The Confession of Joe Cullen Read online

  Cullen shook his head. “That’s not so,” he said. “You’re wrong, Padre. I know what my sins are.”

  “Easy, easy, Joe.” He sat down, facing the pilot. “I am going to tell you about sin — very simply, no fancy clerical thinking, no theological trapping, just the story of one small black woman in our parish in San Francisco. She had five children, and a husband who was a bum and walked out on her. She worked two jobs as a maid, she fed the kids, she raised them as good decent kids. We had them in the parish school. The oldest was sixteen — then down to five years old. Five years old was a little girl; she was the most enchanting little five-year-old I had ever encountered. Her name was Daisy, and I taught her the song about the bicycle built for two. She was so bright! She said to me, ‘Father, you will look so comical on a bicycle built for two with your robes flapping, and I am going to braid my hair so it sticks out straight behind me.’ Can you imagine a five-year-old saying that? Now, the sixteen-year-old freaked out, as they say, on crack. We don’t know how much he had, but it was a hell of a lot, enough to make him completely crazy, and with a kitchen knife he killed his mother and the four siblings. He was a big strong boy, and there was no way they could stop him. He cut the throat of his five-year-old sister. Was this something you were going to confess to me, Joe?”

  Staring dumbly at Father O’Healey, Cullen shook his head and whispered, “I didn’t know about that case.”

  “Of course you didn’t. You bring enough cocaine in every week to make thousands and thousands of kids crazy. A few years ago, a Catholic bishop was murdered in El Salvador. He was murdered by a death squad supported with money and guns by our State Department — with the same American guns you now run to the contras. My colleague and blessed friend Father Jesus Consenta was murdered by the contras. It happened in a tiny village where he had gone to baptize some children. The contras took this undefended village and put everyone there to death. They cut off my friend’s penis and put it in his mouth. Were you going to confess to that? Shall I tell you about the nuns who were murdered—”

  “That’s enough!” Cullen shouted.

  “Anger. Are you coming alive, Joe Cullen?”

  “Fuck you!” Cullen shouted, and then stormed out of the shed, and then once outside came to a halt and stood rigid, his back to the shed.

  “Qué pasa? Qué pasa?” the guard said.

  Cullen silenced him with a look, and then turned around and went to the entrance of the shed.

  “Can I come in?”

  “Sure. Come on in, Joe.”

  “I’m sorry. I never used that kind of language to a priest. I’m sorry, Padre. Please forgive me.”

  “Nothing to forgive. Come in and sit down, Joe.”

  Cullen sat down on the same packing case that had been his chair before, nervously clenching his fists. “Padre,” he said, “do you want to escape? If you want to escape, I’ll manage it.”

  “No. If I escape, Joe, it’ll give them an excuse to hunt me down and kill me. I don’t know this country.”

  “There’s one guard sitting out there. I could gag him, and our 727 is ready to lift off. We’re gassed up and ready to go — just waiting for the dope. Yeah — they can eat it. It’s night and they’re either asleep or drunk, and anyway those Honduran officers don’t walk around at night. There’s nothing to stop me flying you out.”

  “And what happens to you, Joe? You think you’d live to talk about it if you stole their plane?”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “No, I’ll let them send me back to the States. I haven’t been back in three years. A few things I must do, and then I’ll return here. As a matter of fact, I hear arrangements have been made to fly me down to the main contra base tomorrow.”

  “I know. I’m taking the chopper down there.”

  “Can you fly a helicopter?”

  Cullen laughed. O’Healey loved Cullen’s smile, Cullen’s laughter. It was unpremeditated and appeared like the ghost of another man, an unworried man, a man who lived in humor and delight. “Can a duck swim?” Cullen asked. “I am the best, Padre. It’s the only thing in the world I can do better than most.”

  “That’s reassuring, Joe. Do you know, I’m looking forward to it. I have never flown in a helicopter. It must be very exciting. Joe, do you like to fly?”

