“It’s alright, Marilyn. It’s all going to be alright,” Max said, “You can wake up now and you won’t feel afraid. Wake up. Rowley, stop barking. No one’s there,” he said with more authority than he felt. Rowley whined and backed away from the door as Max helped Marilyn sit down and the pointer fell dumbly to the floor.
“I remembered something, didn’t I?” she asked groggily, glad that the Map Room had that warm library light and that Rowley was licking her hands and nuzzling her.
“I think you would admit you are carrying some kind of psychic burden. It seems like you have been carrying it forward from other lives. I think our work will be to lift that burden, Marilyn.” Max picked up the pointer that had flung itself out of its holder and used it to point to a red dot on the map of Siam marking the ruins of Ayutthaya.
“Okay, professor,” she said in her raspy whisper voice, “Something’s gotta give.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Things that Come Back to Haunt
The hallway clock chimed four and the Monsignor perked up as the strains from the thrilling title sequence and theme song to the re-run of The Big Valley began to play on the living room television set. It always seemed to the priest that the episodes became racier all week until Friday and today was bound to be good as it was Wednesday. Mrs. Napoli always served canned cream of tomato soup with grilled cheese on Wednesday and that is what he had eaten for lunch. The Monsignor would never admit it, Notre Dame Graduate that he was, that he loved canned tomato soup and The Big Valley re-runs. It was Barbara Stanwyck playing Virginia Barkley, the tough beautiful widowed matriarch of the Barkley ranch that kept him and Mrs. Napoli watching every afternoon although the housekeeper had a marked soft spot for the illegitimate son, Heath. The old priest would watch the show in a crafty way with a copy of the Catholic Digest open in his lap while Mrs. Napoli would crane through the open kitchen to see the set as she made Jell-O fruit salad, another Wednesday dinner staple. Before he was semi- retired the Monsignor rarely had time to watch to watch the big western show in prime time so now he relished every episode in re-runs.
The old Monsignor felt a little flutter of surprise as Gar, smudged with gardening dirt, came in and with a quick smile said, “Oh, boy, this is one of my favorite shows, mind if I watch with you?” Then the parish guest plunked himself down on the carpet like a big kid and turned all rapt attention to the television set. Mrs. Napoli caught the eye of the old priest and shrugged as if to say, well, at least he has good taste.
The episode was a corker involving stolen cattle, a Mexican bandit, and a mysterious rancher who seemed to have an eye on Virginia Barkley’s daughter Audra. The Monsignor drifted off into a daydream of being the padre at an adobe church near the ranch with a big bell that would sound out over the fields calling Virginia Barkley to mass.
“Gar, will you put the pork chops and baked beans in at five thirty? They’re all ready to go,” said Mrs. Napoli as she put her apron back in the broom closet preparing to leave.
“You bet, Mrs. Napoli, you know anything I can do to help makes me happy,” Gar said.
The exchange shook the Monsignor out of his daydream. The morning came back to him, Father Weston and the newspaper story, Father Troy’s stubborn face. Monsignor Lowell hated it when priests squabbled, they were worse than old biddies. Over Father Weston’s objections he had sent them on their usual Wednesday rounds. Father Weston taught The Catholic Faith, Now and Forever at the Catholic high school to seniors and Father Troy played his guitar and visited the St. Joe’s nursing home just a few blocks away from St. Pat’s. Some of the residents objected to “the hippie priest,” the Monsignor knew, but what with the way priests were leaving the orders and fewer than ever were coming in the St. Joe’s residents were lucky to have an ordained priest visiting them at all. Then both Father Troy and Father Weston did rounds at St. Mary’s hospital, visiting the sick and giving the holy sacraments until they came back sometime around six for dinner. Sometimes they rode together in Father Weston’s navy blue Oldsmobile but more often than not Father Troy would take the city bus so he could ‘be with the people’ as he liked to say. The Monsignor had promised to think over whether or not Gar should be allowed to stay but the whole thing seemed fuzzy to him. There had to be things they weren’t telling him but he wasn’t sure he wanted to know whatever it was they were.
