For those of you who thought Father Miller was a man with a story, you were right. What is it about that man's past that makes him so much more than your typical priest? What did he live through that gave him his rather unique perspective on life and love and right and wrong? Let's have a look and see.
I hope you enjoy this installment! Drop me a line if you want. I'd be happy to hear from you.
If you're younger than 18 or find these kinds of stories offensive, please close up now and have a great day! If you are of legal age and are interested, by all means keep going. I'll be glad to have you along for the journey. Please donate to Nifty. This is a great resource for great stories and a useful outlet to authors like me and readers like you.
Crown Vic to a Parallel World: From Whence I Came The second installment of the ongoing adventures of Church Philips
44 The Long-Dormant Adventurer
"Powerful emotions make us do strange things. Fear, rage, hatred, passion, lust can drive men beyond what they thought their limits were." Father Miller drew on his cigar, rolled the smoke in his mouth, and blew it out to the side.
The old priest turned his eyes to the smoke and ruminated as the swirling cloud dissipated into the air. He didn't speak again until the cloud was gone. "I was in Mexico after the 1985 Mexico City earthquake. I was eighteen. I had some money, no family, and was spoiling for adventure. I wanted to explore, but where was the last frontier? The west was won, we were in the closing years of the Cold War, but no one know that at the time. I turned my head like a weathervane, searching for a path until stories of the earthquake filled the news. It seemed like the third world was the new frontier. I packed a bag and headed south."
The priest sipped his whiskey to lubricate his voice and went on. He warmed to his story as he went. "It took a week to get there. I crossed the border in Texas and took whatever transportation that would carry me to get further south. Eventually I had to buy a car to get the rest of the way to the capital city. The chaos I found when I arrived was incredible. Communication broke down, there were no cell phones then. Sanitation, first aid, food, water, everything was an emergency. I pitched in wherever I could, worked for weeks before I saw any results."
"It was incredible." Father Miller gushed with enthusiasm. "I felt like I was making a difference. Every single day was an adventure. Every single day was its own triumph. I loved getting up and setting to work. Every night I went to sleep wherever I could find a place to lay my head and I always felt like I'd changed the world with my efforts. I was so happy to be there. I was so happy to help."
"Eventually, things started to turn around. I stayed a year, at first living with other relief workers. Later, after I'd gotten a job with a general contractor helping to demolish weakened structures, I built what amounted to a furnished lean-to out of salvage. I learned functional Spanish and gained a respect for the Mexican culture. After a year, though, the adventure was over. I packed my bag and drifted further and further south. Whenever I couldn't continue over land, I walked to the Pacific Ocean and hopped a coastal freighter or fishing boat to keep going. I don't even know where I was headed. To the next adventure, I suppose."
The priest pulled himself out of his story with a physical shake. He seemed to notice all at once that we were staring at him. "I'm sorry, got carried away." He muttered.
"No." Bem encouraged. "Don't stop there."
Father Miller drained his whiskey glass and held it up to the air for a refill. I floated the bottle over and brimmed his glass to his grinning delight. I capped the bottle, and the priest continued his story. "I wound up in South America in the late 1980s. Anyone here know what that means?" Father Miller glanced at his audience but didn't wait for an answer. "The drug lords ran the countries then. Political borders didn't mean as much as the territorial lines of the cartels. They owned everything; the people, the land, the crops, the natural resources, everything. I stayed clear of them and worked here and there until I came to a very special little village."
"It was stuck to the side of a mountain, a cluster of stone houses as old as civilization itself. The place could have been out of a story book, with its thatched roofs and subsistence farmers scratching out an existence from the valley below. To this day I'm not sure what country it was in. I doubt the residents knew. I saw the place as existing outside of political barriers, almost outside of time itself, a village on the edge of nowhere."
The priest smiled at the distant memory. "The people welcomed me. They didn't care who or what I was. They only cared that my back was strong, and that I was willing to work as hard as them for my bread and board. I lived with them for almost two years. There was something pure about the experience. We farmed, raised livestock, goats and chickens, and existed on what the land could provide with no outside influence and no safety net. If the crops failed, people would die. Living in that village was the most alive I'd ever felt...the most alive I've ever felt."
