Starting the publicity here and now for
my new eBook. It's called “Absolution” but since I have just done
the final draft I am open to changing that name to “Grammie” or
“The Wicker Man”.
I like that last idea because Georgie
has managed for a long time to hide his crimes and the bodies away.
Now that he has cancer he wants to be absolved of his sins and
kidnaps the priest to achieve that.
It's a pity he pissed off Bishop Mahon
by doing that. The Bish decides he is still a player like he was
during the Northern Troubles and calls in a favour from Shane
O'Neill.
It's a pity that Mahon was naughty
while a Chaplain with the Irish Army in Lourdes and got a girl
pregnant.
It's a pity also than when Sonny Mc
Entaggart finally finds out who his father is that Sonny is on the
run from the law, dealing drugs from the Continent and using the name
Shane O'Neill.
Maybe I will change the name to “The
Crucifixion of Bishop Mahon” .
Absolution (or maybe The Wicker Man)
by Lazarian Wordsmith ©
Jan 2014
1
It’s life Jim: but not
as we know it!
The words kept running through his mind, all the way back from the
Hospital. He couldn’t recall where, or when he had heard the words,
or why they had now come from deep in his memories, but the
sentiments, that phrase was appropriate for him: now. Living with –
no, not now: dying with cancer was life, but not as he knew it.
The Doctor had been brief, professional in the way he delivered the
news. “It’s advanced lung cancer. An aggressive strain. Hard to
control. No matter what we do, it’s only a matter of time. But look
on the bright side: you have time to put any affairs you have in
order, time for a good holiday, perhaps that trip you always intended
to take. You have some time, use it well. I would if it was me!”
Georgie wasn’t listening. All the words after cancer were lost,
incomprehensible, garbled, not understood. Cancer! A death sentence!
No hope! All the words, the sentiments attacked him. Overwhelmed him.
Contributed to the hot and at the same time cascading rivulets of
cold perspiration that now erupted on his brow and back. He could
feel some of it run down, inside his thigh, between the tweeds and
his skin. Another quick panic seized him. He glanced down. Was it
sweat? Had he pissed himself?
It’s life Jim: but not as we know it: Star Trek. He entered his
office and sat behind his desk. Mister Spock!
He took the bottle from the desk drawer and poured a large whiskey.
He gulped half of it down and felt it sting. Sting the blasted cancer
he thought. Burn the shagger. Burn him just like I’ll be burning
soon in Hell. He hadn’t though about the next life in a long time.
But now he did it’s impending closeness terrifying him.
He needed to confess, to tell a priest about the girls. Be forgiven,
be clean. He needed forgiveness: but how? If he told: he would lose.
Be disgraced. Let the family down. Jesus it would destroy all of
them.
2
If you asked Detective
Fanahan what he was doing he would tell you that himself and The
Prick were having one of their regular discussions about religion. It
was a part of their pub conversation and was going on as long as they
had been meeting in Milos for the end of week drink, or in Fanahans
case his end of shift until tomorrow session.
An argument about the rite of confession in the two religions had
begun a long time ago when Fanahan, in one of his moods, first
started teasing The Prick about not having to go to confession
regularly to tell his sins to a priest and receive absolution.
“We always envied you Proddie boys, when we were growing up. You
could take the girlfriend out for a night, drop the hand and grope
her gee and never have to tell anyone you did it. You could just go
away and forget about it. We had to go to bloody confession to get
absolution before we could feel better. If you didn’t go they had
you so well conditioned, that you were guilt ridden until you did go.
If you told one of our lads that you got a handful of gee over a
weekend, they’d hit the shaggin’ roof. One head banger asked me
to send the little girl in to see him, so he could have a talk with
her.”
When Mumsie and Grammie had been unsure of where exactly Georgie
would eventually fit into Family Affairs: although the Major was
unlikely to accept him as a true blood Siney, they had hopes. Instead
of sending him to attend the local Protestant Schools, they placed
him out of the way, in the more distant Catholic School.
Georgie
used the scant illicit knowledge of ‘Religion’ gained there, to
formulate and argue views designed to annoy Fanahan. Sometimes he
even managed to see the anger in Fanahan when one of his taunts
struck home.
“Shay, if a man committed a murder and then went to a priest and
confessed and received forgiveness from God, then no court of man
could find him guilty since a higher court, that of God, had forgiven
him and in effect had made him clean.
Forgiveness
is absolute whether it’s for stealing sugar or murder. Once you
have a firm resolution at the time of confessing, not to do the act
again you would be forgiven, once you were contrite the priest has no
option but to forgive you and therefore what he binds on earth will
be bound in heaven. You are clear then with God and you guys are out
of your jurisdiction.”
Normally Fanahan would just laugh at this, but recently he was rising
more to the bait and would get involved in trying to argue. “Look
as usual you are talking through your hole! When we went to school we
had this kind of thing belted into us. Christ! I can still reel some
of it off by heart.”
In a deep sonorous authoritarian voice, he posed the question, “What
is forbidden by the fifth commandment?
In a
childlike voice, the intoned reply, “It forbids murder and suicide
and all other acts that inflict bodily injury on ourselves or on
others.
Now
Georgie the next bit is for us.” Intoning again, he added, “What
else is forbidden by the fifth commandment?
The
answer my boy is: it also forbids drunkenness, quarrelling, anger and
revenge; and if you keep on at me like this I might have to break
this commandment And while I’m at it and remembering, what about
this one? When they were talking about the sixth commandment being a
danger to chastity they made us learn that the chief dangers to
chastity are: idleness, intemperance, bad companions like you - you
prick, improper dances, immodest dress, company keeping and again
you and me indecent conversation, books, plays and pictures; these
all make you want to be ridin’ women, ridin’ women; gettin’
your hole; laying pipe; givin’ her one; cleaning yer tubes. But
there was never anything in there about rodgering altar boys, was
there?
On
the train journey home, Georgie took time to reflect on the
conversation. Long ago he had come to the conclusion that once he
could have forgiveness from a priest for his failings, for those
girls who had wanted to go away and leave him that he had stopped
from going away, he would be forgiven and would be clean and would
not rot in hell in the next life. Soon he decided. I will kidnap a
priest, start telling him about them, then he will forgive me and I
will be clean again.
