Long After Midnight (39 page)

 
          
"Her
boyfriend," said
Latting
, "will be out
dancing tomorrow night with somebody else. That gripes my gut."

 
          
"I
wouldn't mind," said Carlson, "beating the hell out of him."

 
          
Latting
moved the sheet. "They sure wear their hair
crazy and short, some of them. All curls, but short. Too much makeup. Too—"
He stopped.

 
          
"You
were saying?" asked
Moreno
.

 
          
Latting
moved the sheet some more. He said nothing. In the
next minute there was a rustling sound of the sheet, moved now here, now there.
Latting's
face was pale.

 
          
"Hey,"
he murmured, at last. "Hey."

 
          
Instinctively,
Moreno
slowed the ambulance.

 
          
"Yeah,
kid?"

 
          
"I
just found out something," said
Latting
. "I
had this feeling all along, she's wearing too much make-up, and the hair, and—"

 
          
"So?"

 
          
"Well,
for God's sake," said
Latting
, his lips hardly
moving, one hand up to feel his own face to see what its expression was.
"You want to know something funny?"

 
          
"Make
us laugh," said Carlson.

 
          
The
ambulance slowed even more as
Latting
said,
"It's not a woman. I mean, ifs not a girl.-1 mean, well, it's not a
female.
Understand?"

 
          
The
ambulance slowed to a crawl.

 
          
The
wind blew in off the vague morning sea through the window as the two up front
turned and stared into the back of the ambulance at the shape there on the cot.

 
          
"Somebody
tell me," said
Latting
, so quietly they almost
could not hear the words. "Do we stop feeling bad now? Or do we feel
worse?"

 
          
Nobody
answered.

 
          
A
wave, and then another, and then another, moved in and fell upon the mindless
shore.

 
          
It
all began with the smell of chocolate.

 
          
On
a steaming late afternoon of June rain, Father
Malley
drowsed in his confessional, waiting for penitents.

 
          
Where
in all the world were they? he wondered. Immense traffics of sin lurked beyond
in the warm rains. Then why not immense traffics of confession here?

 
          
Father
Malley
stirred and blinked.

 
          
Today's
sinners moved so fast in their cars that this old church was an ecclesiastical
blur. And himself? An ancient watercolor priest, tints fading fast, trapped
inside.

 
          
Let's
give it another five minutes and stop, he thought, not in panic but in the kind
of quiet shame and desperation that neglect shoulders on a man.

 
          
There
was a rustle from beyond the confessional grate next door.

 
          
Father
Malley
sat up, quickly.

 
          
A
smell of chocolate sifted through the grille.

 
          
Ah,
God, thought the priest, it's a lad with his small basket of sins soon laid to
rest and him gone. Well...

 
          
The
old priest leaned to the grate where the candy essence lingered and where the
words must come.

 
          
But,
no words. No "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned..."

 
          
Only
strange small mouse-sounds of ...
chewingl

 
          
The
sinner in the next booth, God sew up his mouth, was actually sitting in there
devouring a candy bar!

 
          
"No!"
whispered the priest, to himself.

 
          
His
stomach, gathering data, rumbled, reminding him that he had not eaten since
breakfast. For some sin of pride which he could not now recall, he had nailed
himself to a saint's diet all day, and now—
this!

 
          
Next
door, the chewing continued.

 
          
Father
Malley's
stomach growled. He leaned hard against the
grille, shut his eyes, and cried:

 
          
"Stop
that!"

 
          
The
mouse-nibbling stopped.

 
          
The
smell of chocolate faded.

 
          
A
young man's voice said, "That's exactly why I've come, Father."

 
          
The
priest opened one eye to examine the shadow behind the screen.

 
          
"What's
exactly why you've
come?"

 
          
"The
chocolate, Father."

 
          
"The
what?"

 
          
"Don't
be angry, Father."

 
          
"Angry,
hell, who's angry?"

 
          
"You
are, Father. I'm damned and burnt before I start, by the sound of your
voice."

 
          
The
priest sank back in the creaking leather and mopped his face and shook his
senses."

 
          
"Yes,
yes. The day's hot. I'm out of temper. But then, I never had much."

 
          
"It
will cool off later in the day, Father. You'll be fine."

 
          
The
old priest eyed the screen. "Who's taking and who's
giving
confession here?"

 
          
"Why,
you are, Father."

 
          
"Then,
get
on
with it!"

 
          
The
voice hastened forth the facts:

 
          
"You
have smelled the chocolate, Father?"

 
          
The
priest's stomach answered for him, faintly.

 
          
Both
listened to the sad sound. Then:

 
          
"Well,
Father, to hit it on the head, I was and still am a ... chocolate junkie."

 
          
Old
fires stirred in the priest's eyes. Curiosity became humor, then laughed itself
back to curiosity again.

 
          
"And
that's
why you've come to confession
this day?"

