Herpes and the Chaplain

Here in tank one, nobody has come or gone for about two weeks, and in the accumulated seconds spent together, we've reached an understanding. We're all innocent.

All of us except Snow, maybe, but he doesn't count.

It can't last, of course. Some they'll ship to prison, and they'll let others go or move them to different tanks and then new ones will come in. We'll get a queer or a nut or an obnoxious punk, and the mood will shift. But right now we've struck a balance. We've developed, you might say, a certain tenderness toward each other.

Flanagan, the oldest, is the ringleader of this common decency. It goes like so: The bars clang, the electric locks slam shut, they've spit someone else in here. He comes through a set of doors built like an air lock; he's a man entering a submarine. It's Peters, who was our last addition. "What did you do?" says Braxton. "I didn't do shit," Peters says. "Of course you didn't, son," Flanagan soothes in a slow, deliberate drawl. "He was jist askin' you what the chaaahge is." "Drunk," Peters says. "Which I had a right to be." "Why, sure you did," Flanagan says. "There ain't a man alive that never once had a right to be drunk. Every one of us has had a right to be drunk. And been that way, too, naturally. Now come on." Flanagan gets up and takes Peters by the arm, steering him toward the last vacant bunk in cell D. "You look like you need to lie down, boy. Take a load off your mind."

Peters is young; he's got a fresh gash on his forehead and a huge shiner, and his right arm is swathed in bandages. Coming into this tank, he's a bomb ready to explode—and that's Flanagan for you. He keeps things calm for us. We like things quiet in here. If Peters was just a drunk, he'd be in the drunk tank, Tank Five, not in Tank One. But so what? What's the difference? We're in this hole together, and while we are, nothing else matters. The point is to do good time, not hard time. Flanagan has been in longer than anybody, since July, and here it is February, and his trial date isn't even set, but do you see him sweating it? No. He's dry as dust.

Flanagan is a big, pear-shaped guy with yellow skin from chain smoking and a crewcut and false front teeth. He's about 55. They don't let us see the papers in here, but on the one channel of TV we get, they're calling him the Septic Tank Killer.

Flanagan had this retard living with him and his girlfriend. The retard was married to Flanagan's girlfriend, and the insurance, along with a Government pension, was in her name. Flanagan drove over the retard with a rented backhoe while he was digging a new septic tank. Flanagan says he backed into the retard without seeing him. But, allegedly, blood, hair and bone chips were found on the front bucket of the backhoe, then underneath, in a pattern to suggest that Flanagan knocked the retard down going forward, then drove back and forth over his head about three times. Flanagan says he was flustered. He never drove a backhoe before; he was trying to drive the backhoe off the retard. Flanagan says if he wanted to kill for money, why wouldn't he have done it sooner? Why would he put up with all that bullshit for three straight years before committing the crime? Flanagan says he took the victim into his home because the worthless bastard had nowhere else to go. He was wrong in the head. He was dying of a brain tumor, anyway, and the only reason Flanagan's girlfriend married him was to become his guardian so the state couldn't come along and commit him. It was charity, pure and simple. While they salivate on TV about Flanagan's love triangle and the delay of justice, Flanagan will just sit there playing dominoes with Braxton. He'll have his teeth out on (continued on page 92) Herpes (continued from page 86) the table—the steel picnic table that's bolted into the concrete floor—and he'll just chuckle and shake his head.

Flanagan, a trapped man, is cooler than January in Idaho. And he's got the rest of us talked into being the same way. Which is why, on this Saturday morning, we have a nice, quiet, decent tank with no hassles. And all of us are innocent.

That is, all of us except Snow. Snow is out there. Snow beat a man to death with his bare hands on a sidewalk in broad daylight and he won't say he's sorry about it. Snow can't get the difference between hard time and good time, either. He suffers constantly. Which is understandable. "Give the kid time," Flanagan says.

