"The paper's no good. I need new paper."
Connie tilted her head. "You wanna use this stuff?"
"Yeah. If it's okay with you."
"Don't matter to me."
"Every time it rains the stuff I do on the sidewalk washes away. I got money, my father gave me a little money before he left."
"What are we, poor? We'll buy the paper, thank you very much." She tried to pick up a sheet but it crumbled just as mine had.
"Who ever thought …"
"What?" I prodded.
She took a deep breath. "Who ever thought this would get used again?"
Was she choking back a sob, or did I imagine that? Maybe the dust had made her choke. It hung in the air like fog.
"We'll get you paper," she repeated. "But go to bed now. And lay out your good clothes for the morning, we're going to the early Mass."
I climbed the stairs. It was awhile before I heard Connie's heavy feet coming up, and then I fell asleep.
CHAPTER SIX
Sunday morning, and Shepherd Avenue was stinging with the sharp scent of wet brick and cement, for this was the day men washed their stony domains, using hoses with gunlike handles they loved to squeeze. They began at the back of their properties and hosed up driveways, pausing for extra time at pets' droppings before washing the whole mess out into the street.
Connie had us up at six-thirty for the eight o'clock Mass, even though the church was just a few blocks away. For the first time in Brooklyn I got out my "good" clothes and was surprised at how badly they fit - the pant cuffs hiked up to my ankles, and my black shoes seemed stiff and heavy after so much time in sneakers.
I was hungry but Connie said all I could have was a glass of water. I'd never been to church before and asked Angie why we couldn't eat breakfast. He stopped rubbing polish on his shoes.
"You never been?"
"Nope."
"Jesus . . . well, the way it works, you're not supposed to eat before you receive."
"Receive what?"
"Jesus! You really don't know anything about it," he marveled. He provided a thumbnail sketch of the Catholic church in the time it took to buff his shoes.
You went there to pray; you received a piece of bread on your tongue, so thin it was like paper; you pretended it was the body of Jesus Christ, so you just sucked on it, without chewing; and you couldn't eat anything for hours before receiving it.
"His body?" I was astounded. "Why would anybody want to eat his body?"
"Good question," Angie said, putting away the shoe-shine box. "When you figure it out, you tell me. But don't tell Connie you never went to church, she thinks you did."
"Okay. But I'm hungry."
He sneaked a handful of sunflower seeds into my pocket, murmuring, "These don't count."
The three of us walked out together, cleaned and brushed, down a sidewalk that seemed to sparkle especially for us. Louisa, at curbside, looked up dumbly at us, as if our good clothes were a disguise. I felt hot and sticky and there was too much Vitalis on my hair. It dripped down my cheeks.
Mel came running up from behind, patent leather shoes flashing. "My cousin won't hurry up," she said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder at Rosemary, who made her way toward us like the Queen Mary.
Connie stopped. "We're early, we can wait for her."
"Ah, it's even hotter when you stand still," Angie said. "We'll meet you there."
"Go," Connie said, unoffended. "Sit in the middle, near the aisle. That way we don't have people crawling over us."
We abandoned Connie. "When was the last time you went to church?" Mel asked Angie in a sharp voice.
He shrugged. "Not counting weddings or funerals, maybe five years ago."
"I've never been to church," I said.
Mel's eyes widened. "Holy shit, you guys are in trouble."
"We are not," Angie said calmly. "You tell me this, Mel —do you like church?"
"It's God's house," she said dutifully.
Angie laughed. "What isn't?" He took a sunflower seed and bit it between his teeth.
"You better not receive," Mel said musically.
"I'm not gonna, but I could if I wanted to."
"Not for three hours."
Angie rolled his eyes and poured seeds into Mel's hand. "Three hours, one hour, ten minutes — what's the difference? Some pope made up that crazy rule. What do you think happens? God gonna send down a lightning bolt because I ate one seed?" He pointed into his palm. "He's the one who made the seed, in the first place."
I took a seed from my pocket and ate it. The saltiness was agreeable, the first taste of the day.
Angie bit another seed. "You have to take this church business the right way. Otherwise you go nuts."
