“The only reason they let that sonofabitch live here is he keeps the place clear of mice and rats. He’s a murderer.”
“You’re wrong, Jake. This baby is a sweetheart,” Charlie said. To the cat he said softly, “I’ll see you later, Diablo. Come visit me in an hour or so for a good ear rub.”
Charlie led the way out of the shrubs and walked quickly toward Boys Town’s stately church, Dowd Chapel, across the street. Jake dawdled, bone-cold and nervous.
Ahead, the church promised refuge from the cold wind. Charlie bounded up the front steps and pulled on the church doors. To his surprise, they opened easily.
“Hey. Guess what. Some dummy left the place unlocked. I thought we’d have to use a window to get in, but we’re saved.”
“It’s always unlocked,” Jake said, exasperation in his voice.
“They sure are trusting around here.”
“It’s a place you can go pray. They trust people to treat the church with respect.”
“Yeah? Well, I promise we won’t destroy it. We’re going in.”
The most holy place in the Boys Town was about to become the site of sin and wanton behavior.
Chapter 19
Night Visitors - Boys Town, April 1949
Since 1940, the Dowd chapel has served as the primary worship center at Boys Town. It is named for Miss Mary Dowd of New York City, who donated the structure in memory of her beloved family.
The chapel’s floor plan is in the shape of a cross, a cruciform configuration built in a style reminiscent of Gothic churches in the English countryside. It was constructed to last, made of Bedford limestone and heavy beams overhead supporting a tile roof. The inside walls are stone to a height of twelve feet.
A stately rectory was added to the church in 1941, at which time Father Flanagan vacated his original residence and moved in. Priests would not consecrate the Dowd Chapel as holy ground until 1967.
Charlie slipped into the church foyer.
Jake, following inches behind, was suddenly overtaken by guilt. Their very presence in the chapel for non-religious purposes was a sacrilege. He was sure of it.
“Take me down front,” Charlie directed. “We’re going to the dressing room the priests use.”
“Are you talking about the sacristy?”
“Yeah. That’s it. The sacristy,”
“Follow me,” Jake said reluctantly.
It could be worse. At least the sacristy isn’t consecrated.
Jake opened a door from the foyer into the main seating area.
The air in the nave was heavy and musty and bore the scent of candles. In the isolated stillness, there was a sense of reverence and peace. Stone walls and floors with solid wood pews added a feeling of religious density.
Overhead, huge chandeliers hung from beams. Most were dark. Every third fixture glowed at a quarter of its normal brightness, bathing the chapel in a dim, golden hue that added to the mystique.
They made their way behind the last row of pews to a side aisle, Charlie occasionally nudging Jake along.
When they reached the large marble font, Jake stopped momentarily and dipped his finger into holy water and made the sign of the cross. Charlie stood alongside watching. He leaned over the holy basin and looked at the water.
“My Grammy told me that nothing works like holy water to protect a guy from evil.” He dipped his entire hand into the water and drank a handful before rubbing his wet hand across his forehead and neck.
They moved on.
Charlie watched as Jake gave wide berth to a side room near the foyer.
“What’s with the fancy footwork?” Charlie asked.
Jake stopped. “Before Father Flanagan died last year, this room was a baptistery. But no one was ever baptized here because there are no babies in Boys Town. So, the baptistery was a good place to store Father Flanagan until they build a mausoleum for him. That is his temporary crypt.”
“No kidding?” Charlie asked.
He peered through the iron gates at a coffin lit dimly by a bank of prayer candles.
When his eyes adjusted and he could clearly see the coffin, Charlie shook the bars on the gates, causing a rattling sound that echoed through the church. “Kind of makes you wonder what the locked gates are for. I sure hope they’re strong enough to keep him in there,” he joked.
Jake saw Charlie grinning but refused to acknowledge the humor.
Charlie turned toward the front of the sanctuary. “Time’s a wastin’. Move on. Let’s go get holy.”
