The Stranger at the Palazzo D'Oro

by Paul Theroux

  “He’s taking a leak,” Chicky said.

  “Shoot him in the nuts,” Walter said in a husky sobbing voice. “Shoot the bastard.”

  “Hold it,” Chicky said, and I knew what he was thinking.

  The man was not a blurry villain anymore. He was a real person, and that was much worse. He wore a black golf cap and buttoned to his neck a shapeless coat that looked greasy, the way gabardine darkens in winter. Slipping back into the car, he flung out his arm to yank the door and we got another look: big nose, small chin, a pinched mouth, and a face that was so pale his mustache was more visible, a trimmed one. He looked like a salesman in the way he was so neat, like someone who put himself in charge and smiled and tried to sell you something.

  When the light went off, Walter raised his rifle, and Chicky pushed it down hard, saying, “Quit it.”

  I thought the man might hear, but the door was closed, the engine had started, the gearshift was being jiggled and jammed into reverse. The brake lights reddened our faces.

  “We can’t do it now,” I said. I was giggling, but still panicky.

  “I’m gonna,” Walter said, and tried to snatch his rifle from Chicky’s grasp.

  “Tell him, Chicky.”

  “Freakin’ Scaly,” Chicky said.

  The relief I felt for our not having shot him was joyous, a kind of hilarity, a light like a candle flame leaping in my body making me feel like a small boy again. In my guts I knew that if you killed someone, you died yourself.

  5

  In the woods we were free to do anything we liked. We knew from what we saw—the torn-up pictures, the tossed-away magazines, the used Trojans, the bullet-riddled signs, the women on horseback, even the fisherman with the hook in his thumb—that other people felt that way, too. We could make our own rules. We thought of the woods as a wilderness. It was ours, it was anyone’s, it was why we went there, and why Father Staley went there. No one looked for you there, and if they did, they probably wouldn’t find you: you could be invisible in the woods.

  But we were Scouts, we were trackers, we could find someone if we wanted. We had found the man who had bothered Walter, maybe molested him, though I did not have any clear idea of what “molested” meant, other than probably touched his pecker. “He tried to kiss me” didn’t mean much. We talked wildly of sex all the time, but none of us had yet kissed a girl.

  Walter would not tell us what the man had done. Whenever he tried he shook and stammered and got blotchy, pink-cheeked and flustered, and sometimes so mad he began talking about killing the man.

  But the man was Father Staley. We could not explain how important that man was; how we could not even think about harming him. On the way home that night, walking at the edge of the woods among the low bushes, so that none of the passing cars would see our guns, Walter was upset.

  “Stop crying, Herkis,” Chicky said.

  “I’m not crying.”

  “What’s wrong then?”

  “What’s wrong is, I saw him. That was the same guy. You thought I was lying. I was telling the truth!”

  He was screeching so loud he sounded like his sister Dottie, who was almost his age and had the same pink cheeks and pale skin.

  “I don’t get what you’re saying,” Chicky said.

  “I saw the freakin’ homo!” Walter said.

  What he seemed to be saying was that by seeing the man, he remembered everything that had happened. That had upset him all over again.

  “We’ll get him, don’t worry,” I said. But I was glad the moment had passed, that none of us had fired our guns at Father Staley. The woods were free but we would have been arrested for killing a Catholic priest, and would have been disgraced and been sent to jail forever. It could have gone horribly wrong, for at that point our pretending had become real—pretending to be Indian trackers, pretending to be hunters and avengers, following the tracks, carrying guns. We had talked about what we would do when we found the man, but I hoped it was just talk, that We’re Indian trackers was the same as Let’s kill him and Shoot him in the nuts—words we said to ourselves for the thrill of it.

  Chicky would have shot if it hadn’t been Scaly; Walter had wanted to fire, and was angry we hadn’t let him.

  “You both chickened out,” Walter said. He sang off-key, “Chickenshit—it makes the grass grow green!”

  “We’ll do something,” Chicky said. “Something wicked awful.”

  “No sah. You’re chicken because he’s supposed to be a priest. You actually know the guy.”

