“Those carnies were working at the St. Patrick’s School Carnival,” Mrs. Cleary said, savoring the moment. She was standing at the back of the dry-cleaning store using the wall-mounted phone next to the screen door. The big machine which soaked the clothes in perc, the chemical treatment they used, was its usual noisy self in the background so she was sure her husband at the counter couldn’t hear a word of her conversation.
“Yes.” Tooley’s tone was neutral. If this was all the tip was he might as well get back to his puzzle.
“Well there’s someone else you should know about.” Mrs. Cleary wasn’t going to breathe a word of her daughter’s involvement with the carnies. It was no-one else’s business, but Father Troy’s parish guest now that bore looking into. “Father Troy, one of the priests in the parish, has a way of getting involved in projects that are a little off the beaten track, for a priest especially.”
“What do you mean?” asked Agent Tooley, suddenly very alert.
“Why don’t you investigate Father Troy’s latest project? He worked the carnival too,” she asked, enjoying the conversation. “Suzanne”, she heard her husband call her name in his whiney way. What now? Still, if he caught her talking about the carnival it would be a mess. “I have to go.” She hung up the phone quickly, annoyed that she couldn’t go into it more. They’d have to figure it out by themselves. She would just have to sit back and watch. It might prove fun. Life at Cleary’s Dry-Cleaning could use a little dollop of excitement. Too much stain remover for too long, she thought as she turned towards the counter.
Father Troy always said the five o’clock Saturday mass, where he would play guitar. It was the closest thing he could get to a folk mass and for a group of St. Patrick’s parishioners, mostly teenagers and young marrieds, it was their kind of worship. Father Troy had been lobbying for months to expand it, add congas and even an electric guitar or bass with an amp but had gotten nowhere. A real folk mass with non-traditional hymns and big handmade banners with white doves on them, that’s what he had in mind, and now for the first time it looked like there might be a chance of introducing real change here at St. Pat’s, all because of Bishop Quincy. He didn’t want to think about the role the Monsignor played in that, as it was just too awful to contemplate that God made opportunities with catastrophe.
Father Troy stood outside on the stone steps of St. Pat’s in the post storm air, the late afternoon grey and windy with the dampness accentuating the smell of the processed soybeans. Father Troy had worn his favorite chasuble over his plain vestment that Saturday guitar mass, coarse green linen, with the matching stole that had a border of white lilies appliquéd on it. His hair was below his ears and he wore a big wooden cross and sandals. He felt like a man in full. Gar had slipped into a back pew at the last second before Father Troy had waved the missal at the congregation, saying proudly “This is our faith” as he began the mass. Now the hipster members of the parish along with the more ordinary ones that just liked sleeping in on Sunday mornings flowed out of the pews and down the steps as Father Troy nodded and smiled, deciding he would spill his game plan to the youth group that was scheduled to meet next week and get a Peace banner committee going. He imagined Gar would like that, maybe even help, and Father Weston would just have to go along. He was practically beaming as he saw in his mind’s eye the big doves dragging the word PEACE across a yellow felt background when a black man in a suit and tie came up to him. A black man in his mass, Father Troy was thrilled. That proves it, he thought, the new Church was winning out.
“Could I have a private word with you, Father?” Agent Tooley asked.
“Absolutely!” Father Troy eyes were sparkling behind his glasses. “You’re new, welcome, welcome to St. Patrick’s.”
Agent Tooley nodded and pulled his badge out of his suit coat with a tinge of regret. The young priest looked so happy to have him there. The priest’s face fell and he recoiled as he saw the big silver-and-bronze badge in Tooley’s leather holder.
Father Troy’s stomach felt like it had just slipped and fallen down three flights of stairs when he saw the badge. Agent Tooley, FBI. Father Weston’s warnings washed over him in a cold sweat. This wasn’t Father Troy’s kind of thing at all. He felt he might start shaking right here on the stone steps of the church. Pull it together Mark, he told himself, Nothing’s wrong. Just be yourself. Gar needs you. Those words steadied him. Gar. He pictured the wide forehead, strong nose, expressive eyes. He wouldn’t let anything hurt Gar.
