1. Midnight Confessional at the Blessed Virgin Mary
Enter Father O’lrick, heading south toward the convent. Just out of the seminary, and prone to fits of
unbridled lasciviousness. He’s intercepted by Bishop McDonald as he attempts to cross the chapel.
“It’s a little late to be discussing theological matters wouldn’t you say Father O’lrick. I believe
Sister Andrews has already put out her light for the evening. I’ve noticed you two spending a lot of time
together of late,” the bishop said.
“Oh, Bishop McDonald. What an honor. I . . . I didn’t expect to see you here, not at this time of
night. I just stepped out to see what the commotion was about. Here it is the middle of the night, and it
sounds like mass is going on out here.”
“It’s midnight confessional. Father Watson’s idea. His target audience is the white collar sinner.
School board members, city councilmen, bank presidents, all men prone to sanctimony, and none of them
likely to subject themselves to our Lord’s purging power. At least, not during the day. Too much is at stake.
Fine reputations in the community to maintain. But by the cover of night, they’ve simply been flooding in
by the hundreds. Our confessional quotas have gone through the roof. At this rate they may name Blessed
Virgin Mary parish of the year. Look at my excitement! Do you see it in my face? You’d think it was my
first communion. Look, here comes one now.”
The door shut hard behind Chet Adams, enveloping him in the quiet dark. It had been nearly 15
years since he had visited the church, since the funeral. It was the parish of his boyhood, where he had
played in the courtyard and taken catechism. He inched toward the center of the great chapel. With eyes
closed, he faded back to the cold marble floors of youth, his heel clicked loudly as he advanced, the sound
bouncing off the hallow walls. He could almost see the massive Christus statue crested behind the pulpit at
the head of the chapel. Hundreds of tiny plaster children surrounding him, reaching for his outstretched
hands, smiling and laughing. He had always prayed that God would make him one of those little children
laughing and playing with Jesus all day in the chapel, hearing choirs sing and seeing miracles. Remembering
the innocence of his simple boyhood prayer brought a smile to Chet Adams’ face. A fleeting smile that had
been seldom seen since it happened. A glint of happiness long since replaced by bitterness and anger, and
the profound wrenching hatred of envy and pride that suffocates the soul and gnarls the man. His eyes
opened to a gloomier view, a darkened chapel, different in every dimension from the cheery refuge of his
memory. From tile to pillar the temple of God had been allowed to fall into decay. Powder from the flaking
plaster of walls and statues dusted the floor. Whole statues had been removed, others were scarcely
recognizable. Figures were distorted and crumbling. An arm laid here, ears and wrists there. Ghoulish
deranged faces gazed down from above. The children who not long ago had seemed so spirited and free now
seemed to scowl at Chet Adams. They huddled around the Christus, inching towards him like goblins
around their dark lord. His hands that were once outstretched in divine charity now pointed menacingly,
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2. mocking and condemning all who ventured near. The children huddled behind Jesus like tiny minions,
waiting to hail down on the sinners that came to confess their vile transgressions.
The chapel was so dark. He originally thought it better that way but now he wasn’t sure. His eyes
just didn’t seem to be adjusting. From the moment he had entered Chet Adams was aware of a slight noise
that seemed to trail off into the night and wander back again. As he approached the Christus, the ephemeral
sound became more distinct. It was as if the concourse of deranged children with their scowling faces were
trying to whisper something to him. A small boy with one bright eye peered down. His mouth was gaping
open and half of his head was resting in the lap of an armless girl at his right. The moon’s blue light from
stained glass flooded the statues, combining with the eerie fleeting silhouettes of candlelight. Shadows
flickered across the goblin children’s faces revealing their tiny fangs. In the candlelight Chet Adams could
tell; they were all moving. The half-headed boy’s mouth grew larger and larger yelling and moaning at him.