Snow won't talk much. He's a real good-looking kid, but about all he does is lie on his bunk and stew. Either that or wash his hands and face. He's always jumping up to wash. He's a sharp kid but very tight; he's not looking for trouble, but he's not somebody people would fuck with just for the hell of it, either. Anyway, one day Snow makes an announcement. He gets his cup through the slot in the morning, like always—every morning at wake-up, they bring us the cups we're going to have for the day, just ordinary plastic coffee cups. They give them to us in the morning and take them away at night after dinner to be washed, and nobody thinks anything about it. But on this particular morning, Snow ties a torn little piece of sheet on the handle of his cup and holds it up for everybody to look at.

"See this cup?" he says. "The cup with the tag on it is mine. Anybody touches my cup is going to be very sorry. You all got that? Don't touch my cup."

We think he's crazy, of course. We got our own cups; who would want to touch Snow's cup? We roll our eyes at each other. Snow's gone off his nut. He isn't the first.

Then, a couple of days later, whammo, the blisters. For the first time, we see Snow's blisters.

It's something. Here's this great-looking kid. He has this fine white face and nice dark hair and big, innocent brown eyes. And around his mouth he has the grossest case of herpes anybody ever saw. Not just one little cold sore, either. We're talking blisters here.

When half of us go to the commissary, Peters rummages through the magazine stack and digs up a dog-eared old Time magazine with a cover story on the subject. "The New Scarlet Letter" is the title. Snow's back in the tank, so Peters reads us the gory details out loud: There's no cure, you get it for life; some people never have sex again; it's extremely painful; it comes and goes, but when you have it, you can feel it coming; it's people who sleep around that get it. Finally, they say it's good; maybe it will usher in a new morality.

Braxton laughs at Peters' horror. "Look at you, Peters," Braxton leers. "What the fuck you want to worry about that shit for?" he says, slapping Peters on the back. "I was you, man, I'd be thinking about Aids...."

Peters takes the magazine back into the tank with him, anyway, and Flanagan confiscates it immediately. Flanagan pushes it out through the slot.

•

A day or two later, Flanagan asks Snow to read his case. Snow reads the papers, then gives them back to Flanagan. "You shouldn't have said you backed into him," Snow says softly. "You should have just said you hit him going forward and it was an accident."

Flanagan shrugs. He takes back the papers. You can picture how it was for him. She marries the retard. He's going to die any day, any minute. It's barely a crime. It's just a neat piece of engineering. Social justice. Who else would get the money? The Government? But then the retard won't die. He won't die and he won't die and he won't die. After three years of having him underfoot, something tears loose inside Flanagan. He's outside trying to dig a septic tank and the retard's on the ground, in the way. The retard won't leave Flanagan alone; he's out there slobbering in the wind. Flanagan sits on the cold steel seat of the backhoe, grinding his teeth, breathing exhaust, trying to get the job done. Then the retard stumbles in front of the backhoe. Afterward, Flanagan panics. He tells the wrong story.

In jail, Flanagan rallies. He's surrendered all the dignity he's going to. No more. He's told them his story and that's the one he's going to ride with.

And in the cell, looking at Snow, he shrugs.

•

But now it's the second Saturday of the month, the day they have the rap session. At first, none of the new ones are going to go, but then Flanagan says they have a coffee maker in there and you can drink all you want. Sometimes they even have doughnuts, and the old chaplain is pretty easy, too. Pretty laid back.

At the last minute, Flanagan gets Snow to come. Snow's had a paper towel spread out on his pillow. He's been lying on his bunk, his face to the wall, since wake-up.

We go to a plain concrete room with TV cameras in two corners and metal chairs set in a circle. Sure enough, there's a coffee maker on a little card table back in a corner, outside the circle. Just our luck, though, no doughnuts. The bastards in here before us have eaten them all. Right off, we make a beeline for that coffee, though.

It's a new chaplain, not the regular. This one is young and he's cool. He nods the guard away with a look that says he's got things under control. God's on his side. The guard locks us in as he goes, and the rap session begins. As we sit, Braxton rolls his eyes at the cameras to say, "Watch out, the room could be bugged." It's true, too; there are little microphone slots in the camera housings under the lenses. In the center of the jail is a control cage, and wherever you go in the jail outside a tank, somebody watches you.

