Blood on a Saint

by Anne Emery

  “Remind me what it is we’re going to be watching?” she asked.

  “Perry ‘Pike’ Podgis, the Cicero of modern times.”

  “Podgis. I’ve heard of this clown, but I’ve never seen him.”

  “You’ve been lucky. But your luck is about to run out. As is Brennan Burke’s.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s going on the show next week.”

  She looked at Monty as if he had turned back into the toad she knew he really had been all along. “Brennan Burke would no more go on a TV talk show than I would march down Spring Garden Road in a short, sparkly skirt, twirling a baton.”

  “Bishop’s orders. Told him to defend the faith in a debate with a non-believer. It’s all because of the claimed Virgin Mary sighting at the church. Pike Podgis is coming to town to do a show on it.”

  Monty clicked the remote to make sure he was on the right channel. Didn’t want to miss a thing. “Have you ever seen a pike, Maura?”

  “No. What it is? Something you run through the guts of your enemy, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. But there’s also a fish by that name, a voracious predator with a long snout and a great big mouth full of pointy teeth. They sometimes call it a water wolf.”

  “Sounds lovely.”

  “Wait till you see this guy.”

  “I sound like Brennan here, but pour me a pint, would you?” She did a fair imitation of the priest’s Irish accent. “I have to fortify meself with drink to get through this.”

  Monty sprinted up the stairs to the kitchen and returned with two cans of Keith’s, which he poured into glasses. He handed one to his wife.

  “You’ve never seen it before either?” she asked him.

  “No. The clients talk about it.”

  “Your criminal clients, I suppose.”

  “Right. Example: ‘Pike had these girls on that had, like, worms in their intestines when they moved here after working as whores in some really hot jungle country. And they showed these worms crawling around after they came out of their shit, and now they’re here, and this guy was sitting there with a bag on his head ’cause he’s got these worms that are like two feet long and he doesn’t want his wife to know, but she probably has them now too because one time he was sick and had an accident in the bed, if you know what I mean, and the wife cleaned the sheets, so she’s going to find out about the worms and the whores, and maybe have these worms herself and pass them along to other people, but he can’t work up the nerve to tell her.’”

  “You’re making that up.”

  “You don’t believe in the existence of intestinal parasites? You’ll be shocked then to learn that these things abound in certain parts of the world and — ”

  “I know they exist, but nothing on this earth could compel me to go on television with or without a bag on my head and discuss them in public.”

  “Well, let’s see what else people go on television and discuss in public.”

  He turned up the volume. Loud, insistent theme music crashed into the room. “And now, Pike Podgis!” This was met by a rhythmic pounding and a chant of “Pike, Pike, Pike!” There was a lot of high-volume prattle about ripped-from-the-headlines issues, fearless debates, run but can’t hide, on and on, then viewers saw the head of a man with a thick-lipped mouth crowded with protruding, spiky teeth. The upper part of his head was recessed behind the enormous jaw, and the hair was dark, thin, and pasted to his skull.

  “Hey out there! Lots to talk about tonight. Second half of the show we’ll have cheerleader moms! Cheerleader moms who kill other cheerleader moms, or their daughters’ rivals! Yeah! Girls, girls, girls! But first, pets in nursing homes! Nice idea, right? Herb Sproule says yes, Gladys Morton says no. I say, ‘What’s that under the bedsheets with Grandpa?’”

  There was the sound of howling from the seats in front of the stage, and the camera panned the studio audience. The faces could have been painted by Hieronymus Bosch.

  Podgis thrust his jaw at Gladys, a septuagenarian in garish makeup, sitting on his right. He leered at her and asked, “Gladys, whaddya say? What’s wrong with Fluffy or Fido in the room with Granny?”

  The old lady blinked at the host, then peered out towards the audience. “Nothin’ wrong with it until they start doin’ unnatural acts with each other, and then it’s time for the dog catcher to be called in. Or the gerbil to be put back in the cage. Least, that’s what they tell me. After a thorough disinfecting!”