  Cullen nodded — as always, at a loss for words when a question was posed that he had never considered. In all truth, no one had ever asked him this question, not as O’Healey asked it, not lightly or offhandedly, but as part of a search that the priest was conducting. Cullen had a sense of this and it placed an obligation upon him. “It’s not that I like to fly — I have to. It’s like getting drunk,” he said slowly, searching for terms to describe what he felt, “but better. Because I don’t slow down, no loss of function. I’m airborne. I’m at peace. I don’t want anything, because I have everything.”

  “Everything?” the priest asked curiously. “What is everything?”

  Cullen shook his head.

  “You used the word,” Father O’Healey insisted. “Look into yourself.”

  “I can’t look into myself. Goddamnit, what are you doing to me!”

  In the dim candlelight, Father O’Healey saw the tears running down Cullen’s cheeks, and then Cullen slid off the packing box on his knees facing the priest, his head pressed into the edge of the priest’s robe, his body racked with sobs. O’Healey put his hands on Cullen’s head, and said softly, “Who saves a human life saves the whole world.”

  Cullen awakened with the dawn, and he felt wonderful. He felt absolutely wonderful. Nothing bothered him, not the mosquito netting that shrouded him, not the stickiness of the morning, not the heat, not even the presence of Oscar Kovach in the tiny canteen, where Cullen had a breakfast of coffee, fried eggs, and fried beans.

  “It’s nice to see you with a grin on that ugly face of yours,” Kovach said. “What did that priest do for you — set you up in heaven?”

  “Don’t be a horse’s ass.”

  “Good. That’s the old Cullen. I’m glad he didn’t reform you.”

  “I told him I’d have to ask Kovach. After all, I haven’t enough brains to piss without permission from Kovach.”

  “You’re a joy to be around,” Kovach said. “I hear you’re taking the priest out of here on the chopper. We’re loading at noon and I want to take off by one o’clock. So don’t decide you want to get laid down there.”

  “I’ll be back. Don’t worry. On the other hand, you can drop dead. Surprise me.”

  “Very funny.”

  “We’re both funny, Kovach. You and me, we’re a couple of clowns.”

  Still, this did not disturb Cullen’s pleasure in the morning. He hadn’t touched the controls of a helicopter in years, but a copter was a copter, and he had no doubts on that score. As he broke away, Kovach quickened his pace to stay with him, and said, “Come on, Cullen, so I kid a little.”

  “OK with me.”

  “No hard feelings?”

  “Not here. I’m used to your shit,” Cullen said.

  “You see — you see, I try to be decent and where does it get me? What is it with you, Cullen? You were broke, and I gave you a job. Doesn’t that count for something?”

  Kovach was small and wiry. He had a habit of hunching his shoulders and sniffing. He had taken up with a girl in Vietnam and fathered a child and bugged out on both of them. That was not what Cullen held against him, but Cullen used it as excuse to himself for detesting the man. Yet the truth was the truth. He was aware of what he owed Kovach — which made him even more touchy. Now he gave Kovach a friendly pulled punch on the arm, and said, “It counts.”

  Kovach did not respond and Cullen said, “It counts. Of course it does. Nobody has to tell me what it feels like to be broke and out of a job.”

  “Thanks,” Kovach said. “Tell you something else, Cullen — I don’t leave without you. Without you come back safe and sound, that plane sits on the ground.”

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nbsp; Cullen nodded. Kovach wanted desperately to be liked. He envied Cullen’s superior height and strength. The girls always turned to Cullen. It didn’t matter where they were or what nation or color or nationality the girls were. When they saw Cullen’s smile, they responded with delight.

  “You know,” Kovach said, “we’re just two of us down here with the spies. We got to stick together, Cullen.”

  “You got something there. You carry a piece, don’t you, Oscar?”

  Kovach regarded him suspiciously. “You’re not going to do something crazy?”

  “What, for instance?”

  “Maybe I should take the priest down?”

  “You want to play with a Sikorsky? You’re no chopper pilot.”

  “Come on.”

  “OK, you can fly. You ever been in a Sikorsky?”

  “All right. I got a thirty-eight revolver. I keep it under the seat. You can’t walk around in shorts and a shirt in this heat and hide a gun.”

  “You wear shorts. I don’t.”

  “What the hell difference does that make?”

