Freement by William James Johnson Chapter 2

My eyes would not focus. A dazzling light shot burning darts of brilliance into the centre of my brain. Forcing open my swollen lids with my fingers, I felt an excruciating pain radiating down the side of my rigid neck. Lying on my back, in a slight hollow of a much used mattress, I had no idea where I was, or how I got here.
Again, I tried to open my eyes. This time, a green translucence descended upon me. With intense pain in my shoulders and chest, I rolled onto my side, and through my squinting eyelids, saw a mysterious rainbow arched across a corner of my room, intensifying my confusion. Shadows of poles divided one wall into four equal portions. I strained to sharpen the image...they weren't poles after all...but bars, black iron bars. The pulsating in my head made my eyes close involuntarily.
Time raced backwards as I slipped again from the present reality. It was a late summer afternoon in Brewster. A rain shower had stopped as suddenly as it had begun, streaking the sky with marvellous violet, indigo, blue, green, red..."There's a bucket of gold at the end of that rainbow," said my father. "If you're lucky enough to get to it, before it disappears." He laughed as I ran off the porch towards the railroad yards in search of the treasure. When I got there, the rainbow was beyond Brewster, weakening fast, and so was I. My legs ached from fatigue. I dropped down on a grassy slope above a railway siding, and stretched out on my back, enjoying the beautiful arch in the sky.
Slowly my eyes opened. There it was, the same brilliant spectrum tempting me to rush after its promised gold. But I wasn't lying on grass. It was softer and warmer than grass. Lying in bed, I could see there was a rainbow in the room. Trying to get up, the pains in my chest made me fall back. Got to get that rainbow, and stop this throbbing. It's those damn colours that are blinding me. The torment in my eyes boiled over onto my tortured face. My suffering cheek had been bandaged.
Teased back by that godforsaken bridge of colour, I strained to grasp it, contracting the muscles of my chest, squeezing out my breath with deep burning. I still wasn't ready. Slumping back to regain strength, I began to remember what had happened...the shock of the mob breaking in on my meeting...the beating into unconsciousness at the hands of my enemy...the utterly degrading humiliation of being overpowered by Christians, who would dare credit God with their success...and now the deprivation of my freedom.
At last the rainbow made sense. The harmonious ribbons of colour were woven by the sun's rays passing through the prism edge of a wall mirror. A shallow wedge of snow on the window sill accounted for the unusual brilliance of the day. Getting into a sitting position, my arms felt like feathers. I was wearing flannelette pajamas, and the bed was comfortable. This must be that new prison I've heard about. Shakily, I got to my feet, and struggled to the window. It had been opened slightly, and the fresh air exhilarated my aching face.
The serenity of the view was marred by the bars, whose shadows quartered the opposite wall. Hypocritical Chathurst sprawled under a white shroud of the season's first snow. Gentle slopes, surrounding the University campus in the near distance were alive with children on sleds. The clear, vibrant tone of the tower bells in the administration building announced the half hour, poignantly reminding me of my brief sojourn as a student.
I had stalled long enough. Curiosity mixed with anxiety as I squinted in front of the mirror, at what remained of my battered face. The beaten mass was hardly recognizable. Both eyes were almost completely closed, like the loser the morning after a championship boxing match. The bruised flesh on my left jaw was an indistinct greenish purple. My lower lip had swelled to twice its size. It's a wonder they stopped when they did. Carefully I pulled down my lip to look into my mouth.
"Not a pretty sight is it?"
The voice startled me. I swung in its direction, with my fists clenched. My weakened condition could not stand the strenuous gesture and I fell off balance, against the sink. Two strong hands grabbed me and lifted me up.
"Let go you fool. You're hurting me."
"Sorry. I was only trying to help."
"I don't need any help...keep to hell away.
He didn't answer my rebuff, but went to the window and commented on the scene below.
"Even Chathurst looks half decent when you cover it with snow."
"Looks like a whitened sepulchre...like the rich funeral of a well-to-do syphilitic."
"Oh come now. I'd say more like an old fashioned Christmas card."
I went to the window and looked again. "It's a monster in white, smugly enjoying its recent redemption."
