Jason turned the knob and closed the door shut, as quietly as possible. Reaching up, he pulled down the leather thong attached to a bead chain, and the lightbulb went out with an uncomfortably loud click. He heard the uneven footsteps of the man, particularly the one orthopedic shoe with the thicker sole, which set down more heavily than the other foot. Keys rattled and clanked, and one was finally slipped into the keyhole. This was an era of skeleton keys, when keys consisted of a long metal shaft with a cut metal flange on one end, which was placed into a keyhole. Jason held onto the faceted crystal knob, and rested his knee on the doorjamb to give him leverage to haul back on the door.

Jason felt the janitor testing the knob, trying to turn it, but Jason anchored it in place with both hands, while hauling back with his upper body. A shadow passed over the keyhole, and Jason held his breath as the janitor peered into the closet to see if there was an obstruction.

The keys began rattling again outside the door, and maybe the janitor thought he had the wrong key. A second key entered the keyhole and twisted back and forth.

“Oh, Clarence,” a feminine voice called out, and Jason recognized it as Celia’s. “Maintenance is going to have to work on that closet—the bolt got jammed. You’ll have to use the one upstairs.”

“I told ‘em the whole floor needs to be rekeyed, but do they listen to me? Nah, who the hell is Clarence, never mind that I’ve been working here the last 32 years. If they listened to me the first…” The gruff voice kept speaking as the janitor climbed the steps, with one foot stepping and the other orthopedic shoe clomping, his grumbling voice becoming fainter until he couldn’t be heard distinctly.

Jason relaxed, and Celia opened the door, holding his clothes in front of her. Jason reached up to turn on the light with a downward yank of the chain. He lifted his gown off of his head; there was no sense in trying to untie the knot at the back of his neck. Her hands went down to his fat penis, and ran up and down its length. One hand slipped under his balls to massage them.

“I’d love to, but I’ve got to get the hell out of here while I still can.” Jason fished out his briefs from the stack of neatly folded clothes and slipped them on, then his trousers.

“Let me help,” Celia said as she knelt down with his socks and began slipping them over his feet. “What happened up there? There were bodies all over the floor, including Laura’s.”

“A satanic cult decided they needed the seed of a dead priest, and the only obstacle was the fact that I wasn’t dead yet.” Jason rolled his t-shirt over his head, then smoothed it down over his stomach. The shirt was next, even though he kept bumping into the janitor’s cart behind them. He buttoned up and tucked the tails of his shirt into his trousers before fastening his belt. Celia was putting on his shoes as he slipped on his jacket and fedora.

The short Puerto Rican woman shook her head, which caused her frizzy black hair to wave and bounce. “I don’t know how you’re still alive.”

Once his shoes were tied, Celia stood up so that her chest pressed into his chest in the tight confines of the janitorial closet. She pulled down her mask from her face so that it rested beneath her chin.

“I knew you were pretty,” Jason told her, and kissed her. His hands went down to her waist, which was narrow despite her round butt. He broke off the kiss and stared into her beautiful brown eyes. “Remember, you can’t tell anyone that you saw me. I need to disappear—my life is at stake.”

“Okay.” She embraced him, and when she squeezed his back she suddenly froze in fear, and leaned back to look at him. “Are you okay?”

He smiled. “I’m fine. Thank God it doesn’t hurt anymore.” He turned off the light, then opened the door a fraction to peek out. Seeing that it was clear, he started to leave, when he felt her hand on his shoulder.

“I’d like to see you again.” She looked up at him, with a ray of light falling through the gap in the doorway and lighting up a fraction of her face.

“I’d like that, too.” He slipped out and hobbled down the hallway, keeping his head down as he passed the reception desk. Jason was reminded of the scene in The Princess Bride, where the character was “mostly dead,” and thought it accurately described his lurching gait. Once outside, he passed the cab waiting at the curb, and avoided the driver’s attempts to hail him. If someone identified him as Jason Whitlock, and saw him walking, then he would be found and bumped off.

Jason limped as far as he could, avoiding cars and staying off of the main streets. If his legs were tired, that was better than having no feeling in them. He stopped in an alleyway, joining several bums who stood around a burn barrel. He could feel the warmth radiating from the barrel, and the wave of hot air rising from the rim, waving like a flag in a breeze, distorting his view of the brick wall behind it.

It was nearing daylight now, so Jason caught a cab to the St. Michael’s Shelter. He was walking over the grass as the sun rose, when he spied men leaving the dorm and walking across the grounds to the church basement for breakfast.

“…poisoned…sicker than a dog…probably won’t make it…hate to go out like that…”

“Excuse me,” Jason asked, but remained partially concealed by the tree. “Who got poisoned?”

“Dwight,” the man answered, and looked at the tree where Jason stood. “Who are you?”

“Where is he?” Jason asked, and pulled the brim of his hat down low.

“Suckers’ Hospital.” The man leaned over, then took a step. “Do I know you?”

Jason kept the tree between him and the men as he raced across the lawn with an odd, lopsided gait, to the main street of Fillmore, where he caught a cab for Perpetual Succor Hospital. When they arrived, Jason paid the cab driver, exited, and strode to the reception desk. “I’m looking for Dwight,” he told the receptionist.

“Last name?” She was poised to look down the list of names in her log book.

“I have no idea. He came here from St. Michael’s.” Jason looked around him nervously. What the hell happened to Dwight?

“Oh, the vagrant.” The light dawned on the receptionist. “He’s in Salon B.”

