When I was an Altar Boy, I served with an odd kid that became known as the Priest Confessor. Believe it or not, somehow it happened that priests started coming to HIM to confess their sins.
But the last priest he’d ever see gave him much more than a confession.
I was only like 10 at the time. I was there for Kenny’s first priest confession. And I was there for the last one. To this day, though I grew up to have a career in medicine, I still sometimes wake up screaming in the night, remembering that day.
Kenny had always been a sweet and gentle kid. He tried to play sports with us, the kid had guts, but he was the slowest, the weakest, the least coordinated.
He wasn’t religious, and his parents weren’t at all either, but they had him become an Altar Boy to appease the grandfather. The story was that when Kenny’s grandmother first saw him as a newborn, minutes after coming into the world, she turned white, made the sign of the cross and dropped dead. So Kenny’s grandfather believed a terrible evil would happen to Kenny…or perhaps be done by him.
But as he grew up, it was clear the kid could never do anything bad. This was the kind of boy who carried spiders out of the house to free them. And even though he was a mostly quiet child, he was surprisingly popular at school. He had a great sense of humor, so that helped, but mostly there was just a warm feeling that made us all protective of him.
So one day we were working the mass with Father Ron when we noticed the priest was really upset. His eyes were bloodshot, like he’d been crying, he kept forgetting the words, and his hands were shaking so bad he could barely break the bread.
When mass was over, the distraught priest couldn’t hold it together any longer. As me and Kenny were cleaning up behind the altar, Ron suddenly fell to his knees before a dumbfounded Kenny. And started confessing.
I can’t recall everything the priest said, and he used language that was very vague, but the gist of it was he’d done something that hurt someone else, something that involved desires that he’d long held in check. I had no idea what he was talking about then and could tell Kenny didn’t either, but Kenny stood right there before the kneeling priest as though it was his duty.
When Father Ron finally looked up at Kenny and begged him for forgiveness, my friend put both hands on the man’s head, gently forcing him to bow, and told him “God forgives you”.
The priest picked himself up, patted him on the shoulder in gratitude, and it was over. Later, me and Kenny talked about it, but neither of us had a clue. He said he knew the priest wanted forgiveness, but that only a priest could forgive, so he said what he did about God. The weird thing, he explained, was that as he said it, he felt a great burden, a thing he called it, being lifted from the priest’s shoulders. Like he truly had been forgiven.
Well, a few weeks later, we arrived on Sunday to set up for mass, and a priest from another parish, someone we’d never seen before, was nervously waiting for Kenny. Father Ron introduced them, and then delayed mass so Kenny could hear this new guy. I was in the room, but gave them space and didn’t listen to the confession, which went on for an emotional 10 minutes. A full house waited in the pews. When it was done, Kenny shot me a sheepish look, then placed his hands on the priest and told him that God forgives.
And so Kenny became the Priest Confessor. They came from all around, seeking forgiveness for sins they felt were too great for another priest to help with. Every other week a priest visited, and once two in the same day.
His legend grew at school, too. A priest was a powerful figure in my neighborhood. He had the Church in Rome behind him and the ear of God himself.
Then one day an old priest arrived that merely wanted to watch Kenny in action at mass, and then to meet him afterwards. A kindly old man, but with a definite air of authority. You could tell because of the way the other priests treated him with deference.
A couple of weeks later, the old priest returned before mass, and said he needed a very important favor, and instructed us both to come with him in his car. Replacement alter boys had already been arranged to do our job at mass. He was taking us on a house call. A dying man. Another old priest, but one who’d left the priesthood long ago, but wanted to confess his sins and return to God.
On the way over in the car, he explained that when this dying man had still been a priest, he had been very important. A man who visited often with the Pope in Rome, who had received many years of special training, and who held a very sacred and unique position within the archdiocese.
When I asked about this training, the old priest only told me that he used to be called on to help people when no one else could. He said there were perhaps only a dozen like him in the world at any given time.
As soon as we arrived, I knew this was much more, much bigger than anything we’d ever imagined. State Police cruisers were all over the place, and long, dark cars. Men in hazmat suits were pulling large, heavy drums from a shed. And men and women in blue jackets marked FBI were flagging spots in the woods.
