Beholden (two of two)

"When I said the prayer, I didn't even realize I was praying."

The priest listened attentively, watching tendrils of smoke curl heavenward.

"I'd prayed before. All of us found religion at one point or another. Days get longer and the nights last forever out on long range patrol."

He stared off into 1967.

"We weren't s'posed to engage. Hell, that run, we didn't even carry enough ammunition to get through much of a brush-by, let alone something that lasted. The thing is, they managed to find us. They didn't always. But just once was enough."

The priest managed a wan smile. "They found you enough to have you finding religion?"

There was a pause between the men. The much older of the two inhaled his Salem, pausing to collect thoughts and savor a menthol reprieve from hells of yesterday.

"Padre, have you ever seen a man die?"

"Yes, of course. I'm no stranger to administering the last rites."

"Old women curled up in their beds, out of it and half asleep. That aint the same, padre."

"I've been on the scene of less peaceful passings." The priest seemed a little defensive. "But if you're asking if I've seen war, no. You know I haven't."

"I know you haven't."

The pause continued, with the only sounds being the whir of an air conditioner and the soft crackle of burning tobacco.

"I been livin' on borrowed time since 1967, padre. I shoulda died in the mud of Cambodia. Or maybe it was Laos. If there was official reports of that day, it would list it as 'Nam, though. Aint nothing divides 'em but an imaginary line, noways, so what fucking difference does it really make?"

The rhetorical question plumed, riding skyward on a trail of smoke.

"Imaginary lines in the jungle. Imaginary lines between our gods."

At this, the priest uncomfortably shifted.

"Oh, I got your attention with that, eh, padre?" A phlegmy chuckle punctuated the question, which was really more of a statement.

"You've had my attention all along. Ever since you hinted at this story when I first took over the parish. I've seen you worn down over the years. Burdened. You're our most loyal parishioner, strict tithing, great volunteer hours. You're in every Sunday Mass, at a minimum. The only time you were ever absent was when you were in Colorado visiting your son, when your first grand was born. Even then, I believe you attended services as a visitor in Boulder."

"So I give money. I listen to your sermons. I keep up the maintenance on your HVAC. I ladle soup on Tuesdays. Big fucking deal, padre. Is that all I am to you?"

"Of course not. You're one of the flock. A rock. A leader. People respect you. I respect you."

"But do you love me? Because I'm pretty sure he loved me, and that scares the shit out of me."

"He is incapable of love. He's the opposite of love."

"Maybe so. God knows I saw hate at the same time."

"How did it happen? All these years, you've talked around it. Why not share now? I want the whole story."

"You want the whole story because you think it'll make me feel better, or because you're just a busybody? I've managed on my own for decades."

"You're stooped under the weight. You know it. My job is to help the people of the parish. You're not just a face in the crowd, you know. You're a friend. How many times have we shared a pint in my 'other office' down at Frank's Place?" The priest smiled. "Give me a damned cigarette. You're driving me back to vice."

The older man smiled, handing over a crushed pack and a worn Zippo.

"If Sister Ellen catches you, there will be hell to pay."

The priest nodded, and struck the lighter anyway.

"Have you ever wondered just why I'm here so much, padre?"

"I think I get the idea, but tell me."

"Fear. Knowledge. Original Sin. We was driven out of Eden 'cause we knew too much, right?"

The preacher waggled his hand in a so-so gesture. "More or less."

"I know too much, too."

"Go on."

"He told me I'd live to see seventy years and a day. He told me I'd have three children, and one would render to Caesar in my place. That always haunted me more than the rest. He told me that part the second time I seen him, in the hospital. When Junior joined the Corps, I fainted. I passed out right there in the living room, liked to gave everybody a fit. When I came to, they was all aflutter. All I could do is just cry. Never told anybody why. I couldn't."

"And then he died in Desert Storm."

"One of the 148. I managed to avoid being one of the 58,000. But I had help."

