Amidst Blind Eyes, chapter 13:

*Dear reader, I implore you to halt reading for a moment and heed these words.  Before you delve any further into this macabre tale of bloodlust,  perishable sanity, sanctimonious cults, and esoteric ghouls, I have an important message for all splendiferous persons who picked up this book. I appreciate your persistence in reading through this point on.  This was one of the most deranged and sickening chapters recorded in modern history.  The lengthy research I conducted, compiling all available records of the incidents left me in a state of chronic depression that still affects me today.  One element of my findings haunted me, perhaps more than any other though.

Read carefully, through every line of this warning.  Yes, this message is important don’t skip a single word.  At first glance it would seem redundant to do so, seeing as I included a warning at the foreword of this book, but in this case, the story begins delving into a very serious and particularly… uncomfortable topic.  A travesty that afflicted thousands or more children for decades on end until a local newspaper broke an important story that brought it to the forefront of public attention.  By no means do I think Thomas Franklin represents all victims of these or similar loathsome and repugnant acts, nor should the reader infer any similar conjectures from this book.  I was hesitant about including this chapter, because it’s so susceptible to being misconstrued either way.  But I felt it would be important to include this chapter.  We have thorough documentation and first-hand accounts that it happened to Franklin, and the incidents provide an important piece to the complex puzzle that is the mind of Thomas Franklin.  While I encourage you to read through this chapter as I believe it’s an important, albeit horrifying event that altered his life forever, I have no qualms with anyone who chooses to skip it entirely.  Thank you.*
-William F. Turnor

His thoughts remained perpetually muddled after the supposed holy man implanted a self inflicted witch hunt within his mind.  But for a brief moment, a single night all of the anxiety, the self flagellation, the pressure to achieve the uber masculine prowess of his war hero father all, but melted away.

Rob caressed his fingers in places he was told were forbidden for other men to touch as a boy.  And yet… he enjoyed it… willingly so.  Not the mere sensation of pleasure, but the quiet moments of deep contemplation, the pillow talk, the incomparable warmth.  For a moment all the demons all insecurities the alcohol abuse disappeared and for once in his entire life Franklin was free from the burdens of his existence.  It was only a night or two before the duo would conduct their first investigation together.  The soft glow of the chandelier, Miles Davis and. Marvin Gaye on the old spin table.  Smooth, enchanting brass, and sensual vocals drifted through their ears with orgasmic fluidity as the lower halves of their bodies pulsed  to the rhythm of the music.  Thus it was deemed the night of dreams.  Just Rob and Tommy, the world dissipating around them.  Franklin experienced love for the first time in his short existence, and it was perhaps the last moment he'd feel such raw passion in the sheets.  He never realized how beautiful Rob's shimmering green eyes were, how they glistened with unparalleled compassion.

However,  love was easy, it felt too genuine, too natural to be anything but the work of the devil.  To the brainwashed Franklin, God meant suffering and, Satan was an agent of God himself.  Satan was merely tempting the man, luring the the young impressionable FBI agent into the realms of forbidden lust

The chronic agitation and continual persecution of previous experiences haunted his youth, violated his innocence, and corrupted him into a miserable human being.  He was threatened to retain silence at the cost of his reputation, after a multitude of sessions in seedy backdoor locations with the head priest of his of Boston Parrish.   It only served to drive him further into a pit of depression and morbid anxiety.  It was something he tried not to think about, despite its omnipresence in the back of his subconscious always leering alongside his memory of Rob.  He couldn’t forget the priest’s ghoulish eyes, his pale complexion, the icy tips of his fingers.  They were as detailed and photo-realistic as a Rembrandt painting in his head.  He couldn’t remember every aspect of that face, he had drowned his sorrows enough to forget all but those monstrous eyes peering at him, leering with the gaze of judgement.  Didn’t matter how much whiskey he downed, they followed him everywhere.  Everytime.  When he saw that horrid symbol of the cult, he also saw the sinister eyes of Father Anderson.  Merely thinking about them made Franklin’s skin crawl like the migration of one thousand millipedes across his aching flesh..

Franklin recalled that day, huddled into the wooden booth, the bells espousing with triumph for the dawn of a new hour, while the church was dark and still.  The Gothic arches pierced the night sky of the witching hour, meticulously crafted to vanquish a defenseless foe.  Rows of saints and martyrs reflecting their imposing hues in a saturated display of painted glass that had intimidated the young boy since before he could even walk.  The stained glass espoused the glories of heaven and mocked his beleaguered psyche; his insecure mind.  A thin plate of mahogany engraved with a sign of the cross was the only barrier between a corrupt priest and a frightened teenager.  It was a Monday night in the dead of winter. Franklin had traipsed over to the bloated, double chinned, priest after the previous day’s mass.  The priest’s steely disposition melted into a greasy smile as the young boy approached him.  But the eyes remained constant,  peering through his thin spectacles, the irises masked with a markedly gray and shrewd pigmentation.  

