Bedrooms and Bath Houses

[ChrisGibson]

Lord, have mercy on us. Lord, have mercy on us.

Christ, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us.

Lord, have mercy on us. Lord, have mercy on us.

Christ, hear us. Christ, graciously hear us.



He wanted to be drowned in the prayers to the saints, pushed down deep and covered by them, all the jagged and ill fitting parts of him pushed away.



God, the Father of Heaven, have mercy on us.

God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.

God the Holy Spirit, have mercy on us.

Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on us.

Make me a saint. Make me this thing. Make me something ot tainted, make me something that isn’t this boy who fucked with priest, the man who prayed to God and went to Mass then climbed into bed with other men when it was done, this man who feels all of these things, who in the late nights, lonely and tired gets into a car and drives down the road, waiting at truck stops and gas stations, in parking lots for something like a love he once knew…



Holy Mary, pray for us.

Holy Mother of God, pray for us.

Holy Virgin of Virgins, pray for us.

St. Michael, pray for us.

St. Gabriel, pray for us.

St. Raphael, pray for us.





Pray for us

Pray for us…

Oh, goddamnit, pray for us!

Jesus why do you make it so hard?

Pray for us. Pray for us. Pray for us.



Thomas Prynne, thank God, did not have access to the torturous prayers in his best friends mind, and all through the last day and the night he had prayed, “Jesus let me do this. Jesus don’t let me back out, Jesus don’t let me back out.”

The twenties had seemed fickle to him, and he had spent too man years in this place. Part of him was terrified that he would go mad, run out the door and end up in some ashram, and now he stretched out his hand for Abbot James, and heard Abbot Merrill speaking over him, as the older man had spoken peace over him for… at least fifteen years.

“Receive this ring, for you are betrothed to the eternal King; keep faith with your Bridegroom so that you may come to the wedding feast of eternal joy. Amen.”

“Receive the crown of virginal excellence, that as you are crowned by us on earth, so may you merit to be crowned by Christ with glory and honor. Amen”

“In order that your life may be one act of perfect love, accept this crucifix as a symbol of your offering of yourself as a victim to the Merciful Love of Jesus. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“By the authority entrusted to me, and in the name of the Church, I receive the vows you have taken. I earnestly commend you to God, that your gift of self made one with the sacrifice of the Eucharist, may be brought to perfection. By this perpetual profession, dear brother, you are now fully and definitively a Brother of the House of Saint Mary and the Holy Angels under the rule of our Father Saint Benedict, incorporated into our Congregation with all its rights, favors and privileges. Amen.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

Thanks for posting and that was a great portion! I always feel like I’m being entertained and educated reading your stories and I love that. Excellent writing and I look forward to more soon!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Thanks for posting and that was a great portion! I always feel like I’m being entertained and educated reading your stories and I love that. Excellent writing and I look forward to more soon!

Well, tha'ts high praise. I really appreciate that, and promise to post soon

 

[ChrisGibson]

There was much celebration that afternoon and into the evening and Andy snuck out of the festivities to walk the cloister, then enter the school and check the halls. On his way around and back to North Tower, the refectory door opened and out came Ted, the junior captain of the track team and his best runner.

“Did you do it?” he whispered.

Andy grinned.

“Yeah, Ted, I did!”

The boy hugged him and they embraced, laughing.

“And soon you’re going to be Father Reed!”

“You’ll come for it?”

“Of course!” Ted said.

They were alike. Andy had known no family. and Ted couldn’t get on with his. He thought, this must be what it’s like to have a little brother, for that was how he’d come to feel about the young man over the last four years. What else did you call a best friend who was so much younger? Who helped you remember what it was like to be a teenager when you were on your way to being thirty. His other kids respected him, maybe loved him, but Ted was the kid who tipped the bucket of water over the locker room doorway to fall on him. Ted was the one who got the team together for his surprise birthday party. Ted had been the one who didn’t think he’d be able to go to college, but whom Andy had coached every night.

And now Ted said, “You know what, Brother Andy?”

“Huh?”

“I’ve been thinking… I’m not doing it now… But I’ve been thinking about being a priest too.”



“You’re looking less angry than you could?” Andy joked when he saw Prynne leaving Abbot Merrill’s office.

Prynne looked at him.

“Did you know?” he asked.

“I didn’t not know,” Andy said, judiciously.

Andy shrugged. “It’s no big deal. Actually, it’s a very big deal. And you can see the world. I love it. Most of it.”

“I don’t want to be a priest.”

