Small, dark room

I held the leaflet gently. It was dry but the wet had weakened it and I didn’t want to rip it. He had told me to keep it, hoping the colourful picture at the front would entice me. My brother was going to Africa, a new start with new people, and he wanted some company.

         The picture did nothing to charm me. The idea of meeting new people, doing some actual good is what I would like to think made my eyes keep scanning the little leaflet. I knew better. It was the room. The room where I’m needed, the place I hate more than anything.

         I don’t even know why I get stuck there. Well, I do. It’s my job. The real problem is that I don’t know why I still have a job. They hate it as much as I do. It’s the only reason they come here. The whole place is dark and damp and old.

Some people don’t come. Those people don’t understand the comfort I give to people. They avoid me. Most people these days ignore me. It was different when I was younger, when I was greeted with a smile at every corner. Now I’m older, the number of people who talk to me seems to have shrunk considerably and the number of people who come to see me personally may have dropped almost completely but I still manage to live this way.

I dropped the leaflet and went to get the newspaper. I read it every day, almost every article.  Mostly I read from boredom. I read books too, a fact people don’t seem to expect. I read everything I can get my hands on. Reading the newspaper is something I enjoy more as I get older. I like to be reminded how it could be worse, how I could be worse.

         I got to the shop faster than I liked or expected. I met no one on my way and I suspected this was because of the cold, even though I prefer being outside in the brisk air. There was only one girl in the shop. Usually there were two or three chatting and gossiping when I come in. They always go quiet when I walk in. It’s a small town, they know who I am. I like these girls, even though their loud and ignore customer some times. They don’t ignore or yell at me, they put more effort for me so they know what nice girls they are. Never have anything but kind words for me.

A child ran over, knocking against my side on his rush to the sweets on display. A woman, his mother, grabbed his arm a little too quickly and ripped him back to her side with some harsh hissed words. As always I’m annoyed by the mother and not by the child. Running to look at sweets is what children do and I knew she would have acted differently if it had been someone else. I wondered if I know her husband.

A snoop walked in, her pants down far enough for me to see his underwear. He picked up some crisps and walked up behind me. I told him that he could go ahead as I was still judging which paper I should waste my money on. He didn’t laugh at my little joke, he grunted at me, which I supposed was meant as some kind of thanks. I didn’t recognise the boy. He asked the girl behind the counter for a packet of cigarettes, twenty john player blue. Her sweet serving smile vanished as she coldly asked for identification. He didn’t have any, claimed to have left it the car. She told him he could get the cigarettes when he came back with it and asked for seventy-five cent for the crisps. He dropped them and stormed out of the shop. She sighed and we had a little laugh at teenage tantrums.

As I walked home I saw him again, sitting on a wall with some boys the same age. Some of them I recognised. I wasn’t afraid of them, for I knew that their mother’s had warned them to leave me alone and to stay away from me. I remembered some of them as children, although at the time they were just noisy things that belonged to someone else. One of them was nice enough to say hello. I gave had a slight smile and nod, happy to get passed them. A friend of his made some vulgar joke I wasn’t supposed to hear. It was cruel and should have bothered me more than it did. I knew enough of their secret things, things their father’s had whispered to me.  Not all of them, some of them were strangers, but enough of them. I wondered how many of them would find their way to my little room when they were older and the arrogance of their youth had passed. For now, they annoyed me, often sneaking into the garden to drink. I had come out to yell at them a few days before and picked up one of their wallets, dropped as they ran away.

Next I was greeted by a man I knew. He was a fireman, that’s how he met his wife. He saved her wife, and worried that the feat and the job was the only reason she loved him. He’s getting older and will have to retire soon.He’s a nice man, kind. He doesn’t know how to talk to his wife and is afraid of retiring and being with her all day. He tells me all of his secrets in my little, dark room. He’s the father of one of the boys I had seen, was out looking for him.

Today he’s uncomfortable talking to me, seeing me when he hasn’t planned it, seeing me invade his day. We had a very brief conversation which I ended, knowing that he wouldn’t. I did not want to embarrass him. It wasn’t fair. I told him where I had seen his son, giving him the wallet he had dropped in the garden.  He was too mad at the boy to mind me affecting the boy’s life.

As I left him I tried to leave his sins behind. It was a bad habit, focusing on the fault of others instead of trying to make myself a better person. As I did I met a plump woman who constantly squinted. She was nice, very charitable. I wonder if she would be so nice if she knew what her husband whispered in the dark. He only spoke to me, even though the younger ones were more liberal. He wanted to be punished for his betrayals, I suspected. He always jokingly asked me how much his sins would cost. I never laughed. She approached me smiling.

         “Ah, hello Father Keane,” she said and then indicated the newspaper I held under my arm, “Any news?”

When I got back, I passed the confessional and opened the door. I didn’t go in there; I just wanted to air it out so it wouldn’t be too full of secrets. Then I went to my room and put down the paper. Instead I picked up the leaflet and walked down to one of my brother’s rooms. He was one of the few young ones and more in need of adventure than I was of change.