Reflections On Water (Vol. 4, No. 1) - Prose

He took a deep breath. The scent of wax and smoke was in the hall. He wished he was still in his bathrobe. He didn't get enough coffee this morning because his mother called while he was sitting down to his second cup. She was frazzled, as usual, the voices in her head interrupting his morning ritual (two cups of Starbucks Kenyan and an hour with his journal). What a tragedy, he thought, a burnt out toaster.

Father Nicholas' life was all ritual. He craved the method and regularity, the complete dependability rituals offered. He lit the altar candles with ritual: starting at the far right, lighting one long wooden match for every two candles, he would slowly climb the dark stairs to the pulpit, one long match to light the two larger candles on either side of the pulpit, reverse ritual descending the stairs, and one long match to light all seven smaller candles to illuminate the tabernacle. He did this at the beginning of the day, when everything was still dark, before the electric lights were turned on. He tied his basketball sneakers with ritual: sitting at the end of the second bench in the locker room, he would loosen all the laced criss-crosses before slipping his feet in the shoes, tighten them one by one for snugness, and slowly cross the laces over each other to tie a perfect double bow. He drank his coffee with ritual: using two rounded scoops from his soup spoon, he would put the grounds in the filter, fill the back of the coffee-maker with water from his travel mug; when the coffee was done brewing he would hold the glass pot up to the kitchen window, facing the church parking lot, to make sure he couldn't see through it, take the pottery mug his mother gave him off its hook and fill it, sit down at the table and breathe in its aroma for about three minutes while free writing in his journal; he would repeat the ritual over a second cup. Father Nicholas depended on these rituals. He understood this about himself, and knew that the cause was his childhood disturbances.

His mother had always been manipulative and crazy. As a result of this, their food and clothing had always come to them for free. She was also competitive: if he had a nightmare about a monster with two heads and red eyes, she had a nightmare about an atomic bomb that killed everyone on earth. She was nearly forty when he was born, and he was twenty-five now. He knew he had his mother's Roman nose and her father's dark eyes and heavy eyebrows, but he was taller than any of his relatives, and didn't share in their enthusiasm for all things Scottish. He didn't share their morbid sense of humor, and he didn't even like shortbread.

"Father Nicholas," he was snapped back from his driftings by Father Patrick. At least twenty years older than Father Nicholas, with no other advantage, he lorded it over him. "Father Nicholas, it's eleven o'clock."

Father Nicholas nodded and entered the confessional. He locked the door behind himself.

"Forgive me Father for I have sinned." Someone was on the other side already. Father Nicholas sat down.

"God hears all and knows all and forgives all, so speak child, that you may be forgiven," he said.

"Uh, uh, I don't know where to begin. I haven't done this in a long time." It was a man on the other side, nervous, his voice touching the alto range, middle aged. He was an American, Father Nicholas discerned, from his slight drawl.

"Begin, my child, where you last left off." The chair groaned under Father Nicholas as he settled back into its leather padding. This was going to be a long haul; this man had already betrayed himself as the kind that plows through his life with impunity, and then one day feels a lump or pees blood or has unexpected chest pain and decides it's time to be right with God. They come to confession and tell the Father their sins, trying to get the guilt off their chests in the hope that it will stop the chest pain.

"Where I left off? My Lord, that's a while ago. OK. I guess I can do that." He was silent for a moment, thinking where to begin. Father Nicholas slumped in the chair and closed his eyes. He could fall asleep.

"OK, OK, I know. The last time I confessed I was fifteen, just before I left off living with my mother in Sacramento. I was a greasy, stringy haired car thief already." He was laughing in remembrance. Did he forget he was in a confessional? He stopped abruptly as if reading Father Nicholas' mind. "Yeah, I was in some trouble over that, so my mother sent me up here to Vancouver to live with her sister. I didn't go to church after that ‘cause I used to go with our maid, Rosa. She was a strict Catholic, made me go with her every Sunday when I was little, but when I got older I just went with her. Guess I liked it. Anyway, my mother thought Vancouver was still a primitive society, thought there were no modern amenities so it would be safe for a car thief like me. Man, I was terrified. But when I got here, saw this beautiful city, here without no parents, man, I was overjoyed!" He was laughing again. Jolly enough man, thought Father Nicholas.