“Thanks.” Jason went to Salon B, which was a fancy name for a large room filled with cots. This was a charity hospital, and Dwight wouldn’t be the first homeless man to die here. Upon entering the room, Jason saw a mix of hospital beds and cots lining the walls, forming a square, with a desk in the middle for doctors and nurses. Jason spotted Dwight lying on a cot, and waved to him, but the man didn’t see him. Jason went to the doctor.

“About the man who was admitted last night, Dwight,’ Jason said. “What happened?”

“Alcohol poisoning. I’ve treated my share of alcohol poisoning, and now with the mayor’s liquor ban, poor people are resorting to the only booze they can afford, which is full of impurities. The guy came in last night, raving that Santa Claus was following him, threatening him with a baseball bat.” The doctor looked at Jason and there was a heavy sadness in his eyes. “But this is different. Someone put methyl alcohol into his bottle of hooch.”

“Is he going to make it?” Jason asked.

The doctor shook his head no. “Excuse me. Your friend’s not the only one.” He turned and went to a patient in the other side of the room.

Jason went over to Dwight’s bed and leaned over to greet him. “Dwight, it’s me.”

“Who?” The man looked up at Jason, but didn’t see him.

“Jason.” He rested a hand on the man’s shoulder, and realized that Dwight was blind.

“Jason…you mean Father Jason?” An expression of cheer broke over the man’s face.

“Yes.” Jason gave his shoulder a squeeze, then sat down on a chair beside the bed.

“But, Father Jason is paralyzed…I’m hallucinating again.” The brightness on his face left, and he sagged into the bed.

The sound of coughing and the occasional moan could be heard in the room.

“No, you’re not hallucinating. You recognize my voice, don’t you?” Jason scooted the chair up closer.

“How?” the man turned his head in Jason’s direction, with eyes that stared past him. “They said you’d never walk again.”

“To be honest, I didn’t think I’d walk again, but it’s a miracle.” Jason laid a hand on Dwight’s arm, and then leaned in. “Where did you get that bottle? Somebody’s going to pay.”

“The usual, the Flannigan Boys were sellin’ it off the stoop—they’ve got sources.” Dwight’s hand seized Jason’s. “Don’t leave me. I’m scared.”

“Don’t worry. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.” Jason assured him. The man had to know he was near death, had to be able to feel it in his gut.

“Would you hear my last confession, Father Jason?” Dwight asked, looking at Jason as if he could see the priest with his dull eyes.

“Certainly,” Jason said, trying to sound as confident as possible, even though he wasn’t Catholic and had only the vaguest idea what Catholics did in confession.

“My dad died and left the whole farm to my younger brother, Bobby. Everything. Every last damn cornhusk—excuse my language—and baling hook went to Bobby, my dad’s son by his second wife. He was soft on Lisa, and Bobby was his kid by her. I was furious. I told Bobby to go to hell. My own brother, step-brother nothin’. We grew up together, fished together, hunted pheasants together, swam in the creek and the irrigation canal together. It was Bobby that ran to the house to get help when I fell off the silage pile and broke my collarbone. I told him to go to hell.” Tears trickled down from Dwight’s blind eyes and fell onto the pillow.

“Mom died, and the world’s been a dark place ever since. Then dad met Lisa, and it’s like all of sudden he forgot mom ever existed. And perfect Bobby couldn’t do no wrong. I was just in the way. Couldn’t wait to give the whole fuckin’ farm to wonderful little Bobby.” Dwight swept a rough hand down over his face, wiping the tears from his eyes. “I couldn’t get over it. I drank and I cursed them. Every day I cursed little damn Bobby, cursed my dad. Go to hell, I told ‘em. Looks like I’m the one goin’ to hell.”

“Can you forgive your father, forgive Bobby?” Jason saw the anguish on Dwight’s face, and was glad that the man couldn’t see Jason, and wouldn’t know how transparent he was in his suffering. “I know your dad and your brother didn’t want you to be hurt, to be so bitter that you’d throw your life away. We’re all screwy in one way or another, and we often wind up hurting people just because of our weaknesses.”

“I don’t know if I can forgive ‘em.” Dwight looked off in the other direction, or appeared to. “I don’t know that they’d want my forgiveness, after all I said, all the times I cursed them both.”

Dwight’s vacant eyes stared at the ceiling. “Let me sleep on it.”

Dwight was soon asleep, and Jason found himself getting sleepy, too, from his fight for his life, his long staggering walk through New York City in the freezing cold, until he finally arrived here at Perpetual Succor to see Dwight, without any sleep at all. Jason leaned forward and rested his head on the bed.

Jason was awakened by…nothing. It was nothing he heard, not a sound, but an absence, and when he looked up at Dwight’s torso, which was right in front of his face, he saw that Dwight’s chest didn’t move. There was the slightest movement, and then became still again. Jason saw the doctor standing on the other side of the bed, and the man slid Dwight’s eyes closed.

“Who would poison a man like a dog?” Jason asked, and there were tears in his eyes.

“It’s no big mystery,” the doctor replied. “The Department of Health has taken over enforcement of the liquor ban, and they’ve decided the ends justify the means.”

Jason looked up at the doctor, and his face felt numb.

“They slip doctored bottles into the underground supply to discourage drinking. The idea is, people see someone die horribly from contaminated liquor, and decide to stop drinking.” The doctor snapped his fingers and pointed downward to Dwight’s body, at which point several orderlies wheeled a gurney in the direction of Dwight’s cot.

“I’m an angel of death—there are others,” Jason remembered Orville telling him, and a killing fury burned deep within him. Someone was going to die, and Jason felt like he was an angel of death.