Our Lady Of Greenwich Village

by Dermot McEvoy

  Swift laughed and held his hands in front of him like he was holding a gun on a suspect. “Drop that vibrator or I’ll legislate!”

  “What if DeLay did propose legislation?”

  “I’d vote for it,” replied Swift honestly.

  Brogan laughed. “Someday,” she said, “we’ll wonder how an imbecile like DeLay got so powerful. In the meantime,” said Brogan airily as she positioned her rump on the side of the bed, “you can do to me what DeLay has been doing to the country.”

  “If you say so.” Swift got out of the bed and stood behind her. Before he could help himself, he smacked her generous ass cheek.

  “Oh, doctor,” she said, giggling.

  “Shut up,” he said lightly as he whacked the other butt cheek. Brogan did as she was told and Swift slid himself into her and they became one. This was Brogan’s favorite position and she knew all the nuances of it. She also knew that men were longer and harder when standing. Plus, the sight of her great, ample upturned ass guaranteed granite-like hardness. She was a pro at lovemaking. Basically, she used Swift as a prop. He stood there and she did all the moving. In and out and back and forth. For variation she would arch her back and find a different angle. With power, she would slam her ass back into Swift as she touched herself with the vibrator, triggering a set of multiple orgasms. It was her show and she knew it.

  Swift loved fucking Brogan. Until he met her, he thought it was just about time for the Viagra. Unlike his wife, Madonna-Sue Fopiano, Brogan loved sex. Sex to Madonna-Sue was a chore. She rationed it out like it was gasoline during World War II. Once every six or seven weeks was enough—and no speeding. When they were courting, the sex was rampant. They couldn’t strip fast enough. But when she became pregnant, and they had gotten married, everything changed. Now she was always covering her nakedness and making excuses of why she couldn’t do “it.” When they conceived their last child in a wine-induced quickie, Madonna-Sue had managed to somehow preserve her modesty during the act. Sex and modesty, Swift knew, don’t mix. He became depressed just looking at those ankle-length flannel nightgowns she had taken to wearing. Madonna-Sue was the kind of woman who closed the door on her spouse to pee. Brogan had no such qualms.

  The first time Swift saw Brogan, he fell in lust. She had been sent over by Vito, his father-in-law, to interview for chief of staff. “My God,” Swift had said to himself, “what a beautiful woman.” She was deeply tanned and wore her brilliant platinum blonde hair pulled straight back, revealing her extraordinary facial features, which included high cheek bones and a prominent Celtic forehead. It was a sign of sheer beauty, Swift knew, when a woman could pull her hair back to reveal her features, naked to the world. She bore a remarkable resemblance to the Maureen Dean of 1974, stoically sitting behind her husband John as he testified before the Watergate committee.

  Madonna-Sue had not been happy when Swift hired Brogan. Although Madonna-Sue was cute and came across well on TV, she knew she was not in Brogan’s league in looks, and maybe brains. “Nice call,” she had said coldly when Swift introduced his new chief of staff. That night as they prepared for bed, she asked, “Why her?”

  “Vito sent her over,” said Swift.

  “I said ‘why her?’”

  “She’s qualified,” said Swift defensively.

  “I bet she is,” said Madonna-Sue, precisely dissecting the way both her husband and her father thought: competence counts—especially if a big round ass is attached to it.

  “Look,” said Swift in the middle of the fuck, “it’s Charles Bickford!”

  Brogan, in heat, gave a look that Swift couldn’t see. She should have gotten on top after all, she thought. At least then he wouldn’t have had a straight line of vision at the TV. Swift loved old movies. He knew every old character actor who ever lived. “John Ridgely,” he would declare as if anyone cared, pointing out Bogie’s foe in The Big Sleep, “died in 1968 of a heart attack.”

  While watching The Quiet Man—he was a ferocious John Ford fan—he would always point out the Irish actor Arthur Shields. “Who does he look like?” he would demand of Brogan.

  “Helen Hayes,” she would say.

  “Not at all,” would reply Swift without humor. “Barry Fitzgerald. Do you know why?”

  “Because they’re brothers.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because this is the seventh time you’ve told me.”