"Continue, my child," he said. He didn't want it to drag on too long.

"Yeah, Vancouver was alright. Spent two years with my aunt and her Asian husband relatively free from trouble. The odd fisty-cuff, but nothin' too serious. Then one day coming out of The Fortune Palace Restaurant, I saw this car. I saw lots of cars, but this was a car above cars. I tried to hot wire that black-beauty. It was a grey, drizzly day, and that car just stood right out, all shiny new in the restaurant parking lot. It was a Mercedes." He paused in reverence. "Turned out to be the private, and legally acquired property of the leader of The Korean Youth Mafia. His dad was the leader of the Vancouver Korean Mafia. He was pissed, to say the least."

"God forgives you," even if the Mafia does not, thought Father Nicholas.

"Thank you Father. So I left Vancouver, real fast. It wasn't cool, but it was my own fault. I hitched a ride to Hope. I found this guy sleeping in an old, dusky coffee shop, his Greyhound ticket layin', for all to see, on the table in front of him . . ."

Father Nicholas listened absently. Why was it important for this man to be telling him his story? Confession is supposed to be easy: "I stole a car when I was fifteen. Will God forgive me?" "God forgives you." "I bought some beer when I was seventeen. Will God forgive me?" "God forgives you." "I lied on my resume. Will God forgive me?" "God forgives you." He stretched his eye muscles in a conscious effort to pay more attention to the man. He may, at some point, ask for God's forgiveness.

" . . . thought my gig was up at that point. But the driver didn't turn me in, just turned me away. Thank God. I could have been in jail right then."

"God forgives you." Father Nicholas decided he needed a little help in knowing what he needed forgiveness for.

"Thank you Father. OK, so they kicked me off the bus and I started hitching again. Great fun. I had made it to Clinton on the Greyhound, before they caught me. Hey, ever been there? Dry, powdery landscape. Even the snow there looks dry as dust. John Wayne's kinda' place," he said, and paused in contemplation. "I didn't think I had much further to go. I was trying for Alberta because I knew it was a different state, I mean, province, of course, and even though I had no idea what kind of place it was, I knew I was on the right track."

"God will guide us on any path, if we trust Him," said Father Nicholas.

The man seemed to consider this. His voice had lost its nervous tremble.

"I got dropped off in this little spit of a town, 100 Mile House it was called. I walked into this co-op, it was one of those burnout hippie co-ops where they sold candles and mittens and pipes and shit. Oh! I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"

"It's alright. God forgives you. Please continue." Father Nicholas smiled to himself. This man's story was interesting.

"Thank you Father. So these co-ops were the last hippie hold outs in the early 1980's. I thought that would be the best place to score some weed. Oh yeah, I used to smoke weed."

"God forgives you."

"Thank you Father. This lady there, she had some, so I went back to her place and we smoked up and I ended up staying, you know, free love and all."

"God forgives you."

"Thank you Father. She was older, a cougar, mrrow, heh heh. Um, yeah, so I stayed with her for quite some time. She made a living making and selling candles at the co-op. I helped her out. It was a life. But 100 Mile seemed strange to me. Some of them hippies called it a vortex." When he said this, the man let out a deep throated laugh that ended in a short coughing fit. "Maybe she was a witch."

Something the man said made Father Nicholas uncomfortable. He had only been to 100 Mile House once that he remembered. It didn't seem like a vortex to him. Just a cowboy, redneck town. Just like any other 4x4 truck dominated, logging supported, Cariboo-Chilcotin town.

"100 Mile House," the man said slowly. He paused. "I got her pregnant. Crazy old hippie. I said I'd stay but . . . you know . . . it just wasn't comfortable."

The screen divided them. Silence divided them. Their palms were sweaty.

"Father," the man said. "Ya' still there?"

"Yes my child, please continue," he said thinly. He felt very far away from the confessional.

"OK, so I hitched to Alberta as soon as she started to show. I got the feeling that, well, I might be a little oversensitive, but, I think, you know what Father?" he asked abruptly.

No, thought Father Nicholas, but I'm sure you'll tell me.