Then, all at once, the mass of statues seemed to seethe and rise. Frowning, angry children wailing and
pointing at Chet Adams. Then the children parted, and a boy of 15 or 16 immerged, standing by the
Christus. He was a figure Chet Adams loathed. He shook violently at the sight of him, covering his face
with trembling arms. The boy lifted a pale hand, pointing at Chet Adams and screamed with the goblins in
fiendish unison, LEAVE! Chet Adams stumbled over a pew, trying to find the door.
“Hey buddy, could you keep it down?”
“What?” Chet Adams was back in the chapel, the statues were playing dead, the screaming gone.
“I’m trying to finish my Hail Mary’s here. Uncle Guido’s getting a new hip tomorrow and call me
crazy but I’d like God to be with him. ”
A man with a thick New England accent in a knit cap was holding white rosary beads on the back
row. People tossing rosary beads from one hand to the other dotted the chapel, whisperings of the Lord’s
prayer bounced off every wall. Chet Adams, entranced, had wandered halfway down the isle, directly
beneath the Christus statue. Chet stood there, hands outstretched, seemingly protecting his face, quivering
like a leper. This was a mistake. He apologized to Guido’s nephew and made for the door, but not before
his eyes lit upon a light coming from the far southwest corner of the chapel. The confession booth. It wasn’t
always there. It used to be up front, on the left, by the pulpit. The light came from a neon sign that said
“OPEN,” the type you’d expect to see at Lloyd’s Liquor Barn, not inside the Blessed Virgin Mary. The
newness of the sign framed by the decrepit church, although out of place, seemed inviting and comfortable.
Chet Adams was drawn to its glowing neon warmth and familiarity. Inching closer, he read the sign aloud,
“OPEN” and then below, “Confession Booth One. Come On In Here!”
The booth was uncomfortably small for Chet Adams’ 6’4” frame. With the door closed and his back
flush against the booth’s hard wood wall his knees grazed the door. The booth’s interior was pitch black. If
his knees didn’t constantly remind him of the proximity of the door he might very well have guessed that his
lips were grazing it with every word. A twinge of fear began to flood over Chet Adams. He had never been
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3. claustrophobic and due to his size he had often been forced to fit into tight spaces, but in this environment
void of space and distance panic began to consume him, tingling over his finger tips and bursting into sweat
on his forehead. The darkness flooded in, and it strangled like a rope.
“Be still my child, I hear you.” A voice called from outside the booth, the priest. It was gentle and
calming. He pulled himself together and felt around the booth. It really wasn’t that small, like any other
confessional booth really. Except—it seemed almost impossibly tall. He did his best to stand. Reaching his
hands straight up in the air, he still found no ceiling to the booth. It might reach straight to heaven, so God
could listen in. Metal on metal sounded, keys rattled. Noises of a man settling next to him. Then the
piercing feedback of a microphone being switched on, audibly connecting the two booths.
“Sorry that I kept you waiting, even men of the cloth have to throw their water. So tell me, what’s
on your mind.” The priest had a young voice, not older than Chet Adams’. He seemed jovial, even at this
late hour and Chet seemed to recognize something soothing in him from long ago, something that sounded
pure and comfortable, like what life should have been like, if things had gone better. Chet Adams said
nothing.
“Well, I’m sure you have something to say. People don’t come in here at one in the morning
because they’re trying to get a good seat for mass.” At this the young priest laughed heartily. “I’m so sorry
that I go on like this. Every night at about one I start getting a little giddy.”
“That’s fine,” Chet Adams mumbled. “It’s good to hear laughter for a change.” The priest became
serious, remembering that he was on the job.
“I take it laughter has come hard for you lately, my son” the priest said.
“I guess so. I don’t know.” Chet Adams suddenly felt very foolish. He’d become so used to
barking orders and being feared and yes, he would admit it, loathed by everyone around him. He felt
ridiculous in the dark booth, subjugating himself to a priest, younger than himself. “Listen, this is all a big
mistake I shouldn’t have come tonight, I’ll see you for services tomorrow father.” He reached for the handle.
