by Jane Lebak
Jay flinched. “I don't suppose you talk to them about budgeting?”
“Not my problem,” Kevin said. “It's not breaking the law to spend your money on useless crap.”
“Send them to me,” Jay said. “I'll at least get them a meal.”
Kevin shook his head. “Sometimes I wonder what it takes for people to come to their senses.”
“Land mines?” Jay shook his head. “The Cafeteria is here until that happens.” He squinted at Kevin. “Did you bring the kids' things inside?”
“Not yet. I figured it would make the kids nervous to see an off-duty cop going into their rooms.”
“True. Nick can spot a cop fifty miles away.” Jay glanced at Holly, but then he didn't say anything.
“I'll keep you posted on the kids, if anything turns up.” Kevin paused. “I've got someone working on getting the rectory listed as an emergency foster care house. You'd get some money from that, at any rate.”
“Will they have to come in and inspect?”
“I took care of that.”
Jay rolled his eyes.
Kevin laughed. “Don't worry about it. There's a need and you're meeting it. Good to see you again, Holly.”
“You too.”
As Kevin retrieved the kids' belongings, Holly said, “I'll need to be going now. I'm opening today.”
“He's still available, you know.”
She shook her head. “He's not really available.”
“I keep telling you that hostility toward God is still contact with Him.” Jay grinned at her. “No one would be that angry if God wasn't working on his heart. Think of it as his last defense against God.”
She cocked her head. “I seem to remember the Bible telling us not to be unevenly yoked.”
“I have no choice about being unevenly yoked—he's my brother.” Jay sighed. “Besides, if you were married to him, you'd be looking after him rather than me.”
“I thought Paul wrote that the unmarried woman is after the concerns of the Lord?”
Jay rubbed his chin. “You'll notice that Paul never said that was a good thing.”
Her jaw dropped. “Ooh, you're mean. See if you get your can opener for Christmas.”
“Woe is me!” Jay laid his hand over his heart. “Held hostage by a can opener. What good is it to save the whole world, but to lose my can opener?”
While Holly was laughing, Kevin returned with two black garbage bags. “You ready, Jay?”
Holly rubbed her gloved hands together. “I'll ask about the bread today.”
She went back to her car, and Jay labored up the snow-dusted steps to the rectory, Kevin a step behind.
Eddie was sitting at the table with a peanut-butter sandwich when Nick stalked into the kitchen. “Shove over. You're taking up too much space, Retard.”
Eddie pulled his glass of milk closer to his plate, then moved his napkin closer as well. Nick shoved the jar of peanut butter so it knocked into the milk, sloshing it up by the top of the glass. Eddie said nothing.
Nick opened the cupboard and stared at it until finally pulling out a box of cereal and pouring it into a white mug with a faded logo. Then he grabbed the container of milk and a spoon to eat standing by the counter.
“You got a job yet, Retard?”
Eddie looked down. “Um, no.”
“You going to look for a job?”
“Father Jay said—”
“Does Father Jay wipe your mouth for you too after you eat? You've got to work or you're getting kicked out.” Nick grinned. “Father Jay said I can have your bed and your pillow if you don't find a job by Christmas.”
Eddie looked worried. “I didn't know that. I've tried. No one wants me.”
“Got that right.” Nick ate some more cereal and then frowned at him over the top of the mug. “Maybe you could get a job at the zoo shoveling up after the elephants. No, that would be too hard for you, wouldn't it? Require too much brain power.”
“Lay off,” said Louis, coming into the kitchen. “You're always such a jerk.”
Behind him came Maria and Jamie.
Nick rolled his eyes and stepped out of the way of the two little ones, standing over Eddie's seat. “You're just a loser and no one wants you around. I bet that's why you got kicked out of your home.”
Louis said, “Then why'd you get the boot, Nick?”
But Eddie was already answering. “My mom left. They told me to go too. They said if she wasn't there, I couldn't be there either.”
“That rots,” said Louis.
Nick snorted. “Why'd your mom leave? Did you stink up the place too bad for her to stay?”
