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lewis-winters · 6 months

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eucharistia (this is how meat loves meat)

In Rachamps, just before Easy is sent to Haguenau, Eugene Roe brings Babe Heffron to Father John Maloney for his first confession in seven years.

Jesus said to them: "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him." John 6:53-59, NABRE

read it on ao3

tw: Magical Realism, Horror, Religion as Justification for Unhinged Behavior, Catholicism, Catholic Imagery, Bastogne, Canon Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Blood & Gore, Depictions of a Corpse, Cannibalism

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“Forgive me Father, for I have sinned,” says the boy with hair like copper and a face white as a sheet, kneeling before me. He breathes deep, breathes slow, then looks to his companion who guards the door of this little hide-away. A boy of even paler complexion, who nods in encouragement. A small, minute movement that somehow takes from him a great toll. His dark head bows with the weight of it.

Disturbed by this image, the boy quickly continues: “I haven’t confessed since I was fifteen. I’m twenty-two now. It’s been seven years.”

“That’s alright.” Silence. Nervous, jittery silence. “Go on.”

More silence. Long and dark and cold and damp, the cavernousness of this large and leaky house of God echoing each drip and drop of water across empty space. Empty. Like nobody’s home.

“I’ve done so many things,” the boy says, tipping his face into his hands in despair. “So many, Father.”

“Don’t name them all. We’ll be here all night.” An attempt at good humor. “Just the ones that have brought you before me.”

“Oh, Father,” says the boy, in a whisper that sounds like a wail. “Father. I kept my promise.”

“That doesn’t sound like a sin.”

No, says a voice from the depths of the boy’s eyes. A wailing, lamenting voice, a darkness that threatens to crawl forth from the open wound of his face, and reach out to me with cold, blood-damp hands. No, Father, you don’t understand.

“Make me,” I say, taking his face in my hands and holding it steady. “Babe, tell me what you did.”

His watcher has closed the door on us now. All of us. He stands before it, weight against the wood, hands behind his back. His head is still bowed, upper body almost perpendicular to the stone floor, but his eyes meet mine. Deep blue so dark it’s almost black, staring out from behind a dark brow. Piercing. Waiting. “Go on, Heffron,” he says, voice a deep, unwavering thing. The voice of an Angel. “Don’t be afraid.”

“Don’t be afraid,” I echo. But not for him.

Sprawled against the walls, our shadows continue to flicker.

Babe tries again. “Forgive me, Father. For I have sinned. It’s been seven years since my last confession. My sins—”

Are many. Too many.

“But this one—”

The night he’d gone back for him was clear and bright, the clouds of Bastogne disappearing, momentarily, laying the already barren world of snow white and cold even more bare, absent of the broken shadows of looming trees and the shape of men beyond the mist. Even the looming cold that had settled into their bones seems to have alleviated, somewhat. Still there, but suspended, momentarily, as the fog lifted and Bastogne became just another forest.

But the dread remained. So deep in the marrow of them all that it pulled him out of dreamless sleep; roused suddenly in his shallow grave-bed and forced into the nightmare of this tangible unreality, an endless waking, by the familiar urge to rungotta go get him sir rundangerrun take him with us runrunrunRUN—

And a voice, beyond the light of the moon.

“I felt it, Father. Like… Like I was on one end of the rope, and he was on the other. Pulling me toward him. He showed me where to go, Father, you gotta believe me. I was being led—”

Like a lamb to the slaughter.

No.

Like a pilgrim to his god.

Through snow drifts and trees, down familiar paths made unfamiliar through the sudden clarity of pale moonlight. He found the broken body soon enough. Just where they had left it, earlier that day, but this time devoid of all material things.

The Germans had stripped him, just as he had feared. Taken with them trophies of olive-green pelt, rifle antlers, and silver dog tag bones. What lay in their wake was the naked body of a slaughtered child, lying in the snow, a crater of bone and flesh where his neck should be. Blue eyes upturned to Babe’s face.

Hand outstretched.

Beckoning.

“I touched him, Father. I touched him. And he was warm.”

Not breathing. Warm. Soft. Pliant. Despite hours laying in the snow.

He couldn’t explain it.

But then again, what pilgrim questions a miracle?

“I… I tried to pick him up. I tried.”

