Father Jim's Boys

An excerpt from The Soul Gene

Father James O’Toole looked at himself in the bathroom mirror and considered how lucky Jesus Christ was to have died at thirty-three, while he was still young and beautiful. Father Jim had not been so fortunate. At fifty, his hairline had receded incompletely, leaving a gerbil-sized tuft of fur perched high on his head. He gazed at the ridiculous thing and considered shaving it off, but there was no time for that. The boys’ choir practice started in ten minutes. He did his best to flatten the embarrassment with a handful of water.

Next, Father Jim peered at the bags of flesh that hung like melted wax below his eyes. Under the magnification of his powerful eyeglasses (the world receded into a kaleidoscopic blur without them) the furrowed sacs of skin appeared jowly and reptilian. He noticed a coarse and shockingly long hair sprouting from the tip of his nose. It was in the place where one might expect to find a witch’s mole, with which, thanks be to God, he had not yet been afflicted. He wondered how long the errant hair had been there, how many people had seen it, then pinched its base between two fingernails and plucked it.

He pulled his lips back and revealed uneven teeth, yellowed from years of secretive cigar smoking and anchored tenuously in place by receding gums that had transformed his once youthful smile into something mildly grotesque.

“You’ve got do something about those teeth,” he told his reflection.

Father Jim was choirmaster at St. Paul in Chains, a Catholic church nestled in the center of Pinewood Equestrian Estates, an affluent suburb east of Saint Petersburg, Florida, where homeowners could own two horses per acre but only three-percent of them actually did. The church campus had been built entirely with parishioners’ donations with no help from the mother church. The chapel building itself, as well as the priests’ quarters and the activity rooms, were constructed lavishly with imported wood, stone and stained glass.

The chapel held thirteen-hundred. On any given Sunday, luxury cars spilled out of the parking lot and onto the manicured lawn, and the collection baskets overflowed with twenties and hundreds. Everyone’s teeth were perfect.

St. Paul in Chains was Father Jim’s sixth assignment since he’d be ordained at twenty-five. He’d been the boys’ choirmaster at all six churches. Even if his body had failed him, his voice, despite the cigar smoking, had not, and so he was deemed by all concerned at St. Paul in Chains to be an ideal choice for choirmaster.

Ordinarily, each of the three choirs – the boys’, the girls’ and the adults’ – would have their own choirmasters. Father Jim had volunteered to take them all on by himself. Not only did this save money, he rightly argued, it also was preferred in order to achieve a certain coherence between the performances, especially when the three groups were called on to sing as one, as they would be that coming Easter.

In return for his additional choir duties, Father Jim was excused from confessional duties. That was fine with him. He had always considered confession a presumptuous intrusion on parishioners’ privacy anyway.

Father Jim popped his third Oxycontin of the day and swallowed it down with a handful of tap water. He used the wet hand to once again go after the stubborn tuft, centered the white chiclet on his black collar, and sprayed two pumps of spearmint breath freshener onto his tongue.

“Off to battle,” he said.

The Easter concert was in two weeks. As choirmaster, Father Jim picked the hymns. The adult choir would sing Jesus Christ is Risen Today, Alleluia Alleluia Let the Holy Anthem, and O Filii Et Filiae. The girls’ choir would follow with The Strife is O’er The Battle Done, Victoria and Regina Coeli Latare. Then the boy’s choir would sing A Touching Place, Christ the Lord is Risen Today, and Regina Coeli Jubila. Finally, the three groups would fill the altar for a grand finale of Christ the Lord is Risen.

The rehearsal room was spacious, acoustically refined and decorated with photographs of famous church choirs from around the world, including even the accomplished Mormon Tabernacle Choir, despite its affiliation with the offbeat sect. In one corner was a harp that no one had ever played and a baby grand piano, at which a visiting nun was running through the hymns that Father Jim had selected for the boys. Risers were built against one of the longer walls, even though there was little room for an audience. If Father Jim had said it once, he’d said it a thousand times: “Practice as you perform, perform as you practice.”

Rehearsals in the final weeks before a concert were all business, and Father Jim did not abide tardiness, so the room was alive with boys well before he got there. One boy was tirelessly chasing three others who screamed as though they were being pursued by a bear. Two others were wrestling for an audience of about a dozen more who cheered on their favorite to win. Several others were flying paper airplanes or playing with pocket-sized cars they ran over impromptu ramps they’d constructed from stacks of hymnals.

