The Gospel of Winter

by Brendan Kiely

  “That’s insane,” I said, raising my voice. “Besides, do you know how much good the Church has done in the world too? This doesn’t just wipe it all out.”

  “Oh my God,” she said. “You’re insane. You’re defending them? Are you, like, a hardcore Catholic all of a sudden? Circle-the-wagons kind of thing? It’s an open-and-shut case. Those guys are guilty and, seriously, think of those poor kids. It’s not fair. They had to go through all that, and then it’s only because they speak up that we know any of this.”

  “Maybe some kids spoke up because they wanted attention,” I said. I laughed, even though I didn’t have any idea why. “Like a copycat, jumping onto another news story?”

  “That’s not funny,” Josie said. “You’re demented.”

  “Why are you pushing me like this? Why am I being interrogated?”

  “You?” Josie asked.

  She was quiet for a moment as she finished her coffee. I couldn’t think of anything to say because every word that came to mind sounded like it incriminated me more. I wanted to cut out my tongue and send it in the mail to Most Precious Blood with a note that said, Add it to your goddamn collection.

  “Maybe we should just go home,” Josie said at last. “This has all been kind of weird.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It is weird. I mean, you have to believe me. I just feel betrayed, I guess. I worked there. Everything seemed normal and fine to me. And now nothing does.” Josie listened to me with her hands folded beneath her chin, and she remained quiet and calm when I paused. “Sorry I was a jerk,” I finally added. “I wish it all made more sense. I just want everything to be normal.”

  She reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “You’re not a jerk,” she said. “You’re definitely not a jerk, of all things.”

  We left, and Josie still led me down the street and around the corner to a more secluded parking lot behind some of the stores. I felt her lips against mine, felt them press and pull me closer to her. I tried to respond—I wanted to, I thought—but it required effort. She pushed into me, and although I was up against a wall, I seemed to slip away. She pushed into me again. “Please,” she said, “hold me.” I did as I was told. She pried my mouth open with hers and worked her tongue. I had nothing for her. “What’s the matter?” she asked. “Don’t you want this?”

  I did, but without her enthusiasm, or at least without feeling as excited as she seemed. I nodded along, smiled, and mirrored her expressions. We pressed together, and I reacted as I thought I should, mimicking her moves, rubbing our noses back and forth as we paused between kisses, pacing the kisses with a peck, another peck. I held the back of her head and touched her ear, kissed her and kissed her, using the same pattern: one; two; three; counting steps, marching through my own routine.

  She grabbed my wrist and glided my hand up and down the side of her body. When she let go and began rubbing my back, I continued as she’d shown me. The other part of me pulled away, deeper into myself. I suddenly felt like I didn’t understand desire and how to recognize it and follow it into a conversation with another person, how to speak with another person through touch, how to listen with my body and respond—I only knew how to be desired and how to obey.

  I tried rubbing my hands in different places around her body, but she didn’t react like I thought she was supposed to. Nothing inspired me, nothing moved within me. After a while Josie sensed it, or at least became frustrated with me. She redirected my hands a few times. “Touch me here.” I obeyed, but not with anything behind it—not desire or fear. I moved my hands faster and squeezed harder, but these weren’t my hands anymore. Somewhere deep in the darkest pit of me I could hear Father Greg’s voice panting about God and about what was within us and about love, love, love. Nothing was within me now. Nothing had ever been there between us—I could say that now. Nothing was there within us.

  She felt the emptiness against her, I’m sure, and she looked up at me with dejected eyes. “What’s the matter?” she asked. “What do you want? What do you want to do?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. I want to know, but I don’t.”

  We were quiet for a moment. “This isn’t working,” she said softly.

  “It should, though,” I said.

  “Don’t you want me?”

  “Yes.”

  She pulled back a little. “Really? It doesn’t seem like it.” I was quiet and too confused to find an answer or anything else to say. She got closer, grabbed my coat, and pulled me forward playfully. “Don’t you think I’m pretty?”