“Excuse me, Nick,” said the deep voice of Father Jay, “but I won't tolerate harassment in this rectory.”
Nick went back to shoveling cereal into his mouth.
“We have house rules for a reason.” Father Jay glanced at Eddie, who was looking forlornly at his peanut-butter sandwich. “This house is a safe place for all of you. I'm not having you make it unsafe.”
Nick slammed his empty mug and spoon onto the table. “Fine. Whatever.”
Father Jay grabbed his arm as he tried to push past out of the kitchen. “In the sink. You know that.”
Nick turned back, dropped the mug in with a clatter, and then stalked away.
“It's okay.” Louis put a hand on Eddie's' shoulder. “Nick's like that to everyone.”
Jay turned to Kevin, who was standing behind him. “It's hard to let go of the street even in here.”
Maria and Jamie were looking up at Kevin, frowning. Jay remembered that the last time they'd seen his brother, he was wearing a uniform.
In a low voice, Kevin said, “You can't change a kid.”
“You can change everything around him and let God change the kid.” Jay took a seat beside Eddie, and a moment later Jamie was climbing into his lap. “What's up?”
Another boy, one with the unfortunate nickname Spider, came into the kitchen to grab an apple from the refrigerator.
“Are you going to make me leave if I don't get a job?”
“I'm looking every day for a job for you.” Jay rubbed his eyes. “To be honest, after Christmas it's going to be that much harder to find something. But we will. I keep praying for it. God's got a plan for you.”
He realized abruptly that Eddie, Spider and Louis were all staring at him. His mind raced back along his last words to figure out what had piqued their interest.
Spider was the one to throw the lifeline. “God's got a plan for us?”
“Definitely.” Spider had ghosted around the rectory and the Caf since the summertime. “God has a plan for every person He made.”
Eddie said, “What's my plan?”
Jay chuckled. “That's the thing—we don't know what the plan is at first. We have to grow into it.”
“Could you ask God for me?”
Jay chuckled. “I'm not sure God would tell me that.”
With a huff and an eye-roll, Spider shook his head. “God wouldn't want to talk to me.”
“Maybe he does.” Jay glanced at Kevin. “You make it hard to hear anything at all with the radios pounding away up there.”
Kevin smirked. “Do you realize you just quoted Dad?”
Jay started. “Good grief. You're right.”
Kevin turned aside, but not in time to hide the laugh.
Eddie said, “What does God sound like?”
Jay worked to look serious again. “It's not really a sound. It's more like you know it in your heart.”
Eddie's face fell. “I don't know all that much.”
“You don't need to know things out of books for God to speak to you.” Jay smiled at Eddie. “God loves us the way we are, and he talks to us so that we can understand.”
“My mom spoke Spanish sometimes,” Louis said.
“Do you understand Spanish?” Jay said.
Louis said, “A little.”
“Well, sometimes it's like that with God. You feel like it's a foreign l
anguage, but over time, you figure it out.”
Spider tapped a rhythm on the table with a spoon. “But seriously, what kind of plan does God have for a bunch of kids? I can't go out there and fight crime or make world peace or any of that garbage.”
“I have it on good authority that crime fighters and peace makers started out as kids too.” Jay gave Spider a knowing smile, which Spider returned with another eye roll. “Right now, you can be there for each other.” Jay looked over at the three little ones, who had left homes where they were separated in order to freeze together in a bus station. “You can stand up for each other as if you were defending God Himself.”
~
Jay retrieved his blanket from one of the boys' rooms, replacing it with one of the sleeping bags Kevin had brought. He folded it, and they made their way downstairs.
“You've never been in the rectory before, have you?”
“Not other than the foyer.” Kevin paused. “Should I have purified myself before entering?”
Jay huffed, pointing toward rooms on the ground floor. “Library. Conference room. Office. You'll notice the absence of a surgical suite.”
In the basement apartment Kevin noted only a bathroom, a minuscule kitchen, the bedroom, and an unfinished boiler room with a washing machine. The entire basement had the same worn vinyl flooring, the walls a dingy yellow with a uniform drabness that meant it had been intentionally painted that way, although a decade previously. Maybe even two.
