by John Ayang
“Good night, Fathers,” she responded. “Please drive safely.”
As they went out to their car. Fr. McCarthy was thankful that the pressure in his crotch had eased. He put the key in the ignition and asked incredulously, “Charlie, did you see that?”
“Okay, Nick. That’s what they mean by ‘attorney-client privilege’,” Fr. Polanski said wearily. “So, shut up and drive, if you don’t mind. It’s past my bed time already.”
Fr. McCarthy looked at Fr. Polanski, trying to decide whether to counter his statement or let go. Eventually, he decided to let go and turn the key in the ignition. The engine came alive and he shifted the gear lever to D, easing the car out onto the road. A rustling sound behind the passenger side of the front seat attracted his attention. Fr. Polanski noted it and reassured him.
“Two bottles of wine. Mrs. Donovan’s goodnight gift. Don’t worry. They’re well wrapped with papers, so they won’t break.”
Fr. McCarthy took his word for it and silently increased the pressure on the gas pedal. He glanced at the time. It was almost ten o’clock. Traffic was light and he engaged the cruise control button and settled into some quiet rumination. Fr. Polanski reached and turned the radio on. It was playing Luther Vandross’s Here and Now, I Promise to Love Faithfully. He brought it to a very low cozy volume and reclined back for a joy-filled ride.
Houston, Texas
November 22, 2012
IT HAD BEEN ALMOST four weeks since Fr. McCarthy ate dinner at the home of Geoffrey and Patricia Donovan, at the behest of his attorney, Stacy. Finding himself going to another dinner made him cagy, not because he did not like socializing, and not because this was his first dinner with his family, because it wasn’t. In fact, it was one in a series of the one annual family tradition at which he was always expected to be present to say the grace, as if the grace on this occasion was different from that of any other occasion, which anybody could say. It was Thanksgiving Day. He was cagy because he knew he would be the focus of much of the conversation that day. Everybody in the family had, by now, heard about his lawsuit, thanks to his mother, who excitedly spread the story as though her son’s being sued had updated her CV and made her the mother of a celebrity. He knew he would get asked a lot of questions, relevant and irrelevant. And he did not like it. On the other hand, he cherished the uniting value of the celebration. Coming together once a year, apart from the family reunion they had every three years, was something he would give anything to sustain. As dysfunctional and as diverse in outlook and attitude as they were, everyone seemed to tacitly accept that it was better to be family than be autonomous individuals.
He exited the freeway onto Spring Cypress, drove a mile and a half, and turned right onto Saw Tooth Canyon Drive, then right again onto Hollow Wood Circuit, a cul de sac that ended in a spacious circle. The McCarthy family house was the third on the right of the circle. Contrary to what he expected, there were only four cars—three lining the curb and one directly in front of the garage. He knew to whom all four cars belonged. His maternal auntie, Emma Henson, and her husband, Trevor, both retired and dealing in antique furniture as a hobby, drove a junior hummer. John McCarthy, his dad’s only younger brother, came in his well-polished black Corvette as usual. At 52, he was not married, but always had a girl on his arm for every occasion. Fr. McCarthy was almost positive he came to Thanksgiving dinner with a paramour. A sporty red Mustang announced the presence of his half-brother, Josh, who, though nerdy as they come, seemed to have developed an unusual love for fast cars. Josh was adopted when Fr. McCarthy was almost 13 years old. The age gap between them did not help Josh’s awkwardness, which was almost robotic. Fr. McCarthy still recalled one incident, years back. Their mother, Hannah McCarthy, was preparing to go to her women’s quilting club meeting. Josh protested that she should not leave yet. When asked why, he stated that he was planning to ask her for permission to go with the Buckner kids to read in the nearby community library.
“You have my permission to go read, Josh,” their mother said.
“I have not asked for permission yet,” Josh replied, confused, as if his mother was encouraging him to break a very important rule.
“Okay, Josh, you can ask for permission now,” his mother said, wearily.
“It is not yet time, I still have five minutes,” Josh replied, plaintively.
