The Wrath of God

by Jim Balzotti

  Matt and his family had lived in Millinocket, which to the summer folk was the jumping-off point to get to Baxter State Park, with its unspoiled beauty and remote wilderness. It offered unparalleled fishing, hunting, camping, hiking, canoeing, and of course the bane of every outdoorsman, thick swarms of black flies and mosquitoes. Most of the tourists—or “flatlanders,” as his father would call them—cleared out long before the first snow fell, which could come as early as October, and then only the hardy residents would remain.

  His parents told him that they had lived in Portland before he was born. By Maine standards, Portland was a big city. When Matt’s mom became pregnant, they agreed not to raise their child there, with its ever-increasing pollution and crime. It was an easy decision to move upcountry, where they were from originally. Matt’s father worked as a CPA in a large firm, but having been raised on a farm himself, he wanted to raise his child in the country, with the sweet smell in the air and the clear, cold, running streams. Where people still knew one another by their first names and cared about their neighbors. When the moon rose in the sky, the stars shined brightly, not having to compete with the big city lights. They sold their house to a couple from Boston, who thought moving to Portland was living in the country. With the proceeds of the sale, his mom and dad bought a forty-acre farm in Millinocket, and had enough money left over to buy a new John Deere tractor. There they raised some chickens and rabbits, had a dairy cow that provided milk that was not only fresh but also had the layer of sweet cream on the top, and made delicious homemade ice cream during the sizzling dog-days of August. They plowed twenty acres and planted rows of corn that was grown organically and thus fetched a pretty price from the people who were concerned with all the chemicals and pesticides now being used so liberally. The husks from the corn went to help feed the cow and the horse they had bought when Matt was born. Nothing went to waste. They believed God provided, but to waste was sinful. Matt’s dad hunted, and every year, in addition to the ducks and rabbits he shot, he would put a deer in the freezer. Entertainment was usually the three of them, Matt and his parents, meeting at the small pond on the property at the end of a day’s work, where Matt’s mom would bring a pitcher of ice-cold, fresh-squeezed lemonade and a batch of homemade cookies. Matt was partial to the peanut butter ones his mom made that still had the impressions of the tines of the fork used to flatten the dough before baking. Before the lemonade was poured or a bite of cookie taken, Matt’s mom or dad would say a quick prayer and thank God for all the blessings bestowed upon them, as well as for the world around them that gave them sustenance and such boundless beauty.

  On Sundays mornings they attended Mass at the local Catholic Church, a weekly event for which almost the whole town turned out. They read the Bible, sang hymns, and heard the Word of the Lord from Father O’Mallory, a large, boisterous red-headed priest with an infectious laugh, who hailed from Ireland. After Mass, they would funnel down into the church basement to socialize over coffee and delicious dessert, depending on whose turn it was to provide the refreshment, and join in a raucous discussion of both the sermon and the local gossip and news in their small town. It was a weekly event that solidified them as a community. Father O’Mallory would listen to all their concerns and try to provide some insight into the teachings of the Bible, or even swap recipes with the ladies. As he watched his parishioners debate, he felt at home with these people, which was essential for him since he had no remaining living relatives and had not been born in this country. These were God-fearing people. Good people with loving and generous hearts.

  Matt remembered back to the spring of 1985, when his dad had suffered a massive, fatal heart attack while on his John Deere tractor plowing the lower corn fields that ran along the creek bed. It was Matt who noticed the tractor moving erratically, with his dad slumped over the wheel, and screamed to his mother for help. She ran down from the front porch where she was reading the latest novel by Stephen King, enjoying the warmth of the morning sun after a particularly long, sunless winter. She reached in and shut off the tractor’s engine and yelled for Matt to run to the kitchen and call 911. By the time he reached it, he could barely see the numbers on the phone through the tears stinging his eyes and streaming down his face. He dialed the number and begged the dispatch operator to please hurry. Then, not knowing what else to do, he sat down on the yellow linoleum kitchen floor that his dad put in that winter. He remembered his mom said the old wooden floors were too dark and she wanted something bright and cheery. While Matt’s dad liked the old hard pine floors better, with their grooves and hand-cut nails, he knew the kitchen was his wife’s domain, so he readily agreed. Besides, he couldn’t deny his wife anything. Ever since he’d met her at the high school barn dance just miles from where they lived now, he was smitten. She was the prettiest girl he had ever laid eyes on.