The chaplain has a sip of coffee. "The first thing we have to decide," he says, "is whether we want to have smoking in this room or not. How many smokers do we have?" It's a democratic circle. The chaplain is sitting in a metal chair, just like ours, and he's a coffee drinker, too. He's assumed a position of no particular importance, except nobody will sit next to him, so he's got a couple of empty chairs on either side of him. There's seven or eight of us in the room, and all of us raise our hands except Snow and the chaplain. "Well," the chaplain says, "obviously we're outnumbered." He indicates himself and Snow. "And obviously we'd rather you didn't smoke. But it's up to you."

The rest of us purse our lips at each other and smile. It's like this is some kind of test, where if we don't smoke, it proves we could be good citizens or it's a victory for the chaplain or something. This bird is pretty Mod Squad. He's trim, he's got a nice haircut, with the hair still down over his ears to show he wasn't asleep back in the Sixties and Seventies. He's wearing a fancy turquoise ring and a nice sport shirt, faded jeans, jogging shoes. He's got this look that says, "I've been there, too, baby. There and back. I know what it's all about. We can talk."

The chaplain doesn't even blink when Flanagan lights up. We're all thinking about the camera, wondering how to play this one. Flanagan lights right up. The chaplain smiles. He takes another sip of coffee, then he leans to put his cup down on the floor in front of him. He stretches. He puts his hands behind his head and bends over the back of the chair, shuts his eyes tight as if to say it's already been a long day for him. He's had people in here before us, and he'll have more after we're (continued on page 118)Herpes(continued from page 92) gone. "You're Flanagan, aren't you?" he says. Flanagan nods. "OK, Flanagan, you want to spread out some ashtrays?"

Flanagan gets the ashtrays. They aren't real ashtrays, they're little cereal boxes with the fronts torn out of them, tin foil left inside so the cardboard won't catch fire. Flanagan sits back down and scoots the ashtrays across the floor at strategic intervals. Nobody else can tell whether to light up or not. We look from Flanagan to the chaplain, and we're still waiting for some kind of sign.

"What it boils down to is this," the chaplain says. He sighs and shakes his head. "There isn't a man alive who wouldn't like to suck his own dick."

Everybody sits up except Flanagan. "There isn't a man in this room who wouldn't like to smoke his own bone," the chaplain says.

He stops to let the thought really sink in.

Flanagan leans back in his chair. Something's got his attention. He leans forward and rubs the whiskers on his jaw and frowns, staring. Then he smiles. Those of us who are smart enough start looking for what's made him smile. It takes whoever is going to get it a second or two to put it together, but by the time we do, the chaplain is pretty much back to being just another chaplain.

"We'd all like to fellate ourselves, but we can't, can we?" the chaplain says. "We can't suck ourselves off, because God didn't have that in mind for us."

It's great. It's a terrific opener, because they never cuss. It's so rare a preacher will ever say a dirty word. And it's true what he said. Anybody that claimed he never thought of it would be a liar. So if Flanagan hadn't noticed the chaplain's cup, then the chaplain would've pulled it off.

The thing about the cup is, there's a little piece of pink yarn tied to it.

We'd have all missed it; if Snow hadn't taken us through the same mental exercise earlier, none of us would have even noticed the chaplain and his cup, but now we're primed for it. First it's like—hey? What's the chaplain got? Then, just by looking at him, it changes. We can see it in the set of his mouth and the way his head sits on his neck and even in the manicure he's got—in the soft, surgical cleanliness of his hands. It's...what's he afraid he might catch? There's vermin slouching in and out of here all day long, right? A man could catch something. But a guy who's that fastidious...well, how could he ever put it together on his own that all of us have thought about sucking our own peters? It's like he'd never come up with it on his own, so it's probably a borrowed line. It's got to be a borrowed fucking line.

"God didn't make us that way," the chaplain says, "so no matter how much we'd like to, we can't gratify ourselves in that fashion. But what we're here to talk about today is how and why we're all in this particular room together, and what we may be able to do about that....

"Come on," the chaplain says, "how about somebody starting us off? How about you?" He indicates Braxton.

