Confessions

Confessions

I was feeling about as uncomfortable as a Wookie at a Star Trek convention as I stumbled into that confessional this afternoon. I’m a sinner. I know it, my mother knows it, sheriff Greer knows it, and 16 former virgins from the Twin Lakes First Baptist Church know it. Then there’s Mrs. Kaminski’s Siamese cat. He knew it too. It was a damn shame what happened to that cat. How was I supposed to know the clothes dryer didn’t work like a hamster wheel? I was just trying to get him to work off some of that energy he’d gotten from an experiment I’d performed on him earlier that afternoon. It is truly amazing how much a cat wants to run when you apply turpentine to exposed rectal hemorrhoids. And everything was fine for the first 30 minutes or so. He mighta even survived if I hadn’t forgotten he was in there. Imagine how my mother felt when she went to do a load of laundry a week later. Rigor mortis had set in. The problem was, at some point, the cat stopped running, stuck his claws into them vent holes in the tumbler, and held on for dear life. Took Mama an hour to pry him loose! I was happy to find out that the turpentine experiment did, in fact, cure him of his hemorrhoids. And if I hadn’t killed him, he might have been able to lead a normal, care free life after that. I did make a disappointing discovery though. Cats don’t really have 9 lives. We’ve been lied to. But there is one absolute truth: I’ve got a lot to atone for.

Father Ryan seemed a little less fidgety this time. ‘Course he probably thought I might be ready to pay him the two hundred dollars I owed him. Yeah, like that’s really gonna happen! I thought that big old vein in his neck was gonna blow when I confessed that there wasn’t much of a chance of me payin’ him back for a while. Besides, he’s a priest! What could he possibly need money for?? I’d borrowed the cash to purchase an hour with some skanky Pink Poodle prostitute, back when we was still in high school. That was thirty years ago. You’d think he woulda forgotten about it by now! Man’s got a memory like an elephant! Which wouldn’t be so bad if he wasn’t always reminding me of the time I put a water proof seal in his pick-up bed, filled it with water, then dumped all the koi from mister McAlester’s pond into it. He was just upset because he didn’t notice until he stopped at that red light at third and main. One of the koi made its escape by jumpin’ through the back window and landing on the seat next to him. He jumped out of the cab without taking the truck outta gear. Mr. Meriwether, who owned the gun shop on the corner, said he stood there screaming like a woman in a horror movie for five minutes. Over a fish!! Meanwhile, the fish was having problems of his own. The truck was pickin’ up speed, going down Main street, and the fish didn’t know how to drive a stick. It was hit by a Peterbilt, crossing the intersection of Main and Castro. There was koi everywhere! That was about the time the good Father stopped screaming like a woman and started crying like a baby. Everybody had a good laugh at the photograph on the front page of the newspaper the next morning. The following week, he was off to seminary school. I truly feel honored that I helped him find his calling. *Snicker*

He started fidgeting for the bottle of aspirin he kept tucked under the seat in the confessional. I smiled and waited patiently until he took his pill, then I proceeded to tell him about all the sins I’d committed since the last time I saw him. I had come straight from the motel where his sister had just given me the best sex I’d had since I did his mother on the kitchen table, with a bowl of corn on the cob and a mood candle, back when I was 17. He was off running an errand at the time. She’d sent him to the supermarket to fetch a box of Tampax super absorbency tampons, with the Biodegradable applicator. That took a while. He wound up paying Margaret Stevenson five dollars to buy it for him. Then she told the entire school he was stickin’ sanitary napkins in the mudhole. He told me later, that was when he first thought about becoming a priest. He realized, at that moment, that no one was going to have sex with him for the rest of his natural life. Of course, there was that incident with Sister Mary Bartley. The town’s still talking about that. And the ladies down at the Red Hat Society are in shock! Mostly because everybody thought he was a eunuch with a sanitary napkin fetish! That rumor had held up since high school. Poor Ryan. High school weren’t too kind to him. Me, on the other hand, I visited his mama three times a week for a year! Yup, the good father’s mother taught me everything I know. She was my first…older woman.

I told him about the time I poured krazy glue all over my next door neighbor’s snot nosed teenager’s skateboard. Lucky for him, he hit that transit bus; instead of the other way around. Kinda looked like one of them Road Runner cartoons, where the coyote roller skates into the side of a mountain. I prefer the one where he plays chicken with a train. Didn’t get to see that one this time, but if at first you don’t succeed, there’s always tomorrow. Provided that catapult arrives from Acme in time.

I told him I got a night job, bartending down at Harry Johnson’s Rubber Balls, Bar & Grill, down on 6th. He popped another aspirin when I told him how I poured half a bottle of Kondremul laxative into Cedric Pederson’s Mudslide. Cedric stole my girlfriend away with a box of Jujyfruits and a Slinky, back when we was in the third grade. I never got over it. Of course, I did lose a few customers who needed to drain the weasel, but couldn’t for fear of losing consciousness and dying. They claimed the toxic fume emissions caused by Cedric’s ordeal was enough to kill all life within the range of its noxious affects. Well, at least we got rid of the termites. Did have to burn my clothes though. And the walls in the bathroom did need a new coat of paint anyway.

Right about that time, my cell phone rang. It was my uncle Earl, calling to let me know that my aunt Betty had just baked up some of her famous “special” brownies. Not wanting to appear rude, I told him I’d be over faster than he could pull the hair offa one of them there Pomeranian yip-yip dogs. Father Ryan sounded like Sister Mary Bartley had just joined him in the confessional, as he started praising God, and Jesus, while breaking out into a chorus of “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” by Elton John. I told him I wouldn’t make it back for my next confession for at least as long as it took this last time around. He mumbled something I never expected to hear come out of a priest’s mouth, when I excused myself. And as I headed for the exit, I turned to Father Ryan and said: “I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ll save you a brownie, and it’s your turn to buy the pizza.” Are priests allowed to curse like that? ‘Cause I seen sewage flows that were cleaner than that boy’s mouth! Maybe I’ll bring him two brownies.