The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell(33)

“No, Father.”

“You look as though you’ve hurt yourself quite badly.”

“Yes, Father.”

“And I’d like to ask you, Samuel. How is it that you sustained your injuries?”

I could not help it. My gaze shifted to David Bateman. He had his eyes pinched nearly shut in a subtle warning. I tried to swallow, but the lump caught in my throat.

“You may speak freely, Samuel. I assure you no harm will come to you here,” Father Brogan said.

Bateman’s eyebrows furrowed.

“I . . . I fell off my bike,” I said.

Sister Beatrice and Mrs. Bateman appeared to exhale in unison, but Father Brogan grimaced as if pained.

“Are you sure about that, Samuel?”

Now I was really in a dilemma. I knew it was wrong to tell a lie and could only imagine that to tell one to a priest was a one-way ticket to hell. I didn’t want to take another pummeling from David Bateman, but I also didn’t want to burn for all eternity. I fretted a moment before seeing a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. I had fallen from my bike and cut my hands and knees, and that was all that Father Brogan had really asked.

“I had a bike accident,” I said.

“Well, we’re all very sorry about that,” Mrs. Bateman said, though she didn’t sound very sorry.

“Silence yourself, woman,” Father Brogan said.

Mrs. Bateman flinched. It was as if the temperature in the room had suddenly dropped twenty degrees.

“David,” Father Brogan said, looking to Bateman, “now I’m going to ask you. And I want you to think very carefully about the answer you are about to give. Are you prepared?”

Bateman nodded.

“Did you have anything to do with Samuel’s injuries today?”

That was an entirely different question, one I was glad I did not have to answer. I leaned forward, as did my mother, who had folded her hands in her lap, her knuckles white. The air between the two sides of the table seemed to crackle.

David Bateman never paused. “No.”

Whatever happened at this point, I felt satisfied that Bateman was going straight to the fires of hell.

Father Brogan’s lips pinched together. Then he asked, “Are you absolutely certain of your answer?”

“I didn’t touch him. It’s not my fault he can’t ride a bike.”

Father Brogan considered an eight-and-a-half-by-eleven-inch piece of paper on the table, smoothing it with his hands. When he looked up, he found my eyes. “I grew up in Dublin in a very large family. My mother could not be there for all of us. Not all the time. And my father worked every day, it seemed, very hard. I remember quite clearly the day when I first understood that. I’d been out playing with my brother Favian when three boys attacked us. We didn’t have much of a chance, Favian and I. We weren’t cowards, mind you, but they were sufficiently bigger and stronger to make easy work of us. When we got home, our mother grew angry because we’d ripped our school pants in the knees, and we didn’t have the money for new ones. When we explained the situation to her, she told us we should have come home and changed our pants before going out to play, as she had told us many, many times before. Then she demanded our trousers and went in search of the needle and thread without so much as a word about the condition of our faces, which looked very much like yours, Samuel.”

Looking back now, I had a sense of where Father Brogan was going with his story, and I remember listening intently.

Father Brogan sighed. “I felt as if my mother had abandoned me and my brother. I know now that was not the case. But that night I went to bed hurt and angry at her and at my father. With age and maturity, I came to realize she had no choice in the matter; she had eleven of us to raise. As it was, she ate every meal with a child over her knees and another in the bassinet. She couldn’t run out and fight our battles for us. We had to fend for ourselves, even the battles we knew we couldn’t win. So, you see, I can tolerate much, and I know how boys behave. It takes a big man to stand up to a bully and an even bigger man to take it.”

I felt both proud and anxious. I knew Father Brogan was paying me a compliment of some sort, but that also meant he knew I was lying, and I could feel the fires of hell tickling the soles of my feet.

“Any man can raise his fists and fight. But it takes a special kind of man to take his beating without complaint, to not rat out another to save himself.” Father Brogan turned his attention to David Bateman. “What I can’t stand is a liar.”

“I can assure you, Father Brogan—” Mrs. Bateman began.

“And I can assure you, Mrs. Bateman, that your son is a liar.” Father Brogan had grown red in the face. His eyes blazed. I couldn’t imagine any boy capable of beating him up, and I was certain Father Brogan put up one heck of a fight in defeat.

Mrs. Bateman bristled. “He’s nothing of the sort.”

This time Mr. Bateman joined her, mumbling, “Outrageous.”

“Outrageous?” Father Brogan slapped the table with the palm of his hand. “I’ll tell you what is outrageous, sir. What is outrageous is for three boys, each twice the size of another, to beat him until he can stand no more. You are a coward, David Bateman. A coward. And the only thing I can stomach less than a liar is a coward.”

“See here, Father,” Mr. Bateman said.