“Brethren,” he began again, “we have gone too far. We have no shame. None whatsoever!” More silence. “Last week, one of my flock sent me a subway ad. Maybe some of you have seen it. Do you know what it was for? It was for the ‘Bitch Abortionist!’”
A gasp went up from the congregation. “The Bitch Abortionist,” the Cardinal cried. “Will they stop at nothing? Pulling little puppies from the bellies of poor bitches and throwing them in the garbage! Feckless garbage!” The Cardinal sought to regain control of himself. He was wild-eyed now. “Let us pray for this feckless Bitch Abortionist!”
He spun and left the pulpit and flung himself prostrate in front of the main altar. People could hear him praying through his portable microphone. Every journalist in the place raced out to use their cell phones. They were fighting for a scoop. “Where’s Johnny Pie?” they all shouted at Father Parnell Dowd, the public information officer of the Archdiocese. The monsignor was quietly reading the Sunday papers in his bedroom and was preparing for the Cardinal’s post-mass comments to the press, if he had any. When Father Dowd knocked on his door and explained the situation, the monsignor put on his clerical stock with its stiff white Roman collar over his T-shirt, grabbed his jacket, and headed for the cathedral steps where the Cardinal liked to be interviewed after mass.
Outside, it was like the first day of spring, with the sun brightly shining on Fifth Avenue. “Cardinal,” said Abe Stein of the New York Post, “who’s this ‘Abortion Bitch?’”
“Bitch Abortionist, Abe,” said the Cardinal with great seriousness. “I don’t know her personally, but an abortionist is an abortionist.They’re all the same. Human. Animal. There’s no difference between them. In God’s eyes, every life is sacred. To God, they’re all murderers!”
“Eminence,” said Billy Eminence, “should good Catholics take steps against this bitch abortionist?” The other reporters looked at Billy like he was nuts.
“Catholics now know who this feckless woman is,” said the Cardinal as Father Dowd handed out photocopies of the subway ad, “and they should take appropriate action.”
“What about the governor and mayor?” a voice from the back of the crowd yelled.
“What about them?” replied the Cardinal.
“What should they do about the Bitch Abortionist?”
“They should close her down. Revoke her license. Prosecute her for murder! Do anything they can. But they won’t. They don’t care about human life, why should they care about a poor puppy’s life?”
“Cardinal Sweeney,” said Abe Stein, exasperated, “she’s only a veterinarian.”
The Cardinal shot a look at Stein that made him glad he had been born a Jew. Now he knew why all the Irish guys on the paper drank.
“Only a veterinarian,” the Cardinal continued. “She is a doctor with the gift of healing.”
“Don’t you think you’ve gone a little far on this, Cardinal?” asked Stein, hoping to give the Cardinal a way out.
“Oh, some Catholic bashers will think I’ve gone too far, but I don’t think so. Every time I defend the doctrine of Holy Mother Church, they say I’ve gone too far. The bashers will always come after me, calling me names. But I know I’m right. God tells me I’m right.”
“Eminence,” said Billy Eminence, “does God speak directly to you?”
At that Burke had had enough and grabbed the Cardinal by the elbow and said to the press and the electronic media, “The press conference is over. His Eminence will be leaving for Rome right after the parade on Friday and he has to prepare for his meetings with the pope.” With that he took the astonished Cardinal and handed him over to Father Dowd, who hustled him back to the living quarters. The monsignor went looking for Abe Stein.
“What do you think, Abe?” said Monsignor Burke.
“Johnny Pie, I don’t call him ‘Oy vey Sweeney’ for nothing,” said Stein as he hit himself on the side of the head.
“That bad, Abe?”
“That bad.”
“Oy vey,” said Burke.
“Oy vey,” returned Abe Stein. “Johnny Pie,” continued Stein, “what’s for lunch today? Bashers and mash?”
Bashers and mash. Burke smiled. “I think I’ll try a little humble pie today, Abe.” Some feckless humble pie, thought Monsignor Seán Pius Burke to himself.
