Eight Ball by Jeffrey Conolly

“Bless me father for I have sinned,” the man on the other side of the grate’s voice seemed tired, his silhouette haggard. “Is that what I’m suppose to say? I’ve ain’t never done this before.”

Father Greyman simply smiled and nodded, “You can say whatever you like,” The man’s breath came in nervous gasps between his words, and there was a thick smell of alcohol. He would let the man say whatever he wanted, and get out of there.

“I’m here ‘cus I’ve done some bad things, really bad things. I ain’t never really been religious, not really. My wife always tried to drag me, but she was Baptist.” He paused at this, his breathing getting quicker.

“Don’t expect you’ll believe me. Hell, I don’t. But I gotta get it off my chest. I have to tell somebody, you know.”

Get to the point, Greyman thought.

“I killed my wife.”

Greyman choked back a gasp.

“I know it’s, bad, real bad. I killed my deputy too, and that man down by the lake. Mr. Loomney. It ain’t my fault though, honest to G.O.D., it aint. It’s the eight-ball’s.”

“The what?” Greyman thought about leaving. He wanted to leave, but he never had before, and he never would. It was part of wearing the collar. Sometimes you heard things that made you lean on the Father more than ever before. Infidelity, homosexuality, promiscuity, he had heard it all before.

But murder?

No. Never murder. And never, “An eight-ball?”

“I’m getting ahead of myself. It all started that night, about a week ago, when there was that big storm. Ain’t been a storm like that in years in Lanfred. You couldn’t see more than a foot in front of your car, and Ben Noonan’s kid hit a guy.

“Jimmy’s only sixteen, only just got his license, and when me an’ Walter got there, Jimmy was real shook up. He said the guy came out a nowhere, like we hadn’t heard that before, but I didn’t push it. He was crying. There was a big ol’ dent in his car and the man’s body was sprawled out in the middle of the road. ‘You call your Dad yet?’ I asked.

‘No.’ He said. ‘He’s gonna kill me,’ he said, and started crying again.

“‘Deputy Morgan is gonna take you to the car, so you can call him,’ I said. Walter put an arm around the kid—Walt was good at stuff like that—and took him over to the car. While the kid was distracted I looked at the body.

“The man was dead all right. The arm . . . well . . . no arm is supposed to bend like that. Something just seemed off about the body though, something just felt wrong.”

“What?” Greyman asked.

“He was wearing a pinstripe suit for one. Who where’s pinstripes in Lanfred? But it was something else. It was just . . . wrong. I can’t explain it. The man had all the pieces, mouth, eyes, nose, ears . . . but still. He was tall, probably the tallest man I’d ever seen. I decided I had to look around for his wallet, you know to identify him. And that’s when I found it.”

“That thing? The, what did you call it?”

“The eight-ball. It was in his the breast pocket of that pinstripe jacket—just hanging out in there. The guy had nothing else on him, no keys, no wallet, nothing. Just that fuh . . . freaking eight-ball.”

“Like from a pool table?”

“Yeah, only this, this was . . . ”

Greyman tried to peer through the grates to see exactly what the sheriff was doing. He had pulled something out of his pocket—he had to strain to get it—and was staring at it. He paused for a long time.

Just when Greyman was about to say something, the Sherriff continued, “It was beautiful. It was perfect. It was . . . ” The sheriff coughed, trying to regain himself. “It was more than that though, the ball had powers.”

“Powers?”

“Yeah. It started to . . . to talk.”

“To Talk?” Greyman realized he was quickly becoming an echo. He was really at a lost to do anything else. This man needed a psychologist more than a man of the cloth.

“Not talk really, that’s not right. But I could hear what it wanted, and it wanted me to take it. I can’t explain how I knew, I just did. And it got worse too.”

“How so?”

“I could read people’s thoughts. Crazy, I know, but as soon as Walter came back I heard ‘em, clear as the rain that was getting us all soaked. I heard Walter’s voice in my own head. First it said: ‘Poor kid, father’s gonna kill him for sure.’ I was thrown back. It couldn’t be, just couldn’t be. But I was starrin’ right at ‘em and his lips weren’t moving. ‘Find anything?’ Walter said. I was clutching the eight-ball, gripping it tightly. And then I did something I hadn’t done in fifteen years as an officer. I stole and I lied.