When Kenny looked at me, for the first time I saw terror in his eyes. Probably it was the crazy sights around us, but I now believe it was much more than that. He sensed what was about to happen. He felt the presence of something beyond all the training in science and medicine I would one day receive, something that can only be truly understood as evil itself.
We bypassed the many parked vehicles of all kinds and parked right in front of the main door. Walking in, we passed numerous children of all ages, the youngest about 3, and you could tell they were siblings, kids and grandkids, because all had red hair, were short in stature and even shorter, it seemed, in limb. I remember that. They had short, stubby arms and bowed legs. Some of their parents were around too, so all of them were the offspring of the former priest who lay dying in bed.
On the drive over, the old priest had told us that once the dying man had left the priesthood, he became a long-distance truck driver and started a family of his own. He’d traveled every major highway of this great land, from the most desolate to the most crowded, and had seen everything from the big cities to the most secret nooks and crannies. He’d never taken notes, the old priest regretted, so all of it was locked in that head of his and would go with him.
However, said the priest, the man never forgot his vow to God. And now, at the hour of his death, he sought forgiveness.
You might wonder, at some point, in the part played by the old priest in these events. The way he brought two innocent boys away from church. If you feel enraged, it’s understandable, and I’ve felt that often myself over the years. But you must understand how easy it is for those with good hearts to be tricked. And the priest was a good man, a servant of God. He just had no idea.
Everyone stared at me and Kenny as the old priest walked us through the house, and it only took a second for their eyes to settle on Kenny. They knew. They’d heard. And they could tell.
Despite my altar-boy background, I didn’t grow up religious. My parents had me do it because it was the Catholic thing to do, a way to help ensure your kid was on the right side of the path, because on my side of town, there were plenty of chances to end up on the wrong side.
You might think that exposure to evil as a child…evil with a capital ‘e’…evil that isn’t a byproduct of something else, but which is a thing in itself…you might think that exposure would send me fleeing to religion.
But in my case, it only made me doubt the existence of God. Or at least the power of God. Maybe God had become a shriveled being, little able or willing to help us, unable even to defend the innocent. For when it came down to it, Kenny’s power came from that. Innocence.
I’d never seen that kid utter a cruel word or do something unkind. It just wasn’t in him. That was his power. That was why the priests came to him. Perhaps if God still exists in the world, scattered here and there, it’s in the form of innocence.
Which is why Evil is drawn to the innocent.
And why the innocent don’t have much of a chance.
Walking through the house, I’d expected to see religious items in the home of a former priest. Crucifixes, saints, Jesus.
Nope. Nothing.
A red-haired, short woman in her 60’s, who I assumed was the former priest’s wife, sat at a table looking broken and diminished, someone who’d been through hell and whose heart still somehow beat. She looked like she didn’t want to be here, and I suspected she’d looked that way for many years. Also, despite the home filled with kids and grandkids, she looked alone.
The old priest navigated us through hallways crowded with nurses, red-haired offspring and FBI agents. Thinking back on it now, it felt like a scene from the movie Downfall, where a summoned general was led to Hitler’s quarters in the bunker, a harrowing journey down dark corridors filled with the Fuhrer’s minions. We were heading towards something not only of great evil…but of great power. And if not everyone in the house completely understood that, everyone certainly felt it.
Arriving at the bedroom door, the old priest made a sign of the cross with trembling hands. Then knocked.
A nurse with watchful eyes opened the door and eyed as apprehensively. Her gaze lingered on Kenny, and for a moment filled with something which might have been hope.
The creature lying in the long bed, hooked up to monitors and machines, had little flesh left beyond stretched skin. Gray fuzz covered a grimacing skull perched on a folded pillow. At first, the man had only the strength to follow us with his eyes.
Eyes which quickly found Kenny.
The old priest had to gently nudge us forward, and my legs were so weak it almost knocked me down.
But poor Kenny, he had the worst of it, because the decaying thing in the bed had completely locked on him, holding him captive with his penetrating stare.
As we neared the bed, the old truck driver managed a feeble smile. I smelled urine and odors far worse. The man’s hands seemed supernaturally long, bony fingers with yellow, catacombed nails. The toenails on an exposed foot were even worse, twisted and sharp, the color of mustard.
