by RJ Martin
“Who says?”
“Blessed girl. She says after you invited her, she felt a presence that made her decide to go. #Evangelist.”
I didn’t knock that one down. Maybe I shouldn’t have the first either. What if it was true? I raised my eyes to JC. What did he want?
Mom and Dad greeted mourners at the back of the church that couldn’t make the wake or preferred to count the funeral as their weekly trip to Mass. One Communion a week was enough for most folks. Mémé’s Franglais Canuck relatives had just arrived. My Great Aunt Inez was ninety something years old and in her faded purple dress, looked like a shriveled plum. She was the leader of the gray pack that sat together in the front rows opposite us. It was kind of strange. I mean, there were no bad feelings between any of us—at least not that I knew—except we were English in their eyes or ears, I guess, and that was enough for them to be suspicious.
“Allô,” the old aunt said to me and kissed both cheeks. “Très beau, très beau.”
“Bonjour.” I tried French in response.
The grizzled foreigners nodded their approval before a bilingual angel drifted between us and we each used the pause to retreat back across our borders.
On our side sat Marcy and Carl Trumble, my maternal grandparents, who liked being called Grandma and Papa, I know, ironic. We did not see them as often as you’d expect considering their snowbird retreat, where they lived year-round, was only in North Carolina. I was really excited the first time I went, but that didn’t last long. It turned out their condo was nowhere near the beach, or anything interesting, for that matter, unless you liked tobacco farms and golf courses. Papa said living there was about “catching the biggest bass, sinking the longest putt, and grilling the juiciest steaks.” I was zero for three in caring about any of that.
We’d gone down there a few times since then, and they came here once a summer. They’d been born and raised in a mill town farther north, but they’d developed a kind of seasonal resident’s snobbiness. They drank gin and tonics in the evening and once every summer took us to dinner at Big Bart’s. I liked that because Papa always let us order whatever we wanted including dessert. Unlike with Dad, I didn’t have to worry about the cost either. To me that meant they were rich.
Grandma and Papa kept looking over at Angie and me and thinly smiling. Well, Angie more than me because she would spend the rest of the school year and summer with them. Her running off with Rusty was the last straw, and with the twins still in the hospital, she was too much for Mom right now. My parents had no idea about my tribulations, or they might have sent me too. That would have really been awful: Papa liked to snark about “the gays.” He and Grandma were Christians. Catholics were too, but we were idolaters in their eyes. They were not thrilled about my mother’s converting, our upbringing in the faith, and especially my wanting to be one if its “priests.” Papa made the word sound like it was some kind of Satanist term. “Mass,” too, he always stretched out so it sounded like it had four a’s. I figured my grandfather would be in limbo forever. That was kind of the waiting room for heaven. The insurance people who gave Dad a hard time about the twins’ medical bills would be there. So would all the richies on reality TV shows. The ones where everybody complained about nonsense, when they had it way better than anyone I knew.
“I am so sorry for your loss.” The unmistakable bell-like voice echoed from the back of the church all the way up to Angie and me in the front.
“What is she doing here?”
“She knew Mémé,” I offered. True, Jace Naylor did meet her once. The same night I met Rusty and later projectile vomited in front of her.
“She’s here for the cameras, I bet.” The local network affiliate from down in Albany already did a story the night of the accident. “Media whore.” Angie might have been right. From everything Rusty had said and what I saw, his mother liked attention. I couldn’t throw stones there. Part of me was really getting into my newfound buzz.
Someone posted the TV news report online and started blogging about it but with me as the focus. How I knew the crash would happen without being told. I was the strange, pious boy who just maybe was blessed. A modern day Fatima kid without the secrets. Or maybe I had some that I didn’t share yet. Who spoke to me? Our Lady? An angel of the Lord? Then came the online poll: “Jonah Gregory: Prophet or Bullshit.” My canonized self was losing to the steer-dung me until a second report ran on the local news about the twins’ amazing recovery. Of course, I wasn’t in the story at all until the anonymous blogger got hold of it. Somehow I became a miracle worker as well as a prophet. From then on I trended. The holy me won in a landslide.
