Jason looked around him for signs of Orville, the traumatized World War I vet. He thought maybe the guy went to the restroom, but that wouldn’t explain the missing trench knife, which was specifically designed as a killing instrument. He became aware of something under Orville’s bunk and crouched down.

When Jason knelt down to look under Orville’s bed, he saw the thin man lying on the floor with his knees pulled in. Orville had panicked eyes, open wide in fear. In his hand he gripped the trench knife, with his fingers laced through the brass knuckles, tip down, holding it close to his chest as one might cradle a child.

Orville slowly brought up a finger to his lips to indicate silence. “They’re coming under the wire!” he whispered.

“I’m here, Orville,” Jason whispered back. “You can count on me.” He crept under his own bunk and looked across the gap between the two bunks to watch Orville.

The two of them remained under their bunks for some time, while Orville looked warily around him, trying to make out enemies in the dark. He kept the knife close to his chest, until he fell asleep in the fetal position. Jason told himself he would keep an eye on Orville all night, making certain he didn’t hurt anyone with his knife, but he fell asleep in spite of himself.

“Father Jason! What are you doing on the floor?” Grady asked.

Jason woke. He looked directly across from him, where Orville had crawled under his bunk last night, but the man was gone. Jason crawled out from under his bunk and sat for a moment. “Oh, I was having back problems, must have pulled something during a workout. Someone told me that the floor is the best place to sleep if you’ve got a bad back. I thought it was hokum, but my back feels better than ever.”

Jason got up and yawned, reaching high with his hands, before massaging his lower back. He hoped his story at least seemed plausible. Orville wasn’t in his bunk, which worried him. Jason slipped on his shoes and put on his shirt. He was putting in his coat when he asked Grady, “Where’s Orville?”

“He dusted out, headed north down Millard.” Grady pointed north helpfully.

Jason raced down the stairs, then ran across the lawn and onto the street, where he caught up with Orville, who was walking briskly down Millard Avenue.

“Orville!” Jason shouted and pulled up alongside the man. “Where are you going?”

“Nowhere.” He tucked his head down and plowed ahead.

“You don’t have to leave.” Jason noted Orville’s hands were in his pockets and wondered if he held the trench knife.

“After what happened last night? You think I’m screwy.”

“Wait a minute, Orville, just hear me out.” Jason pleaded. “I spent the night on the floor, too, so maybe we’re both screwy.”

Orville stopped and scratched his beard. He looked down, refusing to meet Jason’s eyes.

“People call it shell shock, but now scientists call it PTSD. You went through trauma that a human mind isn’t meant to handle, and so you’re going to relive what happened. You have no control over it and can’t stop it on your own.”

“I almost got it,” Orville protested. “It’s just that I feel weak sometimes.”

“You’re not weak. You’re one of the strong ones if you’ve made it this far. Some of those who went through what you did, killed themselves because they couldn’t handle it. You’ve seen that, haven’t you?” Jason took a step to the side to make eye contact with Orville.

The thin man breathed out suddenly like a hiss. “Yeah. Charlie. Walked right out into no man’s land like he’s taking a stroll in the park. Walks right toward the krauts like he’s going to pay grandma a visit. Jerrys didn’t want to shoot him, but figured they had to. One shot, just one shot. They held their fire when we went out to get his body and carried him back to the lines.”

The wind whipped through the bare trees and blew leaves down the sidewalk as the two men stood silently.

“I can’t stop you from going to the next shelter, and the next, but you’ll never be free of this until you get some help. Otherwise it’s going to haunt you forever.” Jason remembered the monkey’s words, “Men don’t want help.” “You’re always welcome at St. Michael’s.”

Orville abruptly spun around and continued walking.

“Orville!” Jason called out after him. “Wanna give me the knife?”

The slender man tucked his head down lower and kept walking.

It hadn’t taken long for Jason to realize that the Midas Game wasn’t a Hallmark movie, or a sitcom with a golden moment where everything gets wrapped up neatly. The men were alcoholics, often alcoholics with mental problems, who came and went as they pleased, resisted attempts to help them, and often ended up dead. If you worked with homeless men, you couldn’t go into it thinking you were going to get happy endings, where the guy hugs you with tears in his eyes, cleans up and becomes a family man—you did it because helping people was the right thing to do.

Jason headed back to the rectory to change into his sweats. He was going to do some running.

* * *

“I feel like Hamlet,” Jason told his grandfather. He rested in the other seat in his grandfather’s living room, having put on his sweats so he wouldn’t stain the chair’s nice upholstery. “I love my mom, but I’m disappointed in her. I ran into her and her new husband Gary after church, and I don’t dislike the guy, it’s just that he has the personality of a damp dishcloth.”

Gramps raised his hand high like an actor in a melodrama. “Frailty, thy name is woman.”

Jason looked at his grandfather in surprise. “That’s a quote from Hamlet. Not one person in a hundred can quote Hamlet, except maybe say, ‘To be or not to be, that is the question.’”

“We read the play in high school with Ms. Benson. Some things you just remember.” Gramps looked off as though recalling a memory.

“Just about the time I think I know everything about you, you surprise me.” Jason decided to drop down and stretch out his legs.

“Remember, it’s the mating dance, so be slow to put labels of right and wrong, good and bad, on people.” Gramps yanked up the lever of his recliner and rocked backward so that he leaned back at a slight angle. “Because it’s your mother and father, it’s hard to take it impersonally. It’s hard to see that if you were her, you might do the very same thing.”

“It’s not dad’s fault he got hurt on the job.” Jason took a long drink of his water, which he desperately needed after his workout, and leaned into his stretch.

“That’s the way it goes, unfortunately. A guy thinks she married him because she loves him, and she’s as attracted to him as he is to her.” Gramps took a sip of his drink, another rum and soda.