The five o’clock news began to play on the television set. The old priest got up, making sure that Mrs. Napoli had left for the day and, with a little wink at Gar, took a key from inside his black frock pocket and opened up the liquor cabinet. With his high blood pressure and heart condition the Monsignor was forbidden alcohol by the interfering Dr. Jordan, but the Monsignor liked his sherry and, taking a bottle from the stock, he poured with shaky hands a tumbler full. He paused, unsure whether he should offer Gar anything but Gar solved it for him by saying, “Oh, I don’t care for the stuff.” Then, carefully locking the cabinet back up, the Monsignor eased back to his recliner, careful not to spill a drop.
The handsome but fleshy T.V. anchorman with the beige sport coat on leaned over the news desk dramatically. “Breaking news, Decaturites, Channel 9 has learned that a third body has been found on the grounds of the Lincoln Log Motel where earlier this week two traveling carnies were killed in a drug deal gone wrong. Is Decatur in the middle of a Chicago-style drug war? Authorities are looking to the public for any tips about this case. Full story at six.” The set filled with a seedy image of the backside of the motel with its abandoned ice-cream cart, patio furniture, and the broken down log cabin playhouse. The Monsignor was so transfixed that he didn’t notice that Gar had gotten up from his seat on the brown carpeted floor. When he looked up he was startled for a moment at just how physically imposing Gar seemed.
“I need to talk to you, Monsignor Lowell, I hope you don’t mind,” Gar said in his respectful way but he turned and shut the news off with a click of the set’s knob without even asking.
Too bad, Gar thought as he shut off the news. Collateral damage, it happened. The guy shouldn’t have come looking for drugs from his friends the carnies and then he shouldn’t have tried to run. The guy was fair prey. As a vampire Gar had to feed and he was already in for a penny, in for a pound at the old Lincoln Log motel. He had stuffed him in the log cabin playhouse before he peddled away that night.
Monsignor Lowell gnawed his lip a little in irritation at the insolence of Gar shutting off the five o’clock news, but saying nothing took a sip of sherry. The tawny wine rolled around his mouth with its marvelous taste of sweet and bitter. “Sit down, my son. We’ll talk. Are you worried about the two carnies who were murdered?”
“They didn’t work for me but it does make you feel awful.” Gar gave a crooked smile and sat as though it was perfectly natural, Indian-style, at the Monsignor’s feet looking again to the priest more like a boy than a man.
“Father Weston’s concerned there might be gossip if you stay,” said the old priest slowly, taking another sip of sherry.
“We don’t need to talk about fruitless worries like that, Monsignor. We can communicate about deeper things. You had an experience once, with someone, very special. It’s marked you in a way. I can tell. I’ve wanted to talk to you about this ever since I arrived. I’ve been waiting for the right moment. I can’t leave unless you tell me what I need to know. You touched someone’s essence didn’t you, once? You knew it. It was unmistakable: this soul, that vibrant thrumming feeling of it, the invisible web-like texture. So precious and so rare.” Gar was breathing heavily and his tongue licked his lips in a hungry way.
The Monsignor didn’t notice because, after a shock of recognition, long buried images from the past flooded his mind. Gar reached up and took the old man’s nearly translucent hand in the most tender way, massaging his bony knuckles as the priest’s faded blue eyes blinked back tears.
“I understand you see, father, dear. Tell me everything,” said Gar softly and suddenly the Monsignor was overcome with th
e desire to finally talk about the episode nearly thirty years ago with a little girl parishioner named Marilyn Newcomb and her widowed mother, Annabelle. He had tried before with Father Weston some five or six years ago when the priest had first come to the parish and had taken an interest in Marilyn, but he couldn’t get it out. Monsignor Lowell had carried a deep shame within himself about what had happened, so that Gar’s compassionate manner was like manna from heaven. Oh, to die and be free of the tortures of doubt, thought the Monsignor as he knocked back the entire tumbler of sherry to give himself courage to speak.