"Poetic, but rather extreme."
This old man was deliberately antagonizing me. Maybe he had been put in my cell to spy. . "Who are you? What are you doing in my room?"
"Our room."
"You mean prisoners share cells."
"Does look like a prison doesn't it. It was one you know. The sisters have done a wonderful job turning it into a...how shall I call it...a hospital."
He was confusing me again, just when I thought I had everything figured out. "Sisters...hospital...What is this place anyway?"
"The asylum of the Sisters of Faith."
His answer shocked me as much as the onslaught at my meeting.
"Nuns...this is a nut house, run by nuns?"
"Yes, and I'm Gregory."
I was a prisoner of the very thing I despised. They couldn't do this to me. I would go mad if I had to endure their spirituality. Forgetting my pains for the moment, I struggled to the door, and shouted at them.
"Let me out of here. You have no right to rob me of my freedom. It's a mortal sin to make me fight your hypocrisy. You'll all go to hell for this...I swear it. Where the hell are you, you religious bastards?"
"No use shouting. There's no one to hear you but me and the other patients. The good sisters are in prayer now. They won't be back until lunch time."
"But they can't do this to me. It's unjust."
"Justice is a relative thing."
"Shut up old man. I'm not in the mood to discuss philosophical ideas with you."
"You might as well. That's all that's left for people like us."
The finality of his statement terrified me. My theories were developed to make men free, and I no longer had any freedom. The words of the scripture rang through my head, "He could save others...himself he could not save."
Slumping limply on my bed, I buried my wounded face in my hands. Gregory touched me gently on the shoulder.
"It's much easier if we learn to live with circumstances as we find them. You'll only hurt yourself more, if you try to fight back."
"Give in...surrender to these religious hypocrites. You must be crazy. Now I see why they've got you locked up."
Several days went by, before we spoke at any length. I soon accustomed myself to the monotonous routine. The lights came on automatically at six every morning and just as mysteriously went out at ten every evening. This was a throwback to the building's former prison function. Most of my time was spent sleeping and healing. The pains in my chest had disappeared, and I could now open my eyes without straining. Gregory rose punctually at six when the lights came on, and after dressing hurriedly, left our room. He returned an hour later, and we would eat a breakfast of porridge, coffee, and a hard boiled egg. On Sundays, they added toast and jam.
I appreciated the way Gregory respected my privacy, in spite of the fact we were compelled to live together. A man of medium height, with steel grey hair, and a pleasantly rugged face, he had permanent happiness creases wrinkling the corners of his eyes. How a man could be happy in such a place is beyond me. I was sorry now I had said I thought he was crazy. If we were going to have to stay together, I could at least be civil.
"What you said about giving in to the system...I just can't do that. You see Gregory, I've developed a theory about mental freedom, and if I surrender to them now, I'd be admitting I was wrong."
"Forget it. You don't have to apologize to me. I had no business sticking my nose in. I'll keep my opinions to myself after this."
That was the kind of response I expected from Gregory. I liked him, and now that my aches and pains were under control, I liked him even more.
"I'm John Martindale," I said, extending my hand.
"Really...I thought they said you were Freement, or Freemind, something like that."
"Freement... that's the name I've given to the philosophy I've developed...means 'Mental Freedom'."
"Sounds interesting. I'd like to discuss it sometime."
"It would be a waste of time. You're probably just like them. God knows, I'm not fit enough to fight you for what I believe."
"But I'm not like them."
"How do I know you are not here to challenge me and report back to them."
"What makes you think anyone cares what you believe? Now that they've got you in here, you're nothing."
"But I've got followers. My people wont let them keep me a prisoner."
"Out of sight, out of mind. But let's not talk about that now. If you like, I can tell you about myself. Maybe we can have an understanding...help us to be friends."
"I can live with that...I'd like to hear your story."
"I was brought to the Sisters of Faith more than thirty years ago, when they had a smaller hospice in Chathurst. I'm sixty-two, in case you're interested."
"You're a young looking sixty-two. I would have said early fifties."
