Read Part 1

With practiced movements, Danny popped the screws out of his bedroom window and raised the sash, then stepped out onto the porch roof. This was always the scary part.

Gingerly, he lay on his stomach as he lowered his feet over the edge of the gutter, then clawed at the shingles until his dangling legs found a foothold on the corner post. He half-climbed, half-slid to the ground.

Danny felt a new twinge of guilt for sneaking out of the house and leaving the garden undone, its freshness a novel sensation after the transgression he'd rehashed all night. But what did it matter, really? After his night of evil — there was no other word for it — what was one more sin?

As he walked the two miles into town, Danny tried to remember a time before the guilt overwhelmed him. Maybe when he was very young — when he was just a toddler, before he understood how life worked. When the consequences of his sins were limited to spankings instead of sleepless nights beneath the wrath of an angry God: maybe then.

Yet there was no denying that he deserved the shame. Why shouldn't he suffer for the pain of Mr. Mullins; for the endless parade of harms inflicted on everyone he knew? He tried to stop; he resolved again and again to end the torment. He would simply stay away from people and live in his room, lock the door and avoid every possibility of the sins that dragged him into despair.

But it was never enough; they always found him again. He couldn't even say why he was trapped over and over; why it was impossible to stop the pattern.

He'd heard of the adrenaline-fueled thrill of dangerously violating the law. The thrill of the moment would be some slight compensation for the agony that followed — but Danny never felt it. And he wasn't snared by sins that had a payoff, like a robbery with its forbidden fruit. So over and over, Danny simply got involved in the thing he hated, and he didn't even know why.

Quite simply, he had a compulsion to hurt people, and it flared without the slightest warning. The bloody face of Mr. Mullins stood between himself and his dreams, and he might go out and beat another living soul again tomorrow ...

No. No, he refused to fall into that trap; that vicious circle of deathly thoughts. Danny prayed desperately that God would take the temptation, take away his horrible need to cause pain.

Without thinking, Danny began to jog, then run. Somehow, perhaps he could outdistance the darkness. He sprinted at top speed, simply willing himself to keep going all the way into town. As his lungs began to burn and his side to cramp and his legs to cry out for relief, the pain inside lessened, be it ever so slightly.

It was hard to think about anything else when you felt like you were dying.

* * *

Back at the house, Malcolm Burnham pounded on Danny's bedroom door so hard it shook. "Haul your lazy butt out here!"

Rita appeared from the master bedroom. "Malcolm ... did you wash up from chores in the kitchen sink again?"

Malcolm ignored her and banged on Danny's door. "Danny, get out here!"

Rita's mouth dropped open. "Malcolm! He's sleeping, he had a long night —"

"He should've thought about that before he put off the garden all week." He turned back to the door: "If I have to come in there, boy —"

"Let him sleep, honey. He and Aaron had a long talk last night. I heard them when I woke up around 3 —"

Rita's voice had taken on that wheedling tone that Malcolm hated so much. "Danny was up late? Big shock," he snapped. "Whose fault was that?"

"You know he and Aaron never talk. They're brothers; it's a good thing."

"They can talk any time they please, Rita, except on my time. That garden will be spaded today." He finally twisted the knob on Danny's door; prepared to go in — it was locked.

"That's it. I'm taking this door right off. He is not locking me out of a room in my own house." Malcolm reached into his pocket and took out a screwdriver; began expertly popping the hinges.

Rita knew her husband was prone to impulsivity when his temper flared, but past experience didn't reconcile her to these moments: he was dismantling the house to reach a disobedient child. She clutched at her husband's arm: "Honey, you're overreacting. He's fifteen —"

" — Which is more than old enough to take on some responsibility —"

"Honey, please don't —"

"Stop protecting that boy! He needs to learn what happens when —"

"Honey catches more flies than vinegar, Malcolm —"

Rita stopped abruptly. She looked down to see Jessica coming up the stairs, silently gazing up on her parents with the trace of a smile on her face.

"Jessie, do you need something?" she asked.

"Dad, I wouldn't do that," Jessica said, watching her father work.

Malcolm stuck out a fat finger at his daughter: "You march down those stairs and mind your own business before you find yourself grounded."

"He's not there, Dad," said Jessica imperturbably.

Malcolm stopped. "What?"

"I was coming to talk to him, but I saw out front — he took the screen off again."

Malcolm slammed his tool onto the floor. "I screwed that boy's window shut —"

Jessica shrugged. The smile on her face grew imperceptibly broader.

Malcolm stomped down the stairs, pushing Jessica roughly out of the way as he went. He knew where the boy had gone. "Go get Aaron," he barked at his daughter. "Tell him to take the truck up to that stupid church and bring Danny home."

Rita came after him, wheedling again: "Malcolm, I know he has work to do ... but you can hardly fault the boy for going to church."

"Stay out of this, woman," he growled.

Malcolm stomped outside and slammed the back door. This was getting ridiculous: The whole family was helping that boy get out of any shred of responsibility. But he, Malcolm, still had work to do. He'd deal with the runaway later, after Aaron dragged him home. In the mean time, he had a dozen sows close to delivering their litters.

Aaron, he reflected, was the only child he had who actually did what he was told. He knew he could count on his firstborn to get Danny back to the house.

* * *

Danny labored up to the old clapboard building and stopped at the foot of the steps. The Baptist church was always left unlocked — but then, so were most of the houses around town. In a place like Fairbury, there wasn't much worth stealing.

Danny slowly climbed the steps, gasping and hunched over like an old man. His lungs burned and his side hurt, but he realized with some satisfaction that for the last half of his run, he'd barely thought about the darkness. This place, he knew, was the only hope to remove the smallest particle of his overwhelming shame.

