Young Lonigan - James T. Farrell [139]
He riveted his eyes in a stare on the altar that was hallowed back in the center. He watched the flickering altar light above it. A man arose from the front, center, and did a St. Vitus dance down the center aisle, coming with twisted and painful slowness, dragging along the ruins of a paralyzed body. It was Joe, the paper-man. Studs knew him. He was all right, and not goofy to talk to, although he looked completely off because of the deadened nerves in the left side of his face. He came to church every morning, and received at least once a week. Poor bastard, he lived somehow on a few pennies made peddling the New World. Studs felt sorry for him.
The fellows had talked about going to the State and Congress. He wished . . . but a burlesque show was an occasion of sin. Couldn’t be thinking of them and planning to go to confession. Not the right attitude. . . . Oh, my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins. . . . He heard the bang of a door from the confessional box of Father Roney, on the right-hand side of the church, just in front of the choir box.
For no reason at all, he glanced up at the low ceiling. He had to get himself into the right attitude. Feeling contrition was hard. He had to feel it deeply, with his whole heart and his whole soul. Oh, my God, I am heartily, heartily sorry. . . .
He had taken God’s name in vain twenty-five or thirty times a day. He had been late for Mass on his own account, but they were only venial sins because he’d gotten in before the Consecration.
He looked behind him. Four and five people in the line before Father Doneggan’s box. He turned and glanced off from his right towards Father Roney’s box, five and six people in the two lines.
An old man walked down from the altar, where he had been praying, and on back towards the rear, his heels rat-tatting on the rubber aisle.
A feeling of fear came over him, fear of being injured in the football game, fear with a sudden realization that Hell was a place of torments, endless torments in a fire that never ended, the monotony of its hissing flames, a sudden fear of life. He wanted to be outside in the fall night. He wanted to get it over with. He couldn’t get himself to arise and join one of the waiting lines before Father Doneggan’s confessional box. He heard the swinging doors of the entrance, and heels on the marble steps leading from the vestibule. He heard the closing of a door in back of him, then, the closing of a door of Father Roney’s confessional. He had violated the fifth commandment by anger towards others, maybe . . . maybe . . . maybe. . . . His eyes were again attracted by the ceaselessly glowing altar light. He had violated the fifth commandment by anger. . . .
Suddenly, he found that he had lapsed into dirty thoughts. He labored through an Act of Contrition, trying to make it a perfect one. A feeling of death was in him, and went from him to the gloomy church, and the autumn night without. He just couldn’t seem to be able to get through the commandments.
Suddenly, he just raced through them, estimating his sins, in violation of each commandment, and arose. He took a place in line, his back to the altar, before the left-hand door of Father Doneggan’s box. There were four ahead of him. He waited.
The door on the other side opened. Art Hahn, a tall, slim fellow, blond, several years older than Studs, emerged. A woman entered the box. Art smiled at Studs, as he passed him, down the aisle, and Studs pointed toward the exit door. Art nodded. Father Doneggan was quick in everything he did. Studs soon got inside the stale-smelling box. The slide opened, and he saw, dimly, the blond priest inside the wire screen. He