I wanted a preacher

I wanted a preacher. I hadn't held the church in much esteem since
an altercation I'd had back when I was a choirboy. Yes, I was a
choirboy, an angel-faced prostitute for god's favour, and the coins
that stuck in the deep pockets of the local congregation. I was a
choirboy until the good father took me aside and told explained that I
was becoming a man, that I had many choices ahead of me and none of
them lay near a microphone. I lost a lucrative sideline and went onto
running packages around the local neighbourhood. That's a long way from
here, me with a wound the size of the great lakes, and worse shape. It
wasn't a straight line I can tell you that, but somehow it came to
pass, and was I'm prepared to forgive just about anything, and I hopes
the preacher would too.

I hopped right down the high street. They wouldn't want to get my blood
on their clothes, and I still had the shotgun. It was spent, but those
that didn't hear the barrels ripping through the air wouldn't know
that. Besides, they all knew, I knew, the cops had been called. It was
a matter of time, and they would get no hero's reward for speeding
things up a bit. So the street was deserted. Sometimes a prim girl
would poke her head out of a door for a gawp, but I just wave the gun
at her and either she'd faint or her mother would pull her back inside,
scalding her roving eyes.

I came to the church with very little breath left in me. I'd seen them
shout 'sanctuary' in the pictures, so I heaved on the big iron handle
and shouted as hard as my ruptured lungs would manage. Nothing came
out, just a bit of blood and phlegm. I banged on the door and it
collapsed in, sending me sprawling at the preacher's feet.

'Father,' I gasped

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