Pulling open the wooden door, he entered the quiet. Light poured through the big windowpanes, illuming eight rows of old pine pews and faded maroon carpet with their dusty shafts of light. Danny stumbled to the platform and fell forward onto the stairs, kneeling in the place where generations had repented in search of grace.

Yet Danny expected and asked for no absolution; only relief from the overwhelming waves of reproach crashing over his soul; only some faint assurance that his senseless compulsion for hurting and destroying would cease.

He prayed that Mr. Mullins would recover from his injuries and identify his attacker. Perhaps he, Danny, might finally be tried and sentenced to prison. It would be a return to the days when a spanking was the consequence for guilt instead of this endless soulful torment.

But as he thought of the old man, memories flooded into his consciousness; memories that only heightened his inner torture.

* * *

Danny had started coming to the church as a child, beginning with the time he knocked a boy named Heath off his bike. He barely even knew the kid — he was simply jealous that Heath could ride a two-wheeler while he, Danny, still needed training wheels. Yet he'd stood off to the side of the road, holding a stick, and as the boy passed by, he inserted it purposefully into the spokes.

The boy and bicycle tumbled into a ditch, and Danny had quickly run for the house before the boy could pick himself up and identify his attacker.

Danny hid in his room for what seemed like an eternity, reliving the calculating assault and the horrible tumble as the boy's knees skidded over roadside gravel into the grass. Finally, he gathered courage — not to confess to his parents; not to find the boy he'd injured; that would be too hard — but to struggle for relief from his own stricken conscience. He walked to the church (a long way for a 5-year-old) and sought solace.

He'd knelt at the altar then, too. He began to mutter the Lord's Prayer, the only one he knew. But when he arrived at the words "forgive us our trespasses," he stopped, and began to cry uncontrollably.

After he'd spent a few moments sobbing — that was a kind of relief, back in the days when he could still weep — he heard footsteps on the creaking floor behind him.

"Now, this looks like a young man who wants to get right with the Lord," said Mr. Mullins.

Danny had thought he was alone in the building. But the retired farmer, it turned out, volunteered to clean the church, wanting "God's Sanctuary," as he always called it, to be a place of reverent beauty. He'd been quietly rubbing polish into the pews when a boy stumbled towards the cross and began sobbing.

"Young or old," said Mr. Mullins, laying a gentle hand on Danny's shoulder, "facin' your sin is hard. Maybe you've been sassin' your mom? Or lyin' to your sister? What's on your heart?"

Danny couldn't bring himself to admit the unspeakable horror of what he'd done. He shook his head vigorously, not daring to look the old man in the eyes.

"That's all right, son," said Mr. Mullins. "Just tell it to Jesus — He already knows anyway."

This only made Danny's sobbing worse. The thought that an all-powerful Deity, punisher of hidden sins, knew his transgressions brought a new level of despair.

Mr. Mullins bowed his head. "Father, you know this young man's heart, and you see his tears of repentance. Release him from the guilt, knowing your blood has covered his sin. Amen."

Danny didn't understand quite what that meant, but the old man's kindness made him feel better.

* * *

Over the years, Danny frequented the church each time he gave in to his horrible instinct; the one that made him hurt and destroy. The time he was so furious at Dad, he went out to the barn, tied one of the pigs to the rail, and slashed it with his knife until it died. The time he spent two hours one night chopping down half-grown corn at the Landons' place, even though he knew they were tight on money and their corn might be the difference between keeping or selling their farm. Bruce Landon was hitting on a girl he liked, and that was reason enough. Then there was the time Jessica ruined some of his CDs, so he locked her in the coat closet while Dad and Mom were in Peoria, and didn't let her out even to use the bathroom ...

Sometimes, Mr. Mullins would be there when he came, and would pray kind words over the him. Sometimes Danny would help the old man polish the pews or sweep the floors: It was cathartic to serve.

Once, Mr. Mullins told Danny that if he'd trust in the blood of Jesus, all his guilt would be washed away. So Danny repeated a "sinner's prayer" after the old man. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to work. Danny knew what he'd done; Mr. Mullins did not. If Mr. Mullins had the slightest inkling, he'd surely go from whispering comforts to throwing Danny out of the building. Could God be any different?

But now, Danny drifted out of his memories back to the present. Perhaps today when he got home, the police would be waiting to question him about beating Mr. Mullins. Perhaps it would be like when Dad took out his belt after Danny knocked the boy off his bike, or when Dad grounded him for a month because he killed the pig. Punishment always helped, for a while, to make him feel like he was atoning for his wickedness.

Yet it wasn't enough: The guilt still drove him to abject despair. Today, he would have given anything for Mr. Mullins to steal up behind him and pray comforting words — however useless they might be for guilt as deep as his. But of course, Mr. Mullins was fighting for his very life in the hospital.

So when Danny finally heard the door of "God's Sanctuary" bang open, it was not Mr. Mullins. Instead, it was his brother standing there, and Aaron's words were not gentle.

"Come on, Danny," he barked, jangling the keys to the pickup. "You're comin' home."

Danny stood and walked slowly towards the back of the sanctuary.

"Hurry up," Aaron snapped. "Dad is seriously ticked about that garden. And he's takin' it out on everybody else."

Danny mechanically walked outside and climbed into the old farm truck.

As Aaron pulled out of the parking lot, Danny gazed unseeing out the windshield, feeling nothing but the leaden weight of his unpardonable sins.

Continue to Part 3

* * *

Want to get more from the story? There are questions for thought and reflection on Part 2 of "No Good Deed" at writingbygeorge.com.