  Thinking of a priest as “a guy” was hard for us, because he was a man of God, powerful and holy. Because Chicky and I were Catholics, and Father Staley was a priest, we felt responsible for him. It gave Walter another reason to dislike Catholics. We knew that the Seventh-day Adventists said bad things about Catholics, just as Catholics said, “This is the True Church. Protestants are sinners. They’re not going to Heaven,” and “Jews are Christ killers.”

  “He’s a homo,” Walter said.

  That hurt, but it was true.

  “He’s a Percy, he’s a pervert,” Walter said. “He was trying to make me into a homo.”

  “He’s still a priest,” Chicky said. “He’s chaplain to our Boy Scout troop.”

  “Big deal.”

  “It is a big deal. We can’t shoot him,” Chicky said. It sounded strange to hear Chicky being solemn and responsible, his close-set eyes, his yellow skin, his big nose, his picking at his birthmark as he spoke. “But we can do something. Beaver Patrol to the rescue.”

  “Just don’t broadcast it,” I said.

  They stopped walking and stared at me. We had come to the Forest Street rotary and were standing under a streetlight. Cars were rounding the rotary, going slowly, so we stood holding our rifles upright against our sides, the butt tucked under one arm like a crutch, while keeping the muzzle off the ground. By being silent, they were querying what I had said.

  “Because we could get into trouble,” I said.

  They saw that I was right. It was certain that if we had reported Father Staley to the police, he would win and we would have to answer all the hard questions: What were you doing in the woods? Why did you each have a .22 and a lot of live ammo on you? Were you lying when you said you were going on a cookout? Why were you fooling around near Doleful Pond with those dirty pictures? Staying out after dark, we were up to no good. We had no answers.

  Father Staley would say Walter was lying: people would believe him, not us. And no matter what happened, we would be known forever as the boys involved in the Father Staley scandal, wicked little fairies and tattletales. We would never get a girlfriend. Other kids would tease us and pick fights. We would lose.

  “We’ll figure something out,” I said.

  We parted that night in the shadows of the street like conspirators, swearing that we would not say anything to anyone.

  When I got home and my mother said “Where have you been?” and I said “Nowhere,” I did feel I had been nowhere. We had come close to almost killing a man. I would not have fired my gun, but Chicky and Walter would have. I would have been arrested with them. People would have pointed their finger at me and said, You’re just as guilty as they are.

  I took my gun into the basement and stashed it behind a leaning stack of storm windows.

  Upstairs, my mother said, “Is there anything wrong, Andy?”

  “No,” I said, and felt sorry for her, because she didn’t know anything of what had happened, and there was so much to know. She did not know me, either. I was just a stranger in the house.

  At the next Scout meeting, Chicky and I stuck together, not saying anything, but looking at Father Staley when his back was turned. He wore a black cassock with a hundred black buttons on the front, and the skirtlike lower edge of it touched the toes of his black shoes. Now the thing seemed like a dress to us.

  When he looked at me, I felt he knew something—he smiled in a suspicious way, pinching his mustache. Being near him made me q
uiet and fluttery inside: I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  But Chicky was more talkative than ever in a bold, mock-serious voice. Looking straight into Father Staley’s face, he said, “I’m going up for my First Aid merit badge, but I’m having some problems.”

  “Maybe I can help,” Father Staley said.

  “Father, hey, I’m not sure what you do if a snake bites you.”

  “Get straight to the hospital, son. That’s what you should do.”

  Chicky said, “Um, some people say you’re, um, supposed to suck out the poison.”

  It was the thing we always joked about. What would you do if a snake bit a girl on her tits, or a boy on his pecker or his ass? Suck it out. Even the word “suck” sounded wicked to us.

  “You only do that if you’re in the woods,” Father Staley said.

  “But, hey, that’s where all the snakes are, Father,” Chicky said.

  He was trying to get Father Staley to talk about sucking out the poison. Father Staley put his hand on my leg—his hand had never felt scalier—and said, “You’ve got a First Aid merit badge, Andy. What would you do in a situation like that?”

