Free The Confession of Joe Cullen by Howard Fast Page A

peeling and pink, his bright blue eyes in nests of wrinkled flesh.
    This was the second time Cullen had talked with Father O’Healey, and he was afraid that he would say something that would cause the priest to tell him to go away and stay away. Certainly, O’Healey had pitted his life and beliefs in a struggle against men like Cullen and Oscar Kovach, who represented, at least in part, the force that was pouring a stream of weapons into Central America, who were supporting the demented military dictators in their slaughter of peasants who struggled against them and of peasants who were suspected of struggling against them and of unnumbered women and children who happened to be in the line of fire or who might be witness to what had happened. Cullen knew this, and his first approach to O’Healey, the day before, had been very tentative. O’Healey, however, had responded with a warmth and charm, and had captured Cullen completely. Yet Cullen, unable to forget what he stood for and what O’Healey stood for, was afraid that the priest might reject him. He didn’t want that to happen. He had discovered something in O’Healey that he had never touched before. The priest had turned him inward and with almost magic simplicity had broken through a lifelong resistance to the contemplation of his inner being.
    It all burst out now — or imploded, restoring a jumble of memories and happenings that had been squeezed out of his consciousness, a father who beat him until one day Cullen had grabbed him and whispered, “Touch me again and I’ll kill you,” a mother who was an alcoholic, a childhood of pain and sorrow during which he built a shield of Irish macho and fought with everything and anyone who came his way. It came back now, and the middle-aged man tried to handle it.
    He clung to O’Healey. Don’t chase me away, Padre, don’t put me down as an animal. I need something desperately, and I don’t know what I need.
    â€œWhat you said before …?” He took the last bit of Coca-Cola. “I’ll open another bottle for you.”
    â€œNo. I’ve had enough for now. Open another bottle for yourself, Joe.” Father O’Healey watched Cullen thoughtfully while the pilot drained the Coke in a single long swallow. He was intrigued by the big pilot. He sensed the inner struggles of a man bludgeoned by contradictions, faced with inner antagonists he could give no expression to. Cullen was a simple man who was complex beyond belief, which was not a new thing for the priest. He also liked Cullen.
    â€œWhat you said before …?”
    â€œForget what I said before. Nothing I say is very important.”
    â€œNo, sir. What you say is important and you said something about the mystery exploding in your mind.”
    â€œSomething like that — yes.”
    â€œBecause I want to understand you. I think it happened to me once,” Cullen said.
    â€œTell me about it.”
    â€œIt was the first time I ever slept with a woman. It was a girl in high school. I really liked her. I guess I liked her as much as I ever liked a girl. But how could I feel that thing if it was a sin?”
    â€œPerhaps it wasn’t a sin.”
    â€œAnyway, I don’t believe in sin,” Cullen said. “When I think of the stuff we did in Nam, I’d have to be a fucken idiot to believe in sin — I’m sorry. I talk and I don’t think. God’s going to put me down because I miss mass for a month, and then he claps his hands when I blow the head off some twelve-year-old VC with a gun in his hands. I’m sorry, God, those are my orders, and can I still go to heaven? Bullshit, bullshit.”
    O’Healey nodded. “That’s a sorry picture you paint. I get uneasy when I talk about God, because I don’t know one damn thing about God and I don’t think anyone else does either. But the way I tried to explain it before — I sense