Free Decatur by Patricia Lynch Page A

could hear the priest tuning his guitar but when Father Weston walked through, Gar, while looking like he was completely absorbed in cleaning up the kitchen, began wiping the counter closest to the open door so he could hear better. The carnies, while deserving their fate, had been a mistake, Gar realized, and things were a little more precarious than he wanted them to be at the moment. He could see Father Weston putting a copy of the evening newspaper on the younger priest’s chest of drawers through Father Troy’s open door as wiped down the counter in slow semi-circles.
    “The parish isn’t stupid, they are going to put two and two together. These were the St. Pat’s carnies. Even if the paper doesn’t say so yet, it will.” Father Weston was struggling to keep his voice down.
    “So? We preach forgiveness, don’t we?” Father Troy wished Father Weston would go wherever he went and leave him and Gar alone. He wanted to reassure Gar that the story about the murdered carnies had nothing to do with him and that the parish house was his home now and that he, Father Troy, would take care of things if it came to that.
    “Those FBI agents asked us if anything or anyone unusual happened to be at the carnival,” said Father Weston.
    Gar kept wiping the counter but felt his muscles tensing.
    “You are so controlling, it must be the old Vatican in you. If the Clearys talk to them, they talk to them.” Father Troy hissed at Father Weston while he put his guitar back in its case.
    “I’m not talking about the Clearys!” Father Weston was almost shouting. Father Troy felt the old familiar feeling of shields coming up through his feet, he had felt this way since he was boy being teased on the playground, invisible shields would just come up and close around him, protecting him from the bullies of the world. Soon they would be up to his ears and Father Weston’s voice would be muffled and far away. Sometimes when they closed completely around his head it would be tough to get back out, that’s when he learned to play the guitar, it had a way of allowing the shields to sink back down again when it was safe.
    “Are you listening to me, Mark?” Father Weston used his first name for the first time Father Troy could ever remember and the shields stopped rising around mid-chest. “I think we should talk to the Monsignor about whether or not he wants Gar to stay. It’s a risk to the parish right now, in my mind. Not because I think he has anything to do with this, Mark, but because we can’t afford speculation. He’s a complete stranger, a Vietnam vet, and he just kind of showed up here and now two carnies are dead. But I realize it’s not my decision, it’s still Monsignor Lowell’s.”
    “You’re a hypocrite. We’re priests, for God’s sake. ‘Do unto others as you would do unto me’, does none of that mean anything to you?” Father Troy’s heart was blazing just above where the invisible shields had stopped. Gar wasn’t leaving. It wasn’t fair.
    Gar put down the checkered blue dishtowel and weighed his options for a moment, then without saying a word he went up the wooden stairs to his attic room. He pulled the hand-me-down olive green canvas duffle bag marked “U.S. Army” from underneath the bed and stuffed in the extra shirts, socks and underwear that Mrs. Napoli had given him from her dead soldier son. Stripping off his plain brown shirt, he looked at himself in the mirror, his smooth nearly hairless chest big and muscular with his nipples tight and oxen red. He found a muscle tee and put it on, the white ribbed material clinging to his pectoral muscles, and tucked the tee it into his pants, pulling out the old rope belt and tying that around his slim waist. Smoothing his hair, he slung the duffle bag over one shoulder and went back downstairs.
    Father Troy must have heard him because now he was standing, fists clenched, in the middle of living room with the Monsignor’s recliner, the sofa and the