“Sure, Agent Tooley. Do you want to go to the parish house?” asked Father Troy. “I guess this is about those carnies.” Father Troy was walking briskly towards the parish house, not wanting anyone to overhear them and make it worse. “We’ve talked to your colleagues already. I suppose you know that.” Don’t volunteer too much, a voice in his head cautioned him.
“Actually, this is about a project of yours, Father Troy.” Agent Tooley could feel the priest’s nervousness and felt sorry for him. The mass hadn’t been bad and at least the music had some gumption. The priest was treating him okay, too, Agent Tooley noticed, none of the typical bullshit he was used to getting when trying to do his job.
Father Troy’s hand just held onto the door handle for a moment. A project of his. This couldn’t be happening. “What?” he fluttered his eyes behind the wire rims, hoping to look innocent.
“We got us a tip that you have taken in a Vietnam vet, Father, maybe he’s homeless? It seems that he was helping the carnies that day. I just want to talk to him.” Agent Tooley spoke as gently as he could as Father Troy stood with his hand on the knob seemingly unable or unwilling to open the door to the parish house. “You going to let me in?”
Father Troy turned the knob and opened the door but stopped on the threshold and turned around to the black FBI agent. The agent was a little thick in the middle and wore his hair cropped very close to his head, and the whites in his dark eyes seemed to shine like headlights into Father Troy’s brain. “Listen,” Father Troy said, trying hard to connect with this man so that he would understand, “This is a fragile situation. Do you know how damaged these vets can be? No-one wants them. Please, please be gentle. His nickname is Gar, I don’t know his real name. Not that it matters to God, Agent Tooley.”
“I understand,” said Tooley, so softly Father Troy had to strain to hear him.
Gar had already spotted the man in the suit and figured he might be someone official so he wasn’t surprised when Father Troy called him in a shaking voice to come down from his attic room where Gar had been lying on his bed remembering how Marilyn really felt. He zipped back up his khakis and came down the steps, leaving his shirt out to hide the bulge in his pants.
“Hey bro,” he called out in greeting and nodded at Father Troy as if to say, be cool.
“We can sit in here,” Father Troy said, gesturing to the living room, wondering if he shouldn’t have chosen the parish office instead. Where was Father Weston? He would know what to do with an FBI agent. Hadn’t he thrown one out of church on Friday for interrupting the sacrament of confession?
Gar jumped on the Monsignor’s recliner and put up his feet like he was watching a ball game on the TV. It was clear to Father Troy he didn’t have clue as to what was going on. Angels be kind, he thought. The FBI agent flashed his badge at Gar and softly said his name was Agent Tooley. Gar nodded sagely and the agent pulled up a chair and sat backwards in it next to him, as if they might be discussing the score. Father Troy’s project was over six-two and probably weighed one ninety soaking wet, and all of it looked to be pure muscle.
“So you were working the school carnival to help out the parish and you must have met the Big Top Entertainment carnies.” Tooley said in a relaxed way.
“I like to do what I can,” Gar said.
“You know they’ve been murdered.” Tooley looked somber but still very friendly.
“Everyone knows that!” Father Troy broke in sounding a little shrill.
“Fair enough, Father Troy
. It’s standard to interview people who’ve met the victims. How’d you happen to come to Decatur?” Tooley asked.
“Hopping trains. Can’t seem to settle down. Ever since well you know, I bet, I can always tell a brother, some things won’t let go. But I never met those carnies before and never wanted to see them after. Just not my kind of people, just not tested.” Gar said slowly blinking his eyes like trying to keep some dark memory at bay.
Tooley heard the dim sound of choppers then and the simple living room of the rectory pulsed with flares of red. He knew alright. “Yeah, bro. When did you do the duffle bag drag and eat your bowl of cornflakes before going back to the land of the big PX?” Tooley asked, looking into the gold-flecked eyes of Gar, his own memory bank flashing.
“How would he know what that means?” Father Troy interjected anxiously.
