Father Briar and The Angel

by Rita Saladano

  “And, quite frankly,” Father Briar thought, “I was hoping to spend Saturday morning in bed with Julianna.” It may not have been a bustling metropolis, but Thief River Falls was big enough to provide a cover of invisibility and anonymity for the illicit lovers. But his holy clerical duty called.

  “Breakfast it is. And tell Trigger and the rest of the boys good luck from me!”

  Hiding your true feelings is a gift given through the grace of God.

  Chapter Ten: Hockey is Religion, Religion is Hockey.

  “Come on boys, get to fore-checking!” Ty Olsen shouted.

  Julianna was stunned by his passion for schoolboys playing a children’s game. But she had to admit, there was an adrenaline rush to it; the rush of the team up the ice, the building roar of the crowd, and the hot slap of the stick against the puck, launching it towards the net. Whenever Brannaska scored, Cedric would jump up and down beside her. His excitement was exciting. When the locals won, he hugged her.

  Oh, yes, she could get in to hockey.

  “When do they play again?” she asked.

  “This weekend, up in Thief River Falls.”

  “What an odd name for a town. Are there really thieves up there?”

  “None that I am aware of. But there is a river, and there are falls, lovely little falls. And a high school hockey rink, of course.”

  Of course. Every town in Minnesota had at least one place for the teenage team to play, in addition to a dozen or more for the neighborhood kids.

  “Would it be alright if I attended that game, too?” This was a leading question; she darn well better be able to attend the game with him!

  Your support for the team is always welcome,” he said with a sly smile, knowing that she wanted a little more. She got a little squirrelly, he could see her positively vibrating in her puffy down overcoat, but he wasn’t quite ready to let it go yet.

  “The Church is, as always, chartering a bus to take the congregation’s fans up there. You could ride with them.”

  “With them?” she asked. “Aren’t you going?” She tried not to let her frustration show. Her faced turned red and she pursed her lips up into a pouty, kissy, fish face.

  Now he figured he’d been winding her up long enough.

  “Yes, of course I’m going, I have to drive up a little early to have lunch with a fellow pastor in Thief River Falls, and then I’ll go to the game.” He grinned his trademark grin. Thanks to the Navy’s generous dental program, his teeth were perfect. She wanted to kiss him right on the mouth. “Why don’t you take the Church bus up and we’ll find a way for you to ride back with me.”

  “That is exactly what I wanted to hear,” she said.

  So that is exactly what they did.

  The church bus was lively and fun. It was a three hour ride and so they occupied themselves by singing songs and playing bingo. Julianna watched the Northern Minnesota countryside unfold outside the windows, and when they frosted up, she put her fingertips to them and pressed little peepholes so she could see the world.

  Sometimes she felt as though her relationship with Cedric was like watching the world through a peephole. She could see a bit of life, sometimes beautiful things, sometimes a bit of the sun or the sky, but never a whole picture, never a whole moment, never the whole of love.

  It was as though she would always have to wear blinders, that she’d never be able to see or feel what the rest of the world saw and felt, that she’d miss out on so much.

  But it was beautiful, too! And safe. If she never could experience all of love, she could never then feel the crushing loss when it ended, right?

  The wheels of the bus went round and round, rolling towards Thief River Falls.

  Outside the arena, the atmosphere was festive as the townspeople tried to shake off the winter blues with some good old fashioned rivalry. People materialized from the frozen over fields; Julianna couldn’t believe how many people turned out.

  “It must be everybody in three counties,” she thought.

  It was, and probably more. Thief River Falls High School Loggers were the best team in the state of Minnesota, a place that takes high school hockey as seriously as they took their farming, their religion, and their complaining about the weather.