  “Of course.”

  “Don’t just say it,” she said. “You think I’m pretty?”

  “Yes. Yes, I want you.” It wasn’t a lie. I’d wanted to kiss her on the neck every time she’d moved her hair and exposed the pale slope of her neck in Mr. Weinstein’s class. She was the first girl I ever kissed, but I wanted her to be the first person. I wanted to undo all that was behind me and be a real virgin again.

  “Mean it,” she said.

  She unbuttoned her coat, and I put my arms around her. She unzipped my coat and pressed close to me. “I’m here,” she said softly. “I’m not going anywhere. Take your time.” When I hugged her and moved my hands along her back, I felt the clip of her bra strap, and I wanted to know how to snap it off. She lapped against me in gentle waves, and it released a wash of nerves tingling within me.

  We stayed there awhile. I pressed her closer to me, and she moved against me more urgently when she felt my erection against her. I went deliriously light-headed and kissed her harder. I sucked her bottom lip. Both my hands dropped to her ass, and I pulled her tight against me. She giggled and stayed with me for a moment, breathing harder against my neck.

  She broke away. “Okay. Okay,” she said with a laugh. My insides jumped uncontrollably, and I was shaking on the outside, too. She smiled up at me, but she was a little nervous as well. Her cheeks were flushed. “I, uh, wish I didn’t have to go.” She composed herself, and then she teased me that we’d have to be more respectable next time. Find someplace quiet. Someplace private. Not an alley downtown. I agreed. Someplace I could sit down, I told her. My legs were giving out on me. “Someplace we can lie down,” she said. She kissed me again.

  “Why not right now?” I asked.

  “Yes.” She was still catching her breath. Her nostrils trembled as she breathed. “My mother has a meeting in the city this afternoon. Come over now and I’ll sneak you in so Ruby doesn’t see you.”

  We took the same route back to her house we had walked the other day, kissing along the way again, but this time more in a rush. We’d pause, but only for enough time to lick each other’s lips briefly, before Josie grabbed my hand and dragged me along. We didn’t say much to each other as we came up the street toward her house. When we got there, I wanted to see the film of ice on the elm tree in the small stand of trees at the foot of her driveway. I wanted to see what I looked like beside her, but the ice was gone.

  Josie pushed up and down on the balls of her feet as she told me the plan. I followed her instructions, and after she had made it up the hill to her house and closed the front door behind her, I jogged past her neighbor’s house and turned right at the end of the block. I jumped the low stone wall, dashed across their backyard to the grove of trees next to Josie’s family’s property, and crouched at the base of another thick elm tree. Soon Josie opened her back door and walked up to the pool house with her schoolbag slung over her shoulder. She had changed into a pair of bright pink sweatpants and a jacket that cinched tightly around her waist and had a fluffy fur-trimmed hood. I waited for another minute, then ran down to the side door of the pool house.

  Josie opened it as soon as I knocked. “Thought you’d gotten lost,” she said, and kissed me. She made us hot chocolate at the bar in the main room and spiked it with Kahlúa. We sat on the couch and sipped our drinks.

  Soon we weren’t talking. Her lips moved to my neck, and I put my mug down so I wouldn’t spill it into
our laps. We found the urgency again and clung together. She reached behind her and helped me with her bra, and soon after she unbuckled my pants, fished through the opening in my boxers, and pulled me out. Her hand was so small around me, and she moved me up against the flat of her stomach and pressed and pulled. An electricity charged me. And then, out of nowhere, I found myself mumbling to her, telling her she would like this, it would feel good, and the words weren’t mine, they erupted from a darkness within me, and I spoke into her ear as I reached into her pants and began to push and pull and knead into her. She scooted her hips back, and I chased after her harder.

  She let go of me and tried to push herself back, but she was beneath me. “Ow. Please,” she said, but I kept at it. “No.”

  “No? No. Shhh,” I said.

  “Stop it.”

  “No. Shhh.”