“He knows, am I right? I got my papers out in ’67,” Tooley said, smiling reassuringly at Gar.
“I don’t like to talk about it,” Gar said, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes.
“Deep shit?” asked Tooley, probing ever so gently.
“Deep serious shit, you know, bro?” Gar smiled a little but it was a broken smile and it tore at Father Troy’s heart.
“Yeah. 82nd Airborne. It was one big BOHICA. Bend over here it comes again,” he translated in a hurried whisper for Father Troy who was pacing, plucking at the cross around his neck.
Gar closed his eyes and shook his head as pain lined his face as he repeated in a hoarse whisper, “One big BOHICA.”
Agent Tooley fought the memory of himself painted blue in a hut up river after his egg beater had crashed and he had to get the cherry that survived through the elephant grass alone. Even after six years he could feel it as real as if it was happening right now. The way that kid’s face looked when the bouncing betty popped him just two damn miles from base. Tooley’s black hand reached out and grabbed Gar’s tan one. They sat there in silence as tears slipped down both their cheeks.
Gar could feel the man’s anguish that was imprinted so deep that it would take multiple spiritual journeys to overcome its effect on the man’s core being and it just made him hungry for the source. He kept a grip on the man’s hand as he thought he might have gotten the faintest whiff of salt water, cherry tobacco and peat moss emanating from Agent Tooley’s pores. He couldn’t feel Tooley’s essence just by touching him, because people like Marilyn were the exception, but he knew it was there. Each soul was unique and Gar had a memory book of people’s essences but most of them were tinged with blood, broken bones, and burst organs that made his book not as beautiful as he would have liked. No, only someone like the source would be exquisite. Still, there was the split second before the light was finally extinguished in the eyes where you could, if you were lucky and quick, pull out the thing that survived death, the essence. This is what kept Gar going as he sought out the source.
Father Troy knelt down next to them and began to lead them in the “Our Father” in what he thought was the most beautiful rendition of the prayer he had ever heard. “Amen,” they said at the end, and Agent Tooley was on his feet.
“You keep up the good work, Father,” Agent Tooley said in a husky voice and then to Gar, “You keep on keeping on. I think I got what I needed.” He crumpled up the notebook page that had noted the tip from the anonymous woman, whoever she was. She hadn’t done her tour and Gar had, and that was more than good enough for Tooley.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Changes
Marilyn closed the door to her apartment and leaned against it as Rowley buried his head into her thighs, his paws resting against her as he trembled. What had just happened, she wondered as she stroked his head softly, saying over and over, “It’s okay good boy, it’s okay.” She led him to the orange covered sofa and he climbed up and sat with his head in her lap as the storm began to slacken. Marilyn listened very closely waiting for the silence to come back into her. The silence was her way of keeping things under control. But suddenly she was finding it hard to hear nothing but the rain on the roof. Gar had made something want to jump in her veins, and it was scary and yet she felt more alive than she had in a long time. She looked at her apartment over Rowley’s head. The place looked like she hadn’t had anyone over in years. She hadn’t. Father W maybe four years ago on another rainy afternoon. And then that doctor who started dropping by the Surrey on a regular basis, only to find out he was married with two kids and a colonial on Lake Decatur. Not that the apartment was messy but it seemed painfully trapped in time. She didn’t have a stereo, she didn’t have one of those big black-and-white glossy calendars, she didn’t own any candles and her plants were all in plain pots, not one in the colorful ceramics or even the woven macramé holders she saw in the gift shops downtown. All she had was her quirky collection of toys, her poetry books, the antique patent medicine bottles filled with colored water that were her only grade-school hobby, and her poster of Andrew Wyeth’s Christina’s World along with the now propped-up painting of the elephant with its frame now in pieces, done by her great aunt.
