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%u00a9Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights ReservedHOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS BOOKWhat They Did to the Kid 139all that was left. Making it to Ordination was our work. My goal was to become a worker-priest living in a bare room, praying, helping the poor and the sick and the dying reach peace in this world and heaven in the next.I stood on the edge of Misery%u2019s pond, Lake Gunn, where my crowd hung out, listening to Lock and Mike, not watching them. The Ohio twilight lingered longer in the spring evening. On the smooth mirror of water, Misery%u2019s tower and its lights rocked upside down on the surface, disturbed only by night creatures. The full moon hung low enough to touch twice: once wet, once dry. It washed down the beautiful slate roofs of Misery far up on the hill. Bats, whipping through the air, swooped close to the water%u2019s surface, visible for an instant, then lost in the darkness rising from the pine woods around the small lake. %u201cForgive me, Ryan, for telling what happened,%u201d Mike said. %u201cLock and you.%u201dI laughed. %u201cSomething happened? Nothing ever happens.%u201d Oh, God! I suddenly realized this was one of those awful spontaneous Confessions. %u201cWhat happened?%u201dHis eyes glistened. %u201cYou and Lock,%u201d he said, %u201cwill understand. You said something%u2019s got to happen to you this year, Ry. Well, something happened to me.%u201d%u201cDryden!%u201d Lock said.Mike nodded. %u201cToday for my regular conference%u2014every Thursday I see him%u2014I told him: %u2018It%u2019s the end of the year almost. I want to really talk to you.%u2019 He said, %u2018We have been talking.%u2019 I told him, %u2018You%u2019ve got to help me. No one else is here to help me.%u2019%u201dMike had the Catholic need to confess details I can recall more vividly than a movie, but then the story was told and retold so many times it became a famous scene, an inescapable, probably obligatory scene in the history of Misery.%u201cMichael,%u201d Father Dryden says, %u201cwe%u2019ve worked all year, changing your doubts into, well, an examination of what actually is a vocation to the priesthood. The puzzle is solvable.%u201d%u201cSolvable?%u201d Mike asks. He lights a cigarette.%u201cI think you%u2019re afraid of your feelings.%u201d%u201cYou%u2019d be afraid of them too.%u201d%u201cMichael. Michael. You%u2019re so much unlike everyone else. And so much like me.%u201d