Free The Gospel of Winter by Brendan Kiely Page B

phone, and I didn’t want to walk past his office and have him see me. Father Greg knew I was coming. If I didn’t knock on his door, he’d know where else to find me. I turned and went down the stairwell to the basement.
    At the foot of the staircase, a dim overhead light showed the cracks and damp blisters in the walls along the hallway to the storage room. The gray metal door looked heavier than it really was, and I realized that I’d never actually opened it before, Father Greg always had. Inside, the naked bulb swung loosely when I tugged on the chain, and it cast a jaundiced glow around the entrance to the storage room, the faint light reaching only as far as the workbench in the middle of the room. Underneath the workbench, the orange coils of the electric heater glowed, and I knew Father Greg would be coming down later. He had set up the room like this before. He wouldn’t push me away again.
    The boiler murmured in a dark corner. Banging and hissing pipes crisscrossed the ceiling, hushing the room. Clutching my coat and hat, I walked over to the two small, barred windows in the far wall that looked up into foxholes in the yard alongside the rectory. Through them, afternoon light faded into the makeshift workshop. Other guys my age would have looked out this window and wanted to go surfing down the long slope of the icy lawn on cafeteria trays, but I just waited and let my eyes adjust to the darkness of the basement. I preferred where I was: the coldcomfort of the shadows. The pipes finally settled down, and in the stillness there was nothing but the heater humming one long buzzing note. For once, doing nothing seemed like all that was expected of me. He would be down here soon; there was nowhere else for me to go.
    I was still standing under the windows, in the shadows of the metal shelves, when I heard the door open. I pressed back against the wall and hid myself beside the shelving unit in case it was Father Dooley. I was relieved to hear Father Greg’s voice instead, but he was speaking to someone else. They made their way toward the workbench, and although I couldn’t see them, I knew he was with another boy, one younger than me.
    â€œIs it okay to be down here?” the boy asked.
    Father Greg laughed. I heard a thud on the workbench and glasses knocking against each other. “This is where we have to come,” Father Greg said. “Remember, this is only between you and me. This isn’t for anyone else. No one else can know. No one.”
    â€œI remember,” the boy said, and I recognized the timidity. It was James, the eighth grader, Cindy’s son.
    â€œThis is a man’s drink,” Father Greg said to James.
    â€œI can take it.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œBut I don’t feel well,” James said after a moment.
    â€œCome on. Go ahead. I like sharing this with you.”
    â€œNo, it’s just that I don’t feel well, I think. That’s all.”
    â€œYou’re fine.”
    â€œNo. Maybe I should go?”
    â€œThere’s no one else here,” Father Greg said. “We don’t have to be afraid. This is all right. You don’t have to be afraid when you’re with me.”
    â€œI don’t feel well,” James said again. “I’m sorry.” There was a moment of silence and then a glass coming down hard on the workbench. “No,” James said. “Please.”
    â€œIt’s all right,” Father Greg said. “It’s all right.”
    I couldn’t see anything, but I didn’t have to. I knew then that Father Greg was pouring out two glasses of scotch—more for himself and a smaller one for James. Even without standing next to him, I knew how it smelled on Father Greg’s breath; I knew the heat; I knew how his breath would soon blast against the shoulder and move slowly like a hot wind up along the neck to the ear and stay there, making you wonder if it was ever going