Mel watched us chew before biting into a seed herself. "I'll eat it, but I ain't gonna receive today."
"Just don't drop the shells on the sidewalk. If Connie sees them she'll have a fit." He jerked his thumb toward the sky, then behind his back. "I ain't afraid of Him, I'm afraid of her," he chuckled.
The church was incredibly hot. It had marble floors and high ceilings. The walls were yellow, except down low, where fake wood paneling had been painted with a coarse-bristled brush to a height of maybe five feet. Tall grinning fans spun back and forth, pushing hot air around. My pants stuck to the seat.
The priest was a fat man named Peter Valenti, and almost as soon as he began speaking I fell into a swoon. My eyes closed but Mel shoved me awake. On my other side Angie nibbled seeds on the sly. He dropped the shells into the hymnbook holder. Connie and Rosemary seemed to be paying attention, but even their eyelids drooped.
What was so great about church, I wondered. Nothing happened!
But suddenly we were jolted. Valenti altered his tone, snapped his prayer book shut. Heads lifted all over the place.
"Today we welcome a new man to our parish," he began. A murmur ran through the crowd. On and on Valenti talked —where he'd studied, how he came to arrive at Saint Rita's. I fell into another swoon until the words ". . . so please welcome Deacon David Sullivan."
I started to applaud, but had struck my hands together just twice before Angie caught them. Mel hissed, "Ya never clap in church, dope!" The whole congregation tittered.
The young man at the pulpit laughed and said, "Well, it's certainly nice to know I'm welcome here."
That got me off the hook. Everyone laughed, suddenly alert, as if a gust of cold air had blown through the church. The deacon was six feet two and weighed no more than a hundred and forty pounds. His arms and legs were long and thin, spidery-looking in the black garb of his profession.
Veins bulged in his hands, which were white as a statue's. His eyes were watery green and his nose was long and thin. He'd just had a haircut — you could tell, because the newly exposed scalp near his hairline gleamed even whiter than his complexion, as if someone had traced around it with chalk.
Bony wrists jutted beyond his sleeves. He rubbed them as he spoke, and he blinked a lot, too.
His sermon shook the foundations of that stagnant place. We had to love one another, we should love without fear, it was all that mattered, don't even bother coming here anymore, people, but make sure you love each other or everything is useless. . .
"My God!" he boomed. "Why do you think you're here? Why do you think it takes two of you to make a new person? You're not supposed to get through this life alone!"
On he went for twenty minutes, waving his arms, pausing to wipe his eyes, seemingly exasperated, elated, and finally exhausted. The doors at the back of the church were opened, at his request - "Let's breathe, people, God knows we have little enough time in this world as it is."
Suddenly it was time for communion. Connie leaned toward us, her face alive, as if she'd been hit with a pail of cold water. "You're all receiving today," she hissed.
Mel gasped; Connie's edict had included her. My heart leapt as the sunflower seeds in my belly turned to pebbles. I'd been a Catholic for half an hour and
already I'd broken a rule.
Angie winked to assure us. "Don't worry. Listen, I'll go first. If anything happens to me you two can run out."
"Let's not," Mel pleaded.
"Eh, relax, trust me." To cement our faith in him he cracked another seed in his mouth.
Caught up in Sullivan's spirit, nearly everyone was getting on line to receive. I stood behind Angie and saw his jaws working - what defiance, to chew sunflower seeds on the way to receive! He'd show them a food-flecked tongue at the altar! I wondered what God's punishment would be - a bolt of lightning through his head, a heart attack?
Angie went to the railing, knelt - I saw the holes in his soles - received, and rose. I took my place at the altar, with Mel next to me. A boy held a gold plate under people's mouths as they received. The deacon was getting closer. I watched Mel stick her tongue out to take the wafer. I imitated her. Sullivan put it on my tongue and winked.
"How's it going, champ?" he whispered.
It tasted like cardboard but my mouth watered to dissolve it. Champ! No one had ever called me that! Valenti gave the benediction to end the Mass. Outside, people flocked around the new deacon in the brilliant sunshine. His dry, sandy hair blew in the wind. I sneaked my hand in for a quick shake and noticed how clammy it felt. His fingers somehow seemed hollow, like cigar cylinders.