  What prep football is to Texas, prep hockey is to Minnesota. Games between great teams routinely drew over five thousand souls, and tickets on the “black market” could get expensive. The black market in Brannaska consisted of Bjorn’s Café, a breakfast spot favored by farmers and fans alike, as their apple fritters and Sunday Smorgasbords were unrivalled throughout Central Minnesota. A twenty five cent ticket could, sold by the proprietor-cum-auctioneer, who was Bjorn himself, fetch two whole dollars.

  The arena smelled like fresh popcorn and stale, sweaty wool. Socks and mittens and hats and coats steamed as their wearers warmed up, the air was thick with competitive anticipation and teenage hormones. The cheers from the girls in bobby sox and poodle skirts (often with two or three layers of nylons to keep their pink legs warm; with war rationing over, nylons were once again an affordable luxury) bounced around the arena, boosted by the echo off the ice.

  Brannaska came out in green and white, Thief River Falls in black and white. Their sticks were taped at the handles and curves with obsessive care. Skating through their warm-ups, the teams carved graceful curves on the new ice, elegant calligraphy with a grammar all its own.

  There was something reverent and worshipful about the crowd.

  Julianna had never been much into sports. As a child she’d been studious and her family moved about the country like gypsies while her dad chased interesting jobs.

  She marveled at how the players could turn on a dime, throwing their bodies sideways at the last moment and sending a fine cloud of shaved ice skyward. Julianna was impressed with their ability to skate forwards so fast, so when they skated backwards with equal aplomb she could barely believe her eyes.

  “Our guys look tiny out there next to them,” Cedric worried.

  “Slow, too,” the Mr. Olsen said. He’d made the trip in “The Meat Wagon,” the pickup he used to search for and haul the various specimens he was stuffing around in. He was known to plunder road kill, then mount and sell the unfortunate critters as though they’d had died noble deaths at the hands of hungry hunters.

  “All rise, for the national anthem,” called the public address announcer over a crackling loudspeaker.

  This, too, had strong religious connotations. God and Country were still inexorably linked; this was yet another lingering after-effect of the war. Eisenhower’s White House was popular and, riding a wave of prosperity, Americans felt as though they’d been divinely blessed.

  “…and the home, of the braaaaaave.” Cedric always drew out the last syllable of the song, even if no one else around him was. It was a bit of cheek from an old sailor, who felt he’d earned the right by dint of his service. “Heck,” he thought, “even when we were on the boat, taking fire from Japanese fighters and kamikaze pilots, we weren’t as deadly serious about Old Glory as these people seem to be.”

  The Brannaska Bunyons fought hard, too, but they were soon under attack by the potent Thief River Falls offense, which featured a right wing that would go on to a fifteen year career in the National Hockey League. He scored twice in the first six minutes and the Bunyons’ side of the bleachers was very, very quiet.

  Cedric thought about the families of the players as they skated. He thought about their lives, their tragedies, their traumas, and their triumphs. Winger Ryan Platz lost his father to hypothermia when he got lost on a hunting trip. Hunting had claimed Jeremy Driver’s father, too; well, not hunting so much as the combination of whiskey and shotguns.

  Kent “Whitey” White (Brannaskans were never any good with nicknames) lost his grandfather when he went out to milk the cows in a blizzard and the rope he had tied to guide him to the barn had blown free. It was flying loose in the wind, like a child’s kite. Poor Whitey Senior walked out to the
middle of nowhere, holding a rope that promised false truth.

  Whenever Cedric thought of this story, he shuddered, and in spite of his best efforts and hardest prayers, he wondered if his belief in God wasn’t the same thing as that rope. He didn’t think faith worked like that, but still he was a man of intelligence and experience, so occasionally he had to question things, question everything.

  His grieving parishioners would approach him at wakes and ask, “why does God take innocent people? Why does he take good people?” Sometimes Father Briar wanted to tell them, “God didn’t take your husband, that blizzard did.”

  But what sort of answer was that for the faithful?

  “Darn it,” Cedric said, coming out of his meditation as Thief River Falls scored again.

  She giggled a little bit to herself. Had they not been in public, around others from church, he might have used the harder curse word there. Julianna loved having this little bit of intimate knowledge about him.

