Clerical Error

by Declan Finn

  Tim gave a nervous laugh, and shrugged. “Yeah. Sure. Why not?”

  CHAPTER EIGHT:

  HERE ’N’ THERE

  FEBRUARY 14TH (ASH WEDNESDAY)

  The day before Tim Lessener died was cold, clear, and dark when James rose at six. He had slept with the window open to clear out the smoke and the cold helped him to set a new record for getting into his charcoal suit, white shirt, and a tie. The tie had been one of his annual Christmas exchanges with friend and colleague, Salvatore Calabrese. Sal was a collector of regimental striped ties. James figured that the multi-color of the Bengal Lancers must have been a duplicate which Sal had unloaded as a Christmas present … because being a cheap bastard was one of Sal’s few virtues.

  James fought his way to the head of the stairs with the boxlike sample case he used as a book bag in his right hand and the porno box under his left arm. He dropped them long enough to knock on Sadowski’s door. “I’m up.”

  “Good day!” Gus boomed.

  He’s up already? When does he sleep?

  James held the box in a controlled slide down the stair banister, picked it up, carried it back to the head of the basement stairs and slid it again. Finally, it came to rest on the floor of the car in the passenger foot well with James’s case atop it.

  The trip into his college office was an excursion into culture shock. Because it was the first trip, it impressed itself all the more on James. The ghetto of Saints Gabriel, Columcille, and Rocco was still part of a great city; the college was suburban to the point of being in the next state.

  “Every great city has its own version of New Jersey,” began James, talking to himself. And not for the first time –Ten hours each week, for eight years he had rehearsed lectures, sang songs, drafted one dissertation and four books, prayed, and otherwise occupied himself with every activity which could be safely conjoined with driving a car. Today, it was a parody that he had set for himself of Woody Allen’s line,”When the punch line is New Jersey, who needs the rest of the joke?”

  “For Dallas, they must have Oklahoma as their New Jersey. Chicagoans spoof Indiana. New Orleans has Mississippi, and Atlanta has Alabama. For LA, it’s Goldwater’s Arizona and for San Francisco, it’s Oregon. But who needs six more Jerseys? Can we have a cow, too?

  “The car is on autopilot, and between the holiday on Monday and Tuesdays off on my schedule this semester, this feels like Monday instead of Wednesday. If yesterday is a typical pace, I’m going to have to renegotiate the whole arrangement with Gus after the two weeks is up.”

  Once out of the Brooklyn and Manhattan, the rest was superhighway. “That’s the problem with the 55 limit: these roads were made to do 70. I’m rambling. Why is that? Circuit overload. Too many stories. Between Gus Sadowski and Frank Yamamoto, I must’ve heard 23 different stories in, what, 36 hours in residence? And 16 of those were spent sleeping. Why don’t people write priest stories anymore? Dumb question, of course they do.” He began a list from A.J.Cronin’s Keys of the Kingdom to Gregory Dunne’s True Confessions. Sum total:149 in 36 years.

  By then he was off the interstate and a mile from the campus. The town of Cambridge bore little resemblance to either its British or New England counterparts. A 19th-century Utopian community, it had quickly gone back to wilderness, then farms, until the post World War II explosion made it an official suburb.

  Cambridge College was originally a religious order’s mother house, followed by a grade school, high school, novitiate, and in 1929, a college opened its doors six weeks before Wall Street died. Now they had a daycare center, a kindergarten, an infirmary, and, in a discrete corner of the property, a cemetery for the late nuns. As one of the brighter students put it, “Between the dorm and the cemetery, you can stay here from ‘come’ to kingdom come—if you’re female.”

  The final mile capped the culture shock. For the price of one lot plus house in Cambridge Estates, one could buy a complete city block in Father Sadowski’s parish. James could almost understand how the money gap created machine-gun-toting liberation theologians.

  Almost.

  At 7:55 a.m., James maneuvered his car into a slot at the far end of the parking field, yet still one more time cursing the “let’s do everything for the students” brand of “mom-ism” which had wiped out the faculty parking lot, and then reserved spaces entirely.