“Josh, I have a club meeting to go to,” Hannah said, exasperatingly, piqued at herself for not figuring out a way yet to deal with Josh’s robotically programmed ways. “I see now that if I teach you something in one context, I practically have to unteach you the same thing in another context where it doesn’t quite fit. I know I said you must always ask for permission five minutes before, but I didn’t carve that in marble, Josh.”
“So, when you unteach me, what do I do?” Josh asked, looking quite serious.
“You go ahead and unlearn,” Fr. McCarthy, just Cletus then, had heard himself interject on that occasion, almost bursting into laughter over his half-brother’s awkwardness, except that their parents had forbidden that, years back, to not worsen Josh’s gawkiness.
“What do I unlearn now?” pursued Josh.
“Well, Josh, not really unlearning,” their mother said, trying to pick the right words that would not prolong the drama. “In this case, you will learn that at any time, you can ask for permission to do what you want to do. You don’t have to wait till five minutes before the time. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Mom,” Josh replied, dutifully.
“And, remember: that’s only for the things that you need to ask permission for.” Hannah then remembered to add. “For instance, you don’t need to ask for permission to sneeze. Okay?” To everyone’s surprise, Josh broke into a spurt of laughter that ended as abruptly as it had started, making others laugh at his being punch-tickled by the suggestion that he should not need to ask for permission to sneeze. Then as Hannah turned to go, Josh cleared his throat, rearranged his clothes, and stood at attention.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Pulling myself together and choosing the right words,” Josh answered.
“Of course, Josh,” Hannah said, visibly exasperated now. Then, under her breath, she added, “Gosh, another one of my ‘silly’ lessons.”
Josh marched forward and stood before her and asked, “Please, Ma’am, may I go with Freddy and Alyssa to the library?”
“Yes, Josh. You may go with Freddie and Alyssa to the library.” For Josh’s satisfaction, Hannah decided to match his formal tone.
“Thank you, Mom.”
“You’re welcome, Josh,” she replied. She watched, pouting to stifle a chuckle, as Josh marched awkwardly to his room to change, dress, and wait for Freddie and Alyssa Buckner, his equally nerdy friends and study partners. As she turned to pick up her handbag to walk out, she noticed that her husband was watching the little drama from the staircase landing. She looked at him and shook her head slowly from side to side.
“He’ll be alright,” he said, casually.
“Yeah, but not without some deconstructing work,”
That was more than fourteen years ago. It was certain that Josh had lost much of his gawkiness over the years, but how much of it, though, he could not tell. The one big thing that was certain, and to Josh’s credit, was that what he lacked in social skills, he overcompensated for in academics, acing his way through high school and college. At college, he was first on the President’s Honor List and delivered the valedictory speech at graduation.
As Fr. McCarthy was about to park behind Josh’s Mustang, he noticed that he would partially block the car in the driveway. He put the gear in reverse and started to clear the entrance, but decided against it and parked, blocking the car, anyway. The car belonged to Jennifer, their feisty and vivacious cousin with whom he took so much delight friendly-fighting whenever and wherever they would meet. He relished the thought that he would make h
er beg to be let out, and permitted himself a mischievous, toothless smile.
The doorbell sang the usual Westminster chime: Ti-Te-Tung-Tum, Tum-Te-Ti-Tung, and Fr. McCarthy had to wait but only a split second and the door flew open.
“Oh, we-el. How nice to see you, Fr. Cletus,” his mother, in a beautiful flowery dress with an apron tied around her waist, sang sweetly as she wrapped her arm around him in a mother-bear hug. She reeked of the delicious aroma of home cooking blended with a whiff of her favorite perfume. The blended scent was so sweetly warm and comforting, and so reminiscent of the motherly care that Fr. McCarthy had known over the years that he drew in a lungful of it and held it for a few seconds before exhaling. “Come in Fr. Cletus. I hope you’re hungry. Can I give you something to drink?” Then she sang again, almost, “Fr. Cletus is here,” to nobody in particular.
“Well, well,” John McCarthy said. “If it isn’t Fr. McCarthy himself, the loyal son of the Church. I’m so pleased that you could come.”
“I’m always delighted to be present at Thanksgiving dinner, Uncle John,” Fr. McCarthy replied. “And may I say to you also, ‘welcome.’ How’s life been treating you?”
