The Journalist by G.L. Rockey Read Free Book Online

the
proper forum for a former Meat Loaf TV sitcom star turned
preacher turned politician turned Commander-in-Chief—a
nineteen-inch TV. How far we have come , he thought.
    His attention meandered over his desktop
clutter to, opposite the desk three feet away, a worn brown
Naugahyde sofa. It was there that Mary lounged when visiting his
office. Too often , he thought.
    “Nuts.” He stood and went to a used end table
that was home to a yellowing used Mr. Coffee coffee maker. He
looked at the remains of yesterday’s coffee, thought about it,
paused.
    “Long night any way you look at it—make a
fresh pot.” He took the pot in hand and went downstairs to the
employee kitchen for water. When he returned, he prepared his
special seven-scoop brew.
    Mr. Coffee gurgling, coffee aroma beginning
to fill the office, he sat and studied the slow-turning ceiling
fan. The blades a gentle blur, he talked to the self he called
Jocko.
    Your blades were supposed to have been
smooth, balanced, wafting a steady stream of wisdom, advice and
sacraments to the unwashed sinners.
    “Fat chance, Jocko,” he sighed and, as usual
when this particular replay button got pushed, he kicked around his
estranged relations with the Church of Rome.
    Born into an Irish Catholic family, faith by
genetic infusion, somewhere around seven, visiting the funeral
parlor where his father had been waxed, suited and laid out, mother
grieving, some uncle said, He was a good man.
    “And around that moment I realized a
truth—everybody dies, good, bad or indifferent, including you,
Jocko. Problem is the who, what and why are we here and why is the
what after that, such a big secret.”
    The nagging secret that began that day,
persisted to the now, he recalled his parish priest, Father
Alfonso’s explanation: “That nagging, son, is the Holy Spirit
wooing you  a calling.”
    Agreeing with Alfonso, Zackary’s mother saw a
dreamlike vision of Zack in white collar, with water, blood and a
stained wooden cross all around. Then came the clincher. Zack,
failing tenth-grade Catechetical Curriculum, on the final he got an
A, Sister Ursula kissed his head, said, “A lead-pipe cinch, my boy,
a sign  ” Zackary had been chosen, called to
do God’s work. But he knew he had stolen a copy of the final
test.
    Nevertheless, twenty years later Bishop Riley
ordained him a Jesuit priest. Things went along fine for two weeks.
Then, third week on the job, he remembered thinking, “This is not
going to work.”
    That nagging had grown stronger, becoming a nightmare on some dead-end street , he thought.
    He put his hands behind his head and said,
“Nothing fell the way it was supposed to, Jocko, and how do you
know if the nagging is Father Alfonso’s priestly hope, a mother’s
vision or a Sister Ursula’s lead-pipe cinch?”
    He glanced at the sputtering coffeepot. “And
then came widow Elizabeth and the five-year tryst even a torrid
novel writer couldn’t imagine.”
    The coffee brewed, he took his black stein,
poured a cup, sat again at his desk and sipped. So here we are, he
thought, having struggled for to many years with beliefs, organized
religion, and the flesh, you come to realize that the struggling in
itself is a sign.
    Kierkegaard came to mind, I must find a
truth that is true for me. The idea for which I can live or
die.
    What did he know? Crazy eggheads, him,
Nietzsche—all of them were screwy, one way or another. There is no
sign. Aquinas came up with quinque viae , five ways to know,
that generated still more uncertainty. Five ways to know but fifty
ways to doubt. The gut that says yes, the mind that says no. He
looked up, “And why all the secrecy from the Sign-Maker?”
    He wiped his face with his hand. In boxing it
was simple. Knock the son-of-a-bitch down before he nailed you. Cut
and dried, no signs. But this spiritual combat is all left hooks
in a ring with no ropes.
    The video phone rang. He looked at the caller
ID. O’Brien. His mouth drying, he