Yuletide Reveal: Betweel You, Me, and the Stove (2/9)
oOo oOo 2: Lead Us Not into Temptation oOo oOo
Dear Sis,
I don’t know how to go about writing this, Kathy. It’s not just a difficult subject, it’s a question of right and wrong. I need to talk about this with someone, but it was practically a confession. I suppose it’s not a confession in the strictest sense, BJ not being Catholic, and bringing beer. But neither his Protestantism nor his choice of beverage change the issue of trust. I’m torn between the need to discuss this, and my complete inability to do so and still honor my vows.
I think the only answer is to write it all down. After I’m done I’ll decide what I should do with this letter. It’s not a good solution-even writing this treads dangerous ground-but I can’t think of anything better.
My confessional hours are now posted on the bulletin board. You told me it would be all right to do so, and no one has complained. Of course, it might be because they got buried under requests for alcohol and offers for laundry services. I keep meaning to post them again, but that probably would be pushing. Confession at the 4077th is an irregular business at best. I can go months without a single person even asking me for advice. When someone finally does happen by, they always happen when I’m not ready.
Three hours ago, as I was getting ready to go to sleep, I heard a knock at my door. Now, I knew that sort of knock. It was the sound made by someone who had mustered his or her courage to come talk to the only ear in camp that has to be impartial and the only ear upon whose confidentiality they can rely.
Oh, God. I really can’t send this to you, can I? I can’t send this to anyone. I don’t even know what I’m doing, Kathy. I just feel like the only way I won’t fail so badly the next time I’m faced with such a challenge is if I can discuss where I went wrong this time. Maybe that someone has to be myself, and I can tuck this letter in a box under my bed until it makes sense to me.
I do sometimes wonder why I was assigned to a unit that has all of two Catholics. Don’t get me wrong, I can perform an Ecumenical service general enough to appease all the faithful, or it would if any of those faithful ever bothered to show up. I’ve even performed a Jewish service or two in my time. But as unattended as my services are, the dying and the dead can and do benefit from the presence of a priest. In performing the Last Rites, I’m seeing to the souls of young men minutes away from meeting God. If I don’t help them prepare, they could be lost. The thought of failing even one of them keeps me moving from body to body, and from operating table to operating table. The doctors, I fear, think it’s a bit ghoulish. They don’t understand that what I do is far less about death and far more about ensuring as best I can that those in my charge are granted eternal life. The responsibility is staggering, only dwarfed by the cost of failure.
But back to tonight, when I got to hear a confession that not only came from one of my living flock, but one of its paragons. I was in my bathrobe at the time, so all I could do was sling my stole around my shoulders and hope for the best.
“Come in,” I said.
There was a long silence on the other side of the door, and then the handle turned. I was surprised to see BJ Hunnicutt, the retiring and friendly new member of our little family, duck into the tent. I don’t know BJ all that well yet, Sis, but he’s always struck me as a man who loves his family and lives a good life without any divine intercession on my part. There are enough troubled people in the camp that I guess I just never got around to talking to him.
Apparently my particular vestments put him off a little, because he almost left then and there. “Sorry, Father. I thought you’d be . . . but it’s late. I should let you get to sleep.” He forced a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Chances are good it’ll be a long day tomorrow. Then again, chances are always good it’ll be a long day. The joys of living in a war zone: there are lights in the morning, lights in the evening, and lights at night. Whether they come from the sun or the rockets’ red glare is anyone’s guess, am I right?”
When a man comes to me and starts rambling, Kathy, I really wish I had some sort of commanding presence. Back in Seminary, the priests all seemed so in touch with God. They all seemed to know exactly what to say at any given moment, no matter what the situation. Maybe I missed a step, or didn’t take the right class.
God doesn’t tell me what to say. When men like BJ beat around the bush, I don’t know how to get them to open up. I just have to hope they do it on their own.
He looked at me, and I knew I’d missed a cue. I hadn’t said something he’d been hoping I would.
I picked through what he’d said. “Um, no. No! This is a fine time, my son. Come in.”