  I hated being asked. “In a situation like that,” I said, and hesitated. Then, “You cut the wound with a sharp knife, making an X. And when it bleeds, you kind of, um, suck the poison out. And I forgot to say, maybe put a tourniquet on the person’s arm between the snakebite and his heart.”

  “If he’s bitten on the arm,” Father Staley said, and his eyes glittered at me.

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Very good. So there’s your answer, DePalma,” he said, walking away.

  I said to Chicky, “You’re such a pissah.”

  Pleased with himself, Chicky said, “I just wanted to see what he’d say. I know Scaly’s a homo now. He was trying to feel you up.”

  “Beaver Patrol,” Corny Kelliher said, calling the group together.

  We scraped the wooden folding chairs into a circle and sat there, waiting for Corny to lead the patrol meeting.

  “Let’s talk about tracking. Anyone?”

  “We done some tracking the other day,” Chicky said. “Me and Andy.”

  Father Staley crept over to listen.

  “Want to tell us about it?”

  “Oh, yeah. We were in the woods,” Chicky said. “We seen some tracks. We kind of followed them.”

  Nothing about tracking down the pervert, nothing about our guns, nothing about Walter Herkis, nothing about our spying from the hill, nothing about Father Staley and his blue Studebaker—and who knew he had a Studebaker, since none of the priests even owned a car?

  “Do any sketches of the tracks?”

  “No. But I could draw a picture.” Chicky took a piece of paper and a pencil and sketched some circles and shaded them, while glancing from time to time at Father Staley. When he had finished, Chicky said, “Maybe a wolf.”

  “Must have been a dog,” Corny said. “The prints are similar.”

  “It was a wolf,” Chicky said.

  “There are no wolves in Medford,” Father Staley said.

  “Hey, have a seat,” Chicky said. His yellow Italian face made his friendliness seem sly. “Ever been up the Fells, Father?”

  Father Staley just smiled at the direct question and said, “My hiking days are over, I’m afraid,” and joined our group, sitting himself on a folding chair, plucking his cassock at his knees, like a woman in a gown, except his fingers were scaly.

  Sort of bowing to Father Staley, who was at the center of the Beaver Patrol—bowing was his way of treating Scaly as though he was holy—Arthur Mutch handed us each a sheet of paper, saying, “I just mimeographed these. I want each one of you to take it home and study it.”

  The heading at the top of the smudged sheet was “Elements of Leadership,” with twenty numbered topics. The first was “Inspiring respect by setting an example.”

  As he passed by, Mr. Mutch said to me, ‘Andy, you should be asking yourself why you’re not a patrol leader. You’ve got the ability. You just don’t use it.”

  Hearing this, Father Staley said, “Mr. Mutch is right. You pick up the lame and the halt.”

  I faced him, I couldn’t answer, I knew my face was getting red.

  “People like that just drag you down.”

  I wanted to say: What did you do to Walter Herkis? But I knew that if I did, I would have to pay a terrible price for talking back to a priest.

  “You know what I think?” Father Staley said, because he still wasn’t through, and now he was so close I could smell the SenSen on his breath. I knew that smell: we sucked Sen-Sens to take away the stink of cigarettes when we were smoking. “I think you enjoy hiding your light under a bushel. That’s just plain lazy. It’s also a sin of pride.”

  I wanted to shoot him in the face. Shoot him between the eyes, we always said. I located a spot between his eyebrows and stared at it with a wicked look. The other members of the Beaver Patrol were pretending to read “Elements of Leadership” but were really sneaking glances at the way Father Staley was scolding me. Buzzy Dwyer, John Brodie, Vinny Grasso. And Chicky’s yellow face was twisted sideways at me.

  “Shall we talk about leadership and taking responsibility?” Father Staley said to the others when he was finished with me.

  Homo, I thought.

  Corny Kelliher said, “That’s a good idea, Father.”

  “Or we could practice some knots,” Chicky said. “I’m trying to learn the bowline. Maybe go out for the Knot Tying merit badge.”