“You give us twenty-two minutes, we’ll give you the news,” said the announcer on WINS. And the news was worse than Monsignor Burke thought it would be. On Monday morning the television and radio media had run with the Bitch Abortionist story as their lead, actually pushing the Blessed Virgin off page one. “The Cardinal has sparked another media debate about abortions and Catholics with his comments about the Bitch Abortionist. After being heckled in St. Patrick’s Cathedral by protesters from GAYLICK, the militant Irish homosexual organization, the Cardinal attacked many in the pro-choice movement, including the governor and the mayor, both Catholics. After praising Congressman Jackie Swift, to whom the Blessed Virgin Mary purportedly appeared days ago . . .” Burke couldn’t take anymore. He switched off the radio and began to dress.
After saying mass, Burke entered the dining room and looked at the morning papers while he ate his breakfast: “BITCH ABORTIONIST,” screamed the Post. “CARDINAL K-9,” said the News. “PUPPY LOVE,” cried Newsday. Burke didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or cry. Only the New York Times could dull up this story, which they did by hiding it in the Metro section with a headline that said: “CARDINAL GOES FURTHER ON ABORTION.” The lads at the papers were having a field day.
Father Dowd interrupted Burke’s breakfast. “Seán,” he said, “I think you should come to the TV.”
On Channel 5’s Good Day New York program, veteran reporter Ollie Dunkirk stood in front of the Doggie Gynecologist Veterinary Clinic in Soho as protesters from Operation Free Fetus (OFF) picketed in front, carrying signs that read BITCH ABORTIONIST and SAVE THE PUPPY FETUSES.
“Oh my God,” said Monsignor Burke to no one in particular.
“With us this morning,” said Dunkirk, “we have the Reverend Chester Cockburn of Operation Free Fetus. Reverend Cockburn, why are you picketing the Doggie Gynecologist?”
“We’re here, Ollie,” he said earnestly in a high-pitched voice, “to save lives.”
Burke looked at the Reverend Chester Cockburn in his purple stock and collar, his moony eyes, his flat blond hair pasted against translucent skin, and said to Father Dowd, “that’s the guy my mother told me to stay away from when I was a kid.” Dowd laughed.
“We are here,” continued Reverend Cockburn, “to stop the senseless killing of innocent puppies.”
“Reverend Cockburn,” said Oliver, “some people would say they’re only dogs.”
“Only dogs,” shot back Cockburn, “only animals. Did not St. Francis of Assisi love animals? What would St. Francis say to this? This is criminal. This is murder!”
“Ah, thank you, Reverend Cockburn,” said Dunkirk. “I’ve just been informed that we have to go back to the studio for an interview with Dr. Helen McManus, the vet who’s at the center of this controversy.”
“The Abortion Bitch!” cried Cockburn.
“The Bitch Abortionist,” said Ollie Dunkirk.
“Whatever,” said Jim Ryan back at the studio, as he smiled into the camera. Ryan had been in the news business forever. He had forgotten more about New York City politics than most would ever learn. With a great shock of Paul O’Dwyer-esque white hair and a puckish manner, Ryan loved covering the eccentricities of his city, and it showed. “We have with us Dr. Helen McManus, the veterinarian at the center of this storm. What do you have to say when the Cardinal calls you the Bitch Abortionist?” asked Ryan.
“I don’t know what to say, Jim,” she said nervously as she stared into the camera. McManus was thirty-eight, attractive, and totally bewildered as to how she had become the focal point in the Cardinal’s war on abortion. “I was only trying to be cute drumming up business by calling myself the ‘Doggie Gynecologist.’I�
��monly a vet. I do some advanced work in breeding pedigrees, but I also give shots and set broken legs. In fact, my associates and I haven’t done an abortion this year. I’m dealing with dogs, not human beings. I’m a Catholic, too, and I think the Cardinal has gone out on the limb a bit.”
“Ah, Dr. McManus,” interrupted Ryan, “we have to cut back to Ollie. It seems that a counter-demonstration group is showing up.”
“Yes, Jim,” said Dunkirk, “animal lovers are showing up to show their support for Dr. McManus. Many are holding signs that say, ‘We Support Our Doggie Gynecologist.’”
“Fuck-OFF, Fuck-OFF, Fuck-OFF,” they chanted.
Reverend Cockburn tried to stop a woman from bringing her dog into the clinic. “Stop now, before you regret this,” cried Cockburn into the TV camera.
“What’s wrong with you?” yelled the woman. “I’m only bringing Angus in for his shots!” Cockburn grabbed the woman by the arm and Angus, an ambitious cairn terrier, took umbrage, and lodged his teeth into the Reverend Chester’s ankle.