Braxton's chewing gum a mile a minute, grinning. He lights a cigarette before he speaks. "I'm here because my ex–old lady says I got a little face off her seventeen-year-old daughter," he says. "Which is pure crap. I never touched that kid. Now that ain't, uh, that ain't to say I'm perfect or nothing. I done some wrong things in my life, for sure. But being in here this time has really made me think. I'm...uh...I'm on the verge of getting it together. I mean, going to church on Sunday...all of that shit. Steady job, no more drinking, no more fooling around. This time I think I've, uh, this time I've damn sure seen it, you know...the light." Braxton leans back and eyes the camera over the chaplain's head. He nods at it once for emphasis.

"So I'll see you tomorrow, then," the chaplain says. "At the service."

"Uh," Braxton says frowning. He sucks on his cigarette and cracks his gum faster. "That's right, Father. You, uh, you sure will. Unless...unless I was to get real sick or something, I'd damn sure be there, all right. The only thing...the only thing possibly could stop me is if I got real sick; then I might just lay in my bed. But if I ever did have to lay up sick, I'd sure be praying right there. You can take that one with you to the bank, Father. I'd pray right there in my bunk and nothing could stop me. Wild horses couldn't keep me from praying in that bunk. No, sir, Father. I'd just buckle down and make the best of it. Just go right on in spite of the sickness and pray my worthless heart out right there in that skinny old bunk."

"OK, that's fine, that's real good," the chaplain says. "Now...how about you?" He looks at Peters.

"Me?" Peters touches himself on the chest. "Me?" he says again in a squeaky voice.

"You," the chaplain says.

"I, uh...." Peters sits up. "I'm here because of my wife," he says. "It's all her fault."

The chaplain frowns. "Why do you say that?"

"The dog," Peters says.

"The dog?"

"Yep. The dog."

"I don't understand," the chaplain says.

"It was the dog. That bitch. That cunt. If she wouldn't of let the dog out, like I told her not to, then the dog wouldn't of gotten runned over. And if the dog wouldn't of got hit, then I wouldn't of had to get drunk. And I wouldn't of gone driving the truck on the road like I did. I wouldn't of hit the car and the little kids wouldn't be dead and I wouldn't be in here. And now that cunt won't even visit. I been in here two solid weeks and she hasn't even answered my phone calls."

"But here you are, aren't you?" the chaplain says.

"Yep. Here I am."

"So what are you going to do about it?"

"Divorce her. I'm gonna divorce that bitch."

Everybody laughs except the chaplain and Snow. The chaplain leans forward. Snow puts his cup down between his legs on the waxed concrete floor. He sits up and covers his mouth with his hand.

"Come on," the chaplain says to Peters, "think about it. It's not her fault you crashed that truck. It's not her fault the kids are dead. Is it?"

Peters looks exasperated. "I already told you. She let the dog out."

The chaplain shakes his head. "Check your heart, man. Think about it. Letting the dog out is not what killed those kids."

"The hell it isn't," Peters says.

"The hell it is," the chaplain says.

Peters frowns down at the floor. He's crumpling. "I told her not to let him out," he says. "If I told her once, I told her a thousand times. Now, what the hell else could I do? Huh?"

"You could kneel down now and ask God about it," the chaplain says.

"Huh?"

"You could ask God for forgiveness."

Peters looks around the circle. "Now?" he whispers. "In front of everybody?"

The chaplain leans forward; he's so close to notching up Peters' soul, he can taste it.

