"Imperfect Contrition"

Philadelphia – 1984

The smoke made him retch, and at first he thought himself in the middle of a fire. That wasn't the case.

It took him a while to figure that part out: it was fog, not smoke. Hard to tell the difference, really.

He wandered through briar and marsh, prairie and wood, nicking his arms and legs on gnarled oak trees as he moved. Blood oozed from those wounds, and in carpeted the ground behind him. All at once there was a commotion back there, and when he turned to look he was nearly overrun in the stampede.

Deer, zebra, oxen and waterfowl careened around him, sending the boy whirling on his feet like a weathervane. Turkeys, pigeons, and even a buffalo blitzed past him, sending him down squarely on his rear. He got to his feet, bewildered, and listened as the sound of the wildlife faded.

One last animal crossed his path: a fox, female, racing on sure paws, darting amongst the trees and stopping for nothing. She sunk low as she ran, whipping between Penance's legs gracefully, and when he turned to watch her depart he felt the feather of an arrow's fletching brush his cheek. The arrow hit a tree trunk not an inch from the fox's hide, but the animal quickly disappeared into the brush.

Uallas raced out into view. He carried a longbow and laughed heartily as he watched the animal disappear. He raised another arrow in its direction and wiggled it, menacingly; he called out after the fox:

"Turas math dhut, galla beag!"

The man sighed, wiping sweat from his head, and he quickly stopped, taking note of Penance for the first time. He looked the boy up and down, and then he motioned further down in the woods, where the stampede of animals disappeared.

"Dè tha thu a dèanamh, mo flath beag?" He asked.

Penance was about to answer him when Uallas quickly speared the boy with his arrow: a quick thrust through his neck. It brought Penance to the ground, and Uallas drove the tip in even further, grinning all the while.

"How easy the prey makes it for the hunter, when the prey does not even know what it is!"

The boy choked, coughing up a mess of blood, and suddenly Uallas brought a gutting knife up against his chest and—

X

X

X

The boy awoke with a start. Not that kind of dramatic catapulting one sees in movies and TV, where someone's whole body jolts and they snap up to attention. Nobody really ever wakes up like that, anyway. Good thing, too; if he'd done that then his body would've gone tumbling off the organ bench he was precariously sprawled upon. Instead the boy's eyes merely flipped open, and he caught a small mewl in his throat. Penance pulled his arm up from over his eyes and listlessly turned his head.

Down in the church proper Father Kenaz put the finishing touches on a small funeral ceremony. Penance helped set up refreshments for the mourners in the narthex, and once the funeral service was over he'd help serve them a small meal in the annex. He had the time in between to himself, and for want of a more constructive way to spend it he chose to creep up into the organ balcony and catch a nap on the bench.

It wasn't disrespectful, per se, and no one could actually see him from down in the pews. The only exception was Father Kenaz, standing on the raised altar, who at first looked more bemused than anything when he notice the boy laid out on the organ bench. The hard lights shining on the altar beamed off his octagonal glasses, and their reflection forced Penance to shield his face with his arm. He thought the priest might've intentionally been flashing him like that; Kenaz carried on the funeral mass with all the requisite gravity and dignity he could afford, but every now and then there was a certain playful look on his face whenever he caught Penance's eyes.

Penance idly lay his head to the side and watched Kenaz go through the motions. The proceedings didn't hold much interest for the boy. Other than a certain theological 'hostility' he bore against his Maker (for obvious reasons) he was still also kinda sore about the changes the Church made in Vatican II. Well, he didn't actually care about most of them, but the council's removal of the requirement to perform the mass in Latin was a bona-fide crime against humanity. A mass spoken in English just wasn't the same. Penance didn't really have a problem with English-speakers (he was one, after all) but there were two simple facts that prevented him from fully enjoying a mass spoken in English. For one: Latin was a sublimely beautiful tongue, and even the most blithely droned out prayers sounded ridiculously awesome in it.

And, for two: English was a crude, ugly, God-awful train-wreck of a language.