 
          
"That's
it, sir, or/Father."

 
          
"You
haven't come about sweating over your sister or blueprints for fornication or
self-battles with tie grand war of masturbation?"

 
          
"I
have not, Father," said the voice in remorse.

 
          
The
priest caught the tone and said, "
Tut
,
tut
, if s all right You'll get around to it For now, you're
a grand relief. I'm full-up with wandering males and lonely females and all the
junk they read in books and try in waterbeds and sink from sight with
suffocating cries as the damn things spring leaks and all is lost Get on. You
have bruised my antennae alert Say more."

 
          
"Well,
Father, I have eaten, even- day of my life now for ten or twelve years, one or
two pounds of chocolate. I cannot leave it alone, Father. It is the end-all and
be-all of my life."

 
          
"Sounds
like a fearful affliction of lumps, acne, carbuncles, and pimples."

 
          
"It
was. It
is."

 
          
"And
not exactly contributing to a lean figure."

 
          
"If
I leaned, Father, tie confessional would fall over."

 
          
The
cabinet around them creaked and groaned as the hidden figure beyond
demonstrated.

 
          
"Sit
still!" cried the priest

 
          
The
groaning stopped.

 
          
The
priest was wide awake now and feeling splendid.

 
          
Never
in years had he felt so alive and aware of his happily curious and beating
heart and fine blood that sought and found, sought and found the far corners of
his cloth and body.

 
          
The
heat of the day was gone.

 
          
He
felt immensely cool. A kind of excitement pulsed his wrists and lingered in his
throat. He leaned almost like a lover to the grille and prompted more spillage.

 
          
"Oh,
lad, you're rare."

 
          
"And
sad, Father, and twenty-two years old and put upon, and hate myself for eating,
and need to do something about it."

 
          
"Have
you tried chewing more and swallowing less?"

 
          
"Oh,
each night I go to bed saying: Lord, put off the crunch-bars and the milk-chocolate
kisses and the Hershey's. Each morning I rave out of bed and run to the liquor
store not for liquor but for eight
Nestle's
in a row!
I'm in sugar-shock by
noon
."

 
          
"That's
not so much confession as medical fact, I can see."

 
          
"My
doctor yells at me, Father."

 
          
"He
should."

 
          
"I
don't listen, Father."

 
          
"You
should."

 
          
"My
mother's no help, she's hog-fat and candy-wild."

 
          
"I
hope you're not one of those who live at home still?"

 
          
"I
loiter about, Father."

 
          
"God,
there should be laws against boys loitering in the round shade of their ma's.
Is your father surviving the two of you?"

 
          
"Somehow."

 
          
"And
his
weight?"

 
          
"Irving
Gross, he calls himself. Which is a joke about size and weight and not his
name."

 
          
"With
the three of you, the sidewalk's full?"

 
          
"No
bike can pass, Father."

 
          
"Christ
in the wilderness," murmured the priest, "starving for forty
days."

 
          
"Sounds
like a terrible diet, Father."

 
          
"If
I knew the proper wilderness, I'd boot you there."

 
          
"Boot
away, Father. With no help from my mom and dad, a doctor and skinny friends who
snort at me, I'm out of pocket from eating and out of mind from the same. I
never dreamed I'd wind up with
you.
Beg
pardon, Father, but it took a lot to drive me here. If my friends knew, if my
mom, my dad, my crazy doctor knew I was here with
you
at this minute, oh what the hell!"

 
          
There
was a fearful stampede of feet, a careening of flesh.

 
          
"Wait!"

 
          
But
the weight blundered out of the next-door cubby.

 
          
With
an elephant trample, the young man was gone.

 
          
The
smell of chocolate alone stayed behind and told all by saying
nought
.

 
          
The
heat of the day swarmed in to stifle and depress the old priest.

 
          
He
had to climb out of the confessional because he knew if he stayed he would
begin to curse under his breath and have to run off to have
his
sins forgiven at some other parish.

 
          
I
suffer from Peevish, O Lord, he thought. How many Hail
Marys
for
that?

 
          
Come
to think of it, how many for a thousand tons, give or take a ton, of chocolate?

 
          
Come
back! he cried silently at the empty church aisle.

 
          
No,
he won't, not ever now, he thought, I pressed too hard.

 
          
And
with that as supreme depression, he went to the parish house to tub himself
cool and towel himself to distemper.

 
          
A
day, two days, a week passed.

 
          
The
sweltering
noons
dissolved the old priest back into a stupor
of sweat and vinegar-gnat mean. He snoozed in his cubby, or shuffled papers in
the unlined library, looked out at the untended lawn and reminded himself to
caper with the mower one day soon. But most of all he found himself brambling
with irritability. Fornication was the minted coin of the land, and
masturbation its handmaiden. Or so it seemed from the few whispers that slid
through the confessional grille during the long afternoons.