Father Sweet

by J. J. Martin

  A what? A queer sorcerer? As in witchcraft? Why would he think of me as a sorcerer?

  “You led me to sin last night,” he said darkly.

  I remained silent.

  “It was your sudden frigidity and declension.”

  “My what?” I said. “I didn’t clench anything.”

  “You forced my soul to be craven. You know that to spill seed is a sin. This results from thwarted natural love, which is God’s way. Don’t play dumb.”

  I stared at him, trying my best. Trying my best to understand and keep him happy.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  He chortled without smiling, then made the sign of the cross in the air. “I forgive you.”

  Automatically, I blessed myself in response.

  “Don’t cook anything,” he said, gruffly. “We’ll celebrate Mass first.”

  “Okay,” I replied. “Don’t know what I’d cook, anyway.”

  He ambled to his pack and removed a black lacquered case the size of a small shoebox.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  My question pleased him, and he relaxed. “I’ll show you.”

  Off came the finely crafted lid. Inside was a series of neat compartments holding miniaturized implements of the Roman rite: candles, chalice, linens, cruets, even a tiny censer.

  “Wow. It’s really cool,” I said. It reminded me of the miniature Sucrets kit I had made. I loved kits and tools of any kind. “Can I touch?”

  “More than that, my boy. Set up for Mass,” he chirped. “We’ll use that log there as an altar. Sincere as Abraham and Isaac’s.”

  I pulled out the first thing, a bronze disc like a woman’s makeup compact. I recognized it as a pyx, a pocket container for consecrated Eucharist. It was engraved: AG ad BS.

  “This set was a final gift from my mentor and first senior parish priest, the Monsignor Aloysius Gast. See the AG?”

  “What’s BS?”

  “My name. Benjamin Sweet. This pyx is dear to me. The miracle of communion is the heart of our faith. A wafer made by human hands, in fact, becomes the body — the actual body — of the Son of Man. Amazing.”

  I set up our altar.

  Celebrating Mass outdoors felt weird. To me, Mass was an indoor activity. And I had never considered the little paper-thin communion wafer we ate became skin or something. I thought it was like Santa. A fib you’re meant to play along with.

  A crow perched on a nearby branch. Probably hoping this was a picnic. While I set up, it watched me with a wary bead of eye.

  “We’ll use the Vulgate liturgy,” Father Sweet declared. “For fun!”

  “Sounds fun,” I muttered.

  This made Mass challenging for an altar boy like me who didn’t know Latin and couldn’t do the responses, but the order of the game stayed the same. The ewer still gets poured. The chalice is raised. I managed to keep up, after all. It was a long Mass considering it was just the two of us. He added all his morning prayers and singing, as well. At the Eucharist, I was compelled by him to do it on my knees and in lingua, which at our parish was only fashionable for elderly people.

  “Corpus Christi.”

  “Amen.”

  Afterward, I was happy to restock the playset into its lacquered kit-box.

  “Although the Holy Father has proscribed it, I still have great fondness for Constantinian tradition,” said Father Sweet. “Catholicism is a precision science. You know it more here in Nature, away from any civic distractions. The Eucharist holds the immensity of God in it.”

  “Sure.”

  At his request, I put on the pot for some tea. Meanwhile he babbled on about this and that. His commentary was lengthy and impossible to follow.

  “The single most important achievement of the human race, that’s what the liturgy is. Oh, the sacraments are perfect. Hundreds of years of revelation have made them. Even if the men who perform them are not perfect they are a perfect good …”

  The fire was stoked back up. I planned a breakfast of pepperettes, granola bars, and tea.

  He talked on and on, in his droning blather.

  “… very useful. What mercy. What grace. What love. And only in his greeting us …”

  “I wonder if we snared a rabbit last night,” I said, speaking over him. It did not stop his monologue.

  “… through the Church, and as a man-God in Jesus can the Church militant …”

  He carried on over my shoulder as I checked the rabbit trap. “Trap’s empty,” I announced.

  “… engulf us, understand us and meliorate us. Don’t you agree?”

  “Yep.”