"Clean living I guess." He patted his chest. "Bad heart. Runs in our family. My father died of a heart attack when he was only forty-three. My own condition stems from a hectic bout of rheumatic fever, when I was a boy."
"You could've fooled me. Your grip's still that of a younger man...I can vouch for that when you helped me up."
"I'm supposed to avoid sudden strain. I've had a couple bad attacks recently. They say, one more could do it. But no use getting morbid about it."
"You've been locked up for thirty years?"
"Thirty-two to be exact. I come and go as I please now."
"They let you out of this place, and you keep coming back."
"That's right. I don't have any place else to go...since mother passed away"
"Chathurst isn't the end of the world. Why didn't you run away?"
"I'll leave the running to younger men like you. But let me continue. Maybe then you'll understand."
"Please do."
"I was once a Catholic priest."
"You!...a priest?"
"You're surprised. Does this mean you're Catholic?"
"Used to be."
"That explains why you're here. You know the teaching of the Church...once a Catholic...always a Catholic."
I didn't like the way our conversation was going. I didn't want to talk about anything Catholic. That was all behind me. I was free now. No drop out priest was going to get into my head again. It was so difficult to erase the programming of my youth, I didn't want to risk listening to his judgement about my decision.
"You going to tell me about yourself, or are we going to argue about the Church?"
"Please be patient. I haven't spoken like this to anyone for many years. If you prefer, I'll try to avoid talking about Catholic ideas, but you've got to understand, I was a priest."
He stood up beside his bed and walked to the window and looked out. Flicking some of the snow off the sill, came back, and pulled out the straight back chair from the front of his small table used for meals.
"I was a terrible priest John. I should never have gone through with it. Just before my father died, he made me promise I would stay in the seminary, and be ordained. Both he and mother were devout Catholics. I was their only child, and they would have given anything to have me become a priest."
He stood up and smacked his fist into his other hand. "Mother's the one who had the vocation...not me."
This image of his mother made me recall how I had fought against parents' attempts to recreate themselves in their children. It was as if I was telling my story, feeling the pangs of frustration when living a lie. "Why did you go through with it then?"
"I didn't have the guts to quit. The longer I stayed in the seminary, the more difficult quitting became. The training is arduous...working when it's time to work, and playing when it's time to play, gave me a well rounded life. Honestly John, seminary life is pleasant. But unfortunately the time comes when you have to leave that all behind, and go into the world. After seven years of intensive training in Philosophy and Theology I was supposed to be prepared as a secular priest to begin saving souls.
"The part which was to influence my later life the most, was the summer vacations away from the seminary. We were given three months off, to get a job and work among people whom we would be serving as priests. A good priest should be able to be among the people of the world and yet not a part of it. This summer employment was considered an extension of our training."
"Wait...I don't understand. How could your summer vacations make any difference in your later life?"
"It was then I discovered life had new meaning for me. We were supposed to continue our spiritual devotions, but not me. I was a fraud...a real phoney. I stopped going to morning Mass and Communion. Summer gave me the chance to live it up. I wanted to enjoy all the things I would be missing...particularly as a celibate. For the first time, I realized what having a woman means to a man. They complete his nature. Man without woman, is only half a man."
"Why did you continue training for the priesthood, knowing you felt this strongly about women? You knew you had to take a vow of celibacy."
"It was wrong, I know."
"But why? I can understand a man trying out the religious life, and finding it's not for him That's when I would expect a normal man to give it up. But you went ahead with it, knowing you could never be a good priest."
"I had promised my father on his death bed."
"To hell with promises. What do you think he'd say if he knew you deliberately became a religious fraud? Do you think he'd be proud of you?"
"There was mother to think about. She'd become so morose when father died. My becoming a priest was the only hope she had left."
"God damn your excuses. What kind of a man are you?"
"Please John...try to understand the predicament I was in."
"More excuses...You're nothing but a hypocrite...the worst kind."
Gregory walked slowly to the window uncomfortable with my harsh criticism.
"I've come across lots of religious weirdos like you, and the very thought of them makes me sick to my stomach. You hide behind your clerical garb, enjoying the best of both sides, bible punching your way to hell. If I ever get out of here, I promise I'll do whatever it takes to destroy all you filthy bastards, even if it costs me my own life."
