beneath the white pancake makeup and pristine cloak of snow. This night,
from the Gold Coast to the slum tenements, everywhere in the city, the
number-one topic of conversation would be the storm. Everywhere, that
is, but in the Roman Catholic homes throughout the parish of St.
Bernadette's, where they would still be talking about the shocking thing
Father Brendan Cronin had done during the early Mass that morning.
Father Cronin rose at five-thirty a.m., said prayers, showered, shaved,
dressed in cassock and biretta, picked up his breviary, and left the
parish house without bothering to put on a coat. He stood for a moment
on the rear porch, breathing deeply of the crisp December air.
He was thirty years old, but with his direct green eyes and unruly
auburn hair and freckled face, he looked younger than he was. He was
fifty or sixty pounds overweight, though not particularly thick in the
middle. On him, fat distributed evenly, filling him out equally in
face, arms, torso, and legs. From childhood through college, until his
second year at the seminary, his nickname had been "Pudge."
Regardless of his emotional state, Father Cronin nearly always looked
happy. His face had a natural cherubic aspect, and the round lines of
it were not designed for the clear and easy expression of anger,
melancholy, or grief. This morning he looked mildly pleased with
himself and with the world, though he was deeply troubled.
He followed a flagstone path across the yard, past denuded flower beds
where the bare earth lay in frozen clumps. He unlocked the door of the
sacristy and let himself in. Myrrh and spikenard blended with the scent
of the lemon-oil furniture polish with which the old church's oak
paneling, pews, and other wooden objects were anointed.
Without switching on the lights, with only the flickering ruby glow of
the sacristy lamp to guide him, Father Cronin knelt at the prie-dieu and
bowed his head. In silence, he petitioned the Divine Father to make him
a worthy priest. In the past, this private devotion, before the arrival
of the sexton and the altar boy, had sent his spirits soaring and had
filled him with exultation at the prospect of celebrating Mass. But now,
as on most other mornings during the last four months, joy eluded him.
He felt only a leaden bleakness, an emptiness that made his heart ache
dully and that induced a cold, sick trembling in his belly.
Clenching his jaws, gritting his teeth, as if he could will himself into
a state of spiritual ecstasy, he repeated his petition, elaborated upon
his initial prayers, but still he felt unmoved, hollow.
After washing his hands and murmuring, "Da Domine, Father Cronin laid
his biretta on the prie-dieu and went to the vesting bench to attire
himself for the sacred celebration ahead. He was a sensitive man with
an artist's soul, and in the great beauty of the ceremony he perceived a
pleasing pattern of divine order, a subtle echo of God's grace. Usually,
when placing the linen amice over his shoulders, when arranging the
white alb so that it fell evenly to his ankles, a shiver of awe passed
through him, awe that he, Brendan Cronin, should have achieved this
sacred office.
Usually. But not today. And not for weeks of days before this.
Father Cronin put on his amice, passed the strings around his back, then
tied them against his breast. He pulled on the alb with no more emotion
than a welder getting dressed for work in a factory.
Four months ago, in early August, Father Brendan Cronin had begun to
lose his faith. A small but relentless fire of doubt burned within him,
unquenchable, gradually consuming all of his long-held beliefs.
For any priest, the loss of faith is a devastating process. But it was
worse for Brendan Cronin than it would have been for most others. He
had never even briefly entertained the thought of being anything but a
priest. His parents were devout, and they fostered in him a devotion to
the Church. However, he had not become a priest to please them. Simply,
as trite as it might sound to others in this age of agnosticism, he had
been called to the priesthood at a very young age. Now, though faith was
gone, his holy office continued to be the essential part of his
self-image; yet he knew he could not go on saying Mass and praying and
comforting the afflicted when it was nothing but a charade to him.
Brendan Cronin placed the stole around his neck. As he pulled on the
chasuble, the courtyard door to the sacristy was flung open, and a young
boy burst into the room, switching on the electric lights that the
priest had preferred to do without.
"Morning, Father!"
"Good morning, Kerry. How're you this fine morning?"
