Just Sayin'

    “Bless me Father for I have sinned. It’s been sixty-five years since my last confession and”

      “Excuse me, did you say sixty-five years?”

      “I did, Father”

      “Guess we’re going to be here for a while, eh?”

      “Don’t think so. I’ve led a boring life.”

      “Why so long away, son?”

       “Please don’t call me son. I’m older than you are.”

       “That’s true, but you called me father.”

       “That’s just one of those fucked-up relationship things the church fosters. I was trying to be appropriate.”

        “The f-bomb is not appropriate. Not in the confessional anyway. Have you been attending Mass?”

        “Yes, but not regularly. Twice in the last forty years. My daughters’ weddings.”

         “Oh my. That won’t make God happy.”

         “Father, I don’t think there is a God.”

         “Then why are you here, son.”

         “Please, can we skip the son thing? I’m seventy-seven. My parents are dead. No one calls me son.”

         “Okay, what’s your name?”

          “Isn’t this supposed to be anonymous?”

          “No, not really. Besides you haven’t confessed anything and the way this is going, I don’t think you will.”

          “My name is Joe, Joe Lauer.”

          “Okay Joe, why are you here?”

          “Well, I’m getting close to the end. Thought I’d cover all my bases.

           “Are you ill?”

           “No, but why take a chance? I went for a walk today and had a few heart palpitations. Thought maybe I should go to confession.”

           “Confessions of convenience don’t work, Joe. And I’m pretty sure there is a God. Why do you think there isn’t? Do you feel he abandoned you in a time of need?”

            “No, not at all. I have had a good life. Better than most anyway. But if there is a God, he has no idea what he’s doing. For fuck sake, Father, look around you. Terry Bradshaw could have designed a better world. Nothing makes any goddamned sense.”

             “Most think the world is a beautiful place, the work of a superior being. What’s wrong with the design?”

             “Let’s start with the human body, Father. Do you really think we’re made in God’s image?  How much time do you think God spends in the bathroom? By the time we’re eighty, we’ve spent nearly two years on the toilet. Two goddamn years! More if you have irritable bowel syndrome. It’s true, I’ve done the math.”

               “Are you sure? Two years is a long time.”

              “You bet it’s a long time. God has supposedly been around forever, and he couldn’t design a waste-free human? Honda is less than one hundred-years-old, and they’ve made two types of cars that don’t pollute. God is either not as smart as Honda engineers or he has a weird sense of humor.”

            “That’s a strange thing to focus on, Joe. Most people doubting God’s existence cite childhood cancer or war.”

            “No need to go there, Father. There’s enough evidence in the mundane, the ordinary. Take sleep, for example. If we are lucky, we get a crummy seventy or eighty years on earth and we spend a third of it unconscious. That’s horseshit. A goddamn waste of time. God should have consulted an efficiency expert. Might have learned a thing or two.”

            “Love is good. What about love.”

            “Love is great, but you’re cherry picking, Father. Besides, I believe love is a human evolution thing. There wasn’t much of it around in ancient times. Have you seen Game of Thrones?”

            “That’s fiction, Joe. No fair citing fiction.”

            “You’re right, bad choice. How about the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Holocaust? Are those real enough for you, Father? If there’s a God, he created cruelty, not love.”

            “I see your point.”

            “And there’s so much more. Mosquitos…what kind of monster drums up mosquitos for Chrissake? Little insects with needle-like snouts that suck your blood and spread horrible diseases. If it weren’t for mosquitos, I might believe in God. Those little bastards can’t be part of any grand design.”

            “Maybe life is not supposed to be easy, Joe. Maybe we’re supposed to suffer to earn everlasting happiness.”

            “That logic would have us beating our kids before they open their Christmas presents. A whack across the head, followed by the present they’ve wanted all year. If suffering is required to gain salvation, why doesn’t everybody suffer? Some people have lousy lives, filled with pain and despair while others live in luxury. Hell, not everyone gets mosquito bites. Mosquitos never bother my ex-wife, but they love me, leaving lumps the size of walnuts.”

            “You seem obsessed with mosquitos, Joe.”

            “Not really, but they are a metaphor for everything that’s wrong with the world.”

             There was silence for a few seconds, then Father Dululio spoke. “We’ve been talking for a while now, Joe, and you haven’t confessed anything. I don’t think you’re going to. Others are waiting and I need to hear their confessions. If you’d like to continue talking, meet me at Starbucks in an hour.  I’m done with mosquitos though. They are not proof there is no God.”

            “You’re kicking me out?”

            “Yes, I am.  God wouldn’t accept your confession anyway. He expects a little contrition. Let’s talk at the coffee shop.”

            “After sixty-five years, you could be a little more accommodating, you know.”

             “Only the regulars get special treatment, Joe. We give them punch cards and they get every tenth absolution free. No act of contrition required.” 