Silence settled between the two men again.

The old man continued. "I've been damned all this time. I supposed I've still had hope, though. Good deeds. Good works. Confession."

At this, the priest raised an eyebrow. "This is the first you've done a full accounting, and you know it. If anything, today should see you cleansed of the burden of secrets."

"There aint no secrets from God, padre. The way I figure it, this shit is between me, Him, and Old Scratch. I'm only tellin' you because you asked."

"I think you need to tell me. The weight is crushing you."

"I'm getting closer to 70. Kids are gone. Wife's buried for five years now. I didn't see that coming, but I figure I deserve that, too."

"People die, man. Cancer doesn't pay attention to debts, obligations, or deals you think you made in the jungle."

Eyes narrowed, a flash of anger shone through the pall of smoke. "I know what I did, padre. I was fucking there. This shit aint in my mind, some shell-shocked fuzzy recollection of a goddamned survivor. My guilt aint from surviving. My guilt is from bargaining."

The priest made another gesture with his hands, this time patting the air between them in a "calm down, mea culpa" motion. "Go on. Tell me about that."

The flash of anger burning away as he lit a new cigarette, the grizzled veteran of a half century-old war and five decades of secrets settled back into his chair.

"There was this kid from New York City. We called him Manhattan. He was the newest in our unit, but we'd worked together for long enough that everybody got on. Ours was one of the few that never saw many replacements. Manhattan was a funny kid. Always playing jokes on the fireteam, hell, a few times he even got the Sarge."

A shuddering breath was drawn in between drags.

"He was the first to get it. Right in front of me."

"Tripwire?"

The old man cut his eyes at the priest.

"Me."

"You killed him?"

"I killed them all, padre. Haven't you been paying attention?"

"I'm sorry, no, I guess not. I thought you were ambushed, or stumbled across an encampment, or something?"

Rueful laughter gave way to a smoky cough.

"We did. We were ambushed by a patrol outside of a full-on company's encampment. Regulars. Something right out of a nightmare. Five little guys in khaki uniforms called down hell on us, and a hundred motherfuckers found it their mission in life to erase six American idiots too dumb to know we'd kicked a hornet's nest."

He continued.

"I heard the thunk of rounds hitting a tree before I heard the actual gunfire. We all hit the deck pretty quick. Shit fell apart damn fast after that. I started mumblin a prayer somewhere between my third and fourth magazine. The prayer got answered about the same time a grenade landed two feet from my face."

"Did it go off?"

"Not the way you'd expect."

More smoke filled the air, adding color to the war story.

"I heard it cooking, padre. The little sizzle of the fuse. I could hear it. Fucking bullets zipping all around like mosquitoes, goddamned explosions rocking the world, and I heard the little sizzle just as sure as shit you can hear Snap Crackle and Pop in your goddamned Cocoa Krispies. And then it just stopped."

He snubbed out his Salem after using the tip to light a new one. The amber ashtray looked like a graveyard with round paper tombstones sprouting from ashy black soil.

"Everything just stopped. Like some science-fictiony shit on the tube. Only it was real. It happened. Not an exaggeration, like, 'my heart stopped as time stood still,' no, padre. I mean time really fucking stood still. Only, I wasn't exactly there anymore. The sky was different. It was black, but somehow still lit. Like fire. Like how you can see the stars through fire-haze and woodsmoke, when you're outside roasting marshmallows. It was like that. I could hear screams, but not the screams of the fucking soldiers being wounded and dying around me. No, these were screams of a different note. Screams and moans from everywhere, like they was screamin and moanin since time started. Since the world was born. You know what's funny?"

The priest didn't answer, waiting for the story to continue.

"I read Dante. I read Milton. They had that shit all wrong. There aint no circles, there aint no cave, there aint no explaining the workins of God to Man or different levels for different degrees of evil. It's all just chaos. It's all just pain, and it never stops. I heard all of that in them screams, padre. I still hear it when I sleep, I still feel that pain I felt in those seconds that have lasted forever."