Angie was waiting at the bottom of the steps, eager to get going.
"Well," Connie said. "What did you think of that?"
"Okay," Angie allowed. "Not bad."
"Even Vic would love that priest," Mel said.
"He's a deacon, not a priest," Rosemary scolded.
"Whatever he is, he's different," Angie said. "You don't get the feeling he's tryin' to keep you out of hell. I mean it ain't like he's doing you a favor. That's what I always hated about priests."
"His hand's wet," I said.
"He's too skinny," Connie said. "The only bad thing, he shouldn't have told us we don't have to go to church no more."
Angie waved at her. "That's not what he meant. You missed what he was talking about."
They argued about that, and then we broke into the groups we'd traveled in earlier. Angie, Mel, and I were nearly home when he grabbed the tops of our heads as if we were two melons.
"Hey. Didn't I tell you nothin' was gonna happen from a coupla lousy sunflower seeds? Didn't I?"He laughed, pushed us away, and tugged off his tie, whipping us playfully with it.
Connie did more than shake Deacon Sullivan's hand - she invited him to dinner that very afternoon.
She was impossible to be around in the basement, where the pot of gravy had bubbled like a tar pit since eight that morning. She'd made fresh macaroni and stuffed them with ricotta cheese laced with bits of chopped parsley. She wanted to set the upstairs table but Angie argued that it was cooler in the basement.
"We save that room for baseball people," Connie commented as she set down a clean checkered tablecloth. She made Angie transfer wine from the gallon jug they usually used to a decanter, which would look nicer.
It was my job to rinse out the decanter. I gave it three hard shakings with soapy water and five with fresh before it seemed clean. Then I polished the silverware, gray with disuse. I blackened a bunch of rags in an hour.
I answered the door when he arrived, stunned to see him in a checkered sport shirt, slacks, and sandals. He said "hi" boyishly and rubbed my hair.
I led him down the basement steps, using the narrow staircase I'd first descended weeks earlier. "Into the catacombs," he said in a spooky voice. "Do you know what the catacombs are?"
"Uh-uh."
"They're in Italy, where they bury dead people. Hundreds of skeletons, way down in tunnels under the ground. Children your age clean the bones for the church. Am I scaring you?"
"Nab," I lied. He rubbed my hair again.
Angie was reading the sports section. At Connie's urging, he'd knotted the tie around his neck again. Connie, who had been working at the stove, whipped off her apron with the elan of a matador flourishing his cape.
It was amazing the way she changed in the presence of a clergyman. In one sentence she apologized for the heat, her appearance, and the fact that we were eating in the cellar.
She drew a long breath. "Will you . . . bless the house?"
Sullivan laughed as if he found the request quaint. "If you like," he said, casually making the sign of the cross and saying some Latin words as Angie stood by, head unbowed, cracking a sunflower seed in his teeth. He recognized no spirits that needed to be ushered into or driven from his house.
We got right down to eating. In addition to the stuffed macaroni there was roast chicken, pan-browned potatoes, spinach in olive oil, and a giant bowl of salad — not just lettuce and tomatoes but peppers, cucumbers scored with a fork, radishes, and dandelion greens.
But the deacon disappointed all of us. The wine was too harsh for his tongue and he requested scotch and water instead, innocently criticizing Freddie Gallo's homemade wine, which Angie had drunk for decades.
Sullivan came back for second and third scotches. Until he drank, his hands had been restless. He didn't seem to know where to put them - the tabletop, his knees, his pockets, everything was a hot stove. Now he calmed down.
He left macaroni and chicken behind on his plate, a mortal sin in that household. His jaws clenched noticeably at the bite of the dandelion greens. Angie's eyes narrowed each time he laid his fork beside his plate and gasped, somewhat effeminately, "I'm so full!"
Connie was in her glory. "Tell the truth," she said, gunning for a compliment, "when was the last time you had a meal like this?"