The future FBI operative approached the wartish holy figure, referred to by the congregation as Father Anderson, a modern day inquisitor, a humble braggart who hid his malevolence with an artificial smile.  He earned the unconditional respect of his community through his faux pious demeanor.  This was despite the man’s notorious reputation among contemporary religious scholars and news outlets.  Upon his promotion to the rank of bishop within the Boston diocese, the scoundrel was instrumental in covering up the Catholic church’s numerous scandals, which would only become exposed nearly three decades later.  Unfortunately, Anderson was the closest Franklin had to a father figure after the death of his own. “Um, father Anderson?” Franklin asked in a hushed tone.

“Yes my child, what is on your mind?” the priest questioned, his sunny grin thinning into a pulpy sneer. Franklin shuffled his feet on the tiled floor and gazed down submissively.  His foot movements mimicked various cross shaped patterns. Franklin decompressed and exhaled a large intake of air, while his eyes were still glued to the floor as he continued muttering.

“I’ve been having these weird thoughts.  I don’t understand why I’m thinking about this awful stuff, and I’ve been wondering if  there’s a way to just make it go away.  I feel like I’m being tormented every single day.  I prayed to God every night to make these… feelings stop.  But… nothing works.” he scrunched his eyes together to prevent any tears from falling down his cheek.

“We may speak of this in confession right now if you wish?” the priest sofly suggested in an artificially sympathetic tone. “Y-yeah, that would be nice… I just I tried telling My mother how I’d been feeling.. And… she didn’t react well..” Franklin admitted, his body twitched as a chilly draft had suffused in the church’s darkened interior.  He apprehensively rolled up his sleeve, his arm was sullied with a number of unsightly bruises and blackened scars.  Squinting in the moonlight one could manage to make out faint purple and black rings surrounding the periorbitals of Franklin’s eyes, and pink swelling in his cheeks.

“Absolutely, I’ll get everything ready it’ll only be a few minutes.” the snidely priest grinned. “E-everything, what is… everything?” the despondent child questioned.
“All the prayers I need to get that pesky devil off your back.”the pudgy man cracked then fell into rousing mechanical laughter as Franklin silently chuckled to himself in tenuous obligation.  Father Anderson had been acting rather strange towards him lately.  Sometimes in the middle of a mass, pews filled by the hundreds, Anderson would invest large portions of time gazing at Franklin, ignoring the approximate crowd of two hundred fellow worshipers seated at mass. It was a cold glare, one that implied either a deep seated concern for himself or for the integrity of the Parish.

When the priest thrust the Mahogany door in the cramped confessional booth the following night, the sliding window panel between them struck a loose piece of scrap metal.  As a result, the panel was jammed halfway, and could only be partially opened, much to the crooked priest's dismay, who would be forced to purchase his 7th can of WD40 in a week.  The fifteen year old boy, suffering from an outwardly perpetuated existential crisis, was treated to the gnarled lips of Father Anderson and his slimey grin.  Not the most comforting image for a boy grappling with his sexual orientation and the suicidal thoughts that accompanied it.  “Your mother was in here yesterday as well, she seemed quite concerned about your moral compass, she believes that boy you’ve been hanging with is a bad influence.” The priest stated in an authoritative tone.  “Oh… but I thought you weren’t allowed to tell me that, won’t you get in trouble?” Franklin’s face contorted with a combination of guilt and beguilement.  “Oh yes, quite so indeed” the priest smirked once more. “But what the Bishop doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” he muttered with an off-putting chuckle.

 “So… who’s this boy that you’ve been talking to?” the priest knelled below his pew so that his spectacles were visible. The candle lit interior of the confessional was was faintly reflected in Anderson’s cold, shielded eyes, hedonistically dancing like the eternal flames of Hades. “His name’s… Rob" Franklin mumbled, the words almost choking him to death.  “And, how did you first become friends with this Rob?” the priest said intently.  Franklin shifted his focus to the right corner of the confessional wall, and contemplated for a moment.

“We were in science class together, we started whispering about crime novels, film noir, all of our oddball interests and hobbies.  We got along real swell, like Bonnie and Clyde, but on the opposite side of the law.  Everyone thought we were subterranean because we were the only kids not interested in automobiles or James Dean.” Franklin’s nervous disposition morphed into a subtle smile.

