The little hospital room had two beds and a wide, picture window that looked out on a tall, brown building and two crows fighting mid-air over a hunk of bread. A light green curtain circled the bed on the right and, through a slit in the fabric, he saw a sleeping man whose black beard was almost covered by a mask like a fighter pilot might wear. In the second bed, a pale, brittle figure lay on top of the neatly arranged covers. He lay with his back to the door, with his feet drawn up to his chest, on a row of three pillows that looked as if a croupier had dealt them. Scanlon had been stocky and powerful once, like an enforcer on a hockey team. Now the skin on his hands looked like mottled crepe paper had been stretched over bleached twigs. Those decrepit hands pinned Leonard down once. Once was enough — he never got back up.
Leonard felt himself shrink to the size of a child. The feeling came over him around all men with a baritone voice and a strong, self-assured nature. Diminished like this, he nodded a lot, though inwardly he disagreed, and went along, against the current of himself. He had only ever been a boy around Scanlon. He had only ever been a boy around any of them: his father, his hockey coach, his shop teacher, his college history professor. He forced his feet to move, to go around to the other side of the bed, so he could see Scanlon’s wretched face. Give his speech. Get the fuck out.
The old priest’s eyes were open, though they gazed on nothing Leonard could see. Leonard stepped between the old man and the window, but Scanlon’s pupils didn’t move or adjust to the shaded light. His face had thinned so much his cheekbones overhung his jaw. His dental plate hung loosely in his mouth and there was a dark gap between Scanlon’s three front teeth and his gum line. Scanlon had always taken out his plate and wrapped it in a white, monogramed handkerchief — before he touched Leonard. Leonard had never stopped dreaming about that gleaming steal plate with its two claw-like clasps that looked ready to snatch eggs from nests.
“I didn’t expect to see you again,” said Scanlon. The old priest’s plate clicked into place. His eyes took in the north side of the room and his voice came at Leonard in a low rasp. Scanlon coughed to clear his throat.
“Leonard, isn’t it? It’s good to see you, Leonard. Did you bring me a paper?”
He meant the sports section, because Scanlon also loved baseball, the numbers of the game. He’d kept a journal – hidden in the top drawer of the desk in his private quarters – with stats on every boy. Percentages. Strikes. Home runs. The crown prosecutor had eaten that journal up.
“I have something — ” Leonard inhaled deeply, “— to tell.”
“Tell me something?” Scanlon coughed again. “Hear that? He wants to tell me something. My brain is Swiss cheese. I’ll forget. Perhaps in an hour. Perhaps in two. I’ll forget. The doctors, maybe it’s the same doctor, says I’m losing my retrograde memory now. The past. My memories. Eaten away. Termites at the wood.”
Leonard had memorized a paragraph that had taken him ten years to perfect, to whittle down from fifteen pages, but all he could choke out was “punishment.”
“Leonard, isn’t it? Five years of jail was punishment. Recall the first letter of John: if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from — ” For an instant, Scanlon looked as helpless as an infant lost in a forest. “— from all unrighteousness. I confessed to the prison chaplain. Everything.”
“It was seven years.”
“Seven years?”
Leonard searched his pockets for the wad of folded newspaper clippings he’d brought. “You read anymore?”
Scanlon shook his head.
Leonard held the piece of paper close to his body, so his hands shook less. “Reverend Warren Scanlon, 50, of Nelson, has pled guilty to six counts of indecent assault and four of sexual assault involving eight boys.” He unfolded a second clipping. “Judge Shirley Messer sentenced him to seven years.”
Scanlon looked out the window, at the crows wheeling in the distance, the snowline, the fading world. His eyes shone like moistened ice. “Termites at the wood.”
“There were nine boys.”
“You said seven years, eight boys.”
“I was the ninth.”
“You, Leonard?”
“I never came forward.”
“But we got on so well. I drove you to hockey practice. I watched all your games. You played for the Colts. Left wing.”
“Centre.”
“You went on and I went on with you. After your father died. Heart attack, wasn’t it? You were eleven.”
Leonard looked at the ground.
“You’re sure it was centre?”
2 Comments
Powerful stuff! A thoughtful perspective on a challenging topic.
Really love this story! It took me back to the Catholic school I went to as a kid, the priest there… oh man!