Father Miller paused his storytelling to relight his cigar with hands that shook. His manner suggested that something big was coming. "One night," he said through a smoky exhale, "we woke up to the sound of machine guns. Everyone scattered, literally ran for the hills. I hid in a cave for a full day and a night. When the sun rose on the second day, I climbed down. There wasn't a living thing left. I think some people escaped. There weren't enough corpses to account for the whole village. So many were murdered in their homes or in the streets. Even the livestock had been slaughtered and the fields set aflame."
The priest's voice broke, and he stopped again. A couple deep breaths and a pull on his glass seemed to steady him enough to continue the tale. "Someone wanted the village gone, erased, and they got their way. I stayed a week or a little more to bury the dead. I suppose I also stayed in the hope that someone would come back, but no one did. I dug the graves and tried to pray for the dead, but the words wouldn't come. My heart was empty of love."
Darkness fell across the priest's brow. It clouded his kind features and seemed to blot all light from his expression. "All I had left were bitter curses and angry hate. I was a young man then, hot-headed and reckless. I swore I would get revenge. For three years I drifted, looking for the people who came that night and killed the village, the people who murdered my idyll."
"I knew that only the drug lords killed like that, so I joined them. I became a soldier and truck driver. I hid my true purpose and worked with the organization. I drove a truck that hauled raw materials to the factories and finished product away. It was during that time I met men who had the same look as Bem here. Men who had done things, things that marked them in a way no one can describe."
Father Miller turned thoughtful eyes to my friend and softened what had started to sound like a direct comparison. "The difference between them and our friend here, is the things they did, were done with evil motivation. For a time, I lived among them. I pretended to be one of them. Eventually the rotation of soldiers that guarded my truck got used to me and started to talk. One of them bragged of his first job with the organization...the destruction of my village."
An indescribable specter of hardness flashed across the expressive face of the man of God, but it didn't last. His normal resting expression returned as he continued his tale. "I believe divine intervention kept me from instantly murdering that man with my sidearm. His companions would have killed me in the next instant, but I didn't think I cared at that time of my life."
"I waited. When we arrived at the factory, I followed him, the braggart, to the bunkhouse and sat next to him on an empty bed. When he was completely comfortable, I drew my weapon and called his name. When he turned, I pressed the muzzle to his forehead. That man looked at me with hollow, dead eyes...the eyes of a killer. When I looked into those dead eyes, I knew what I had been working toward was wrong. That man had pulled the trigger, but he hadn't given the order, and even if he had...even if he had, killing only begets more killing."
Father Miller shrugged a deep, careworn shrug. "I left, abandoned my revenge and the continent I'd grown to hate. I took my truck and drove north until it ran out of gas. After that, I kept going any way I could. It took six months for me to get back to the Mexican / US border. I crossed over and it was like arriving in some kind of weird Shangri La. The new president was a sax playing frat boy and everything was easy. Nothing was life and death."
"I got a job, several in succession actually, and I tried to forget, but I couldn't. The images of the shattered corpses that had been my friends...they haunted my waking hours and disturbed my sleep. Nothing I tried worked. I couldn't let go of my hatred; hatred of the murderers, hatred of the system that allowed it to continue, and hatred of my own hate and the actions I almost took. Eventually, desperately, I turned to religion. The priest at the church that I'd wandered into, Father Davis, took interest in me and listened to my story. He taught me to deal with what happened. I put my faith in God and was soothed by the idea that those who were killed would live forever in heaven and that I would get to see them again."
Father Miller touched the backwards collar he wore with trembling fingers, like he needed to remind himself that it was still there. "The calling came when I was finally able to deal with that chapter in my life. Gentleman, I don't know what heaven looks like, but if I'm permitted entry and am allowed a choice, I want to spend my eternity in that little village with the people I loved."
Father Miller finished his story, stubbed his cigar out on the leg of the yard swing, and drained his glass again. He looked up to see the four of us staring at him and shuddered. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize I'd taken over the conversation. Occupational hazard I suppose."
"You're an interesting man, Father." I said. "Now I understand some of the comments you made last Friday."
The priest looked down at his hands that held his empty glass. "I haven't told anyone about that part of my life since Father Davis. I don't know why it seemed relevant tonight. Maybe it's a question of character. People could probably agree on what makes a good man. I don't know that any two people who could agree on what makes a monster."