Gregory returned to his bed, and dropped heavily on it, covering his face with his hands. "I'm as bad as all that?"
"It's not just you. It's all those fiends who pretend they know something special about a so called God, and infect the minds of the masses with their insidious creations. God did not create man. There is no need for a Creator. All things have always been and will always be. It's man's own reluctance to accept his mortality, which has spawned this super creature who holds us in existence by an act of his will. How stupid is mankind. Man creates this Almighty and he gives him the right to steal man's most precious faculty, his mental freedom. And what is even worse, these powerful leaders ingrain their concepts in the minds of the young before they have had the chance to develop their own critical thinking. And when these unfortunate victims of the 'great-lie' grow up, they believe they're serving the greatest good, when they attack and capture a free-thinker like me, and turn me over to their heinous god-makers, to be their prisoner."
He was visibly annoyed by my attempt to condemn my unlawful capture.
"If you would rather I not continue...?"
"I'm sorry Gregory. I think you will understand why I'm so irate when I tell you my story. Please continue."
"I was going to quit in my final year at the Seminary...Two of the seniors who were to be ordained that spring, had more courage than me and dropped out. Mother visited me more frequently, telling me about all the plans for my first solemn High Mass in our parish Church. She was radiant with joy...I couldn't deprive her of this happiness.
"As the fateful day drew closer, my life became pure hell. I hadn't told anyone about my indecision. God how I prayed for grace...for Divine guidance. The night before my ordination ceremony, I found a white envelope on my bed, stating, "With God's will and the desire of your Bishop, with the grace of the Holy Spirit, you are called to receive the Sacrament of Holy Orders.
"I went through with it. Along with regular vows a priest must make, I also swore to God to do my utmost to be a Holy Priest. I really meant it."
"You sure have made a lot of promises," I said.
"I guess I have...at the time I made them, I was convinced I could fulfill them."
"I know what you mean. I guess most people are like that."
"Like a man who is the victim of habitual sin. He promises to do better, but he continually confesses the same sin. Down deep he knows it wont work."
"The old, repent or not be forgiven ploy you priests are great at using to keep Catholics under control."
"Something like that...My first few years in a parish were good, and I tried to be a devout priest. I struggled to control my sexual yearnings, and as the books say, sublimated my base desires, by swamping myself with work. But the more I did, the more I knew I was reaching the breaking point. My pastor, a much older man, saw I was becoming rundown and irritable. He insisted I take a rest, and go on a cruise on the Great Lakes. Little did he know he was putting me into an occasion of sin."
"There you go again..'occasion of Sin.' Got to hand it to you Gregory, you sure bought the whole ball of wax. The Church has so many convenient phrases like that, which captivate the very essence of our minds."
"The cruise was the start of my troubles. I met a woman I'd known during my summer vacations. She was exceptionally beautiful. Carol and I had made love in the past, and when I saw her again, I just couldn't pull away. She knew I was a priest, and she was very discrete about it in front of the other passengers. That night, when the dancing began, she came to my cabin. She was ravishing, standing in the doorway of my cabin. All she said was, 'Greg! Is it really you? I can't believe it. Sitting alone, in your cabin, praying. This isn't the Greg I knew. You could at least ask me in, or do you think I'm too dangerous?'
"There was someone coming along the deck, and I didn't want them to see us talking, so I pulled her into my cabin, and closed the door. The heady fragrance that radiated from this marvellous creature made me feel weak. I could feel my blood racing through my limbs, quickening my breathing.
" 'Well Father Gregory, this is more like it.'
"As she pressed closer, I could feel the warmth of her breast through my dark vest. She put her arms around me, and let her hands fall gently on the small of my back, then she tightened her caress and whispered. 'This suit you're wearing...this black suit with the white collar...I hope you're not going to let it come between us, my darling Gregory.'
"She smothered my answer with her delicious kisses. The back of the black sheath she was wearing, opened easily, and slipped from her smooth shoulders to a soft mass at her feet. Her black lace panties and half bra tried so inadequately to contain her passion. Soon, these flimsy garments sank to the floor of my cabin, and the vision of her naked loveliness attacked my mind and body. I wanted her more than eternal life. It was a delightful sin.
