by B Branin
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“Oh me son, who did this to you?”
I was lying in the hallway of the small, cramped condominium that served as the local rectory, pain keeping me flirting with unconsciousness. In the cab ride over I took stock of my injuries and found that it wasn’t as bad as I feared…it was worse. I was suffering from at least two broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder, a fractured wrist and a mild concussion…and that wasn’t counting the various bruises and welts that dotted my body like greenish-black chickenpox. All in all, I’ve had worse beatings but I’d always had a belly full of strong liquor to stop the pain.
I didn’t have time or the audacity to stop by a liquor store where I was headed.
Father O’Brawley knelt down next to me, concern on his wizened face. This wasn’t the first time I had crawled to his humble living quarters for sanctuary but this was the first time he had found me doing it sober. The old priest helped me to my feet and then half-carried, half dragged me to his quarters. I made a stubborn show of walking over to his couch under my own power, only to flop down on it and bring about a fresh wave of hurt.
“I’d love to tell you who wailed on me,” I managed to answer through my sore jaw, “but I’m afraid I don’t rightly know.”
I closed my eyes, trying to mentally will the pain away. It didn’t help. When I opened my eyes Father O’Brawley stood next to me with a bag of ice, some bandages, rubbing alcohol and a hipflask filled with sour whiskey. I made for the hipflask, draining it in nearly one gulp.
“The cowards blindsided you?” The old priest asked, reaching out and touching my shoulder.
I bit back a hiss of agony as he prodded the dislocation.
“No.” I replied, “They…it…waited for me at my office.”
Without saying a word, Father O’Brawley grabbed my wrist and put a hand on my dislocated shoulder.
“They were waiting for you?” He inquired, the grip of his gnarled hand on my wrist could put a vice to shame.
“Yes when I- aaarrggggh!”
My explanation was cut short as the old priest jarred my arm savagely, popping my shoulder back into place which brought about a whole new height of agony. Though he hadn’t spent a day at medical school, Father O’Brawley had such a colorful past that he had learned a few tricks of the healing trade out of necessity. Though quite draconian, his methods worked.
With a shaking hand I drained the rest of the hipflask. My shoulder was afire with hurt but I could already tell my bones were back in their rightful location. Sometimes I wish I could afford a good doctor but then again doctors always felt compelled to ask questions like, “How did a bullet get lodged in your leg?” or, “which magazine would you like to read while we contact the police?”
Father O’Brawley never bothered with the authorities. Instead he just helped me out the best he could. From stitches to stints, broken noses to blood loss, the blessed old priest would always be there to offer aid or at least knew someone in the priesthood who could heal me while maintaining a vow of silence.
“Who attacked you?” Father O’Brawley pressed, “Did you get a good look at them?”
I took a deep breath.
“It wasn’t a ‘them’ or a ‘who’, Father.” I informed the old priest, “It was a what.”
Giving me a confused look, Father O’Brawley waited for me to continue as he unscrewed the lid to some foul smelling balm. The ointment was a pungent and questionable cure-all that the old priest always had at the ready. He claimed that during his time at sea, this balm (made from God-knows-what) could cure any illness and sooth any ache.
Wrinkling my face at the odor of the balm, I tried to explain what had transpired at my office to the best off my ability. In his defense, Father O’Brawley listened without interrupting me. He had spent years of listening to junkies going through withdrawals and mental cases explaining how the entire world was out to get them. Compared to those stories, mine must have seemed completely unimaginative.
“You have a concussion.” Father O’Brawley stated simply after hearing my tale, putting an icepack on my head.
“It’s only a light one,” I replied sharply but kept the icepack on a large bump on my forehead, “I told the cab driver exactly where to find this place and I remembered which floor you were on. Does that sound like someone who has suffered major head trauma?”
Father O’Brawley didn’t reply at first, probably offering a silent prayer. Instead he scooped a large glob of balm out of the jar and applied it to a few cuts. The damn balm burned like grain alcohol but I suppose that would be the sign that it was working.
“I have spent many a year listening to liars, heathens, crooks and crazies in me confession booth,” Father O’Brawley mused aloud, “And I can hear falsehood as clearly as a choir…there be not a drop of deceit in yer tale.”
“So you believe me?” I asked, the desperation so thick in my voice that even I cringed, “About the trash monster attacking me?!”
“Lordy no!” Father O’Brawley snorted, “I say yer either a nut or you have been indulging in something much stronger than liquor.”
“No and no,” I grunted, shifting the icepack and pressing it against a pinched nerve in my neck, “What I am is pissed! In less then seventy-two hours I have been attacked by a junkie, framed for murder and now assaulted by something out of a neat freak’s fucking nightmare! Ouch!”
Despite my condition of being battered, bruised and very much wounded, Father O’Brawley still saw it fit to give my ear a quick box for my crass reference.
“What are you gonna do, lad?” Father O’Brawley asked, placing a good sized bandage over a cut on my forehead.
“What I was planning to do anyway.” I grumbled, folding my arms and sinking into the couch, the whiskey finally doing its job and numbing me comfortably, “Rip the Daughters of All apart! I’ll let Zotkin sort through the remains and get on with my life. Oh and tell Fiona to forget this whole mess and go back to being a country girl.”
“She needs your help,” Father O’Brawley pointed out gently, “She came to you for a reason, lad. Mayhap you humor her, just a wee bit longer.”
“And why should I do that?”
“Because helping others in the Lord’s work.”
“Then let Him help her! Ouch! Dammit stop that!”
“Stop being curt! The Lord works through all of us and I believe He is calling on you to do His work. He calls on all of us.”
I opened one eye and stared at the stern old priest, “That right? And what did the Lord have to do to recruit a tougher-then-leather pirate like you into the priesthood?”
This was a question I had asked Father O’Brawley several times in our short relationship. He knew I was a conman with a past seated comfortably in the grey area of morality but he had never seemed interested in divulging details about his own past, aside from the odd comment about “days gone by.” I never really expected an answer but always pressed the question to remind the old priest that we all have our own crosses to bear. It was a cheap and cowardly tactic to use on someone I considered a friend but sometimes my tolerance for trusting in a God I didn’t rightly believe in came in short supply.
So imagine my surprise when he finally gave a straight answer, now of all times.
“Blood.” Father O’Brawley replied quietly as he stood up, “Blood bein’ spilt that sent a stupid lad to prison. It was in that hellhole that he saw the blessed light of the Lord. Ever since that day, that lad has been looking for redemption…he still be looking ‘fer it, even as an old priest.”
The offer for me to crash on the couch wasn’t spoken aloud. It was expected of me to stay the night, whether to give me sanctuary from whoever might be hunting me or to give me time to sober up. The old priest had become somewhat use to me needing a place to stay when I got in over my head. Wandering down the hall, Father O’Brawley disappeared into his bedroom but only after he called over his shoulder.
“For people like us, we are constantly search
ing for redemption whether we know it or not me son. I feel that this Fiona may be the chance you need at being redeemed and you’d be a fool not to take it.”
As the door to Father O’Brawley’s bedroom shut, I felt that foreign bubble of guilt swell inside my bruised stomach. The old priest had treated me with nothing but kindness and a manner of respect that I wasn’t accustomed too. He trusted me to do the right thing…which was going to make it all the more difficult to ditch Fiona to save my own hide.
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