When Father Jim finally entered the room, the boisterous din dissolved into a series of urgent shushes. The wrestling boys quickly untangled themselves and struggled to straighten their hair and tuck their shirttails in. The boys flying paper airplanes ran to collect them and slide them into their pockets, carefully, so as not to crush the wings. The boys playing with the pint-sized cars gathered them up. Each of the boys helped deconstruct the car ramps by grabbing one of the stacked hymnals before scrambling to their assigned place on the risers.

The nun at the baby grand noticed Father Jim enter the rehearsal room and began to play Jesu, Dulcis Memoria. The solemn hymn made Father Jim assume a royal gate on his way to his place addressing the center of the risers. As the nun came to the end of the first verse, he motioned for her to wrap it up, which she did with a traditional amen cadence.

“Thank you, Sister Susan,” Father Jim said. “Boys, say hello to Sister Susan McHenry, who will be accompanying us today as we rehearse for the glory of our Lord.”

“HELLO SISTER SUSAN!!!” the boys called out exuberantly, if not quite in unison.

“My Goodness!” Sister Susan said. “What powerful lungs these boys have! I can not wait to hear them sing!”

“Well then let’s get right to it, shall we?” Father Jim said.

He clapped his hands and rubbed the palms together as if preparing for a feast.

“I trust that we’re all in good voice today? We have avoided milk, ice cream and all other phlegm-producing edibles? That is right, is it not Mr. Thornton? Mr. Rodriguez? Mr. Oliver – please tuck in your shirt.”

Dicky Thornton and Jesus Rodriguez, the pudgiest kids in the group, looked at their shoes. (They had both eaten ice cream the night before.) Chuck Oliver, one of the boys who’d been wrestling, struggled to tuck in his shirt. The boy on the riser behind him helped. Father Jim continued.

“As you know, we’ll be singing three hymns by ourselves this Easter. I’m sure you’ve not forgotten, but our three hymns are: A Touching Place, page forty-three, Christ the Lord is Risen Today, page one-twenty-two, and Regina Coeli Jubila, page twelve. At the end, we’ll be singing the Christ the Lord is Risen – not to be confused with Christ the Lord is Risen Today – with the girls and the adults. That one’s on page two-twenty-two.”

Father Jim surveyed the twenty-four clean-cut youths standing at attention before him, each of them picked by his own hand, none of them older than twelve. The boys had been scrubbed in every crevice and smelled of soap and hairspray. They were clothed in identical white shirts, navy blue shorts, white socks and black shoes. Although one might criticize their tousled hair and slouching socks, Father Jim thought, one could no more resist their young perfection than one could hold a week-old puppy in his arms and not nuzzle it.

Father Jim clapped his hands together twice.

“Let’s turn to A Touching Place,” he said, and for a few seconds there was the sound of turning pages as Sister Susan and the boys found page forty-three. Then Father Jim raised both hands, looked into the eyes of the boys most apt to be daydreaming, then mouthed the tempo silently as he beat it out with his hands – “one…two…three…four…” The boys’ tender voices filled the room.

Christ's is the world in which we move.
Christ's are the folk we're summoned to love.
Christ's is the voice which calls us to care
and Christ is the One who meets us here.

To the lost Christ shows his face;
to the unloved He gives His embrace;
to those who cry in pain or disgrace,
Christ, makes, with His friends, a touching place.

Feel for the people we most avoid.
Strange or bereaved or never employed;
fear that their living is all in vain.

Feel for the parents who lost their child,
feel for the woman whom men have defiled.
Feel for the baby for whom there's no breast,
and feel for the weary who find no rest.

Feel for the lives by life confused.
Riddled with doubt, in loving abused;
Feel for the lonely heart, conscious of sin,
which longs to be pure but fears to begin.

When they finished, Father Jim held his palms out to them as if signaling a dog to stay. The boys stood in reverent silence as their voices floated off toward heaven.

Finally, Father Jim dropped his hands and said, “Good job, boys! Very good! You will surely all make the Lord and your parents proud. I’m sure this year’s Easter concert will bring a tear to every eye.”

With Sister Susan playing a plain but proficient accompaniment, the boys’ choir ran through the other three hymns and then sang the four selections a second and third time before the hour had passed and it was time to go.

It was just about then that Father Jim began to feel the full impact of the Oxycontin.

Sister Susan excused herself and Father Jim stationed himself in a plastic cafeteria chair at the exit of the rehearsal room. As each boy passed to leave, he pulled them between his splayed knees and gave them a close hug and a kiss on the forehead and praised each one of them individually. The boy named Johnny Kirkland, who Father Jim had convinced himself was receptive to his less-than-subtle advances, was at the end of the line. Father Jim interpreted this as an overt act of submission.

