“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been three days since my last confession.”
Samuel recognized the voice. Mrs. Lucy had been best friends with his grandmother and had actively participated in raising him. She had even spanked him on more than one occasion. She was already old when Samuel was born, so he had a hard time imagining the hard-drinking, pot-smoking, free-loving party girl his grandmother had told him about, the one who spent night after night in the jazz and blues clubs that dotted the waterfront back in those days. He sometimes had to stifle a chuckle as he tried to picture it. Now she was one of the most pious and faithful women he knew, attending church almost every day. He’d heard the worst of her sins long ago, and some had indeed raised his eyebrows. Her confessions now ran toward the pedestrian, stealing an apple pie recipe from a television show and passing it off as her own, coveting Ms. Cicily’s new hat, speaking too harshly to the mailman when he delivered the mail late on the day her social security check was due. Samuel listened to it all patiently then gave Ms. Lucy her penance.
Some of the confessions Father Samuel heard were more interesting. He heard the usual adulterous thoughts (too many of them acted upon), petty thefts, cheating on taxes, lying, coveting, hating. Occasionally, he received a confession that tested his faith and some that made him want to rip open the confessional door and beat the hell out of the bastard on the other side. A man sauntered in to confess to repeatedly raping both his son and his daughter along with several other neighborhood children. Samuel had urged the man to seek counseling and made confessing to the police part of his penance. He never heard from the guy again.
Today was not nearly so dramatic. Aside from one woman’s confession of smoking crack and using methamphetamines while her husband was at work and she watched the kids, the confessions were all pretty mundane. Then he heard a familiar voice from the other side of the confessional.
“Forgive me, Brother, for I have sinned.”
He had been about to correct the man when he placed the voice. “Samson?”
“Shh. You’re not supposed to say my name. Isn’t that breaking the sanctity of the confessional or something?”
“You’re doing that just by being in here. You’re not Catholic anymore. You don’t even call yourself a Christian.”
“Just because I’m not particularly fond of God doesn’t mean I don’t believe in him. Who would I blame for all the crap in the world if God did not exist?”
“This is a confessional, Samson. Are you here to confess or just to poke fun at my beliefs? You could have waited ‘til Thanksgiving dinner for that. Why break a tradition?”
“Why all the hostility today?”
“I’m sorry. It’s been a hard day.” Samuel stifled a sigh and rubbed his temples.
“You not feeling well? Do you need me to take you to the hospital?”
“No. Thank you, but no. I’m okay.”
“Good, good. I’m always here for you, you know?”
“I know, Samson. I know. You’ve always been solid that way.”
The ensuing silence was more uncomfortable than he would have imagined. Samuel knew how hard it was for Samson to see him suffer. His illness seemed to affect his brother more than it did him. Still, he didn’t want Samson to come back to the church just to make his dying brother happy. He hoped that his brother had genuinely come back because he’d finally felt the love of God within him. He was, of course, wrong on both counts.
“I do have something to confess.”
The seriousness in his voice made Samuel pause. A powerful dread crept over him. Father Samuel lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Maybe you should talk to one of the other priests.”
“You won’t hear my confession?”
“I just don’t know if it’s right. I’m your brother. It feels like, I don’t know, a conflict of interest. Besides, in order for confession to mean anything, you must have a penitent heart.”
“No, I only want you to hear it. After all, I did it for you.”
The hairs on his neck stood on end and he sweated despite the cool temperature in the air-conditioned room. Samuel’s first thought was that Samson had taken another trip over the border into Canada to smuggle in HIV medication. He had warned his brother more than once about doing it, but had done so half-heartedly. Being an AIDS patient himself, he thought the prices the pharmaceutical companies in America charged for HIV drugs were criminal and so he’d said nothing when he’d looked in his medicine cabinet to see that his own supply of immune boosters had mysteriously quintupled. Even now he was torn between his fear of seeing his brother get caught, his distress at knowing that Samson had once again broken another of God’s commandments, and his own excitement at the prospect of a supply of experimental drugs.
“What did you do?”
“I took a soul.”
“You did what?”
Samson slid a small stack of papers beneath the screen that separated them. Samuel leafed through the pages. It was all written in legalese and he could barely make sense of any of it.
“What is this?”
“It’s a contract. It’s all perfectly legal, my lawyer drew it up for me. It gives me all rights, privileges, and powers including ownership of the signer’s immortal soul. A woman signed it last night, in blood. She signed her soul over to me for one night of sex.”