“And money has nothing to do with it,” Jason interjected.

“It’s like you can read my mind,” his grandfather observed with a smile. “But once he loses his job, or sees a marked drop in his earning power, his wife is the most likely to leave him.”

“But…” Jason started to protest.

“It’s statistical, a simple matter of fact that you can look up.” Gramps pointed to Jason with his drink. “And I’m not making a value statement or any kind of judgment—that’s just how it is.”

“On a different subject,” Jason began while switching legs, “I haven’t had the chance to ask the monkey this, and if I ask you, it saves me a dime.”

Gramps laughed. “I’m afraid the game has taught you too well how to save money. Go ahead.”

“After the two sisters at the rescue mission confronted me, I told them I wanted them both. They stormed off and I thought it was over.” Jason shook his head and leaned forward to grab his heel. “But they came back, and even took their sexual performance up a notch. Is that just the game throwing me a carrot?”

“No. Any time you stand firm with a woman, call her out on her bullshit, refuse to commit or get married, there’s always the chance you’ll lose her, which is why most men fold like a cheap lawn chair. But that’s the only play you’ve got, your only chance of saving a bad situation. If you’re going to keep her, you have to stand strong, even though you might lose her.”

“So the sisters could just as easily have decided to have nothing to do with me ever again?” Jason asked.

“Yes. When you’re dealing with women, there are no guarantees. For that scenario in the game, though, we wanted to reward and reinforce the right action.” Gramps leaned his head back on the cushions to relax his shoulders and neck for a moment. “But if you’re a beta, when it’s over, it’s over, and she has no interest in you. If you’re alpha, though, she’s more willing to keep your plate spinning, give you enough attention to have you available as an option.”

“And by ‘attention’,” here Jason did scare quotes, “you mean…”

“Women are often going to give you only as much sex as they think they need to get you in line with their agenda. I’ve had women in the Philippines start giving me oral sex to get me to commit.” Gramps had a dreamy look in his eyes, as though recalling a very pleasant memory. “If you find that all of a sudden she’s willing to do oral, anal, or some other act that you’ve wanted but she avoided, she may be pushing you in the direction of a commitment. The two women in the game don’t want to lose you, so they stepped up their performance to make you want to come back.”

Jason pulled his feet into a snowplow. He’d already down the stretch, but he was relentless in his training.

“How long has it been since you visited your father?” Gramps asked, and his look was one of concern rather than criticism.

Jason sighed. “Too long.” He dreaded it, but he had to go see his dad again.

* * *

“I’m sorry, Father Jason,” Maureen said, with anguish in her emerald eyes. “I hope you’re not still angry at me.”

Jason had just stepped out of his room after having changed into his sweats. “No, it’s not a matter of being angry. Your aunt and I were worried about you. The poor woman went through hell. I waded into a room full of the Rowdy Murphys, and they were all going to get a piece of you. They’re a criminal gang of violent alcoholics. There are so many ways that could have gone wrong, and Lord knows what might have happened to you.”

Maureen reached up with one white, freckled hand to gently touch the spot at the corner of his eye that was blackened. “What happened here?”

The sensation of her hand on Jason’s face made him feel as if he were connected to all the electricity in Manhattan. “Remember that room full of Rowdy Murphys? Everybody was throwing punches like a hailstorm, and one of them must have clipped me. It’s a miracle we made it out.”

“I’m sorry,” Maureen looked down, crossing her hands beneath her voluminous breasts. “I shouldn’t have got so drunk.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Jason reached over and patted her shoulder, then froze when he realized he was touching her. He pulled his hand back to his side. “Those guys are all hard-boiled toughs. You were out all day yesterday. They probably slipped you a Mickey Finn, so you thought you were going to have just one drink, and the next thing you know, the room is spinning.”

“I think you’re right; I was so sick yesterday, and I don’t remember anything.” Maureen gnawed at her lip. “Did I say anything crazy, like I was dizzy with you?”

Jason remembered her saying “I’d like to do fun, dirty things with you” as she leaned on him, pawing him, and the memory excited him, even if it was just the whiskey talking. Jason wanted to confront her with what she told him, and get her to admit that she liked him, but he knew the best play was to remain aloof, to let her stew in her own juices.

“You were drunk,” Jason said with a shrug. “You said a lot of things.”

Maureen wrung her hands nervously, and she looked gorgeous in her school uniform, including the red plaid skirt that showed off her legs in white hose.

“Maybe you think of me and your aunt like some people think about God, as a Mrs. Grundy, peeping through the blinds to bust you for breaking the rules.” Jason gestured to her with one hand palm-up. “But we want you to have fun. I’ve got a bottle of booze if you want to drink. We just don’t want you to get hurt, that’s all.”

Maureen held her books in front of her waist, and quickly glanced up at Jason before looking back down again.

“Father Jason,” Sister Mildred shouted from the ground floor. “Ya got a call!”

“Excuse me,” Jason said, and left the beautiful redhead on the terrace as he jogged down the stairs.

Sister Mildred handed the black phone to him, which was connected to the rotary phone body by a coiled black cord. “It’s Dr. Steinman’s office.”

Jason took the phone and spoke into the mouthpiece. “Yes, Jason Whitlock here.”

“Mr. Whitlock, this is Shirley with Dr. Steinman’s office. He’d like for you to come in at your earliest convenience.” The voice on the line was that of the sexy blonde receptionist.

Jason’s heart jumped. “There’s nothing wrong with me, is there?”

“Oh, no, Dr. Steinman has an opportunity for you.”

“Sure, I’ll be there after lunch.” Jason handed the phone back to Sister Mildred. He was about to go for a jog, but he had just one question. What in the hell did Dr. Steinman mean by an ‘opportunity’?”