  By the time the ambulance came, Matt’s mom had taken her husband down off the tractor and was holding his head in her lap. She wept quietly as she lovingly stroked his hair. The paramedics checked his vitals and it was obvious he had passed, but they still had to wait until she finally was ready to release her husband from her arms some moments later, knowing she was holding him for the very last time.

  The wake was held two days later at the local funeral home, the only funeral parlor in town. It was so small the townspeople joked about what would happen if two people died at the same time. Howard, the funeral director, was a stately, somber gentleman, perfectly suited for his profession, born in this very town many years past. When Matt’s mom came in to make arrangements, he showed her to an aged Windsor chair that was stained with the memories and tears of the many grieving people who came before her. He offered her a cup of tea, which she gratefully accepted. Producing a thick leather binder, they went over the various prices of the services offered, the different styles and costs of the caskets, and where her husband would be finally laid to rest.

  She chose a simple hard pine wooden casket with a white satin lining and a solitary cross carved on the top. She believed it was the one that best reflected both his life and simple servitude to God. There would not be any expense of flowers, as a dozen or more beautiful bouquets already had arrived. While she did appreciate those, she asked Howard to tell anyone who asked further about sending flowers to please make a donation to the poor box instead.

  She buried her husband in the family plot in the town cemetery, which he had wisely bought for them when they first moved to town. They had already purchased the headstones for each other. All the necessary information—their names, dates of birth—was carved into the blackish grey granite that came from a quarry in Vermont. All that was missing was the date of death. They had chosen very simple stones with an engraved angel at the top looking down peacefully. When Matt was born, a superstitious bone emerged within his father, and he wouldn’t buy his son a headstone, as if by doing so he’d somehow hasten his death. She had known this day would come, but had just not expected it so soon. Her husband always told her that death was inevitable, and that we should always be prepared for that day. He believed with all his heart, as did she, that only your earthly body dies, thus freeing your eternal soul. This should have provided her some small measure of comfort, but it didn’t.

  All the while his mother was making the arrangements, Matt sat solemnly by her side. No matter how hard he tried not to cry, a tear would appear and streak down his cheek. He would wipe it away with a closed fist and paw at his eyes. He tried to pay attention, thought it was important to do so, but was completely distracted by a series of flashbacks of his dad fishing, laughing, on his tractor, and quietly reading the Bible at night in his favorite chair by the fireplace.

  At the wake, on both nights, Father O’Mallory was there for every minute, and paid particularly close attention to Matt, who had grown silent. While the townspeople and friends paid their last respects and signed the bound leather attendance book that lay open next to a crystal vase of lilies, Father O’Mallory sat beside Matt and
told him that his father was a good and decent man, and he had no doubt whatsoever that he was now in heaven basking in God’s love. Normally in a case like this, he knew a child this age would be angry at God, at the injustice of it all, which was perfectly normal and to be expected, but Matt accepted it with a grace normally reserved for much older people who had more experience with death. He looked up into Father O’Mallory’s eyes and said that he was determined to obey God’s task. The Father had no idea to what Matt was referring, but he let it go without further question.