Where he'd expected to see pictures of the Virgin Mary and stern-faced saints in monk's robes, Kevin saw walls bare except for one crucifix in each room. A ragged-edged corkboard hung on the wall where it had possibly remained for the last twenty years.
Looking around the bedroom, Kevin said, “I've ticketed bigger SUVs.”
Jay spread the scratchy blanket on a twin bed while Kevin ran his fingers over cracks in the walls.
“And it could use a coat of paint.”
“Paint is ten dollars a gallon. I'd need two cans. Twenty dollars is eighty pounds of rice.” Jay shrugged. “No one comes down here but me.”
“Not even a housekeeper?”
“Are you volunteering to pay for one?” Jay chuckled. “Actually, the diocese would. We scoured every regulation the diocese has looking for anything they'd pay for. I found out they'd give St. Gus thirty dollars a month as a housekeeping cost to clean the rectory. I put Mrs. D. down as the housekeeper, we got the extra thirty bucks. It goes straight into the cafeteria fund, and I still clean my own bathtub.”
Kevin laughed. “And to think Mom used to yell at us that we didn't have a maid. Okay, so no housekeeper, but now I'm down here, and I see it. Doesn't it depress you to live this way?”
“I don't have good enough vision to pay attention to the shortcomings.” Jay opened his hands. “I have a bed, a kitchen, and a bathroom. What more do I need?”
“Why have a crucifix over your bed if you can't see it?”
“Touché.” Jay shook his head. “I know it's there.”
Jay rubbed his eyes, then removed his contact lenses and replaced his glasses. For some reason the change brought Kevin up short—maybe it was the distortion of Jay's eyes. Kevin stepped further into the room. The touch of Kevin's fingers brought away a coating of desiccated cork.
Jay had tacked up notes carefully printed in wavering small capitals, but what drew Kevin's attention were the photographs. Jay and the other three priests ordained with him occupied the upper left hand corner. On the right hand side was a photograph of Jay with their parents. Some other photographs seemed to be groups from the church itself, the youth group, the choir, and other gatherings Kevin couldn't identify. There was one photograph of Kevin and Jay together, taken on Christmas morning when they were still boys. Jay was looking right at the camera lens; Kevin was looking at the lighted tree. It had been one of their mother's favorite photographs. She always pointed to Kevin's misdirected gaze and said, “Loot!” There was a similar photo taken that afternoon at the dinner table, now in a box in Kevin's closet. Jay had posed with an overstacked forkful of turkey and his mouth open wide enough to swallow an egg sideways. Their mother would point to that one next and say, “Food!”
A sudden burst of squabbling voices came from upstairs, followed by first one booming radio, then a second.
“That kid Nick,” Kevin said. “He's trouble.”
“You're telling me?”
“Why do you let him stay?”
Jay opened his hands and raised his eyebrows.
Kevin huffed. “Oh. You think you're going to convert him?”
“I'm not trying to convert any of them. You can't preach to an empty stomach. These kids have so many immediate needs right now that there's no way they could listen to preaching.”
Kevin frowned. “Then why are you doing it?”
“It's called compassion.”
“That kid Nick isn't all that compassionate.”
“Spider was angrier than Nick, if you can believe it.” Jay looked up. “It took about three weeks, but when he realized I wasn't about to boot him out, he relaxed.” Jay moved toward the chair in the corner and settled himself in as it creaked. He sighed while staring at the window. “I knew Spider was on the mend when he offered to fix the hole he punched in the wall.”
“I don't like this.” Kevin folded his arms and leaned against the doorframe. “Any one of those boys could kill you while you sleep.”
“Hey,” Jay said with a grin. “Martyrdom.”
“Hey,” Kevin replied without the grin. “Dead.”
“Dead is under-rated. God's waiting for us on the other side. Yeah, yeah, don't get all defensive on me. I believe God is waiting for me on the other side and that it's worth the price of passage. You don't. I know.”
Kevin shrugged.
