It has been over a year, but I finally updated! I want to thank you DreamingofDissent and shuramiyaki for your kind and insightful reviews, it means so much when readers take the time and energy to tell an author how much they enjoy their work, it makes it all worthwhile! So yes, here's your annual decadence for you...
Shortly after Maxwell's soiree, another man came to confess.
You had seen him before but took no note of him, as he soundlessly circulating through the Vatican like a wandering cloud, a half hearted angel of mercy, an officious ghost. Even without obscuring grill between you, he had seemed anonymous, a vague subsidiary, a mellow sideman, one of the millions of men who had contributed his small part and then receded back into the fugue of history.
His melancholic north sea grey eyes, dimmed with slithery cataracts and silvery spectacles peered warily through the confessional screen, then cast themselves at the shaded floor. On closer inspection, you decided he was quite handsome- for his age. On top of his head was a thick snowy hoary crown of hair , like the picturesque patch of fungi, and an impeccably maintained moustache of the same shade and disposition above his calm crinkled lips, situated between the gentle sloping jowls of his cheeks. With his arms rigid by his side and his polished pale vestments raveling on him, he resembled a peeling white birch, or a well folded napkin. There was somewhere some lines of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock wholly appropriate for such a man: "An attendant lord, one that will do, to swell a progress, start a scene of two, advise the prince, no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, politic , cautious and meticulous…"
But as you soon found out, appearances can be deceiving.
Father Renaldo began his tale, from start to finish in his low porous voice:
The sky was a solemn palette of leaden never ending white, very white, the sun looked like a dish of clotted cream. If you rose into it, you may skid across it the unblemished waste coast of a frozen sea or oafishly bump your head against it like a plaster ceiling. To God the sky was an egg shell that He might arbitrarily decide to crack, and permit the smothering eternal darkness of the universe to overwhelm His creation. Beneath the sky were all men in their struggling raging history lay condensed, they came from the dust and came back to the dust.
This day, the grounds of Ferdinand Lukes resembled some moor, grey and green with its surrounding grassy field and humps of moss like sedentary beasts and its peppery granite stone courtyard. Behind it was a ruined shed, pungent with the smell of rot and sod and dew. The quaint looking school was to the side, an adjunct to the somber looking cube of an orphanage, the town church at a sensible distance down the road. In front of the rusting gate, was an life size imitation of the Pieta, a recent gift from the mayor, decorated with opaque dribbles of bird excrement.
Within the gates, the grassy ground cried softly as it was trampled and pounded down under the scuffed black shoes of the orphans there. They scurried in a lemming like circle, their mouths warbling with bloodcurdling bird wails, screams that would resonate for miles and pester and startle the less patient and hardy neighbors.
There was a blustery brackish base voice to the earsplitting sounds, the shouts of a grown man standing in the center of the children's orbit, waving his arms about, compelling them in their hazardous flight, like small asteroids hurling themselves around the Prime Mover.
The roars became more and more coherent as Renaldo neared and surveyed the scene from the yieldingly comfortable back seat of his car.
"Ah'm teh heathen monster- Ah've come tae eat and convert ye wee Christian soldiers!" The man roared, like the crashing of water released from a massive concrete dam. Prowling and lurching and lumbering, the man made a truly monstrous impression with its sepia rubble textured skinand its coarse sable hair like a stack of rotting grain, its stark limbs like jagged pikes. Renaldo then inferred, the Christian soldiers were supposed to be the orphans but they were not particularly apt at soldiering , as they were more quailing from the monster, then battling it.
"Raghhh! This wan looks tasty!" The monster dove and scooped a chubby boy up and whirled him around over his head in a airborne circuit. The chubby child kicked and flailed with hysterical terrified laughter before he was set back down. "Not enough meat-" The monster complained. Squealing with his good fortune, the boy scrambled back to his fellows.
The monster then stomped away, and contrived to conceal himself, squatting down behind some bedraggled foliage. The hulking eclipse of his back was clearly visible from the side of the shabby shrub. "Whew. Ah'm behind this bushel ere, safe from those wee God fearin' warriors! They'll never ever find meh. Ah'll might as well drift intae mah Godless sleep now!" It snored with outrageous loudness.