  As James lugged his briefcase to the cafeteria, he tried to recall the name of the medieval scholar who told of students leaving Oxford with “empty heads and a wise sack of books.”

  He took his tea over to the faculty dining room only to find a chain and padlock on the door. Looking around in mild bewilderment (for James never permitted his morning fog to dissipate before the first cup), he spotted Laslo Szabo, the history chairman in general seating. Szabo was tall, lanky, and looked like a cross between Lincoln, Jackson, and Mr. Ed.

  Unfortunately, Ed was also Szabo’s middle name.

  James was certain the horse would object.

  James pointed at the padlock. “Ed, what’s going on here?”

  Szabo shrugged. “Just don’t know. It was open on Friday. The chain was here when I showed up. I’ve been trying to catch Aggie and see what’s up.”

  Sister Agatha Marie was an ancient nun still in wimple and floor-sweeping habit for whom the community could find nothing else to do, so they made her superintendent of buildings.

  James put down his cup on Ed’s table and came back from the serving area with bacon, eggs, English muffin, and tomato juice.

  “What’s the occasion?” Szabo asked.

  James blinked, confused. “Huh?”

  Szabo smirked. “I’ve known you for how long?”

  “Nine years.”

  “First time in nine years I’ve seen you eat here—except for formal occasions.”

  “One, I refuse to pay for this slop. Two, the annual affairs are ‘Sister spank’ if you don’t show, and a fine attention to one’s food precludes having to talk to the trustee they place at each table. In the present instance—”

  James launched into a heavily edited narrative of the last two days. “So, between nicotine poisoning and doing a kamikaze number on the carbohydrates, I figure it will be safer to eat here or at Mac Fast Food, and then fast at the rectory.” He glanced at his watch. “Oh, well, class calls.”

  “See you at lunch.”

  “Bye, Ed.”

  James scarfed down his breakfast, made it to class, and began on the dot at 8:15 a.m.

  The scheduled classes were 8:15 to 9:10, 9:20 to 10:15, 10:25 to 11:20. James enjoyed his work: he taught ‘content’ courses on ethics, on human nature, and on philosophers 1500-1800. Aquinas was his prototype for clear, balanced, and subtle work in philosophy, but today was merely a matter of teaching the intangible to the impossible, the academic version of pearls before swine. The course was four weeks gone, routine had set in, and it would take a trauma at midterm to arouse these students.

  At 11:30, he stopped at the glass cubicle he laughingly called an office in the mouse maze formally known as the faculty room. He disposed of his junk mail and was briefly heartened at the return address on one envelope from Metropolitan U. He had put in a half-hearted application (Why does tenure sap resolve? he wondered) before realizing that the current philosophy chairman there was the protege of a fairly famous atheist … while James specialized in Catholic philosophy. James hadn’t even expected an answer. He would have been better off without the one he got.

  “Dear Sir: There will never be an opening in our department for someone with your credentials. Sincerely….”

  He put the letter in the desk, locked it, and returned home.

  “Home” was twenty minutes past the rectory on that fringe known as The Plaza in Maspeth New York. Not suburban, not center city, just an ethnic neighborhood constructed fifty years earlier as a middle step between ghetto and “made it.” It was a solid Jewish community surrounded by Irish, Italians, Poles, Filipino, and twenty other ethnic groups who supporte
d four Catholic Churches in a twelve-block square area.

  “Home” was a two family semi-detached house with a finished basement. James chose to live in the basement. Twelve six-foot bookcases lined the basement like a fortress – who needed wallpaper or a new paint job when you can just add a bookcase? The bed and dresser filled up what could have been a living room, sort of. There was an elevated section of the basement which had kitchen appliances, a dinette set, and chairs. A typewriter and piano filled up the spaces left over from built-in closets, half-bath, et al. He shoved the box from the rectory under the storage boxes of summer clothes in the rearmost closet when he heard the basement door open.

  Why his sister was christened with a triple-decker moniker like Gertrude Wilhemina Violet was the one question his mother would never answer. Fifteen years was enough distance between their ages for a father-daughter relationship but her deaf-mute birth to a change-of-life mother made brother-sister, sibling rivalry, insult-comedic the mandatory form of communication.