Passing in front of the altar, they walked under a large crucifix. Jake looked up. The thought hit him that Jesus appeared more relaxed now that he was no longer ablaze in candlelight. He paused long enough to genuflect and cross himself before the Savior.
With Jake stopped, Charlie approached the altar to examine it. On the backside, he looked for a door, expecting to open it and come face to face with God. Instead, he found nothing.
When Charlie returned, Jake was waiting with shock carved on his face.
“Get over it, Jake. God wasn’t home. Maybe he finally escaped the Catholics. Now, where is the sacristy? We must be close.”
Jake heaved a sigh of exasperation, then raised a hand to point the way.
To the side of the sanctuary, the sacristy door was unlocked.
Charlie stepped into a dim room lighted only by a small lamp shining on a statue of the Virgin Mary.
Charlie moved deeper into the room to a table, currently occupied by a cardboard box filled with pamphlets.
From a nearby side alcove, the statue of the Virgin Mary watched with a benevolent smile as Charlie removed his jacket and threw it on the table.
“Make yourself at home, Jake,” Charlie said.
Jake gave Charlie a dubious look, but removed his coat and sat. He crossed his arms and wondered what would happen next.
Charlie casually opened a closet door and assessed the few contents. The most noticeable item was a statue of a suffering Jesus with hands extended outward, pleading for mercy. One of his plaster ears was broken off along with a large piece of his nose and three fingers of the left hand.
“Looks like Jesus took a bad fall,” Charlie said to Jake with a wicked grin.
Hanging beside Jesus was a clean robe, and beside the robe hung a plastic drycleaner’s bag covering a long white cloth draped over a clothes hanger.
“Ah. Now here’s something useful,” Charlie said. He reached under the plastic bag, pulled out the sash, and placed it around his neck.”
“How do I look?” he asked Jake.
Jake wasn’t sure if he was in awe or shock. His face reflected disapproval.
“That’s a priest’s stole. You don’t look the least bit priestly,” Jake said.
“I guess I’m going to have to loosen up your tight ass,” Charlie said with a devilish gleam in his eye.
He began twirling so that the ends of the stole stood more or less horizontally from his body. Charlie closed his eyes, looked heavenward, and began speaking his own version of Latin, mocking priests he had seen. Two well-placed steps toward Jake and the stole slapped the frowning boy lightly, twice with each revolution.
Jake flailed trying to swat the flying stole away, but Charlie’s aim was dead on. Within five twirls, Jake gave up all effort to raise anger. He saw the ridiculousness of the scene and burst out laughing despite himself.
Charlie’s whirling stopped.
“I love it when you smile,” Charlie said.
Jake tried to salvage his dignity.
“Is this your idea of fun?” he asked.
“I’d say this is way down on my list of preferences, but bear with me, Jake. Things will get better real soon.” Charlie noted that Jake was still smiling.
Charlie opened the next closet, looked inside, and then closed it.
“Nothing in here,” he said.
The third closet yielded the bonanza.
When he turned to face Jake, he was holding a bottle of wine and the holy cork
screw.
“Thank you, Jesus,” Charlie said looking toward Heaven again. “Jake, grab that gold cup on the shelf behind you. It’s time to drink a little blood and wash our sins away.”
Jake protested as he obediently fetched the golden chalice.
“Father Gallagher will throw a fit for sure if he finds out we’re drinking his wine.”
“Jake, Jake, Jake. Think. It’s not Father Gallagher’s wine. This is God’s house. This wine belongs to God. He is a good God and a good host who welcomes all. He would want to provide refreshments to visitors. It would be an unforgivable sacrilege to insult God by refusing his hospitality. Even Jesus invited people to drink in memory of Him.”
Jake, who could think of no retort, placed the golden chalice on the table by the bottle.
Under the loving gaze of the Virgin Mary statue, they opened the bottle.
Charlie filled the golden chalice nearly to the brim and took a long drink. When he was finished drinking, he passed the chalice to Jake who cautiously tried a smaller swallow.
“Drink up,” Charlie directed. “You’ll like it soon enough.”