Not to anyone's surprise, the slumbering beast was quickly found and apprehended . The children overwhelmed it by their sheer numbers, like how the tiny island people had brought down Guliver.
"ARGH! How can it beh? There's nae rest fur the wicked!" The monster lamented with woeful theatrical tosses of its head as it was towed by its arms to the center of the yard.
As if to echo its dismay, it began to drizzle.
"We're taking you as prisoner heathen monster !" One small pigtailed warrior wailed on one arm.
"No he's OUR prisoner!" A bowl haircut child of indistinct gender screeched on the other.
A ferocious game of tug of war commenced between two lots of children over their prize, they pulled the monster's arms in opposing directions , seesawing back and forth as one team momentarily overpowered the other.
" Little wans, Ah can't be split in half!" Anderson cried and broke character. He yanked his arms back to himself in a swift jolt, causing the line of children to stumble forward with a collective yelp.
"Attention!" He barked.
The orphans immediately dashed into one another, a blizzard of confetti, a crisscrossing of a school of fish, until they arrived at some semblance of an formation. They puffed up their small chests, peering forward with pasty eager little faces, plump moist fists by their sides, as if they had been indoctrinated into Alexander Anderson's compulsory children's army.
Anderson placed his broad hands on his strapping hips. "Christian soldiers dunnae fight wit each other- who dae they fight?"
"HEATHENS AND MONSTERS!" The children howled in unison.
"-sters!" One child finished the answer second later then the others, then clamped a hand over his mouth, cheeks ablaze amid the disapproving glares of his peers.
"And what else dae they dae?" Anderson shouted down at them. His chomping canines beamed with the white vivacity of the sun.
"LOVE GOD AND THEIR NEIGHRBORS!" They brayed.
"That's rite mah wee disciples! There's nae need tae fight. Ye'll can all share meh as prisoner..." Anderson stooped to grin ruggedly at the throng "or ye can strike meh doon in the name of God."
Instantly, the pack leapt on him with savage glee and dragged and smashed him down into the wiry blades of grass.
"What dae weh say?" Anderson laid on his stomach, cackling, glasses askew, fingers dug into the dirt, inundated with children like an enormous overturned apple core with ants swarming all over it, like a she-wolf overwrought with Remuses and Romuluses pawing to nurse.
"AMENNNNN!" The children bawled.
This cry of exultation was intruded by a sky melting splinter of lighting closely followed by a bleak rumbling afterthought of thunder . It started to pour rain like the vindictive piss of angels.
The children screamed in alarm and Anderson swooped his arm thither, railing them, cajoling and guiding them inside, as he did, he attempted to cover their small heads with his expansive coat.
Renaldo waited in the car until they had gone inside. Always prepared, he had carried his black umbrella with him.
He ventured into the orphanage through the back entrance and shook the umbrella off of its droplets with an grimace of distaste. He took the familiar and yet somewhat unfamiliar surroundings, drifting his slow, silent, unassuming path, like the fluttering of a piece of paper, through catacomb like hallways to Anderson's office. He found it and tapped the slightly ajar door open with his fingertips and looked in.
Anderson was still, bent over his desk. For a moment it looked like the priest had assumed the dead incognizance of all the objects surrounding him, and the objects had assumed his lively foreboding moody austerity. Anderson's office reminded him of some primordial lair, it was blotted with shadows, cavernous and overflowing with the scavenging and sediment of time, dust covered books and stacks of papers some probably dating back from ten years ago or earlier. There was probably not one thing strewn about that if removed that Anderson would miss , or even notice was gone.
"Good morning Alexander." Renaldo stood in the doorway and gestured out with a courteous swaying arm. "I do hope I am not interrupting."
Anderson glanced over his shoulder with shrewd devouring eyes, his lips a harassed pink-grey squiggle, as if Renaldo was a frigid gust intruding into snug haven.
"O course ye aren't. Come in sir." Anderson ascended and snatched his desk chair, its varnish chipped and discolored with age, and clunked it down in front of a nearby ungainly coffee table.