             “You’re kidding, right?’

             “Of course I’m kidding. See you later, Joe.”

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             Joe Lauer sipped his second vanilla latte of the morning, wondering why he was sitting in a coffee shop, waiting for a Catholic priest to join him. The day had started like any other. He’d been on his daily walk, enjoying the weather, when his heart began to sputter like an old six-cylinder Chevy engine running on empty.

            It was Saturday morning, and he was two blocks from the church where he went to confession every week until he was twelve. As a kid, he hated confession.  According to the nuns, everything a twelve-year-old boy did was a sin. No self-respecting sixth grader was going to tell a priest what ran through his head every few minutes, so Joe failed to report anything of consequence. His confessions became sins of omission.

           On a Saturday morning in 1958, Joe decided he’d had enough. Instead of going to confession, he turned right on Main Street, heading for Kay’s Café to play the pinball machines. That was the first of three hundred or so consecutive Saturday mornings he spent at Kay’s. As his chances for salvation declined, his pinball skills flourished, and he became the pinball wizard of Addison, Ohio. That, he decided, was a fair tradeoff.

        Joe was thirteen when two seniors in high school grew tired of him monopolizing their favorite pinball machine. One grabbed his arms, the other his legs. They carried him out of Kay’s Café, depositing him at the curb. There was no bullying involved. All three boys were laughing. One of the seniors was Joe’s favorite neighbor, Tommy Fulton. He and Joe were close despite their age difference.

          Joe followed them back into Kay’s to offer unwanted pinball advice. Ten- minutes later, his “confession” time was up. He reached down and unplugged the machine causing it to “tilt” and ran for the front door.

         His home was four blocks from Kay’s on a street that paralleled the railroad tracks. He was a block from home when the crossing lights sprang to life. As he turned left toward the tracks, Tommy Fulton drove past in his ‘56 Ford. Joe waived and Tommy waived back, a big smile lighting up an otherwise dreary day. Then, inexplicably, he drove through the warning lights into the path of the oncoming train.

         The explosion was excruciating, a sound Joe would hear every morning for the rest of his life. The car split into two jagged killing machines. One flew to the left, the other to the right. The Ford’s engine hurtled down the tracks ahead of the train.

           Joe went to his knees in shock as the train sped past him. When the crossing cleared, he saw he wasn’t the only one who’d witnessed Tommy’s death. Tommy’s father, who walked with a noticeable limp, was sprinting toward the tracks. 

That was the day Joe knew there was no God.

He hadn’t waivered in sixty-five years, but today his heart had sputtered, reminding him that his father was seventy-seven when he died. Kay’s Café had closed a decade earlier, replaced by a Starbucks, the only one in town. He could go there, have a latte and contemplate his circumstances or he could go to confession. For reasons he didn’t fully understand, he chose the latter.

====================================

         Alex Dululio had been a priest for nearly a decade when Joe Lauer visited him in the confessional. Saint Sebastian’s was his second assignment. The people were nice, but the church was in a small town, too conservative for his liking. His conversation with Joe was the most interesting he’d had since he arrived in Addison, and he was left wanting more. But he doubted Joe would be waiting for him at the coffee shop.

       “And God created mosquitos,” he said to himself, smiling, as he opened the door to Starbucks. He looked around and spotted an older man sitting alone at a table in the corner. Alex wasn’t wearing his collar, so the man wouldn’t know that a priest had entered the shop.

         “Joe?” he said softly as approached the old man. The man looked to be in good physical condition, not someone about to have a heart attack. He was dressed in a mint green tee shirt, khakis, and light blue sneakers. Except for the grey hair peeking from under his baseball cap and a few deep lines in his face, he didn’t look any older than Father Dululio.

        “Father?” Joe responded, “I didn’t know if you’d come. Let me get you a coffee. What would you like?”

        “You know what, Joe, I’d really like a beer. What do you say that we ditch this place and walk down to Eddy’s?”

        “A beer before lunch? I’m impressed Father,” Joe replied as he rose from his chair.

        “Skip the father thing, Joe. Call me Alex.”

        “I’ll drink to that, Alex. Hell, the way today started out, I’d drink to anything.”

         Ten minutes later, they sat in a booth in Eddy’s Pub, two mugs of beer keeping them company. Alex spoke first, “Tell me about yourself, Joe. Who are you?”

         “Hell, I don’t know. Show me a man who thinks he knows who he is, and I’ll show you a liar. I was a newspaper reporter in Cleveland back in the day, before returning to Addison to take care of my mother. She passed two years back, and I didn’t see any reason to return to Cleveland.”

         “Married?”

         “Divorced.”

         “Any kids?”

         “Two daughters, both live out of state.”           

         “Where?”

         “One’s in Colorado, the other moved to Oklahoma City.”

         “Do you visit them?”