"Thank you, Father." Bem said, almost like he didn't want to speak at all. "That was a good story. It's not the same as my story, but I see it's all about how we do what we believe in. If we find out later, we were wrong, it can be a difficult thing to get passed. It can be just as hard if we find out we were right."
The priest nodded to Bem. "That is a very astute assessment, young man."
I opened my mouth to remind Father Miller that Bem was more than twenty years the priest's senior, but I closed my mouth with the words unuttered. It didn't matter to the story and Bem didn't seem to mind.
Father Miller wasn't finished yet. "This group is at a jumping off point." He said and reached his hand out for the whiskey. I floated the bottle to his hand. He poured himself another small shot and set the bottle on the swing next to him. "No matter what happens after this, nothing will ever be the same. I suppose that's been the case since Church, Shawn, and Bem arrived here two weeks ago. The only advice I can give, as a man, as a priest, and as a one-time adventurer, is to embrace the change."
Father Miller raised his eyes to Joe as he spoke. "Explore your new surroundings and new friends. Make it your goal to gain a complete understanding of the new world, its culture, and the people you've drawn near. This life is what you make it. You can spend it knotted in hatred and misery, or you can spend it in joy and wonder, the choice is yours."
The man seemed to rouse himself from his memories with a start. "Do you hear me?" Father Miller asked us. "I'm getting philosophical, which also means I'm getting drunk. It's time for me to go. Church, it appears you haven't had more than a sip, would you drive me home? Stewart dropped me off earlier, and I promised to call him when I was ready to leave, but I'm not in the mood for his disapproval tonight."
"I would be glad to." I agreed and welcomed any excuse to drive the Vic.
"Excellent, maybe just a short one for the road then." Father Miller grinned, poured a fat, double shot, and tossed it off. "Excellent whiskey, Mister Philips, or perhaps I should call you Summas. Either way, give an old man something to lean on. I fear the distance will be great and the journey arduous."
The priest hauled himself up with an alarming stumble, which he barely stopped by steadying himself on the swing frame. I moved to stand next to him but wasn't quite sure what he wanted from me. "Put your arm around my shoulders, Church." He instructed. "You're taller than me. Hold tight and keep me from swaying, must maintain dignity at all times and at any cost."
I did as I was told and guided the inebriated priest through the house to say his goodbyes to Mary and the children. When he'd taken his leave, I escorted him through the front door, down the walk, and into the Vic. "Ah, the famous Crown Victoria." Father Miller patted the dash as we pulled away from the curb. "The car that helped save the other world and that certainly saved you. I never had a car that saved my life. Cherish this one."
"Confidentially," he added in a low voice, like he was telling a secret in a crowded room, "I believe that cherished objects take on a will of their own. Not a life force, as that would be unreconcilable with my religion, but a will to continue the relationship. You said this car brought you from the site of the barrier, across the plains, and right into the arms of waiting help after it suffered what should have been debilitating damage. I say this car willed itself on and you should be grateful. You should provide it a place of honor in your household. That book I gave your brother, that was a cherished object."
Father Miller explained about the book without my having to ask. "What I left out of the story I told tonight were the lost years between when I met Father Davis and later when I received the calling to God's service. I left that man and walked away from his teachings for some time. I was unable to reconcile the evil I'd experienced with the hope that he preached. Before I went, that lovely man gave me that book, a book he cherished, a book he believed helped him survive the horrors of World War Two in the Pacific theater."
"I wandered far and wide in those few lost years and wallowed in what is mockingly referred to as the pleasures of the flesh. When I reached the end, the absolute bottom of my existence, that book was one of the things that helped to bring the light of the Lord into the blackness my life had become. I believe that book wills people forward, calls them to the light. Father Davis believed it saved him. I believe it helped to save me, and I have faith it will lead to salvation for whoever possesses it in the future. That's why I can bear to part with it. My path is even and straight now. It's time for the book to be passed on to someone else who needs it."
Father Miller finished his somewhat wandering monologue as we parked next to the rectory. "Come in, Church. Come in to steady my walk and defend me from the eye of the dreaded Stewart. Be my excuse for one more short one and put me to bed."