The dying creature temporarily broke away from Kenny to communicate with the old priest with a nod. The priest gently pulled me away from the bed, and we stood a few feet off, by the beeping EKG machine.
The old being in the bed reached out and put a spidery hand on Kenny’s arm. Kenny shuddered but didn’t pull away.
“Bless me, son,” the man gasped. “For I have sinned.”
As he said it, a wide smile spread on his lips. At that moment, for the first time, the elderly priest beside me doubted what he had done. In could feel it. He had earnestly believed the former priest had wanted to return to God. But the malicious grin indicated he had something very different in mind.
The nurse moved close she could listen to the old thing’s confession, and I noticed a small pistol hidden under her shirt. A cop.
I could make out very little of what the former priest said, but he did confess to horrible sins, sins too gruesome to repeat. The old priest beside me turned so pale I thought maybe he’d died. And the jaw of the cop disguised as a nurse dropped so low a sparrow could have flown into her mouth.
However, it was no confession aimed at forgiveness. For the evil grin never left the foul thing’s face. He cast an evil smirk to the old priest beside me, and a choking sound came from the man. He struggled for breath, and the terrible confession went on.
The cop/nurse spoke into a radio, and even put her hand reflexively on her gun.
Kenny tried to pull away, but the long, bony hand held him with surprising strength. Occasionally a sob emerged from my friend. I wanted to stop it, but didn’t have anywhere near the courage.
I’m not sure how long it went on. Ten minutes would have felt like an hour, and it felt like two. As I’ve said, the things I heard still give me nightmares, and many other things I could make no sense of. But one thing that stuck out in my mind, something it would take me many years to confront, the name of a place: White Junction.
When he said the name, poor Kenny used all his might to pull away, but the long, skeletal arm still had last ounces of incredible strength.
Much later I’d look this village up and find it all the way across half the country in the state of Wisconsin. White Station. Something unspeakable lay buried there. Something the foul beast in that bed WANTED discovered.
It was at the end that the worst happened. Instead of Kenny laying his hands on the head of the confessed, the former priest pulled Kenny closer and put HIS own hand on the head of the boy.
Kenny stifled a cry.
By now, everyone in the room was powerless to help him.
Foreign words of some sort came next, words at the time I thought must have been Latin, but they were not. Nor were they Hebrew. A language far older.
When the former priest released Kenny, he slumped to the floor unconscious. The priest who’d brought us slumped to the floor holding his chest. The agent disguised as a nurse pulled her weapon with a trembling hand and aimed it at the old creature in the bed.
Finally finding my strength, I ran to my friend.
Trying to revive Kenny, I was terrified that the ancient thing in the bed would reach down and grab me. But I soon learned there was probably no need to be afraid. For he was dead.
Agents quickly stormed the room, and real medical staff to tend to Kenny. Who turned out to be unharmed… physically.
But Kenny had been forever changed. No, changed is an inadequate word. He was more than changed. He’d been altered.
And maybe, I’ve finally admitted, more than that.
Kenny was never again the sweet, innocent boy. No more did priests come to confess. In fact, no more did he enter the church, let alone perform the duties of an altar boy.
Reaching his teens, he built up a considerable arrest record. He was a very bright kid still, but his crimes seemed stupid. Not that he wanted to be caught, I don’t think, but more because there were impulses he just couldn’t resist.
You might expect he turned to drugs and alcohol, but he never did. His mind remained clean if changed in nature.
But he became cruel. He hurt people just for the sake of hurting them.
Until, that is, after graduating high school. Then it all mostly calmed down, like a storm that had run its course. By then he was a hard man, but he stayed out of trouble. I didn’t see him often, but when I did, he flashed me an impish smile. A secret we shared.
No sign of my innocent old friend.
While I went off to college, Kenny had no interest in that, despite performing very well on standardized tests, like the SAT. Somehow he’d manage to pick up Spanish and Vietnamese. He could have done almost anything with his life.
However, he chose a very distinct career. One which allowed him to travel.
Because Kenny became a long-distance truck driver.
A job he still does to this day.
A job which allows him to occasionally stop at a very out-of-the-way place, far up in the wastelands of Wisconsin, where the land is sandy and crops struggle to grow, and the clapboard houses with peeling paint sit surrounded by weeds and rusting equipment. A place called White Junction.