Yes. Yes, he had tried. I could see him try. Struggling and panting and finding himself crying, the grief and the desperation manifesting themselves in frustrated tears. They freeze on his cheeks, a record of his suffering. Julian, buddy, c’mon. I gotta get you up. Please. I can’t, I can’t—

But the god is in an immovable shrine. Trapped within and rooted into the snow on the ground.

“All I could lift was his head, Father Maloney. And I held him in my lap, like I used to back when the world made sense.”

Yes. Yes, I could see them there, too. Two boys in basic training, surrounded by pleasant summer heat. Golden light. One with his head in the lap of the other.

Dark hair against pale thighs.

Blue eyes meeting blue.

A smile meeting another smile in a thrilling brush of skin.

God was with them, then.

And it is with the turning of my stomach that I realize, God was with them, here, too.

“What… did you do, Babe?” I ask. I already know the answer. But I must ask.

And the boy looks up at me, open wound for a face, and says with two voices; “I couldn’t leave him there, Father Maloney.”

No. He couldn’t.

He’d brought those unsmiling lips to his mouth, and he’d kissed them one last time. As any pilgrim should.

And then he’d dug his fingers into bone and flesh, and freed his god from his earthly prison.

“I couldn’t—I promised. I said I would. And he told me that I should. He was so warm, Father. And it was so cold. And I was hungry, and Julian always—from the beginning he’d always—when I closed my eyes, I was back there, with him, and he was—”

“Oh, Babe,” I say, opening my arms. Allowing him to fall into them. “Oh, Babe.”

I have long ago accepted that to seek joy in the form of relief of any kind is not a sin. Or at least, should not be. Jesus Christ, Son of God and Man, who enjoyed the taste of wine and bread and the company of prostitutes and degenerates would not consider it a sin. It’s no exception here, where it is common for men to share many things in basic training and in trenches and in Foxholes. Food. Water. Coffee. Things to keep warm. Things to make you feel just a little bit more human. Things to sustain you.

And there are so few things to sustain you, in the frozen hell of Bastogne. In this stomach disguised as a dark forest, a belly to get lost in.

I look toward the door, where the guardian boy stands, still bowed forward (even more so, it seems) and bent at the knees, unable to meet my eyes. Atlas holding up the sky and full of regret. Frozen in commencement of penance, the weight of the world bearing down upon his shoulders.

“There is more to this,” I realize. He does not startle at the sound of my voice, eerily still. “What is it that you aren’t telling me, Eugene?”

In my arms, Babe is quiet. Hitching breaths quick and warm against my throat. Mouth against my rapid beating pulse. Teeth—

“I saw it, Father,” says Eugene, voice ringing clear and deep despite its whispered quality. “I saw them.”

He’d felt Babe stumble out of their foxhole—Spina fast asleep and oblivious to the sudden preternatural quiet and stillness of the world—and followed behind him at a distance, mindful of their vulnerable position but not enough to stop.

“Then there was a moment where I—I couldn’t see ‘im. It got all dark all o’ a sudden, like the moon blinked outta sight. Just for a minute. A kinda dark you can feel.”

Crawling up your skin, looming over you, making all the hairs of your body stand up in response. Like two, large and heavy hands clasping around you. Holding you caged between its palms. An unfortunate butterfly, caught unawares.

Wait, it seemed to say. This is not for you.

“When the dark left and the moon came back, I couldn’t see ‘im.”

But he could hear it.

The wet, moist sound of hands tearing into flesh.

The guttural snarls of an animal tearing into its latest meal.

The crunch of cartilage.

The weeping. The moaning in despair.

In relief.

“I followed it. And I. I saw.”

He pauses. Then looks up at me with pleading eyes, asking for words. Asking for understanding. He does not know, I realize, what to call it. What greeted him in the snow on that fateful night was not any creature he has ever seen or heard of before.

Part-human, part-animal, part-divine. A wretched, blessed chimera. On its hands and knees, hunched over its carrion and feasting, with great relish, upon its steaming insides. The rapidly cooling warmth of fresh death, curling up, up, and away into the frigid, Bastogne night.

“I saw, Father,” Eugene says again. “And I…”

He did nothing.

No, that’s not true.

“I waited. For it to be over.”

And it was soon over.