He went so far as to wince a little at every refrain in Kenza's invocation. But then, quite unexpectedly, the priest threw in a small string of the old tongue. Penance didn't know if the man noticed his distress or (more likely) just had a little old-fashioned streak in him, too. Kenaz raised his hands to either side and pointed his head skyward. His voice boomed dramatically:

"Quia, in inferno, nulla est redemptio, miserere mei, Deus, et salva me."

Penance's seawater eyes opened wide. The boy remained on his side, otherwise expressionless, but he watched Kenaz with rapt attention as he spoke.

"Peccantem me quotidie, et non poenitentem..."

The boy moved his lips silently and followed along with the words:

"...timor mortis conturbat me."

After the meal service Penance went to work sweeping up the narthex. The church only had one broom available: the big janitorial kind with a three-foot-wide head. It was as tall as he was, and he must've looked ridiculous tending to the floor with it. Father Kenaz certainly thought so. He gently mocked the boy's efforts as he made his way through the narthex.

"Is that the only broom we have, Penance?" He adjusted the cuffs on his street clothes and pushed his metal glasses into place. "You look just like Cosette, herself, pushing a broom like that."

"Cosette?" Penance looked up at the man.

Kenaz waved his hand:

"Ah, it's nothing. I saw this certain musical in Europe a few years back— some kind of silly French melodrama, not the sort of thing English-speaking audiences really tend to go for— and about the only thing I can remember from it was this once scene where a child swept up the floor using an enormous wooden broom. I guess it was supposed to garner pity from the audience; I couldn't help but find it hilarious..."

Penance gave the man a sarcastic smirk:

"Glad to be amusing to you."

Kenaz looked beyond the glass doors of the church proper and into the worship space:

"Ah: wouldn't you know it," he muttered. "My altar boys left those candles on the altar." He looked back down at the boy. "Want to help me bring them to the back? With you, I could do it in one trip..."

Penance looked beyond the glass, down the aisle of the church and at the altar. The boy returned Kenaz's gaze, and he slowly shook his head.

"I gotta get this swept up and head back to Vanki," he muttered, returning to his work.

Kenaz nodded thoughtfully. He sighed as he reached into his jacket and removed a pair of black kid-skin gloves. He spoke as he worked the gloves onto his fingers:

"You've not set one foot in the worship space since you arrived here, Penance. Now, I find it a little funny that a child who speaks Latin— and who apparently knows the rites of the church rather well— would be so reluctant to stand before the altar of God—"

Penance looked up at the man with dagger eyes:

"God knows where I am," he mumbled. The boy kept sweeping, shaking his head. "I've been around long enough; if he's too busy then that's his problem."

Kenaz smirked.

"Blasphemy doesn't seem your style, my son."

"Just what do you know about my style, father?"

"That's Daniel," Kenaz reminded him. "And I'd like to think that I could guess a little. For example: just now, what you're saying doesn't seem to be motivated by anger, Penance."

"It's not. I just liked it when they did the masses in Latin. That's all—"

"I think you're a little too young to remember the glory days of the Latin Mass, my son. And I know that your unwillingness to enter the worship space is motivated by more than a simple resentment of the Church's language policy..."

"But you don't think I'm angry either, right? What else is there, then?"

Kenaz casually leaned against one of the pillars by the door:

"Fear."

Penance smirked as he swept.

"I'm afraid of very little."

"Do you remember that phrase from the reading: timor mortis conturbat me? Do you know the translation, Penance?"

The boy stopped sweeping. He looked back at the worship space, and his eyes lingered on a purple cloth bunched up at the base of the altar: it was the shroud used to cover the coffin during the funeral service. The boy nodded absently:

"It means 'the fear of death bewilders me'."

"Well, 'disturbs' is a little more accurate than 'bewilder', but—"

"What's your point?"

"The point, my child, is that so often even our anger is born out of a place of fear..."

Kenaz crossed the space between himself and the boy, and when he reached Penance he gently lifted the boy's face by placing his glove-clad fingers under Penance's chin:

"I would very much like to know what it is you're afraid of, Penance. Because whatever it is there is nothing in any body— no fear, anger, or even hatred— that cannot be cleansed and forgiven in the healing presence of God."

