Free The Good Life by Erin McGraw

passkey and skipped dinner so they could sneak in and rifle his bureau drawers. Father Murray didn’t care about that—he kept no secret magazines that could be discovered, no letters or photographs. Then he remembered the nest of candy wrappers, the thick dust of cake crumbs. And he himself, talking to Adreson about hunger.
    â€œMother of God.” He paced the room in three familiar steps, turned, paced back. The mannequin’s head was tilted so that the face gazed toward the flat ceiling light, its expressionlessness not unlike serenity. A bit of paper lingered where a cigarette was usually taped, and Father Murray leaned forward to scrape it off. But the paper didn’t come from a cigarette. Carefully folded and tucked above the mannequin’s mouth, as precise as a beauty mark, was placed a streamer from a chocolate kiss. When Father Murray touched it, the paper unfurled and dangled over the corner of the mannequin’s mouth like a strand of drool, and the doll pitched forward into his arms.
    He thrust it back, resisting the impulse to curse. The mannequin’s balance, he finally saw, was thrown off by extra weight in the pockets of the jacket. They were distended, stuffed like chipmunk cheeks. How had he not noticed this? Father Murray stabilized the mannequin with one hand and rifled the pockets with the other, his heart thundering.
    He knew upon the first touch. Handfuls of dainty chocolate kisses, fresh-smelling, the silver wrappers still crisp. He dropped them on the bureau and let them shower, glittering, around his feet. The air in the room thickened with the smell of chocolate; he imagined it sealing his lungs. A full minute might have passed before he fished out the last piece and sank to the floor beside the pool of candy.
    He thought of Adreson: grinning, amiable, dumb. Seminary record-holder in the 440, possessor of a young, strong body. He didn’t look capable of true malice. He didn’t look capable of spelling it. But above Adreson’s constant, supplicating smile sat tiny eyes that never showed pleasure. They were busy eyes, the eyes of a bully or a thug. Eyes like Adreson’s missed nothing, and Father Murray had been a fool to think otherwise. He had attributed the nervous gaze to self-consciousness, even to a boyish desire to make good, a miscalculation that might have been Christlike if it weren’t so idiotic. Like mistaking acid for milk, a snake for a puppy.
    Pressing his fist against his forehead, he saw himself illuminated in the silent midnight kitchen, the overhead light blazing as he shoveled food into his mouth: a fat man making believe he had dignity, and the community of men around him charitably indulging his fantasy. Only Adreson withheld charity.
    He fingered the candies on the floor. Unwrapping one, he placed it on his tongue, the taste waxy. He unwrapped a second and held it in his hand until it softened.
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    The next day, Father Murray waited in Adreson’s room, hunger making his mood savage. Before him on the desk sat two textbooks and a dictionary that Father Murray found in the furthest corner of Adreson’s single bookshelf. Father Murray’s legs, clad only in running shorts, spread pallidly on the hard wooden chair. He had propped the mannequin against Adreson’s closet, draped in a sheet for modesty’s sake.
    â€œWhoa! Father, you don’t get it. The whole point is not to be caught in somebody else’s room.” Adreson’s smile lacked anything like mirth, as Father Murray supposed his own did.
    â€œI read your paper,” he said. “I’m here to save you.”
    â€œI’m doing fine in all my other classes,” Adreson said.
    â€œThat’s hard to imagine,” Father Murray said. He gestured toward the desk chair, but Adreson did not sit down.
    â€œYou’re not dressed for teaching, Father.”
    â€œI thought we might have an exchange. I’ll help you, then you can