The old man's hands were shaking as he recounted his experience.

"I know it was Hell, padre. I was there. Only it was Laos, or Vietnam, or Cambodia, and the goddamn jungle was on fire around me. Only it wasn't."

"So what happened with the grenade?" The priest tried to steer the conversation after a pause that lasted a full two minutes and half a cigarette.

"It exploded. Only, not where it landed. He made me move it."

There was another pause, this one not quite as long as the last.

"Time stopped. I didn't quite realize what had happened until I saw that grenade just sort of freeze. Screams and pain echoed around me, but gunfire had completely stopped. I looked around, thinking I was dead or passed out. I looked all over for Manhattan and the rest of the guys, but I couldn't see nobody. It was just me. Alone. Except for him."

A shuddering breath filled the old man's lungs, then they released into a light cough.

"He smiled at me as he stood there. His teeth were perfectly white, and his eyes were perfectly black. He was big. Not a giant, but big. Perfectly chiseled, but not like a bodybuilder. Just granite-cut, lean muscle. Big barrel-chest, like the black and white Superman from when I was a kid. He was naked as the day is long, and he was absolutely covered in blood. He held out his hand, and I took it. I remember his grip; icy strong. Like stone."

"What did he say?"

"It's like he was fucking with me, padre. Like I was the butt-end of some kind of cosmic fucking joke. He said, no shit, he said 'Let's make a deal.' I was scared out of my mind, and I'm pretty sure I shit myself somewhere along the line. I just nodded, and he laughed."

"Do you remember what you said before he arrived?"

"How can I forget? I prayed. I asked God for help. And then I said 'Fuck you, God. Anybody, just get me out of this. Buddha, God, Satan, whothefuckever, just get me home, and I'll do whatever you ask."

"And then the grenade landed in front of you?"

"And then the grenade landed in front of me. And the sky got all funny and the place changed."

"You think you were in Hell?"

"I know I was."

"And you still made a deal?"

A pause. A puff. A nod.

"Yeah."

"How long were you there?"

"Long enough that it's haunted me for fifty years."

The priest crossed his legs. "I guess I just don't understand what would make you do a deal, after seeing that."

"He showed me things, padre. I saw my wife. I saw my kids. I saw my future, and knew I'd live a quiet, happy life right back here at home if only I said yes. He made me promises and I was desperate to believe in something."

"But...you're Christian."

"In all my years, padre, do you know how many times I've seen God?"

The priest stirred, uncomfortable.

"In all my years, padre, do you know how many times I've seen the devil?"

The priest picked an imaginary thread off of his frock.

"When I tell you, padre, that I killed Manhattan, I'm not exaggerating when I say that the devil made me do it. It was the seal on the deal, see. I took that grenade, and I walked over to that kid's hiding spot, and I put that grenade right next to him, where he couldn't see. He never even knew what happened. One minute, he was fighting for his life, and the next, he was sipping scotch with St. Pete."

"Do you believe that?"

"Not even a little bit. That kid's in hell where I put him in my place."

"You traded the Devil a soul for your life?"

"Oh, padre. I did so much more than that. He took all of them."

"What do you mean?"

"At the end of our bargain, he killed them all. Every. Single. Man. Uniforms didn't matter. Religion didn't matter. It was a bloodbath, and not some figurative bullshit. He was bathed in blood. He made it seem so small, the price I paid. All I had to do was promise him my soul, and just sacrifice the one kid from New York. He did the rest."

Silence bloomed between the two men, and the priest decided to just listen. Finally, the confession concluded as the last cigarette was snuffed out in the ashtray.

"I did what he asked, padre, but I only regret the part where I promised him my soul."

Through the lingering smoke between them, the padre was truly chilled to see the old man's face flicker with the ghost of a smile.