“Wait,” the priest shrieked like he was losing a kidney, not a confessional and it startled Chet
Adams. He pulled his hand back and sat on it.
“I’m going to level with you Okay” the priest said without a hint of clergy in his voice. “This is my
first week out of the seminary and I’ve kinda been assigned to this parish on probation, you see what I
mean?”
Chet Adams had regained his controlling posture that struck fear in all who knew him. “No,” deep
and strong.
“Well, what I’m saying is that if you walk out on this confessional it won’t look good for me. There
were stories about a guy fresh out of the seminary that had a bunch of confessional walk outs during his first
week. They assigned him to a small parish in Mongolia. No running water or electricity. I can’t let that
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4. happen to me. I went to a Mongolian grill once back in the seminary. I spent all of lent in the can. You
can’t walk out on me, especially considering my qualifications.”
“What qualifications?”
“I did my dissertation on confessionals. I called it Stepping Outside the Box—Applied
Psychoanalysis of Male Crime Confession in Paroquial Settings. It won a lot of people over in the Bible
Belt. What I mean to say is that I’m a really good listener, everyone tells me so. If you have anything you
really need to tell someone, I guarantee you won’t find a better guy than me.”
Chet Adams thought he sounded pleading and pathetic, like all the sniveling interns at work that
sucked up to his face and talked bad about him behind his back. But there was something about this young
priest, something familiar. In some strange way, he felt obligated to him—invested somehow. “Well I guess
I’m not much different from the rest of the corporate guys you probably get this time of night.”
“How so?” the priest said.
“Well. To start with, I grew up here. I once had a lot of ties to this town. But I went off in search of
the golden chalice like everybody else. I guess I found it. I climbed the ranks of Huntington’s pretty
quickly. When I saw the district president position come up here, I jumped at the chance. I wanted to come
back home successful, try and re-connect with those happy childhood days. I was willing to do anything to
get that position.”
“What do you mean anything?”
“Well I guess that’s where I should have started. I’m a competitive person. Some call it pride. I get
what I want. I can’t lose. I just won’t ever let it happen. Since I was a little boy I’ve done whatever it takes
to achieve. Sometimes ‘whatever it takes’ has taken me down some dark roads.”
“What kind of roads?”
“Let’s just say I could have been the perfect case study for your dissertation. Like the position here
for example. I saw it, I wanted it, and I did what it took to get it. My wife and I had just had our second son
and my time was really short. I hadn’t had time to think of the kind of dynamic proposal to cut spending and
save Huntington’s an arm and a leg like I usually would have done, so I had to pull some strings. The firm I
headed up had just hired some hotshot right out of Harvard. I put him to work on the proposal. He came up
with some software that has revolutionized Huntington’s. The day he submitted it to me for approval I fired
him and made the presentation myself. A week later I bought the Wilson mansion just up the street from
here. Pretty vile huh?” There was a long silence. He decided that the priest was either in shock or asleep.
“Hey, if I’m going to confess the least you could do is stay awake.” He beat hard on the booth’s wall that
separated them.
“I’m sorry, I was writing that down. Please proceed.”
“Why are you writing that down, are you going to report me to the Better Business Bureau? I didn’t
do anything illegal.”
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5. “Oh, no, nothing like that. I was writing it down for me. I’m studying how to succeed. You seem to
be very successful. I want to be a bishop one day or maybe a cardinal. I’m learning that taking advantage of
your subordinates is a key element of success. I commend you for having learned it so quickly in your
career. I hope to one day master it myself.”
“You commend me? For firing my best employee and stealing his idea. You are a strange priest.”
“My child. We both know how the world works. Take the Pope for example. You don’t think he
got to the Vatican by “sanctification of the holy spirit and divine inspiration from the great redeemer” and all
that garbage, do you? Believe me; he’s stepped on his share of throats on the road to that golden throne.”
