A year ago, a priest moved into a cabin in the woods just outside of town.
One day, I was hiking over that way and I saw him burning his cloak and collar in a metal bin.
I didn’t ask questions. I gave him a wide berth and walked on.
Lily, the vet in town, told me his name was Nate and he had been defrocked by the Church. She didn’t know why.
She also told me he was a drunk who was trying to dry out. A man of the cloth who dipped too far into the bottle—not unheard of.
Benny, my pal, a wolf, filled in a few blanks for me. He’d seen Nate on his knees outside his cabin praying with his hands clasped in front of him, like some grounded bird. Benny told me he yelled a foul curse while he was praying. And he was taking sips from a silver flask in his pocket. So the drying out process wasn’t working very well.
One day, Nate and Benny showed up at my door.
Nate said, “Either this creature talks, or I’m having hallucinations again.”
I said, “My answer depends on whether you can keep your mouth shut, Padre, no matter what. It wouldn’t be good for the townsfolk to know Benny has extra capabilities.”
He held up his hands. “I’ll keep it to myself, don’t worry.”
“I always worry,” I said, “when a drunk makes promises.”
He grinned. “So my secret’s out.”
They came in the house and we sat in the living room by the fireplace. I made soup. Nate drank it like he’d been starving.
“You know,” Benny said, “it helps if you eat. Booze without food can be deadly.”
Moby Dick was on my little table near the door. Benny trotted over and opened it and read the first passage out loud:
“Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.”
“That’s you,” Benny said to Nate. You’re launched from port. Out on the open sea.”
Nate nodded. “I know the book. I’ve read it several times.”
He put down his spoon and unbuttoned his shirt. There was a long jagged scar running down his chest.
“Five years ago, a man attacked me outside the Confessional box. He cut me pretty bad.”
“Who was he?” I said.
Nate shook his head. He wasn’t talking.
I spent part of the next afternoon searching for the story online. I figured a crime like that—the press would cover it. I didn’t find anything.
I told Benny. He said, “I think Nate is lying.”
—I’ll take over the narration from here. I’m Nate. Well, that’s not my real name.
I’ve been having delusions again...
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