Free Lucifer's Lottery by Edward Lee

laughed, “but, yes, he did.” He was going to further point out his lifelong celibacy but then declined.
Don’t be a hypocrite. Crude as he may be, Randal’s right. Last night I came very close to being a whoremonger
.
    “So what is it, next month you’re going to this seminary?”
    “Next
week
,” Hudson corrected.
    “Fuck, man. Change your mind. You can still do good deeds and shit without becoming a
priest
.”
    “Well said, Randal, but, no, I’m not changing my mind. It’s something I’ve been thinking about my whole life pretty much. You’re my best friend, you should
want
me to pursue my dreams.”
    “If
never getting laid
is your
dream?
You’re fucked up.”
    “Thanks.”
    “Besides, look what you’re doing to me. You’ll be leaving me stuck in this criminal armpit town of ours. I’ll be all alone with junkies, bums, whores, psychos. How can you do that to me?”
    “You’ll manage. And since I won’t be seeing you again for a while, why don’t you go to church with me this Sunday? It’ll be like old times, when we were kids.”
    Randal hesitated. “Naw, not my style. I haven’t been to church in so long, I’d probably get repelled by the cross, like a fuckin’ force field.”
    “Have some faith, Randal. You used to.”
    “Yeah, before I started working here.” He clattered out a mop and bucket. “Here’s my faith, man. This
mop
.” He ground his teeth. “How do you like that dizzy, knocked-up ho? Walks in here with a bellyful of white trash and rips
me
off? Hocks my jizz on the floor?” He sloshed the mop over the spot. “Got to clean this up before some junkie, bum, ex-con, or all of the above walks in here, sees it, then slips on purpose. Then the redneck scum sues the store for ten million bucks and wins.”
    Wow, that’s some heavyweight cynicism
, Hudson thought. He watched Randal haphazardly mop up the expectorant, then roll the bucket back down the hall. “You know, you’ve got to be the only guy in town who
wants
to stay a virgin his whole life.”
    “There’s plenty of Catholic clergy in this town, and everywhere, Randal. Sexual abstention is an utmost oblation to God. Christ was chaste, so when a mortal man strives to be chaste, he struggles to
imitate
Christ. God likes that.”
    Randal looked off, nebulous. “Speaking of celibacy, wasn’t there some saint a long time ago who actually cut his own johnson off to prove his faith in God?”
    Hudson sighed. “Actually
several
saints are rumored to have done that but no one knows for sure.”
    Now Randal looked focused. “Okay, so say a saint did it—he cut off his meat missile . . . Aren’t saints supposed to be—shit, what’s the word?
Pristine?
When they die, they don’t rot?”
    “There are dozens of cases of dead saints being exhumed and their bodies found in pristine condition, yes.”
    Randal stroked his chin, in deep thought. “Okay, so say some saint in the Middle Ages cut off his pud. Well?”
    “Well
what?
”
    “Well then his pud would be pristine, too, right? It would have to be. So when he dies, he never rots, but neither does his cut-off dick.”
    Hudson groaned.
    “Serious. If it’s true, then there’s probably some box somewhere that’s got some saint’s dick in it, and it looks like it got cut off a minute ago.”
    Hudson shook his head at the whimsy. “Randal, if you used your powers of creative thinking for something practical, you’d be a genius.”
    “Yeah.” Randal began to diddle with a clipboard, his ludicrous contemplations already faded. “Anyway, as you can see, my job’s a pile of shit, so how’s
yours
going? The oyster shucking business?”
    “They were about to lay me off again so I just put in my notice and they let me go on the spot.”
    “Wow, that really
shucks
, man.” Randal laughed. “Get it?”
    Hudson groaned. “It’s no big deal because I’m leaving next week anyway.”
    Randal poured two coffees, but the brew looked like squid ink. “That pregnant