Chet Adams, taken aback, stammered into the microphone. The priest continued. “I don’t want to
destroy your faith, just open your eyes, help you perceive a little more. This life is all about perception. At
your job, you perceived what needed to be done and you took the steps to make it happen. Right and wrong
are in the eyes of the beholder. Who’s to say that the young hot shot hadn’t lied his way through Harvard,
perhaps God was repaying him through you. The point is, you and I both know that if you had the time you
would have came up with something just as good or better than the software idea, but you didn’t have to,
because you were smart enough to get someone else to do the work for you. You recognized how the world
works and used it to your advantage. That’s commendable. I don’t see any sin in being smart.”
No punishment, no reprimand, just sympathy. Pure, honest, heartfelt sympathy and understanding.
Chet Adams wasn’t prepared for this. He tested the water even further. “By mentioning my kids I don’t
want to give you the impression that I’m some “Mr. Dad.” Cuz I’m not. I hardly even know my kids. I
don’t care to know them either. I just figured that I better have some so the wife would have something to
do. I was getting sick of people asking me about it too. As soon as you get married people start nagging you
about it. As if you don’t get enough nagging from the wife. The way I see it marriage is just one eternal
invitation to nagging.” He knew that mentioning family, especially children, had to strike a chord in the
celibate, but he was surprised again by the young priest’s answer.
“You know, I was way ahead of you on that one. Why do you think I joined up with the seminary?
Here I am surrounded by God’s most delicious virgins, all day. I get to look all I want, touch when I can,
and no one expects me to marry a one of them. No matter how far along they get.”
“But I thought that you guys. . .”
“Perception my child. Perception. Outside these walls people look in and perceive holiness and
sanctity and we let them go on believing that. People believe whatever they want. They believe what they
perceive to be true, not what actually is true. Bishop McDonald perceives me to be a model priest, primed to
carry on the fine tradition of the Blessed Virgin Mary after he has gone on to the next dimension. His feeble
perceptions blind him to reality. He doesn’t perceive the 17 year old catechism teacher that comes in every
Wednesday night for confessional, or the booth we both squeeze into.” Chet Adams couldn’t believe what
he was hearing. This priest was like manna from heaven. The Moses of his deliverance. His eyes began to
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6. light up with a rabid fire. A frenzied lunacy had taken hold of him in the dark booth. For fifteen years Chet
Adams had lived a life of darkness and evil. Pride, envy and guilt had dragged him down a filthy life of
destruction. And now, after so many years, he was beginning to see the light of day in a young priest, in the
same town where it all began. Chet Adams felt a new sensation, one he had long since thought he’d
forgotten. Hope; It had begun to chip through some of the dark shell of guilt and evil that he’d hatched
around himself for so long. The shell was already falling, in great big flakes. He liked what was under there.
It was soft and him. The him that used to pray to be locked up with Jesus and the cheery children in the
chapel, singing and playing until sunset. He knew that if forgiveness were to come of a man, if he were to
confess to a man of God and gain understanding from that man, this was his chance.
The young priest sat in solemn understanding while he spewed out the filth that composed his life,
like a glutton at a giant’s feast. The date rapes of adolescence, the babies smashed by his rifle butt in
Vietnam, the countless times his office desk had become an altar of fornication with everyone from his
secretary to his sister-in-law. It all cascaded out like the heavy blackness of oil from a derrick. One
shocking scene after another was met with congratulations and an almost admiring awe from the young
priest. But even after all that had been said, Chet Adams stopped and shuddered at the memory of the only
thing left to tell.
“You stopped. Is there something wrong?”
“It’s just that, I never dreamed that I would actually tell anyone this.”
“That was probably before you met a priest like me.”
