ension, anger, helplessness--they had piled up on him, and now he was
feeling the after-effects. Vertigo, nausea, and the black confetti--a
bad spell. The whiskey--if he could only reach the whiskey. Then he
remembered he was receiving a Sacrament, and struggled to get on with
it. Tell him, old man, tell him of your various rottennesses and vile
transgressions, if you can remember some. A sin is whatever you're sorry
for, maybe. But Old Donegal, you're sorry for the wrong things, and this
young jesuitical gadget wouldn't like listening to it. I'm sorry I
didn't get it instead of Oley, and I'm sorry I fought in the war, and
I'm sorry I can't get out of this bed and take a belt to my daughter's
backside for making a puny whelp out of Ken, and I'm sorry I gave Martha
such a rough time all these years--and wound up dying in a cheap flat,
instead of giving her things like the Keiths had. I wish I had been a
sharpster, contractor, or thief ... instead of a common laboring spacer,
whose species lost its glamor after the war.

Listen, old man, you made your soul yourself, and it's yours. This young
dispenser of oils, substances, and mysteries wishes only to help you
scrape off the rough edges and gouge out the bad spots. He will not
steal it, nor distort it with his supernatural chisels, nor make fun of
it. He can take nothing away, but only cauterize and neutralize, he
says, so why not let him try? Tell him the rotten messes.

"Are you finished, my son?"

Old Donegal nodded wearily, and said what he was asked to say, and heard
the soft mutter of Latin that washed him inside and behind his ghostly
ears ... _ego te absolvo in Nomine Patris_ ... and he accepted the rest
of it lying quietly in the candlelight and the red glow of the sunset
through the window, while the priest anointed him and gave him bread,
and read the words of the soul in greeting its spouse: "I was asleep,
but my heart waked; it is the voice of my beloved calling: come to me my
love, my dove, my undefiled ..." and from beyond the closed window came
the sarcastic wail of a clarinet painting hot slides against a rhythmic
background.

It wasn't so bad, Old Donegal thought when the priest was done. He felt
like a schoolboy in a starched shirt on Sunday morning, and it wasn't a
bad feeling, though it left him weak.

The priest opened the window for him again, and repacked his bag. "Ten
minutes till blast-off," he said. "I'll see what I can do about the
racket