  We ate our breakfast, washing it down with tea from the shared cup. Afterward, I whittled him a rudimentary spoon.

  “I’m going to hack down firewood,” I told him, handing him the new utensil. “You can help.”

  I smiled when he said he planned to rest his back and smoke, and I wandered off in search of good dry logs.

  Often when camping, time accelerates and simple tasks like preparing a fire, foraging, fishing, or cooking speed the passage of hours. By contrast, this trip’s tedium ran counter-clockwise. I checked my watch, expecting lunchtime and found it had barely passed nine.

  20

  On my return, arms full of logs and kindling, I discovered he’d gone into my pack and set up my chess kit.

  I stacked the firewood, then sat down to play.

  “I’ll be white.”

  “Imagine God becomes man. Why?” he said. “To know what it is to be man. That’s why. The needs of the flesh. But oh, also its pains! And its pleasures. Then, the Good News. By his own sacrifice of blood and body, we — his people — are marked and saved. Only by becoming man could he give this gift.”

  “Your bishop,” I said, pulling it off.

  “Aha! Sacrifice.”

  It cost me a rook, while putting me a move away from losing either a knight or my own bishop.

  “You know,” he said, “I was thinking of something special we could do. We could become blood brothers.”

  It struck me as odd that Father Sweet knew this boyhood tradition, common amongst Scouts.

  “What for?”

  “Well, we can share secrets.”

  “Like confession?”

  “No, outside confession. Such as … special secrets.”

  “Let’s finish the game.”

  “If I win, then we do it. If not, it is your choice. Have we got a deal?”

  We made the deal, though I’m not sure how I agreed or what happened next, but it was a quick finish, and in a few short moves I was mated. Bewildered, soon enough I was bleeding and repeating words of fidelity to him in a daze.

  “We’re different from others, you know. Those of us in this special order — you the acolyte, me the priest. It is a secret society, apart from the world.”

  Our eyes were level with one another.

  I found myself nodding slowly.

  I was standing and staring into the fire, holding shut the bleeding pinprick on my palm. The blood he offered came from a bit of crust under his gauze. The axe nick I’d made by accident.

  “Is there anything you wish to ask me, lad?” His arm was around my waist. He was not much taller than me.

  “No. I’m okay.”

  “Anything at all? Questions about God? Maybe you want to talk about your family? Or your body. Your body is about to go through changes, and perhaps you’d like to talk about your body and some new feelings you may experience?”

  “No.”

  “No, what?”

  “No, Father.”

  His hand moved to my head.

  “I see how special you are. I haven’t quite figured you out yet, however. A marvel, I think, wise beyond your years. Steely of gaze. Fit of breast. Capable of spirit. You entranced me the moment our eyes met over dinner.

  “You are Alexander, beautiful and vital. And I, well — I am Aristotle.” He sighed. “I have travelled many roads, you know. It’s a hard life I’ve lived
. From my earliest days in boarding school, to the seminary. Never settling. Ever nomadic. Such is the lot of the pilgrim. We must take succor, love, and friendship wherever we find it. I perceive we are the same, you and I.” He seized my hand. “This. This — what we have — is precious. I am so glad you chose me.”

  I bit my thumb. Lunch was Heinz beans, with a dandelion salad of crumbled chocolate, raisins, and fresh raspberries.

  21

  While foraging for dinner near the campsite, something unexpected happened to me.

  I got the feeling that I was about to die, though everything seemed fine on the surface. I stopped to catch my wind, finding myself hungry for air, unable to take a satisfying breath. Immediately I felt sick, as if I were in an elevator, descending quickly. I felt a huge weight pressing on my chest. Although my eyes were wide open, the sunlight seemed hazy. Every sound came sharp as a buzz saw. The forest seemed mean-spirited, haunted with evil-sounding squirrel chatter and squawking blue jays. The crows seemed angry.

  Where were we?

  We’re a million miles from anywhere. We have always been here, alone. Him and me. There are no other people. Anywhere. There is no end to this. Ever. We made the firepit, we packed the earth, we made the land flat. We always caught the fish. We always ate the sumac.