  Now, watching The Song of Bernadette, he was utterly distracted by the cast. “Look, there’s a young Lee J. Cobb. And there’s William Eythe. Remember him?” Brogan couldn’t believe this conversation was going on. “He’s the American double-agent in The House on 92nd Street. Didn’t have much of a career. Drank himself to death.”

  The movie had distracted Swift. He wasn’t as hard and he just kept missing her “spot.” She was all business and she would get Swift back up to speed. The vibrator buzzed as Brogan rubbed herself, then grabbed a handful of balls with her fingers, causing Swift to step up and relentlessly pound her. It was all in the balls, Brogan knew, as she pulled Swift up into her.

  “Jesus,” said Swift. “My God, that feels good” as he curiously thought of Captain Queeg and the ball bearings.

  “Mother of God,” said Brogan in orgasm. “Mother of fucking God.” Swift had climbed up on the bed and was now standing over Brogan pumping away, hands on his knees like an infielder waiting for the pitch. It was supreme sex. They had ceased being human and had turned animal. “Fuck me, you bastard,” said Brogan as the vibrator flew out of her hand and she ejaculated heavily on the bed, pushing Swift out of her.

  “Oh my God,” he said as he stood up and straddled her, holding his arms out like wings, fists clenched. He tried not to come, but she had been too much for him and, involuntarily, he shot thick streams of semen on Brogan’s freckled shoulders and back. They collapsed on the bed, each one’s body fluids smeared on the other as they laughed the sex laugh, the laugh of relief and total satisfaction.

  “Thanks be to God,” intoned a solemn voice from the television.

  “What’s that?” Brogan said as she turned the vibrator off.

  “It’s The Song of Bernadette,” said Swift. “That’s what I was trying to tell you. Every great character actor in Hollywood is in it. Jerome Cowan. You remember him, don’t you? He was Bogie’s partner in The Maltese Falcon and the district attorney in Miracle on 34th Street. Vincent Price from Laura. Even Sig Ruman, the Nazi sergeant from Stalag 17.”

  “My God,” said Brogan, “it’s Jennifer Jones.”

  “You know,” said Swift as if revealing something, “she was married to David O. Selznick.”

  Brogan had to laugh at the irony. They couldn’t escape it, the knowledge that the Church, all important in their political lives, was still somehow looking over them, even in bed. Swift, exhausted, rested his perspiring forehead in the valley of Brogan’s robust breasts, looked up into her eyes, and smiled again.

  “Jackie,” said Brogan in her state of relieved passion, “I love you so much.” She looked at Swift, who smiled sweetly back at her with that boy-Irish look that he had never lost and that the sisters at St. John the Evangelist’s had always loved. A good Irish-Catholic lad he would always be.

  “Me too,” replied Swift as he went back to playing with the cocaine on the mirror. Brogan saw how ravenous Swift was for the powder. No matter how good in bed she was, she always seemed to be playing second fiddle to the “magic,” as he sometimes called it. What a waste, she thought. He was scraping the residue together for one more line. The razor scratching across the glass made a sound that forced Brogan to grimace. Swift shot half the line up his left nostril and the other half up the right.

  “Honey,” said Brogan out of the blue, “did you ever think of having a baby with me?”

  Swift laughed. “Brogan,” he said, “remember? I’m already married. My wife’s pregnant. I’m the ‘Family Values’ Congressman from the Sodom and Gomorrah called New York City.”

  �
�You’re also for mandatory sentences for drug abusers,” Brogan said as she gestured towards the mirror with the cocaine on it.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Swift, annoyed. Brogan had noticed that after Swift used cocaine his personality had a tendency to change. He was developing an edge. “Don’t start with me now,” said Swift. “I feel bad enough about having another kid with Madonna-Sue.”

  “How could you do that to me?”

  “Do what?”

  “Get her pregnant.”

  “I didn’t plan it,” said Swift. “It just happened. I told you. We went to get our coats after Thanksgiving dinner at Vito’s house and the next thing I know we’re screwing on the bed. Drink was taken.”

  “The Irish excuse for everything.”

  Swift gave her a look and there was no smile attached. “Don’t start now,” he repeated as he stood up to go to the bathroom, but he immediately sat back down on the bed. “I don’t feel so good,” he said. “My God!” he said grimacing. He flung both hands across his chest as he fell across the bed. “Jesus,” he said as he gasped for air. “Mother of God, help me!” he uttered as the pain exploded in his chest and rushed down his arms and disintegrated his elbows. He felt nothing as a blackness engulfed him and then he thought he saw the light, so far away, but getting closer by the second.