The chimera could only eat so much, and what he has come to set free has left the altar as soon as the steam had lifted, and once again, the fog had returned, between one blink to the next. A twin to the darkness felt earlier, heavy hands once again clasped about him, but this time, enveloping all of them—voyeur, scavenger, and carrion—all at once.

Eugene took a step forward, afraid to lose sight of him again, and the chimera, startled, lifted its head toward the crunch of snow.

“And that’s when you led him away?” I ask.

Eugene nods. He’d done it when they’d entered here, too. Appearing to me like a grotesque Angel of God in my doorway, two bodies pressed so close together, leaning upon each other for strength, that they became one entity with two heads and eight appendages, illuminated by a column of warm, orange light cutting into the gloom of my assigned billet.

Do not be afraid, one voice had said to its companion, achingly kind. An echo from that night, I imagine, when he’d taken Babe’s hand and brought him back from the brink. Took him away and deposited him into his empty foxhole, melting snow to wipe away the memory of what he had done from his face. Fed him more chocolate, offered him a cup of coffee, to wash the taste from his mouth. Father Maloney, Heffron is here to confess.

“You were right to come to me,” I say to them, easing Babe out of my arms to once again, sit by my feet as I reach out to Eugene, offering my hand. He takes it without much hesitance, lurching forward as if afraid I might recoil from his touch. Gently, I allow him to sink to his knees, and together, both of them look up to me as I stand and dig through my bag for the needed elements. “What a heavy burden you both have shared. What a weight—” I produce what I need, and I turn to them with a smile I hope is kind and reassuring. “It’s alright, now. You may put it down.”

“Father,” says Babe, eyeing the ciborium and chalice in my hands. “Father, what—”

“Let me give you a place to rest,” I tell him, getting on my knees with them, perching the precious relics upon my billet bed so that they may not touch the floor. Crossing myself, I open them, ignoring how both boys scuttle away from me, like rats, who have spent all their lives in the dark, upon the sudden, violent arrival of light. It breaks my heart, how fearful they look upon me, and it strengthens my resolve, once again. Carefully, as I may be during weekly service, I pray over and take into my hands the bread and wine; mere pemmican biscuits from previous rations, and wine I had been given from bombed out churches, mixed with a little water. But in their golden receptacles, they glow with an otherworldly power. True pieces of the Heavenly Host.

I take two of the Flesh into my unworthy hands.

“John Julian was a martyr,” I say, presenting the host to them both and watching as they, cautiously, move toward me, still on their knees, but with their faces tipped toward the light. “A man who had been living, but who’d given his life for the love of you, Babe. His death was swift and quick, there was little pain and little else we could do to keep him with us. It’s those he’s left behind that he ached to comfort—such pain it must have been, for him, to know that you mourned him so deeply.

“And so, he’d asked God and His Angels to hold Death’s hand for far longer, and he called out to you. He was yet Living when you came upon him—how else could he have enticed him to come? How else would he have stayed that warm, that fresh, in order for his body to provide the nourishment that you needed? Therefore, do not be ashamed, Babe. To cannibalize is to feed upon the dead. John Julian was not dead, not while his soul sang to you its precious entreaty.”

Now, he rests, cradled in the soft, warm alcove of Babe’s body.

“He gave his life to you, that you may yet live. Just like our Lord Jesus Christ gave the first Eucharist to His disciples, the night He was to be arrested and taken away from them. He fed them His Living Flesh, so that they may find strength for the coming days. Sustain themselves upon Him.”

Babe comes closer, the tip of his nose lightly brushing the Flesh held in my fingers.

“John Julian was a martyr who has found his final resting place within you,” I press the Sacrament to his mouth, watching it open in anticipation. A gaping maw not unlike a bleeding wound. “Let these Holy Flesh intermingle within you. Let John Julian meet God in your stomach. Turn him into a Saint.”

Babe closes his eyes and his lips close over the Holy communion, his tongue lapping at my fingers.

I let him eat from my unworthy hand.

I watch him swallow. “Your turn, Eugene.”

Eugene looks at me, unblinking. Unfazed. He does not eat from my hand, but instead cups his own to receive it. I place it between his palms and watch him bow his head over it and take it between his teeth. The hard bread makes a loud crunching sound as he crushes it with his molars. He closes his eyes to the symphony of it, and his shoulders fall for the first time since I’ve known him.

