And he watched with steady interest, with the purest and most alert concentration in all of his life, as the white carton tilted and gleamed, and the snowy milk poured out, cool and quiet, Like the sound of a running spring at night, and filled the glass up all the way, to the very brim, to the very brim, and over....
Bless Me, Father, for I Have Sinned
It was just before midnight, on Christmas Eve when Father Mellon woke, having slept for only a few minutes. He had a most peculiar urge to rise, go, and swing wide the front door of his church to let the snow in and then go sit in the confessional to wait.
Wait for what? Who would say? Who might tell? But the urge was so incredibly strong it was not to be denied.
“What’s going on here?” he muttered quietly to himself, as he dressed. “I am going mad, am I not? At this hour, who could possibly want or need, and why in blazes should I—”
But dress he did and down he went and opened wide the front door of the church and stood in awe of the great artwork beyond, better than any painting in history, a tapestry of snow weaving in laces and gentling to roofs and shadowing the lamps and putting shawls on the huddled masses of cars waiting to be blessed at the curb. The snow touched the sidewalks and then his eyelids and then his heart. He found himself holding his breath with the fickle beauties and then, turning, the snow following at his back, he went to hide in the confessional.
Damn fool, he thought. Stupid old man. Out of here! Back to your bed!
But then he heard it; a sound at the door, and footsteps scraping on the pavestones of the church, and at last the damp rustle of some invader fresh to the other side of the confessional. Father Mellon waited.
“Bless me,” a man’s voice whispered, “for I have sinned!” Stunned at the quickness of this asking, Father Mellon could only retort: “How could you know the church would be open and I here?”
“I prayed, Father,” was the quiet reply. “God made you come open up.”
There seemed no answer to this, so the old priest, and what sounded like a hoarse old sinner, sat for a long cold moment as the clock itched on toward midnight, and at last the refugee from darkness repeated:
“Bless this sinner, father!”
But in place of the usual unguents and ointments of words, with Christmas hurrying fast through the snow, Father Mellon leaned toward the lattice window and could not help saying:
“It must be a terrible load of sin you carry to have driven you out on such a night on an impossible mission that turned possible only because God heard and pushed me out of bed.”
“It is a terrible list. Father, as you will find!”
“Then speak, son,” said the priest, “before we both freeze—”
“Well, it was this way—” whispered the wintry voice behind the thin paneling. “—Sixty years back—”
“Speak up! Sixty?!” The priest gasped. “That long past?”
“Sixty!” And there was a tormented silence.
“Go on,” said the priest, ashamed of interrupting.
“Sixty years this week, when I was twelve,” said the gray voice, “I Christmas-shopped with my grandmother in a small town back East. We walked both ways. In those days, who had a car? We walked, and coming home with the wrapped gifts, my grandma said something, I’ve long since forgotten what, and I got mad and ran ahead, away from her. Far off, I could hear her call and then cry, terribly, for me to come back, come back, but I wouldn’t She wailed so, I knew I had hurt her, which made me feel strong and good, so I ran even more, laughing, and beat her to the house and when she came in she was gasping and weeping as if never to stop. I felt ashamed and ran to hide....”
There was a long silence.
The priest prompted. “Is that it?”
“The list is long,” mourned the voice beyond the thin panel.
“Continue,” said the priest, eyes shut
“I did much the same to my mother, before New Year’s. She angered me. I ran. I heard her cry out behind me. I smiled and ran fester. Why? Why, oh God, why?”
The priest had no answer.
“Is that it, then?” he murmured, at last, feeling strangely moved toward the old man beyond.
“One summer day,” said the voice, “some bullies beat me. When they were gone, on a bush I saw two butter flies, embraced, lovely. I hated their happiness. I grabbed them in my fist and pulverized them to dust. Oh, Fattier, the shame!”
The wind blew in the church door at that moment and both of them glanced up to see a Christmas ghost of snow turned about in the door and falling away in drifts of whiteness to scatter on the pavings.
