“You don’t understand why I’m here.” Tears quivered in his protest. And then he said, “I need to confess.”
15
“Let’s go sit in a pew,” I whispered. I had fleeting thoughts of calling Schulz, of telling this troubled boy to wait for Father Olson. But there was urgency behind Brad’s distress and I wanted to help him. Whatever his problem was, I couldn’t absolve him. Nor would I feel comfortable turning him in. He’d have to do that himself.
We slipped into the last hard wooden pew and sat down awkwardly. Think, I ordered myself. If Julian said I was good to talk to ? a surprise ? then maybe all I had to do was listen.
“I … I’ve been stealing,” said Brad.
I said nothing. He looked at me and I nodded. His handsome face was racked with pain. He seemed to be expecting something. “Go on,” I told him. He was silent. In a low voice I prompted him. “You wanted to talk about stealing.”
“I’ve been doing it for a long time. Years.” He hunched his shoulders as if he were small and very lost. Then he straightened his back and let out a ragged breath. “I felt good at first. Taking stuff made me feel great. Strong.” With sudden ferocity he said, “I loved it.”
I mm-hmmed
“When Perkins used to say in assemblies, we don’t need locks on the lockers at Elk Park Prep, I would laugh inside. I mean, I would just howl.” Brad Marensky wasn’t laughing now. He wasn’t even smiling. His mouth was a grim, suffering slash as he silently contemplated the diamond-shaped window above the altar. I wondered if he was going to continue.
“It wasn’t for the stuff,” he said at last. “I had plenty of stuff. My parents have money. I could have had any coat in the store I wanted. My biggest thrill was ripping off a jean jacket from somebody’s locker.” A silent sob racked his lean body. He seemed to want to cry, but was holding it in. Perhaps he was afraid someone would walk through the doors. The muffled clatter of the ancient mimeo machine in the church office came across as a distant crunch, pop; crunch, pop.. A cool, hushed quiet emanated from the stone floor and bare walls. Brad Marensky’s confession was a murmur within that sanctified space.
“I was going to quit. That was what I swore to myself. I had even decided to give something back… . I don’t even know why I’d taken this thing from a kid’s locker.”
He seemed poised to go off into another reverie. I thought of the table and food I had to prepare, of the twelve committee members who would be arriving within the hour. “Another kid’s locker,” I prodded gently.
“Yeah. Then one day a couple of weeks ago, I decided to put this thing back. After school. When I was slipping it back in and closing the locker, the stupid French Club let out and all these kids filed into the hall. I just, like, froze. I figured Miss Ferrell, Keith Andrews, the other kids, even your son-sorry, I don’t know his name-saw me and thought that instead of giving something - back, I was taking it.” He sighed. “It was the new Cure tape. I don’t even like the Cure.”
“Wait a minute. A tape? Not money, or a credit card?” I blurted out the question without thinking.
“Huh?” He said the word as if he’d been punched, and gave me a puzzled glance. “No. I took money, but not credit cards. You can really get in trouble for doing that.” He looked uneasily at the front door. Before he finished, however, there was one thing I needed to know.
“If you thought Arch ? my son ? might have seen you, and was going to tell, did you try to stop him? With a rattlesnake in his locker? And a threatening note?”
“No, no, no. I wouldn’t do that.”
“Okay. Go ahead, I interrupted you:” But he couldn’t. He started to cry. He cradled his head and sobbed, and impulsively I put my arms around his shoulders and murmured, “Don’t… don’t cry, please… it’s going to be okay, really. Don’t be so hard on yourself, everybody messes up. You tried to make things right… .”
“That was the weird part,” he whispered into my shoulder. “As soon as I decided to quit, everything went wrong. First someone smashed Keith’s windshield…”
“When was that, exactly?” Brad sat up and swiped at his tears. “The day the Princeton rep came. I remember because Keith seemed not to be bothered by the car, he just went on as calm as ever. He was early for the rep and had a zillion questions about the eating clubs and whether they’d take his summer school credits from C.U., that kind of thing.”
“A zillion…”
“Yeah. But later I heard he was writing this article for the newspaper, and I got scared. So I did steal something. Just one last thing, I told myself. Oh, God” ? his words came out in a rush ? “then he was killed.” His brown eyes were sunken and fearful. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t kill him. I’d never do something like that. Then somebody put that snake in your son’s locker.” In disbelief, he shook his head. “It’s like everything went haywire as soon as I decided to go straight.”
“But after you stole that last thing, you did try to get rid of it. You put the credit card in your mother’s coat pocket.”
His boyish face wrinkled. “What is this with the credit card? I didn’t take a credit card, and I don’t know what the story is on my mother’s coat, because I didn’t steal that, either. After Keith saw me putting the Cure tape back, I was sure the article he was writing for the local paper was about stealing. About me. So I pried open the door to Keith’s computer cubbyhole and took his disks. I thought I’d find the article for the newspaper and erase it.” He reached under his sweatshirt and pulled out two disks. “There’s an article in here, but it’s not about stealing. Can you take these? I can’t stand to have them anymore. I’m afraid if someone finds them, I’ll get into big trouble. Maybe you could give them to the cops… I don’t want a criminal record.” He didn’t say it, but the question in his eyes was Are you going to turn me in?
I held the disks but did not look at them. This was a boy in torment. I wasn’t the law. But there was something else.
“Look at me, Brad.” He did.
“Did Keith know you were stealing?”
“I am almost positive now that he didn’t,” he said without hesitation. “Because if Keith had something on you, or if he didn’t like you, he couldn’t keep it to himself. Once he tried to blackmail my father over some tax stuff. When Schlichtmaier called on him, he would say, Heil Hitler.” He thrust his hands through his dark hair, then shuddered. “After the French Club got out that day, he never said anything to me. I figured I’d gotten oft But then somebody killed him. Do you believe me? I can’t stand having this hanging over my head anymore.”
Softly, I said, “Yes, I believe you.” Brad had chosen me to help him. I was duty bound to do at least that. I met his eyes with a level, unsmiling gaze. “Have you decided to stop stealing?”
“Yes, yes,” he said as his eyes watered up again. “Never again, I promise.”
“Can you give back what you took?”
“The cash is gone. But… I can put the stuff in the lost and found. I will, I promise.”
“All right.” Tenderness again welled up in my heart. The world thought this vulnerable boy had everything. I put my hands on his shoulders and murmured, “Remember what I said a few minutes ago. It’s going to be okay. Believe me?” Tears slid down his sallow cheeks. His nod was barely perceptible. “I’m going to leave you now, Brad. Say a prayer or something.”
He didn’t move or utter another word. After a moment I slid out of the pew. As I stood in the aisle, trying to remember what I’d done with the bowl of orange slices, Brad turned and caught my hand in a crushing grip.
“You won’t tell anybody, will you? Please say you wont.?
“No, I won’t. But that doesn’t mean people don’t know. Like Miss Ferrell. Or whoever.”
“Mostly I’m worried about my parents…”
“Brad. I’m not going to tell anybody. I promise. You did the right thing to get it off your chest. The worst part I is over.”
“I don’t know what my parents would do if they found out,” he mumbled as he turned his head back toward the altar.
Neither did I.
I ferried the pans of Sole Florentine out to the church kitchen and heated the oven. Around twenty minutes before noon, members of the Board of Theological Examiners began to arrive. Father Olson whisked through the