"I had a dog once," Flanagan says, abruptly. "He was a razorback. Good nose on him. I was out driving this ridge once. Seen cat tracks crossing the road." Flanagan leans forward. "Put the dogs on them," he whispers. "Off they go. Slow at first. Then they start baying. I know they're on to something. Razorbock is leading them, see. I can hear him. I hear him just steam-rolling through that brush. I'm following them on foot, running fast (continued on page 146) Herpes (continued from page 118) as I can. There goes razorback, roooo, roooo, roooo." Flanagan throws back his head to imitate the howling. He sits up. "All of a sudden, it's quiet," he says. He snaps his fingers. "Right now it's quiet. Too quiet. I think, Uh-oh, trouble. Sometimes nothing is the worst sound you can hear, you know? Sure enough, I find him in a draw. Belly's split. Guts hanging out. He's just laying there real quiet and still. I take my T-shirt off. Brand-new white T-shirt, I take it off and wrap it around his belly. I get some water from the creek, I splash his guts a little to clean them. Push 'em back inside. Tie my T-shirt around that belly. Carry him to the truck real easy. Slow. Son of a bitch weighed seventy, eighty pounds, too. Long way to the truck. I took him home, laid him down in the garage. Gave him a shot of penicillin, put some of that blue goop on the gash. Wrapped him up. Boy"—Flanagan shakes his head, chuckling—"you should have seen him whimper when he saw that needle. He knew he was going to get a shot, see. He knew what that needle meant." Flanagan shuts his eyes. "Well," he says, finally, "do you know that dog lived? Laid there three, four days without moving a muscle, then just got up and went on. And that was the quickest dog I ever saw to catch a coyote." Flanagan snaps his fingers. "He'd be on a coyote like that. Never would kill him, though. He'd just stop him and sniff him, then let him go...." Flanagan shakes his head. "Never could get him to kill a coyote. Used to make me sooo mad. Furious. Finally, I gave him to my brother. Brother said he could make that dog kill coyotes. Knew for a fact he could. Well, he thought he could, but he never did. He shot him instead. Got so mad at that dog for not killing coyotes, he shot him. Oh, he never told me that, of course. Told me the dog just disappeared one day. But I know damn well he shot him."

We all sit there blinking. It's like Flanagan cast a spell on us, took us away for a second.

The chaplain frowns. "What does that have to do with what we were rapping about?" he says.

"Well...." Flanagan rubs his eye. "It reminded me of that dog."

The chaplain turns to Peters and considers him. It doesn't quite seem like Peters is ready to pray anymore. "Look, see me after this hour is up, OK? Will you do that?" the chaplain says to Peters.

Peters looks around the circle. Finally he nods at the chaplain.

"Good." The chaplain claps his hands together and beams at the rest of us.

Snow laughs.

"What's so funny?" the chaplain says. "What are you laughing at?"

"Me? I'm laughing at your notion of God," Snow says.

"What do you mean?" the chaplain says.

"You think God looks like us, don't you?" Snow says. "You think God looks just like a man and heaven is a town up in the sky."

"It's written in the Book. He made us in His image," the chaplain says, pissed.

"Well, if He did," Snow says, "if God does look like a man and if God just sat down and made all of this up off the top of His head, then God is an asshole."

The chaplain blinks. Snow drops his hand away from his mouth. The chaplain looks at the floor. "I don't quite follow you," he says.

"How could you?" Snow says.

"Lay it on me," the chaplain says, recovering, leaning forward again. "I'm willing to try."

"Ha." Snow glances around the room. Nobody can look him in the eye except the chaplain.

"Come on, man," he says. "You've got nowhere to go but up."

Snow shrugs.

"You keep it inside, it'll kill you for sure," the chaplain says. "A thousand times over. For eternity. It's the opposition for you. That's exactly what the opposition wants."

"Oh, Jeeesus." Snow groans and shakes his head. The opposition. As though life was a football game.

"Hell, son, go ahead," Flanagan says. He's leaning back in his chair, legs crossed and arms folded, head laying sleepily to one side, smoking a fresh cigarette, rubbing his whiskers with the hand holding the cigarette. "Man might have a point."

Snow looks at Flanagan.

"Ahem, a-he-he-he-em!" Braxton clears his throat. He jerks a shoulder toward the camera.

"Fuck that camera," Flanagan says. "There ain't nobody on the other end of that thing but Sergeant Hoberman, anyway, and if he ain't reading the sports, he's probably got his eye over on Six."

"What's Six?" Peters says.

"The women's." Flanagan blows a smoke ring. "You go ahead, son," he says to Snow. "Spit it out. Probably do you good."

Snow looks around the room again. Then he turns to the chaplain. He has to work at getting the words started, but when they finally come, they come in a rush. "She was beautiful," Snow says, shaking his head. "She was as nice a woman to look at as I've ever seen. She was a brilliant actress. She was really, really good. Me, too; I'm an actor, I mean. Not great, but I worked at it. But she was something else. Exceptional. She was very sensitive and she had...like, a lightning rod for feelings. And I loved her. For her acting, first...then later just because. Just because in the beginning I didn't know any better and once you give yourself over to that, well, it stays.

