Chapter 54
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The young man who worked at the range now prayed a lot. He hadn’t prayed much before he took the bullet in the head. The young man didn’t remember why he hadn’t thought it important to pray then. The young man was an orphan. When the inquiry into the shooting during the hold-up showed the bullet he had taken in the head came from one of the responding officer’s guns, the young man had still been in rehabilitation. The priests had not started to visit until after his lawyer was in serious negotiations with the City of San Francisco for an out-of-court settlement.
Then the priests had come to pray with him. He had been so alone and welcomed the company. Then his court appointed advocate, who was very religious, suggested that some of his considerable wealth, as a result of the out of court settlement, should be donated to the Church. And, they had helped him learn how to pray. The young man did not understand many of the words and when he tried to read the Bible he became very confused.
The priests became very upset when the young man told them he was equally moved by his comic books. They had tried to take his comic books away and the young man had become very angry so they stopped.
The young man left the Church and all the new friends he had made since the shooting. He was on his way back to his job at the pistol range. One of the priests, the one he had seen kneeling in front of the young boy and helping with his clothes in the bathroom, approached him.
“Charles. Do you have a moment?” The priest asked him.
Charles did not understand the question. Why would he have moments? Moments were small pieces of time, he thought. Charles had shoes and shirts and sometimes he would have cheeseburger. Charles really liked In-N-Out Burger. They didn’t upset his stomach like other burgers. Sometimes he would walk down to the wharf and….
“Charles, there is something the Church would like you to do for us.”
“I can’t give you any more money now. I have to wait until my next check from the trust fund,” Charles said as he turned to walk out through the door of the Church.
The priest laughed, a laugh like on the cartoons, and said, “No Charles, that is not what we need. We want you to help us. We need you to borrow something from the range for a day and then put it back. You would be helping God’s work and it would mean so much to the Church.”