“Better than I deserve, I would say, Fr. McCarthy,” John McCarthy replied with a buccaneer’s smile. He was about the only one in the family who addressed Fr. McCarthy by his surname. “Over here, Patrick. Come and meet Fr. McCarthy.” A beautiful thirtyish-looking lady attractively sprang over and offered her right hand to Fr. McCarthy, daintily pinching the stem of a wine glass between the thumb and first two fingers of her left hand with two pinkies sticking out. She wore a strapless, body-hugging red dress with a strip of white, edged in sky blue, running diagonally from her left breast down to her right thigh like a sergeant major’s stole.
“Hi, I’m Patrick,” she said in a sweet soprano kind of voice. “That’s my first name. I’m Patrick Darlington, John’s friend,” she added, noticing that Fr. McCarthy was waiting for her full name. “I know you’re familiar with a man answering to Patrick, but that’s my name,” she concluded with an air of finality, looking straight into Fr. McCarthy’s eyes with a pleasant smile, as the latter was still struggling to absorb the jolt of the situation.
“Uhhh, yes, of course…” Fr. McCarthy tried to find his voice. “I almost thought you said Patrick. But…um…You said Patricia?”
“No, Patrick,” she confirmed, still smiling pleasantly.
“Oh, yeah. Patrick, of course. Um…a very good name. The Patron Saint of Ireland,” Fr. McCarthy said, pointlessly, and smiled inanely, still confused.
“Must sound quite unusual for you, Fr. McCarthy,” John said, patronizingly. “My friend Patrick believes everything should be unisex, especially names.”
“Oh, I see,” Fr. McCarthy said, taking Patrick’s handshake. “I’m Fr. Cletus McCarthy. A few intimate friends call me Nick, short for my middle name, Nicholas.”
“So nice to meet you, Fr. Cletus,” Patrick said.
“Don’t worry, Pat,” a voice came from behind Fr. McCarthy. “It’s going to take him time to process it. He belongs to the patriarchal age. I’m patiently trying to lead him into the age of enlightenment.” Fr. McCarthy turned to see Jennifer approaching, clad in a tight denim and a flimsy, see-through, pink blouse that was almost not there. At 32, he thought Jennifer was beginning to show signs of desperation as she dressed more risqué every day. She was a very beautiful lady, which, in Fr. McCarthy’s opinion, was sufficient assurance that she could still snag a husband without having to flaunt her female assets too much. She put her arm around him and pecked him on the cheek. “Welcome, Cousin. Don’t worry. I’ll soon help you come to grips with the new age.”
“Hey, do you know this lady?” Fr. McCarthy asked Patrick, indicating Jennifer. “Keep your distance from her. Otherwise, she’s gonna mess with your head. She’s been trying to mess with mine. She hasn’t succeeded yet, though, and she won’t.”
“You couldn’t be more right, Cousin,” Jennifer replied, calmly. Then she added rhetorically, “Whoever succeeds in messing up what’s already totally messed up?” John and Patrick burst out laughing at Jennifer’s witty rebuttal.
“And the two old nemeses meet again, and the third world war soon begins,” John said poetically.
“Hi, Fr. Cletus.”
“Hi, Pop!” Fr. McCarthy called out. “Happy Thanksgiving.”
“Happy Thanksgiving,” the elder McCarthy responded as he walked in from the back of the house with a pan-load of carved turkey meat. “I can see Jennifer was waiting for you, so you two can have a ball together, as usual.”
“Uncle, you better not talk in metaphors,” Jennifer interjected on cue. “Fr. Cletus might fetch a ball from the closet and throw it at me before you say, ‘kick it,” thinking you’re actually talking about playing ball.”
“You know, that wouldn’t be a bad idea, Jenny,” Fr. McCarthy mused aloud. “Especially if I threw it at your mouth to cut out some of your excessive talkativeness.”
“No, Jennifer. That would be Josh, not Fr. Cletus,” the elder McCarthy interjected.
“Will y‘all quit it and be civil to each other?” Hannah danced in and matronly rebuked the sparring bunch. “And you. Thank God Josh isn’t within earshot to hear that,” she addressed her husband.
