“I think these’ll be enough,” I managed to say.
She shrugged, rang it up, handed me the receipt and my change. “Okay, sweetie, have a nice day.”
A nice day.
When I got back to the garage the first thing that hit me was the reek of Pine-Sol cleanser. My mother was mopping the floor. She turned to look at me.
“It took you long enough,” she said.
The dead priest was now fully clothed, shoes and all. He was lying on the cot. Except for the rope around his neck, he could have resembled a man who’d fallen asleep while reading a book.
My mother had stripped him, washed him, and dressed him. I’m sure she’d worked without worry that someone might come along, because my father was far, far away and we never had visitors. My mother did a lot for needy people, but she did it on their turf. Charity may begin in the home, but as far as my mother was concerned, it was always an away game.
The dead priest seemed to be smiling. She’d washed away the bloodstains from his thorn wounds. She was washing the last of the shit from the floor when I walked in. She leaned the mop against the garage wall. “Give me the bags.”
I handed them over. She took one and filled it with the rags she’d used to clean up, as well as the soiled loincloth and the crown of thorns. The last thing to go in was the disposable mop head. She sealed the bag, then dropped it inside another bag, which she sealed even tighter.
“Now listen, Samuel. Go back to Grand Union and drop this in one of their big garbage Dumpsters. They’re behind the store.”
I took the bag from her and stared at her, slack-jawed.
“We can’t have it near the house,” she said impatiently. “It’s evidence. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mom.”
“Go. Don’t take so long this time. And don’t let anybody see you.”
How was I supposed to keep anybody from seeing me? Was I expected to turn into the Holy Ghost?
I should have been scared, but I was too stunned to be anything but numb. I hurried to the supermarket. The plastic bag seemed to be gaining weight with every step I took. I went around back, where there was a row of giant Dumpsters. How the hell did my mother know about these Dumpsters?
They reeked of rotted vegetables and rancid animal fats. I stood on tiptoe to lift a Dumpster lid and tossed the bag in. It made a hollow kettledrum sound as it hit bottom. The Dumpster must have been empty. More garbage would cover up the bag in the course of the day.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. A young Puerto Rican in dirty workman’s overalls was scowling at me.
“Hey. Whatchoo doin’, man? This ain’t no dump!”
I was petrified. “I just…”
“Come on, man, say it!”
“Our garbage cans are full. My mother told me to bring it here.”
He let go of my shoulder, shook a finger in my face. “I’ll let it go this time, but don’tchoo dump here no more.”
“Oh, I won’t. I promise.”
“And tell your mother what I said.”
“I will….”
I walked away fast. Once I reached the sidewalk I broke into a run, which carried me all the way home. When I got to the garage the windows had been opened and a breeze blew through the place, weakening the Pine-Sol stench.
My mother was fussing around with the dead priest on the cot. She’d placed his hands over his lap and was now stepping back to view her scenario, cocking her head to assess it, like a woman arranging pillows on a couch.
Pleased with it, she turned and looked at me. “Did you do it?”
“Yes, Mom.”
“Good boy. There’s just one more thing.”
She took the bare wooden broomstick the priest had used to crucify himself and began screwing the broom head bristles back onto it.
“Your father would notice if this was missing,” she said. “You know your father.”
She finished the task, stood the broom in its usual corner. “Okay, Samuel. Now we’re ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“I’ll tell you all about it while we eat.”
That’s right. With the dead priest in the garage, we sat and had our bacon and eggs. Grease had congealed on the bacon and the scrambled eggs were crusty, but we ate them anyway, because it was a sin to waste food.
I was so stunned by all my mother had done while I was out disposing of evidence that I’d forgotten to tell her about the Puerto Rican who caught me using the supermarket Dumpster. Now it felt as if it were too late to tell her. Besides, what could we do about it? Go back and retrieve the bag? No way.
While we ate, my mother revealed her plan.
It was really quite simple.
“You didn’t see anything, Samuel.”
“I didn’t?”
“I’m the one who found Father Bielinski hanging from the ceiling. I cut him down and tried to revive him, but it was too late. I put his body on the cot. It’s as simple as that.”
“What about all that other stuff?”
“There isn’t any other stuff. By the time you showed up, I’d already cut him down.”
My mother was many things, but until this moment she had never been a liar. This was terrifying to me, in a way more terrifying than the crucifix suicide itself.
What could I say? My mouth had gone dry. I had to swallow to speak. “Mom…that’s not how it happened.”
“As far as we’re concerned, that’s exactly how it happened.”
“But the crown of thorns, and the other stuff—”
“Samuel! There isn’t any other stuff.” She lifted the phone. “Remember what I said. It’s important that we tell the same story, in case anyone asks you anything, including your father. Especially your father.”
She waited for me to nod, then dialed 911.
The police showed up, a uniformed cop and a detective, and so did an ambulance. My mother stuck to the story she’d forged, and the cops had no reason to doubt her. They never asked me a single question.
The ambulance guys took the noose off Father Bielinski’s neck. Then they put him in a body bag, zipped it shut, put it on a rolling stretcher, and took it away.