  “They will come back here right quick, you betcha,” Ty said. “Our squad is too plucky to stay down long.”

  Then Thief River scored again, “a slapper right through the five hole,” Ty lamented.

  Cedric saw Julianna’s shocked face and instead of laughing out loud, decided to translate that obtuse bit of sports jargon so she didn’t feel like even more of an outsider.

  “He said that the player hit the puck really hard with a ‘slap shot’ and it went through our goalie’s legs and into the net.”

  “Well thanks!” she said, much cheerier than those around her. The Brannaska faithful were taking the trouncing hard.

  It was about to get worse. That talented winger scored again, “a gorgeous backhander from right outside the faceoff circle,” the despondent taxidermist wailed.

  The rout continued from there. Trigger Olsen got a goal, much to his father’s delight, but the Bunyons lost 8-1.

  The dejected Brannaska fans filed out of the rink. Even through the thick padding of his coat, Julianna could see that his shoulders were slumping.

  “I know how I can cheer you up,” she told him, unbuttoning the top of her blouse.

  “Here in the car?” he asked mouth agape.

  “Why not? I read about it in a romance novel I bought at Mimsie’s Five and Dime.”

  “Jewels,” he said, using her nickname with a rare note of disapproval, “don’t be filling your mind with that trash. Romance novels are pithy distractions written by alcoholics not talented enough to make a living writing screenplays but too pretentious to write pornography.”

  She laughed and he was secretly proud. So few people got his humor.

  “Really?” she questioned, “most of the writers that I’ve known have been more fond of that reefer.”

  “Sometimes I miss a city. Brannaska is nice and all, but I miss jazz music and all of the funny smells that come with it.”

  “You never cease to surprise me,” she said, “I’d never pegged you as a jazz guy.”

  “Oh, I’m not. And I’ve never been to a concert or non-religious performance in my life, aside from the USO shows during the war. But I like that it exists and we could go, if we wanted.”

  “Yes, there isn’t jazz or reefer in Brannaska,” she agreed, “so how about a quickie in the car?”

  “It’s not been very long since I’ve started having sex. I think sex in the car might be a big ask,” he said, trying not to stammer. He quickly estimated the dimensions of the interior of the car. “It is possible, physically,” he conceded.

  “Of course it’s possible. You just put your big fat penis in my cute little vagina.”

  This broke him up. She was the funniest and most fun creature he’d ever encountered. She was also beautiful, and, by her own admission, horny. So he turned his attention away from her humor to the situation at hand.

  “We can’t stop at any of the motels on the way home. The dejected Bunyon faithful fans will be strung out from here back to Brannaska. We’ll be recognized for sure.”

  He drove slowly through town, concentrating. Then there was a bounce in the seat next to him and Julianna squealed, “how about down there!”

  There was a big depression in the ground next to a brick elementary school and the locals had flooded it and turned it into a hockey rink. The icy playground was still lit and there was sweet-smelling wood smoke coming from the chimney of the little building known as the warming house.

  “Looks cozy,” he said, “let’s hope there is nobody in there!”

  Thankfully for his by now rather urgent erection, the warming house was both warm and empty. He unlocked the trunk of his car and brought a blanket out of the winter survival kit so they’d have somewhere soft and comfortable to lie.

  Cedric put her down gently and lifted up her sweater. He kissed her nipples with great tenderness and care. “Harder,” she commanded. “Take them deeper into your mouth.”

  Ever the obedient lover, he obliged. This was very unusual. They’d skipped foreplay entirely, no kissing, no necking, no touching. Just fast, needy stripping and then trading favor after favor until they were on the edge insanity.

  “I am going to have to put it in you soon,” he gasped.

  “Yes, yes, yes you are,” she said.

  “I wish I could see your body.”

  “Then go ahead and turn the lights on.”

  This was a bridge too far, too soon.