“Sounds like a good kid to me, he hasn’t gotten you into any tussles, alcohol or rock and roll has he?”  The priest’s eyes seeped with astute intrigue as he begged the question.  “No, no, father, nothing like that, he… his family is god fearing, he wouldn’t do any of that crazy stuff.” Franklin confidently defended.  “Then what manner of ill thoughts beseech you, my son?”the priest hid the expanding width of his grin as he pressed Franklin for an answer the obtuse holy man had already deduced in his head. “I-I think I’m really fond of h-him… but, in a stronger way than normal… more feelings than I have with any other... friend.”  Franklin’s eyes darted again to the left corner of the claustrophobic chamber before his lungs began imbibing the thick moisturous air in an effort to calm his palpitating body.  The ravenous priest hunkered forward, his face enveloped in pure concentration, deconstructing every word spoken by the sweaty pimple-faced fifteen year old.  “Can you describe these… feelings?” the priest inquired.
Franklin squirmed, and lay his face flat in his palms.  He knew the priest would condemn what he said next, he knew it would be painful but all authority figures in his life had convinced the vulnerable teenager that this would be his best course of action.  That maintaining a “healthy” relation to society would be a sublime benefit him in the long run.  And according to their antiquated perspectives, there were no medical figures, physicians or psychologists who had developed a “cure” to his sickness of the mind, it was something that only the divine could assist the troubled the youth with.  
But to the troubled boy, he would rather have this conversation with his priest, than be subjected to more of his mother’s corporeal attempts to beat Lucifer out of his body with a wooden broom handle.  

“I… think I love Rob… in the way that a husband is supposed to love his wife.  Or a girlfriend loves her boyfriend.  These… thoughts… happened after one day we snuck outside, wandered a few miles through the woods… it was just us… gazing at the night sky… thinking about the future. Ya know, beyond those cheapo movies with the tin foil robots. And we felt so connected, then he asked me…” Franklin croaked and bowed his head in shame, “I… it’s really bad… I don’t know if I have the strength to repeat it..”.  Franklin gulped and covered his face.  “No one can harm you here, it’s only you, me, and the holy father who can hear you now”.  Father Anderson fallaciously consoled him.

“Rob asked me… he asked… if I wanted to try kissing and I didn’t know how to react, so I just said…  yes… and it felt wonderful. R-romantic, I think.  It felt like nothing I’d ever felt before.  And we just kept kissing.  It was like the universe had stopped for a moment! And the more I think about it... why is that something I need to be ashamed of?! why do I have to keep it secret, or pretend I’m trying to better myself?  If God is loving and perfect, why would he let Satan do that to me!?” the words steamed from Franklin’s mouth with the surge of a raging inferno unlike he’d ever expressed before.  The priest’s pupils had widened nearly ten yards, and he shoved his spectacles up to the bridge of his hooked nose.  The priest was at a loss of words.  He could feel the crushing grip of his influence slowly eroding, the young man slipping out of his hands.
 
As Franklin spoke father Anderson knew he was forced to take action, or risk losing a future member of his congregation. “Stay here.” father Anderson delivered to Franklin with utmost prudence.  “I-thought you said you had everything prepar-”
“STAY HERE” the priest’s voice rose to a threatening volume Franklin had never bore witness to before. The entrance to the confessional booth slammed shut like an aging car door, the floor shook with hellfire-esque vibrations as the enraged priest stomped to a hidden compartment hidden somewhere in the vestibule of the church.

Franklin could hear a piece of furniture screeching like an angry mule against the marble floor. The priest muttered vulgarities under his breath, cursing the lord as he scrambled to find his own sacred relic.  “Ah, praise be to you, my lord!” he exalted then slowly ambled back to the confessional booth, accompanied by a swish followed by a click as he paced forward.  Swish… click, swish... click, swish... click, the pattern produced a dreadful rhythm. “The curse of the LORD is on the house of the wicked, But He blesses the dwelling of the righteous!” the maddened priest quoted, as he drew closer.  Franklin’s fingers gripped the edge of the pew like a desperate animal digging their claws into the dirt.  Beads of sweat drizzled across his battered face. SWISH… CLICK, SWISH… CLICK, SWISH… CLICK.  “AND in the CUTTING of stones for settings, and in the CARVING of wood, that he may work in all kinds of CRAFTSMANSHIP!.”  The priest’s voice was just outside the plywood door, the beast stood there, his breath heavy, his grunts resembled a wild boar.  Franklin struggled to remain calm, to dial back his instinct towards attacking the portly “holyman” even if it was in self defense.  It would be painful, but necessary for him to bear his suffering.  Just like Jesus on the cross. He needed this to happen.  He couldn’t allow Satan to control his life.  He couldn’t allow Satan to control his life.  He couldn’t allow Satan to control his life.  The door on his side of the confessional booth, Franklin’s only barrier from the slobbering creature who masqueraded as a catholic priest was savagely thrust open.  