The deacon put both hands on his flat belly and narrowed his eyes, taking the question seriously.
"Not since my last birthday. My mother made my all-time favorite - fresh-killed roast duck with orange sauce." He kissed his fingertips.
"Oh," Connie said, dumbfounded.
"But this is the best I've had since then," he said, hoisting his scotch. No one else was drinking so he sipped alone. Even I knew a cheap shot when I heard one.
When Sullivan became engaged in conversation with Connie, Angie leaned over and whispered, "I'll betcha Connie kills a duck and cooks it for this guy."
After the meal Connie seemed relieved to be at the sink. Angie and the deacon sipped anisette-laced coffee and ate cannoli. A mound of walnut shells grew in front of Angie's place. He broke them, separated meat from shell, and passed the food to us.
The deacon seemed surprised to have food shared this way: despite his own steady repetition of the communion ritual, it was obviously every man for himself at the rectory dinner table. He chewed nuts in quick short bites, like a chipmunk. Out of the clear blue he said, "Are you interested in becoming a priest, Joseph?"
"No," I said. "A baseball player."
"His uncle's a ballplayer," Connie said. "Professional, you know."
Angie looked at her. "Since when are you proud of that?" She ignored him.
"Vic and me are gonna be teammates," I proclaimed. "He said so."
Connie rolled her eyes. "Two dreamers."
Sullivan said, "In my family the tradition is for one of the male children to enter the priesthood. In my case I was an only child, so there really couldn't be any argument about it."
"What's an only child?" I asked.
"Means he's got no brothers or sisters," Connie explained. "Funny for an Irish family. Usually there's a million kids. Like rabbits, they are, am I right?"
"Hey, I'm like that, too!" I said before the deacon could react to Connie's crack. "I'm an only child."
The deacon extended his long hand. "Well, put her there, partner." He grinned as we shook. Something felt warm and gooey in my chest as I added, "And I'm a Syrian, too."
The deacon pulled out of my grasp. "I thought you folks were Italian."
"We are," Angie said. "Joey, who told you that you were Syrian?"
Should I say? Would there be trouble if I squealed on Vic? Si
x eyes demanded an answer.
"Grace," I finally said. "She told me they had to cut my mother open so I could be born."
"Oh, a cesarean!" The deacon's laugh was shockingly falsetto and sort of cruel. Angie's mouth fell open at the sound of it and my gooey feeling went icy. The deacon's hands went to his cheeks and he actually had to wipe tears from his eyes. "Lord, that is just precious."
I looked at Angie and could tell he didn't like the guy, either.
"That Grace," Connie muttered. "The mouth on her." But I knew she would never confront Grace. She needed those sturdy, bony legs to do the shopping; a fight between them would have meant no groceries coming into the house.
Then Sullivan was outlining his plans for the future, including travel to Europe, when Angie interrupted him by asking, "But did you ever work?"
Sullivan's big Adam's apple twitched. Connie shut off the water and gazed at her husband. Sullivan cleared his throat.
"When I was sixteen I worked at a Howard Johnson's, making sundaes. That's why my hands feel so cold, to this very day - all that digging around in ice cream barrels."
Connie laughed politely but Angie didn't let him go. "And now you're what?"
"Sir?"
"How old?"
"I'm twenty-six," Sullivan said evenly, finally getting the drift. Angie murmured something to himself and cracked another walnut. He squeezed the nutcracker too hard, shattering meat and shell together.
He was sweeping it off the table with the flat of his hand when Sullivan said, "Not all forms of work can be measured by the roughness of a man's hands, Mr. Ambrosio."
Angie set the nutcracker aside. It was so quiet in the room I could hear his sweet, nutty breath wheeze through his thick nostril hairs.
"The job at Howard Johnson's was the only one I had to put money in my pocket, but in a higher sense I've been working all my life for God," Sullivan continued. "When you have The Calling it really doesn't let you rest for a single minute."
The melting ice cubes in his glass shifted, clinked. He helped himself to more scotch.
Angie flushed. "You're a priest. I guess you'd know."
Shepherd Avenue Page 9