Jake swallowed the altar wine and with it he swallowed Charlie’s logic about God’s hospitality.
The chalice passed between them twice more before Charlie spoke.
“I like this wine. It’s better than the altar wine at St. Michaels in Indy.” He took the last, huge drink from the chalice and refilled it.
They were at the part of the bottle where life was good and Christian benevolence flowed from Charlie’s soul. The warm glow in their bellies relaxed their minds and tongues.
“I think Boys Town will be good for me. I get to start the game over again. That’s what I’m doing here, Jake. I’m starting my life over. I got started with the wrong cards in life.”
“Are you going to be a better person?” Jake asked.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Charlie answered. “I’m no Eagle Scout. I’m just saying I’m going to do better at living by my rules. The rules you follow are meant for one thing: to keep people under control. Rules are intended to make things predictable for the people with money.”
Charlie took a swallow and wiped his mouth with the white stole. He passed the chalice to Jake and continued.
“God put me here for a reason, and that reason is to prepare for something bigger. Whatever it is, nothing will stand in my way, not society’s rules, not cops or priests, no one.”
Jake listened to Charlie’s monologue and drank. He marveled at a different level of thinking—ideas he never knew existed. He came to recognize how his society built life around hard work and following rules for little reward other than a pat on the head. Jake listened with his soul. They drank, and Charlie talked.
Charlie’s mind relaxed more each time he raised the chalice. He told stories of human treachery and survival that amazed Jake, like the time the monks at Gibault Boys school taunted and tempted him to run away, even leaving a bike by the church steps for him.
“I took the bicycle they left for me and escaped. They had told me I could see my mother if I wanted to badly enough. Even while I was pedaling going down the road, I asked myself, ‘What am I doing here? Something is wrong with this.’ When they caught me, they beat me so hard I bled.”
“But you’re here now, man. You’re in a real good place at Boys Town. It’s like a real family.”
Charlie stared at Jake a long moment, his eyes glistening. He raised the chalice in a toast.
“To Boys Town,” he said with an enigmatic smile.
Jake matched Charlie drink for drink. For a moment, he thought he should stop drinking. More wine was not giving him strength or conviction, but instead was confusing him. With another swallow of wine, all second thoughts left and he began to embrace all of Charlie’s ideas. Like a mountain trout committing entirely to a casting fly, Jake took it in and was hooked on Charlie.
As Jesus’ wine went down, Charlie’s openness grew so that his most secret dreams and thoughts rolled off his lips and into the ears of Jake and the Virgin Mary.
During their second bottle, as the wine slipped below the label, as grandiose ideas blathered out, Charlie stood. Still wearing the white stole, he walked to a nearby crucifix hanging on the wall. He raised the chalice with both hands and made a vow to Jesus.
“I’ll shake up Hollywood one of the days. Everyone will know my name and talk about me. I’ll be known world-wide.”
He said it with such conviction, that neither Jake nor Jesus doubted him.
“Someday I’ll be big news. They’ll be talking about me on every news show in the country. When I walk in the room, they’ll all sit up and take notice and know I’m a serious player.”
He took another drink.
“And girls? I’ll have girls. I’ll have women who’ll do anything I want them to do because I’m going to be an influential person. Maybe a star, like Sinatra. I’ll give ‘em goose bumps just like I did tonight when I was playin’ my instrument.”
Charlie mimed the strumming of a guitar as he gyrated his hips suggestively.
Jake smiled drunkenly and held out his hand for more wine.
Charlie took a drink and handed the chalice to Jake. Charlie held his arms up, palms out, to Jesus.
“Someday, I’m going to be with people who think like us, people who can see past the lies they’ve been taught. People who need a second chance.”
Charlie let his arms fall. He turned away from the crucifix and back to Jake.
“That’s the thing about Jesus. He lets us start over no matter what’s in the past. I will be my own Jesus. I am Jesus, and can start over in any direction I want.”
Charlie stood nose to nose with Jake.