"So we were living together. We tried out for leads in the same play. A local thing. Short run. But she got hers and I didn't get mine. I got aced out by Higgins. Just in from the Coast, right? Just made a two-bit movie. They know his name.

"So she's out for rehearsals and I'm sitting at home, broke, looking at myself in the mirror. And Higgins, everybody knows his name.

"She was fragile in bed. I had to handle her with so much care...so gently. She...she could never come in the usual way. I don't know why. I don't know what it was. But...if I wanted to lift her up there, I always had to go down on her. I had to give myself over to it completely. I had to play her softly, with absolute concentration, or I couldn't take her away.

"OK, I loved her, right? It was what I could give her.

"So...Higgins. I can tell something's happening there, right? You can always tell if you're paying attention. But what am I supposed to do—rant and rave? It's not my style.

"We never talked about it. One night, we're in bed together and I can tell something's bothering her, and I decide the best I can do is take her away. She stops me. She says, 'No, don't. Don't do that.' And I miss it completely. I tell her not to worry. I tell her it's all right. It doesn't matter. It simply doesn't matter. And she believes me. She gives in, she lets me. And I do it. I take her away and that's the last time. The next day, she's gone...."

Snow starts to cry. "She was too weak," he says. "All she needed was the strength to tell me and it wouldn't have mattered. If she'd just stopped me, I wouldn't have cared. Even afterward...all she had to have was the strength to face it. But no. She's gone. Packed a bag and went.

"I kept thinking it was me. For a week, I worried about her. Then I get these...these twinges all around my face. Then, a couple of days later, this." Snow indicates the lesions. "Then I don't care whether I find her or not. I put it together. The twinges. She knew something was wrong, but she was too weak to face it. She didn't want to tell me she'd been screwing Higgins. Then, the next day, she gets her first outbreak and realizes what it is. She knows she'll probably have given it to me, too. She can't handle it—she knows it means my career—and she splits.

"Ten days she's gone, and then she calls. She isn't brave enough to walk through the door.

" 'Listen,' she says.

" 'Listen, hell,' I say.

" 'You've got it, then...you have it,' she says. 'I gave it to you.'

"Me, I can't make myself speak. I'm trying to say something and I can't.

" 'Where?' she says. 'Where is it?'

"I close my eyes. I still can't talk.

" 'I'm coming over,' she says.

" 'No,' I say. 'Don't come. Wait till it goes.'

" 'Oh, my God,' she says.

"And she hangs up the phone. Now, me...you've got to understand...I'm trying to grasp it. How can I work? How can I ever love anyone again? They say it's only contagious just prior to and during an outbreak. But they're not sure. They waffle. No one will say when it's guaranteed you're safe. So if she could give it to me unknowingly, then why couldn't I give it back to her or to anyone else without even knowing it? I don't even have to fuck anybody. All I have to do is kiss them. Drink out of the wrong glass at the wrong time. Most people, it's no big deal, right? They have a few outbreaks or just one or none at all. But me, I get this. The outbreaks keep coming, one after another. And no one can tell me why. Why is it me? You know what they say? I take it too seriously. I worry about it too much. Shit. If I didn't have it, I wouldn't worry about it, would I? You have to understand, it's my life. It's my work. How could I ask for a part, knowing that at any time it could nail me again? They'd have to stop shooting. If it was a play, I'd have to cancel out. So what could be worse? You tell me. How could it get worse?"

Snow looks around the room. We shift uncomfortably in our chairs. Nobody can say a word.

"They fish her out of the river," Snow says. "That's how. They fish her out of the fucking river!"

Snow boots his coffee cup across the circle. Coffee spills all over the floor. The cup clatters to a stop two chairs over from the chaplain. Snow's voice fills the silence, but now it's just a whisper.

"She ran her fucking MG off the fucking bridge," Snow says. "An accident? You tell me. Explain that one." His face twists. He nods to himself as he runs the last of it down. "So we do the funeral. We have the funeral, and my first outbreak has passed, and then the second, and then the third. Months go by. I'm sitting at home, drinking, watching TV. Going to the movies. I don't see anybody. There's nobody I want to see. I go out when it's OK, I see someone, I keep thinking of the next time it won't be OK. Sooner or later, it's going to nail me again.

