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The Sign of the Grail
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George said, "What do you mean, should I? Are you mad at me? Didn't you tell me that I could borrow any book in your library if you wanted?"
Fr. Elijah said, "For all I am concerned now, you may borrow the whole library, if you want to. Or keep it, if you want."
"Then why don't you want me borrowing a book now?"
"I have many good books you could read, but right now, you don't really want one of my books."
"What do you mean?"
"If you genuinely want to borrow a book, I will gladly talk with you and suggest what I think would be your deepest joy. But why are you asking me for a book now?"
"I thought it would be polite to..."
Fr. Elijah waited an interminable moment and said, "Something is eating you."
George said, "You have no right to--"
Fr. Elijah said, "I have no right to this discussion, and neither do you. Thinking in terms of rights is a way to miss the glory we were made for. But let us stop looking at rights and start looking at what is beneficial. You don't have to answer, but are you happy now?"
George waited, and waited, and waited for an escape route to open up. Then he said, and the saying seemed like he was passing through white-hot ice, "I've been looking at--"
Fr. Elijah said, "Stop, You've said enough."
George said, "But how did you know?"
Fr. Elijah sighed, and for a moment looked like he wanted to weep. "George, I would like to say something deep and mysterious about some special insight I have into people's souls, but that is not it. I am a father, a confessor, and one of the biggest sins I hear in confession--'biggest' not because it is unforgivable; Jesus was always ready, more than ready, to forgive this kind of sin, but 'biggest' because it keeps coming up and causing misery, is the sort of sin you've been struggling with. I count myself very fortunate that I grew up in an age when you could have all the basic utilities without getting all sorts of vile invitations coming whether you want them or not, and I am glad that I do not feel obligated to purchase some nasty pills because I'm not a real man unless I have the same drives I had at the age of eighteen. What a miserably small and constricted caricature of manhood! I count myself a real man, much more because I have not suffered what tends to become such a dreary dissipation and deflation of any real manhood."
George said, "You're not mad?"
Fr. Elijah raised his hand, moved it up and down and side to side, and said, "I am blessing you, priceless son."
George said, "How can I be free of this?"
Fr. Elijah said, "Come with me. Get back in the car."
They drove for a few more minutes, neither one needing to say anything, until George noticed with alarm the shape of the hospital.
George said, "Where are we going?"
Fr. Elijah said, "To the emergency room."
George looked around in panic. "I don't have money for--"
"Relax. None of the treatment you will be receiving will generate bills."
"What on earth are you--"
"I'm not telling you. Just come with me."
They walked through a side door, George's heart pounding, and George noticed two people approaching immediately.
Fr. Elijah turned momentarily, saying, "Buenos noches, Señoras," and motioned with his hand for them to follow him.
As they and George followed, Fr. Elijah said, "Because of the triage in an emergency room, and because mere seconds are a matter of life and death in treating really severe injuries, people with relatively 'minor' injuries that still need medical attention can wait for an interminable amount of time."
Fr. Elijah suddenly stopped. George saw a boy with skinned knees, whose mother was slowly working through paperwork. Fr. Elijah said, "Take away his pain."
George looked at him, halfway to being dumbfounded. "What?"
Fr. Elijah said, "You heard me." Then he turned and left, so that George saw only Fr. Elijah's back and heard from him only broken Spanish.
George felt grateful that at least he wasn't too easily grossed out. He could look at lacerated flesh and eat if he needed to. George sat next to the boy, smelled an overwhelming odor from his blood, and suddenly felt sick to his stomach.
George tried to refrain from swearing about what Fr. Elijah could possibly have meant. Badger the hospital into giving anaesthesia sooner? Kiss it and make it better? Use some psychic power he didn't have? Find a switch on the back of the kid's neck and reboot him?
For a while, nothing happened, until the boy stopped sobbing, and looked at him, a little bit puzzled.
George said, "Hi, I'm George."
The boy said, "Mr. George."
George tried to think of something to say. He said, "What do you get when you cross an elephant with a kangaroo?"
"What?"
"Really big holes all over Australia."
The boy looked at him, but showed no hint of a smile.
"Do you not get it?" George asked.
The boy said, very quietly, "No."
"An elephant has a lot of weight, and a kangaroo bounces up and down. If you put 'weight' and 'bouncy' together, then you get something that, when it bounces, is so heavy it makes big holes in the ground."
The boy said nothing until George added, "That's what makes it funny."
The boy made himself laugh loudly, and just as soon winced in pain.
George tried to think of what to do. After a while, he asked, "What's your favorite color?"
When the boy said nothing, George looked at his face and was surprised at the pain he saw.
"What is your name?"
"My name is Tommy."
George thought about what to say. He began to tell a story. He told of things he had done as a boy, and funny things that had happened (the boy didn't laugh), and asked questions which met with incomprehension. And this went on and on and on.
George wondered why he was having so much fun.
Then George looked at Tommy.
When was the last time George had even begun to do something for someone else?
George realized three things. First, he had stopped talking. Second, a hand was holding tightly to his sleeve. Third, there was something he was trying very hard not to think about.
George looked, and Tommy asked, "Mister, are you a knight? I want to be a knight when I grow up."
George had never before felt such shame that he wished the earth would swallow him up.
"Mister?"
"No, I am not a knight."
"You seem like a knight."
"Why?"
"You just do. Do you know anything about knights?"
"I've been reading a book."
"What's it called?"
"Brocéliande."
"Tell me the story of Brookie-Land."
"I can't."
"Why?"
"Because I haven't read all of it."
"What have you read?"
George closed his eyes. All he could remember now was a flurry of images, but when he tried to put them together nothing worked.
Jonathan's Corner
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The Sign of the Grail
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