He did, and he closed the door behind him. When he turned around, he had two bottles of beer in his hands. He was smiling at me, but it was the sort of smile Mom used to give us right before she told us it was going to be powdered milk for the rest of the month. “Hey, Father,” he said. “I found two bottles. Would you like one?”
“That depends,” I said, trying for a little humor. “Do I get the contents too?”
BJ’s laugh rang as hollow as my joke. “Good one, Father. You’re a funny guy. Everyone talks about Hawkeye being the funny man around here, but you’ve got a good sneak attack on you.” His chuckles died as he took a long drink.
“BJ . . .” I started to say, but was interrupted. Probably for the best, the way my conversational skills were shaping up.
“I tell you, when I get back to the States I’m going to go out and drink a can of Schlitz. Have you ever had it, or is that a San Francisco thing? I don’t even want to drink it because it’s good. It’s just this average beer, like every other beer, but I can’t get enough of it. It’s my beer: first, last and only. You know what I mean? I can barely even remember the taste of it, but it’s all I can think about.” He took another drink, then stared at his bottle. I realized he was reading the label. “Have you ever heard of these beers we get here? I sure haven’t.”
“BJ-”
He began pacing the length of my tent, back and forth. “No, sir, there’s nothing better than Schlitz and a good hamburger. Do you remember the last time you had a good grilled hamburger on a toasted bun? Peg would always . . . Peg would . . .” His voice started to sound strained. “A good burger and a can of Schlitz on the back porch, with Erin playing at our feet.”
There was nothing I could do. There was no way I could stop him pacing a rut into my floor without begging or blocking, and the last thing that poor man needed was a fight. “BJ, please sit down,” I whispered. I didn’t even expect him to hear me.
BJ collapsed onto my cot like a puppet with its strings cut. He drank quietly for a while after that. He had yet to really look at me, and I felt, not for the first time, that I was incidental to this scene rather than a participant.
Then BJ patted the mattress next to him. I thought I might get lucky, and my presence alone would be what he needed. I sat down, and we both stared at their beer bottles again. It really was almost like a confessional. I could have looked at him, but then again I couldn’t. It wasn’t right to look in on that sort of pain.
“You’re an admirable guy, Father,” BJ said. “Honestly, I don’t know how you do it.”
He was opening up, thank Heaven. “What do you mean?”
“You’re so above it all,” he said, gesturing with his beer bottle. A little spilled to the floor, but he didn’t notice. “Do you know that I’ve never seen you angry? Not once. Not even when Private Simmons kept cracking wise about Catholics whenever you were around. I would have decked him by the third day, but you didn’t even react. That takes real talent. Real … temperance.”
Is it a personal failing of mine that every compliment feels like a trap? “Well, thank you, BJ. I try hard to act as an example.”
“And a mighty fine example you are, too. I don’t know how you manage it. Don’t you ever . . . doesn’t it ever feel like God is a long way away from Korea?”
Now, that was a question I didn’t want to answer. “I believe that He’s everywhere-”
Then BJ looked me straight in the eye and I couldn’t go on. I was taken aback by the pain I saw there. Something was very, very wrong. “Look, Father, I know I don’t have any right to ask. I know I’m prying, but I’d love it if you could just . . . just be a person for a second.” He laughed again, low and nervous. “Oh, God. That came out far more insulting than I intended it. Forget I said anything. I should just-”
I blurted out the first thing that came to mind that wasn’t Scripture. “I remember the first time we were bombed.” He stopped talking and just stared at me. Of course, once I had started ‘being human’ I had a hard time stopping. “The mortars fell throughout the camp. One destroyed the latrine. We were all in Colonel Blake’s office. I remember one mortar landing outside and blowing out the windows. Colonel Blake . . . I heard him shout, and he fell. Radar fell with him. Major Burns was making these . . . frightened noises, and Major Houlihan was holding him. I just stood there. A shard of glass cut my cheek, but I couldn’t feel it over the ringing in my ears. Another mortar fell and I was knocked down. One of the lenses in my glasses cracked. I could see Colonel Blake under the desk, very still, with Radar holding onto him like he wanted to protect him from the bombs. Hawkeye was leaning over me, trying to see if I was all right, but the next blast flattened him. We were all on the floor, with the bombs falling all around us, and I prayed harder than I ever had to make the bombs stop.”
