Prayer Preyer

By Paul Johns

Blessed Sacrament had been Father Lockhart's first parish and now would be his last. The seven parishes in between, in five different states and two different countries, had proved a dangerous but merry romp through a lethal minefield. Other than two minor slips and one nearly catastrophic one, he'd prospered. The catastrophic slip nearly nipped his career in the bud. At Blessed Sacrament. A quiet transfer muted that escapade. He still remembered the boy. So cute. Jerry. Jerry, what was it? Curtis. Jerry Curtis. Now, back where he began, his adventure had come full circle. Father Lockhart noticed one person on the pedestrian bridge, standing at the near end unmoving. As he looked, the man started back across the bridge. Tomorrow morning, school bells would ring, and the bridge would get crowded. The children would be coming.

 

Unknown to Father Lockhart, the person on the pedestrian bridge was Jerry Curtis. It had been fifty years, but Jerry had finally located the priest who'd condemned him to a life of misery. It was time to take his revenge.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9781613092712

Book preview

One

2014

Atall, bulky man in dark clothing stood at the end of the pedestrian bridge spanning the Roosevelt Boulevard underpass and studied Blessed Sacrament Elementary School on the opposite side of the street. In front of the school stood a large sign bragging about how much money the school saved taxpayers yearly by educating children off the public payroll. The man wondered why the sign didn’t include how much the city got robbed by the loss of real estate taxes from the waste of such a large property.

Over five decades ago, when he was little Jerry Curtis, he’d crossed this bridge every weekday on his way to school; crossed it every Sunday on his way to nine-o’clock Mass; crossed it now and then on his way to visit school friends; and crossed it far too many times on his way to visit Father Lockhart. He crossed it of late to circle the block taken up by this parochial stone monster and look for weak points.

School; convent behind it; rectory tucked into the grounds on the right—how often he’d been there, and double-decker churches on the far right edge of the property. Lush grass, grand trees, and a spacious schoolyard in back filled out the immense block. The view hadn’t changed much except for the iron rail fence surrounding the entire property. A half century before, a welcoming air had exuded from the buildings—all of them. Now they needed protection. Or perhaps the outside world received the protection. If the purpose of the fence was to keep the world away, it would fail. Jerry’d found the weak spot he’d sought in a dark area near the schoolyard where a cement block brought the top of the fence three feet nearer. Old as he was, sick as he was, he could scale the fence if the need arose.

Once back in circulation, he’d located Father Lockhart through Facebook, a new technology he knew about. Blessed Sacrament parish had its own page. Jerry joined the page and took to praising the priest he loathed. He expressed his hope the priest still lived, saying he hoped to visit him and repay him for everything he’d done. Jerry enjoyed using the word repay.

A response from someone named Kaitlin said the priest could be reached at Our Lady of the Angels Home, a New Jersey retirement community for priests. When Jerry called Our Lady of the Angels, the person who answered said she’d never heard of a Father Lockhart. Jerry posted his disappointment on Facebook, and two weeks later a different respondent, Helen C, claimed Father Lockhart had returned to his first parish, Blessed Sacrament in Philadelphia, and suggested he check the church’s website. That churches had websites was news to Jerry, but when he did check, the church’s website finally brought certainty.

Jerry found the roster of priests assigned to conduct Sunday Masses. A chill crept up Jerry’s back as he read the schedule. Seven o’clock Mass—Father Lockhart. Jerry attended the service, and there the man stood in his priestly robes, easily recognizable even under the mask of fifty-plus years of aging. First thing the next day, Jerry visited a real estate agent, and soon his walks around the property began.

Father Lockhart must have come to Blessed Sacrament in hopes of spending his last days in peace. He didn’t know it, but his hope would not be fulfilled. He’d come to Blessed Sacrament to spend his final moments in a living hell before heading to eternal damnation—if only the church’s teachings were correct. But they weren’t, Jerry knew. The existence of an eternal inferno where Father Lockhart would burn forever was too good to be true. Jerry would be the only one able to provide Father Lockhart with a taste of hell, and how he yearned to do it!

FATHER LOCKHART HAD lobbied hard for a return to Blessed Sacrament parish. He’d been gone for over fifty years. After the passage of so much time, no one would remember him. The neighborhood had changed. The poor had moved in. The 1950s’ middle class had migrated out. Anyone from that time would be long gone. He finally received his transfer, and when he arrived at the rectory, Father Dockerty, the pastor, greeted him with the news he would have to pitch in and do his part—hear confessions, say Mass, perhaps even make home visits. Vocations no longer beckoned young men as they once did, he said. Those called to Holy Orders were far diminished in number, and seminaries were closing. With a morose head shake, Dockerty wondered where their own replacements would come from. He hoped Father Lockhart would understand the need to contribute.

