God would naturally love them, and consider them more worthy than others. Few university degrees have ever expelled that sanctimony.
Still, he believed more than ever that he was doing all of this for the sake of his own mother.
Then, suddenly, another idea spawned. It was as a knife in his heart. Since God had decided this terrible trial for him, and her, he decided at that moment there must be no God. He hated Minnie at that moment, and hated the whole world because of it.
He stood, took the money, and left without another word.
As he walked back toward the seminary, a sliver of fine ice all along the highway that looked as if angels had made beds in the asphalt, and its trenches filled with weeds broken free from under the snow, he thought of what a great trick this God business was. Never again! Never, never again! He was enraged that this had happened to him. So often it happens that what God is perceived to have done creates denial of God. As he passed the phone booth, once again he hurried, and then and there, by some great chance, it started to ring.
He returned to the seminary and went to put the money back. When he opened the lock on the office door, with a calendar of Saint Jude hanging across the window, a hand touched his shoulder.
“Where is our money, Alex?” the Monsignor asked kindly. The manager of the credit union had phoned to tell them of his strange behavior the day before.
However, that same night in the rough weather, the herring fleet lost seven men out in the bay. So this story was the most important. They were looking for Leo Bourque, and the priest stayed with his family. Mr. Gallant, who Alex once thought of as his father, and who Leo went fishing with after he got married, had been lost. And Alex thought two things: the blessing of the fleet did nothing, and good men died in spite of what they prayed. That was irony for you.
Leo was found by the coast guard clinging to a board, and to life. He said that Mr. Gallant had given his life for him.
It took another two weeks for Alex to leave the seminary. He was asked to stay, to reconsider his vocation, but he couldn’t. He was now ashamed in front of everyone.
Alex went home. His uncle—who had abandoned his trips into the woods to kill out of season, and Fanny Groat as well—now turned to him, and his face was livid with sad, overbearing anger. He stood in the back shed and blew his nose, and wiping it roughly shouted: “Hypocrite!”
When winter came, and just at the time he had no money, Alex was put out of the house during what can only be described as a heated exchange at supper. When winter came, he slept at the old icehouse. There he brooded, and turned colder against the world. For some months people did not see him. He tried to live off the land, and almost starved. This was also to his shame, for once having thought he was Micmac, now to realize who he was. Not that many, Micmac or no, would have done any better where he was.
Then one night, after being splashed on the road with slush from the wheel of one of his uncle’s trucks, he in a kind of blinding and enraged epiphany decided to get back at his uncle and at Minnie Tucker. In the cold backroom of the icehouse he burned his religious books, at first hesitantly, peevishly, and then with renewed vigor. Going outside to throw them on a pyre, he stared off in the direction of his uncle’s house, and cursed.
“I guarantee I will put you through hell,” he whispered.
The next day he began to say and do things that he felt were necessary for a freethinking man. Anything that before was taboo was now no longer so. It did not come little by little. It came all at once, just like he wanted his sainthood to. All at once he wanted to destroy everyone who had hurt him, including Minnie. He remembered a woman Sam had when he was drunk one summer night, and so wrote Minnie about this.
“Yes, Minnie, it is not only you he’s had.”
He waited for Minnie to leave her man and
Still, he believed more than ever that he was doing all of this for the sake of his own mother.
Then, suddenly, another idea spawned. It was as a knife in his heart. Since God had decided this terrible trial for him, and her, he decided at that moment there must be no God. He hated Minnie at that moment, and hated the whole world because of it.
He stood, took the money, and left without another word.
As he walked back toward the seminary, a sliver of fine ice all along the highway that looked as if angels had made beds in the asphalt, and its trenches filled with weeds broken free from under the snow, he thought of what a great trick this God business was. Never again! Never, never again! He was enraged that this had happened to him. So often it happens that what God is perceived to have done creates denial of God. As he passed the phone booth, once again he hurried, and then and there, by some great chance, it started to ring.
He returned to the seminary and went to put the money back. When he opened the lock on the office door, with a calendar of Saint Jude hanging across the window, a hand touched his shoulder.
“Where is our money, Alex?” the Monsignor asked kindly. The manager of the credit union had phoned to tell them of his strange behavior the day before.
However, that same night in the rough weather, the herring fleet lost seven men out in the bay. So this story was the most important. They were looking for Leo Bourque, and the priest stayed with his family. Mr. Gallant, who Alex once thought of as his father, and who Leo went fishing with after he got married, had been lost. And Alex thought two things: the blessing of the fleet did nothing, and good men died in spite of what they prayed. That was irony for you.
Leo was found by the coast guard clinging to a board, and to life. He said that Mr. Gallant had given his life for him.
It took another two weeks for Alex to leave the seminary. He was asked to stay, to reconsider his vocation, but he couldn’t. He was now ashamed in front of everyone.
Alex went home. His uncle—who had abandoned his trips into the woods to kill out of season, and Fanny Groat as well—now turned to him, and his face was livid with sad, overbearing anger. He stood in the back shed and blew his nose, and wiping it roughly shouted: “Hypocrite!”
When winter came, and just at the time he had no money, Alex was put out of the house during what can only be described as a heated exchange at supper. When winter came, he slept at the old icehouse. There he brooded, and turned colder against the world. For some months people did not see him. He tried to live off the land, and almost starved. This was also to his shame, for once having thought he was Micmac, now to realize who he was. Not that many, Micmac or no, would have done any better where he was.
Then one night, after being splashed on the road with slush from the wheel of one of his uncle’s trucks, he in a kind of blinding and enraged epiphany decided to get back at his uncle and at Minnie Tucker. In the cold backroom of the icehouse he burned his religious books, at first hesitantly, peevishly, and then with renewed vigor. Going outside to throw them on a pyre, he stared off in the direction of his uncle’s house, and cursed.
“I guarantee I will put you through hell,” he whispered.
The next day he began to say and do things that he felt were necessary for a freethinking man. Anything that before was taboo was now no longer so. It did not come little by little. It came all at once, just like he wanted his sainthood to. All at once he wanted to destroy everyone who had hurt him, including Minnie. He remembered a woman Sam had when he was drunk one summer night, and so wrote Minnie about this.
“Yes, Minnie, it is not only you he’s had.”
He waited for Minnie to leave her man and
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