  “Owww. What the fuck? No. Stop it!” Josie hit my shoulder. I leaned back, and she got her knees up between us and bucked me off of her. She pulled up her pants, tucked herself into a ball in the corner of the couch, and stared at me over her knees.

  My heart thumped painfully in my chest. I looked at my hands, and they were shaking uncontrollably. My whole body was. It didn’t feel like it was mine. And as I pulled up my pants I felt a familiar numbness welling up inside me.

  “What the fuck is the matter with you?” Josie said. “You hurt me.”

  “No,” I said.

  “What do you mean, no? Yes you did! You hurt me.”

  “No, I mean, I didn’t mean to.” My throat tightened, and I swallowed back the tears. I brought my legs up against my chest too. The huge television was turned off, and our outlines were reflected back at us from the gray screen. “I don’t know who I was just then. It wasn’t me. I’m sorry.”

  Josie remained quiet for a while and finally said, “Something is seriously fucked up with you.”

  “No, there isn’t. I want this with you.”

  “Well, nothing is going to happen between us now.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I don’t know what I was doing.”

  “What’s the matter with you?” she asked me.

  “I don’t know,” I said, and I looked to the floor. I wanted to say something else, but where the hell would I begin? I leaned toward her, and she must have thought I wanted to kiss her, because she got up suddenly and walked over to the bar. She poured herself soda from the gun. “I’m serious. Something is really wrong.” Her voice changed tone. She wasn’t asking me. She sipped her drink and waited for me. I wondered what I looked like in her eyes now.

  She sipped slowly and waited. “I don’t think we should keep doing this,” she said finally.

  “I don’t get it,” I said.

  “What don’t you get?”

  “I want it. I want this to work between us. Why isn’t it?”

  “It’s not just about what you want. I have a say in this too. And I say fuck no.” She put her glass down and clutched herself as if she were cold. Her face drooped with concern. “There’s something you’re not telling me,” she said. I couldn’t pay attention. I sank farther away. I couldn’t focus. I felt empty and yet without room to take anything in. “Are you, like, okay?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. No. I just don’t want you to think I don’t want you. I do. I want you. I don’t know why I’m like this right now.”

  Josie shook her head. She looked at me with eyes that were sad and scared, but she offered a smile, too. “I’m not talking about that. Listen, I’m not trying to be mean. I’m just asking. Is there anything you need to tell me? Would that help?” With her arms crossed tightly in front of her and head cocked slightly to the side, she looked so brave. I was jealous of her, and something broke within me. I took a step around the couch, toward the bar.

  “Just stop with all that!” I yelled. “Why won’t everyone stop wondering? Why do I have to talk about anything?”

  She backed up against the shelves of bottles. “I’m just trying to figure this all out.”

  “I’m just fucked up. Okay?” I shouted, gripping the back of one of the bar stools, leaning closer. “Why can’t that be it? Why do we have to figure it all out?”

  “Please. You’re scaring me now. Please don’t yell at me.” She stayed behind the counter of the bar, but she spoke more forcefully. “Just listen to yourself. Look at yourself. You’re being insane.”

  “I’m not insane,” I said.

  “Well, you need to leave. You hurt me, and you’re scaring the shit out of me right now. This isn’t the Aidan I thought I was getting to know. Get out of my house. Now.” I looked away from her and continued to lean on the bar stool. I couldn’t speak. I held on to the bar. I couldn’t find any language. “Go,” she said again. “Leave.”

  She remained behind the bar as I put on my coat and made my way out the back door. On the walk home, I wanted to believe I was as scared as she was, but I couldn’t convince myself of that. I was on the point of losing everything I had finally gained. I needed better control of myself. I tried to devise a plan to maintain that control, not lose it like I had with Josie. I wanted my life to be my own, but it wasn’t, and it couldn’t be, and the whole walk home I thought of Mark on the roof of Coolidge, wondering what he’d seen come over my face as he’d tried to talk to me. Who had he seen?