Lockhart asked for and received the same room he’d lived in on his first assignment at Blessed Sacrament, and he stood at the window of his room looking across the wide Boulevard. As a young man, fresh out of the seminary and assigned to Blessed Sacrament, he loved watching the school children parade across the newly-built pedestrian overpass on their way to class. He quickly volunteered for the seven o’clock daily Mass and rushed through it so he would be free to take up his spot at the window as they approached. He would have liked to station himself at the corner where the children crossed after leaving the overpass, but fresh in his new assignment, he knew better than to call attention to himself. So he sat, satisfied with contemplating the limitless possibilities ahead from a distance.

Blessed Sacrament had been his first parish, and now would be his last. The seven parishes in between in five different states and two different countries had proved a dangerous but merry romp through a lethal minefield. Worth it; well worth it. He’d learned to read the warning signs and so protect himself. He came to appraise his young parishioners with a fine degree of precision.

He knew which ones to prey on. Other than two minor slips and one nearly catastrophic one, he’d prospered. The catastrophic slip nearly nipped his career in the bud. At Blessed Sacrament. A quiet transfer muted that escapade. He still remembered the boy. So cute. Jerry. Jerry, what was it? Curtis. Jerry Curtis. Perhaps it was a good thing to have happen right out of the seminary. It taught him how to navigate through treacherous waters. Dial it back. Go about the true business of a priest. Then, transfer. A quiet transfer. Now, back where he began, his adventure had come full circle.

Father Lockhart noticed one person on the pedestrian bridge, standing at the near end unmoving. As he looked, the man started back across the bridge. Tomorrow morning would be different. School bells would ring, and the bridge would get crowded. The children would be coming.

A knock disturbed his reverie, and Father Lockhart opened the door to Father Dockerty.

Good evening, Father Lockhart. I hope I’m not disturbing you.

No, Father. Come in, please.

Both men dressed in dark-colored civilian clothes. Lockhart directed his visitor to the small sofa. Father Dockerty, a priest for some thirty years, portly, with a sparse scattering of white hair, walked across the room with a faint limp, a brown paper bag in one hand. Lockhart stood a full head taller than his visitor.

What have you brought? asked Lockhart.

Wine. And not sacramental wine, either. The priest winked. We haven’t had much of a chance to get acquainted since you arrived. With only the four of us to handle the parish, there’s so much work. Paperwork. I don’t know what you expected, but it will take the four of us. I hope it won’t be too much for you. You seem fit enough. How have you managed to keep your hair?

Lockhart set down two water glasses on the coffee table. Fifty years of daily prayer, Father.

Dockerty laughed. Why didn’t I think of that? And no health problems? My leg hasn’t been the same since I broke it seventeen years ago.

"No, I still have my health. Aches and pains, of course. But don’t worry. God will judge you by how well you’ve held Blessed Sacrament together, not how well you’ve held together. Your parish has fared far better than many other parishes. How long have you been pastor here?"

Twenty-one years.

A long time. You’re to be commended on the job you’ve done.

Dockerty poured. He lifted his glass. The parishioners want, for the most part, but they don’t provide. You were here long ago, I understand.

The men clicked glasses.

I was assigned here out of the seminary in 1959. Six full-time priests then, and none of them decrepit retirees. Each man chuckled. I arrived a few years after they built the second school. The parish constructed an additional three-story school building, taking a bite out of the schoolyard, to accommodate the influx of 1950s children. Both schools were packed then. Sunday Masses filled both churches. The income was more than ample. Incredible, really.

Why did you leave? The parish sounds like a wonder.

Lockhart offered his well-practiced tale. Well, I was young. I wanted to contribute. It seemed...too easy at Blessed Sacrament. I wanted a greater challenge. I put in for a church in the Deep South among the poor. I stayed here for about a year.

Dockerty tilted his head in bemusement. "You must have been very young. Both men chuckled again. If I ever fell into a position like the one you described, I’d never leave it."

You’ve never left this one.

There’s nowhere to go any longer. I’m fortunate to be in this position.

Lockhart let the topic die. Times change. The wine is good.

A gift from a grateful parishioner, a rare parishioner who gives something back.

From the bitterness in the priest’s voice, Lockhart knew there were emotions bubbling within Father Dockerty. Unpleasant emotions.

One more glass couldn’t hurt, said Dockerty, and he poured. You were down in the basement the other day.