The news van sat outside the church now too. This was probably the end of the TV coverage. Without that, I was pretty sure my blip of fame would end. Part of me was relieved—it was really strange being written about that way—but I would miss it too. My weird dream come true. Me, cool again, cooler actually than I’d ever been. I really was holier than thou, and everyone knew it. Maybe the life of the saint was for me after all.
“I just had to come.” Jace took both of my mother’s hands. She wore a wide-brim black hat with a white band, a black dress on the bottom that was white on top, and what looked like black pearls.
“Do you think we should applaud?” Angie chirped in my ear.
“I wish I’d come sooner, but I was traveling,” Jace told my folks.
“With Rusty,” Angie whispered. “She took him out of the country.”
I thought he was in New York. A train ride not a plane one away. Keeping his distance until after the funeral. Then he’d come back if that’s what I wanted. Pain shot through my whole chest. It was like being stabbed by a lot of guys at once, and my mind flashed on Julius Caesar. We were reading the Shakespeare version of the story in Mrs. Ng’s class. She liked this one especially because the living and dying by sword was literally the story this time. That made me think of the mob who were with Brutus and then Anthony. All glory is fleeting.
“They made a deal,” Angie whispered. “If Rusty went away, Mom and Dad wouldn’t have him arrested.”
“But you’re both seventeen.” I prayed Jace hadn’t mentioned Rusty and me to my parents. “Arrested for what?”
“Rusty brought me to the party and it kind of got out of hand even if he didn’t.” She sounded like she might slap me again but being in JC’s presence saved me this time. “I think Jace just didn’t want people to know what a bad mother she is.” Or maybe JC had planted the thought in her head just like maybe he did with Father Dom about the retreat.
“Thank you so much for coming,” Mom gushed. A twisting in my guts joined my chest pains. Jace came down the aisle and was greeted by Mrs. Ng, Coach Danetto, Forge, and his scowling wife, who was her housekeeper. Sister Matilda almost curtsied, which was weird. What did an old nun know about romance novels? Maybe it was just Jace’s fame. If my family got goofy around her, why shouldn’t all the rest of our neighbors in their sensible parkas and salt-stained boots? Jace took a seat beside Mrs. Forge, I guess either to show them her “one of the people” side, or just to be with a familiar face no matter how severe Mrs. Forge was. She made her husband look like the friendliest man in town by comparison.
“Good morning, Angelique.” Sister Margo leaned over us together in our pew. “It is so nice that your classmates came to pay their respects.”
“Yes, Sister,” Angie said.
“Don’t you agree, Jonah?” She seemed more interested in what I had to say. That was to be expected; my sister got detention like other kids got homework: every day and in all of her classes.
“Yes, Sister. It’s great.” What else was I supposed to say? Sister Margo reached out gingerly and tapped my shoulder. It wouldn’t have been too weird if she’d done the same to Angie. Or at least didn’t almost gasp when she did it. As she walked away, I had to pinch my sister to keep her from laughing.
“Jonah, even Sister Mar-goyle thinks you were touched by an angel. How long do you th
ink it’ll be before she tells Father Dom or the pope or, oh shit, Mom?”
“If she really believed it, she would’ve said something already.” I hoped that was true.
“Maybe she just doesn’t want to look stupid for thinking you’re something special, but if she finds out how much her students are posting about you….” Angie made a yikes kind of face that stated her opinion better than any words. I hated when my sister was right about anything, especially when it came to me.
A nun was kind of an assistant manager for JC’s multinational conglomerate of faith. If she did find out about my social media buzz, Sister Margo would need to report me. The church didn’t like new prophets without them going through channels first and only then after they were dead. Father Dom would know next and then…. Thank JC it all would end today. Yes, I was sure now. I was glad to go back to just being me.
The hymn started, a French one I didn’t know. Mrs. Domber, our music teacher, was also the cantor at Holy R. She was plump, did operas once upon forever ago, and was the highlight of midnight Mass every year with her version of O Holy Night. I looked back and saw Jace looking at me. Then she did something I thought was really inappropriate: she winked. She smiled too, and I knew our secret was safe.