“Annabelle Newcomb was a young widow; her husband was killed in the war. She became a housekeeper for a locally prominent family. Now, they weren’t Catholics. And there was some talk about her employer’s curious habits. Then his young wife committed suicide. It surely wasn’t an ideal situation but as a widow Annabelle needed the work. She lived simply, with her daughter Marilyn who went to school here. When Marilyn was in fourth grade, she was accused of stealing from the man Annabelle worked for. A terrible fuss, what if Annabelle lost her position? She was worried sick. Nothing was ever proved as I remember and little Marilyn never confessed, at least not to me. But then Annabelle began to tell me that she believed her daughter to be possessed of the devil. For months I tried to talk Annabelle out of it. But she kept telling me about how the child had nightmares. But what was more troubling, Annabelle insisted Marilyn would have spells at home where, if she became upset objects would go flying across the room. By themselves. Little Marilyn with the big dark eyes and long black hair was an odd little girl who the nuns said had a hard time making friends. I think the other children may have made fun of her. I seem to remember one of the sisters talking about what a shame it was because Marilyn was so bright, brighter than anyone she had ever taught. I didn’t want to believe Annabelle but finally I made a visit to their home. A modest little duplex on North Street, a mile or so west of here.
“It was after supper on a Friday night in Lent. They lived on the upper floor and I brought with me a white taper candle, my prayer book, silver crucifix, and a wand in the shape of a rattle filled with holy water. Annabelle Newcomb hadn’t convinced me but I thought I would be prepared. In their small living room I lit the candle and suggested we kneel and say prayers. The little girl looked at me, no, looked through me. I can never forget those eyes, they seemed ancient, no child has eyes like that. I kissed the silver crucifix and gave it to Annabelle who also kissed Jesus’ feet. But as she gave it to her kneeling daughter, the crucifix spun out of her hand and began to travel in mid air across the room. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. I wanted to get up and grab it but I felt momentarily pinned to the floor as if my knees had been frozen in place. The crucifix spun in three slow circles, suspended in midair when little Marilyn got up and took it in her hands and gave it back to me. I took it from her and placed it on her forehead. I shook the rattle of holy water over her and began saying the prayer of exorcism over her with her mother weeping in the background. But instead of withering or moaning or writhing like one with a demon inside, the little girl just knelt there, tears shining in those ancient eyes. The most powerful shame began to steal over me and I stumbled on the prayer. This girl wasn’t evil. I reached out to touch her and that’s when I felt it, just for a second, but a second I will never forget, the cosmos was not more glorious than this tiny fraction of time when I reached out and felt her living soul.”
The Monsignor shut his eyes for a long moment, back in the apartment thirty years ago. The terrible mistake he had made of thinking the girl haunted him from that time on, with the stories of martyrs more real to him than ever before. He became a much more humble man after that Friday in Lent. It became the quality in him that people talked about the most, his humble ways, when in fact up until that time he had been just another arrogant priest more interested in brown-nosing the bishop than anything spiritual. As for Annabelle, she stopped coming to mass regularly and switched Marilyn to the cheaper public school. The incident was never talked about again and the priest tried not to worry about the dark haired girl in the increasingly rough neighborhood she lived in.
“You make me so jealous,” said Gar ruefully. The remark startled the Monsignor out of his reverie. What was there to be jealous about, he wondered? Gar squeezed his hand then. “Tell me, does Marilyn still live on North Street about a mile west of here?” Gar didn’t have to ask if she still lived in Decatur, he knew that, he had known that since he had jumped from the train. The old man nodded as a quivering thread of anxiety seemed to sprout out of his heart. The sherry was hitting him hard, he thought.
“You must have followed her at least from a distance over the years. Where does she work in town? Or is the source married now?” asked Gar, leaning in too close.
The priest wanted to push him away but suddenly felt afraid of the big man, and why was he calling Marilyn the source? It was unnerving, but Gar just kept staring at him as if willing him to talk. “You’re going to tell me, father.”
