The Cleric - Chapter 1

Twenty years later...
Father Jake Slaughter sat alone in the quiet of the Sacristy at The Basilica del Voto Nacional in the historic center of Quito, Ecuador.

He was dressed in a priest's black cassock, a white, wide-sleeved surplice and an eight foot long crimson stole, his head bowed in silent prayer as he awaited the evening's final confessor.

Cold rain fell in sheets as don Pedro de Alvarez's black Mercedes limo pulled up in front of the church. Two men jumped out with umbrellas and escorted don Pedro up the front steps, through the front door and into the darkened vestibule. 

Father Jake, kneeling at the altar, turned, then stood and walked toward the confessional. The nave was empty and don Pedro dismissed his bodyguards with a wave, then draped his wet coat over a pew and entered the confessional.

The small slider opened, a dim light illuminating Father Jake's slightly turned away angular face.

"Who are you and where is Father Medina," de Alvarez asked in a surly tone.

"I am Father Jake, my son. Father Medina is not feeling well and I have come from San Miguel de Sucumbios at his request to hear your confession."

He did not have to look at don Pedro to know that he was being scrutinized. "Do you wish to confess your sins, my son," he said in a calm reassuring voice?

A moment of silenced passed between them before don Pedro began, "Bless me father for I have sinned...."

Father Jake sat in silence, head bowed, for the next fifteen minutes as don Pedro rendered a detailed account of his myriad indiscretions against Almighty God and the Holy Mother Church.

de Alvarez looked up and through the screening when he was done, awaiting penitential discipline and absolution.

Father Jake turned his head to face the man and asked softly, "Are you truly sorry for your sins, my son? Do you now renounce Satan and his disciples of evil, and beg forgiveness of almighty God?

This was an unusual question, one never asked of him by Father Medina, but de Alvarez had wasted enough valuable time and was already late for an important meeting with his top three drug and prostitution czars. "But of course, Padre, why else would I be here." For the first time, he noticed the blood red cross dangling at the end the black bead necklace hanging around Slaughter's neck. "What's with the red cross, never seen one like that?"

Instead of answering, Father Jake made the sign of the cross and whispered, "May almighty God bless you, forgive you and have mercy on your soul? 

"Hey, what..."

Before he could finish, Slaughter pulled the 9mm Glock with its heavy silencer out for the left sleeve of his white surplice and shot Alvarez through the neck.

He rushed out and grabbed hold of de Alvarez, dragged him out onto the floor and kneeled down next to him. He looked into the man's crazed and frightened eyes, then anointed his forehead with oil and began to recite the set of prayers comprising Last Rites, giving don Pedro a last chance to repent and help his soul find its way to the other side.

"Why?" de Alvarez's voice was beginning to fail him. "Who are you?"

Jake didn't answer, instead made one last sign of the cross, pressed the Glock against the man's temple and pulled the trigger.

He slipped out the back door of the church where Father Medina waited in a silver Lexus sedan.

"The bodyguards?" he asked.

"Taken care of," Medina said.

Father Jake nodded and rested his head back against the seat.

Twenty minutes later, as the Cleaners finished removing all incriminating evidence from the church, Jake was aboard a private Gulfstream V jetting back to the states.

The Cleric - Prologue

Christmas eve, 1954…
We gather at our family home on lake Onatah, the big 'O' to the locals, anticipating the laughter of a fat man with a beard, and the scratch of tiny hooves on the roof.

All lay in darkness as I walk down to the lake beside my uncle, who always smells of Old Spice, cigarettes and peppermint. He is a jolly man with gentle eyes, wise with age and faded with time, who usually communicates through a series of grunts, snorts, and laughter, sounds that, my Dad says, are akin to our prehistoric ancestors.

The lake is flat and black, moonlight annealed to its surface like tin foil, a burnished silver ribbon stretching from shore to shore, and the chill night air freezes the hairs in my nose and brings tears to my eyes.

Behind us light filters through the house windows and shadows dance along the walls as 
aunts and uncles, some by blood, others by lifelong acquaintance, gather around the fireplace. A piano plays, accompanied now by a fiddle and the soft melody of a Christmas carol, familial voices blended as if by a master vintner.

I shake with a chill and my uncle pulls me to him, wraps his arms around my shoulders. “Tell me what you see, boyo?”

I look up and his eyes are shut. “What do you mean?”

“Close your eyes and tell me what you see.”

I squeeze my lids together. “I can’t see anything?”

“No?” he whispers. “Listen then and tell me what you hear.”