"Then I see Higgins. I meet him on the street, outside the theater. I ask him. How long has he had herpes? How much of a problem is it for him? He takes it in. I can see him adding it up. Standing there watching me, adding it up. Then he has the gall to tell me it's no big deal. 'Everybody has it these days,' he says. 'You get it, it's bad for a couple of years, then it disappears. No problem. It's no sweat.' And just from the way he says it, I know he never told her. He never said a word to her about it. Not one fucking word. He had herpes and he knew it and he gave it to her just so he could fuck her. 'No sweat,' he says. He knows he gave it to her and to me. And he knows I know, and he tells me no sweat. So I drop that cocksucker right there and I beat his fucking brains out on the curb. And I'll tell you something—if I had it to do over again, I would do exactly the same thing. And if there is a God and He's up there watching this and He looks just like you and me, and everything that happens is something He made up for a test...if that really is what it's all about and He actually can control it all but just won't...if He's so weird that He has to let it all happen so we can prove to Him how much we love Him in spite of it, and then He's going to make it up to us...if we'll just say we're sorry every day and tell Him we love Him, then when we die, He'll scoot us on up there to heaven...if that's how it works...then He can kiss my ass."

Snow breaks off and sits there quivering.

The chaplain shudders. He jumps up. "No, man. No, no, no. Don't you see? You've got it all wrong. All of you. Can't you see it? You. Your herpes is nothing. What's herpes? There are a thousand diseases you could have that are worse than herpes. All of you. All your afflictions...all the afflictions on earth are nothing compared to what's in store if you don't come to God. Don't you see? God is your only hope. It's been written! The Bible, man—that's where it is. What else would we have if not for our God, for our faith? But God has left it to us to choose. We have to take the first step. We have to give ourselves to God. And if you don't...all of you"—the chaplain slams a fist into his open palm with each phrase—"if each and every one of you won't take that first step, then you're doomed. You're lost."

"Shit," Snow says. "What can God do for me now? Get me probation?" The chaplain can't believe it. "Don't you see it?" he cries. "Look at you!" He turns around the room. "Look at yourselves. Where are you? Where have you come without Him? You're on the brink, and still you're blind. You'll never know what God can do for you until you open your hearts to Him. A man's faith...a man's faith can move mountains. Herpes. Ha! Jesus was crucified on the cross for that herpes of yours, friend; for those children of yours, Peters; for your perversity, Braxton; for the weight of your conscience, Flanagan...Jesus did it long ago. And all you need to gain His forgiveness is the guts! All you need is the balls to get down on your knees in this room, with me, right now, and ask Him for it! I'll show you! I'll go to my knees this minute, and if there's another man in this room, he'll join me...."

"Hold on a minute, there, chaplain." Flanagan's up. "We don't need all this shouting," Flanagan says. He squints at the chaplain. "If He's there, He'll hear us all right. We ain't gonna need to be jumping up and down, shouting and carrying on, for Him to hear us. There's enough fuss in this world as it is. If we're all gonna have to get down on our knees, we might as well do it in a calm and sober fashion." Flanagan sighs. "Now let's just set here a minute and have a real quiet cup of coffee to settle our nerves before we go any further. Here, I'll buy this round." Flanagan stoops to get the chaplain's cup. "And...uuuuhh! Oof! Snow, I'll get you one, too."

Flanagan drags Snow's cup out from under the chair. There he stands in the center of the circle in the puddle of spilled coffee in his shower slippers. "The rest of you want to just sit still and shut your traps for a while," Flanagan says. "If we're gonna let this chaplain lead us down onto our knees, we ought to do it like men. We ought not to do it"—Flanagan's left the circle; he's talking over his shoulder, real slow and easy—"we ought not to do it like a bunch of hysterical school kids. If a man's going to set out to talk to God, then he might as well try and do it with a clear head"—Flanagan is back, standing before the chaplain—"and there's nothing...there just ain't nothing in the world like a nice, hot cup of coffee to clear a man's head for him. Here you go, Father. Now you just wrap your hands around a cup of this good ol java and set yourself down and lead us in a moment of silence, for starters." Flanagan is staring at the chaplain and the chaplain is staring at the cups. Flanagan holds both cups out to the chaplain, asking him to pick which one he wants. And the chaplain stares at those cups like they're a couple of 8 x 10 snuff photos. Because Flanagan's taken the torn piece of sheet off Snow's, he's taken the little piece of pink yarn off the chaplain's, and now they're just two yellow cups. Looking at the chaplain, you can see the wheels spinning.