"She came to my cabin every night for the remainder of the cruise. My conscience was driving me mad, but my body had renewed vigour. When the time came to return to my priestly duties, Carol begged me to run away with her, and give up the spiritual life.
" 'Now that I've found you again Greg, I'll never let you go. If only I'd known before, what you were doing with your life, I would've stopped you. You're my life my wonderful darling. I'll never give you up. Not even to God.'
"Her threat terrified me. I fantasized her standing up, in my congregation, pointing at me and shouting, 'Your priest is my lover.' She promised to keep our secret, if I'd tell her where I lived. I knew I was asking for trouble by consenting to her demands, but it was all I could do.
"She was discrete about our affair in the beginning. As time went on, she became more shrewish. I felt sure some of the parishioners suspected. The anxiety of being found out, plagued me constantly. She came to Mass, and listened to my sermons. When we were alone, she would ridicule me. 'You're a born salesman Greg. You had them sold on that Heaven and Hell crap. Wonder what they'd say if they knew their saintly priest was a devil's angel...a Judas priest.'
"Her constant criticism got to the point where I despised her. I had my fill of the flesh. I was willing to give it all up and try my damnedest to be a good priest. I decided to tell Carol I wanted to end it. We met in the park across from the Church, after Friday night novena services. As she entered the parish car, the interior light flashed on, revealing her marvellous face. She slid across the seat and put two cigarettes between her lips. 'Light me.'
"The flame flickered yellow streaks across her smooth cheeks and cast a shadow beneath the fullness of her sensuous mouth. She placed one of the cigarettes in my mouth and tossed her head back and exhaled languorously.
" 'What's my little saint going to do? Preach to me?'
"She leaned over to kiss me. I turned my head away. 'Well this is a new twist. Doesn't the good father like Carol's kisses anymore? What's happened? Made some new resolutions?'
"I didn't reply to her taunting. Her remarks made my face burn. I still loved her, but I couldn't stand what was happening between us. ' What's going on anyway? Don't tell me you're starting to believe that stuff you've been preaching.'
"Carol. Please...I'm all mixed up.
" 'Of course you are. No one expects to live a double life like this, and remain sane. Give it up Greg. Let's go away together. God will understand. He made us this way didn't he? '
"Stop it Carol. Stop ridiculing God. Maybe if you went away for awhile. It would give us both a chance to take another look at our lives.
" 'Go away...leave you. You're not getting rid of me that easily lover. ' "
"Stop it Carol. Stop making fun of me. I can't stand it anymore.
" 'Here's something else you better get used to father. What would you say if I told you you're going to become a real father. '
"Oh my God...!
" 'A little late for prayers my sweet. I'm pregnant. Just try to send me away, and I swear, I'll shout it from the highest steeples, 'Your priest has fathered my child.' "I'm not sure what happened after that. All I remember, is my hands, my consecrated hands, crushing her soft, warm throat. She slumped lifelessly on the seat beside me.
"I raced to the hospital with her strangled body and carried her into the emergency room. Her beautiful head hung loosely over my arm, and the sensitive fingers, that had given me so much pleasure, flapped carelessly against my body. I couldn't believe she was dead. I shouted at the sister on duty, 'Save her. You've got to save her. She is my life...my love. We're going to have a baby, but no one must know. Oh God help us.'
"The police were gentle in their treatment of me. The resulting scandal killed my mother. Religious bigots across the country offered me money to write my memoirs, revealing the truth of what it's like being a priest. When it was over, I was declared insane and turned over to the Sisters of Faith."
He sighed deeply, and stood up again. "And that's that...Not very inspiring is it."
"I don't blame you for loving the girl. Why didn't you go away with her? Wouldn't that have been better?"
"Is one sin better than another? I don't know why I did it. I did it, and here I am."
Thank you Gregory."
"For what?"
"For telling me. It'll make it easier now for me to tell you my story."

View original art by William James Johnson at www.noozoon.com