  The memory of the whole sorry episode had totally deflated Swift. “How,” he said, “in God’s name did the Daily News get the idea that the Virgin Mary appeared to me?”

  “Georgie Drumgoole,” said Brogan.

  “Oh, no,” repeated Swift knowing he was doomed, “not Drumgoole.”

  “Drumgoole got it wrong,” said Brogan. “I called him as soon as they took you to the hospital and told him we were watching The Song of Bernadette when you had your attack. Somehow he misconstrued that into an appearance by the Blessed Virgin.”

  “Was he drunk again?” asked Swift.

  “What do you think?”

  Swift was beside himself. “How,” said Swift with growing agitation, “could he think—if that’s the word—such a stupid thing? It’s the most asinine thing I’ve ever heard of.” He plopped back onto his pillow, near exhaustion.

  For a solid minute, there was nothing but silence. “You want the good news?” Brogan finally asked.

  “Good news?” shouted Swift, seemingly overwhelmed by events. “What good news? That my wife and father-in-law are going to kill me? That my political career is over? What good news could you possibly have?”

  Brogan went over to Swift and put her hand on his arm. “It’s okay, Jack,” she said, “everything will be all right.” She kissed him on his unshaven cheek. She took his hand in hers and stroked his manicured fingers. She could see him become calmer. “In fact,” she said, “I have two pieces of good news for you.” For the first time, she could see a trace of hope in Swift’s eyes. “First, your cardiologist says you’re out of danger.”

  “Thank God,” said Swift sincerely. “And?”

  “The Cardinal will be visiting you shortly.”

  “Not the Cardinal,” said Swift, visibly slumping again. “Not the fucking Cardinal.” Swift looked like a beaten man, resignation clearly on his face.

  With that the door opened and in stepped Declan Cardinal Sweeney, sprinkling Holy Water. “The Lord is my light and salvation,” said the Cardinal. “Though I walk in the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” Swift knew instinctively that it was the last of the seven sacraments:The Sacrament of Anointing the Sick. An uneasy smile crossed Swift’s face, for he knew it was an ecclesiastical euphemism. It used to be called Extreme Unction, the sacrament of the dying. Swift was Catholic enough to know that the Cardinal thought he was on the way out. The Cardinal stood over him and nearly drenched him with more Holy Water. “The Lord is my shepherd,” he said, “I shall not want. In verdant pastures he gives me repose.” Oddly enough, the very presence of the Cardinal seemed to comfort Swift. Swift laid back in the bed, watched the Cardinal’s theatre, and felt at peace. He almost felt like going to confession because it was the first time he had been honest enough to admit to himself that it was his cock and his coke that was always getting him into trouble. They had gotten him into this holy mess and now he would have to face the music, which was being orchestrated in front of him by a Prince of Holy Mother Church.

  5.

  Vito Fopiano had been Jackie Swift’s Dr. Frankenstein. For without there would have been no Congressman Swift.

  It had all started in 1979, when Vito Fopiano, the New York City Council minority leader from Staten Island—who also happened to be the lone Republican on the council—had watched a made-for-TV movie about old Joseph P. Kennedy, the chieftain of the Kennedy clan. “If a mick prick like Kennedy can do that, why can’t I?” he asked his empty living room. Unfortunately, Fopiano had no Jack, or Bobby, or even a Teddy to work with. All he had was his daughter, Madonna-Sue. Since his wife’s death, he had been both mother and father to Madonna-Sue. And she had thrived, especially as a high school and college athlete. An All-American in both tennis and lacrosse, Madonna-Sue more than made up for the son that Vito never had.

  New York, city and state, was solidly Democratic in 1979. Mayor Koch, Governor Carey, and Senator Moynihan were all Democrats. And the other senator—“Javits the Jew,” as Fopiano referred to him—might as well have been a Democrat. He was one of the last Rockefeller Republicans—a cross of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Nelson’s money. He was about as conservative Republican as Vito was liberal Democrat.

