My Priest

Abstract

My Priest Daniel J. Martin (bio) I was swimming naked in a hotel pool. The Green River flowed brown and heavy fifty feet away. The river's presence was palpable, the air dry and clean at 4,078 feet. My priest—may I call him my priest since he probably considered me his boy?—was back in our room. My priest, also a Catholic bishop, met me at the Denver airport. I spotted him in his black pants, black shoes, and white polo. He still looked like a priest. His hair was short and carefully combed. He was neat and thin, with Jack Benny posture. I was glad to see him. Pictures from the trip show me in a brown shirt with green and brown plaid pants, flared—total seventies. We drove west through the Rocky Mountains toward canyon country. My priest told me that his young companions on the river always rolled out his sleeping bag at night for him and packed it up in the morning and that I would do the same. I didn't think much of it: a simple job, a camp chore. I was an Eagle Scout. I had camped with my family and knew that camping included work. We all chipped in. It seemed fair, a payment for the privilege of floating down the Grand Canyon. We climbed into the foothills, and I saw the flying saucer house perched on a mountainside. From up there you could see everything that mattered. I imagined I could live a perfect life in a place like that. I felt minuscule in the mountains. I was mesmerized by their immensity, which I could not get my mind around, a texture that words failed—so steep that I had to push my head out the window to find the sky, my mind stumbling backward, the smell of pine and fir, resinous in the thinning air. It was seductive. The guys back home would have been envious. I wonder if some were asked ahead of me but said, no way not with him, or if their parents looked at two weeks with an adult male and said, we don't think so, probably not a good idea, making excuses so as not to offend the bishop. My parents never expressed any concerns. I loved the outdoors, loved rivers and camping. Few people get to float through the Grand Canyon. In accepting the priest's invitation, I must have constructed a mental boundary around my earlier experiences with this man. Had I blocked out the night with him in the rectory? Had I outrun the image of him chasing me around his sitting room? Had I squelched the sound of his laughter? Had I built a stone wall to block his salacious questions masquerading as confession? Or was I still conscious of these experiences and hoping they would not happen again? Maybe I recalled it all but had no way to explain to my parents why I did not want to be with this man. I kept the secrets. I don't know what accommodation my adolescent brain made. I agree with you. It doesn't make sense. [End Page 155] ________ We followed a river called Clear Creek, fed by rivulets rushing down the mountain. The highway braided with the river, trading sides of the valley. In Georgetown, Colorado, the old train tracks ran alongside. When we got to the Eisenhower tunnel at 11,000 feet, we stopped to stretch our legs. The snow in summer amazed me. Cars streamed by and tractor-trailers downshifted, before burrowing into the mountain. Whiffs of diesel tumbled on the wind, but I was still among the sharp peaks and thin air. It was beautiful. This is where the groping began again. The physical memory of this priest grabbing me from behind is more vivid than any mountain view or smell of pines. Not as a single memory but as a habitual feeling, a constant expectation yet always a surprise. A shock, an intrusion into my private space, a violation totally at odds with his uproar of laughter. It was like I had some magnet on my ass that attracted his hand whenever...