Page 130 - What They Did to the Kid

118 Jack Fritscher

Mike was frighten ing me. He was no longer a safe seminarian.
He had a Barbara. He knew what his girl looked like.
“You know,” he said, “with purity everybody’s got trouble. Alone
or with others. Like Barbara. At the beach. When I was a lifeguard.”
“Your pastor spoke too late.”
“Thanks like a bunch.”
I wanted to ward him away from me. My vocation was too
important.
“Barbara’s a good person.” He was focused on confessing. “I
think the world of her, though I’ll never quit because of a girl. She’s
only a small part of the picture. In July she told me, after we’d parked
at the Point a few times, she thought she was pregnant.”
“Fub!”
“I never went all the way with her. She admitted it was someone
else’s. Ryan, I prayed that night for her like I’ve never prayed for
anyone before. She went to the doctor and he said her tubes were
clogged.”
What had to be the last barrage of rockets and flares popped and
exploded over the rooftops.
I was trying to be matter-of-fact. But I wanted to laugh. I had to
control myself. After Ordination, I could not laugh in the Confes-
sional at the comedy of it all, because sin could send sinners to burn
forever in hell. No sense of humor could change that.
During Mike’s Confession, I had been afraid he’d seduce me
to sin by example, by teaching me a tempting thing or two. But
“tubes”? I vowed that after Ordination, hearing Confession for real,
I’d not allow so many details.
“The doctor gave her some treatment and that was that. I don’t
know if she was never pregnant or if it was my prayers. At any rate,
this mess adds to my terrible certainty that I don’t belong in the
priesthood. Doc and Julia have got me nearly to the edge. They want
me to go back to Misery and talk to Karg and Gunn and maybe
Polistina. So I’ll know my own mind—which I’m nearly out of.”
“Mike, what can I say? In a million years, I wouldn’t know any-
body’s mind. Even my own. I can’t push you either way. Why not at
least finish your last year of college at Misery?” I couldn’t lose him
and Dick Dempsey the same September. “At least try it.”

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