Except that his hair was much redder than Father Cronin's, Kerry McDevit
might have been the priest's blood relative. He was slightly plump,
freckled, with green eyes full of mischief. "I'm fine, Father. But
it's sure cold out there this morning. Cold as a witch's-"
"Oh, yes? Cold as a ' witch's what?"
"Refrigerator," the boy said, embarrassed. "Cold as a witch's
refrigerator, Father. And that's cold."
If his mood had not been so bleak, Brendan would have been amused by the
boy's narrow avoidance of an innocent obscenity, but in his current
state of mind he could not summon even a shadow of a smile. Undoubtedly,
his silence was interpreted as stern disapproval, for Kerry averted his
eyes and went quickly to the closet, where he stowed his coat, scarf,
and gloves, and took his cassock and surplice from a hanger.
Even as Brendan lifted the maniple, kissed the cross in its center, and
placed it on his left forearm, he felt nothing. There was just that
cold, throbbing, hollow ache where belief and joy had once existed. As
his hands were occupied with that task, his mind drifted back to a
melancholy recollection of the exuberance with which he had once
approached every priestly duty.
Until last August, he never doubted the wisdom of his commitment to the
Church. He had been such a bright and hard-working student of both
mundane subjects and religion that he had been chosen to complete his
Catholic education at the North American College in Rome. He loved the
Holy City-the architecture, the history, and the friendly people. Upon
ordination and acceptance into the Society of Jesus, he had spent two
years at the Vatican, as an assistant to Monsignor Giuseppe Orbella,
chief speechwriter and doctrinal adviser to His Holiness, the Pope. That
honor could have been followed by a prized assignment to the staff of
the Cardinal of the Chicago Archdiocese, but Father Cronin had
requested, instead, a curacy at a small or medium-sized parish, like any
young priest. Thus, after a visit to Bishop Santefiore in San Francisco
(an old friend of Monsignor Orbella's), and after a vacation during
which he drove from San Francisco to Chicago, he had come to St.
Bernadette's, where he'd taken great pleasure in even the most ordinary
day-today chores of a curate's life. And with never a regret or doubt.
Now, as he
watched his altar boy slip into a surplice, Father Cronin
longed for the simple faith that had for so long comforted and sustained
him. Was it gone only temporarily, or had he lost it forever?
When Kerry was dressed, he led the way through the inner sacristy door,
into the sanctuary of the church. Several steps beyond the door, he
evidently sensed that Father Cronin was not coming after him, for he
glanced back, a puzzled look upon his face.
Brendan Cronin hesitated. Through the door he had a sideview of the
towering crucifix on the back wall and the altar platform straight
ahead. This holiest part of the church was dismayingly strange, as if
he were seeing it objectively for the first time. And he could not
imagine why he had ever thought of it as sacred territory. It was just
a place. A place like any other. If he walked out there now, if he
went through the familiar rituals and litanies, he would be a hypocrite.
He would be defrauding everyone in the congregation.
The puzzlement on Kerry McDevit's face had turned to worry. The boy
glanced out toward the pews that Brendan Cronin could not see, then
looked again at his priest.
How can I say Mass when I no longer believe? Brendan wondered.
But there was nothing else to be done.
Holding the chalice in his left hand, with his right hand over the burse
and veil, he kept the sacred vessel close to his breast and followed
Kerry, at last, into the sanctuary, where the face of Christ upon the
cross seemed, for a moment, to gaze at him accusingly.
As usual, less than a hundred people were in attendance for the early
service. Their faces were unusually pale and radiant, as if God had not
allowed real worshipers to attend this morning but had sent a deputation
of judgmental angels to witness the sacrilege of a doubting priest who
dared to offer Mass in spite of his fallen condition.