“‘Naw.’ I said. ‘Nothing.’ And I slipped the eight-ball in my pocket. And when I did, it just felt so . . . so . . . right.

“We had to wait till the ambulance came and the kid’s parents came—the kid’s car was fine, but he didn’t feel like driving anymore. Ben asked me if Jimmy was in deep for this, and a said probably so, vehicular manslaughter ain’t no small order. While I answered all there questions my hand rarely left my pocket. I knew it was crazy, but I could hear their thoughts, all of them. The mom was thinking ‘My baby, my poor baby, I knew it was too soon to drive.’ And the Dad was thinking, ‘Damn it, how will we ever get out of this?’ It’s crazy but I knew it was their thoughts.

“The ambulance showed up, and they put him on a stretcher. I told you he was tall, right? Tallest guy I’d ever seen. He didn’t fit on the stretcher. He was too long for it.” The sheriff laughed. Greyman cringed. “When they did get ‘im in, he was so tall that they had to bend his legs back to shut the door.

“Me and Walt thanked the paramedics for coming out so late and made our way back to the station. We were driving back when I heard his thoughts again, ‘Such a nice guy, kind of makes me feel guilty.’

“’Guilty ‘bout what?’ I said. I hadn’t realized it was his thoughts.

“’I didn’t say anything.’ Walt said. It was eerie, real frickin’ eerie. ‘What was that about?’ Walt’s voice said again in my head. ‘Does he know about me and Kristen?’”

“Is Kristen you’re wife?” Greyman asked.

“Ya, for fourteen years. Fourteen years and I find out on a rainy car ride home that she’s shnupping my best friend. Not from him, though, no. It’s gotta be that thing, that eight-ball—it was the only thing being honest with me. It was telling me to . . . It was telling me to take my gun and shoot him. It was telling me to do it, and it took every inch of me not to do it, right there, right then.”

“We filed our paperwork and went home. I didn’t even want to talk to Kristen. I didn’t even want to see her. I smoked three cigarettes before I went to bed that night—I smoke ‘em when I’m edgy, ever since I had to stop drinkin’. I slept on the couch, clutching the thing, all night long.

“That night I dreamt about doing it. I shot ‘em both with my gun—Kristen only once, but Walt five times—and buried both in the garden in the backyard. It was the most realistic dream I’d ever had. I could feel the shovel. I could feel the summer heat as I dug. I could feel the sweat on my face. I could . . .

“Kristen was shaking me ‘Are you ok?’ she asked. My face was sweating. I looked at my hand. It was still clutching the eight-ball. It was blood red, and my knuckles were white. ‘What’s that?’ She asked. I got up immediately, shielding that hand from her view.

“’Nothing,’ I said. I wanted to leave the house. I had to get out, I had to leave. All I could think of was shooting my wife, shooting Walt, and burying them in the backyard. I heard her say, ‘Where are you going?’ as I grabbed my keys and went towards the door. As I was shutting the door I heard, not by my ears, but in my mind, “Maybe Walt was right. Maybe he does know about us.”

“I got out in the yard and threw up. It was too much for me to handle. I got in my car, but didn’t leave for a long time. I just starred at the eight-ball. It was so beautiful. I couldn’t help myself. I just sat there, starring at it.

“When I got to the station there was a message waiting for me to call the coroner. I went in the office and called, using one hand—one was holding the eight-ball. I wanted a cigarette but was running out of hands. ‘This the Sheriff?’ said the guy on the other line. I said yes. ‘That John Doe you sent us is something else. I’m not sure how to tell you this . . . his organs are . . . his organs are all wrong. ’”

“Are you telling me now this guy was some kind of alien or something?” Greyman asked.

“Could be. Don’t know. All I do know is he—whatever he was—wasn’t human. Could be a demon, or something like that, or something worse. He was carrying that ball, and that ball is evil, that’s for sure.”