  “Look, Oscar,” Cullen said patiently, “if I want to hide a weapon, I strap it on my leg. Only an asshole hides a gun anywhere else. Now calm down. Nothing’s going to happen, but I don’t want to be sealed in a damn chopper alone in a situation.”

  “What situation?”

  “I don’t know. You been around these clowns long enough to know that anything can happen.”

  “You want me to come with you?” Kovach asked.

  “Shit, no! We’re in a strange place under very strange circumstances and I ask to borrow your piece and you make a federal case out of it.”

  “OK, OK. Don’t bite my head off. Walk over to the plane with me. I got a thigh strap that can probably hook it on to your calf.”

  They climbed into the big jet, Cullen feeling that hell couldn’t be much hotter, and Kovach pulled the gun out of its hiding place. Cullen checked it. The cylinder was loaded.

  “You want some extras?” Kovach asked him.

  “What am I going to, a war? No — thank you, Oscar. Do you know who’s coming with me?”

  “Sanchez, I think.”

  “That loathsome bum?”

  “Show respect, Joe. He’s a West Point graduate — which is more than you and me ever came up with.”

  “You mean West Point educates these lousy fuckers?”

  “That’s what I hear. I only know what I hear.”

  “Let’s get out of here before I die,” Cullen said.

  Back on the ground, they were both pouring sweat. The gun on Cullen’s calf was a hot, uncomfortable nuisance. His whole leg began to itch. “Tell me something,” he said to Kovach. “Do you think they’re going to kill O’Healey?”

  “Why should they kill him? They’re Catholic.”

  “Oh, Christ, Oscar, dry your nose. They’re as much Catholic as Billy Graham. Do you know how many priests they’ve wasted down here?”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I talk to the padre, and he knows. And not only priests but nuns — American nuns — and a bishop. Now that’s no small shit, a bishop.”

  “Yeah, I heard about that. Well, it’s their turf. Let the mothers tear it up.”

  They were at the shed now, and Father O’Healey was standing at the entrance, next to the guard. Kovach took off, calling back to Cullen to take it easy.

  “Your friend doesn’t like priests,” O’Healey said, putting out a hand to welcome Cullen.

  “He’s not much of a friend.”

  “I’ll be in San Francisco for at least, a few weeks. My mother’s still alive, bless her soul, so I’ll be with her — Mrs. William O’Healey. You’ll find her in the telephone book if you ever get out there.”

  “That’s not impossible,” Cullen said. “This is my last trip down here, and then I’m through with those mother —— Forgive me — it’s the language I speak in the places I go. God knows, they tried to make me literate, but I forget. An officer and a gentleman was not my style.”

  “Perhaps it was. Are you going to throw up this job, Cullen?”

  “Yes.”

  “When did you decide that?”

  “Last night, Padre. About four in the morning.”

  “A good time for grave decisions. May I thank you, Joe Cullen?”

  “For what?”

  “For helping me.”

  “If you want it that way. I can’t keep asking you what you mean.” Standing with the priest in the shade of the shed’s overhang, Cullen felt uneasy. He wanted to say something that he could not put into words, something of great importance. He tried to put the words together in his mind and failed, and as he stared dumbly at the priest, his eyes were wet.

  The Honduran guard, indifferent to the conversation between two North Americans in a language he did not understand, now stiffened his stance and whispered, “Señor, el capitan.” Cullen turned and saw Sanchez approaching the shed. The captain was dressed in an impeccable, perfectly fitted olive-drab uniform, trousers that appeared to have been modeled after a New York motorcycle cop’s whipcord pants, brown boots polished until they glittered, and a front-tilted visored cap, seemingly styled after the headgear worn by the Nazi general staff. There was no hint of moisture anywhere on the uniform. A Sam Browne belt completed the costume, along with the pistol that hung from it in a polished leather holster and a set of leg irons dangling from the captain’s hand.

  “The bastard doesn’t even sweat,” Cullen whispered.

  “Just watch him, Joe, and watch yourself. He’s a snake.”

  “Lieutenant Cullen,” the snake acknowledged as he joined them. “Father O’Healey.” His English was almost without an accent. “If you’ll just snap on these leg irons, Father, we’re ready to go.”