“If you’re not a priest you can’t be an abbot.”

Prynne scowled at him.

“I don’t want to be an abbot.”

“Okay?”

“I want to be left alone.”

“You’re lying,” Andy said. “On both scores.”

Prynne did not retort, but he did say, “I don’t want to go to Rome for two years.”

“If you think about how stupid you sound you’ll change your mind,” Andy told him.

Frowning, Prynne reached into the pockets of his habit and produced a letter.

“This came for you.”

Now Andy frowned, and he took the letter, pushing the hood of his sweatshirt back.

“Jeff?”

To Prynne’s credit he did not ask, but for some reason he did not leave. That was strange, because Tommy was not a nosey man. He leaned against the wall while Andy read, his eyes widening then narrowing, his body tense as he shook his head.

“Tommy,” Andy said.

“Um hum?”

“I ah… uh… I…. How much do you know about AIDs?”

“That nobody cares about it because everyone wants it to be a punishment from God. That he’s killing all the gay people…. Which means we’re about to lose half of our priests and all of our organists.”

“My… My friend, Jeff. He has it. He’s in the hospital.”

“Well, then you have to go,” Prynne said without thought. Then he said, “We have to go.”

“We?”

“I’ll get Herulian.”

Prynne gripped his shoulder hard and turned around, heading rapidly down the hall, his complaints about Rome forgotten.



He didn’t want to say anything to Ted, but if he was going to disappear for a matter of days, he had to tell him something.

“He could be alright,” the boy said, sitting on the edge of his bed with Andy.

“Ted, no, he couldn’t.”

The boy’s face fell.

“I know. I don’t know. I just wanted to be helpful. I wish I could come.”

Now Andy smiled at him sadly and gripped his shoulder.

“The only thing you better be doing is keeping those grades up.”

“I’m already accepted at CUA.”

“Don’t get lazy.”

Andy stood and stretched.

“I feel so bad right now,” he said.

Ted nodded and stood, embracing him.

“You’re not alone,” he whispered into Andy’s chest.

Andy wanted to say, “That’s kind of the thing. As a priest you are alone. You’re supposed to be.”

But it felt so good to hold Ted, to let himself unravel a little bit with one of the few people who understood him. He felt like, I’m the older person, I shouldn’t let this happen, I shouldn’t let him hug me and rub my back. I shouldn’t feel this good. Another person shouldn’t feel this good to me. But why? Cause I’m a saint? I’m a plaster virgin? I’m no virgin. I made my vows, before God. And I was serious, but before that, before that…

Jeff’s lips, Jeff’s hands, the sun in Jeff’s eyes so that they looked like blue pools, th morning light tracing the length of his back and his spine, his shoulders, his mouth, his tongue pressing, his young body pressed against his.

He separated from Ted.

“It’s alright,” Ted said.

Andy shook his head and put a hand over his mouth.

“It really isn’t.”

“Andy,” Ted started, then he whispered, “Andy I love you. You know that.”

“You’re like my little brother.”

“That’s never been true. Or if it was it isn’t now.”

“I’m going to go now.”

 

[ChrisGibson]

“Andy, you can take me,” Ted said quickly.

“What?”

“I said…” Ted’s face turned red. He looked embarrassed now.

“I said you can take me. I’m… I’m not a virgin. I… know how to do it.”

“How?” Andy was appalled. Really, Andy was scared. Ted was a boy, Ted was the older than he had been when he’d met Jeff, but what had happened before he was this age? He hoped that whatever had happened to him had been loving and pleasant.

But Ted said, “Don’t worry about it. I just… I could make you feel good. We could make each other feel good tonight.”

“Ted, I really don’t want to hear you say that again.”

Ted nodded, frowning, looking very physically hurt.

“Alright,” his voice was low and chastened.

“Don’t be mad at me, Andy.”

Andy turned around and looked at Ted.

“I could never be mad at you. I just… We can’t do this.”

“At least just kiss me again.”

“No. I’m almost priest,” the word sounds hollow and dry, barely made it out of his mouth.

“Then I’ll kiss you,” Ted said, shrugging, and put his hands to Andy’s waist and Andy already felt his penis rising. Ted pressed himself against it and Andy leaned down and pressed his mouth to Ted’s. He slipped his tongue in his mouth. Ted’s hands rose up his sides and held his head. He hadn’t been with another human being in years. That’s what it meant to live this life. Right now all of him was held carefully between Ted’s hands and his body longed to press up against him.

He opened his eyes and gently separated from him.

“Goodnight, Ted.”