“There’s one last terrible tiling,” said the old man, hidden away with his grief. And tiien he said:
“When I was thirteen, again in Christmas week, my dog Bo ran away and was lost three days and nights. I loved him more than life itself. He was special and loving and fine. And all of a sudden the beast was gone, and all his beauty with him. I waited. I cried. I waited. I prayed. I shouted under my breath. I knew he would never, never come back! And then, oh, then, that Christmas Eve at two in the morning, with sleet on the sidewalks and icicles on roofs and snow falling, I heard a sound in my sleep and woke to hear him scratching the door! I bounded from bed so fast I almost killed myself! I yanked the door open and there was my miserable dog, shivering, excited, covered with dirty slush. I yelled, pulled him in, slammed the door, fell to my knees, grabbed him and wept. What a gift, what a gift! I called his name over and over, and he wept with me, all whines and agonies of joy. And then I stopped. Do you know what I did then? Can you guess the terrible thing? I beat him. Yes, beat him. With my fists, my hands, my palms, and my fists again, crying: how dare you leave, how dare you run oft, how dare you do that to me, how dare you, how dare!? And I beat and beat until I was weak and sobbed and had to stop for I saw what I’d done, and he just stood and took it all as if he knew he deserved it, he had foiled my love and now I was foiling his, and I pulled off and tears streamed from my eyes, my breath strangled, and I grabbed him again and crushed him to me but this time cried: forgive, oh please, Bo, forgive. I didn’t mean it. Oh, Bo, forgive….
“But, oh, Father, he couldn’t forgive me. Who was he? A beast, an animal, a dog, my love. And he looked at me with such great dark eyes that it locked my heart and it’s been locked forever after with shame. I could not then forgive myself. All these years, the memory of my love and how I foiled him, and every Christmas since, not the rest of the year, but every Christmas Eve, his ghost comes back, I see the dog, I hear the beating, I know my failure. Oh, God!”
The man fell silent, weeping.
And at last the old priest dared a word: ‘And that is why you are here?”
“Yes, Father. Isn’t it awful. Isn’t it terrible?” The priest could not answer, for tears were streaming
down his face, too, and he found himself unaccountably short of breath.
“Will God forgive me, Father?” asked the other.
“Yes.”
“Will you forgive me, Father?”
“Yes. But let me tell you something now, son. When I was ten, the same things happened. My parents, of course, but then—my dog, the love of my life, who ran off and I hated him for leaving me, and when he came back I, too, loved and beat him, then went back to love. Until this night, I have told no one. The shame has stayed put all these years. I have confessed all to my priest-confessor. But never that. So—”
There was a pause.
“So, Father?”
“Lord, Lord, dear man, God will forgive us. At long
last, we have brought it out, dared to say. And I, I will forgive you. But finally—” The old priest could not go on, for new tears were really pouring down his face now. The stranger on the other side guessed this and very carefully inquired, “Do you want my forgiveness, Father?^
The priest nodded, silently. Perhaps the other felt the shadow of the nod, for he quickly said, “Ah, well. It’s given.”
And they bo
th sat there for a long moment in the dark and another ghost moved to stand in the door, then sank to snow and drifted away.
“Before you go,” said the priest “Come share a glass of wine.” The great clock in the square across from the church struck midnight. “It’s Christmas, Father,” said the voice from behind the panel.
The finest Christmas ever, I think.”
“The finest”
The old priest rose and stepped out.
He waited a moment for some stir, some movement from the opposite side of the confessional. There was no sound. Frowning, the priest reached out and opened the confessional door and peered into the cubicle.
There was nothing and no one there.
His jaw dropped. Snow moved along the back of his neck. He put his hand out to feel the darkness. The place was empty. Turning, he stared at the entry door, and hurried over to look out.
Snow fell in the last tones of far clocks late-sounding the hour. The streets were deserted.
Turning again, he saw the tall mirror that stood in the church entry.