Penance scoffed, facing away from the man. He muttered something about Vanki needing him right now, and Kenaz sighed gently. He again pushed his glasses back into place and walked toward the front doors. Before he could open then up Penance muttered a few words in a very faint whisper. He figured the priest wouldn't even hear him, but he was wrong:

"I'm afraid of hell."

Kenaz stopped and turned back around:

"Of what?"

Penance faced the man, and his rusty eyes were somber:

"Quia, in inferno, nulla est redemptio..."

Kenaz furrowed his thin brown:

"What possible 'redemption' could you think you owe anyone, my child?"

Penance stared at the floor; he didn't answer. Kenaz merely watched him for a time, and then he again turned to the church doors and opened them. Penance started stalking off toward the kitchen when Kenaz motioned to the open door:

"It's about dinnertime, isn't it? What say you join me for a bite, Penance?"

Penance looked back at the man. He tilted his head, looking rather unintentionally like a wild animal contemplating an open palm filled with food.

"My treat, of course," Kenaz held the door open and motioned through it. "Unless you'd prefer to dine on one of those cans of cold vegetables we've been 'paying' you with..."

Penance took a couple of steps forward, again looking like a skittish animal, and he took a moment to survey the priest's warm smile as he beckoned. The boy gave a tiny nod, and then walked through the door. Kenaz slapped him on the back with a gloved hand and the two walked off, together.

"That's the spirit, child," he said. "I'm sure we can find some place where the food is as sublime as manna, and the drinks as delicious as ambrosia..."

X

X

X

They'd have to settle for a Bennigan's.

For a priest, Father Kenaz sure could put away his share of beer. He downed two pints of Irish Red before their food had even arrived, and he was nearly done with his third pint before he started working on Penance, trying to pry the boy out of his sullen little emotional oyster shell.

"I don't suppose you've thought any more about what I've said?" He asked.

"I don't think anything's really worth talking about." Penance sullenly sipped his Coke and shook his head. "There's no point, anyway."

"I could ask God to give you a sign," Kenaz smirked. "To get you to talk. Of course I think that's rather frowned upon, isn't it? Might be a passage or two somewhere in the back of the Gospels suggesting that I not do that..."

That made Penance smirk. It didn't make him look up from his glass of soda.

A few seconds later the jukebox against the bar sputtered to life with a new song: a pipe organ and a bass guitar belted out riffs in unison, and then Eric Clapton launched into the lyrics of 'Presence of the Lord'. The boy and the priest exchanged looks, briefly, before both of them started chuckling, and then openly laughing.

"I'm in trouble, now, aren't I?" Kenaz wiped a tear from one eye.

"Totally fucked," Penance agreed, still laughing. He looked up quickly, catching his swear, and looked to the priest with wide eyes. "Sorry—" he began.

Kenaz waved a dismissive hand and he finished his latest pint.

"No matter," the priest said. He motioned to the jukebox with his head. "Good song, though. That was Clapton nearing his peak, right before Layla. Marvelous stuff."

Penance, eyes returning to his soda, gave a noncommittal shrug.

"You don't think so, kid?" Kenaz scoffed, shaking his head. "Well, you probably don't really care, either. It's not exactly the 'hip' kinda music, today, is it?"

"I prefer Clapton's earlier work, with the Yardbirds," Penance muttered.

Kenaz perched his lips, impressed.

"Really?"

The boy nodded.

"That music's more 'raw'," he said.

Kenaz again started chuckling. Penance put on a more defiant look and buried his face even further in his soda cup:

"What's wrong with that, exactly?" Penance snarled.

"Nothing," Kenaz forced himself to stop laughing. "Nothing at all. But, to summarize: you're a 12-year-old boy who likes hard-nosed British 60's rock, speaks fluent Finnish, knows the Nocturnes of the mass in their original Latin and, when not hanging around funeral masses, sleeps amongst tombstones in our cemetery."