  Before he took over the parish in Millinocket, Father O’Mallory was the priest in an old stone church in Manhattan. His parishioners were almost all wealthy, some obscenely so, and drove to church in Mercedes Benzes, Jaguars, and Porsches. The men wore their finest gold watches and Armani suits, the women their designer clothes. They dressed for each other, not for God. Some he recognized as giants on Wall Street who were recipients of million-dollar bonuses, despite having invested some clients’ life savings in risky stocks that resulted in their financial ruin. Others, prominent defense attorneys who made exorbitant fees representing organized crime figures. They listened halfheartedly to his sermon, more interested in seeing and being seen. The kingdom of heaven for them was an abstract concept, one that could be dealt with later, if at all. Their kingdom was here on Earth, and their God was power and money. They reminded him of the biblical parable about it being easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

  When he heard of a small parish that was open in northern Maine, he asked for an immediate transfer, much to the surprise and disbelief of his own archdiocese. After completing the transfer paperwork, he was granted his request. He had been raised on a small sheep farm in County Cork, Ireland, the son of two pious but uneducated parents, and he knew he was going home where he truly belonged.

  His new parishioners listened to his every word. God was a central part of their lives, not something thought about only on Sundays. They celebrated births, deaths, and everything in between in the small wood-framed building with the simple hard pine wooden pews they called their church. There were no gilded chalices or marble statues of saints, yet the humble families that came to Mass were unmatched in their devotion to God. When a winter storm blew down the steeple, splintering it into small pieces on the ground, the men of the area joined in and built another one while the women held a bake sale to raise the money for the necessary lumber and materials. In the summer the congregation would apply a fresh coat of white paint, and plant vibrant native wildflowers in the front. In the winter the men and boys would take turns helping Father O’Mallory clean the walk of snow and spread salt and ash on the walkway leading into the church to ensure no one would slip and fall. Whenever a parishioner was sick, neighbors would visit, bringing homemade food, and more importantly, the message that they cared.

  After the funeral Mass on Sunday, Matt’s house swelled with friends bringing covered casseroles, cakes and pastries, hams and roasts, and more food than they could ever eat. Most of it went into the freezer. The men offered their help if anything needed to be done on the farm, and the women offered to drop in daily to help out as well. His mother thanked them all, but graciously declined. She knew the sooner she got back to their new normal life, the better it would be for not only Matt, but for her as well.

  The summer came and went. Matt fished and picked baskets of blackberries, blueberries, and strawberries that grew wild on their farm. His mother noted with sadness that he no longer swung on the rope that his father put on the old oak tree down by the creek, or tossed the basketball at the rim attached to the barn door. He rarely went out with his friends, instead preferring to stay on the farm with her. Even when he went fishing, it was more to put food in the freezer than when he had done it just for fun and excitement. He placed his fishing pole in the mudroom attached to the house, still next to his dad’s. When she suggested he use his father’s rod, which was of a better size for him now that he had grown, he just shook his head no. His dad had given him his, and, well, he just couldn’t get around to giving it up. Not yet. She knew he was taking the death hard—she was, too—but she just couldn’t replace her husband’s role in raising a young boy. Time heals all, she prayed.

  She baked pies for herself and Matt, always baking an extra couple to give to their neighbors to repay them for their kindness. Growing up on a farm herself, she had no trouble finishing the planting and numerous chores that a working farm requires. She was not afraid of hard work since her father had given her an equal share of the chores when she was a child. She knew how to run a tractor as well as any man. Her dad had an old red Ford tractor that looked like it should be in an antique show. He’d laugh and say you were paying for the green paint when you bought a Deere. He taught her how to run it and how to fix it if it broke. Girls were as important as boys when it came to chores on a farm, he loved to say.

  Matt, now eleven, helped out after school, feeding the animals, putting up hay, and hunting up small game to put meat on the table. When her husband was alive, Matt’s mother couldn’t remember the last time they bought beef. They both knew that game was leaner and healthier to eat. Besides, didn’t God put them on His Earth to provide? But come the fall, she figured that for the first time in years, she might have to buy half a steer to put in the freezer, as she was sure to run out of venison. So it was a wonderful surprise when one Sunday after Mass, Father O’Mallory offered to take Matt deer hunting.