There was an old man, himself reflected in the cold glass.
Almost without thinking, he raised his hand and made the sign of blessing. The reflection in the mirror did likewise.
Then the old priest, wiping his eyes, turned a last time, and went to find the wine.
Outside, Christmas, like the snow, was everywhere.
By the Numbers!
“Company, tenshun!”
Snap.
“Company, forward—Harch!”
Tromp, tromp.
“Company, halt!”
Tromp, rattle, clump.
“Eyes right.”
Whisper.
“Eyes left.”
Rustle.
“About face!”
Tromp, scrape, tromp.
In the sunlight, a long time ago, the man shouted and the company obeyed. By a hotel pool under a Los Angeles sky in the summer of ‘52, there was the drill sergeant and there stood his team.
“Eyes front! Head up! Chin in! Chest out! Stomach sucked! Shoulders back, dammit, back!”
Rustle, whisper, murmur, scratch, silence.
And the drill sergeant walking forward, dressed in bathing trunks by the edge of that pool to fix his cold bluewater gaze on his company, his squad, his team, his—
Son.
A boy of nine or ten, standing stiffly upright, staring arrow-straight ahead at military nothings, shoulders starched, as his father paced, circling him, barking commands, leaning in at him, mouth crisply enunciating the words. Both father and son were dressed in bathing togs and, a moment before, had been cleaning the pool area, arranging towels, sweeping with brooms. But now, just before noon:
“Company! By the numbers! One, two!”
‘Three, four!” cried the boy.
“One, two!” shouted the father.
“Three, four!”
“Company halt, shoulder arms, present arms, tuck that chin, square those toes, hup!”
The memory came and went like a badly projected film in an old rerun cinema. Where had it come from, and why?
I was on a train heading north from Los Angeles to San Francisco. I was in the bar-car, alone, late at night, save for the bar man and a young-old stranger who sat directly across from me, drinking his second martini.
The old memory had come from him.
Nine feet away, his hair, his face, his startled blue and wounded eyes had suddenly cut the time stream and sent me back.
In and out of focus, I was on the train, then beside that pool, watching the hurt bright gaze of this man across the aisle, hearing his father thirty years lost, and watching the son, five thousand afternoons ago, wheeling and pivoting, turning and freezing, presenting imaginary arms, shouldering imaginary rifles.
“Tenshun!!” barked the father.
“Shun!” echoed the son.
“My God,” whispered Sid, my best friend, lying beside me in the hot noon light, staring.
“My God, indeed,” I muttered.
“How long has this been going on?”
“Years, maybe. Looks that way. Years.”
“Hut, two!”
“Three, four!”
A church clock nearby struck noon; time to open the pool liquor bar. “Company... harch!”
A parade of two, the man and boy strode across the tiles toward the half-locked gates on the open-air bar.
“Company, halt Ready! Free locks! Hut!”
The boy snapped the locks wide.
“Hut!”
The boy flung the gate aside, jumped back, stiffened, waiting.
“Bout face, forward, harch!”
When the boy had almost reached the rim of the pool and was about to fall in, the father, with the wryest of smiles, called quietly: “Company—halt!”
The son teetered on the edge of the pool.
“God damn,” whispered Sid.
The father left his son standing there skeleton stiff and flagpole erect, and went away. Sid jumped up suddenly, staring at this. “Sit down,” I said. “Christ, is he going to leave the kid just waiting there?!”
“Sit down, Sid.”
“Well, for God’s sake, that’s inhuman!”
“He’s not your son, Sid,” I said, quietly. “You want to start a real fight?”
“Yeah!” said Sid. “Dammit!”
“It wouldn’t do any good.”
“Yes, it would. I’d like to beat hell—”
“Look at the boy’s face, Sid.”
Sid looked and began to slump.
The son, standing there in the burning glare of sun and water, was proud. The way he held his head, the way his eyes took fire, the way his naked shoulders carried the burden of goad or instruction, was all pride.