         “I see Helen in Colorado a couple times a year. We do some hiking. We used to ski but I have a bum knee. Beth comes back to Ohio for Christmas. I refuse to go to Oklahoma City. They get tornadoes there. Nearly every day. I love Beth, but not that much.”

         “So you grew up here? I’m guessing you attended Saint Sebastian’s through eighth grade, right?”

          Joe nodded. “But I went to public high school. Best decision, ever. I had a great time.”

         “And you ended up a godless heathen. How do explain that, Joe?”

         “Already did. Have you forgotten the mosquitos, sleep, the two years I’ve spent on the toilet? I can add to the list: Childbirth is just crazy. Whoever thought you could push an eight-pound baby through a cigar wrapper. OSHA would shut that down in an instant. We slaughter some animals and treat others like they’re our children. You can’t hurt a puppy, but millions of lambs end up in butcher shops every year. Teenagers get pimples for God’s sake, at a time in life they are obsessed with looking cool. What’s the point of that? Then there’s incontinence, dementia, parasites, toenail fungus…lawyers. It goes on and on, Alex. Tell me, do you really see a plan here?”   

        “I could say that God works in mysterious ways.”

         Joe chuckled “Not if you want to live long enough to finish your beer! How about you, Alex? When did you know you wanted to be a priest?”

         “I went into the seminary after eighth grade.”

        “You know that’s nuts don’t you, a crime against childhood. Your parents should have been arrested. Did you ever date?”

        “I snuck in a few dates when I was home during the summer. There was one girl, Laura, that I had a crush on, but she ended up going steady with someone two years older than me.”

        “Ahh, you remember her name. So you do have regrets.”

       “No more than most people. I hear stories in the confessional. There are a lot of unhappy folks out there. My sample may be skewed though. Catholics feeling guilty about what they’ve done to offend the Almighty probably register a few points below average on the contentment scale.”

       “Yeah, a confession sample leaves out a lot of people. No Mormons and they’re a happy lot, which is strange since they don’t drink. Perhaps it’s the underwear. No atheists. No holy rollers or snake handlers. No Jews. No Presbyterians. That’s my favorite religion. Pre-destination simplifies everything.  No Lutherans either, but that doesn’t matter. They’re just Catholics in disguise.  Alex, you could be in the unhappy quadrant and just don’t know it.”

        “No, I am pleased with my decisions in life. What quadrant are you in Joe?”

        “Ask me after my second beer. Things always look better after a couple of drinks.”       

         They talked for another hour, more banter than anything else, and agreed to meet again the following Saturday. Over the next six months, they met every week, missing only one session when Joe was in the hospital for what Alex dubbed “no apparent reason.” He’d discovered Joe was a hypochondriac.

         They discussed religion, politics, sports, beer, even women, exchanging perspectives and insults, and their friendship grew. When Alex was transferred to another parish, their weekly meetings ended. They continued their conversations using Zoom, but it wasn’t the same.

          A year after Alex’s transfer, Joe had a heart attack. It wasn’t serious and he was out of the hospital in two days. The next Saturday, he went to confession. When he said he didn’t believe in God, the priest, exploded, berating Joe and frightening several people waiting to have their confessions heard. They’d never witnessed a priest shout at anyone in the confessional.

Joe quickly left the confessional, joining three of the would-be confessors as they left the church. He tried joking with them, but they thought he must be a serial killer. Two ran to their cars looking over their shoulders to see if they were being pursued by the mad confessor.

         The next week, Joe drove to Cleveland to attend Alex’s wedding at Temple Beth El. Alex had rediscovered Laura Weisman, bumping into her at a store in Cleveland a year earlier and found he still had a crush on her. She had married when she was twenty-two. It lasted eight years.

           They dated twice before Laura learned he was a priest. Alex had a choice to make. Leaving nothing to chance, he called Joe.

           Joe, at first, was stunned.  “Please tell me you didn’t let an old, dumb atheist like me influence you, Alex. You know I don’t know anything about life.”

           But, when he understood the struggle his friend was having, he reverted to form. "You should pray on it Alex,” he said, unable to stifle a chuckle. “Come on down to Addison this weekend and I’ll pray with you.”  

          Alex had too much on his mind to process satire. “You’re kidding, right?”

         “Of course I’m kidding. Don’t mess this up, Alex. This is your one chance for happiness and there’s no suffering involved. At least for the first few years. Laura’s real and after all our talks, you must know God isn’t. It’s time to get on with your life!

           Joe was immensely happy for his friend, but objected when he heard they were going to Belize for their honeymoon. After congratulating the newly married couple in the reception line, he again questioned Alex’s judgement. “Haven’t you learned anything from our talks, Alex?” he whispered. “You realize Belize is called the mosquito coast, don’t you? Are you out of your mind?  Those little bastards will kill you.”