  “Father, you know how to hunt?” she said with surprise.

  “Ah, my good woman, who do you think put fresh meat on my father’s table when I was growing up in Ireland, and what do you think I eat now?” he said with a loud laugh, his hands on his ample girth.

  So late that fall, Matt and Father O’Mallory took to the woods. On opening day, he picked Matt up at his farm at three in the morning, long before the first light graced the fields, and even earlier than the old bantam rooster began to crow. Matt remembered asking his dad why the rooster crowed so early in the morning. His dad used to kid and say that it was the only time the old rooster could get a word in edgewise living with all those hens.

  Father O’Mallory drove an old green four-wheel drive Subaru that had both a Bible and a gun in the back. He always said you never knew when you’d need either one of them. Matt and his mom were waiting for him on the front porch before daybreak, and although she invited him in for a hunter’s breakfast and coffee, she knew they wanted to get an early start. She gave Matt two thermoses filled with steaming hot coffee to take with them. One thermos filled with black for Father, one with milk and sugar for Matt. Along with the coffee came four thick chicken salad sandwiches, fruit, and a handful of grain bars. She used to hunt herself and knew the effort expended traipsing through the woods and the growling stomachs that followed right behind.

  They loaded up the car and headed out to the woods. All in all it was a dull, drab day. The sky was overcast with dark clouds, and a cold, wet wind blew down off Mt. Katahdin. Matt guided Father O’Mallory to the same spot where he had gone so many times with his dad. It had been some time since he’d had his vision, and he didn’t know how he felt about going back to the same vicinity, but the feeling of love he had for his dad, and the curiosity of going back to the site of his own miracle, pushed him forward.

  The familiar dirt road that led to the hunting spot wound its way over an uneven hill filled with deep ruts and fallen branches. They drove by the cutoff the first time without seeing it, nature having closed its opening with disuse. Doubling back, Matt pointed it out, and Father O’Mallory pulled up to it. They had to take a small axe and camp saw to cut away the gnarled stumps and overgrown branches that blocked their path. It was still dark, and the cold northern wind of the forest whipped up, tugging at their jackets.

  With a short drive through the trees, they had no trouble finding an opening to park their car. Both got out silently, quietly closing the car doors, knowi
ng how both the sounds and the smell of their presence carried deep into the woods and would spook the deer. Although previously having agreed to hunt together, Matt said that his father allowed him to hunt by himself, but within yelling range of one another. Father O’Mallory said he couldn’t do that just yet. The Father had brought two stainless steel whistles attached to a strip of brown rawhide to hang around their necks in the event they did get separated and could not hear one another. Both were excellent hunters, careful of gun safety, and mindful of the enormous responsibility of aiming and shooting a high powered rifle, unlike some of the city folk that come to the Maine woods to hunt but inevitably, every hunting season, would shoot some other hunter.

  They loaded their guns in silence. Matt had an older lever action Winchester .30-30 that his dad had bought used for him from the neighbor down the road. It had a crack in the stock, but it shot straight. Father O’Mallory had a Ruger bolt action .30-06, a gift from his parishioners on his first Christmas. After checking to make sure they had their maps designating exactly the area they would be hunting in, checking their compasses, synchronizing their watches, loading their backpacks with food and raincoats, and agreeing on a time to meet back at the car should they lose sight of one another, they headed out down a small trail that circled the lake. Matt led the hunt, carefully and silently picking his way, his feet lightly touching the ground, avoiding stepping on any branch that might crack and alert the deer of their presence. He moved slowly, taking one step and then waiting a moment before taking the next, just like his father taught him. The going was slow as the trail led up a ravine to a bluff that overlooked the lake below. He turned often at first to make sure the Father was behind him since there was a notable absence of noise coming from his rear. He was amazed the big man could move so quietly, and by the grin on the Father’s face, he must have read Matt’s mind.