  “Rather, I’m happy like this.”

  She laughed. “I’d be happier if you put your cock in me. It is so hot against my tummy and that heat could be better used elsewhere.”

  “Soon enough. I need more of these immaculate breasts first,” he said.

  “You could do both,” she begged.

  “I am,” he joked, holding each one of her tits in his hands.

  “You are a square, man.”

  He reminded himself to ask about that new bit of slang later. But later. Now? Now was the time for sex.

  Cedric slid into her with such precision, power, and grace that she thought she might climax right then and there. Much to her great delight, she managed to hold off, and the pace of his rhythm was set. Then it increased. Then it got faster still and she had to hold on for dear and blessed life.

  Then, at once, he lost his erection. He blushed.

  “What is wrong, my dearest love,” she panted.

  “I, um, I have to urinate,” Father Briar confessed, quiet and under his breath, half hoping that she wouldn’t hear.

  But she did and she laughed. Laughed long and long, and this relieved his tension and he went to relieve his bladder.

  “What a wonderful thing it is, making love,” he thought, looking down at his penis as if discovering it for the first time.

  In his modesty, he’d dressed between bed and the bathroom.

  Cedric walked back to the makeshift bed and lay down next to her, now slowly disrobing again as he did. Julianna took a deep breath, since the last time she’d made love; she’d been looking forward to this. She was still almost pure and maintained some nervous energy and sexual nervousness about this moment, her thighs quivered and her nipples got taut and nubby. Her lover took her face into his hands, softly caressing her cheeks before he kissed her. Her cheekbones were high, defined, and elegant, her lips still carrying lipstick traces, and her eyelids heavy but the eyes be

  “I love this, and I love you,” Julianna said, a trace of the Pacific Northwestern accent from her growing up still audible around the soft corners of her voice, “but it’s hard.” Julianna wondered if what was coming next would be hard, too, and then she giggled at her own naughtiness, deflating the potential tension of the moment and putting them both at ease.

  She, too, had dressed while he was in the bathroom. It was out of modesty, pure and simply, but now she was glad she had. It prolonged the moment. Cedric unbuttoned the top of her nightgown, fumbling a bit with the opposite-side arrangement. He wondered for a moment if she wore her bra to bed and worried that he’d fumble with
that, too. Father Briar was still quite the novice at lovemaking and all the layers of clothing removal in necessitated. Julianna helped him out, bringing it down around her shoulders and exposing the top of her naked chest.

  “You have beautiful breasts,” he blurted, like an over excited kid. Which, in many ways, he was. Her breathing got more and more rapid, shallower and shallower, as she struggled to maintain her composure.

  She knew that soon, even more of her would be exposed and she lusted for it, wanting to grind herself against him in delirious anticipation, but still, she maintained her control. But when he started kissing her neck, slow at first then more pressing, hungrier, harder, she thought she might lose it.

  “Oh how I’m trying!” she bragged to herself, “and how good the release will feel.” She was free of Catholic guilt, she was free of nagging worries about the sinfulness of her love affair, and she was now free of her nightgown!”

  “Good job Cedric,” she said with a smile, now wearing nothing but her birthday suit.

  She said something that sounded like, “a fish dish a wish-pish full frontal Monday mental-ish,” slurred together as all one word. Her body, he realized, had the amazing power to make him lose command of the English language. And without the word, what was he? Nothing. All he had was the word, and the word was good.

  “Surely I am the most amoral priest this snowbound state has ever seen,” he thought, not out of shame, but out of pride, pure and horny pride.

  “What wild magic does she possess?” he thought, smiling down upon her before kissing her neck yet again. He didn’t want her to know that he thought she possessed some sort of supernatural powers. Cedric was willing to indulge a little Halloween fantasy every now and then.

  “I am lying in bed with my parish priest and the man who I love more than any other,” she thought, and like Father Briar, this wasn’t out of shame but great pride.

  “Are you impressed?”