The wood crunched and howled, as he was visited by the ghastly spectre of a slimy yellow-eyed goblin disguised in holy garments.  It’s mouth gaped open in a wide crescent, its teeth sharper than an arsenal of daggers.  Grimy layers of matted sweat piled on top of one another and accentuated the warts and boils silhouetted in the moonlight.  His bloodshot eyes were ablaze with virulent madness.  He twirled a switchblade adorned with a crucifix, with his mangled right thumb.  It was coated with a thick layer of scarlet red on its tip, which the hoggish priest simply didn’t bother to clean, or feteshized over during his wet dreams.   SWISH… CLICK, SWISH… CLICK, SWISH… CLICK.  The rattled boy tentatively slid himself as far from the grotesque hunched figure as he could, like a cornered fox from a vicious hunter, twitching erratically, he hid his pudgy face and prayed for everything to be over. “W… what are you doing… why are you doing this?”.  Franklin squeaked.  “You asked for my help, did you not?” The priest uttered in a low raspy grumble. Slowly he creeped into the tight chamber, his greasy palms spreading dingy fingerprints across the pristine finish of the taken pew.  His slobber marked an insipid trail that bubbled and popped across the wooden surface until Franklin pale skin could feel the monster’s heated breath.  It smelled of rotten egg and beef as the discolored drool stained his sunday clothes with various sickly tints of green.  “God helps those who help themselves, my son” the mad priest chuckled to himself, spewing bile as he spoke. “Take off your shirt, boy.” he growled at the Teenage boy. “B-ut… why?” squealed Franklin.  

“YOUR LORD COMMANDS YOU TO!” screamed the priest, veins nearly burst around his blubbery neck. His switchblade was a mere inch away from piercing Franklin’s throat.  The blade caused a thin stream of blood to trickle down his neck and collect in his collar from a tiny slit.  Franklin quickly obliged the obese creature’s humiliating request, thus scrambling to unbutton each layer of his heavy dress shirt until the rosy pigmentation of his exposed chest had been revealed to the slobbering madman, who fluttered his eyelids lifting his pupils to reveal the whites of his eyes. He engaged in some form of masochistic self pleasure as he slit his mid arm with the blade’s shaft, holding the open wound over Franklin’s face and allowing the crimson goop to sensually drip into the boy's mouth.

 “This is the blood of Christ, let it seep into your veins and heal you in propriety from the desires Satan has inflicted upon your soul”  Franklin shuddered and coughed as the coppery fluid steamed down his throat unwittingly.  “And now I shall carve the sacred visage of Christ, who died for our sins upon your own flesh, just as the whips, thorns, and nails carved into his own.”  Franklin desperately wanted to scream but the blood clotted in his throat and consumed his lungs, only allowing for a faint panicked groan calling for help that would never arrive.  The creature gripped Franklin’s clammy hands and forcefully turned his body around. He now gazed hypnotically at Franklin’s pale backside, his bare chest violently shoved onto the musty pew.  Help was far away, far beyond the boundaries of what he believed was his sacred refuge from the gutters of society.  The world was supposed to be a wretched shithole, or at least that’s what he’d been taught to believe, but it seemed the church was no better.  So instead Franklin continued to justify his intense pain, the scarring of his flesh, it was all in his good interest, it would make him a better Christian in the long run.  Mea Culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa, he repeated in his head as the blade lacerated his meaty posterior.
 
It was a heavenly experience for the animalistic con artist.  Not only was he bringing a lost sheep back to the will of God, he could avoid losing one regular church goer.  Losing even a single soul away from the Catholic faith’s profit mill held the weighty implication of losing future generations of church goers.  Consequently it meant a future with less cash sliding into the grimy hands of the pope and his cronies.  Allowing money to stay in the grubby hands of smelly vagrants simply didn’t hold to proper Catholic tradition.

However, just as the butterfly effect speculates, human beings generally lack enough foresight to predict how their actions in the present may create a host of repercussions for generations beyond their own constricted reach.  It’s why humanity never halted their actions for one second to think about how their growing obsession with fossil fuels might negatively impact the harmonious blue planet they call home.  It’s why overzealous allies at the post war victory conference in Versailles never contemplated the potential repercussions of forcing a single country to shoulder all the burdens of the great war.  History is a never ending cycle of unsubstantiated wrath and ignorance besetting empathy, logic, and common decency.  It’s a miserable self perpetuated time-loop that humanity will never separate from until our leaders and followers become aware of its existence.  And the actions of Father Anderson, certainly reflect that lack of self-awareness.