“Why didn’t you get rid of it?” Father Greyman asked.

“After that I tried. It scared me, scared me something fierce. I went to the lake and rented a boat from Mr. Loomney. I drove it out to the deepest part. I had meant to drop it, but I couldn’t do it. It was just . . . It was so beautiful. It was mine. I found it. Why should I? I paddled back to back to shore. There were things to do. So many things, so little time.

“I shot Mr. Loomney. He wanted the eight-ball, I could tell. I tied him up with weights from his house and went out and threw him in the middle of the lake.” The sheriff paused again. He looked again at what he had pulled out of his pocket, as if fondling it gave him the strength to speak. “I went back home. Kristen wasn’t home. I knew where she was. I knew she was with him. That was ok, though. I wanted to dig the graves first. The eight-ball had wanted really. It was the eight-ball that said that Mr. Loomney had to die. It was the eight-ball that said to dig the graves then. It was the eight-ball that told me that she was off shnupping my deputy, my best friend.

“The digging didn’t take too long, since it rained so hard the night before. I dug two big holes, and then smiled. It had felt right.

“I went to his house and found her car outside. I snuck upstairs to his bedroom, past the living room where me and ‘im had spent so many nights drinking beers and smoking cigars, where we had watched the last ten super bowls together, and walked upstairs. I heard them before I got there. I heard Kristen screaming. She hadn’t screamed like that in years, or at least hadn’t with me. I drew my gun and opened the door. ‘Oh my God!’ She cried as I entered, ‘It’s not what you . . . ’ I shot her before she could finish the sentence. Her naked body fell backwards off the bed and onto the floor.

“Oh my God! I . . . I . . . Don’t shoot me please!’ Walt said to me. I shot him six times, just like the eight-ball said to. I couldn’t move the bodies ‘till nightfall. I had brought the truck, but it would have been a little conspicuous then. It was fine though. I just sat there at the end of the bed, staring at the eight-ball till the sun went down. It was just so goddamn beautiful.

“When night did come I used garbage bags to slide their bodies down. The stairs were the tricky part. I lost control of Kristen and she went tumbling down. By the time I had lifted both of them into the truck it was nearly twelve-thirty. I drove slowly on the way home. Mike was on that night and he always got a power trip by pulling me or one of the other deputies over. This would of given him a fricken’ orgasm.” The Sheriff laughed again.

Father Greyman was nearly shivering with terror in his seat. He silently prayed as the sheriff continued on.

“Protection from me?”

So it’s true, he can read . . .

“Yes I can read thoughts. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Anyways, where was I? I told everyone that Walt’s mother had taken ill where she lived in Phoenix. Kristen’s sister was pregnant in Florida, so I said she was there helping out. Everyone bought it.”

He just had to give the man forgiveness and he could leave, and this nightmare would be all over. “Good idea,” he said, thinking he should say something.

“Oh it wasn’t mine; it was the eight-ball’s. It thinks of everything. And Mr. Loomney was easy, ‘cus I’m investigating his disappearance.” The sheriff starred down again and a smile spread across his face.

“Why are you telling me all this?” It was an absurd question. He was told all sorts of crazy confessions everyday, but this was different. This was wrong. It was all a lie, it had to be. Lies from a crazy man, yeah, that was it.

A crazy man that read your thoughts.

Yes, that was hard to deny, but that could be know more than a cheap parlor trick.

“I’m not crazy!” The sheriff yelled, “And they’re not lies.”

“Stop that, Stop that. Why are you telling me this?”

“Because the eight-ball says your next.” The sheriff said. He lifted the gun up that he had been staring at the entire time, and pulled the trigger.

* * *

The priest made much more noise when he died then the coroner had. Man, did he hate that noise.

“All in a days work.” He said, smiling. Then sighed, “So much to do, so little time.”

He pocketed the gun and pulled out the eight-ball. He would have to leave soon. He should leave immediately, but first he wanted to look at it for a little while. It was just so beautiful.

So damn beautiful.