The hymn ended, and Father Dom greeted us in a powerful voice. “In the name of the Father….” The pastor was pumped up because his church was fuller than anyone expected for a gassy old French Canadian sphinx. There were reporters and now a celebrity too. At least I was sure Father had no idea about what was going on. It was kind of amazing how clueless all the adults in my life were when it came to me.
We stood and offered our opening confessions to each other: how our sinning through our thoughts and through our deeds, etc. I looked at JC again as I kept trying to figure out what he wanted.
“Rusty looks kind of like Jesus.” Angie said it without any inflection, and that gave away to me she was doing it on purpose. “I never really noticed. I guess I should go to church more.” I could feel her eyes on me. “Like you do.”
“Angie, Mass started,” I whispered.
One of Mémé’s Legion of Mary friends led us in her prayer. “Hail Mary, full of grace. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”
“Did she say Fruit of the Loom?”
“Angie, stop.” I bit my lip. My sister could make me laugh. She knew it and so did I.
“You know they look alike, don’t you?”
My laugh died in my throat.
“Is that why you went with Rusty?” She leaned in. “Because he looks like Jesus?”
I lowered my head like I was praying. Was I about to be struck by lightning?
“You’re really twisted, Jonah.”
“I know.” I started to cry.
Angie instantly did too and wrapped an arm around me. We stood for the Gospel. The whiff of incense had a calming effect, but the tears still rolled. Mom and Dad started to tear up now, and Jace Naylor’s sniffs echoed through the church.
“The Lord said….” Father Dom’s voice boomed, feeding off the emotion. The more he got into it, the more swept away on a river of grief everyone found themselves. Did Mémé deserve this? Maybe everyone did, but she just got lucky. Again my tears for a boy who was now gone were misunderstood, except by Angie, maybe his mother, and JC too. I heard a click and then another and spun around to see Maya and Karen taking my picture with their phones. I looked back to the altar. Father Dom didn’t seem to notice, but JC did. Of that I was sure.
WE SAT around the old giant TV in our family room that night: Mom, Dad, Angie, my grandparents, and me. All of our eyes were glued to the set because Jace Naylor was being interviewed on the steps as Mémé’s casket was carried out by her pallbearers: Forge, my father, and me on one side and three of the unfriendly Quebecois on the other. “I have had the privilege of getting to know….” She didn’t know Mémé’s name. Jeez. “This lady and this lovely family, and that’s why I just wanted to be here today for them.”
I imagined what Rusty would say. “She’s here because there’s a camera and Jace needs her fame fix.”
Hairy Jack Marucci leapt from the middle of a bunch of NC3 cool kids and right into the shot behind the local television reporter. “You should talk to Jonah, babe!” he yelled.
‘Thank you, Ms. Naylor.” The reporter ignored Jack and so did I as I helped slide my grandmother into the hearse. A pigeon was on the tailgate and flew straight up when the driver opened it. I almost let Mémé go, and I had to turn my head to not get whacked by its wings. I was sure the flying rat would poop on me but it didn’t.
“From Holy Redeemer Church in Lake Henry,” the reporter said crisply, no idea who I even was.
“That was so nice of her to say those things about us,” Mom said through her sniffles. It turned out, she really loved my grandmother, and took her passing harder than any of us had expected. “Mémé would’ve been so touched.” I bit my lip to keep from laughing at just how starstruck my—in all other ways sensible—mom had become.
“Why did that boy say that?” Grandma peered at me from behind her round glasses with tortoise shell frames.
“I didn’t notice.” Mom looked confused. “Who said what?”
“Some boy said they should talk to Jonah.” Papa got in on it now.
“Why would he say that?” Dad decided to interject.
“Just horsing around.” I shrugged. Mom’s parents had only been here a few days and already I was lying to them too. Angie stood and went to her room. I pretended to care about the sports and weather until I saw the light go out under her door. My sister was leaving in the morning and really unhappy about it too. Better to stay out of her sight. Once her light was out, I decided it was safe to brush my teeth and go to bed.