“I hear the waves,” I tell him. “Lapping at the shore, and the family singing up in the house.”

“Turn those sounds into a memory and you’ll always remember this night.” He points out to the lake, to a wall of vapor rolling in from the opposite shore. “There are ghosts out there, boyo, dancing in the mist. Can you see them? Specters of those who’ve come before us; our kin. Got to come back and visit once in a while. It’s the way things work. Promise to always come back for a visit. They’ll be here waiting for you.”

I peer into the darkness, watch the mist skip across the surface of the lake. It swirls and forms into tendrils as if directed by some otherworldly force.

My uncle watches and says, “Don’t be afraid, memories are buried treasure, possessed of a power all their own. They’ll hammer at you if you let them, but you’ll find yourself half a man without them.”

A series of distant mortar thumps and the sky explodes; class-A fireworks, a tradition with lake folk, complete with reports, flashes and shimmers of every size, shape and imaginable color.

It is getting colder and the snow crunches under boot as we turn and start back toward the house, toward the comforting murmur of family and friends.

Warmed by a candle of wonder, carefully tended by the child inside my uncle, I go to bed and lay in darkness. Just before I slip into the long blank of sleep I think, was it a dream?

Years later, I will return to the lake, to the shore, and wonder? Was I crazy? How about my uncle? No, I will have learned by then that crazy is simply a moniker we put on someone who still has the magic in them after they’re no longer a child.

***

Twelve years pass in a blink and Kelsey and I stand waist-deep in the sun-warmed crystalline water of the lake; the early evening air cooling as the sun drops toward the horizon.

I hold her close, her youthful, summer-tanned body firm and warm. Still, she shivers in my arms. “Will you come to the bus station tomorrow,” I say?

She hesitates, then, “I don’t know if I can take it, Jake.” Her shoulders quiver. “This damn war, first it’s my brother, then Jack and Bill, your best friends, and now you. Off to Ft. Benning and then…” Her voice trails off and I feel tears fall from her face onto my chest. “Please, just hold me tight. I don’t want to talk about you leaving.”

Later, we build a fire on the shoreline, open a bottle of wine and curl up inside a large, cotton blanket. Soon after, we are naked and her body moves in sync with mine as we make love in the warm sand at the edge of the lake, with only the stars and moon as witness. A sexual union that, I believe, has included the bonding of our souls. 

I wake early the next morning, after a discomfited night of sleep, not knowing what the day will bring. I shower and pack my shaving kit along with one extra pair of civvies. The Army will supply me the balance of my wardrobe for the next eighteen weeks.

I look in the mirror, at the beginnings of circles under my eyes and at the lone wrinkle that creases my forehead. Nothing I can do about that, time alone will weave a fabric of them across my face. Then I run a brush through my hair and manage a smile. One of Fort Jackson’s base barbers, who the trainees call ‘the great equalizers’, will make sure I have no need for a brush or a comb for the next few months.

An hour later I sit alone in the back seat of my dad’s ‘57 Chevy as we weave our way toward the Greyhound bus station.

Dad eyes me in the rearview mirror. “She may already be there son. Perhaps her folks drove her.”

I wait as bus after bus pulls away, wait and watch, hoping that she will show, though in my heart I know she won’t. 

Finally, the driver calls for boarding. I hug my mom who, with tears streaming down her face, can’t seem to find her voice. My dad, ever the stoic, a man of few words, dabs at his left eye, then throws his arms around my shoulders and whispers, “I love you son, take care, now.”

I sit in the back of the bus and wave to my folks. 

As the bus rolls away, I resist looking back, knowing that I am leaving behind all those that I love, that my Kelsey is not there waving to me, and that the last long, lazy days of summer sun, fun and desire are over. A thought comes out of nowhere, searing, an arrow through my heavy heart: I will never be nineteen years old in August again.
The steady hum of wheels on the pavement seeps into my bones and I sit back and close my eyes.

Just before I drift off, I recall my last conversation with Kelsey; "What are we going to do, Jake?"

“You are going to go off the college and I'm going to fulfill my duty. When you graduate and I get back we will pick back up and begin our life together.”

Which, of course, won't happen. Life will intervene and it will take twenty years for me to finally return, this time as an emotionally and spiritually bruised man of the cloth. A man of faith with a deeper, darker calling. One that will not get me within shouting distance of St. Peter when my time on earth is over.

Then, I think of a cold winter’s night at the lake, all those years ago, and of my uncle, gone now, though the memory of him lingers still.

And, then, I think of ghosts.