"I got the feeling that maybe she was ashamed of me, of me being the father of that baby. Don't know how she could have been though, crazy hippie that she was. It took me three days to hitch to Alberta, and that was three days too long, if you know what I mean . . . uh . . . I guess you don't, but anyway, so I hitched to this place called Canmore, where I met this old guy named Mike at a bar. He was wearing one of them red and black plaid logger shirts. Don't know why I remember that, but it really sticks out in my mind. He had really bad teeth, too. He was talkin' about how poor he was, and how he wished he could ‘really break the bank' instead of it breaking him. So, I guess ‘cause I was a little depressed, I suggested we do just that. So then we robbed a bank."

Father Nicholas sat as motionless as a stone in bedrock. He had never been more thankful for the screen in his life.

"Dumbest thing I ever did. Well, that, and the next three banks we robbed," the man said, ending with a nervous laugh. It didn't break the tension.

"Ask God to forgive you." Father Nicholas caught the man off-guard. He'd been spoon feeding him forgiveness. He hadn't given the man his full attention. What was this man telling him?
Not knowing what else to do, the man hurried on: "Yeah so then we were on the run running from town to town in stolen cars until we crossed the border and there was this monument I'm not sure what but it was the place to stash the cash which we did, and kept running all the way to California to my mom's place, ‘cause she's a lawyer and could protect us."

Stash the cash? I wonder which monument, thought Father Nicholas. "Ask God to forgive you," he said.

"Hey Priest," the man replied. "You're soundin' pretty nervous. Aren't you supposed to be all objective and shit?"

"Ask God to forgive you." Father Nicholas knew he said that last word just to shock him. Father Nicholas was not only the youngest priest in the parish, but he was also a certified counselor and elementary school teacher. Nothing shocked him.

"Ask God to forgive me," the man repeated. "I guess that is what confession is for isn't it? Asking forgiveness? Well I've paid for my wrongs. I have. I did time way back when. My mom couldn't get me entirely off the hook. I did eight months."

"God's ways are not our ways. Some wrongs he makes us answer for here on Earth, and others, in the after-life," said Father Nicholas. He wanted this to end. The confessional was getting very humid and he was sticking to the chair.

"Like that woman and our child. I bet they got along alright, though. There were an awful lot of hippies around those parts," said the man.

"100 Mile House?" asked Father Nicholas.

"Yeah, I mean 100 Mile," said the man, a little surprised at the priest's question. "Time's a little slower up there. The hippy era ended everywhere else in the 1970's. Hung on up there ‘till the mid 1980's. What's the year now? 2010? Wow, it's been . . . more than twenty years since I was there." Everything was still and silent for a moment, and then the light bulb overhead buzzed with an energy surge. "So I guess there's a lot of stuff I could confess since the bank robberies. No one's ever found our stash, as far as I know. I hope some old poor person found it and never reported it. Something's gotta' come to some good, I guess. Really, though, what I came here to confess was that last week I slept with a client's wife. I'm a traveling salesman, you know, a dying breed. They'll never see me again. I think that's why she did it. She was just a bored soul, like me. A bored soul. We do stupid things, don't we, when we're bored? I've also embezzled a small amount of money from my suppliers. I know that's not a big deal, but I figure God would want to know about it, don't you?" the man asked, sounding very lost and naïve.

"God forgives you," said Father Nicholas.

"Thank you Father. And I guess that just about sums it up," he said, as he clapped his hands and the chair creaked as he moved forward to get up. Then he stopped: "I do feel bad about that woman and my child. I didn't want to leave, really. That woman though. Crazy sort of woman. Something as silly as a burnt out toaster could send her right over the edge. I swear she heard voices sometimes," he laughed a sentimental laugh. "I do wonder about that child, whether it was a boy or girl, if they turned out better than their odd-ball folks. I suppose that was the worst sin I committed, leavin' them."

There was a long pause.

"I was born in 100 Mile." Father Nicholas wasn't sure what he was doing. He couldn't control his own tongue.

"Really? Good for you. To get outta' there, I mean. No offense if you like it, but that place brought me the worst kind of trouble."

Father Nicholas didn't know what to do. He wanted to ask more questions, but that wasn't a part of the general ritual.

"Well Father? Is that all? Does God forgive me?" the man asked. He was ready to leave.

The question hung in the air for a full minute before Father Nicholas replied.

"God forgives you," he said.

"Thank you Father," said the man, and he left.