Renaldo understood: the cue for him to come in, to sit down. Renaldo had grown used to watching Anderson, and by doing so, grasped some of Anderson's mannerisms, idiosyncrasies and preferences. The habit of observation had once been out of necessity as years back, they had cohabitated. They had been partners at Lukes: Renaldo had been the bureaucratic back-worker, preparing all the paperwork, keeping the books, and balancing the budget. Anderson had been more "hands on" and public man, the main guardian and caretaker of the children, the handy man , the heart and soul of the place.
Secure in their roles, they took to each other with the tacit pragmatic appreciation of an arranged marriage. Simple memories were the ones that lingered with Renaldo the clearest- the pervasive smell of dust, disinfectant and burnt fish on Friday, the way the sun had hit his face like an irritant when he would wake in his Spartan bedroom, how he and Anderson would over tea idly chatted about topics of no particular importance, the nuns, the children, their plans for the upcoming year. He had even addressed him as 'Alexander' and the man hadn't objected. As they passed in the hallways, they would tersely raise a hand of greeting or quickly clasped each other's shoulders- supplemented with the fleeting smile. It was possible ,Renaldo considered, that he had been the closest thing that Anderson had ever had to a friend, or at least a companion in solitude.
Yet when Renaldo switched allegiances to Maxwell, Anderson had never gotten another man to replace him, supposedly taking on those onerous and tedious duties upon himself. Renaldo inwardly tsked, as he would never would have allowed the disorder that laid before him.
They sat across from each other withholding their own thoughts from each other like two poker players might withhold their hand of cards. The strident sounds of running and shrieking interrupted their brief silence.
Anderson leapt across the room with long strides and creaked opened the door just enough to poke his shaggy soldierly head out.
The running abruptly halted, rubber soles squeaking, skidding, streaking small temporary grey scars against the lino floor.
"Children, Children. how many times hae Ah tole ye nae tae run in teh hall way." The priest clucked with a gentle chiming cadence that made him sound like a sweet wistful granny, then a stout and disapproving enforcer of God's law . "Wat dae we say?"
"Sorry Father." The small chorus twittered back. Their apology shimmered with anxious giggles, like the tinkering sparkling ornaments of a swaying chandler .
Renaldo could not see Anderson's expression from the back of his head- his hair dampened by the rain looked sleekly unkempt, its color transmuted from sandstone to gunmetal- but he could imagine the priest's face well enough as he seen it many times in these exchanges- that fond sternness, the facetious scrutinizing for sincerity, that fatherly irritation tempered with kindly exasperation, like an illustration of a big funny bear in a child's book. He could not see the children's faces but he could see in his mind's eye, their trembling little lips, their wringing supplicating hands, their beady eyes gleaming with mirthful trepidation.
"Gae on then." Anderson 's voice was even softer still, glowing around its edges with an indulgent smile and a winking twinkle in his eye . "Dunnae let me catch ye lot daen it again."
The paladin gingerly closed the door.
The sounds of the children's slow careful footsteps degenerated into running again at the end of the hallway.
Anderson laughed softly and went to a near by curio cupboard. He procured and poured two glasses of whiskey with an astute air of a pharmacist measuring out precise portions.
"Fer ye sir. Wet yer lips." He offered the glass to Renaldo.
"Thank you but my doctor says I shouldn't." Renaldo refused with a nod and a sedate tremor of his hand. His doctor had said no such thing. Renaldo did not like to drink or smoke.
"Huh. Wat gude doctor wuilld say tell a man tae stop drinken?" Anderson mused to no one in particular. "A man shuild beh able tae drink as he plazes, provided he can hold it.
The big man slumped down with resignation and applied the tumbler of whiskey to his lips. At close quarters, a heady whiff of alcohol crept like a evil night influence into the sober light and air , and caused Renaldo to queasily glance aside.
It was ten in the morning.
"Ah saw ye watchen frum yer car sir. Ye shuild o joined in." Anderson slurped his single malt. "Ah cuild always used another heathen monster."
"It is not becoming for a man of my age to partake in such activates." Renaldo muttered, his lower lip drooped dourly below his walrus bristles.