“Did they?”
I hung my head. This wasn’t the sort of story to bring comfort to the downtrodden. It wasn’t even a story that would comfort the uplifted. “They did. After two days. I’d stopped praying by then. It’s hard to do when you’ve been drafted as a nurse and have your hands inside some poor young man’s chest cavity.”
It was my turn not to be able to look at him. It wasn’t just the wrong story; it was the exact opposite of what I was meant to do in comforting and bringing hope. If I didn’t have faith in a crisis, how could I expect anyone else to? Why did I think it was such a good idea to relive all those horrible moments when the reassurance of my faith was pulled out from under me? How was that supposed to help?
“What did you do after that?” BJ asked. “Once the bombs had stopped falling?”
“I prayed again. I read the Bible, and I tried to make sense of it all.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“But you still believe,” BJ said. “What happened?”
“BJ, just because we don’t understand everything that happens in this world doesn’t refute the existence of God, or of His love.”
BJ didn’t sound comforted. “He’s got a funny way of showing it sometimes, doesn’t He?”
“I … yes, I suppose He does.”
BJ gripped his bottle, looked at it again, and then put it on my bedside table so quickly it nearly fell over. He caught it and righted it, and then leaned away, still looking at it. “All that temptation . . .” he whispered. “Has every nurse here respected that collar you’ve got, or has there ever been . . .”
“BJ!” I gasped. I don’t mind telling you, Sis, it was the most awkward question I’ve been asked as a priest. I didn’t know what to say. I knew I shouldn’t be angry at him, but such a personal question so suddenly knocked me for a loop.
I don’t think BJ even noticed my offense, or if he did, he was too caught up in his own confession to care. I tried to regain whatever composure a man in a stole and a bathrobe can possess when a confessor questions his celibacy. BJ was hurt. I needed to make allowances for that.
“They’re so warm and kind,” he whispered. “And sometimes they need something, and you’re there, and you could help. And everyone in this war is so damn alone. Haven’t you ever been tempted?”
Then I understood what he’d been trying to tell me. I’m considered quite the innocent amongst the people of the 4077th. People apologize every time they say something crass or unkind in my presence, even when I’m not part of the conversation. I don’t think they realize that mine is a voluntary innocence. I’ve heard too many confessions just like BJ’s not to know the gist.
But the specifics, particularly this good man’s specifics, still tore at me. You know me. I’ll never be able to toughen up like some of the other chaplains. I feel every failure and every fall from grace as though they are my own. In some ways they have to be. This is my flock, and when they fail I do too.
The words, whispered barely above breath, were terrible in their simplicity. “She needed me.”
BJ’s head bowed under the weight of his admission, and I wished he was Catholic. There’s a script for this sort of thing with Catholics. There are rules, and they do help people reconcile themselves with their sins. But none of those things would bring BJ any sort of relief from the guilt he was feeling.
I had to come up with something to say that was all my own. “I . . . I’m sorry.” My voice was small even to my ears.
“You never gave in to temptation,” he said. He wasn’t asking, Sis.
I didn’t know what to say. No one has ever turned that particular question on me. The sort of temptation he was talking about … I just wouldn’t do it. I couldn’t. Not and feel that I was still true to my vows and to God. You can’t have two marriages at once, and I was already bound. The thought of sullying that … I sometimes worry about the strength and endurance of my faith, but it’s never been because I think it to be less than my own problems. Rather, I worry that I don’t deserve the vows I’ve taken.
BJ must have seen some of my thoughts in my expression, because he softened. For a moment, he was affable again. “Of course you didn’t,” he said.
“I . . . no, I haven’t.”
“You know, there’s this big part of me that’s happy about that,” he said. “It’s incredible. In this hell, with all the pain and all the need around you, the promises you made-all those vows you took-they never leave your mind. They never seem too far away, or not enough.”