“What’s that?” Josh asked from the far end of the room and started inching his way toward the group. “I swear I heard my name.”
“Talk about the devil,” the elder McCarthy said under his breath. “Thank God, he wasn’t within ear-shot,” he added, stealing away, to avoid further entanglement.
“He was within eyeshot, though,” Jennifer whispered almost. Then she added aloud for Josh’s benefit, “Josh, we were filling Fr. Cletus in on your peculiar dot-com job. Isn’t that true, cousin?” She edged closer to Fr. McCarthy as she spoke, and pinched him on the elbow, for agreement.
“Ouch!” Fr. McCarthy, unprepared for the discomfiting prompting let out, then quickly caught himself at a scowl from Jennifer, and agreed, “Yes, um… Josh, I was just asking about your job. You know, you dot-comers create and run interesting job portfolios these days. So, really, what is it that you do, exactly?”
“I do systems analyses, computer programming, and I build websites and install applications for companies. Mostly, we do work for oil companies and their subsidiaries, but recently we have started to build programs for research and pharmaceutical companies. The current one we are building now is a database for bioinformatics for the ROCENTRIX Foundation in Kansas City.”
“What’s that?” Fr. McCarthy asked.
“It’s an international research center that is hoping to manufacture personalized medicines for the cure of certain diseases, based on the patient’s genetic reading,” Josh responded, excitedly, grateful for the opportunity to elaborate on his very important work. He was about warming to the subject when their mother glided back into the group and invited them to be seated for dinner. She had already ushered Trevor and Emma Henson, who had formed a separate discussion group with John and Patrick, to the table.
“If everybody would take a break from getting too curious about what everyone else is up to recently, and take a seat, Fr. Cletus would say the grace, and we would eat before the food goes cold,” she announced good-humoredly.
“Thanks for rescuing us from that vice, Hannah,” Trevor said, just to make conversation, it seemed. “They say curiosity killed the cat.”
“Thanks, Trevor,” Hannah responded. “Well, curiosity, in this case, would make your food go cold. Fr. Cletus, would you sit at the head, please,” she asked as she pointed to one end of the table. Then as Fr. McCarthy moved to stand by his seat, she noticed that Jennifer also moved to the seat next to him on his right, and she added, “Oh, no, Jenny. Please promise me you’re not moving there just to be within combat range of Fr. Cletus.” Everyone laughed at Hannah’s use of military termino
logy and at what seemed only too obvious.
“Oh, c’mon, Auntie. You know I can’t promise you that,” Jennifer responded in her characteristic way of addressing every family member by their relational, instead of proper, name. “I gotta be close to my cousin in case he messes his shirt front with soup. If he does, I can clean it for him. You know very well he still needs me to babysit him.”
“And hearing that, you guys may think she’s kidding,” Fr. McCarthy retorted wittily. “But she’s not. Baby sitting’s about the only thing she knows how to do. Ask her to cook, and you either starve or force yourself to eat her mistake.” Another round of laughter followed his comments.
“I know how to cook,” Jennifer protested.
“Since when?” Fr. McCarthy retorted.
“I cooked you broiled snapper and shrimp in pontchartrain on fried rice, with steamed broccoli and spinach, just last month, and you ate and licked the plate with your tongue,” Jennifer responded, factually. “Hey, wake up your memory. Too bad for a priest of your age to have senior moments.”
“I didn’t lick the plate with my tongue. And, oh, by the way, standing over a stove with a book in one hand and a spatula in the other…is that what you call ‘knowing how to cook’?” Fr. McCarthy asked dismissively.
“Well, to me, if she was able to assemble such mouth-watering menu as she just recited, even from a cookbook, I would say she knows how to cook.” Patrick came to Jennifer’s rescue.
“Okay, ladies and gentlemen, combatants and civilians,” the elder McCarthy interjected and began to address everybody and managed to draw more laughter using Hannah’s words. “It’s another Thanksgiving, and we are grateful to God for His many blessings. Though we are few this year, we’re still going to have a good time…that is, if Jennifer and Fr. Cletus don’t duel each other to the death and end the day on a sad note.” He drew still more laughter. “And now, Fr. Cletus, if you don’t mind, can you lead us in praying the grace before the meal?”