  “Ooooo!” Podgis mugged at the camera. “Unnatural acts. Do tell!”

  “Well, excuse me for sayin’ things that aren’t polite, but I’ve always been one to tell the truth however I see it, and if that upsets some folks, well that’s just too bad. There’s this one resident we’ll call Willie — ”

  Podgis wheeled on the elderly man at his left. “That’s really you, isn’t it, Herb? Come on, fess up. Whatever this is, and it ain’t gonna be pretty, it’s about you, right, Herb?”

  “No!” the man squawked. “It’s not me! I don’t do nothing with dogs!”

  “Dogs, eh? You know what they say, Herb. Lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. I should know.” Podgis put his right hand under his left armpit and made a big show of scratching himself, then pulled his hand away, put it up to his nose, and exclaimed, “Peeuuw!” He waited for the guffaws to subside, then continued, “But anyway, let’s hear more, Gladys. Herb here said something about dogs. You said something about some guy called Willie. Is there a connection? What do you guys think?” He gestured to the audience and was rewarded with shrieks and wolf whistles.

  “Yeah, well, old Willie,” Gladys said, “he always says this dog, Bucky, reminds him of the dog he had on the farm when he was a little boy, and so he wants to be alone with his memories. But why he really wants to be alone with Bucky the dog is so he can feel his . . .”

  Maura drew her hand across her throat: end it now. Monty pressed the remote and made it go away. They looked at each other. They were both thinking the unthinkable: the Reverend Father Brennan Xavier Burke, B.A. (Fordham), S.T.L. (Pontifical Gregorian), Doctor of Sacred Theology (Angelicum), making an appearance in such an arena.

  Monty set the remote on the coffee table. “We’ll turn it on again when the local news comes on. I heard that one of my clients had an entourage at the courthouse today. Someone I’m representing on a certificate from Legal Aid. I was still in the courtroom talking to the Crown when they staged a performance for the cameras.”

  Sure enough, Monty’s client made the news as he left the courthouse following his bail hearing. The perp turned towards the camera, giving TV viewers the benefit of his pale but spotty face, patchy facial hair, and missing front tooth. He stuck his tongue out at the cameraman, then stepped back, grabbed his crotch and delivered himself of a string of invective that the broadcaster bleeped out. His hangers-on, male and female, got into the act then, with lots of crotch-grabbing, breast-squeezing, butt-crack-showing, and one incident of full-moon-pulling that was made blurry in the production studio.

  “Their mothers must be so proud,” Maura remarked.

  “Don’t get me started on their home life,” Monty replied.

  “No need.”

  Monty was about to turn the television off, possibly for all time, when he saw the statue of St. Bernadette and heard yet another story from the site of the claimed apparitions. He expected to see Befanee Tate in her usual pose before the statue: on her knees, gazing over the saint’s head, ostensibly ignoring the cameras. But this time it was another girl being interviewed. Tall and slim with long, lustrous dark hair, Jordyn Snider was the latest to have seen the Virgin. Jordyn was decked out in a flowery dress with wide shoulders and a wide white collar. Her eye makeup had been applied with care, and not a hair moved out of place in the wind that blew the reporter’s curly locks across her face.

  “I saw a beautiful la
dy,” Jordyn said, “floating up over the statue. She was dressed in blue and white, or more like aqua and cream, but that could just be the light. She didn’t say anything but smiled down at me. Not just me. Us, everybody here.”

  “What do you take from this?” the reporter asked. “What do you think it means?”

  “I think it means I was meant to be here.”

  “Will you be joining the pilgrims now?”

  “Oh, yes. I never want to leave.”

  She turned gracefully, offering her profile to the camera, and looked out at the pilgrims assembled in the churchyard. “All these people. It’s a beautiful thing.”

