J. Salem's Last Confession

“Damned inconvenience, if you ask me.”

“Why is it an inconvenience, Salem?”

“I just put my own space on the market. What’s a thing like that going to do for my property value? And all I’ve got now is rubberneckers, stopping by to see the circus. If it isn’t them, it’s the police.”

The two men sat in large leather armchairs, a wooden end table with a bowl of peppermints between them. The one nodded his head and leaned slightly toward the other, but Salem only sat idly, his hands empty. In the fluorescent lighting, he was so pale and thin that he looked like a pile of dry bones propped up in his chair. It smelled like dead mouse under a heavy cloud of freshly-sprayed Febreeze. 

“Do the police come by often, Salem?”

“Now and then. I keep telling them I don’t know anything.” He rarely spoke. When he did, words pressed from him in strings, like meat through a grinder. But this topic had him going. “No, I didn’t know her well. No, we weren’t friends. Doesn’t mean we were hostile toward each other. We just weren’t friends. No, I don’t know if she had enemies. We weren’t friends, remember? I’m just trying to sell my townhouse.”

The other man nodded in response. As he moved his head, the sunlight streaming in through the stained glass window behind him hit the wall in various places, bringing its stones to life. Salem didn’t notice.

“So you didn’t know her at all?” the other man asked.

Salem spread his hands open on his lap. “I knew her as well as you know the person who lives next door.”

“You never spoke to her?”

“Sure, I spoke to her. She lived next door.” His right toes started tapping slowly. “She had the corner townhouse. Big bay window. I used to see her through that window eating her dinner.” The tapping stopped. “Wonder if that townhouse’ll be on the market now.”

“What was she like, Salem?”

Salem took a peppermint from the bowl on the table and twisted the two ends of the plastic until the mint came free. He set it on his tongue. “I’ve said I didn’t know her. She owned that townhouse is all. It’s a real nice house"corner spot, you know"and she had it all decorated. I could see through that bay window.”

“What would you talk to her about?”

“This and that.” The peppermint wrapper crinkled like static on a radio. “We’d talk at the mailboxes sometimes.” 

“And what would you"”

“You know she got that house practically for free, even though she had that big bay window and the corner spot? It was an inheritance.”

“Does that upset you, Salem?”

“Well, I just don’t think it’s fair, is all. Why should I pay so much more than her when hers is clearly nicer? And on top of that, she never even ran her heat"she just let mine seep through the vents and keep her house warm.”

“Did she tell you about her heat?”

“No.” The peppermint wrapper crinkled again. “I’ve got foundation troubles now"after that earthquake, you know. Shook some cracks into the concrete. Did you feel that earthquake?”

“Yes, I felt it.”

“Knocked my power out for a few hours too. Must have been a tree down somewhere. Which reminds me"that’s another thing. It used to be there was some kind of fruit tree in her yard with big branches that would shade my window, but then one day, I come home from work and she’s cut the damned thing down. Said it didn’t make any fruit. But do you think she asked me about cutting it down?”

The two men sat in silence now. The one waited to see if any more words would come, but Salem’s stream was done.  

“What do you do for a living, Salem?”

He leaned forward, his forearms resting on his knees. He cupped his hands and tapped his fingertips together. “I’m an actor.”

“What sort of acting?”

“This and that.” It wasn’t a subject that interested Salem. 

“Do you have family?”

“Not much.”

Silence again. Tiny sounds that might have otherwise gone unnoticed seemed to overtake the room"a ticking clock on the wall, Salem’s fingertips quickly tapping together, and from somewhere far-away"music. 

“What was it that brought you here today, Salem?”

He gave a wily child’s grin. “What brings anyone to you?”

“Is anything, in particular, weighing on you?”

“I’ll tell you what’s weighing on me. It’s this business about the townhouse. Doesn’t seem right to me.”

“What doesn’t seem right to you?”

