Page 15 of The Bootlegger’s Bride

T he two men clad in canvas hunting jackets and carrying shotguns marched across the morning field of short beige and gray weeds, greased boots scrunching through the snow.

A dull sun hung low behind a leaden blanket of clouds.

The still air smelled good and clean to Raymond Lomax and stung his face.

His bare hand carrying the gun ached from the cold and his legs numbed by it.

But he hardly noticed. In fact, he gave nothing any thought, simply reveling in the moment, in the fundamental pleasure of being alive and doing what men had done for eons.

Jan gazed down to the snowy ground. “Tracks everywhere around here. Must be a bunch of them nearby.”

Raymond pursed his lips. “One rabbit can make a lot of tracks.”

Jan smiled. “There’s my epitaph.”

After a silent minute—not a breath of wind to rasp the weeds, Jan staring out over the field as if searching for an answer to a tacit question—Raymond said:

“You heard anything?”

Jan nodded. “I report after Christmas.”

“Hell.”

“Yes it is.”

“How’s Hazel taking it?”

“Scared. Angry. Resigned… Me too.”

“Not right taking married men away from their wives and children.”

“Whoever, wherever, none of it’s right. The war, the Axis, the Allies.

Whole thing’s a con. The bastards pulling the strings in Tokyo, Berlin, London, and Washington have peddled it, and the men in the mud have to pay for it.

They try to make it sound like a turkey shoot or rabbit hunt.

Difference is rabbits don’t shoot back.”

“It’s a snow job alright. What’s any of it to do with us, Jan?

I can’t see kamikazes dive bombing Granite City or panzers clanking down the lake road.

Some diplomat sends a note that insults another diplomat and the next thing we got young men gunned down on beaches, trapped in sinking ships, and charging into machine-gun fire.

Why can’t they just leave us the fuck alone to live our lives? ”

Jan nodded. “Another good epitaph: ‘Just leave me the fuck alone.’”

“Bottom line is we don’t need them; they need us.”

“True enough… When I was a kid, the things that mattered were within reach and under our influence. The Church, the school, the beat cop, the committeeman. People had a say in things… And what freedom we enjoyed. Running the streets sunup to sundown. Playing bottle caps in the alley and stickball in the schoolyard. Jumping into the Mullanphy Park fountain or the Mississippi. No one bothered us long as we didn’t bother them…

“I moved to the lake to feel unfettered again. To hunt, to fish, to skate over the lake. To shape my days as I see fit. Now this. People thousands of miles away kicking us around like footballs…”

Jan stared off across the snow-covered flatlands. On the horizon a wisp of white smoke rose into the gray sky from a distant farmhouse.

“It’s a good life here, Raymond. We’re lucky. My luck has always held me in good stead. I’ve counted on it to get me through some tough spots. But with this I feel like I’m pushing it.”

Jan threw his cigarette to the ground, hissing in the snow, and they moved on across the field.

§

Late that afternoon Jan drove across the river to St. Louis and St. Stanislaus Kostka Church on North 20th Street.

Tomorrow morning he would attend Sunday service with Hazel and A.J.

at the First Presbyterian Church of Granite City as usual.

He hadn’t been to Mass since long before he married, or to confession.

Now seemed like a good time to correct the latter.

Just to be on the safe side. You never know.

He had waited till late in the day when most parishioners (and his parents in particular) had already had their talk with Father Marek.

Jan stepped into church, breathing in the aromas of candle wax and roses—the flowers likely left over from an afternoon requiem Mass.

He wondered who had died. Yet the bright church interior worked to deter dark musings: pastel murals, white marble pillars, and colorful stained-glass windows now dimming as the sun lowered.

Outside the confessional just one other man waited.

Jan sat studying the mural of Christ on Calvary.

Although he continued to admire Christ’s teachings and philosophy, he no longer bought into the Church mumbo jumbo—the Virgin birth, the Resurrection, the threat of Hell, the promise of Heaven, etc.

Further, he had noticed that Homo sapiens needed no spiritual guidance in creating their own Hell on Earth.

Still, he didn’t want to live in a world without gods—merciful ones as opposed to just ones. Lady Luck, perhaps, among them.

Soon he moved into the shadowy cubicle and knelt.

Its musty scent took him back to his youthful confessions when he was struggling to keep a clean conscience while committing unconscionable acts.

Then he still believed in the Catholic version of God and in Heaven and Hell.

Nonetheless, those beliefs had done little to temper his behavior.

He sensed the presence of Father Marek behind the wooden screen: a vague shadow, a shuffling of feet.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been four or five years since my last confession. Possibly longer.” Already hedging his bets.