What he'd like to say is "No, no thank you. I don't want any coffee." But then Flanagan would say, "Why, sure you do, chaplain. Why, a man like you has just got to have so much faith that he'll damn near leap out of his britches at a chance to demonstrate the strength of that faith. Why, the possibility of getting herpes...that little trifle wouldn't mean shit to a man in cahoots with God. Would it?"

You can see the chaplain working it out. If he says no thanks, Flanagan will have him. Or, worse, he might even get on the outs with God.

If he's going to keep saving souls in this jail, he's got to take one of the cups. And the hell of it is...he better not flinch when he does it. All he can do now is reach for one of those cups and hope the hand of God puts his own hand on the right one.

And that's what he does. He takes one of those cups 'and sits down. Then Flanagan hands the other cup to Snow and gathers the rest of the empties. He tanks them up and passes them out. And all that time, the chaplain is staring at Snow's mouth. He's trying not to, but he can't stop.

And Snow isn't covering his mouth anymore. He's just drinking coffee and watching Flanagan. Watching the chaplain.

Flanagan sits down, and he's watching the chaplain, too. Everybody's watching the chaplain, and the chaplain is suddenly watching Flanagan. He's not watching Snow anymore, he's watching Flanagan.

At last he takes a drink. Then another. Looking at him, you know yourself that if it was you, you'd want to put your mouth on the tiniest spot you could. But he can't even do that.

And suddenly we're all holding our breath, watching it. It's like it's a movie and they don't have a ceiling on the set and the camera zooms up out of the room, out of the building, out of the city....

Here's one man sitting in a room full of men, in a building full of men, in a town full of men. The room is still, but the rest of the world is busy; no one else is watching. Here's a man sitting in a dingy little room, drinking coffee out of a plastic cup....

Is God watching?

And you know.... That little son of a gun polishes off the entire cup without flinching. It's prim. But he doesn't blink and he doesn't wince. He drinks her down.

So now we're really on the edge of our chairs, and the big question is just ringing through that room:

Is God watching?

And finally the chaplain looks at Flanagan, and the chaplain looks at Snow, and you can see it: He's going to slide off his chair and lift his arms and call out to Jesus.

The chaplain looks at Flanagan, and even Flanagan is on the edge of his chair. He is staring holes into the chaplain.

The chaplain swallows one last time. Then he looks at Snow and shuts his eyes. Then he stands. He leaves the circle. Looks up at the camera.

"Guard," he says. Then louder. "Guard. Would you come in here, please? On the double."

The chaplain stands there with his back to us, facing the door.

Pretty soon, the lock slams open on the steel door. The guard enters and the chaplain leaves without a word. The guard shuts the door behind him.

"What did you assholes do to the chaplain?" the guard says.

A collective sigh runs around the room.

"I said, What did you assholes do to the chaplain?"

"Nothing," Flanagan says. "He just went to wash his mouth out."

"What?" the guard says.

"He's went to wash his mouth out," Flanagan says, "and it's a damn shame, too."

Flanagan looks at Snow. "Got to hand it to him, though, don't you?" Flanagan shakes his head. "That little son of a bitch almost hung it out there, didn't he?" Flanagan sniffs and shakes his head again. "Damn shame. You know, if he'd just held on...well, hell, I'd have got down there and prayed right with that kid."

Flanagan nods slowly to himself, then he smiles wryly, almost sadly, at Snow. "Yep," he whispers. "It would have been a good experiment, wouldn't it?"

"Snow beat a man to death with his bare hands and he won't say he's sorry about it."

"The chaplain leans forward; he's so close to notching up Peters' soul, he can taste it."

" 'What's so funny?' the chaplain says. 'Me? I'm laughing at your notion of God,' Snow says."