  The camera followed her line of vision. Here came Befanee Tate. A closer angle revealed that Befanee too seemed to have been granted the gift of a wind-proof hairdo. Her dark blue dress was plain but her makeup was more pronounced than in the earlier photos Monty had seen. She was holding a little blond girl by the hand. The child was wearing an ankle-length white dress.

  “Befanee,” the reporter called out, “are you still having the experience of seeing the Virgin Mary here?”

  “Of course!” Befanee avowed. “She has been with me since the beginning. The first day.” And not, presumably, with the gatecrasher in the flowered dress. “I am going to read a short statement.”

  “Is it a message from Mary, Befanee?” the reporter asked.

  “Well, it’s not like a message from her. I mean, she didn’t tell me what to say. It’s just . . .” She groped around in her handbag and withdrew a piece of paper, cleared her throat and proceeded to read. “It was the most amazing experience of my life. At first I could just see her and not hear, but then I felt she was communing . . . communicating with me. It was like her voice was inside me, and I knew what she wanted me to do. To love and support the poor. To give whatever I can, to give whatever we can, all of us, to make the poor’s life better. And I should spread the word that this is what she wants, that anyone who can give should give.”

  “Was that it?” the reporter asked.

  Befanee blinked and looked down at her paper. “Yeah. Yes. But she said . . . I got the feeling that she will keep coming back. To see me. And maybe give more messages.”

  The reporter bent down to the little girl and asked her name.

  The child looked up at Befanee, who gave her a little nudge. The child said her name was Angelique.

  “And why are you here today, Angelique?”

  She looked uncertainly at Befanee, then at the ground.

  “She’s shy,” said Befanee, “but she saw the Virgin too. I’m going to bring her here every day after school.”

  With that, Befanee darted a look at the newcomer, Jordyn. Jordyn directed a brief smile at Angelique, then looked straight at the camera and said, “Excuse me. It’s time for me to go and give thanks again. Tomorrow I’m going to give more than that. Some of the children in my neighbourhood are making sparkly tiaras for Mary. They’re really cute and . . .” Her voice petered out as she tried perhaps to come up with an adjective appropriate to a gift made specially for the Queen of Heaven. She turned her gaze to the statue of St. Bernadette and walked towards it.

  Befanee too returned to her devotions.

  Chapter 2

  Brennan

  Brennan Burke awoke on Wednesday, September 23 and almost immediately regretted coming to consciousness. There was something aggravating about this day, he knew, even before his left brain came fully awake and confirmed that this was the day he had to appear on that man’s talk show. Whatever his name was, Pike something. So the evening would be shot. But that did not mean he could not be productive during the day. He had the early Mass at seven thirty, then a rehearsal of the Vivaldi Gloria at the choir school, and he was giving a lecture on Aristotle and John Duns Scotus at St. Mary’s University in the afternoon. Get up and seize the day.

  Several pairs of eyes fastened on Brennan when he emerged from the choir school after the Vivaldi rehearsal. A man charged forward and stood in front of him with an expectant look on his face. The fellow was stocky and balding and had an Alexander Keith’s T-shirt stretched across an incipient beer belly. He seemed impervious to the chill in the air. Brennan had no idea what the man expected of him.

  “What are you going to say to him, Father?”

  “Em, say to whom?”

  “That fellow. You know who I mean. Pike Podgis.”

  “Ah. Him.”

  “He’s got a lot of nerve coming here from Toronto.”

  “Well, that’s his job, I suppose,” Brennan replied, coming to the defence of the talk show blatherer. “Something makes news; he makes it bigger news.”

  “He’s coming here to laugh at us in the Maritimes. He thinks he’s better than us.”

  “Well, we know he isn’t. Right? What’s your name?”

  “George. He’ll say we make up stories.”

  “And we do,” an older man put in. “We’re damn good at it.”