“That’s just it. I’d always hoped that I would one day find a priest like you. For a long time, back
when I prayed, I prayed for it every night. I prayed that I would one day find someone that would
understand, someone that I could bare to tell. I think the idea of meeting you is what has kept me breathing
all these years, when so many times I just wanted to stop. You don’t know what it’s like to live with this
guilt hanging over you all your life. It follows wherever I go. I go on vacation, it comes with me, I stop to
tie my shoe, and it’s right there. You know, just before I came into this booth I thought I had totally lost it.
For weeks I’d been hearing and seeing things. The statues were yelling and pointing at me. But now . . . you
don’t know the relief. I feel like an anchor was dragging me down and drowning me a little bit each day, and
now it’s gone.”
“That’s my purpose. That’s why I took this job. People shouldn’t have to drag this stuff around
with them.”
“But there’s something else. Something important. It’s the reason . . .well . . . it created all the rest.
It’s why I’m here in this booth talking to you tonight.”
“I’ve been waiting for this. In my dissertation I call it the fulcrum, the turning point that changes a
man from innocence to debauchery. We all have one. Let me guess, she was wearing one of those little
catholic school girl uniforms. That’s what got me.”
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7. “No. It was a he.”
“That’s become a common pitfall of our day as well.”
“No, it wasn’t like that.” Chet Adams’ voice was different, the harsh cruelty was gone. With this
final confession his transformation would be complete, the shell, all but chipped away. Now, there was
melancholy in his tone, as if he were telling the story from a great distance. “He was my best friend, Jeff
Watson. Growing up, we spent every waking moment together. We were the terror of the neighborhood.
We broke windows, stole cars, chased girls, but Jeff was too good to get caught. He had the whole world
thinking that he was an angel sent from heaven. Things went great for a while, but before long something
broke inside of me. I started getting sick of being Jeff’s dopey little sidekick. No one knew that I was the
one who came up with most of the stunts we pulled, or that it was me that talked us out of trouble half the
time. He just flashed his Jeffrey Watson smile and the whole world bent over backward for him. All the
priests patted him on the head and all the girls met him behind the bleachers. I couldn’t stand being second
best anymore. It got pretty crazy for a while there. Just being around him made me nearly lose control; I
still pretended to be his friend, laughed and smiled and pushed him into the limelight where he wanted to be
and where everyone thought good old Jeff Watson deserved to be, but my hate for him steadily grew.
Thoughts of wiping that silly little smile off his face began to constantly occupy my days and propel my
every thought. I became jumpy and quiet, especially around Jeff. My eyes couldn’t fix on anything and I
never slept. I watched his house with my telescope three streets down. I memorized his every move and
mannerism. I knew his schedule and his family’s schedule. Then one night, unexpectedly, it all fell into
place.
“We had gone to a party. I got invited to all the parties through Jeff. He had had way too much, and
had passed out on the couch. My little brother Carl was there. It was getting late and we had to start
thinking about getting Jeff home. I tried to wake Jeff, but he was too far gone. Jeff got like that when he
was drunk. He seemed to just slip into a sleep that left him in a different dimension. When he woke up, he
never remembered anything. Carl helped me load him into the car, and carry him up to his room once we got
him home. Jeff’s parents were out of town, and his kid brother was asleep, so we just barged through the
door and right up to his room. Jeff slept in the guest bedroom. It was connected to a small bathroom on the
east wall. We had laid him down on the bed that sat beneath the only window that broke up the monotony of
the four cinder walls that enclosed his dungeon of a room. An ancient natural gas heater jutted out from the
west wall, it rattled and seemed to vibrate the whole room. Carl had decided to drain some of his beer in
Jeff’s bathroom and I moved to examine the south wall, the trophies. The whole cabinet was all Jeff.
Basketball, football, track, tennis, karate, golf, academic bowl, debate, he even had a tall gold trophy of a
man arching back, ready to lance a bowling ball down some imaginary lane. I didn’t even know Jeff bowled.
