Bless Me Father

Father Jeremy Cranford squinted in the darkness of the confessional, straining to read the hands on his white-faced wristwatch while listening intently to the boy’s orderly recitation of sins committed.

In just a few minutes he would take leave of the Church of the Sacred Heart, walk out to West 51st Street, and stroll over to Eighth Avenue.  On this and every Saturday evening as twilight rolled in on light summer breezes he enjoyed his walk, and the opportunity to savor the neighborhood, to greet his parishioners.

He caught himself and willed himself to focus on the business at hand.  “Are you sorry for yours sins, my son?”

“Yes, Father,” came the reply from a young boy of six or seven, his tinny voice lacking in self-confidence.

Father Cranford smiled to himself.  It was the Sullivan boy, Kevin.  That was his name - Kevin.  His father ran the neighborhood butcher shop over on West 49th.  He was a good man and a good Catholic-raising a fine family, right here in the center of Hell’s Kitchen, his wife working alongside of him much of each long day.

“I want you to say five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys for your penance,” the priest intoned with senatorial pomposity.  He wanted to say something else to young Kevin, something to show his love of God’s children, some kind, soft words to demonstrate that God and he, his representative, were human, forgiving, and warm.

But this was not the time nor the occasion.  Not with the charges having been leveled against him just his last fortnight.  So he simply slid the meshed window shut and sat in the darkness in the event that some lingering parishioner still awaited his counsel.

In the silence he began to consider the charges and within seconds a thin line of perspiration formed on his upper lip and his hands began to tremble slightly.  He folded them together on his lap and counted backward from ten the way his mother had taught him to relieve tensions so many years ago in their flat on the Bowery.  Composing himself, he stood and left the confessional box, walking slowly toward the three heavy front doors.

As he pulled the huge cental door open, great shafts of sunlight slanted through the darkness and New York City greeted him enthusiastically, the great city breaking into his doleful mood and lifting his spirits instantaneously.  He stepped down into the sweltering heat and turned east toward Eighth Avenue, ready to conduct his personal litmus test of public opinion on another day. 

At daily Mass, at the communion rail when the largely Irish congregation came forward to receive the Lord, at wakes, at funerals, at the supermarket over on Ninth, day after day he sensed that public opinion was on his side.  But the multitude was of a simple mind, and the beast could change from bearish to bullish in a moment.  Especially with the New York Post  lambasting him daily, criticizing the Cardinal for having supported him to this point. 

Father Jeremy sought eye contact all along the street.  Try to read their eyes, their mood, he reminded himself.  Was it changing in any way, or did the faithful of the neighborhood still support him?  As he nodded to Mrs. O’ Rourke, he smiled his "A" smile, working hard to connect with her, like Clinton did so well all through his presidency- making the person he eyeballed believe that for that brief moment the individual had the complete attention of the President of the United States.  Too bad more politicians didn’t practice this technique instead of shifting attention too quickly to whoever they considered a more important person. 

Mrs. O’Rourke tensed in recognition, a widening smile showing a lack of teeth.  She was somewhere between seventy and death, probably about eighty.  She was not really a good test case for his purposes, her generation so obviously enraptured with the faith, unwilling to believe ill of God’s representatives here on earth.  Just the other day Iris Malone - rougy, overweight, obsequious - had stopped him after Mass to proclaim her allegiance and her belief that the media was blowing the whole thing out of proportion.  In the main, older constituents, those closer to joining St. Peter at the gates, supported their religious leaders.  They wore blinders. 

But the baby-boomers were another story, more than half of them so crooked themselves, Father Jeremy felt, that it was no leap to believe the accusations against him.  For most of them church was a social convenience, most of them coming into Sacred Heart on any given Sunday looking like Britney Spears in one of those Pepsi advertisements, dressed for a day at Coney Island.  That generation and those behind them served money as their God and consequently, having lived through events such as corporate takeovers and layoffs, financial scandals, divorce, and a myriad of unfulfilled relationships, would have no difficulty in believing that he - Father Jeremy Cranford - had raped the McGuire boy.

He turned left on Eighth Avenue heading up toward Columbus Circle and the gateway to Central Park.  The further he strolled from the church, the less familiar the faces.  Along the way the crowd thinned, most of them out-of-towners heading toward the pricey cocktail lounges in the welter of hotels ringing the Park.  He passed by a Korean market, an antique store, a coffee shop, a bookstore without one individual recognizing him. And small wonder considering that his picture had been spread all over the front pages and the city sections for the last two weeks.  He stopped to catch his reflection in the large window of the camera shop at Columbus Circle.  Now fifty-two years old, he had not gone to fat like so many of his colleagues.  These daily walks were doing him a great dea