Finally, when there was no one else in the room, Father Jim pulled Johnny Kirkland between his knees and gave him a chaste kiss on the forehead. As he held the boy’s groin against his own, Father Jim mistook the small car in the boy’s pocket for an erect, if curiously off-center, penis.

“Johnny, would you like to stay after and work on your intervals?” Father Jim said. “I think I heard one or two notes that were a little off today.”

“Yes, Father Jim,” Johnny said.

“That’s fine,” Father Jim said.

It was not the first time Johnny Kirkland had stayed late. The first time, after the brief intervals exercise was done, Father Jim had congratulated the boy on his effort and caressed his firm young buttocks through his navy blue shorts. The next time, he’d slipped his hand under the boy’s elastic waistband and grabbed a handful of naked cheek.

This time, Father Jim intended to take the next step.

“You’re a beautiful young boy, Johnny,” Father Jim said.

“Yes, Father Jim,” Johnny said.

Convinced that he’d felt Johnny Kirkland’s tiny but remarkably turgid penis, Father Jim smiled and whispered in the boy’s ear, “Father Jim has a little gift for you! Would you like a little gift?”

The boy, being barely twelve, had no true idea what Father Jim had in mind and so told the good father yes.

Father Jim unbuttoned Johnny Kirkland’s navy blue shorts and reached in for his beautiful little penis, which Father Jim was surprised to find was as flaccid as a dead rat. Nevertheless, the boy didn’t pull away. They rarely did.

“Look at what we have here!” Father Jim cooed as he tugged Johnny Kirkland’s shorts down. The boy looked at the ceiling. Then Father Jim masturbated the boy’s little penis until it came to life and spat out a little dot of virgin semen, which the good father caught in the palm of his hand and wiped off with a paper towel that, not coincidentally, was within easy reach.

“Now,” Father Jim said, “Let this be our little secret – just between us and the Lord. The Lord would be displeased if you told anyone. Promise now…”

“I promise, Father Jim,” Johnny said.

“Good boy, Johnny. You’re a very good boy,” Father Jim said. “A very obedient boy.”

The next time Johnny stayed late, Father Jim kissed the head of his adorable penis and, seeing that Johnny did not object, proceeded to fellate the boy to orgasm. This time, there was no need for a paper towel and Father Jim, soaring on Oxycontin, felt the boy’s youthful vigor enter his own body as surely as if he had quaffed a quart of the boy’s blood.

One day Father Jim invited Johnny Kirkland to reciprocate by reaching into the good father’s open zipper and grabbing a handful of fifty-year-old cock.

“Very good, Johnny, very good,” Father Jim said. Then he lowered his pants and said, “Now do to Father Jim what Father Jim did to you.”

Johnny Kirkland’s small hands fumbled about a bit, but he’d had some practice on his own penis and so before long Father Jim, even high on Oxycontin, reached orgasm. Just before he did, he grabbed a nearby paper towel and used it to catch his load.

“Jesus loves you, Johnny,” Father Jim said, zipping his pants and jamming the paper towel into his pocket, “and so does Father Jim.”

The time after that, Father Jim taught Johnny Kirkland how to masturbate Father Jim while Father Jim masturbated him. The time after that, Father Jim smeared a finger of sexual lubricant onto Johnny Kirkland’s anus and entered him from behind while he reached around and masturbated the boy’s small penis. (Of course the good father used a condom. Father Jim was no fool.)

Father James O’Toole realized that what he’d been doing with Johnny Kirkland and all the other boys over the years was a sin, of course. He was an expert on sin. But weren’t all men sinners? Yes, they most certainly were. The Bible said so. It was right there in Romans 5:12: “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”

All men – and was Father Jim not a man? – needed to be washed in the blood of the lamb. Jesus Christ had died on the cross for the very purpose of saving man from his uncontrollable urges. Father Jim included.

Some men cheated in business. They thought nothing of taking advantage of single mothers and the aged, whose weakening minds made them easy marks. Some men cheated on their wives, spreading their seed about like wild dogs. Some men were drug addicts. (Father Jim did not consider himself a drug addict. The Oxycontin had been prescribed for back pain.) Some men raped. Some men murdered.

Murder. Compared to murder, Father Jim thought, his transgressions were minor, and easily forgivable.

Jesus, he was sure, would hardly have to break a sweat.