I ran around the car to help Father Miller out, and we resumed our shoulder to shoulder walk as I steadied him up to the white-painted door. As an afterthought, I released my physical grip on the man and steadied him with my magic to be less obvious. Father Miller felt the embrace of my power and ran his hands up and down the physical magic. "Excellent thinking, Church."
He leaned forward to unlock the door, but his key wasn't all the way in the lock when the door jerked open, and we were confronted by the dreaded Stewart. I felt Father Miller tense through the magic as he looked into the magnified eyes of the smaller man. "Good evening, Stewart." He greeted. "Mister Summas was nice enough to provide a lift back this evening. There seems to be..."
I squeezed Father Miller's shoulders with magic. I hoped that would be enough to stem the rising tide of words. It worked.
"Ahem...uh...I'll lock up after Mister Summas leaves. Good night." Father Miller said with a tone of firm finality. Stewart gave us a solid glare and retreated into the darkened house without a word.
We navigated silently to the priest's office. I sat him in his swivel chair and shut the door with magic. "Thank you, Church. I think I was about to get verbose with Stewart, a sure sign I've had two or three too many. Speaking of which, how about a night cap? Get us two glasses from the set on the shelf." He pointed vaguely across the room.
I started to move to the shelf when Father Miller stopped me with a sharp complaint. "No, no, be a sport. Get them the fun way."
I chuckled and sat in the guest's chair while I let my telekinesis retrieve the glasses from the wire holder and carry them to the desk. I made them do some aerobatics along the way. Father Miller got the good whiskey from the desk drawer and held it up. I nudged it with my power to let him know I had it. He released the bottle to me. I uncorked it and poured shots in the hovering glasses. I recorked the bottle and placed it back in the priest's waiting hand. He returned the bottle to the desk drawer and accepted a glass from the air.
"Tell me," Father Miller waved his glass at me, "is the impulse to show off unbearable?"
I admitted that it was. "Just this week I was accused of being a shameless exhibitionist."
"That sounds like Joe." Father Miller said and tossed his drink off. "Was it him?"
"You hit it, Father. Shawn called me a show-off."
"Shawn is clearly aware of the connotation of your brother's accusation. A show-off you may be, who could blame you? An exhibitionist though, I doubt that very much." Father Miller shook his head and frowned as the effects of the last shot hit him visibly. He leaned well back in his swivel chair and seemed to go to sleep for a moment.
I stood up and went to the bookshelf with the coffee mug on it. It remained in its position of honor. It still bore the name, Hotel Regis, in festive blue script. "From my time in Mexico." The priest slurred and sat upright. He seemed to drag coherence from somewhere, so he could tell me about it.
"I saved it from the wrecked hotel shortly after I got to Mexico City. It's the only thing I have from that time. That mug traveled with me. I used it when I was a relief worker. I used it when I was a farmer and a shepherd. It rode on the dashboard of my truck when I worked for the cartel, and it traveled with me to this very spot. It remains part of my travels even now, though those travels are spiritual instead of physical. That cup...it reminds me of the black depths that a man can sink to, and it reminds me of God's power to save him from those depths."
I looked at the simple coffee cup like it was the Holy Grail. `Another cherished object.' I thought.
Father Miller heaved a labored breath behind me and spoke. His voice called my attention away from the artifact of his earlier life. "Mister Summas, I fear we have reached the point where I must admit to being what is colloquially referred to as `shot in the ass.' Would you do me the great favor of seeing me to bed? Perhaps, along the way, my feet won't touch the floor."
He sounded so hopeful as he added the last part of the request that I couldn't disappoint him. I lifted him out of the swivel chair and hovered him near his desk while I wiped out and put the rocks glasses away. He gave directions to his bedroom and enjoyed his flight through the hallways. Once inside his modest room, I kept him in the air and helped him remove his suit. I pulled the covers down without touching them and tucked him in the same way.
"Can I get you anything before I leave, Father?" I asked.
"Just fill the water glass on the nightstand please. I'm certain to wake in a few hours with a mouth as dry as the desert."
