Oxymoron

Oxymoron (ox-y-mo’-ron): Placing two ordinarily opposing terms adjacent to one another. A compressed paradox.

It was dreadfully fun. We made up a game where we used our whole town to play hide and seek. Those little walkie-talkie things had just been invented. They helped the seekers to coordinate their search and help keep hiders coordinated on their locations. It was great fun—we would hide in parked cars, the train station, the Catholic Church (open 24/7), the rest rooms at Friendly’s, trash cans, the park, the cemetery, and more. There was only one rule: once you hid, you had to stay where you hid: no moving around. The game would go on until 1 or 2 a.m.

I was hiding in the Catholic Church’s confessional one night—on the priest’s side of the curtain. Some guy with booze on his breath came into the confessional, sat down, and started to confess. He said “Forgive me Father, for I have sinned, and these are my sins.” “Ha ha. As a good Catholic boy, I knew the drill. I did not reveal myself as a kid playing hide and go seek. The penitent said: “I farted silently on the bus and didn’t excuse myself, I had impure thoughts about the girl who works at CVS Pharmacy, I murdered my wife and burned her corpse in my backyard, the check-out boy at Bounty Bag Supermarket gave me too much change and I kept it.

My heart was racing. I never expected to hear what I heard. But, I was playing a Priest, so I had to see it through. I told him to do 10 Hail Marys, 2 Our Fathers, and say The Rosary 200 times. He didn’t complain. Father Thorns couldn’t have done a better job. As a “Priest” I couldn’t turn the guy in to the police: it was the sanctity of the confessional. But, I wasn’t a “Priest.” I was Johnny Coogan: juvenile delinquent, troublemaker, handsome, and nearly every girl at Harmon Cardin High School had a crush on me.

I saw the man who confessed droning away at the altar as I left the church—it was my friend Morton’s father. I decided to tell Morton about his father’s murder of his mother. I violated the ONE RULE and went to find Morton. I found him hiding in a garbage can. I told him his father had killed his mother. Morton laughed. “I helped my dad. Ha Ha, just kidding. My dad is such a loser. He sits around all day drinking gin, smoking and watching TV. Mom caters to him like he’s a Prince: Prince Bill. He would never hurt my mom. She’s too nice to him. She makes his bed, feeds him, washes his clothes, etc. I mow the lawn and pick up the dog crap in the yard, little presents from our Poodle Prancer..” I asked Morton what his dad was doing at church. Morton said, “Two years ago after getting a prank phone call about his refrigerator running, he got the idea for prank confessions. He goes to Confession every Wednesday night and confesses to things he didn’t do. Two weeks ago he confessed to Father Thorn that he had dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. Father Thorn told him to say the Rosary 140,000 times. My father thought that was hilarious. Wednesdays are the highlight of Dad’s week. His fake confessions keep him going.

POSCRIPT

Father Thorn went to the weekly poker game where he joined his fellow priests from around the Diocese. They loved to share their parishioners’ confessions—from being disrespectful to their parents to sniffing their shoes. Then, Father Thorn told them about the “bombing of Hiroshima” and the penance of saying the Rosary 140,000 times. The laughter went on for a full ten minutes. Meanwhile, after two days Morton’s father had said the Rosary 112 times. He thought it was funny to do the penance.

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

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