  It was about this time that Fopiano stumbled across Alfonse D’Amato, who strangely enough, would one day become the King of the Jews. Jewish voters, that is. At that time, D’Amato was the obscure Presiding Supervisor of the Town of Hempstead, out on Long Island.

  “How’d you like to be a United States Senator?” asked Vito Fopiano of D’Amato over a delightfully sautéed veal scaloppini.

  “How’d I do that?” D’Amato asked, his mouth full.

  “What do you get if you divide one Italian by two Jews?” asked Fopiano, as a delicate mushroom sauce inched down D’Amato’s chin. There was no response from D’Amato. “A United States Senator,” said Vito Fopiano.

  D’Amato’s dull eyes didn’t move for a second, then he nodded, swiped his chin with the sleeve of his jacket, and pumped his arm in the air. “Yes!” D’Amato said, his beady eyes ricocheting wildly in their sockets, sounding like Marv Albert.

  A year later, two Jews—Jacob Javits and Elizabeth Holtzman—divided by one Italian would equal one Senator Alfonse D’Amato. It was becoming obvious that Fopiano could plot politics like a member of the Curia in a papal conclave. There were other worlds to conquer, thought Vito Fopiano. No office was too insignificant; he would start with the New York City Council.

  The first thing he did was get his chief of staff, Smilin’ Jackie Swift, to run as a Republican for the city council on the East Side of Manhattan. The East Side from 14th Street to 96th Street was a mixed bag. Upper-, lower-, and middle-class. Lots of rich, but most stuck solidly in the middle. Some browns, mostly white. Still a lot of ethnic Irish left over from before the war. It was the district of Roy “The Conscience of the New York State Senate” Goodman, famous for displaying his conscience on every bus in New York City every four years at election time. It became a running joke—the very notion that either Roy Goodman or the New York State Senate had a conscience, that is. And Vito Fopiano instinctively knew that this was a district where he could get Jackie Swift elected councilman.

  Jackie Swift was perfect for this district. As an Irish Republican—GOPer, that is—Jackie was a total fraud. In fact, he wasn’t even a Republican—he was still registered as a Democrat. But no one could wear a two-thousand-dollar suit like Jackie Swift, not even John Gotti. He was immaculate. He loved to shake hands, and he had the smoothest hands of any politician in New York. They were as pink as a baby’s bottom and had done considerably less work. He had hands softer than
an archbishop’s, with beautiful sculptured cuticles and fingernails that gleamed from their careful biweekly shellacking. Not a Thursday or a Monday went by without Jackie Swift getting a manicure. And he was a master of the two-handed handshake. The right for the shake, and the left for the top of the other man’s hand. Jackie, as he liked to say, could “cup-it with the best of them.” He had learned it by watching John Ford’s The Last Hurrah. He loved the scene where Spencer Tracy worked the wake, “cupping” hands left and right.

  But Jackie Swift had many flaws, all of which were exacerbated by his laziness. Swift’s idea of a hard day was going to City Hall at 10:30 a.m., returning a few phone calls, then heading over to Harry’s at the Woolworth Building for a three-hour lunch. After such a lunch Jackie often felt, well, tired. He found that a little white “Peruvian marching power”—as he called it—could get him through the rest of the day’s boring meetings and another little pick-me-up could propel him onto the cocktail circuit looking wide awake. Soon Jackie began using a little cocaine in the morning, “just to get the heart started,” as he liked to say.

  And he had something that Vito Fopiano envied: he was wellliked. Jackie could work a bar from one end to the other like an old Tammany politician. Soft handshake here, tap on the back there, a condolence whispered in an ear. Everyone knew he was lazy, but they all liked him. And Vito Fopiano’s firebrand Republicanism (basically: let’s scorch the niggers and the poor) left many feeling threatened. Jackie, like Ronald Reagan, was the antidote for the firebrand—he put a happy face on misery.

  Of course, the Democrats cooperated in the election of Jackie Swift to the city council. They ran two candidates, the regular Democrat and a Democrat on the Liberal line. Vito Fopiano had taken care of that. Everyone knew that the Liberal Party was the ultimate political oxymoron—it wasn’t a party, and it wasn’t liberal. Fopiano had made a deal, and two divided by one still meant a win for the Republicans. Smilin’ Jackie Swift was to become the second Republican on the city council.