From where I stood, I could see into the small bathroom that adjoined the bedroom. For Father Miller's amusement, as well as my own, I floated his glass in, filled it, and returned it to its coaster without touching it. He giggled like a child as he watched it complete its trip.
"Church, I don't regret my life, not much of it anyway, but if I got to go around again, I would wish to do it near someone like you. Not because of your powers, but because you're a fun, sincere, and a deeply thoughtful person. The way you handled Joe's high-and-mighty act earlier, if I would have opened my mouth at that moment, I may not have been as diplomatic. Our short friendship has been a joy and I will miss you when you leave. When is that, what time on Saturday?"
"Four in the morning." I reported.
"You stop here on your way out of town. I want to bless all of you for the journey. Now, go away and let an intoxicated old man get to sleep." Father Miller commanded and rolled away from me.
I crept from his room, shut the door, and left silently. When I reached the front door, I realized there was no one to lock up. I took a hard look at the thumb lock on the inside before I exited. I shut the door behind, pictured the thumb lock, turned it, and heard the bolt click home from the inside. I got in the car and drove to Joe's. My mind swam as I went. It swam with all that Father Miller had told me that evening. I knew when I met him that he was a man with a story. How much of a story, amazed me.
When I got to Joe's, I felt strange emotions from Shawn. He felt uncertain and concerned. I moved silently through the sleeping house to our room to find him pacing. "What's up?" I asked.
"I'm glad you're back. After you left, Bem asked me in here and told me about himself. He said he'd made you promise not to tell me, that he worried about telling me the most. I told him it didn't change anything, especially seeing who my uncle is. I understand how sometimes the government needs distasteful things done. When he told me the number, I was shocked. I don't think he could tell. How is it possible? How could he stand to do it, over and over, for so long? I've been beside myself over cows and pigs butchered for food. Bem...he butchered people. How could he do it?"
I sat on the edge of the bed and got Shawn to sit with me. "I don't know how he did it. People on this world do it all the time. In wars and in the streets, people kill each other for reasons as petty as a parking space. That's not what Bem was doing. I compare him to a soldier in a war."
"But he wasn't in a war." Shawn objected.
"I say it was." I searched my mind for an example to make my point and found one in American history. "In 1944, during World War Two, over a hundred thousand men boarded ships, crossed the English Channel to France, landed on beaches, and fought their way inland against overwhelming odds. When I sit here, comfortable in this bedroom, I can't imagine the guts it took to step onto that beach under heavy fire, and charge into the bullets. The natural impulse would be to head in the other direction as quickly as possible. Those men put themselves in the position of having their lives threatened directly by bullets and shells. Why didn't they stay home where it was safe? Because it wasn't safe at home as long as the evil dictators were ruling Europe."
I saw that Shawn was following my example, so I continued with it. "Those men knew that, eventually the fight would come to the American continent. They also knew that if all of Europe was defeated by then, America would have to stand on its own and fight on its own soil. Some men were drafted into the service, but many volunteered. Bem was a volunteer. He was convinced there was a real danger to the way of life in the Protectorate, and he did what he thought was right to defend that way of life."
Shawn looked at me in disbelief for the justification I'd laid out for him. "Are you telling me killing three hundred people was a good thing?"
"No. Remember, he didn't kill three hundred people. Most of that number were executed by the state. Bem gave the evidence, but the laws of the land and the courts dealt the justice. Bem only killed when he absolutely had too. I also believe that killing is always a bad thing, but sometimes people do bad things for the right reasons. Instead of judging him for the blood on his hands, we should thank him for protecting us."
I felt Shawn's unsettled emotions as he thought that over. His uncertainty faded and was replaced by anxiety. He got up, sat down, got up, sat down, got up and moved toward the door. "I'll be right back." He said and left the room.
While he was gone, I felt his emotions jump all over the map as I undressed for bed. His anxiety built gradually, then spiked, then dropped and was replaced with relief and happiness. I wasn't in bed yet but was pulling the covers down when he came back. "What did you do?" I asked.
"I thanked Bem for protecting us. He hugged me so tight I thought my ribs would break. He told me to thank you for being his champion...whatever that means."
Bem's kind words brought a smile to my face as I got in bed. When I settled and Shawn pressed against me, I realized just two nights and one day remained until we left for good. Sleep came easily and quickly.