The heater shook the cabinet, and the trophies glistened under the light. They rattled and moved on the glass
shelves. I stared hard at the shiny gold trophies, the heater moved them at first, but then, staring even harder,
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8. they started moving on their own. First a little soccer man inched forward, then a football helmet, then . . .
they all bounced and moved together. Little whispers first, little movements, but soon they were all laughing
and dancing in a glistening gold jubilee, singing and hailing—“Jeff, our master, our king.” They lined up
and cheered Jeff in a trophy parade, shouting great hurrahs, bands blaring and little trophy confetti flying. It
was deafening—maddening. They thundered deep and loud in my head “Jeff, Jeff, Jeff.” I had to shut them
up.”
“How’d you shut them up Chet?”
Chet Adams didn’t hear the priest’s question. He was far away, back in that little guest room, where
tiny trophies had driven him over the edge. “Carl came out of the bathroom and I told him to wait in the car,
while I used it. The minute he left the room I erupted into frenzied action. I yanked Jeff’s arm up and
grasped his limp hand around the window and pulled it snug. Then I slid the bed across the tile floor over to
the vibrating heater. I closed his fist around the hose that fed the natural gas into the blower. Grasping my
hand around his, I pulled hard and the hose snapped free. I slid the bed back into place. I grabbed a towel
from the bathroom and used it to wipe the prints off everything. I closed the door with the towel and from
outside his room I pushed it all the way through in the space between the door and the floorboard. Then I
grabbed the corners, and plugged up the space with the towel. The room was air tight, but even from outside,
I felt like I could smell the room filling up with the stuff. That smell has stayed with me all this time. It’s
like I can’t lose it. Even now, just talking about it. It’s awful. It comes in and it feels like its burning you up
from the inside out. When I think about that night . . . the smell gets all around me, all over me again.”
“So go on, then what did you do?” The priest’s words were sharp and cold. He spoke fiercely now,
no expression.
“I got in the car, and headed home.” A long silence.
“And the Adams boys slept all snug, while Jeff slowly died in his own bed.”
“I guess so . . .I . . .” Chet Adams trailed off.
“I was just trying to remember the car. It was a Fiat right? A little white four banger wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, how’d you . . .?”
“Oh, I know quite a lot Chet. I know the Fiat was parked on the west side of the house, and that Carl
drove that night. I know the left tail light was out. I meant to tell you that for so long. I know what it was
like trying to live with two parents that blamed themselves every day for their favorite son’s suicide. I know
more than you could ever dream. Like I’ve been trying to tell you, it’s all about perceptions. After the
funeral, people perceived me as a pest, someone that wasn’t Jeff, always getting in the way. I was young,
but I was old enough to know that no-one was going to listen to what a little kid thought he saw getting into a
Fiat in the middle of the night when he should have been in bed. Believe me Chet, I perceived a lot that
night. Now I perceive that you have about two minutes of breathable air left, if you have anything to say,
now is the time.”
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9. One booth over Chet Adams was drowning. He jerked at the booth’s handle, locked. Gas was
filling his lungs and the darkness of the booth was crowding in all around him, vacuuming into his lungs in
great gaping hordes.