  That night, as I tried to fall asleep, two distinct voices shouted in my head, and I nearly thought there was another person in the room because there were two minds battling each other, one telling me to reach out to Mark and the other barking the same old orders to shut up and stay silent. I scared myself into thinking there was actually someone else in the room, and the urge to turn on the light and double-check was overwhelming. He could have been sitting in the armchair or crouched at the foot of my bed or standing patiently in the closet, waiting for me to open it, when he would say, Ha! Caught! You little fucker, you can’t hide forever. I switched on the reading lamp and looked around the room quickly. My heart pounded. I got up to walk over to the closet and from the corner of my eye I saw a pale, terrified boy in my window. I cried out. I couldn’t see my face in the dim light, but it was only my own reflection, limbs flexed and bent, ready for a fight. I stared at what I guess was myself for a long time, the ghostly impression of my bare chest rising and falling as I tried to catch my breath.

  I sat in bed with my legs tucked up against me and my back to the wall, shaking and grunting under my breath. I was too blasted to sleep—I felt like I was hurtling downward without any sense of where I was going to land. Had I asked to become this? I hated myself all over again, because I hadn’t meant to be so terrible to Mark. He was my friend. I knew what he wanted. To be heard. For me to see him, the whole him. To know that I understood how he felt. I wanted that too, I realized. Didn’t we all want that, and didn’t each of us deserve it—two people being with each other honestly?

  After everything I had felt for Father Greg, I now had a new reason to hate him. Josie was right. It wasn’t only our younger selves he’d twisted and manipulated, he’d also hurt the men we would become: our future as friends and lovers. He wasn’t even physically present, but silently and invisibly, mysteriously, Father Greg was there—still demanding a singular devotion to him. What a religion he’d constructed: One that said, Fear me if you don’t believe in me.

  CHAPTER 14

  When I woke and got ready for school, I was nervous to the point of nausea. I was unsure how to proceed, but when I looked out the window in the breakfast nook and saw Elena’s small car parked in front of the second garage, I felt a sense of hope. I had no idea how long she’d been there, but I realized she’d come back to collect her things. The light from her apartment window shot out into the gray, bleak morning light, and her silhouette paced in and out of view as I walked along the stone path to the garage. The door to the trunk of her car was swung open, and I stood by and waited for her.

  She came down the stairs a few moments later with an armload of clothin
g and a duffel bag. She paused when she saw me and smiled. “M’ijo.” We hugged awkwardly, and then she gestured to the car. I helped her throw the clothes into the backseat.

  I followed Elena up the stairs to her apartment and helped her pack some of her picture frames and books into a box. “How are they?” I asked, holding the one with Candido and Teresa. I looked at the picture. Teresa was laughing in it, but I remembered the rage in her eyes when she saw me last.

  “They are happy for me. Tere has stayed home with me every day after school. She’s cooking dinner for us all tonight.”

  “Do you have to look for another job?”

  “Soon.” She passed me her Bible to put in the box, and I stared at it for a while.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “There is a reason for everything, isn’t there?”

  She was on the other side of the bed, and I wanted to hug her, but she was keeping her distance from me. She kept glancing out the window toward the house. “Hey,” I said softly. “It doesn’t matter if we talk now. What is she going to do?”

  Elena sighed. “I should be going soon.” She was holding back her tears. “This is hard for me. To see you, m’ijo. I’m sorry too,” she said. “I will miss you.” I came around the bed, and she hugged me. She let go, held me at arm’s length, and then walked over to her cabinet to pack up the last of her toiletries. “But you do have new things going on, no?”

  “I feel like a lot is changing,” I said. I pulled the cross down off the wall above her bed. “I almost feel like a different person.” She kept her back to me as she quickly packed. “I mean, there are so many things I’d like to talk to you about. And things I maybe should have talked with you about before.” My voice trembled. I almost couldn’t get it out.

  She still didn’t turn around. “Well, God will provide,” she said. “That is all you need to remember. I will find a new job, and you will grow up, go to a good college, and leave home. Thank God.”