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"I think you need a whiff of a ville that's been worked over with Zippo-tracks."
"Don't give me that righteous dogshit. I was there, too, podna." The bread in the side of his mouth made an angry lump along his jaw.
"Then don't let those farts at Immigration jerk you around."
He put his sandwich in his plate, drank from his iced tea, and looked away reflectively at the children playing under the trees.
"Have you ever thought that maybe you'd be better off drunk than sober?" he said. "I'm sorry. I really didn't mean that. What I meant to say is I just remembered that I have a check in my shirt pocket. I'll pay for my own lunch today. No, don't argue. It's just been a real pleasure being out with you."
The inside of the church was cool and dark and smelled of stone, burning candles, water, and incense. Through the side door I could see the enclosed garden where, as a child, I used to line up with the other children before we made the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday. It was sunny in the garden, and the St. Augustine grass was green and clipped, and the flower beds were full of yellow and purple roses. At the head of the garden, shaded by a rain tree with bloodred blooms on it, was a rock grotto with a waterfall at the bottom and a stone statue of the crucified Christ set back in the recess.
I walked into the confessional and waited for the priest to slide back the small wooden door in the partition. I had known him for twenty-five years, and I trusted his working-class instincts and forgave him his excess of charity and lack of admonition, just as he forgave me my sins. He slid back the door, and I looked through the wire screen at the round head, the bull neck, the big shoulders in silhouette. He had a small, rubber-bladed fan in the box with him, and his crewcut gray hair moved slightly in the breeze.
I told him about Eddie Keats. Everything. The beating I took, the humiliation, the pool cue shattered across his face, the blood stringing from the fingers cupped over his nose.
The priest was quiet a moment.
"Did you want to kill this man?" he said.
"No."
"Are you sure of that?"
"Yes."
"Do you plan to hurt him again?"
"Not if he leaves me alone."
"Then put it behind you."
I didn't reply. We were both quiet in the gloom of the box.
"Are you still bothered?" he said.
"Yes."
"Dave, you've made your confession. Don't try to judge the right and wrong of what you did. Let it go. Perhaps what you did was wrong, but you acted with provocation. This man threatened your wife. Don't you think the Lord can understand your feelings in a situation like that?"
"That's not why I did it."
"I'm sorry, I don't understand."
"I did it because I want to drink. I burn inside to drink. I want to drink all the time."
"I don't know what to say."
I walked out the side door of the church into the garden. I could hear the waterfall in the grotto, and the odor of the yellow and purple roses and the red flowers on the rain tree was heavy and sweet in the warm, enclosed air. I sat on the stone bench by the grotto and stared at the tops of my shoes.
Later I found Annie weeding the vegetable garden behind our old smokehouse. She was barefoot and wore blue jeans and a denim shirt with no sleeves. She was on her hands and knees in the row, and she pulled the weeds from between the tomato plants and dropped them into a bucket. Her face was hot with her work. I had told her that morning in bed about Eddie Keats. She had said nothing in reply, but had merely gone into the kitchen and started breakfast.
"I think maybe you should go visit your family in Kansas and take Alafair along," I said. I had a glass of iced tea in my hand.
"Why?" She didn't look up.
"That guy Keats."
"You think he's going to come around?"