Silence—“Oh, so now you shut up. I thought you’d be dying to apologize. Well I guess you haven’t
made as much progress tonight as we thought. That’s Okay, just relax, keep breathing—if you can—and
listen. After the funeral I tried to stay out of the way as much as I could. I got as far away from people as
possible, especially you. I knew Jeff wouldn’t commit suicide, but who could I tell? I plotted in silence and
complete isolation. Every time I heard about you taking Jeff’s place as homecoming king or football hero I
felt the hate bubbling and burning inside. I channeled my anger year after year, honing every faculty,
cultivating every sense. I followed your career very closely and counted on your guilt. When you got on
with Huntington’s I figured you’d eventually end up at the firm here, trying to somehow make amends for
what you did. When I got out of the seminary I checked up on you and found out about your new position
and home at the old Wilson place. So I applied to the Blessed Virgin Mary and got on. It’s all worked out
rather conveniently don’t you think? . . . That’s Okay, you don’t have to answer Chet. Just know that this
day has been a long time in coming. Before you fade off, just let me revel for a while. Years of studying
you and following your every move have all come down to this moment. It has been satisfying. A man in
my position shouldn’t joy in the sins of another, but I must admit it was extremely entertaining. Seeing your
mind work against you the way it did—classic. You, stumbling around in the dark church at midnight
staring at statues and falling all over yourself. You create your own reality my child. I counted on the guilt
to fog your perceptions. You’ve been hoping for so long to tell someone, anyone, that you couldn’t perceive
the danger in the world around you. The way the moment you stepped in the booth you heard what sounded
like a key going into a lock, but you of course were in the house of God. It’s not like the priest just locked
you inside the booth, and plans to kill you. You probably didn’t even notice, or maybe you passed it off as
the priest trying to enter the booth next door. You were so consumed by the tight dark booth that you failed
to look up long enough to notice the faint pin prick of light coming from above. It’s the hole I needed to feed
the gas tube into the booth that delivers the sweet hemlock you’re sampling now.
Father Watson could hear a shuffling of weight in the next booth, Chet Adams was trying to stand.
“Oh, there’s no use trying to reach it. I’ve extended the walls of your tomb. Please sit and let me
continue. Struggling will only make it worse, and I don’t want this to hurt, too much. In reality, gas is a
pretty humane way to go. At first it just kind of burns your throat and nose, but then, when all the booth’s
oxygen is used, and all you have left is sodium cyanide—probably what you’re experiencing right now in
fact—things get more complicated. At this point you may be overcome with violent hallucinations, or
sensations of extreme horror as your mind reaches out for air. Your body will begin to contort and convulse
in brutal thrashings. Your skin will turn purple. Your eyes will bulge; some have been known to explode
entirely from the face. Most feel like they are drowning, or slowly being strangled. Before you lose
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10. consciousness expect sharp jagged pain similar to the bursting anguish of a heart attack. You will begin to
salivate and drool uncontrollably, and you will eventually die of hypoxia, or oxygen deprivation to the brain.
“But rest now. Rest knowing that it was you, yourself, that made it all possible. Your perceptions
fed you lies about the false safety of the world around you. You were blunted by your murderous guilt. You
didn’t even realize that the familiar voice that was so inviting and comforting and sounded so much like
home was actually the voice of your victim’s little brother. The great God of the heavens forgives the sinner
Chet Adams, and his mercies are tender, but here on earth there’s an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,
and families stick together.” ----
“Oh, my! Father Watson, just now emerging from the confession booth? Why it’s 6 a.m.”
“Bishop McDonald, when God’s wayward children call, I must humbly answer, no matter the time
of day or night.”
“Well, I must commend you for your diligence with midnight confessional. I think it’s a splendid
idea. Do you feel that it’s been a success?”
“Oh, I believe so Bishop. This very night, it has more than exceeded my expectations. I feel we are
finally able to bring a resting peace to those who have, in the past, been so unreachable.”
“Well done Father Watson I feel the same way. I know that there simply must be hordes of people
out there drowning in the filthy seas of sin just gasping for the fresh air the gospel brings.”
“Gasping for air . . . I couldn’t have said it better, my lord.”
“Will you join me now in the dining hall? I simply delight in stealing the cereal box prizes before
the seminary students arise. ”
“Presently my lord. I want to clean out the confessional booths before service today. All sorts of
trash gets piled up in them during night confessional. We simply can’t have a bunch of rotting rubbish lying
around in the Lord’s house, can we?”
“Oh Father Watson, you are a fine priest. We are lucky to have you here. If I find a decoder ring,
with the holy one as my witness, you will have the first chance at it.”
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