THE MORNING WATCH
219
I'm scared of both of them, he reflected, specially Hobe, and they
know it whenever they want to.
And bigger than either of them, he forced himself to recognize.
Younger. Big for his age that's why I'm clumsy and soft.
Bigger all the same.
Maybe that makes up for the Pride, he thought, as they walked
past the bruising foulness of the backhouse.
Privately, safe ahead of them, he struck his breast.
Nothing makes up for anything. Confess you thought it did.
He tried to imagine how to confess it. I have sinned the sin of
Pride and some other sin
I
don't know the name of.
I
was proud
because when
I
said let's go to the Sand Cut (and it wasn't even me
that thought of it first) they came along just as
if
one of them had
said it and all of a sudden
I
knew that all you have to do is say some–
thing and go ahead yourself without waiting and they'll do it. Then
something happened that made ,me know
I
was scared of them and
I
admitted to myself I'm : yellow : and then
I
thought maybe because
I
made myself admit that, why then
I
wouldn't have to confess
I
was
proud before.
I
thought it made up for it.
He tried to imagine the priests to whom he would confess this.
Father McPhetridge, Father Whitman, Father Weiler, Father Ogle,
Father Fish. Unless maybe if he got Father Fish but even
if
you tried
to dodge and choose which was probably a sin why you couldn't ever
tell for sure who you'd get. The others would just think he was crazy
or something. Crazy kid. Or trying to get credit. And maybe he would
be.
What you say in Confession they never tell because
if
they do
they go straight to Hell. But whoever you confess to, he knows all the
same. And if he knows you honestly are trying hard to be good he gives
you credit afterwards too, that you sin
if
you try to get, he can't help
himself. And
if
he thinks you're just trying to get credit why everytime
he looks at you from then on you know what he thinks of you.
If
he really thought you were, though, probably he wouldn't give
you Absolution.
If
you know it's a sin why you've got to confess it, no matter what
he thinks.
The ferment of the hogpen, deepest of blacks and heaviest of
oils, so stuffed and enriched their nostrils that as one they slowed
against the fence and looked in. Small as the light was, on all its
edges the chopped muck shone like coal. Jimmy slid
his
hand inside
his overalls against his naked body; becoming aware of what he had