I was glad when he was out of our garage, but upset that his brown suitcase was still there. I wanted every trace of him to be gone.
The cops were wrapping things up. Almost casually, the detective asked my mother, “You cut him down, but why didn’t you take the noose off his neck?”
“I didn’t want to tamper with any evidence,” my mother replied.
The detective seemed surprised. “Didn’t you try to revive him?”
“Oh yes, but I knew he was dead.”
“How’d you know that, ma’am?”
“He was ice-cold.”
The detective stared at her for a long moment. “Did he leave a note?”
“No, sir,” my mother lied.
The detective’s eyebrows went up. I prayed that he wouldn’t look at me, or my trembling knees.
“No note? That’s kinda odd. You sure? You looked all around?”
“There is no note, Detective.”
He looked at the uniformed officer, who shrugged.
“All right, then,” the detective sighed. “Be forewarned, the press will be all over you. Lucky for you it’s Saturday morning. Most of the reporters in this city got hangovers right about now.”
My mother forced a sly chuckle. “Lucky isn’t exactly the word I’d choose for a day like today, Detective.”
Within hours the phone was ringing off the hook and reporters were knocking on our door. My mother and I holed up in the house, ignoring everybody. They didn’t leave until dark. The phone rang until midnight.
“Mom?”
“Yes, Samuel?”
“Why did you lie to the detective about the note?”
“Because it’s precious to me. The police have no business reading Father Bielinski’s final words.”
We went to the eleven o’clock Mass as always on Sunday morn
ing, and this time a dozen newsmen were outside St. Aloysius, shouting questions at my mother as we arrived and left. They got pictures, but no words. My mother wouldn’t even look at them.
The story had hit the Sunday papers with a splash, but the only one to worry about was George O’Malley’s in the New York Star. He had a friend in the coroner’s office who told him about some “mysterious puncture wounds” on the dead priest’s head.
What could have caused them? The coroner did not know, and would not speculate. I started to worry about the garbage bag I’d dumped at Grand Union. If anyone poked through it they’d find the crown of thorns, and put the puzzle together.
I don’t remember much about the Mass that day, except that Father Bielinski was never mentioned during the sermon. His name only came up in the list of the dearly departed we were told to pray for. Everybody stared at us but they left us alone.
As we were leaving church I saw George O’Malley among the newsmen standing in front of the church. He waved to me, and I waved back. My mother smacked my hand. It was the first and only time she’d ever hit me.
When we got home I couldn’t hold it any longer. I told my mother about the Puerto Rican workman who’d caught me dumping the garbage bag at Grand Union. I expected to be yelled at, but she didn’t do that. Instead, we both got on our knees and prayed.
“What are we praying for, Mom?”
“That nobody finds that bag.”
Together we said ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys so that the plastic bag containing the dead priest’s shit-stained loincloth and crown of thorns would make it all the way to the city dump in Staten Island, undisturbed, to eventually be buried under untold tons of garbage.
Amen.
Late that night we heard Charlie McMahon’s car pull up in front of the house. I looked out my bedroom window and saw my father laughing with Charlie as he struggled to get his duffel bag out of the car. A dead deer was strapped to the hood of Charlie’s car. I wondered who’d shot it, Charlie or my father. I’d seen enough death for one weekend. I prayed that when Charlie drove away, he’d take the deer with him. Sure enough, he did.
“Thank you, God.”
I heard my father slam his way into the house. My mother was downstairs, waiting for him. She was going to tell him the same story the rest of the world believed about Father Joseph Bielinski. There was no reason for him not to believe it. I was beginning to believe it myself.
The kids at school didn’t ask me about the suicide. Maybe the nuns had instructed them not to. Only Alonzo Fishetti had the guts to come up to me in the schoolyard.
“Guy musta been fuckin’ crazy, huh, Sullivan?”
Alonzo, you have no idea.
My mother turned the proceeds of the Father Bielinski fund over to his church in Scranton, with instructions for them to do as they wished with the money. I graduated from St. Aloysius school that year and the following year went on to Holy Cross High School, an all-boys’ school.
I never danced with Margaret Thompson, never asked her out.
When my mother died George O’Malley wrote an obituary about the staunch defender of the Bleeding Jesus of Scranton, and the way she stuck up for that suicidal priest, and the way she died in church, in line to receive Holy Communion. He sent me a letter saying if there was anything he could do for me, please let him know.
I let him know the day after I quit my pizza delivery job at Napoli’s. I phoned George and told him I needed a job. He invited me to visit him at the New York Star office, where he offered me a job as a copyboy.
I quit school and took the job. Within six months I had my first bylined story. I was a promoted to reporter by the time I was twenty. I was George O’Malley’s big find, something he could crow about. They said I was a natural newsman.
Of course I was. After all, I was the kid who’d exposed the hoax of the Bleeding Jesus of Scranton, Pennsylvania.
My mother wanted me to become a priest. Instead, I became a tabloid newspaperman. I guess there’s really not all that much difference. It’s all about getting people to believe in stories that demand an enormous leap of faith.