Renaldo had always taken proper preemptive measures against the budding of a unbecoming intimacy- or much intimacy of all, that would have been a hindrance towards his contemplative communion with God. He did only what was completely necessary for the children and nothing more.
That and it was not in his nature. Where deep abiding affection, a cozening tenderness lay in other men, in Renaldo resided a half-hearted tolerance and begrudged patience, a guilt flavored sense of duty. Renaldo had never envied men with families- he had never even envied men with many friends. Ever since he was young, Renaldo had known that his soul was not meant for continuous proximity with others, his solitude was the sole source of peace and renewal. The biological imperative to breed had never disturbed him , and from his cold and distant eye, it seemed extremely ill-advised .He wondered, why would anyone want to subject someone unwittingly to this world , except out of obtuse selfishness or an base instinct?
Furthermore, Renaldo had an aversion to dirt and noise, he did not like blunt, boisterous and lively behavior and energetic saccharine optimism ruffled him- with an object too sweet his first inclination was to spit it out . He was "stiff", "chilly", "boring" and "unpleasant" or so some thought.
Even worse, Renaldo's piddling paternally inadequacy was made an even starker disparity next to Anderson's effortless fatherly talents ,heart, strength and clarity. During his years at Lukes, Renaldo had felt like an mediocre artist, vexed by seeing his contrived inert artwork next to another's inspired and inextinguishably brilliant piece , or maybe how a plain, unmemorable and charm-less woman might achingly and ruefully comprehend her inferiority in front of a woman who was glamorous, lovely and charismatic. If the two of them were set before any child, the child would immediately, with predictability of Newton's falling apple, run to Anderson. When Anderson left Luke's for extended periods for his various missions, the children would make a point to watch him leave at the gate, clinging to its rivets, sighing mournfully, some sniveling weeping, like newly wed wives biding their soldier-husbands farewell. When Anderson returned, it was a orgy of ecstatic-madness , the children skipped to him, cheering, gabbling and clinging to his legs, and kissing him frantically, like hosanna, hosanna, the Lord Jesus had returned. Whether Renaldo had come or gone was scarcely noticed. He might as well be transparent he thought irritably. But was better that the children favored Anderson, Renaldo assured himself, for their love meant more to the younger man, Anderson had little else.
" Hehheheheh. Boot Ah'm jes a year younger then ye. Yer not gaen tae spoil mah fun are ye sir?" Anderson laughed with brusque cheer.
Renaldo made no comment in either word or expression. He did not want Anderson to think he coveted his unnatural youth, his wild energy, his careless charm. Anderson continued.
"Lambs learn best by example, by stories, by song and games, they imitate things, they remember pictures, they like tae use their imaginations. Ye think hunt teh heathen is jes ae wee amusement?" Anderson said, crafty, earthy, and primitively handsome as any ruddy chieftain, as he poked his temple with a demonstrative finger. "Its sowen teh seeds brother. This game teaches 'em teh proper hate o heathens!"
"Perhaps" Renaldo cleared his throat rigidly. "not in the most… subtle of ways."
" Subtle? Children dunnae learn by maken things subtle." Anderson scoffed and charged on in his hearty rollicking brogue, that was fortified and blazing with alcohol . "Their natures are in want of strong and simple guidance. Ah aim tae teech an iron belief and love o Jesus Christ, an teh anchor that will holds 'em fast in this world. Nae child wants subtlety, coldness and drudgery, boot every child wants warmth, tae play, tae come opp and sit on their father's knee. Christ Himself invited children tae come close tae Him. Wit kindness and a smile, ye'll always git on. By getten 'em close, Ah wark upon their hearts. As a man of God, ye have tae git children any way ye can, as children have a openness of mind, a simpleness of faith that nae grown man can have, even when if he tries his damnest. Its said tha men must become like little children befur they're fit fur teh kingdom of heaven, sae tae the weak became Ah as weak, that Ah might gain the weak; tae save lambs, Ah'm a lamb maself... fer fools and wee wans need saven jes as much as rest of us, and many of them cannot be saved except by means which clevar men frown upon."
Renaldo frowned.
