“I was born on a farm. My parents were Irish immigrants, black Irish. I was the oldest of six children, two boys and four girls. My parents were staunch Catholics. My mother wanted me to be a priest. She pushed me to study so I could get into seminary. She was working on the local diocese to recommend me while I was still in the womb. When World War I broke out, she begged the bishop to get me into seminary early. Everybody knew it was just a matter of time before America entered the war. My mother wanted me in seminary before the Army could draft me. Boys from secular colleges were already in Europe, driving ambulances, and some of them had been killed. My mother wasn’t going to lose her chance to have a son become a priest to something as insignificant as a world war. You see, my little brother was a bit slow—mentally, I mean. I was my mother’s only chance.”

“So you went to seminary,” Brine interjected. He was becoming impatient with the progress of the story.

“I went in at sixteen, which made me at least four years younger than the other boys. My mother packed me some sandwiches, and I packed myself into a threadbare black suit that was three sizes too small for me and I was on the train to Illinois.

“You have to understand, I didn’t want any part of this stuff with the demon; I really wanted to be a priest. Of all the people I had known as a child, the priest seemed like the only one who had any control over things. The crops could fail, banks could close, people could get sick and die, but the priest and the church were always there, calm and steadfast. And all that mysticism was pretty nifty, too.”

“What about women?” Brine asked. He had resolved himself to hearing an epic, and it seemed as if Travis needed to tell it. Brine found he liked the strange young man, in spite of himself.

“You don’t miss what you’ve never known. I mean I had these urges, but they were sinful, right? I just had to say, ‘Get thee behind me Satan’, and get on with it.”

“That’s the most incredible thing you’ve told me so far,” Brine said. “When I was sixteen, sex seemed like the only reason to go on living.”