Silence. Once he had been close to the priest, who tried to guide him toward goodness albeit unsuccessfully. Janusz Nowak surely had been a disappointment to Father Marek, as he was to his own father. He heard him sigh, likely recognizing Jan’s voice.

“Too long. Any mortal sins in that time, son?”

Jan recited a few (wrath, lust, avarice), redacted others.

“There’s something more I want to confess, Father, which perhaps falls outside sinfulness.

I am afraid. Afraid I’m making a terrible error.

I’m likely being sent to war. But my heart and my duty lie here, with my wife and child and our home.

Not in some hellhole halfway around the world.

I don’t want to jeopardize the life I’ve created for us.

I want to live straight with myself. Not die for something I don’t believe in nor kill people I’ve got no quarrel with.

It feels like a sin—against God, against human nature, against my nature.

I’m betraying myself and my beliefs such as they are—no question.

I don’t want to be stupid but sense I am. I don’t like the odds.”

Another priestly sigh. Then,

“Terrible evil has been unleashed on the world. Opposing unjust aggressors is not a sin. It’s a necessity in order to preserve goodness…”

“I’m no pacifist,” Jan interrupted. “I know some people need to die. I just don’t want to be played for a sucker. And I feel like I’m being set up for exactly that.”

A momentary silence. The priest cleared his throat and went on.

“At times there are things larger than the individual, more important than our own selfish concerns. The people in Poland and elsewhere in Europe are suffering terribly under the scourge of Nazism. It must be stopped to avoid even more suffering.”

“True enough. But what about the scourge of our Soviet ally? They’re no better than Nazis.

You’ve heard what they’re doing in Poland.

Virtual genocide since they stormed in from the east when Germany invaded from the west. Two million Poles dragged from their homes and loaded onto freight trains bound for Siberia and other Godforsaken regions.

Thousands freezing to death in transit. The survivors landing in slave labor camps and collective farms, likely never to be heard from again.

And the Katyn Forest execution of the Polish Army officer corps.

Fifteen thousand shot in the back of the head and thrown into mass graves.

And now I’m to march off and maybe die to help those bastards annex Poland?

Makes me feel I’m being taken for a ride. ”

The priest had nothing to say to that. Jan took a breath and sought to redirect the conversation.

“However, my concerns, Father, are not entirely selfish. I’m also thinking of my young wife and three-year-old son who depend on me both materially and emotionally.

And what they would face if I were killed or crippled. ”

“Self-sacrifice can be noble. It is honorable to serve and die for one’s nation, for one’s family and countrymen…”

Jan rolled his eyes. Honorable? “Speaking of honor, Father Marek, how about the twenty bucks you still owe me,” he wished to say, “for the case of brandy I delivered to the rectory at Christmastime 1930? You think that was a donation to St. Stanislaus?” Though maybe this wasn’t the best time to bring it up.

Besides, he had written it off years ago, moving it to the Religious Experience side of the ledger. Still, it stuck in his craw.

Instead, he said: “I know that’s what Hollywood and D.C.

are dishing out, Father, that this is a good fight and God is with us.

But it’s the same line Goebbels and Tojo are giving their folks.

Hard to swallow when they’re talking about you dying and not them, the ones who caused it all.

I’m supposed to kill some Kraut who doesn’t want to be there either?

It’s nonsense. That’s what I get for playing it straight…

I’m sorry, Father. This was a mistake. I should have never come. ”

“No, no. You speak from your heart, which is burdened… But understand, sometimes we are swept by things we cannot control. We then have to trust in God.”

Jan nodded. “Yep, that’s what’s bothering me, Father. I’m being swept all right. Just hope not swept away or under the carpet. And frankly, I don’t trust God. I don’t believe He has any real interest in my wellbeing. I have no faith.”

He heard the priest’s cassock rustle.

“You used to have faith. You can regain it. It can comfort you through these perilous times. Read the gospels, pray the rosary, attend Mass, partake in the Eucharist.”

Jan snorted then tried to cover it with a cough, hoping Father Marek hadn’t grasped the derision it carried. Okay, do the ritual. Go through the motions. For what good end if no one’s listening or watching, if there’s no God? If we’re all alone?

“Thanks for the advice, Father.” That too sounded ironic and dismissive. He couldn’t help it.

“I will pray for you, son, as I am sure others are. And as I am sure you will as well.”

Prayer. Like confession, he guessed it couldn’t hurt. Though he doubted that it would help.

He thanked Father Marek again, in Polish this time, trying to sound more sincere.

“Dzi?kuj?, ojcze, dzi?kuj?.”