“Night, Andrew.”



Prynne took three Cuban shirts, three of his fedoras, a pair of shades he had been hiding and a carton of cigarettes. Herulian and Reed looked at each other as he arrived in the refectory.

“Someone’s ready for a vacation,” Herulian murmured.

“Whatever the reason,” Prynne noted, placing a cigarette between his lips and handing one to Herulian and one to Reed, “We are on our way to Manhattan. And by the way, as long as we’re away from the house, you be Benji and I’ll be Tommy and you’re always Andy. There’s no need to walk around Manhattan hitting people over the head with religion.”

Benji drove to Chicago and they caught a late plane out of O’Hare. Prynne slept between his two friends, stretched out with a mask over his face, snoring lightly, and they were almost in New York before Andy said, “You know, I’ve almost felt like we are going on a vacation.”

“It’s him you know?” Benji thumbed his sleeping best friend, “Anyone else would be so grim and serious you couldn’t take it. I wouldn’t be any help. It’s him.”

Prynne yawned and reached into his breast pocket for a cigarette. Without taking off his mask he lit it and began smoking.



“Well, this simply will not do,” Prynne said.

Andy looked at him.

No one had been ready for this, and they were teachers. They weren’t nuns or nurses. When they had arrived in LaGuardia with their bags, Andy had seemed unsure of things, but Prynne had directed the cab driver to the hospital listed in the letter. When they arrived, Herulian immediately left the room and vomited into a large trash can. The room smell was overpowering, and the place had clearly not been cleaned. Andy leaned against the wall whimpering at first because it took a long time to understand that the corpselike thing, emaciated with dry skin, bruises and sunken eyes, hooked up to so many cords and breathing slowly, was Jeff Ligibel. He tried to find Jeff in there, but couldn’t, and it was just now that Jeff was waking up and blinking, barely saying, “Andy.”

Prynne pinched him very hard and said, “Speak, Andrew.”

The two friends spoke, Jeff in strained wheezes and Andy, his face serious, voice quiet. Herulian had returned to the room now, mouth rinsed, his body shaken.

“Are these the guys you party with?” Jeff teased Andy.

“These are… These are my brothers.”

“It’s good to meet you, Jeffrey,” Prynne said, formally. “This place is filthy, Jeffrey.”

“They… don’t come in here… Often. Don’t… want to be sick. Don’t want to catch my gayness.”

He laughed, but the laughed turned into a violent cough and Prynne, who was holding his spotted and withered hand said, “You hold on.”

He went for his bag, and Herulian knelt beside him.

“Wash your hands, I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to just touch them.”

“Warning heeded.”

“Tommy—”

“Warning heeded,” Prynne said, and walked out of the room, pulling the bag behind him. When he returned a few minutes later he was in full habit even down to those horrible heavy shoes and he said, “Now to get down to business.”

With badgering and bullying he got mop and bucket and heavy disinfectant and set to cleaning the room. The staff did not come. He sent Herulian out to get the meals and demanded plenty of water.

While he was ringing out the mop bucket and rolling it into the hallway, scowling at staff, Andy came out to him and said, “Jeff told me to tell you thank you.”

“There’s no need for that. This is an awful place.”

“People are scared.”

“That’s not an excuse. It’s never ever been an excuse. Not in the whole history of the world.

“Nurse!” he snapped.

When the woman turned to him, he said, “I am Father Prynne from the Abbey of Saint Francis and I am awaiting word on the patient Jeffrey Ligibel. Please send the doctor, thank you so much.”

Yes, Father,” the nurse said and as she left Prynne murmured, “Yes, I lied. Brother Prynne doesn’t have the same ring. It’s getting late.”

“Jeff’s a sleep.”

“You want to stay here tonight?”

“I don’t know if we’re allowed.”

“I don’t think they care,” Prynne said.



While Andy slept, stretched like a rag doll beside his friend bound up in cords in the bed, Prynne and Herulian discussed what the doctor said.

“If he only has days, why should he die here?” Prynne said.

“Whaddo you wanna do?”

“Take him home. Take him to his apartment? We can care for him there.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a sad but great portion. AIDS is a terrible disease and I feel very sad for Jeff and his friends. Great writing as always and I look forward to more.

 

[ChrisGibson]

That was a sad but great portion. AIDS is a terrible disease and I feel very sad for Jeff and his friends. Great writing as always and I look forward to more.

 

[ChrisGibson]

I was just a child during this time. Someone and a few documentaries had to remind me of what it was like ,and this is a little tastes of the horror.