  Usually I loved the feeling of isolation, but not this time. Something felt wrong, as if everything I did was wrong. God watched me and was starting to hate me the way I figured he hated my dad.

  Colours went bright as fingerpaints. My chest tensed in pain. I couldn’t breathe.

  It was as if the air lacked oxygen.

  I felt like I might die.

  “Look! Wild carrot!” Father Sweet cried. He sounded faint, distant. As if on a cliff a mile away. Each word slowly came to me. “We can eat this!” he said.

  It took enormous energy to focus, to keep my words steady. They came out quavering, afraid to frighten their owner. “It might be hemlock,” I said.

  “Hemlock!” he replied, reverently.

  “I think they look a lot alike. Not sure.” Now that I was talking about something I could pretend to know about, I made an effort to sound normal and calm, breathe steadily, and to blink away the tears that unexpectedly filled my eyes. “Which is which? I dunno and I haven’t got a guidebook with me to check. Better just steer clear.”

  It was a heavy task, speaking and keeping my cool. I was trying desperately to save myself. I believed I was losing my mind in a panic. I was convinced that if I didn’t concentrate I would forget how to breathe, keel over any moment and die. I couldn’t explain why.

  “Hemlock! Socrates’s vehicle!” Father Sweet talked for several minutes about Socrates.

  I tried to slow my breathing, which was rapid and irregular. I needed to do something to calm myself.

  Beside me swayed tall grasses. I sat cross-legged and pulled at them.

  I weaved a rudimentary basket from the grasses. It took time, and was distracting, though the basket looked more like a floppy hat or broken-down bag. It was tied off at the ends and could carry a handful of something light.

  “Could you find raspberries, please?” I asked him, feeling more controlled now. “Raspberries only. Don’t pick any other berry.” I handed him the basket and pointed him at the bush.

  He was off, and I took advantage of the gap.

  With my knife and knee, I snapped six sticks, each a half foot long.

  In fast, nervous movements — praying he didn’t come back too soon — I frantically pulled up the corner pins of the tent. I carefully unfurled the oilskin floor, revealing the juniper boughs of our bed.

  Sowbugs and millipedes scurried as I carefully plotted an invisible line, bisecting the tent into my half and his. I staked the sticks into the ground, leaving only an inch poking up. Finally, I replaced the oilskin floor and pinned the tent down.

  Panting, I finished just in time to see Father Sweet returning with his basket, a proud look around his mouth.

  “I found no raspberries,” he said. “But I have collected these red berries here.”

  “Those are poison.”

  22

  We fished again, as the day ended.

  Rather, I fished again.

  He made no effort to help. Instead, he watched me, smiling, smoking his pipe on the shore, propped up on an elbow. I caught seven crayfish and two sunfish. Enough for a fish stew.

  He prayed as the air cooled and the sun set, while I cooked.

  I quietly served dinner. A cup for me, the pot for him. It tasted dank, watery, and unsatisfying. More like a sandy broth of bad water. With fish chunks.

  No matter. He was in a good mood.

  “Here, have a good long drink of this,” he said cheerfully.

  It was a full flask of rye whisky. A real man’s drink, I thought. I wiped the top with my sleeve and gulped a slug. It burned, and rose up sharp in my throat. I spat and coughed while he chuckled.

  “Let the warmth reach your bones. I should have brought this out last night instead of that infernal Camp Coffee. Drink more!”

  I handed it back.

  He took a sip, and tried passing it again. I shook my head and he gave me a look similar to the look my father shoots me when I’ve forgotten to do something like sweep the porch or take out the garbage. Father Sweet sighed and rattled his head.

  He pulled out his liturgy and mumbled through evening prayers.

  It was warm and bright around the fire. At our backs whispered the cold dark of the bush and a few things rustled among the leaves and twigs. Anything might crouch there. On past camping trips, I’d be curious about the raccoon or fox. Now it seemed more likely to me to be a predator. Madman. Killer. We squatted on opposite logs while the fire stung my eyes and embers popped up. I could see Father Sweet’s face changing in the firelight, one look replacing another in quick succession. It grew dark.