Funny thing was, I couldn’t tell anyone my biggest story of all, until this crazy night with my son and my father at our old kitchen table.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
By the time I’m finished talking my father and my son look almost windblown, as if they’ve been taken for a ride across a desert on an open wagon. Jake can just stare at me.
“My God,” he finally says, peculiar words indeed to be hearing from the son of an agnostic and a fallen Catholic. Something else is going on with my father, something I’ve never seen before.
He is weeping, and making no attempt to hide his tears, which make his eyes seem bigger and bluer than ever. I think he is crying because he’s just learned that his wife wanted to be a nun, and that she thought he wasn’t good enough to be my father, but I am wrong.
“Sammy,” he says, “can you forgive me?”
“Forgive you for what?”
“For not…being strong for you.”
I’m shocked to hear him say this. “Dad. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known!”
He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. “Usually, yeah. But those few times, I really fucked up, Sammy. I should’ve been strong enough to keep you from going on that ridiculous trip to Scranton. And then I should have been strong enough to stay here, instead of goin’ hunting with Charlie, leavin’ you here with your mother and that crazy priest.”
“It doesn’t matter, Dad.”
“Oh, it matters, all right.”
“Not anymore. What happened, happened. I feel better just talking it all out. I feel…good.”
I realize I’m telling the truth. I do feel good, maybe not James Brown good, but better than I’ve felt since the day I was born, and that’s something.
“Funny, you look good,” Jake says. “You look…I don’t know. Younger.”
“Thank you, son.”
“I want to thank you, Dad.”
“For what?”
“For disobeying your mother’s wishes and not becoming a priest so you could go on to become my father, that’s what for.”
“You’re welcome.”
Jake hesitates before adding, “I’m glad I was born, and I’m glad you’re my father.”
It’s an amazing thing to hear. Jake speaks the words as if he’s reading them off a plaque. I turn to my own father and repeat those exact same words. We all gather in the middle of the kitchen for a triple hug, brief but sincere.
And now it seems that there’s just one more thing I need to know from my father. I take a sip of beer for courage.
“Dad,” I begin, “please tell me. Why in the world did you marry Mom?”
For the first time ever, my father has a sheepish look on his face. “Why do you think? She was pregnant.”
I choke on the beer. Jake is suddenly behind me, patting my back, kneading my shoulders. “Easy, Dad. You’ll be all right.”
I watch my father open a fresh beer and take a long, leisurely swallow.
“I never knew,” I finally manage to say. “Never even suspected anything like that.”
Of course I didn’t. My mother, engaging in premarital sex? It was hard enough to imagine her taking part in postmarital sex!
My father shakes his head. “You got it in your skull that she was a saint. She wasn’t. The only saints are the statues. It’s an impossible challenge for anyone with blood and bone. And let me tell you—before the church really grabbed her, your mother could be a hell of a lot of fun. What the hell are you smilin’ about, Jake?”
“Oh, nothing. It’s just that my mother was pregnant when Dad married her.”
“Yes, I knew that,” my father says. “I can count to nine.” He laughs out loud, hoists his beer bottle. “Here’s to the Sullivan males! A potent bunch, if nothing else! You be careful out there, Jake, or you’ll be pushin’ a stroller before you’re twenty!”
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He and Jake clink beer bottles and drink.
Somehow I guess I’ve always had it in my head that nobody’s life is as complicated as mine. Now, suddenly, I can see that I’m just a link in a chain of messes. It’s not exactly a comforting thought, but it does make things a little less lonely.
I grasp Jake by the forearm. It’s time for the question I always thought I would take to my grave, but it’s clear that I must ask it now, right now.
“Jake. How badly have I hurt you?”
I’m looking right into those green eyes of his, like two seas. And right now the seas are calm.
“Dad,” he says, “I always knew you were trying your best. That’s what counts.”
It’s the greatest thing anyone’s ever said to me. My father respects the moment by hoisting his bottle and gently saying, “Hear, hear.”
My lips are quivering as I turn to my father. “You don’t hate me, Dad?”
“What a question. Of course not. You’re too busy hating yourself for anybody else to have a chance at it!”
He grins at me, winks at me, and is startled when I reach over and grasp his forearm. I’m the link between these two people, and while holding their arms I’m flooded by the same sweet, gooey feeling I used to get after confessing my sins to a priest. Back then, that feeling lasted for about five minutes. I’m hoping for something longer this time.
My father pulls out of my grasp. “Enough of that already, unless you plan to buy me a corsage.”
Just then the front doorbell rings. The pizza has arrived.
“I got it, Dad,” I say, and he doesn’t object. He’s still a little weepy-eyed, and doesn’t want the delivery boy to see him this way.
Jake comes to the front door with me, where a dark-haired, skinny kid who could have been me thirty years ago stands there holding two boxes containing the pizzas—strong boxes, corrugated cardboard that doesn’t bend or leak. Where were these boxes when I was delivering for Napoli’s?
“What do we owe you?”
“Comes to twenty-five fifty.”
I give the kid thirty bucks and tell him to keep the change. He mutters his thanks and walks off, and then I happen to see his bicycle at the curb, and my heart drops. I hand the boxes to Jake and tell him to take them inside.
Raising Jake Page 26
