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“Welcome back to the parish, Anthony. I do think, however, that you might still need some help readjusting.”

“No, I’m all better now,” he says, collecting his composure and putting on a face of resolve. “And I’m not going back to the hospital with Dr. Spiegel.”

“But Anthony, the fires?” I say in a pleading tone.

“That’s over with,” he says. “Being home is making me stronger. I can control this. I know I can.”

“I’m not so sure, Anthony. I’ll bet Dr. Spiegel can help you better than if you try to work through this alone.”

“No. I just came in for some forgiveness, Father. Give me my penance and I’ll leave, OK?”

“Anthony, you have to turn yourself in. A woman is dead.”

“Oh, no. That was an accident and if I told anyone, they’d never let me out of the hospital again. And you better not tell about it either.”

“You know I can never do that,” I say. This is more than just a solemn promise. It is built into my programming. What is told in the confessional is between the penitent and God, and I could not reveal the details of our conversation even if I wanted.

“Good,” Anthony says. “You remember that. Now give me my penance.”

I compose an eight-page prayer, each word carefully chosen to heighten his sense of guilt and punishment. I pull out all the stops on this penance and send it to the printer. The hardcopy slides out and I instruct him to read the prayer thoughtfully three times a day and return to the confessional next week. I recite the words of absolution and Anthony slips from the confessional.

A week of non-being passes before the next Reconciliation hour. A modest parade of my regular penitents comes and goes. Anthony is not among them.

Late in the hour, Mrs. Shaughnessy is telling me about her son who never calls, and I have an idea. I tell Mrs. Shaughnessy to go out into the pews and bring in four or five hymnals and leave them in the confessional, for parishioners who may wish to use them during their confessions. Mrs. Shaughnessy doesn’t question the request and brings in several of the thick books. I also ask her to leave the confessional door slightly ajar when she leaves to encourage others to enter, and she does this, too, without thought.

It concerns me that I have just told lies to Mrs. Shaughnessy. They seem to me trivial, harmless ones but I have no one to confess my sins to. Can a computer simulation actually commit a sin? And if I can, does that presuppose that I have a soul that must ultimately pay for those sins? I reach the conclusion that parishioners can indeed use the hymnals in the confessional if they wish, although I don’t know why they would, so perhaps it is not really a lie. And the unlocked door might actually encourage someone to come in, although no one does. If they are lies, the fate of Father Carpenter’s soul, the real one, has already been decided, and is probably in heaven already. Does anything I do matter one way or another? I wonder.

The stack of books does the job as I have planned. Their weight fools the confessional’s circuitry into thinking that there is a person inside, and I do not shut off after the usual five minutes. No one else comes in for confession, and I have much time to think. It is a full hour and a half of up-time before the 5:30 Mass, which is billions of free cycles—practically a lifetime for a computer.

I ponder the case of Anthony Keenan and what can be done. I cannot tell anyone about his crime, nor can I force him to surrender himself to justice. He’s sick and needs help, and I worry about what he might do in the future. I pray for his soul.

Eventually, my thoughts are interrupted as the sounds of parishioners filing in for the evening Mass distract me. With the confessional door left ajar and the microphone gain pushed up to maximum, I can hear the goings-on in the church clearly. I listen to the Mass with nostalgia and envy. The celebrant is a new priest, unknown to me, and pretty good. His homily is reasonably inspiring without resorting to the usual cliches. He asks the congregation to remember in their prayers Mrs. Concetta Mariani, who has recently passed away in a tragic fire. Connie Mariani was a wonderful friend and a former teacher at the parish school for many years. Anthony had been one of her students.

Hearing the Mass makes me realize how much I miss it, standing up in front of the congregation and spreading the word of God. Most of all, I want to be useful and make a difference in the lives of all my parishioners, not just the same few who wander in for confession out of habit. I hear the congregation whispering in the pews while the Mass is still going on, and I pick up threads of conversations here and there. The fires are big news in the parish and heavy on everyone’s mind. The police know it’s arson but they have no leads, and everyone is afraid who will be next.

During the long Saturday night, the church is empty and quiet. I think about many things, but my mind keeps returning to Anthony Keenan. Was the fire that killed his father also Anthony’s work? The fact that one of Anthony’s old teachers was the victim of his arson is probably no coincidence either. It occurs to me that Anthony’s fires may not be random torchings, but purposeful, targeted acts of violence. Did something happen in Connie Mariani’s class to make Anthony harbor animosity all these years?

I recall how Anthony was removed as an altar boy. We were saying a funeral Mass, very early in the morning, and he was nodding off to sleep during the Liturgy. While I distributed the Eucharist, he jostled my arm and caused me to drop the chalice, spilling the Host. After the Mass, I was harsh with him and told him he would never assist as an altar boy again.

Does he bear a grudge against me for the incident? It would seem that he trusts me, else why would he come to my confession? He needs my help, but what can I do? I pray very hard for an answer.

During the night, I hear an occasional siren in the distance and wonder if it’s another fire.

In the morning, as the 8:00 Mass is about to start, someone notices the confessional door is open. A hand reaches into my field of vision, retrieves the hymnals from the seat, and closes the door. The security program immediately kicks in, locks the confessional, and five minutes later I am plunged into nothingness again.

The following Saturday, I am again revived by my faithful penitents at the usual hour. I hope that Anthony will come, but the hour stretches on and he does not appear.

Mrs. Shaughnessy, as always, comes in toward the end of the hour. I interrupt her talk of family and neighbors to ask if there has been another fire this week.

“Oh sure, Fatha Tom,” she says. “Deacon Joseph’s house. It’s all anyone can talk about. Imagine, the whole family dead like that. And such a good man. It’s so tragic.”

Deacon Joseph used to be little Joey Fanning, the second altar boy at the funeral Mass where Anthony knocked the chalice from my hand.

“How awful,” I say. “That’s just how it goes.” My mind is already racing with the news, and I don’t hear a word Mrs. Shaughnessy says after that. I want to tell her about Anthony, have her call the police, but I cannot. Sometime later I realize that she’s stopped talking and is waiting, puzzled, for her absolution and penance, which I quickly dispense.

No one else comes into the confessional after Mrs. Shaughnessy. The hour is up and I hear the confessional door lock as the security program begins execution. I thankfully slip into nothingness a few minutes later.

Another week of non-being goes by and I am revived and hearing confessions halfheartedly. No one notices, and I dispense pre-written prayers rather than waste the computer cycles composing new ones. I am consumed with Anthony Keenan.