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dilemma and his future.
     
    Sure it was odd that he had never dated a girl; that had raised a few suspicions.  But to go the rest of his life as a single guy?  Now that would be weird.  There was the army of course, he could become a lifer in the military and the lack of female companionship may go a little less unnoticed.  But living exclusively with men (albeit in uniform) would test his willpower.  And being found out while living exclusively with men… well best we not go there. 
     
    Eventually Gus decided on the priesthood.  After all, maybe that was why God designed him the way he was.  He would never have to get married, never have to explain why he had no interest in women.  He would only have to work on Sundays (or so he thought at the time).  And maybe he could even find some serenity from all of the shit that the ogres had put him through. 
     
    And with no more consideration than being an effective means to hide his dirty little secret, Gustavus Milliken sent a letter of application to Saint Thomas seminary in Duluth and was immediately accepted.
     
     
     
     
     
    3
     
    Moments like this always brought Father Milliken a moment of trepidation.  As the door snicked closed behind him the cherub face of – of – Corky, that’s it, Corky, looked up to him in awe. 
     
    The thought of the act he was about to perform (hoped to perform) wrestled with the sacred tenets of the cloth he had vowed to uphold.  And it was the cloth; the drab charcoal vestment that he wore day in and day out, the garment that offered a sense of security to impressionable altar boys (six of them by his current count), that now hid his engorged member.   But with each new boy the cloth became secondary to the driving force in his brain.  A force that was created in secluded woods and parks decades ago.  A force that refused to be denied despite his noble effort to cloak it in the career of the clergy. 
     
    He had not premeditated the encounter with the first boy.  Not at all.  It had—Well it had just happened.  Timmy Svenson was one of St. Mark’s altar boys.  A mousy lad if ever there was one.  Small for his age, elfish hair and features, but most strikingly, and truly a sad thing for Timmy, a crop of mottled pigment birthmarks covered most of his right cheek.  These weren’t the subtle marks that could be characterized as ‘cute’ or ‘distinguished’ by the nosy women who had once peered into his baby carriage.  This kid was downright ugly.  A first-time glance at the newborn Timmy would draw a hiss of breath from the curious hen with a ‘well, you can hope that he grows out of it’ followed by a hasty departure. 
     
    Timmy did not ‘grow out of it.’  He had to learn the hard way how to grow into it.  The awkward comments from cousins who came to visit.  The points and stares from townsfolk who saw him at the park or in the aisles of the Red Owl grocery store.  The taunts from the school kids:  “Hey mud face.  Take a bath!”  “Timmy, too bad the fireman didn’t rescue you sooner!”   And worst of all:  “Nigga!  Nigga!  Your momma’s a Jigga!”  Timmy’s mom was not a nigga or a jigga for that matter.  But she was a bitter woman.  Mrs. Svenson had little love for her unemployed bat-shit crazy husband and even less love for her blemished son who had been conceived by accident.    Yes, premarital sex was a sin but an abortion would put her at two strikes.  So she married the father, had the ugly kid and now was repenting in leisure.     
     
    Father Milliken first took interest in Timmy and his intentions were completely honorable.  He knew of the points and stares, had even overheard some of the barbaric taunts directed toward the poor boy.  But it was in the confessional that Gustavus Milliken gathered his most compelling reasons to reach out to the youngster. 
     
    To the average parishioner the confessional with its private doors and mesh windows is