  He hummed in tenor an eerie chant.

  “A ghost story?” he asked.

  “I guess,” I replied after a pause.

  He thought a moment.

  “There is a road not far from here that leads from Gracefield,” he began. “It is the road we drove on yesterday, in fact. In parts, it is no more than a gravel trail through the pine forest. At night, this road is cursed. Evil spirits of the Devil frolic and lurk there.

  “One night, many years ago, a young man drove alone. By the side of the road suddenly he sees, barely lit by his headlamps, a stooped fellow — a hitchhiker. He slows his car to a halt, being a Christian man and thinking he may be able to offer help. The hitchhiker opens the door. The driver cannot see his face, but his clothes appear old and tattered. Without a word, the hitchhiker gets in. An old, brimmed fedora hides his face.

  “There is a smell to the hitchhiker not unlike this campfire here. The smell of brimstone. He raises the brim of his hat. Now the driver can see the hitchhiker is horribly disfigured: bloated like a hog’s head, bruised, grey, dry with growths. The hitchhiker whispers that he has a terrible secret. He needs a confessor, someone who can make a difference. Someone to save him. Our man, the driver, agrees to learn the secret. So the hitcher hands him an old King George five-dollar note and says he must go to the local tavern in the next town. He is instructed to go in, buy refreshment with the note, and wait.

  “The hitcher tells him to pull over, and he gets out of the car. ‘Soon,’ the hitcher says as he walks on, ‘you will know all.’

  “Our man drives along and finds the tavern, precisely as the hitchhiker said. He asks for a glass of ale, placing his old five-dollar note on the bar.

  “The bartender looks up and says he cannot serve him.

  “‘Why not?’ asks our man.

  “The bartender says, ‘The hitchhiker is never coming to tell you his secret.’

  “The driver is shocked. How does this barkeep know about the hitchhiker? The bartender says the hitchhiker is dead, having died thirty years earlier in a fight with his brother. And the bartender knows this because
he is that brother, and he killed him as Cain had killed Abel, and although his ghost continually tries to expose the heinous sin, the bartender must cover his tracks as he has done for years. And as he says this, he comes around with a rope, and strangles the young man, who has at last learned the secret, the last he will ever know.”

  I felt the lids of my eyes peel far into their sockets.

  “And I know this because …” Father Sweet paused for effect. “I am that murderous brother!”

  I shot to my feet, knees crouched ready to run. “Is that true?”

  Father Sweet appeared gleeful at my panic. “Oh, my dear boy, of course not! It’s just a silly story!”

  Every sense I had was now on edge. Was I being watched? Beyond the ring of light provided by the fire, the woods were a huge black abyss. The fire warmed my face and hands, but my back felt vulnerable and cold. I looked over my shoulder.

  I had an overwhelming urge to sit next to someone, and quietly toddled over to Father Sweet.

  “Ah,” he said. “There we are.” Tilting, he shuffled his bum closer on the log and placed his arm on my back.

  He stroked my hair. “Is this okay?” he said, softly. “Are you with me now, my Hyacinth? You are a good boy. A Greek ideal.”

  The fire was warm.

  “You know, Jesus was a man. He knew us as a man,” he said, gently caressing my head. “God made flesh. Loneliness. A passionate desire can become pleasure in pain itself, like a stiff ache that can only be soothed with the application of more pain. The bitter kiss of goodbye. All this God knows — as we know it deeply, my boy.”

  I entered a dreamy state, separated from my body.

  My gaze was transfixed by the fire. I heard what he said. My head nodded, but I did not make it do so. Every breath was slow, deep. My body, numb. Father Sweet’s eyes filled with emotion as he recited a soliloquy.

  “Jesus came to be a man to understand the cravings and needs of a man, but also the embodiment of God’s love. Agape. Unpolluted by animal lusts. The purest — purest and highest — truly the highest of God’s gifts to men.”

  His voice sounded a note I hadn’t heard before.

  “The atrament is around us. It claws at us. Look at it. But here, in the warmth of His flame, we are safe. When Jesus rose, he entered us here,” he said, tapping his heart.