  As she pounded down the stairs, he said, “Hiya, Gertie.”

  She pouted and stamped her feet.

  “That’s very good, Silver,” said James distinctly so she could lip read him, “Now show me how you count up to four.”

  Instead of letting him lip read, she showed her irritation by going into sign language. “B-I-L-L-I-E-”

  “Yes, that’s right, your name of the month.” Having three names with many subvariants allowed Gertrude Wilhemina Violet to vary her name at whim.

  “H-O-W C-O-M-E Y-O-U H-O-M-E?”

  “Me, Tonto, You Lone Stranger.”

  “A-N-S-W-E-R M-E.”

  “Just dropping off some stuff. Mom’s at work?”

  She nodded.

  Mom’s a fraud investigator for the phone company. Sis is a thirteen-year-old high school sophomore in the City Special Honors program. What the hell am I doing at a poverty-level-$7000-a-year job in the boonies? James shrugged off his own question, did five more minutes of gabbing, and then caught the time: 2:07 p.m.

  “How come you’re home this early?”

  R-E-L-I-O-U-S E-D R-E-L-E-A-S-E-D T-I-M-E. Tiring of it, she mouthed, “It’s Wednesday, Dummy.”

  Wednesday … Ash Wednesday. Nuts. “Then things should be popping at Gus’s parish. Stay out of trouble.”

  “How can I get into trouble when my first lit paper on Kafka is due tomorrow?”

  “Bye-bye, cockroach.”

  * * *

  At 2:38, James pulled into the parking lot. He let himself into the back door.

  The first thing he was was someone at the safe. He was a tall man, wearing dark corduroys, moccasins, flannel shirt, and greasy hair of such an indeterminate color that it denied the recent proximity of shampoo or a comb.

  Knowing that James wasn’t the only one kicking around in the building, he barked, “Hey. Who are you?”

  The man at the safe whirled, squaring off against James. James caught his first view of a sickly, pasty face, walrus mustache, eyes too far away for color but close enough to see their glassiness.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, he charged James with his right fist cocked all the way back.

  With only a split second to react, James couldn’t think through this problem.

  Had he been a boxer, he would have blocked the obviously telegraphed haymaker and followed up … perhaps with an uppercut to the man’s exposed belly, or even the jaw if he was feeling confident.

  Had James studied that new fangled Israeli fighting system, he would have burst forward, well inside the swing, and delivered several nasty strikes with elbows, knees, and perhaps a head butt.

  Had this been one of those tacky Hong Kong films, it would have been an easy dodge, perhaps sweep the leg. The way the attacker was coming, it could have been an easy Bugs Bunny side step as he ran into the wall.

  James knew none of that.

  But he knew a little judo.

  He ducked, dropping to one knee, as though he were at prayer. However, that put the attacker’s right knee in a position to punch through his face. So James dropped even further, putting his shoulder just under the kneecap. He burst forward, wrapping his hands behind the attacker’s ankle, and charged.

  With the attacker’s left leg still in the air, the attacker was unsteady, and went backwards with the constant pressure of James’ shoulder pushing back on him. The attacker fell back, his head smacking against the vault door with a thud.

  “What goes on down there!” boomed Gus’ voice from the stairwell.

  James scrambled over the attacker, and crashed against the wall. He braced himself, pushed back, and came to his feet, keeping an eye on the brute, and watched for Gus to come in.

  When the priest entered, he stopped. “What happened?”

  James pointed at the prick on the floor, as if to say He started it, and said, “I found him pocketing money from the safe.”

  Gus groaned, and face palmed. “Doctor, meet Father Tim.”

  James looked down at the mess of a priest, and sighed. “I suppose I can’t just smother him with a and say it was an accident, can I?”

  CHAPTER NINE:

  MEET TIM

  A half hour, an ice pack, and some liberal smacking of Tim’s face (just to wake him, you understand) later, James heard the shouting from the top of the basement stairs. Having no particular scruples in the matter—and not trusting the priest who tried to assault him—he ducked into the second parlor from the front of the house and stooped at the fireplace. There he distinctly heard what was going on behind the closed doors of the common room because of the shared chimney with the fireplace on the other side of the wall.