  “What in hell does he need leg irons for?” Cullen demanded.

  “We follow regulations,” Sanchez said.

  “Where’s he going? We’re in a chopper.”

  “Our regulations state,” Sanchez said, irritation beginning to show, “that when a prisoner is being moved from one location to another, he must wear leg irons. I will thank you not to interfere, Lieutenant.”

  “Let it go,” Father O’Healey said. “I don’t mind the irons, Joe.”

  The guard helped O’Healey put on the irons, and as they started slowly toward where the helicopter was parked, the priest said, “And Eugene Aram walked between with gyves upon his wrist.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. You came up with the word ‘gyves.’ A line of poetry, and I can’t even remember who wrote it. I love poetry, Joe, and my mind is a jumble of lines and quatrains and sonnets and couplets, all of it like clothes packed at random.”

  “Where’s your luggage?”

  The priest broke into laughter and said, pointing to his sandals, “These and my robe and my beads are my wordly goods. I shaved with your razor day before yesterday, if you remember, and as for my toothbrush — gone when they took me. I’m not pretending toward Saint Francis; it simply happened that way.”

  “I wouldn’t buy it so easily,” Sanchez said. “He came here uninvited and joined the rebels, those murderous Indios of ours, and it’s all very well for him to talk about poetry when the truth is that he supports godless Marxists and even takes up arms with them against us.”

  “Not arms, sir,” the priest responded in Spanish. “Not arms. And the campesinos don’t even know that Marx exists.”

  Unruffled, Sanchez shrugged, and no one spoke until they were at the helicopter.

  Then Cullen stiffened, held back, beads of sweat on his brow. Wrong, wrong; he remembered the feeling. “I want Kovach along. I want a navigator.”

  “One hundred miles.” Sanchez shrugged.

  “I’m a lousy navigator,” Cullen lied. “Kovach is good. I want him with us.”

  “No need for a navigator.” Sanchez was smiling. “Only one hundred and eighty kilometers. I’ll watch the ground.”


  “Joe, let’s get on with it,” Father O’Healey said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  The guard led the priest onto the helicopter. Sanchez followed. As Father O’Healey turned to glance at Cullen, the pilot made a circle of thumb and forefinger. Cullen strapped himself into the pilot’s seat, told the others to buckle up, and then sat motionless for a minute or so, familiarizing himself with the controls. He loved the feel of a chopper; there was nothing in the world like it, nothing like the tip forward and then the soaring climb, as a bird climbs — so absolutely different from the roaring climb of a fixed-wing plane. He took off. Over the airstrip and away — and then he heard the sounds of movement behind him.

  “Buckle up!” he shouted, and then swung around to see Father O’Healey struggling with Sanchez and the guard, Sanchez bursting into a stream of profanity. Then, very quickly, in no more than five or six seconds, the drama was over. Sanchez drew his pistol and fired. The shot was directed at O’Healey, who was struggling with the guard in the open doorway of the helicopter. Cullen tipped the chopper, and as Sanchez fired, the guard was between him and O’Healey. As the guard spun back from the shot, Sanchez kicked the priest. The guard fell headlong through the door, knocking the priest off balance, and another kick from Sanchez flung O’Healey out of the helicopter, the priest screaming in horror as he fell.

  Cullen tore at his seat belt. Sanchez shouted at him, “Fly the plane, you bastard!”

  The priest’s scream faded, and Cullen, realizing that it was too late for him to be of any use to Father O’Healey, flew the plane instinctively while his mind raced like a stone rattled aimlessly in a tin can. A man he had come to love and cherish, the only man he had come to love and cherish in all of his adult life, had been murdered in front of his eyes, and he had not prevented it or done anything to prevent it — or could he have prevented it, the awful hell and horror of falling from a plane, a hell and horror that threaded the minds of all war pilots? As if he were drained of blood, the blood replaced with ice water, he felt his whole body go cold with horror at the thought of this cheerful, wise, pink-faced man falling eight hundred feet to the most horrible of deaths.

  “Just stay in your seat and fly the plane,” Sanchez yelled, “or I’ll put a bullet in your head.”