Samson’s voice brimmed with pride. It almost sounded as if he were waiting for his brother’s approval.
“Samson…this is…why? Why would you do something this perverse and…blasphemous? This is wrong. What are you trying to prove? That you’re some kind of God? You want to prove to everyone how great you are by having them sign their souls over to you?”
“It’s not about my ego, Samuel. It’s about your life.”
“My life? What does this have to do with me?”
“Remember when I was a kid and I wanted to be a dancer? Mom talked Dad into letting me take lessons. I stayed with it for four years. I went every day. Then one day I realized that I would never be a dancer, no matter how hard I tried. I could work at it hard enough to be good but I’d never be great and only the great ones make a living at it. So, I quit, just like that. Mom was so disappointed in me. She thought I was just being flaky. You and Dad didn’t really care. I think Dad was just happy to find out I wasn’t gay. I’ve never been good at anything, Sammy.”
“You just needed to find yourself.”
“No. I’m just not a talented person. I’m not particularly smart. You were always the straight A student. I was just average, except for the way I looked. When Mom and Dad talked about you, they imagined that you would grow up to be a famous politician or maybe a lawyer or a Nobel Prize-winning scientist or author or maybe a black leader of some kind. They thought you could have been absolutely anything. They were so proud when you decided to become a priest. But when they talked about me all they ever said was how handsome I was. How I could grow up to be a famous actor. Then I tried acting and failed at that too. They talked about me becoming a model. So I did. I’m one of the highest paid male models in the world because that’s all I could ever be.
“You know why they never talked about me becoming a politician or a lawyer, Samuel? Because I’m useless. They knew it then. I’m a beautiful piece of nothing. I used to see how envious you’d get when everyone would talk about how handsome I was and when all the girls would chase after me. I don’t think you ever knew how envious I was of you, though. To me, you were always the perfect one. You were the smart one, the one who never got into trouble. When I was fighting in the street you were turning the other cheek. When I was fucking everything that moved you were taking your vow of chastity. I should have hated you for being so perfect, but I never did. I love you, big bro.”
“I love you too, Samson. But what does any of this have to do with this…this contract?”
“Because it isn’t fair!”
Hurried footsteps rushed toward the confessional in response to Sams
on’s outburst. There was a tentative knock on the door.
“Father Samuel? Is everything okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m fine. We’re just about done here.”
The footsteps backed away and Samuel returned his attention to his brother.
“Sorry about that. Samson, what are you doing? What are you trying to do?”
“You’re the perfect one. You’re my better half. And God is taking you away from me. You’ve done everything He’s asked of you. You’ve devoted your life to Him and look at you.” Vestments couldn’t hide Samuel’s thin wrists or drawn face. Though born so close together, Samuel seemed to have aged a decade since their last visit. Samson neared tears. “He’s taking you away!”
“So, you want to punish Him for it? You can’t do that, Samson.”
“I can do whatever the fuck I want! And no, I’m not punishing Him. I want to strike a bargain with Him. Your life for the souls of His precious children.”
“You can’t do that, Samson. God has a plan for me. We may not understand it but we have to trust His wisdom.”
“If wanting to save my brother’s life is a sin, if His plan means that I have to watch my big brother rot and die, then fuck His plan.” Samson stormed out of the confessional. Samuel listened to his brother’s heavy footfalls as he left the church, wondering what he was going to do.
3
“You’ve got to go.” Samson disentangled himself from the woman’s velveteen embrace, the woman whose name he no longer remembered, nor cared about; his mind was already on other things. Samson rode the crests of his orgasm to an elevated state of consciousness. It harnessed his concentration and focused him for the task at hand. Whatever she had to say, she did so to his back. He already had her signature on the contract and he had taken all the pleasure he could from her flesh. There was nothing more he needed from her, nothing more she could offer. He visualized the sigil. “Don’t be here when I get back.”
Samson always believed that there was a transcendent aspect to sex, a spiritual energy to be had, a sexual alchemy that might be used to bend reality to his will. He only had to find a way to channel his sexual energy. The sigil drawn on a piece of paper absorbed the energy generated by the act. It was a symbol of his brother. Healthy. How he was meant to be. Meaninglessness in a universe that had no meaning he understood; however, meaninglessness in a universe with meaning, in a universe run by God, that was unacceptable. Samson’s plan to collect enough souls to barter for the life of his brother had only been a desperate thought, nothing more than a fantasy, until he discovered the book. The Key of Solomon. With it, he would summon the Enemy.