It was the logic of that pride which finally caved Sid in. Weighted with some small despair, he sank back down to his knees.
“Are we going to have to sit here all afternoon, and watch this dumb game of—” Sid’s voice rose in spite of himself “—Simon Says?!”
The fattier heard. In the midst of stacking towels on the far side of the pool, he froze. The muscles on his back played like a pinball machine, making sums. Then he turned smartly, veered past his son who still stood balanced a half inch from the pool’s rim, gave him a glance, nodded with intense, scowling approval, and came to cast his iron shadow over Sid and myself.
“I will thank you, sir,” he said, quietly, “to keep your voice down, to not confuse my son—”
“I’ll say any damn thing I want,” Sid started to get up.
“No, sir, you will not” The man pointed his nose at Sid; it might just as well have been a gun. “This is my pool, my turf, I have an agreement with the hotel, then-territory stops out there by the gate. If I’m to run a dean, tucked-in shop, it is to be with total authority. Any dissidents—out. Bodily. On the gymnasium wall inside you’ll find my jujitsu black belt, boxing, and rifle-marksman certificates. If you try to shake my hand, I will break your wrist. If you sneeze, I will crack your nose. One word and your dental surgeon will need two years to reshape your smile. Company, tenshun!”
The words all flowed together.
His son stiffened at the rim of the pool.
“Forty laps! Hut!”
“Hut!” cried the boy, and leaped.
His body striking the water and his beginning to swim furiously stopped Sid from any further outrage. Sid shut his eyes. The father smiled at Sid, and turned to watch the boy churning the summer waters to a foam.
There’s everything I never was,” he said. “Gentlemen.”
He gave us a curt nod and stalked away.
Sid could only run and jump in the pool. He did twenty laps himself. Most of the time, the boy beat him. When Sid came out, the blaze was gone from his face and he threw himself down.
“Christ,” he muttered, his face buried in his towel, “someday that boy must haul off and murder that son of a bitch!”
“As a Hemin
gway character once said,” I replied, watching the son finish his 35th lap, “wouldn’t it be nice to think so?”
The final time, the last day I ever saw them, the father was still marching about briskly, emptying ashtrays (no one could empty them the way he could), straightening tables, aligning chairs and lounges in military rows, and arranging fresh white towels on benches in crisp mathematical stacks. Even the way he swabbed the deck was geometrical. In all his marching and going, fixing and re-aligning, only on occasion did he snap his head on, flick a gaze to make sure his squad, his platoon, his company still stood frozen by the hour, a boy like a ramrod guidon, his hair blowing in the summer wind, eyes straight on the late afternoon horizon, mouth damped, chin tucked, shoulders back.
I could not help myself. Sid was long gone. I waited on the balcony of the hotel overlooking the pool, having a final drink, not able to take my gaze off the marching father and the statue son. At dusk, the father double-timed it to the outer gate and almost as an afterthought called over his shoulder:
“Tenshun! Squad right One, two—”
“Three, four!” cried the boy.
The boy strode through the gate, feet clubbing the cement as if he wore boots. He marched off toward the parking lot as his father snap-locked the gate with a robot’s ease, took a fast scan around, raised his stare, saw me, and hesitated. His eyes burned over my face. I felt my shoulders go back, my chin drop, my shoulders flinch. To stop it, I lifted my drink, waved it carelessly at him, and drank.
What will happen, I thought, in the years ahead? Will the son grow up to kill his old man, or beat him up, or just run away to know a ruined life, always marching to some unheard shout of “Hut” or “harch!” but never “at ease!”?
Or, I thought, drinking, would the boy raise sons himself and just yell at them on hot noons by far pools in endless years? Would he one day stick a pistol in his mouth and kill his father the only way he knew how? Or would he marry and have no sons and thus bury all shouts, all drills, all sergeants? Questions, half-answers, more questions.
My glass was empty. The sun had gone, and the father and his son with it.