Lockhart’s stomach took a tumble. He didn’t realize he’d been noticed. Fifty-five years ago, he’d stumbled upon an old sofa in the basement, left behind by some time-distant colleague—a comfortable sofa in a quiet place where no one ever went. God’s Altar of Redemption, he called it to the two boys he’d invited there. He hadn’t expected the basement to look as inviting now as it had then, and it didn’t. Nothing but a few old school desks and boxes packed with unknown detritus.

I was looking around for things to remember. Inspecting how things have changed. Are there still clubs?

Clubs?

Boys’ clubs. Girls’ clubs. The nuns and priests used to run some nice groups. Sewing, cooking, basketball. I can’t remember what-all. I handled the basketball club.

Father Dockerty waved his free hand in disgust. It is decidedly not the 1950s, Father. Children don’t even come to Mass any longer. Parents don’t bother to bring them, what parents bother to attend themselves. The likelihood of today’s children being interested in sewing, cooking, and stamps... I don’t see how this parish, or any other for that matter, can survive without bringing in the young, but no one’s interested. Do you have any experience with children? Some of the students we have... Dockerty glanced to the ceiling. I shouldn’t say this, but they’re burgeoning criminals. They are! And the older kids, even in the seventh grade. My Lord! We’ve had two pregnancies in the past three years. It’s unbelievable.

Lockhart focused on the one piece of the diatribe that interested him. Yes, as I said, I used to do a basketball club, worked with the boys.

You’ll need a club, a large one, for some of these children. I shouldn’t be saying these things.

I’ve upset you.

No, no. It’s frustration. It’s so hard to get through to so many of them.

You have altar boys. One might expand on that in getting the young involved in the church.

Altar boys? I had to wring those few we have out of the classes by pleading. And you mentioned nuns. He tossed back his wine and stayed silent.

Father Lockhart prodded. When I served here before, there were a couple dozen nuns living in the convent.

"Now there are a couple dozen nuns living in the city. Maybe. Oh, it’s all disintegrating."

Father Dockerty poured himself another glass of wine. We’ll make it out safely, you and I, I suppose, but heaven help any new people called to the church.

It will have been a good life, said Lockhart. "And we will, as you say, make it out safely. I take great comfort in knowing that. Great comfort. He raised his glass. Cheers."

JERRY CURTIS HELD ONTO the hand rail as he descended the steps from the overpass. He crossed the same streets he’d crossed over fifty years before, remembering the stores no longer there and the vacant lots where he used to play, now covered with homes.

After he located Father Lockhart, he rented a house on Anchor Street, one street over from Sanger Street, where he’d lived for most of his school years. It felt odd being in the new house—as if the neighborhood had been spun around and now faced in a different direction. He’d asked for something on Sanger Street—same block, same side of the street—same house if possible. But no luck, so he took what was available.

Jerry passed a bar on his frequent walks to and from Blessed Sacrament, and on this trip, he chose to go inside. The place had always been a bar, even back in the fifties. In his memory, a dark place for grownups. Brighter now... Jerry carried his own dark place inside him. He’d been in his house for two weeks, and the bar had become a place of comfort for him. It edged his mind a few degrees off of what otherwise consumed it. He took a stool.

Hi, pal. The bartender, a thick man with straggly gray hair combed straight back, moved in front of Jerry.

How are you, Mikey?

"Same ole... You know. The Bluebird pays the rent." The Bluebird was the name of the bar. Bud as usual?

"Sure. Who named this place The Bluebird?"

Some birdbrain, I guess. Mikey pulled the handle, and the Bud flowed into a tall glass.

Two younger men, their baseball caps facing backwards, muscular arms displayed from cut-off sweatshirts, sat at the far end of the bar, their fingers dancing across the cell phones in their hands. An unused pool table filled the empty space beyond them. Jerry had yet to see a female patron in his half-dozen visits. The Phillies game played silently from a TV hanging over the bar. Mikey put the full glass down.

Thanks. Did I mention I used to live around here when I was a kid?

No kidding? Mikey tapped his temple with his right index finger. If you did, I lost it.

On this street, a block down past Large Street. Went to school across the Boulevard.

Blessed Sacrament?

Yeah.

Mikey studied Jerry more closely. Must’ve been a while ago. No offense.

"Ha. No offense. When I was a kid, like I said. The fifties. A lot’s changed since then."

I go once in a while. To church, I mean. Easter, Christmas. Once in a while.

What’s with the fence around the place? Everything was open when I lived here.

"It’s the times. Rectory’s been robbed more than once. Don’t know what the