His smile was one of the things that had landed him his first modeling job. His teeth were bright white and contrasted starkly against his mocha complexion. He had unusually European features for an African American. His nose was small and narrow, almost pointy, and his lips were full but not exceptionally so. His high cheekbones, startling green eyes, and strong angular jaw gave him the look of a matinee idol. His hair was curly and kept short and neat, shaved close on the sides with the top gelled and moussed into a stylish coif. If ever the word “pretty” could be used in reference to a man, Samson was that man.
Samson followed Tara out of the club, lingering behind to watch the bounce and sway of her tight, though large and well-rounded, posterior. Physically she was everything he could ever want in a woman.
“You know, I saw an ad in a fashion magazine with your picture in it. I had no idea you were a model. My girlfriends thought I was lying when I showed them your picture and told them I knew you.”
Tara continued to ramble on and on as Samson smiled and nodded his head, barely hearing a word. He stared at her beautiful, flawless body and thought only of her immortal soul, wondering if it was as lovely as the flesh that clothed it.
She would be his first.
2
Father Samuel turned the pages of his breviary, his eyes moving across the hymns and prayers, his mind adrift on waves of distracted thoughts. It was as close to prayer as he allowed himself these days. Huddled in the corner of a pew in the sanctuary chapel, he escaped to the nearest thing to solitude that Our Lady of Mount Carmel had to offer as he prepared to say Mass.
Some days were easier for Samuel than others. There were days when his faith made perfect sense to him. Christ dying on a cross as a sacrifice reconciling man and God. The Bible being God’s inspired Word, instructing man on how to draw closer to Him, no matter what century he lived in. The Holy Spirit speaking to man, comforting him in his dark times.
Then there were days like today.
Christ was some loon running around claiming to be God and was strung up for his efforts. The Bible was a collection of books men chose in order to maintain their power and grip on people. The Holy Spirit was his imaginary friend who remained silent when it counted most.
Samuel dry-swallowed his pills though he was tempted to wash them down with wine.
“Samuel?” Father Glenn tapped him on his shoulder. A short, bulbous man with a jowly face punctuated by a large nose, Father Glenn managed to sneak about the chapel without making a sound. “You’re up.”
“I know, I know.” Samuel closed his breviary and stood up, fighting a swell of nausea. “Shoot you for it.”
“What’s in it for me?”
“I’ll take the next month’s worth of confessions.” A lot of old women prone to complaint numbered among the faithful of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. They came to the confessional more for the company and conversation, gossiping by way of confessing.
“Forget it. You like confession. Tell you what. You take hospice visitation.”
The prospect gave him pause. Though he wasn’t up for Mass, he doubted he was any more up for a trip to the hospice ward. Father Glenn could be a thoughtless bastard that way. However, Samuel had a bit of a gambler’s streak in him. “Odds or evens?”
“Odds.”
“One. Two. Three. Shoot.” Odds. “Damn it.”
“You look good today. You’ll be fine,” Father Glenn turned from him.
“You’re a magnificent liar, but thanks.”
Samuel’s vestments weighed especially heavy today, but that might have been his general weakness, his body wasting away beneath his robes. The pasty film in his mouth tasted like decaying meat. He walked around the chapel, greeting his parishioners, the tingling in his hands and feet down to a dull burn. He preferred the numbness.
Samuel knew he was going through the motions.
His was a pernicious strain of AIDS. He wasn’t a drug user, and despite the recent bad press regarding his religion, he did not engage in sex, anal or otherwise, not since he’d taken his vows and only once before, with the woman he thought he would marry. No, in service to God he got the disease—a blood transfusion while on a mission trip to Africa. In October he was diagnosed with HIV and within months had full blown AIDS, a strain resistant to three out of four classes of medication used to treat HIV.
Politely pushing through the throng, he couldn’t help but think of how he missed his brother, Samson. Samuel and Samson, his devout mother’s idea of a joke. They weren’t twins—Samuel was, in fact, fourteen months older—however, she treated them as if they were. And they did share a special bond of sorts, he supposed. Though being the younger brother, it was Samson who was the overprotective one, probably due to his growth spurt that had left him towering six inches above Samuel. Samson had always called him his “little brother” because of the height difference. In high school, Samson would often walk in front of Samuel proclaiming “My brother’s coming through. Get out the way.” His idea of a joke, his way of showing love.
No greater love has a man for his brother and all that. If Samuel couldn’t find God in his brother’s love, there was no God to be had. With that, he had the topic for the morning’s homily.
Samuel’s malaise began to ease as he drank of the blood and ate of the flesh of Christ. That same divine love he often questioned—when the fevers and chills burnt through his flesh and kept him up all night tossing and turning—now filled him with its unmistakable warmth. One after another the faithful knelt before him to take communion, and he could see the light of faith burning furiously in their eyes as he placed the sacrament upon their tongues and blessed them one by one. His own doubts were not mirrored in his parishioners. Their faith humbled him. These were people he had grown up with, gone to school with, played handball on the streets with, now coming to him for spiritual salvation. Samuel thought it odd that the old woman who’d once called the police on him for smacking a tennis ball through her window during a stickball game now knelt before him and called him Father. But he could see none of his own discomfort reflected in her eyes. For her, all was as it should be.
By the time Communion ended Samuel felt like himself once more. Those who came to him for guidance expected a man of absolute unquestioning faith. They expected Samuel’s word to be the word of God given a human voice. He owed them no less.
Samuel took several long moments before entering the confessional. He stared at the stained glass windows painted with scenes of Moses bringing the Ten Commandments down from the mount, the virgin birth, Jesus being crucified and then rising from death as the living God to save all of mankind from sin. As it always did, The Savior’s sacrifice brought tears to his eyes.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son…” Samuel whispered softly as he stared at the large crucifix that stood behind the pulpit and imagined what agonies Jesus must have endured. It seemed a sin to question His love after such a sacrifice. For whatever reason God had chosen to test him, he would not fail Him. Father Samuel entered the confessional; minutes later the door slid open on the other side of the screen.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been three days since my last confession.”
Samuel recognized the voice. Mrs. Lucy had been best friends with his grandmother and had actively participated in raising him. She had even spanked him on more than one occasion. She was already old when Samuel was born, so he had a hard time imagining the hard-drinking, pot-smoking, free-loving party girl his grandmother had told him about, the one who spent night after night in the jazz and blues clubs that dotted the waterfront back in those days. He sometimes had to stifle a chuckle as he tried to picture it. Now she was one of the most pious and faithful women he knew, attending church almost every day. He’d heard the worst of her sins long ago, and some had indeed raised his eyebrows. Her confessions now ran toward the pedestrian, stealing an apple pie recipe from a television show and passing it off as her own, coveting Ms. Cicily’s new hat, speaking too harshly to the mailman when he delivered the mail late on the day her social security check was due. Samuel listened to it all patiently then gave Ms. Lucy her penance.