  Gus spoke in the loud frustrated tones one uses with a simpleton, as if low IQ were a form of deafness, and as though repetition had failed and volume were now called for. “But you know the Bingo Commission requires I have the full night’s prizes on hand before the game begins.”

  The other voice was so low that James moved closer. He removed the decorative face plate which had closed off his fireplace from daily use. With the fire-bed now open, he caught, “…bar bill at Papa Luigi’s.”

  “Cut that crap. They called me as your employer before going to the Bishop and the collection agencies.”

  “Fuck you, Oreo.”

  James heard the blow and a body falling.

  “You’ll regret that, you house nigger.” Tim cried.

  “House servants were smart enough to make the best of a bad situation. But even slave owners knew you couldn’t make nuttin’ good outta po’ white trash,” responded Gus in venomous humor. “That’s why the Klan was made from losers like you—they needed to feel superior to the freed slaves.”

  James ducked as the common room door opened. There was a slight stammer in the man’s step, from non-coordination. As he turned to go up the stairs, James caught his first view of a sickly, pasty face, walrus mustache, eyes too far away for color but close enough to see their glassiness. It was the face of a raw dumpling.

  As Tim staggered out of sight, James turned slightly left to see Father Sadowski staring at him. “Get in here,” Gus growled.

  “Well, doctor,” said Gus, closing the office door, “do you know of any job whose duties include spying on one’s superiors?”

  James took a deep breath, exhaled as through an imaginary straw, and then began to fill his pipe. He sat on the sofa in the far corner of the room and watched his friend standing in front of the marble fireplace and visibly fuming.

  James pressed down on the tobacco in the bowl. “He took the whole thousand?” he asked casually.

  “Yes and why—”

  “Where were you?” James’ tone was calm and easy, as though asking about the time of a movie.

  “I was out on a sick call, and—”

  James interrupted again. “Does he still have it?”

  “He says not, but—”

  “And you know he didn’t give—or won’t be giving—it to Luigi’s?” James deduce
d

  “Of course not!” Gus boomed, confused. “I don’t believe—”

  “While you had him, did you confront him on the porn?”

  “WILL YOU STOP IT!! I WILL FINISH … ahem … my sentences, my thoughts, and you will not interrupt me any further.”

  “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” began James meekly in the opening formula for the rite of Confession.

  Gus stopped his hand in mid-air, almost beginning the cruciform blessing which is the sacerdotal response. He gave James a searching look. “Serious?”

  “Not for the sacrament,” said James “But for a serious conversation and an equal apology, yes? Would it matter if we did it in confession or not?”

  “Under Canon Law, I can’t refuse you, but I’ve always asked the guys in the house with me never to use me as their confessor and that wish has always been respected.”

  James went for another diversion. “How was the Castilian from Samoza-land?”

  “Fine. He’ll be here Friday night for the Spanish society meeting and sleep over on Friday and Saturday. His sister will house him Sunday through Thursday.” Gus would not be distracted for long, however. “Tim had enough time to take and hide the money before I got back from that sick call.”

  “Not if he took it when I caught him,” James said. “Though it could have been his return trip to the piggy bank.”

  Gus’ eyes narrowed. “Look, his coat’s still in the corner.”

  James picked up a dirty, gray loden-style coat with plastic “log” fasteners and a zippered hood, then threw it down. “Verminous,” he decided.

  Sadowski had his cigar going again and had calmed enough to seat himself in the “Daddy chair”. James swung himself leftward to face his host squarely.

  “First,” began James with that quiet intensity which had quelled overcrowded classrooms, “you will say nothing about the ‘literature’ unless directly asked. If directly asked, you will refer all such matters to me.” He went on quickly before an interruption could begin, holding up a hand to keep the priest silent. “This is not cowardice, it is prudence, plain and simple. I do not know how the diocese can make your existence any more miserable. I do know there is nothing they can do to me. Cambridge College isn’t in their diocese. It isn’t even in their state.” He gives a little smile. “And I have tenure. Just let me carry the freight. The worst they can do to you is spank you for letting a layman get at the ecclesiastical garbage dump.”