Anderson nodded philosophically. "If mah charges dunna receive teh gude news now, they'll nevar be ready. Sae Ah secure their trust, Ah give' em somethang worth comen tae, sae they come tae me. Ah spake something warth listenen tae sae they listen, and they love meh. That's teh secret: if they love ye, children will learn anythang frum ye."
Renaldo sniffed.
Anderson's eyes glistened as he clasped a hand over his breast as if he were already perceiving a prophetic glory transpiring before him. "And o course, Ah love mah children rite back. They're mah pride and joy, mah trophies won for Our Lord and Savior. Under mah hand, there wait's a warrior waven oor banner, a future pope, a saint even! In every game of heathen monster, teh ages look tae me…"
Glowing from his own spiel, Anderson asked with a broad Celtic smile. "Now, tae wat dae Ah owe the plazure o this visit?"
Renaldo bowed his head with ceremonious humility, like the self-consciously pious man does in the pews. "Our eminence sends his best regards to the children."
Anderson's smile immediately dropped like a stone. His deep set eyes shifted to his lap, his mouth sealed and forehead rutted, as if he were conferring with himself, and then he picked up his glass and jarringly catapulted the remainder of his whiskey down his gullet as if to drink in brooding concession to his inward judgment.
"His best is it?" Anderson swallowed bitterly. "God hep us then."
"I was requested to personally deliver this message to you on his behalf ." Ignoring that statement, Renaldo fingered his briefcase and pried its jaws open.
There was nothing inside it but a large self-important envelope, made more self important by the red silken backdrop of the case. The envelope was cream colored with a linen texture, a embossed golden border with Maxwell's gory blot of a seal held the top and bottom lips closed.
Anderson's face flexed in all different directions, absurdly startled, bloodless, as he heard some bizarre disturbing insult, or was being confronted with some obscene portrait.
Renaldo's thick grew brows lowered with an sagacious frown. "You will not look at it Alexander?"
Anderson's outraged expression did not change.
"Then I shall." Renaldo opened the envelope, and laid the papers out. With his fingers tenting over them he adopted a smooth persuasive tone. "These are the forms indicating that with your consent, the orphanage's trust shall receive an annual donation."
Anderson's lips curled and twitched. "Ah wasnae informed o this."
"I do apologize for its suddenness. You are being informed now." Renaldo spoke with clerical aridness, then motioned to the paper with a slab like hand. " thus these documents. Do you have any questions?"
"Ah haven't any."
"Then please read and sign these." Renaldo offered an substantial ebony pen, warmed from his pocket.
"Nae sir. " Anderson grunted.
"Pardon?"
"Ye heard meh. Take it wit ye." Anderson jerked his head curtly, his eyes alit with a restless urgency. "Ah dunnae want tha in mah hoose ." He gestured to the papers with a 'begone' flick of his fingers, as if it were a wicked apparition that he could make it vanish away with the right ministrations.
"Hm." Renaldo murmured and scratched his nose. "Our eminence's assumption was that you would agree. "
"Assume as ye plaze." Anderson mumbled growlingly like the warning of a badgered animal. "Boot Ah dunnae give a damn aboot any of yer assumptions."
"Our Eminence does not make these offers often, nor flippantly" Renaldo's face assumed its calm judicious mask and pushed the papers towards Anderson with a listlessly insistent finger. "He knows the welfare of your children are your top priority. If I may speak frankly, I strongly suggest you look over it before making any decision."
The chair groaned as Anderson leaned forward and slid the envelope vehemently back towards the other man with two fingers, sneering as if he were overcoming a yawning chasm of disgust just to touch it.
"If Maxwell knew me, he'd know Ah'd nevar be sae rash tae accept favors frum him, or sign any o his Faustian documents." The paladin rasped.
"I see your concerns. Regardless" Renaldo remained poised. "I am determined to carry out Our Eminence instructions, which was to obtain your signature. "
"O, sae he's not forgen it as usual? And fer the luv of God, wuild ye stop wit teh "Oor Eminence bit?" Anderson snapped, "We've both known Maxwell since he was a lad in short pants."
"But that was some time ago…." Renaldo said dully as he feebly opened his hands.
