Samuel took several long moments before entering the confessional. He stared at the stained glass windows painted with scenes of Moses bringing the Ten Commandments down from the mount, the virgin birth, Jesus being crucified and then rising from death as the living God to save all of mankind from sin. As it always did, The Savior’s sacrifice brought tears to his eyes.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been three days since my last confession.”
Samuel recognized the voice. Mrs. Lucy had been best friends with his grandmother and had actively participated in raising him. She had even spanked him on more than one occasion. She was already old when Samuel was born, so he had a hard time imagining the hard-drinking, pot-smoking, free-loving party girl his grandmother had told him about, the one who spent night after night in the jazz and blues clubs that dotted the waterfront back in those days. He sometimes had to stifle a chuckle as he tried to picture it. Now she was one of the most pious and faithful women he knew, attending church almost every day. He’d heard the worst of her sins long ago, and some had indeed raised his eyebrows. Her confessions now ran toward the pedestrian, stealing an apple pie recipe from a television show and passing it off as her own, coveting Ms. Cicily’s new hat, speaking too harshly to the mailman when he delivered the mail late on the day her social security check was due. Samuel listened to it all patiently then gave Ms. Lucy her penance.
Some of the confessions Father Samuel heard were more interesting. He heard the usual adulterous thoughts (too many of them acted upon), petty thefts, cheating on taxes, lying, coveting, hating. Occasionally, he received a confession that tested his faith and some that made him want to rip open the confessional door and beat the hell out of the bastard on the other side. A man sauntered in to confess to repeatedly raping both his son and his daughter along with several other neighborhood children. Samuel had urged the man to seek counseling and made confessing to the police part of his penance. He never heard from the guy again.
Today was not nearly so dramatic. Aside from one woman’s confession of smoking crack and using methamphetamines while her husband was at work and she watched the kids, the confessions were all pretty mundane. Then he heard a familiar voice from the other side of the confessional.
“Forgive me, Brother, for I have sinned.”
He had been about to correct the man when he placed the voice. “Samson?”
“Shh. You’re not supposed to say my name. Isn’t that breaking the sanctity of the confessional or something?”
“You’re doing that just by being in here. You’re not Catholic anymore. You don’t even call yourself a Christian.”
“Just because I’m not particularly fond of God doesn’t mean I don’t believe in him. Who would I blame for all the crap in the world if God did not exist?”
“This is a confessional, Samson. Are you here to confess or just to poke fun at my beliefs? You could have waited ‘til Thanksgiving dinner for that. Why break a tradition?”
“Why all the hostility today?”
“I’m sorry. It’s been a hard day.” Samuel stifled a sigh and rubbed his temples.
“You not feeling well? Do you need me to take you to the hospital?”
“No. Thank you, but no. I’m okay.”
“Good, good. I’m always here for you, you know?”
“I know, Samson. I know. You’ve always been solid that way.”
The ensuing silence was more uncomfortable than he would have imagined. Samuel knew how hard it was for Samson to see him suffer. His illness seemed to affect his brother more than it did him. Still, he didn’t want Samson to come back to the church just to make his dying brother happy. He hoped that his brother had genuinely come back because he’d finally felt the love of God within him. He was, of course, wrong on both counts.
“I do have something to confess.”
The seriousness in his voice made Samuel pause. A powerful dread crept over him. Father Samuel lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Maybe you should talk to one of the other priests.”
“You won’t hear my confession?”
“I just don’t know if it’s right. I’m your brother. It feels like, I don’t know, a conflict of interest. Besides, in order for confession to mean anything, you must have a penitent heart.”
“No, I only want you to hear it. After all, I did it for you.”
The hairs on his neck stood on end and he sweated despite the cool temperature in the air-conditioned room. Samuel’s first thought was that Samson had taken another trip over the border into Canada to smuggle in HIV medication. He had warned his brother more than once about doing it, but had done so half-heartedly. Being an AIDS patient himself, he thought the prices the pharmaceutical companies in America charged for HIV drugs were criminal and so he’d said nothing when he’d looked in his medicine cabinet to see that his own supply of immune boosters had mysteriously quintupled. Even now he was torn between his fear of seeing his brother get caught, his distress at knowing that Samson had once again broken another of God’s commandments, and his own excitement at the prospect of a supply of experimental drugs.
“What did you do?”
“I took a soul.”
“You did what?”
Samson slid a small stack of papers beneath the screen that separated them. Samuel leafed through the pages. It was all written in legalese and he could barely make sense of any of it.
“What is this?”
“It’s a contract. It’s all perfectly legal, my lawyer drew it up for me. It gives me all rights, privileges, and powers including ownership of the signer’s immortal soul. A woman signed it last night, in blood. She signed her soul over to me for one night of sex.”
Samson’s voice brimmed with pride. It almost sounded as if he were waiting for his brother’s approval.
“Samson…this is…why? Why would you do something this perverse and…blasphemous? This is wrong. What are you trying to prove? That you’re some kind of God? You want to prove to everyone how great you are by having them sign their souls over to you?”
“It’s not about my ego, Samuel. It’s about your life.”
“My life? What does this have to do with me?”
“Remember when I was a kid and I wanted to be a dancer? Mom talked Dad into letting me take lessons. I stayed with it for four years. I went every day. Then one day I realized that I would never be a dancer, no matter how hard I tried. I could work at it hard enough to be good but I’d never be great and only the great ones make a living at it. So, I quit, just like that. Mom was so disappointed in me. She thought I was just being flaky. You and Dad didn’t really care. I think Dad was just happy to find out I wasn’t gay. I’ve never been good at anything, Sammy.”
“You just needed to find yourself.”
“No. I’m just not a talented person. I’m not particularly smart. You were always the straight A student. I was just average, except for the way I looked. When Mom and Dad talked about you, they imagined that you would grow up to be a famous politician or maybe a lawyer or a Nobel Prize-winning scientist or author or maybe a black leader of some kind. They thought you could have been absolutely anything. They were so proud when you decided to become a priest. But when they talked about me all they ever said was how handsome I was. How I could grow up to be a famous actor. Then I tried acting and failed at that too. They talked about me becoming a model. So I did. I’m one of the highest paid male models in the world because that’s all I could ever be.
“You know why they never talked about me becoming a politician or a lawyer, Samuel? Because I’m useless. They knew it then. I’m a beautiful piece of nothing. I used to see how envious you’d get when everyone would talk about how handsome I was and when all the girls would chase after me. I don’t think you ever knew how envious I was of you, though. To me, you were always the perfect one. You were the smart one, the one who never got into trouble. When I was fighting in the street you were turning the other cheek. When I was fucking everything that moved you were taking your vow of chastity. I should have hated you for being so perfect, but I never did. I love
