My Secret History Read Online Free PDF Page A

you make out with Chicky?
She walked away and I hated Tina, and finally I hated myself. Then I was glad—saved: I hadn’t sinned. I had come so close to committing a mortal sin.
    The next day was Saturday—confession. As always, I went alone in the late afternoon, after worrying the whole day. I waited in the cool darkness at the back of the church behind a pillar, and watched closely, then chose the confessional with the shortest lines—the fewest people in the pews nearby—because that meant the priest was fast: if he was fast he was easy—he listened, asked one or two questions, and then gave absolution. The hardpriests gave severe lectures and sometimes sent you away without absolution. “You don’t sound sorry enough—come back some other time when you really mean it.” The Pastor had once said that to me, and I had avoided him after that—I learned to spot his shoes showing beneath the curtain.
    I had been rehearsing, mumbling to myself, all day: I was more than apprehensive—I was afraid. It was the strangest day of the week; I lost my body and became a soul—a stained soul. I had no name or identity, I was merely the sum of my sins. I felt close to Hell before confession, and afterwards not close to Heaven but happy, unafraid and oddly a little thinner and lighter.
    The confessional in the corner behind the Seventh Station had only a few people waiting to go in, so I walked over and slid into the pew. I rehearsed my confession, pretending to pray.
    A hoarse small-boy’s voice came out of the confession box. “And I yelled at my brother.” I had never heard that sin before.
    He left; another person entered and left; then it was my turn. I pulled the curtain tight behind me and knelt with my forehead against the plastic partition. It was a square hatch with riblike corrugations and was strung like a tennis racket. Late afternoon light shone through it, coloring it orange. I heard murmurs from the other side, and then my hatch opened and I saw a priest’s bowed head behind the tennis strings. I had started whispering very fast as soon as I heard the slap of the hatch.
    “Bless me, Father. I confess to Almighty God, and to you, Father, that I have sinned. My last confession was one week ago. My sins are—lied, three times, disobeyed my parents, two times, impure thoughts, seven times, committed acts of impurity alone, three times, committed acts of impurity with other people, once, and yelled at my brother four times. That is all, Father. For these sins and other sins I cannot remember I am very sorry.”
    I stopped, breathless, with a hot neck and burning eyes my mouth so dry my tongue had turned into a dead mouse, and I trembled, fearing what was to come. I could only see the priest’s face as a shadow. His head remained bowed, as if sorrowing for me, praying for my soul.
    He went straight to the sin that mattered. They always did, no matter where I inserted it.
    “This act of impurity with other people,” the priest said softly. “Was it one person or several?”
    “It was a girl, Father.”
    “A Catholic girl?”
    “Her parents have a mixed marriage.”
    “What exactly did you do?”
    “Touched her,” I said and the mouse in my mouth became dustier.
    “Where did you touch her?”
    “Up the Sandpits, Father.”
    “On her body or her clothes?”
    “Clothes, Father.”
    “Pannies?”
    I paused on that word before answering.
    “No,” I said hoarsely. “On the chest.” This did not seem as sinful as
on her breast
.
    There was a short silence. I listened for a sigh, or any indication of what was coming—I dreaded more questions. But there were no more questions.
    “You knew you were doing wrong,” the priest said. “Somehow you were tempted by the devil. Remember, you can fool the devil by avoiding occasions of sin. If you sense an impure thought coming into your head, say a prayer to Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. For your penance, say three Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys. Now