“Jake, you shall be my first disciple, just like Simon and Andrew were Jesus’ first.”
Jake said nothing, but liked the sound of being compared to the apostles.
“If only I could have my own crucifixion for my followers.”
Jake’s mouth fell open. “Uh, wha’d you say there, Charlie?”
Charlie grinned and reached for the bottle. “Not a real crucifixion, Jake, I’m talking about a make believe crucifixion, a sacrifice to show my followers how much I love them.”
As they neared the bottom of the bottle, Charlie grew silent and morose.
Two house flies had landed on the table near the bottle and were busy having their own prayer meeting. Charlie casually removed the white stole, folded it into a workable fly swatter, and snapped the fabric in a killing stroke.
Charlie emptied the bottle before he spoke again.
“I’m gonna have class someday,” Charlie said. He used the stole to clean away the fly remains. “And class is something you can’t get shoveling pig shit at Boys Town. If a guy does that, he just ends up smelling like pig shit. I won’t be no stinkin’ farmer. I’m going to do something different with my life.”
Charlie stared into the chalice.
“You know what I really need about now?” Charlie asked.
Jake sat looking at Charlie in a stupor unable to respond.
“What I really need is to find some little Bible-clutchin’ bitch who can screw all night Saturday and then make it to church on Sunday. That’s what I need.”
Jake managed a vague smile.
“You ever been with a girl before?” Jake asked. “You know. Done it?”
“Sure, plenty of times,” Charlie answered. “But never with anyone my own age. Just old whores. They wanted to break me in, they said.”
“Sounds like a pretty big sin to me,” Jake slurred.
“Well, that’s another thing I like about Jesus. He lets you do these things, you know. I guess that’s why Christianity is so popular. You can do whatever the hell you want on Saturday, fuck all night, and then beg for forgiveness on Sunday. Not bad, huh?”
Jake laughed, for the world now seemed funny to him.
“I’m beginning to think you’re not very religious, Charlie.”
Charlie
laughed at Jake’s realization.
“Me religious? Shit, Jake. Don’t you realize that religion is probably God’s biggest problem? Stick with me, pal, and you’ll learn all kinds of things. Meanwhile, we’ve got to get going,” Charlie said. “We’ve probably been here an hour or more. Drink up. Bar’s closing.”
Charlie returned the tortured stole to its hanger wrinkled, wine-spotted, and smeared with the last remains of house flies. He hid the two empty wine bottles.
“No one will ever know we were here,” he slurred.
Jake stood up, his head spinning, and grabbed the statue of Mary for support, almost causing her to flip onto the floor. Then, he sat again.
When they left, neither felt the biting cold on the walk to the dorm. For Jake, it was bedtime. For Charlie there was more to do on his first night at Boys Town.
Chapter 20
The Rectory - Boys Town, April 1949
Twenty minutes before Jake and Charlie staggered from the church, Hiram Hubert rapped urgently at Father Gallagher’s door. He waited impatiently for several seconds and rapped again, this time with insistence.
He heard shuffling inside. A bright light went on behind the front window shades, replacing a dim glow.
Inside the small house, Gallagher hurried toward the front door with a mounting sense of dread. Hiram’s knock had caused a surge of guilt.
The door cracked open no more than three inches. Hiram saw the red-faced person inside was Father Gallagher.
“Ah, Hiram,” he said. “What is it, lad? What’s wrong?” There was relief in the priest’s voice. He was thankful it was Hiram at his door and not Mother Superior reporting a missing nun.
“I was coming back from my cleanup job at the cottages and when I went by the chapel I heard people inside. Someone’s in there,” Hiram said. “I heard them talking.”
Father Gallagher focused on the story and released his grip on the door, to which Hiram responded by nudging it open with his foot.
“Someone’s in the church, eh? Who is it, Hiram?”
Hiram glanced into the room and saw two glasses with a bottle of wine on a small table. His eyes widened.
“I don’t know, Father.”
Before He Became a Monster: A Story Charles Manson's Time at Father Flannigan's Boystown Page 11
