"Cold turkey," he corrected. "Are you scoffing at a miracle?"
"People are always watching me, Brother," I said. "So now they do it
even when they aren't around. I should have known it would come to
that."
The pipe was suddenly a weight I wanted off me. I would try robbing
a collection box, knowing positively that I would get caught, but I
wasn't dumb enough to murder. Somebody, somewhere, would be a witness
to it. I had never got away with anything in my life. I was too smart
to even try anything but the little things.
"I may be able to help you," Brother Partridge said, "if you have faith
and a conscience."
"I've got something better than a conscience," I told him.
* * * * *
Brother Partridge regarded me solemnly. "There must be something
special about you, for your apprehension to come through miraculous
intervention. But I can't imagine what."
"I _always_ get apprehended somehow, Brother," I said. "I'm pretty
special."
"Your name?"
"William Hagle." No sense lying. I had been booked and printed before.
Partridge prodded me with his bony fingers as if making sure I was
substantial. "Come. Let's sit down, if you can remove your fist from
the money box."
I opened up my fingers and let the coins ring inside the box and I drew
out my hand. The bill stuck to the sweat on my fingers and slid out
along with the digits. A one, I decided. I had got into trouble for a
grubby single. It wasn't any century. I had been kidding myself.
I unfolded the note. Sure enough, it wasn't a hundred-dollar bill, but
it was a twenty, and that was almost the same thing to me. I creased it
and put it back into the slot.
As long as it stalled off the cops, I'd talk to Partridge.
We took a couple of camp chairs and I told him the story of my life, or
most of it. It was hard work on an empty stomach; I wished I'd had some
of that turkey soup. Then again I was glad I hadn't. Something always
happened to me when I thought back over my life. The same thing.
The men filed out of the kitchen, wiping their chins, and I went right
on talking.
After some time Sister Partridge bustled in and snapped on the overhead
lights and I kept talking. The brother still hadn't used the phone to
call the cops.
"Remarkable," Partridge finally said when I got so hoarse I had to take
a break. "One is almost--_almost_--reminded of Job. William, you are
being punished for some great sin. Of that, I'm sure."
"Punished for a sin? But, Brother, I've always had it like this, as
long as I can remember. What kind of a sin could I have committed when
I was fresh out of my crib?"
"William, all I can tell you is that time means nothing in Heaven. Do
you deny the transmigration of souls?"
"Well," I said, "I've had no personal experience--"
"Of course you have, William! Say you don't remember. Say you don't
want to remember. But don't say you have no personal experience!"
"And you think I'm being punished for something I did in a previous
life?"