Penance's eyes got wide on this last one; he was about to challenge that accusation, but Kenaz held up a hand:

"Don't try to deny it; I'm quite smart enough to know where you've been sleeping at night. And I don't particularly care, so long as no tombstones go missing. Honestly, I doubt you have the strength to upend one, anyway..."

"You'd be surprised. What's your point about all this, then?" Penance said.

"My point, Penance, is that I think you're quite a weird kid—"

"Thanks," the boy muttered.

"—but, from what I can tell, you do not at all appear to be a candidate for the eternal fires of hell."

Penance's irritated scowl fell away; he again became sullen, and when he tried to dive back into his soda Kenaz pulled his chin up with a gloved hand:

"You disagree, and I can see that. What I don't understand is why you would possibly think your life is forfeit."

"I... don't think you'd understand, Daniel."

Penance put his soda down and began pulling back his chair; Kenaz softly gripped him by the sleeve, stopping him.

"You can go," he said. "Of course you can. If you wish to leave, now, I wouldn't speak of any of this again, Penance. You may continue working for Vanki, doing chores around the church, even sleeping in the cemetery, without another word from me. If you wish to leave, now. But I don't think you wish that. I think you do want to talk, my child. I also know that it would not be easy for you. But, before you walk outside, I would only ask that you ask yourself what it is you really want, Penance."

Penance pulled away from the man violently, bumping into his own chair as he shied back. The boy stood that way for a time, glaring at the priest like a cornered animal. Kenaz, for his part, only smiled gently, warmly, and he leaned back in his chair, holding both his hands to the side.

The boy slowly pushed his chair back into place and, with great hesitation, slid back down into it.

"I know this is difficult," Kenaz said. "Maybe we should start by—"

"What do you think 'hell' is, Daniel?"

Kenaz looked to one side, stroking his chin.

"Well, Penance, scriptures don't really—"

"What do you think?" Penance said. "Fire 'n brimstone? Lakes of lava, and all that? Little imps with pitchforks sticking you in the ass?"

The priest shrugged:

"I don't know about lakes of lava, and all that fanciful stuff from Revelations. Really, I think that the idea of 'hell' is just the knowledge that one must spend the rest of all eternity separated from the presence of God, isolated from the great communion of saints, and the souls of the righteous departed."

Penance looked up at him; he didn't speak.

"Is that a bad answer, do you think?" The priest asked.

Penance shook his head.

"No...It's a... it's..." The boy shook his head, again looking down.

Kenaz was about to speak, but Penance interrupted him:

"My family died in— they died a long time ago. All of them, all in one moment, just gone."

Kenaz leaned forward across the table, hands clasped to his chin:

"Was it a... a car accident? Or—"

Penance shook his head:

"They were killed— murdered, I guess. We all lived in a town called Zaragoza. It's in Spain. And my father he— his work meant that we had to travel to Logroño, another city. The work he did..." Penance gripped his soda glass tight, shaking his head. "It's not his fault. He was a good, decent man, but... there were enemies in that town. One night they, uh, came to our house and..." Penance looked up at the priest, and his lips trembled. "And they... butchered, y'know?"

Kenaz, hands still clasped under his chin, simply nodded, bearing a grave look on his face.

"I hid at first; I didn't know what to do. When they found me, and chased me, they caught me..."

"But then they spared you?"

Penance shrugged.

"Someone did." The boy briefly looked over at the small silver cross dangling from Kenaz's neck, and he resisted the urge to bare his teeth. He looked away, resting his cheek on one hand.

"I can't imagine how difficult it must be to lose your whole—"

"You get over it; I don't even remember their faces," Penance interrupted. "Them dying, that's not what 'hell' is."

"What is it, then?"

Penance stared at the floor, and he squinted hard. "Y'know what the worst thing in the world is? It's an LP that's gone bad."

"'Bad'?"