“What a weight you have been forced to carry,” I coo, reaching out to cup his face in one of my hands, the other doing the same to Babe. Both boys tip their heads into my hold, and I find myself weeping at how starved they seem to be, for a simple touch that is gentle. Babe, seeing my tears, starts to sniffle with some of his own. “Come, drink the Blood. Let it wash away the taste.”

I tip the wine, carefully, into their open mouths. They drink every last drop.

“There,” I say once they are finished, drawing Babe, who has begun to weep in earnest, to my breast. Against the hollow of my throat, he hiccups, the grief and the relief pouring out of him now that he knows he is allowed. “Oh, Babe.”

“I left him there, Father,” he sobs. “I left him—”

“You did not,” I soothe. “No, Babe, you did not. You came back for him, and now he rests in you—lives in you. This way, he will see home, again. You can bring him home, my boy. He is a part of you now. So long as you are alive, Julian is, also.”

It takes a while, but Babe soon quiets, and hiccupping, sobbing breaths turn even and steady, a sign that he has fallen asleep against me. Peaceful and dreamless, I hope.

Eugene helps me tuck him into my bed, moving the Holy vessels aside to make room for him.

“Thank you, Father,” he says to me, as I replace the sacred items in my pack. I smile at him and he smiles at me from his position on the floor, kneeling by Babe’s head, his hand held tight in the other boy’s grasp, even in deep sleep. “Thank you.”

“Judas ate of the Eucharist.”

This time, Eugene does blink, startled. “… Father?”

“Our Lord Jesus had Judas eat of His Flesh before He revealed him to be the traitor,” I repeat, once again sitting on the floor so that he and I can talk to each other at level. Not once does he tear his eyes away from mine. Brave boy. “He made sure Judas ate so that even when he was apart from Him, betraying Him to the Romans, orchestrating His death, He was always with Judas. Inside him. He loved him very well—perhaps too well. Enough to smother him.” I reach over to tap their clasped hands, gently, with a finger. “There is no position more intimate.”

Eugene’s ears color pink, as if still cold, and I resist the urge to cup my hands around them, so that they may be warm. They’re warm plenty already, I know, and that, at least, makes me smile.

“You are a tenacious one, Eugene Roe,” I tell him, getting up with a groan. He watches me, curious, confused, and I smile at him, amused.

Nobody leaves Bastogne unchanged—undigested, staggering out of that beast’s belly masquerading for a forest. But when one is stubborn, when he is cunning and astute, sure in his footing and determined in his mission, a body trapped could be sustained for long enough that escape is made possible.

“There are many ways a person could be sustained,” I say, running my fingers through his blue-black hair. And, like a cat, he pushes his head into the meat of my palm, affectionate. “You found him, fed him, and you watered him. You made sure to wash it all away, the taste. But shame is a powerful thing, and it almost took him. That would not do.”

Eugene stares up at me. Unflinching.

“And so, you brought him here, to me.”

Because he knew I would nourish him and he would nourish me, gorge ourselves on this story we spin together until hope and faith solidify into truth. He has bargained with Death well; has done so enough times to know how to win. John Julian may have been lost to the violence of Bastogne, but Babe Heffron remains, and Eugene Roe would rather see his own soul rot before he loses him, too.

“The Ignatian way of life dictates that we must strive to see God in all things,” I say, smiling down at him. “Today, you have shown me a Face of God I have not seen before. It brings me comfort, in this world steeped in decay. Thank you.”

Eugene smiles back, a tiny little thing that rapidly disappears when he finally takes his eyes away from me and turns them to Babe, silently contemplating his pale face, deep in sleep.

They’re good boys. I leave them both to each other as I venture back into the bowels of God’s House to search for a quiet place to pray.

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tagging those who have either helped conceptualize this or who have expressed interest along the way: @bringmefoxgloves @hellofanidea @liebgottsjumpwings @pastexistence

This was supposed to go up on Halloween. But I was on a family trip so I fell behind on editing and putting the final touches in. It's here now, though, and I'm so so proud of it-- something which I could almost never claim about things I've written. I'm very happy it's done, and I hope people enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.

Finally, I can rest.

#band of brothers #baberoe #babejulian #babe heffron #eugene roe #john julian #fr john maloney #father john maloney #cannibalism tw #cannibalism in bastogne au #this is The Most Catholic Thing I Have Written #estrella_marie

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