True Confession

Chas had a heavy conscience, something he couldn't shake, so he stopped in his boyhood church, where he hadn't been for years. He wandered around, then got up the courage and entered the confessional. "My God," he thought, "it's been a long time." Instead of the dark closet with a kneeler and a small screen, he now saw, in wonder, a large room with a huge flat screen TV, a mini-fridge, which upon further inspection was stocked with Goebel beer, a laptop with wi-fi capability, and next to that same small screen, a comfy recliner. He sat down, thinking, "Who knew? I gotta try this confession thing more often." Just then he heard the screen open on the other side.

"Yes?" In just one syllable, it all came back to him, the resonant voice of Fr. McGillicuddy, the man who had baptized Chas, gave him his first communion, heard his first several dozen confessions, confirmed him, married him, baptized his kids, and--unless he watched his cholesterol more carefully, thought Chas--might end up burying him.

"Bless me Father, for I have sinned. From the looks of things," Chas looked around the spacious, well-equipped confessional "box" once more, "it's been a very long time since my last confession."

"You're on the wrong side, my son, but I forgive you. What's on your mind?"

Irish bastard, Chas thought to himself, then remembered where he was and why he was there. "Father, I live a pretty good life, but yesterday I lost all control and swore up a storm. Really took the Lord's name in vain. I'm sorry."

"Tell me about it, my son." Admittedly, Chas hadn't seen or talked to Fr. McGillicuddy in a few years, but he could swear the old priest's brogue was thicker now than ever.

"Well, I was playing golf, and I was going along great, probably the best round in my life. I come to the 18th hole, needing just a par to break 75. It's a long par four, woods on the left, water on the right and in front of the green. I stand over the ball on the tee, visualize a great shot, keep my tempo, and murder the ball. High and long, right down the middle of the fairway, 280, maybe even 300 yards. And it comes down right on a sprkinkler head and bounces dead left right toward the woods."

"So that's when you swore, eh?"

"No, I kept my calm. Just watched the ball rolling towards the woods when out of nowhere a squirrel appears and puts the ball right in its mouth and starts running back toward the tee, like he was a dog playing fetch."

"Ah, so that's when you swore, right son?"

"No, because right then a huge hawk swooped down out of nowhere and grabbed the squirrel and flew off with him, the ball still in the squirrel's mouth."

"Now of course, that's when you swore, didn't you?"

"No, it was so majestic, and unbelievable. The hawk actually started flying back up the fairway, hugging the right side, like a draw shot that's not quite drawing. And then close to the green, suddenly he drops the squirrel right over the water, like his mission all along had been to drown the squirrel."

"No doubt about it, hunh? You swore then."

"No, I was kind of feeling sorry for the squirrel at that moment, watching him fall out of the sky right over the water. But just before he hit the water, the ball flies out of his mouth."

"Say no more, my son. That's when you swore, for sure. You're only human."

"No, amazingly, the ball hits a rock sticking up from the water--it's a very well-manicured, aesthetically pleasing course--and the ball, Titleist Pro-V 3, if that matters, ricochets out of the water right onto the green and stops two feet from the hole."

There was a long silence. Chas rocked a bit in the recliner, still amazed by the whole thing. Then he thought maybe the old priest had fallen asleep or something worse, the silence was so long and, well, quiet. Then slowly, from through the screen, Chas heard a slow exhalation of breath.

"Ah, sonabitch, you shithead. You missed the goddamned putt, didn't you?"

Chip Taylor & Carrie Rodriguez-Confessions