Salem shifted in his seat, leaning toward the other man with a zealot’s intensity. “The prices! I’m talking about the prices! Me paying what I paid and her getting that corner spot for practically nothing. I work hard for mine and she’s just carried on by, big bay window and all. I’d kill for a space like that at the price she paid.”

“What is it that bothers you, in particular, Salem?”

“It’s the injustice!”

“It’s unjust because of the cost difference?”

“It’s unjust because of the principle of it! Why should that house be so freely given to her?”  

“Freely given?”

And there was silence again.

“Well, I suppose it wasn’t really free, was it?” Salem said slowly. “It had its price, in the end.” He didn’t look at the other man. Instead, he studied a painting on the wall above the door"an image of a hen gathering her chicks under her wings. “I used to see her at that dinner table through the window,” he said, eyes still fixed on the painting. “I’d throw little stones sometimes, right at the window, just because I could. Just because I could see her there eating at that table, where I couldn’t go, no matter how much I paid. So I’d throw stones sometimes"not big ones, only little pebbles"and run away before she’d see.”

“Salem, it sounds to me like you threw those stones because you"”

“No, no. There wasn’t any meaning to it. I just threw them because I saw them on the ground and I saw her in that big bay window at her table and I wanted to.” A tiny ant crawled across the wooden floor as he spoke. Salem tried to smash it with his heel, but when he lifted his foot, it wiggled to life and began crawling again. He crushed it with his toe instead. This time, it did not move. “So be it,” he said.

The clock chimed the quarter hour mark, ending on an unresolved note. The other man watched Salem’s movements with a practiced eye. He chose not to speak.

“Listen,” Salem said, “I’ll tell you what it was like.” He leaned back and dug his fingernail into the leathery flesh of the chair’s arm. “It happened right before the earthquake. No one noticed at first, you know, because of the darkness"from the power outage. But then suddenly, pop! Up come the lights and there was that big bay window, all smashed through and the curtain torn right down. And what a sight it was"that body on the dining room table, right where she’d been slaughtered, looking like a gutted lamb, blood running from her like a garden fountain. You can bet that keeps some neighbors up at night.” There was a hole in the arm now from his nail.

“And what about you, Salem? Does it keep you up, too?”

Salem didn’t answer. Nor did he smile. He looked at the other man in blind confusion. 

“It wasn’t me who did it, Father. It wasn’t me who killed her. I didn’t even know her.” 

“Where does your guilt come from, Salem? Why have you come to me?”

“Guilt? I don’t have any guilt. You’re absolving me of it. Isn’t that how it works?” he said, standing up to face the other man. “Tell me how many Hail Marys I have to say and pray your prayer of blessing over me and let’s be done with it.” He held out a hand in expectation.

“You’ve made no confession, Salem.” The man uncrossed his legs, but did not stand. “You can’t be absolved of your sin until you confess it.”

“What’s that?” Salem looked past the man to the stained glass window above the large oak desk where Christ stood, arms outstretched in welcome, hands opened in pardon. “What sin? I’ve a clear conscience.”

“Salem"” The man stood up to stop him, the wings of his robe spreading wide.

“I’ve got a tour coming through my townhouse in an hour.” He was already in the doorway. “Damned inconvenience, if you ask me.”

Faint strands of music could now be heard more clearly through the open doorway. Out in the sanctuary, the choir was practicing for Saturday night’s program. Their song arose from that distant chancel, voices ascending like angels returning to Heaven.

“But when for our poor sakes He died

A willing Priest, by love subdued,

The soldier’s spear transfixed His side"

Forth flowed the water and the Blood.

Beneath the winepress of God’s wrath,

To save our souls from endless pains,

Still hour by hour His Blood pours forth

Till not a single drop remains.” 

The priest stood on the threshold of his office searching for a retreating figure, but Salem was nowhere to be found in that holy place. He turned away and shut the door, winged sleeves heavy at his side.

Reviews

[Jacob Clifford]

This is an interesting read. It certainly feels like a small part of a larger work. It was good at showing instead of telling. I got a good feel of the characters emotions. I especially liked the flow of conversation; it felt real.