  Another figure emerged from the multitudes, and he was familiar to Brennan, though Brennan didn’t know his name. Like some of the others who had migrated to the churchyard in recent weeks, this fellow was a fixture on the local scene. Brennan had noticed him in front of the library on Spring Garden Road, sometimes panhandling, sometimes just sitting on the stone wall watching the passing show. He had seen the man occasionally near the statue of St. Bernadette even before all this began, and perhaps at the church’s lunch program for the disadvantaged people in the area. Here he was now in his long, soiled beige overcoat. He had thick, dishevelled white hair and deep-set blue eyes with crinkles at the corners. He came in Brennan’s direction, and Brennan nodded to him.

  “Blessings upon you, Father.”

  “Thank you. Blessings upon you as well. How are you doing?”

  “Father, I can’t complain. When I look at the hardship around me . . .” He shook his head in sadness.

  Here was a man who, as far as Brennan could tell, was jobless, homeless, and likely without a family, and he felt he had nothing to complain about. A bit of a lesson for the rest of us.

  “You are Father Burke, if I am not mistaken. Do I have that right?”

  “Yes, you do. Brennan Burke. I know I’ve seen you by the statue. And do you come in to our lunch program?”

  “Well, not very often, Father, as much as I appreciate what you have to offer. At that time of day I like to be out on Spring Garden Road. That’s when the lunchtime crowds are passing by. I enjoy that.”

  “I don’t know your name,” Brennan said. He put his hand out and the two shook.

  “I am Ignatius Boyle.”

  “Well, my middle name is Xavier, so we have a couple of very illustrious Jesuits looking out for us.”

  “We do, indeed, Father. And they’d better be watching out for you this most unholy night.”

  “Oh?”

  “This man Podgis has me concerned.”

  “What has you bothered about him, Ignatius?”

  “He will try to trip you up.”

  “No doubt he will.”

  “He’ll demand to know how we Christians can believe in something we can’t see, can’t touch, can’t hear.”

  “It was ever thus.”

  “Yes, you’re right. And this Podgis fellow is not the only one amongst us who is blind to the truth.”

  “No, he is not.” Brennan’s curiosity got the better of him then, and he asked, “Who else are you thinking of when you say that, Ignatius?”

  “The young, Father. What kind of education are they getting in today’s world? I confess that I did not go far in school myself. My own fault entirely, drinking and carrying on. But while the nuns had me, they managed to teach me reading and writing and ’rithmetic, as they say. Good English, world history, and of course the Catechism. And do you know what? The priests at St. Mary’s Univer
sity, the Jesuits who ran the place back in the day, they let me do a bit of studying there! They let me sit in on some classes. I was, and am, particularly fond of the great philosophers.”

  “It’s wonderful to hear that, Ignatius. Who do you like in philosophy?”

  “I’m a great fan of George Berkeley. An Irishman like us. Well, not exactly like us. A Protestant. But still. He was very concerned about abandoned children, was Berkeley, so that is a mark in his favour. His philosophy is easy to attack, I know, but I love him when he says there is ‘an omnipresent eternal mind, which knows and comprehends all things, and exhibits them to our view.’ I find that beautiful, don’t you? I have always been grateful to the Jesuits for giving me so much. I wanted to be a priest, you know, Father, though I’m embarrassed to say so.”

  “Why embarrassed?”

  “Kind of hard to see a priest in Ignatius Boyle as he stands before you today! But, well, I’m sort of a street missionary, I guess you could say. I have taken it upon myself to work with troubled youngsters, children who have lost their way. And no wonder they lose their way, without spiritual direction! I try to impart to them the truth, that they are in the hands — in the mind! — of a loving father. But they don’t always listen to an old fellow like me! They listen to their friends, which is natural for kids, but sometimes their friends are the wrong crowd. Then there’s trouble. And the boyfriends! I see it every day: sweet young girls throwing their lives away.

  “But what am I doing?” There was a touch of humour in the deep blue eyes. “I’m preaching to the choir, so to speak! I must let you be on your way. I wish you the best of luck with that Godless man tonight!”

  “Thank you, Ignatius. I’ll be seeing you.”