Fiction Begins:
The newspaper crinkled in his fingers as his eyes fell upon the entry in the obituaries. That man - that animal was finally dead. As he reluctantly read about the "beloved Reverend", the cigarette he was holding lit the paper on fire. Unstartled, Stan watched the picture of the Father burn, amused.
That's what the basturd deserves, he thought to himself. "Maybe that's what he'll get," he said aloud as he threw down the paper and stomped out the flames.
Stan put on his coat and headed to the visitation and pay his respects, of sorts. Good riddens at least. His anger had cost him plenty over the years; all his hostility repressed at every turn, afraid to tell anyone what that man had done to him and so many other alter boys; angry he couldn't stop him.
He wasn't sure what to expect; he wasn't sure why he was actually going. The idea of seeing this man again made his skin crawl. But he was dead, and that was something he had been waiting along time to see.
"Stan?" a man said as Stan walked into the funeral parlor. It was Frank Palimone. Frank was a mob wannabe, down to his greased hair and gold chains. Only Frank wasn't Italian, for one, and for two he was rail thin, mousy.
Stan nodded, "What's shaking Frankie?" He looked around the room. Twelve men were looking at him; they were all there for the same reason.
"Guess that son of a bitch gets off easy", Frank began. "Kinda pisses you off, doesn't it?" Stan nodded his head as he moved towards the casket. The others watched him walk towards the front of the room; none of them had made it past the last two rows of chairs in the room. Several stood as Stan walked up the isle; a sign of support, solidarity.
Stan began to shake as he stood a few feet from the casket. The Father looked old, frail. Yet somehow he looked more evil; even in death the animal was hard to look in the face.
Stan knelt down, made the sign of the cross and for the first time in almost thirty years he did the closest thing to praying he could muster. With his hands intertwined, Stan thought of those years the animal had touched him, hurt him, poisoned his soul with abuse.
"I hope you are burning in hell," he whispered. "But just in case," Stan said aloud as he stood up and pulled a lighter out of his pocket. He flipped it open, lit it and threw it in the casket.
The linen caught instantly, Stan stepped back. "Burn, fucker, burn," Stan said. He turned and headed for the door. The other men were looking at him, nodding. They turned and began to follow Stan out of the palor. As they walked out past the nuns who were running into the room screaming, they held their heads a little higher.
Stan just breathed, kept walking.
It was a new day.
End Fiction
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