“Ah, ah, ah,” cried Cockburn, “I’m being attacked.”
“Leave my dog alone, you pervert,” said the woman as she clocked Cockburn with her pocketbook.
“Jim,” said Ollie Dunkirk with a straight face as the enraged Angus dug his teeth deeper and Cockburn howled louder, “the battle for abortion continues in the most unlikely places. Back to you.” Ryan smiled into the camera and broke for a commercial.
“What do you think?” asked Father Dowd.
“I think,” said Monsignor Seán Pius Burke, “I’m going to have a little chat with his Eminence.”
9.
Jackie Swift looked up from his hospital bed to see he was surrounded. Everybody was standing around his bed, but no one was paying any attention to him. Their eyes were either riveted on the television, waiting for the nightly news to begin, or on Peggy Brogan. Brogan was on his left, flanked by Georgie Drumgoole. On his right his wife, Madonna-Sue, concentrated on the TV. After his emergency triple angioplasty, his heartbeat was steady; it was his familial support that worried him. There was tension in the air—both political and sexual. Vito couldn’t take his eyes off Brogan and Madonna-Sue knew exactly what her father was thinking. She looked at Brogan and felt a deep hostility and jealousy for the woman who ran her husband’s life. How had this woman managed to come into the Fopiano household and, like a magnet, demand the attention of her husband and her father?
Swift didn’t know if he could take the stress and pressure that was sure to come. Until the Fopiano entourage had arrived, St. Vincent’s had been an oasis of calm for him in his most eventful weekend. He was just the latest in a long line of colorful events that had taken place at the hospital over the years. The survivors of the Titanic were taken there when they arrived on the R.M.S. Carpathia at the foot of 14th Street in April 1912. It seemed the bizarre was the commonplace at St. Vincent’s. Actor Jack Nicholson, Swift had read, was born here to his mother, whom he thought was his sister, and was raised by his grandmother, whom he thought was his mother. By the Nicholson criteria, Swift was living an uneventful life. The hospital was also been the checkout point for Dylan Thomas. Everybody thought that Thomas had drunk his twenty-two whiskeys, or whatever it was supposed to be, at the White Horse Tavern on Hudson Street, just four short blocks from St. Vincent’s, and dropped dead on the floor. But in truth he had been taken back to the Chelsea Hotel on West 23rd Street and from there to St. Vincent’s to finish the verse of his life. The hospital had survived the Titanic, the confused Easy Rider, and the bloated Dylan. Swift just hoped that his name would not be etched next to theirs in hospital infamy.
Swift was well aware that Drumgoole’s news about the Blessed Virgin had thrown the press into a feeding frenzy. He just knew he was the next O.J. Simpson for the networks and cable channels after the Cardinal visited him on Saturday. Although nearly out of it, he was shocked to see His Eminence in such an obsequious state towards him, thanking him for the Virgin’s appearance while blessing him and sprinkling him with Holy Water. As he took his leave, the Cardinal had bowed over and kissed him on the forehead. His nostrils now ventilated, Swift thought the Cardinal smelled of warm milk and cereal. Later, on New York One cable TV, Swift had seen the Cardinal talking to the press outside of St. Vincent’s. “Congressman Swift is our Joan of Arc,” said His Eminence. Swift immediately buzzed the nurse for another Demerol.
They were all waiting for the 6:30 p.m. broadcast of the CBS News with Dan Rather. They had been tipped off that Rather was going to lead his telecast with the Virgin story. The whole family was laying low, refusing to be interviewed. The hospital wanted to release Swift, but Vito decided he would stay put until the storm blew over. It had hit the newswires on Saturday and by Sunday it had spread to all the talk shows on Fox, CNN and MSNBC. Everybody had an opinion and they were all cocksure of it. All the fundamentalist Protestants—who incidentally didn’t believe in the sanctity of the Blessed Virgin—thought it was historic that a deity they considered false had taken their side in the abortion battle.
“God has shown us He’s on our side by sending His most Holy Mother, Mary, to take up the anti-abortion banner,” declared Jerry Falwell, his well-jellied jowls flapping in conviction. “His will be done.”