" Aye, he's nae longer in short pants, boot as fer a lad- sum thangs ne'er change!" Anderson muttered contemptuously. "Wan thang fer certain we're nae longer young men are we? Isnae it a bit sad tha at yer a man servant at yer age, and tha Maxwell has ye playen teh messenger boy tae the likes of meh? He'll beh haven ye lay yer coat doon tae kape his precious toes from treaden on a puddle- or wipen his arse, if he isnae already. "
Renaldo barely blinked. The words fell upon him like dirt on an empty coffin. He felt too ancient, too browbeaten to react to what other men said of him, or to even care. Age had had a numbing effect after all.
"Do you presume to tell me what my duties are." He uttered, dry.
"Nae Ah have a lot more fun guessen." Anderson spat, grim.
Renaldo observant of Anderson and Maxwell's strange tension, had been unwilling to get between these two domineering personalities except in nearly imperceptible ways. He had always been at the confines like a clownish figure that stood behind the curtain to pull it aside for the main players, somewhat curious but mostly unconcerned about the quality of the dramas enacted there. But a strange thought occurred to Renaldo. Was Anderson behaving so… hostile towards Maxwell because he was … jealous? But of whom, and what? Was Anderson jealous that Maxwell had "taken" him away from the Orphanage? Or did it bother Anderson that Maxwell preferred someone else over him? It seemed preposterous to imagine that Anderson could ever harbor such imprudent pride and foolhardy possessiveness, that he might employ his psychological energies towards such a useless grudge. Then again if God were capable of jealousy,certainly Anderson was too.
Who was to know? The paladin was a mysterious and stubborn creature, who vacillated wildly between brutish violence and soppy sentimentality, spurred by motives not fathomable to anyone but himself- or maybe not even himself… Wasn't Anderson, just like most men, a hostage, at the mercy of his own nature?
" I do not seek a quarrel with you Alexander." Renaldo's moustache convulsed as he solemnly mumbled as these reflections nipped and gnawed at the base of his tongue, trying to drive something out that had no place being there at all. "And I … do not wish to waste either one of our time…."
Anderson's brilliant Babylon green eyes pinned and silenced Renaldo like bayonets.
"Then ye ought tae beh laven then shuildnae ye." The priest leaned forward, leering like a ugly beast head sticking out from a plaque, hands clenched like gnarled roots around his arm rests.
"What am I to tell him?" Renaldo said coldly.
"Ye can tell oor eminence if he has anything he wants tae say tae meh, he can coom say it tae meh himself, o' ere. Ah dunnae want any third parties. Ah can discuss teh terms and make a deal between oorselves." Anderson gritted.
"Are you aware that making such a offer is extremely…" Renaldo clenched his eyes shut and withheld a cringing sigh. "…impertinent."
" Aye, course Ah'm aware. Boot wat is Maxwell going tae dae, shoot meh in teh face?" The paladin fell back into his seat, making it vibrate with his harsh husky chuckle. "Dunnae teh fifth commandment dictate we shuild honor thy father and mother? Ah wuild like it very mooch if Maxwell wuild honor meh wit his presence, and pay his dear auld Father Andy a visit, like the prodigal son!"
He patted his enormous muscular thigh and winked at an angle, lending an sensual element to the brutally shaped jaw, and his wide crooked mouth . "Aye, tell him if he's a gude boy, Ah'll even let him sit on mah lap. "
That man had an crazy belief in his own imperviousness, Renaldo thought,gaping incredulously, but then again, he had a fair point.
Why should Anderson fear anybody? What could anyone do to him now? The paladin was more than equipped to take the most grievous bodily harm- he was too useful (at this point) to them to be rid off for any frivolous purpose, he cared nothing for wealth or material comforts, and as for psychological damage…not much more could be done there.
"And ye can give him these wit mah kind regards." Anderson picked the papers and crushed them into a ball and let it fall dismally to the table. He stood toweringly, like some impenetrable forlorn superstructure. "Are we done ere."
"It seems so." Renaldo quietly clamped the briefcase shut.
"Gude." Anderson marched out and away with a swoop of his coat. "And wit yer pardon sir, Ah shall be off tae teech mah Latin lesson."