A few hours to run and joke with friends each week was Father West’s small break from the work of overseeing Catholic relief efforts from Bandung to Papua. Hash runs were his little sin of indulgence.
Having eaten all his longan fruit, West began his stretch while the newcomer hiked up the hill toward him. The air was oppressively humid and unmercifully hot, as it always was in this part of God’s vineyard. But the moist heat turned the mountain into a dense wall of green jungle in every direction. Banana, durian, and papaya grew wild on the hills. Locals often joked that a stray cigarette butt would produce a tobacco plant in a matter of days. It would probably not be long before longan trees began to sprout from the seeds he’d spit out. Countless varieties of flowers fed countless insects, and the insects fed countless birds. Lizards skittered through the foliage. Macaque monkeys hooted in the treetops. Between the buzzing, chirping, and howling, the place was as loud as it was lush.
In order to reach Father West, the newcomer had to take a long set of switchbacks, putting him within yards of a small group of shanties set back in the jungle along a fast-moving stream that tumbled down from the mountains. A dozen eyes watched from the shadows, waiting to see which way he would go.
The hares tried as best they could to lay the course through uninhabited areas, but Indonesia was densely populated with many living in dire circumstances. It was inevitable that they crossed paths with beggars. Father Pat carried a few thousand rupiah for that purpose. When approached by a group, he’d direct them to Catholic services — careful to keep his words secular in this fiercely Muslim country — but he didn’t have the heart to say no to an individual.
Runs were open to everyone. Newcomers gave the group someone else to poke fun at. Hangdog and angry-looking at the same time, with the countenance of a piece of coal, this one was a likely candidate.
“Hi,” the man said. “Is… this… the… Hash run?”
“It is,” West said.
“Thank God.” The man bent over, hands on his knees, panting from the short walk.
“Thank God, indeed.” West hoped his outward smile hid his inward groan. “Welcome on behalf of the Bandung Hash House Harriers. Budgy has the guestbook up next to the flags. You will need to sign in.”
The man stuck out a hand, still bracing against a knee with the other. He swallowed hard from climbing the short distance in the heat. The trail only got worse from here. Even walking was obviously going to prove a challenge for this one.
“Geoff… Noonan.”
“Father Pat West.”
“No shit?” Noonan said, still catching his breath. “You’re the priest from the pic on the website?”
“Indeed,” West said again.
“You look different,” Noonan said. “But I’m glad I found you. You’re the reason I’m here.”
West helped him sign in and introduced him to the rest of the group.
“I’m not Catholic,” Noonan continued, after introductions and Hash business was finished and the run began. He kept checking over his shoulder, addled about something. Burdened. The people who came to Father West were often that way. “I’m not anything, really,” he went on. “I mean, my wife drags me to church, but they don’t do formal confessions there. Still, I got some stuff I really need to get off my chest. It… I don’t know… It needs a pro. An American pro. You guys are good at confessions. Everybody knows it.”
West heaved a heavy sigh, repenting of his earlier impatience. As odd as this young man was, he’d come for help.
“I found you online,” Noonan continued. “I called this morning. The guy said I’d find you here. Can you do it? Take a confession, I mean.”
“Why don’t we just speak as friends?” West said. “If talking about things that bother you gives you comfort, then that is good enough for the time being. I am happy to listen.”
Noonan gave an emphatic nod. “Yeah,” he said, breathless with worry. “Yeah, I guess that would work.”
He spilled his guts for the next ten minutes, admitting that he’d been weak and slept with a Sundanese woman he’d met in a bar. For some reason, he made a point of saying that the woman wasn’t “all that good-looking,” as if cheating on your wife with a homely girl made it less of a sin. Noonan began to go into explicit detail about what he’d done with the woman. For a moment, West thought he might be one of those people who got some gratification from bragging about their behavior. Then Noonan began to weep in earnest, tears accompanied by the appropriate amount of flowing snot. Perhaps the sorrow was just over being caught, but it was sorrow nonetheless.
“I know I did wrong,” Noonan said, scuffing his feet in the loamy ground as he walked.
“The thing is,” Noonan continued. “It was all a setup.”
The way he said it made the hair on the back of West’s neck stand on end. “A setup?”
