidden beneath a burgundy silk cloth.  Al waited a moment, gathered himself, and then removed the cloth with a magician’s flourish, revealing an ornate and golden box.  “Behold,” he said.  I squinted at it and made sure I wasn’t missing anything before I said it looked like a jewelry box or something.  Al laughed at my ignorance and said that it wasn’t the box that was important, but what was inside of it.  Alright, well you didn’t tell me that, Father, I don’t make a habit of going around and opening other people’s boxes all unbidden like.  But he gave me an inviting nod, so I grabbed the little cross on top, removed the lid, and set it aside. 

“That,” Al said, blessing himself and then peering inside, “is the sacral horn of St. Anvil of Severny Island.”