“It’s the other way around,” I found myself admitting, my voice barely more than a whisper. “When I get afraid, I worry I’m not good enough for my vows.”
He breathed out hard, like I’d punched him in the gut instead of admitting to my own fear. “Wow, Father. You sure know how to hit a whole factory full of nails on the head, don’t you?” Then he was leaning forward, and his free hand caught my wrist tightly. My own beer, much fuller than his had been, slopped over the edge and splashed on the floor. “How do you keep from falling, Father?” he asked, his gaze searching my face again. “Tell me, because I really want to know.”
I had an answer to his question, but it wasn’t helpful. In fact, it was the worst answer I thought I could give.
The answer was that I simply didn’t break my vows, that most people did respect the collar. The people around me create such a deep chasm of respect that I’ve never been faced with true tests. I can’t help but wonder if, like BJ, I would give into temptation too: perhaps not his temptation; I found that easy enough to resist. But the subtle ones: oblivion, escapism, the temporary reassurance found at the bottom of a glass? It’s hard to explain to someone who isn’t in the middle of all this, but in war that which is present and convenient almost always trumps that which is loved but untouchable. People crave as concrete a goodness as the evil they see, and if they can’t have goodness they turn to comfort where it’s offered.
“The people around me,” I said, “they’ve never let me fall.” I thought of the one and only time I’d gotten drunk on communion wine, and the teasing I’d got for months afterward. The name ‘Dago Red’ still makes me cringe, but it was a good lesson. Ridicule isn’t a kind way to keep someone from giving in, but for me it’s been effective.
“Must be nice, having so many people care about supporting you.”
I thought about the ridicule again. As awkward and annoying as it had been, I had, for a time, felt as though I was a part of the group. The teasing died away in the wake of newer and more interesting foibles from other, less meek recipients, and I had gone back to being the untouchable Father Mulcahy to everyone but occasionally Hawkeye, who has never been able to let a joke go.
“It’s a double-edged blade,” I said. I didn’t even know I felt that way until it was out in the open. “Being so supported makes me something other, always on the outside of interactions. Have you ever heard anyone call me by name? Half the time, I have the feeling you all think ‘Father’ is my given name.”
I looked down to see BJ’s fingers twist around my wrist. “I’m sorry,” he said.
I hadn’t meant to make the conversation about me, and I knew I needed to do something, offer some sort of advice. I gave it my all. “Your freedom allowed you to stumble, BJ. But it also allows you to fix your mistakes, and to learn from those mistakes. It’s the only thing you can do.”
BJ shook his head, and I watched as his expression closed off to me. That was it. I’d done my best and failed. “What is your first name?” he asked.
“Francis.” I hated not having the words that could help. I hated that somehow my attempt at comfort had ended with BJ trying to comfort me. The old suspicion that I was useless reared its head. “Francis John Patrick Mulcahy.”
BJ squeezed my hand. “How about you get some sleep, Francis? Sorry to keep you up.”
He stood, and I looked up at him, pulling my glasses from my face as emotion threatened to overwhelm me. “BJ, I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know how to make this right for you.”
BJ’s false smile was back as he hung his head and scratched the back of his neck. “I’m pretty sure there’s only one person who can, and she’s in San Francisco. Go to sleep, Father. You need to rest when the wicked amongst us can’t.”
And then he left. There are priests who would have known what to say to help a good man in a moral crisis. They would have memorized a script and delivered it with sincerity. I’m not one of them. All I have is the truth as I know it, and that isn’t enough. What do I do, Kathy? I need to be better than this. If I am the ear of last resort, I can’t fail or people will give in to all the worst this war has to offer. There are two bottles of off-brand beer here, and I don’t know what to do.
No, I do know one thing. I’m going to have to burn this letter. I may have failed BJ as an advisor, but I refuse to fail him as a confessor. I don’t think writing this down has cleared matters very much to me, but I don’t dare leave these pages lying around until I do understand. So into the stove they go.
Thanks for not hearing me out, Sis.
Your brother,
Francis
Chapter 3: I Will Boast All the More Gladly of My Weaknesses