“YOU HAVE to fix this, you know?” Angie stood and pushed the bathroom door shut behind me. She’d set a trap.
“What if anyone else comes in?”
“Maybe someone told me to do it.” She cupped her hand around her ear like she was hearing a voice from on high.
“That’s not funny.”
“No, it’s not.” She grabbed my chin. Usually I wouldn’t let her but the need for secrecy forced me to accept it. “Every day you wait, it’ll get worse.”
“Or people will forget about me.”
“Or they won’t.” Her eyes started to fill and so did mine. We’d never been separated, and though not twins, it really felt scary and cold. We hugged for a while.
“I really have to pee,” I said because I did.
My sister nodded as she backed out of the bathroom. She waved a quick good-bye and shut the door. The next morning when I woke up, my big sister Angie was already gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
FAIR IS foul and foul is fair Mrs. Ng scrawled in big, loopy letters on the blackboard. We were on to Macbeth, and I was way behind on my reading. I had the brick of an anthology at home with me, but every time I cracked it, my mind wandered and I’d pick up my Lives of the Saints instead. I searched for parallels: young people called to do great things. Did they doubt if their being chosen was real? Saint Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows was the patron of boys that want to be priests. Unlike me St. GLS was popular, handsome, and rich. He gave it all up to be a priest and died young of tuberculosis. In Italy, high school kids visit his shrine and pray to do well on their finals and stuff. How did he know he’d been chosen? How was he sure?
“What do I mean by this?” Mrs. Ng must’ve noticed I wasn’t paying attention. “Jonah, you answer please.” Yes, the old exploding ah sound she used to make was gone. Now, instead she almost swallowed the second syllable of my name like a croaking frog. JO-nah, RIB-it.
I wanted to say “live by sword, die by sword,” but instead I stayed quiet. I was sure that’s the main theme but not where she was going right then. I could feel Chad staring. We had assigned seats so he was still next to me, but I didn’t think either of us wanted to be there.
&nbs
p; “Didn’t you read it?” Chad whispered like if I didn’t, I could get expelled.
I froze, the whole class looking now. This never happened before. I always did my work, was prepared and set an example.
“Nothing is as it seems.” Chad didn’t even bother to raise his hand. “Well, maybe not everything but, you know, a lot.”
“Good, Chad. Very good.” Mrs. Ng sounded like he was a puppy that just learned to sit or roll over. “But your name is not Jonah, and next time raise your hand.”
“I didn’t ask for your help.”
“You’re welcome,” Chad hissed as he sat back, done with me at least for now.
“Shakespeare is messing with us.” Mrs. Ng waved her hands in little spirals on either side of her head. “What is real and what is only in the mind?” She tapped her forehead. “Is it fate? Do these things have to happen?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Bart in his usual last-row perch. His eyes were gray and bloodshot like he’d just smoked up or been crying, neither of which seemed possible for the crown prince of NC3. Weirder still, Bart was staring at me and not trying to hide it either. A tremor rolled through me. Maybe he was at last going to tell everyone what he thought: far from a saint, I was just a random gay boy and even more full of shit than ever. The accusation alone would probably be enough to put an end to all the tweets and blogs about me, right on my first day back and in homeroom.
“Or does Macbeth make them happen?” Mrs. Ng got down in Callie’s face now because she wasn’t paying attention either. “Is he being manipulated or acting on his own?” I didn’t notice until Mrs. Ng did, but Callie was staring at me the same way Bart was. When will this class ever end? “This we know as free will.”
THE CAFETERIA seemed darker than I remembered or maybe it was just the rainy spring gloom. Friday, so the choice was fish sticks or macaroni and cheese. The tartar sauce was in an uncovered bowl on the counter. Any kid could’ve sneezed in it as they walked by. No thanks. Mac and cheese for me, and it seemed just about everybody, probably for the same reason. Chad and Darcy were already there but seated at the end of a full table. She waved but he didn’t. I chose an end seat at a half-empty one with nongeek, nonjock, nonrich ordinariness, kind of like what I would be without Rusty or JC.