  “I might be able to help you with that,” Father Staley said. “You know, I served in the navy?”

  “I want to go into the navy, Father.” Chicky was smiling at him, and I knew he was deliberately choosing things to say to Father Staley, even trying to please him in a way, like a small boy dealing with a big dog.

  Picking up a short length of rope and extending his scaly fingers so that we could see his movements, Father Staley slowly tied a bowline knot. With a little flourish, which seemed to me a sin of pride, he presented it, dangling it in our faces. I hated his fingers now.

  “Now you do it,” he said. He picked the knot apart with his fingertips, then handed the rope to me.

  My hands went numb because as soon as I started to tie the bowline, Father Staley lowered his head to peer at my fingers for the way I was tying the knot. His head was sweet from cologne, and I could still smell the Sen-Sen. I made several false starts, then tied the bowline.

  “DePalma?” Father Staley handed the rope to Chicky.

  Chicky started the knot slowly, his tongue clamped between his teeth. But then he bobbled the rope and tugged on the ends and the knot became a twisted knob.

  “That’s a granny knot,” Father Staley said.

  He got up and crouched behind Chicky and put his arms around him, and taking Chicky’s hands, which held each end of the rope, he guided Chicky, pressing on his fingers, tying the knot using Chicky's hands.

  “See?” His head was in back of Chicky's head, his breath on Chicky's neck.

  Squirming free of the priest and looking rattled, Chicky said, “I think I get it, Father.”

  In the navy you learned many different knots, Father Staley said. He had been stationed in Japan. He tied a knot on Vinny Grasso’s wrists and said, “Japanese handcuffs. Go ahead, try taking them off.” When Vinny yanked on them, he grunted and his hands went white. Instead of untying Vinny, Father Staley used more pieces of rope to tie Chicky’s wrists and mine. I left the rope slack, because I thought from Vinny’s reaction that the knot would tighten if I put pressure on it. Instead, I made my right hand small and it was so sweaty I managed to slip it out of one side, and untied the knot.

  Father Staley saw I had freed myself, and he smiled and put his scaly fingers out for the rope and said, “Want to try again?”

  His friendliness made me so nervous I couldn’t speak. I watched him untying Vinny’s wrists. Afterward, Arthur Mutch told us to line up and stand at att
ention. Father Staley made the sign of the cross and said, “Let us pray,” and my pressed-together hands got hot, for when he prayed I was more afraid than ever.

  “Dear Lord, make us worthy of your love...”

  On the way home, I thought Chicky would talk about Father Staley hugging him and holding his hands to tie the bowline, but instead he said in a trembly voice, “Scaly thinks I’m dragging you down.”

  “He’s full of shit,” I said.

  “We should kill him,” Chicky said.

  “What will we tell Walter?”

  “That we’ll get the bastard.” Kicking the pavement, scuffing his shoe soles, he was thinking hard. “Know what we should do? Wreck his stupid car.”

  “Like how?”

  “There’s billions of ways,” Chicky said.

  I remembered how he got angry because there was no car maintenance merit badge, and he knew everything about cars.

  Before we parted that night, he said, “I think you drag me down, because you’re such a fucking banana man.”

  We went to Walter’s house after school the next day and hid behind a tree, waiting for him to come home. After a while, a car stopped in front of his house and Walter got out—a car full of kids, more Seventh-day Adventists, more bean eaters, who never danced, who went to church on Saturday. So many of them made the religion seem stranger.

  Seeing us lurking near the tree, Walter looked around and then sidled over and whispered, “What’re we going to do?”

  “Kill his car,” Chicky said. He loved the expression. He licked his lips and made his yellow monkey face. “Kill his car.”

  Chicky put himself in charge, because cars were the one thing he knew about. He said, ‘Andy's the head tracker. And you’re the head lookout, Herkis. But you’ve got to do what I say.”

  “No guns,” I said.

  “Why not?” Walter said.

  “Because if we get caught they’ll take them away.” But my worst fear was that if they had them they would use them and would kill Father Staley.

  “How are we going to kill his car, then? I thought we were going to shoot bullets into it.”