“She’s a waitress at the Surrey. It was the failure of the public school that she never went on to something. Lived with her mother until Annabelle died.” The words slipped out of the Monsignor’s lips as the anxiety began to throb in all of his veins and make its way to the base of his skull where it began to pop in bright little bursts that flooded behind his eyes. “Don’t hurt her,” was the last coherent thing the old priest said.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A Quick One
Father Weston looked at his Timex; he was going for a quick pop with the professor following sick rounds at St. Mary’s. They agreed to meet at five-ish in the bar at the new Holiday Inn just a few blocks from the hospital. Max said he wanted to fill Father W in on the progress he was making with Marilyn. But for the priest a drink after looking at bedpans and holding hands with papery-skinned people hoping for some kind of divine intervention was frankly a professional necessity. Frank Weston got into the priest business for saying the Mass, giving a good sermon, and the marrying and baptizing parts. But when he held the hands of the sick he could feel too deeply on their palms the lines from washing dishes for decades or twisting lugs into place or pushing pencils and now they looked up to him like all the rosaries must count for something now that they were really in a corner. It was just too depressing.
Father Troy was still sitting by old Mrs. Hanley’s side while she said her beads as Father W punched the elevator button to the lobby. The anticipation of a dry martini with olives evaporated as the irritating thought came to him that he shouldn’t be going to the new Holiday Inn cocktail lounge but dealing with the Gar situation back at the parish. Still a quick one wouldn’t hurt. The elevator dinged and a couple of doctors were getting off and they nodded in their friendly way but didn’t speak, far too busy to get into chit-chat with clergy. Father Troy stuck his head out of Mrs. Hanley’s semi-private room and gestured for him to wait and Father Weston had to let the elevator go on without him. What now, he thought, as Father Troy murmured something to Mrs. Hanley and stepped out into the hall.
“I’m going to be a little longer. I’ll take the bus,” Father Troy said.
“I’d wait but I promised to meet a professor who does religious study work at five,” said Father Weston, feeling the tiniest bit guilty.
“That’s interesting. Take your time. We can keep a plate warm for you if you want,” offered Father Troy, like last night with Gar just hadn’t happened. “Where you going to meet?” asked Father Troy in his casual ‘I’m a groovy priest’ voice.
“You know these intellectual types. He wants to meet in a cocktail lounge. I guess there’s a new Holiday Inn near here,” Father Weston fudged.
“Sure. Campus types. Enjoy.” Father Troy smiled and turned back to Mrs. Hanley’s room as Father Weston decided a double martini was probably in order.
The new cocktail lounge at the Holiday Inn had a small parquet dance floor and a disco ball but thankfully the
y weren’t used except on weekends. There was silver and black wallpaper with sketches of long flowing haired girls in profile and big flowers in the pattern, black and chrome chairs and stools and a mirror-backed bar outlined in the kind of lights you might see backstage in a dressing room and the place had a name, “The In Spot.” It was. Young modish looking people of both sexes were drinking cocktails wearing platform shoes, long hair, flared jeans and big extravagant shirts. This was as glamorous as it got on the prairie and from the looks of it everyone was thrilled just to be there. Max Rosenbaum stood out with his white oxford shirt and khakis, looking like an intelligent wary animal in a sea of bobbing sexed-up seals, seated at a round high table on a stool as everyone grooved on their personal mojo around him. Father Weston cut the swath that only a priest could through such a place with a lot of “Hey, Father” coming at him as he made his way to Max’s table.
The martini just wasn’t doing it, thought Father Weston as he fished the pimento stuffed olive out of the glass and snacked on it. “You really think Marilyn regressed into a past life?”
“Well, something happened, along with a pointer flying out of its holder and holding steady over the map of U.S. and Central Illinois. She says she’s being pursued by someone, a demon she called him. Either she is a terrific liar or this is the real thing. It sure feels like it,” said Max, sipping his beer.
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