"Like where the grooves get messed up. There was this one time, back when I was actually living in a house, and sometimes whenever I'd take a bath I'd put on a record downstairs; the sound carried, you know, and it was alright if I was at home alone. But sometimes the records would be a little warped, and then it might play fine for a little while, but then it would start up on a really awesome song, and then suddenly skip right back to the beginning after giving me only a few seconds to hear it. I mean, you just get into the beat, setting up the guitar riffs, the drums and the bass line: all that stuff that's in the foundation of a good, decent song. Just when it starts getting really good— the meat and potatoes of it all— and then all you get is a record scratch and, just like that, you're back at the beginning again. Do you know how... how frustrating that is? Maddening, really, 'cause you know the song is gonna be really kick-ass, and all you want to do is to follow along, hear it all the way through to the end, but you can't. You can't because..."

Penance haltingly stopped speaking. He tried to hide his face, at first, but Kenaz was there with a handkerchief. The boy took it. At first he pretended to be wiping grease from his mouth, but really he was after the small trickle of snot curling out his nose, and the saltwater brimming over his eyes.

"Because it's a little warped, right?" Kenaz said.

Penance nodded at the man, handing him back the kerchief.

"The thing I suppose you should remember," Kenaz said, "is that even in the darkest hour of our lives God never abandons us, Penance. To be free— truly free— is to understand that God had a plan, and that it is our duty to understand our part in it. When you understand that, and when your duty to that plan is made known, so much of the world's turmoil melts away, because the path becomes that much clearer. What I mean is that we must all know what it is we are, Penance, before we can become happy in being what we are."

Penance got up from his chair, rusty eyes cold as tombstones, and he started walking past the table. Kenaz stopped him again:

"Put God at your side, child. You will be happier, I think."

"I'd be happier living in a just world," Penance growled.

"What would be 'just', to you? A world where your whole family managed to live?"

"No," Penance whispered. "A 'just' world would be one where I died with them!"

Penance tried to move, and again Kenaz held his sleeve with a gloved hand.

"Penance, I have to ask: you don't have any plans to... well, do anything to yourself, do you?"

The boy pulled away from the priest. He shook his head slowly.

"I just need to be sure that you won't—"

"I won't," the boy said. "'Cause that'd be a sin, father."

"But I thought you didn't care about—"

"I don't have any love for God, but I do have a fear of hell. So, you know, He's got that on me."

Kenaz looked over his shoulder as Penance moved for the restaurant exit.

"What, exactly, does he have on you, my son?"

"A leash," the boy snarled.

X

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X

He wandered the streets, aimless, for several hours. When he'd tired his legs out he made for St. Hubertus, but he found himself moving through the alleyway across the street from the church. Before he knew it he was up on the sixth floor of the ruined apartment, in Whip's open-air bedroom. The girl wasn't there at the time, and for awhile Penance merely sat on her stained mattress, legs bunched up against his chest. Galabeg rested on its side beside him.

He eyed the moldy fireplace opposite him, and slowly he rose and moved to it. He found the bottle of bourbon wedged up inside the flue, and he turned the thing over in his hands as if it were a precious jewel. He watched the liquid slosh around, catching hints of moonlight in its amber waves, and he slowly unscrewed the top. The vapor was intoxicating, and he delicately ran his lips along the bottle's rim; he could taste the faint trace of Whip's lips gloss, and he tilted the bottle upward, bringing the liquid ever closer to his lips.

The cold moonlight highlighted the lifeless marble eyes of Galabeg's head. Penance considered the fox, staring lifelessly at him, and he moved the bottle away from his lips. He sloshed it around a few times, and then chuckled:

"It... uh... kinda would help, I think..."

Galabeg merely stared at the boy.

"But it's not the same as a Good 'n Plenty, is it?"

Penance scoffed and twisted the cap back on the bottle. He replaced it in the flue and then bundled Galabeg back into his shirt. He took the 'express' route down from Whip's apartment and— after snapping his bones back into place— wandered across the street and into the St. Hubertus cemetery. He set Galabeg on a tombstone to stand 'watch' and then curled up in that same old spot of his, facing that ruined tombstone without a name, and he contemplated the chunk of granite as sleep took hold of him.

"Fear of death," he muttered, "truly bewilders me..."