His shower was only part of his cleansing ritual. He remained naked; nothing would block the flow of his power during the ceremony. There was freedom in performing the ritual in the nude. To perform magic of this difficulty, he needed a special mindset. His fast continued, but it was the sex that truly began his act of consecrating himself. None of the bullshit about being chaste, storing up a pool of sexual energy. Sex was power. Through it he would tap God’s power or at least thwart His will.
It had been a long day for him, bleeding long into the night, but his work was not complete. Samson, finding his apartment empty, closed the red drapes across his windows. Lit only by candles, he made this his secluded place, his sacred place. Kneeling over his blade, he prayed. He drew a magic circle with the knife, carving a barrier to the outside world. Methodically, he worked with the same care and patience he used to seduce women, etching pentagrams and hexagrams along the circle. The crosses and bowls of holy water, he stole from his brother’s church. A slight indiscretion to pay if his boon was granted. His place secure, Samson crossed the room, knelt, and stabbed his knife into the wood floor again. This time he crafted a triangle to hold the demon. He inscribed the name Michael within it, then wrote the names of power on its edges. Anexhexeton. Tetragrammaton. Primematum.
In the end, the ritual came down to belief, power, and names. The rest was window dressing to focus his mind and energy.
“I invoke you, terrible and fallen god who prowls like a lion among the children of Adam, who rules under threat of damnation and eternal hellfire by the power of the Supreme God, Elohim, over all Spirits, superior and inferior, I invoke and command thee by the true name of God, Yaweh, in whose image I am created, who sacrificed His only begotten son for my sins. O the most great and powerful name of God, JEHOVAH, TETRAGRAMMATON, who cast thee out of Heaven with the rest of the faithless angels into a boiling lake of fire; by all the other potent and great names of God, Creator of Heaven, Earth and Hell, of all contained therein; by their powers and virtues; which Adam heard and spake when he was cast from the garden; by the name which Jacob learned from the Angel on the night of his wrestling and was delivered from the hands of his brother Esau; by the name which Lot heard and was saved with his family; by the name ZEBAOTH, which Moses named, and all the rivers and waters in the land of Egypt brought forth frogs, which ascended into the houses of the Egyptians, destroying all; by the name SCHEMES AMATHIA, which Joshua invoked and the sun stayed upon his course; by the name ANEHEXETON, which Solomon spake and was made wise; by the name EMMANUEL, which the three children, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, chanted in the midst of the fiery furnace, and they were delivered; by the name ALPHA and OMEGA, which Daniel uttered, and destroyed Bel and the Dragon. Hear me and make all your scourge brethren obedient to me,” Samson screamed into the night.
The night retorted with silence. Samson knew the spirits had to be commanded, his tone certain, yet not disrespectful. A fine line to walk. In truth, he imagined this was how life was for his brother, time wasted talking to someone who wasn’t there.
“I have brought the names, those souls I have to barter.”
For an hour, he implored the empty air. Sweat glistened on his body. He sliced his arms in blood tribute. Drops of blood sizzled in the candle flames.
“Why won’t you answer me?”
“Not enough,” a voice finally murmured and extinguished the candles.
Samson collapsed into an exhausted heap of spent flesh. “I’ve failed.”
“Twenty for one.”
“Twenty souls?” Samson asked.
Samson felt his hopes sink. There was no way he could find twenty women willing to sell their souls for sex. It was impossible. Well, nearly impossible.
“Twenty for one. Their blood must be spilled for the covenant to be made.”
Samson shivered as the meaning of the words sank in.
4
Working at Matthew’s House, a hospice for those dying of AIDS, Samuel felt like he was set up to fail. There was little he could do for them since nothing he could say or do would prevent any of them from dying. It was the perfect metaphor for all of his life’s work—futile efforts while everyone around him died anyway. He muttered a quick prayer to refocus himself on his duties and responsibilities. If he could provide any measure of comfort, he needed to do so. And some of the clients brought a special joy to him.
He made his way to the back corner of the floor. From the way she sat stiffly, he knew the pains in the woman’s neck and head must be excruciating today.
“Bless me Father, for I have sinned.” She closed her eyes and put her hands together as if ready for her penance. Then she peeked out from one eye.
“Give me a break.”
“It’s true. I’ve been up to no good since my last confession. Adultery. Murder. Stealing. I’ve been working my way through the top ten like it’s my personal to do list.”
“Have you even left this bed?”
Wrath James White and Maurice Broaddus Page 2
