Father Gareth And the Fatal Glass Of Beer

by Jeff Baker

Joey Strunk had rushed into the church just after morning Mass. He was furious and loud.

“Father! I have to talk to you!”

Father Gareth Armbrewster raised an eyebrow. He’d known Joey for years. He was loud enough now that this probably wasn’t going to be a confession. Gareth was just glad that most of the parishioners had left.

“Do you want to go to the confessional?” Gareth asked. Just in case.

“No, Father.” Joey said. He glanced around. There was nobody nearby.

“You know the old liquor store on Fourth Street? In the Grocery Store parking lot?”

Gareth nodded. He’d passed by it a lot and been in it a few times.

“I always thought ‘The Fatal Glass Of Beer’ was an odd choice for a name for a liquor store,” Gareth said.

“After the W. C. Fields movie, yeah…” Joey said. “But it was a gas station before that and I worked there for a while.” He sighed. “I was working there when I got into trouble.”

Joey Strunk had been sent to prison for a series of burglaries some twenty-three years earlier. He’d been out for a decade or more and was a semi-regular parishioner. He looked like he hadn’t slept and was shaken. He took a deep breath.

“Before I got…sent down…I wrote out a confession. I named names, Father. People who were involved in the thing I did.”

“And I take it they didn’t get caught?” Father Gareth asked.

“No” Joey said. “This was for the stuff I actually did, we did. That I wasn’t caught for. We didn’t hurt anybody, Father. But I had to help them…take some stuff. To get them off my back.” Joey sighed. “And it worked. And about two months later I got busted for the burglary and the thing is, I hadn’t done those. But I had no way out of it so I did about five years.”

“You don’t need a priest you need the police…” Father Gareth said.

Joey shook his head.

“The last thing I need is for the police to read what’s on that paper. My name and the names of…the other guys. I’ve got to get that thing before they do.”

“This isn’t that Father Dowling show,” Gareth said. “And I’m sure not going to break and enter…”

“The demolition already started,” Joey said. “They’ll finish up tomorrow.”

“Look, I can’t possibly be a part of something like that.”

Joey looked at him with pleading eyes.

Father Gareth stood looking at the pile of bricks that had been The Fatal Glass Of Beer. He couldn’t believe he was here at One in the morning. But the lights were off at the supermarket and the parking lot was empty.

The store had been a one-story brick building about the size of a trailer. Some of it was still standing; a brick corner and a thick side wall made of the same brick. The pile of brick and stone, part of wall and roof, in front of it all was almost as tall as he was, Gareth thought.

And the thin, yellow tape propped up around the old building wouldn’t have stopped a kitten, he thought.

“C’mon. We can get in this way” Joey said ducking under the tape and crouching behind the pile of bricks.

“I’m out of my mind,” Father Gareth thought as he followed Joey through what had been a full doorway but was now just a space between the standing wall and the pile of bricks.

Father Gareth had been in the store a couple of times. The tacky green carpet was still there, still attached to the counter which was still in the middle of the room. Pure Nineteen-Seventies, he thought.

“I know just where it would be,” Joey said stepping over fallen bricks and pieces of glass that glinted in the dim light. “Just glad they didn’t tear this wall down yet.”

“I hope he doesn’t expect me to tear down a wall, I draw the line there,” Father Gareth thought. He’d hoped he would be able to talk Joey out of this, it was trespassing after all. But Joey kept insisting it was actually his property he’d left here years ago.

“I dropped it in this when they were putting in that old A. C. unit,” Joey said. “And there used to be a…aha!”

Joey bent down and pulled at a small grating at the base of the wall. When it wouldn’t budge he kicked at it with his boot. With a crack, it broke loose and Joey quickly felt around in the hole.

Father Gareth imagined rats.

With a big grin on his face, Joey triumphantly held up what looked like a rusty metal tin they sold throat lozenges in years ago. He quickly pried it open and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He held it up to what light there was and breathed out a half-laugh.

“It got wet, Father. The ink is all messed-up. Nobody can read it now,” Joey said quietly.

Father Gareth sighed with relief. Joey stuffed the paper in his jacket pocket.

“Now let’s get out of…” Father Gareth broke it off, he’d heard a sound from outside. He waved at Joey to get down. Joey needed no encouragement, he ducked behind the counter a moment before a security guard walked in and shone his flashlight of Father Gareth.

“What’re you doing here?” the guard asked.

“Oh, I’m looking for one of my parishioners,” Father Gareth said, making sure he pulled his jacket open enough to display his clerical collar.

“Parishioners?” the guard asked.

“Yes, he had way too much to drink and was staggering this way and I thought he might have come in here to see if they’d left anything behind.”

“Well, there’s nobody else here, Father, so you’d better get out of this building. It’s not safe.”

“Thank you very much,” Father Gareth said. “Now if you could just give me a hand…”

Sixty wasn’t as old as that but Father Gareth was grateful for his grey hair as the guard took his arm and guided him out of the mostly-demolished store. Gareth was sure the guard sniffed his breath at least once.

“My car isn’t too far away, if you could help me over this bunch of bricks here,” Gareth said.

The guard walked with him across the parking lot and past the dark supermarket.

“Technically I’m just security for the grocery store but I like to keep an eye on Fatal Glass too,” he said.

“Thank you so much,” Father Gareth said. “Old leg isn’t in as good a shape as it used to be. All that kneeling.”

“I know, I’m on my feet all the time,” the guard said. “You know, you were probably trespassing but I didn’t actually work for the liquor store so I probably was too.”

“Yes,” mused Father Gareth. “The vagaries of middle age.”

Gareth smiled to himself. It was amazing the things a priest could get away with. And hopefully Joey had time to get away from the store. Father Gareth didn’t look back.

“My car’s right down here in the hardware store parking lot,” e said. “Could you follow me with that flashlight? It’s so dark and late…”

Father Gareth noticed Joey in the congregation a few weeks later. He didn’t seem to be bothered by anything, in fact he looked relieved.

Father Gareth sighed. At the very least, there had been no damage done and Strunk hadn’t done anything that would get him back in trouble. He looked heavenward and mused: “Lord, for that we can be grateful.”

—end—