“Nick will come around.” Jay cocked his head. “Or he won't. It's not up to me. As for preaching, eventually every one of them says what you do—why is he doing this for us? At that point, they'd have to be blind not to see the answer is that I'm doing it because of God. That will make them question a little more about who God is and what God does. If God makes good things come their way, they're going to be a little more receptive to who God is. If only because they think they'll get more good stuff by tolerating my little idiosyncrasies.” Jay shrugged. “For them, it's practical.”
“If you believe any of it.”
Jay shrugged. “Right. That's if you believe any of it. If you don't believe it, then I'm doing it for a lie, but at least they're getting a place to sleep and something to eat.”
He slowly pulled himself up from his chair. “When do you have to get going?”
“My tour begins at two.”
“Then come help out your lying brother. I have to get things set up at the Caf.”
In the church basement was a hall the size of an auditorium filled with lunchroom tables. Jay called, “Mrs. D?”
A woman in her early sixties wearing a canvas apron poked her head from a small room off to the side. “Father Jay—”
Jay jerked a thumb at Kevin. The woman's eyes widened, and she beamed at Jay. “Oh, thank heaven—come on, we're running late already!”
“You see,” Jay said as he ushered Kevin into a long hot room lined with two menthol-green refrigerators, a sink, a grill and a stove dating from World War II, “we were praying for you to come, even though we didn't know at the time it was you.”
With a smile that dimpled her round face, Mrs. D. handed Kevin a five-pound bag of carrots and a peeler.
Kevin said, “Does the Church support slavery?”
“Not slavery—volunteering!”
Kevin opened the bag. “It's not volunteering. I've been voluntold.”
Jay touched Kevin on the shoulder as he squeezed through in the narrow space between work table and countertop. “We serve lunch in about an hour, and it's a four-person job, three-person minimum. Two people bailed on us yesterday afternoon, I guess because they're busy this clo
se to the holidays, leaving me and Mrs. D. to run the show ourselves for the rest of the week.” He began washing tomatoes in a metal sink large enough to bathe a Golden Retriever. “You're welcome to eat with us afterward. Thursday's rice and beans day.”
Mrs. D. was the powerhouse who answered the phones for the parish, typed the bulletin, and helped run the St. Gus soup kitchen. Priests tended to stay in one spot for five years; Mrs. D. had been a fixture through the last three priests and knew its workings better than Jay. “It's going to be tight today,” Mrs. D. said. “We have enough rice, but we're practically out of beans.”
“God will provide.” All the same, the soup kitchen got more clients during the holiday season and fewer donations. Upscale parishes donated turkey dinners to needy families, but here in the poorest part of the city, sometimes the best they could do was rice and beans, or spaghetti.
She sighed as she unloaded bags of rolls onto the stainless steel counter. “I wish God would tell us how he was planning on providing it.”
Kevin shot a look at Jay, but Jay only continued rinsing tomatoes, saying, “The same way he always does, I guess. He'll open someone's heart or else He'll remove the need.”
“Wouldn't that be terrific?” Kevin kept his voice flat. “No more hunger in the world—just on account of one parish's prayers.”
“How many parishes would have to pray, do you think?” Jay opened another bag of tomatoes. Suddenly he laughed. “Kevin, remember the story of that guy who says he has no idea that one cookie could cause such bad indigestion? Then he looks at ten empty boxes and says, 'I wonder which one it was.'“
Mrs. D. rubbed her hands on her jeans, then reached for a pair of latex gloves. “Jesus did say there'd always be poverty.”
“He didn't add, 'So don't do anything about it.'“ Jay moved over to the counter and sliced tomatoes in long even strokes. “I've heard in other countries even the poorest populations don't suffer a homelessness problem. They pull together.”
Jay didn't add anything further as he made up the rest of the salad. Two tremendous bowls were necessary to feed the forty people who would come to the soup kitchen's lunch rush. It was never much of a meal—always a salad and a main dish of rice and beans, spaghetti with sauce, or some other cheap staple. Today they'd have rolls as well.