“We are fools for Christ’s sake,” the Reverend Pat Robertson had declared on The 700 Club, his little head bobbing like Howdy Doody’s. “We must pray for the courage to endure the scorn of the sophisticated world.” Robertson gave that loony look of his that in the past he had used to direct hurricanes away from his headquarters in Virginia and north toward the Godless hedonists of New York City. “Remember,” he added for good measure, “we are awash in the blood of Christ, Our Lord.”
“I quake with humility in the shadow of the Lord,” said Declan Cardinal Sweeney as he began his Sunday sermon, “and I am thrilled by the appearance of His most Holy Mother to Congressman Swift. God Almighty be praised!” Then he was forced to take a breather for ten minutes to have a good cry in front of a packed St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The appearance by the Virgin Mary had sapped him of his energy. “Mother of God,” he finally continued, “thank you from the generations of the unborn.”
“Anyone have a cigarette?” asked Madonna-Sue. Drumgoole eagerly reached into his jacket pocket and offered her his pack of Chesterfield’s, a Bic lighter lodged in the cellophane. He was happy that he had finally done something right. Madonna-Sue put a cigarette in her mouth and frantically began trying to light it with the recalcitrant Bic. It was a sure sign of nerves on her part. Very seldom did Madonna-Sue ever light up any more. Not even after sex.
Jackie Swift began waving his arm, pointing to the clear tube he wore. “Oxygen,” he said. “Oxygen!”
Madonna-Sue took one look at him, then went over to the wall and turned the oxygen gauge to the “off ” position. “Shut up,” was all she said. On the seventh attempt, the Bic worked, and she lit her cigarette. The room was soon choked in a Chesterfield fog.
Rather’s theme music began blaring and there was a picture of Congressman Jackie Swift with a portrait of the Blessed Virgin in the background. “Miracle or Hoax?” said Rather’s voice-over. Vito and Madonna-Sue looked at each other and thought about killing Georgie Drumgoole right then and there.
Rather was getting on in years. He now had taken to wearing his hair like an eleven-year-old rural schoolboy, right down to the little ski-slope in front and the cowlick in back, bringing to mind the old slogan, “Brillcream, a little dab will do ya.” Rather had come a long way from his outstanding work on the JFK assassination, reporting from the jungles of Vietnam, and confronting Richard Nixon over Watergate. Once known as the “ironcock” around CBS, he acted like someone who might take a nip now and then before he went on the air. One wondered why CBS had decided that a cogent Walter Cronkite must retire at sixty-five, yet Rather, with his jumpy eyebrows (“Courage,” he had once said bizarrely when signing off) and darting eyes (“Kenneth, what is the f
requency?”) had been allowed to stay on.
Rather looked straight into the camera and started to speak. “Not since Fatima in 1917 has there been a reporting of this magnitude of an appearance by the Blessed Virgin Mary,” he said. The picture then went live to Swift’s apartment building on West 10th Street where a candlelight vigil was being held. People were holding pictures of Our Lady of Greenwich Village—as she had been dubbed by the tabloids—as others placed flowers or knelt to pray. Some were trying to catch rain water—Holy Water—as it came cascading out of a drain-pipe at the side of the building’s entrance. Others were spooning out the dirt between cracks in the sidewalk to save as relics. A lineup was reciting the rosary and with every Hail Mary their voices would raise in unison as they shouted “thy womb Jesus.” As they pronounced Jesus’s name, they gave an exaggerated bow of their heads. It looked like an Olympic event in the making—synchronized praying.
“I don’t believe this,” said Madonna-Sue Fopiano.
“Un-fucking-believable,” said her father.
“My God,” said Brogan.
Drumgoole was smart enough not to open his mouth.
“Ah,” said Jackie Swift, trying to make up and play up, “I see where I’m famous now.”
“Just shut the fuck up,” said his wife, and the smile immediately disappeared from Jackie’s face.
Rather continued: “The Vatican, so far, has not made a comment on the visitation. President Clinton, as he boarded his helicopter at the White House this afternoon, said he was noncommittal on the appearance because, after all, ‘he was just a country Baptist.’ Many Republicans were reluctant to comment. Because of the explosive repercussions of this purported sighting of Our Lady of Greenwich Village, some believe the Republicans are being more cautious than two herds of nervous cattle in a small pasture full of cactus. Fraught with political dangers....”
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