Her mother had discouraged Marilyn from going out much or meeting new people and didn’t like her to play up her looks. She was afraid of any attention Marilyn might attract, not knowing what people would do if they really knew that Marilyn could sometimes predict what was going to happen or make objects move on their own when she was stirred up. She couldn’t remember the last time she wore anything other than her blue chenille bathrobe or her waitress uniform. Sure, she allowed herself to wrap her head into a silk scarf once in a while to keep her hair neat, or put a cashmere cardigan over the top that she found at a garage sale but even that felt so daring to her. “Rowley,” she said, “I’ve got to figure it out. Or I’ll never be free to really live a life.”
Rowley, hearing his name, came into the bedroom and looked at her curiously. Something was going on. He hopped on the peach bedspread. Marilyn was fascinating to him and he could watch her all night long.
She stripped down to her underwear in her bedroom and looked critically at herself in the mirror. The charge that she had felt when Gar touched her was still ringing in her nerves like a thousand tiny alarms, she thought, looking at her body and lighting a cigarette. She took a long drag, letting the smoke fill her lungs. When she exhaled, her image in the mirror wobbled and then shattered into pieces on the floor. “You’re carrying a psychic burden.” Max’s words floated up like they were written in the cigarette smoke as her mirror image with a tug pulled itself back together. Throwing on her robe she went to the phone and, consulting the slip of paper he had given her, she dialed, the big dial wheezing and clicking with every number. Max answered after three rings and seemed truly pleased and surprised that Marilyn wanted to get back to work that afternoon. He agreed to pick her up a little before five p.m.
Feeling brash, Marilyn pulled on a pair of brown linen flared trousers piped in pink and the matching big collared pink shirt with the fancy French cuffs. The woman in the Frank Lloyd Wright house had spent a fortune on this and let it go just after one season in a yard sale. Marilyn figured she might as well get used to not wearing the uniform right now if she was ever going to have the nerve to meet Gar tomorrow like a real date, for a walk and ice-cream. A sniggle of anxiety and desire at that thought crept up and made her cheeks flush as she looked in the bathroom mirror, applying pink frosted lipstick to her lips. She had some lines on her forehead, true, and a couple of fine ones by her eyes but maybe hiding out all this time had made time kind to her because she really didn’t look much over twenty-eight. Thank God.
She opened the door to Max’s Impala and let Rowley in first. Then she stood for just a half second so Max could see she wasn’t wearing the black rayon uniform that he had seen her in every time before and then got in the front seat beside him and the dog.
Max turned his head and looked at her full on then, before he put the car into drive: “You look amazing, Marilyn. Seems a shame to hide an outfit like that
in the Map Room.”
Marilyn laughed at this, licking her lips lightly and waving her hand to hide her embarrassment as she pushed down her mother’s warning voice in her head. “Let’s go,” was all she said.
The campus was emptying out for the weekend because if you had a car and any dough you would make the run over to Champaign Urbana, the real hopping college town forty-five minutes away. Max came around to the passenger side and helped Marilyn out of the car, even taking Rowley by the leash and giving him a pat on the top of his head as if to say, you’re part of the package, big fella.
The grey light post-storm made the map room seem moody and almost romantic. Marilyn sighed deeply, enjoying the contours of the room, the way the cracked leather chairs smelled, the out of date maps rolled down along the deep sienna-colored walls. Max opened the windows to let a little fresh air in and wondered what had happened to make Marilyn so restless, so beautiful, so intent on working through her past.
“I want you to relax.” He began the hypnotic visualization process as Rowley settled into his chair next to Marilyn’s. “Feel your body filling up with beautiful clear liquid, let it start in your toes and then feel it in your ankles, it feels so good as it goes up your calves and thighs into your pelvic area, stomach, chest, throat, it’s filling every part of you and relaxing you.” They went through the entire visualization and how it was a safe place, a good place, and that the only thing Max wanted was for her to better understand herself and connect to the divine. Marilyn soon was falling into a state where while she knew she was in the map room with Max and Rowley it was like she was looking down at her present self as another self was forming in her mind.
Even though her eyes were closed she felt she was looking through a window. A window in an old building. It was winter and the panes of glass on the window were cold. “There,” she murmured.
“What are you seeing, Marilyn?” Max asked, opening his notebook.
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