As the Mass progressed, Father Cronin's despair deepened. From the
moment he spoke the Introibo ad altars Dei, each step of the ceremony
compounded the priest's misery. By the time Kerry McDevit transferred
the missal from the Epistle to the Gospel side of the altar, Father
Cronin's despondency was so heavy that he felt crushed beneath it. His
spiritual and emotional exhaustion were so profound that he could barely
lift his arms, could hardly find strength to focus on the Gospel
and mutter the lines from the sacred text. The faces of the worshipers
blurred into featureless blobs. By the time he reached the Canon of the
Mass, Father Cronin could barely whisper. He knew that Kerry was gaping
at him openly now, and he was sure that the congregation was aware that
something was wrong. He was sweating and shaking. The awful grayness
in him grew darker now, swiftly turning to black, and he felt as if he
were spiraling down into a frighteningly dark void.
Then, as he held the Host in his hands and elevated it, speaking the
five words that signified the mystery of transubstantiation, he was
suddenly angry with himself for being unable to believe, angry with the
Church for failing to provide him with better armor against doubt, angry
that his entire life seemed misdirected, wasted, expended in pursuit of
idiotic myths. His anger churned, heated up, reached the boiling point,
was transformed into a steam of fury, a blistering vapor of rage.
To his astonishment, a wretched cry burst from him, and he pitched the
chalice across the sanctuary. With a loud clank, it struck the
sanctuary wall, spraying wine, rebounded, bounced off a statue of the
Blessed Virgin, and clattered to a stop against the foot of the podium
at which he had not long ago read from the Gospels.
Kerry McDevit stumbled back in shock, and in the nave a hundred people
gasped as one, but that response had no effect on Brendan Cronin. In a
rage that was his only protection against suicidal despair, he flung one
arm wide and swept a paten of communion wafers to the floor. With
another wild cry, half anger and half grief, he thrust his hand under
his chasuble, tore off the stole that lay around his neck and threw it
down, turned from the altar, and raced into the sacristy. There, the
anger departed as suddenly as it had come, and he stopped and stood
there, swaying in confusion.
It was December 1.
7.
Laguna Beach, California
That first Sunday in December, Dom Corvaisis had lunch with Parker Faine
on the terrace at Las Brisas, in the shade of an umbrella-table
overlooking the sun-dappled sea. The good weather was holding well this
year. While the breeze brought them the cries of gulls, the tang of the
sea, and the sweet scent of star jasmine that was growing nearby,
Dominick told Parker every embarrassing and distressing detail of his
escalating battle with somnambulism.
Parker Faine was his best friend, perhaps the only person in the world
with whom he could open up like this, though on the surface they seemed
to have little in common. Dom was a slender, lean-muscled man, but
Parker Faine was squat, burly, beefy. Beardless, Dom went to the barber
for a haircut every three weeks; but Parker's hair was shaggy, and his
beard was shaggy, and his eyebrows bristled. He looked like a cross
between a professional wrestler and a beatnik from the 1950s. Dom drank
little and was easily intoxicated, while Parker's thirst was legendary
and his capacity prodigious. Although Dom was solitary by nature and
slow to make friends, Parker had the gift of seeming like an old
acquaintance just an hour after you first met him. At fifty, Parker
Faine was fifteen years older than Dom. He had been rich and famous for
almost a quarter of a century, and he was comfortable with both his
wealth and fame, utterly unable to understand Dom's uneasiness over the
money and notoriety that was beginning to come his way because of
Twilight in Babylon. Dom had come to lunch at Las Brisas in Bally
loafers, dark brown slacks, and a lighter brown-checkered shirt with a
buttondown collar, but Parker had arrived in blue tennis shoes, heavily
crinkled white cotton pants, and a white-and-blue flowered shirt worn
over his belt, which made it seem as if they had dressed for entirely
different engagements, had met outside the restaurant sheerly by chance,
and had decided to have lunch together on a whim.
In spite of all the ways they differed from each other, they had become
fast friends, because in several important ways they were alike. Both
were artists, not by choice or inclination but by compulsion. Dom
painted with words; Parker painted with paint; and they approached their
different arts with identical high standards, commitment, craftsmanship.
Furthermore, though Parker made friends more easily than Dom did, each
placed enormous value on friendship and nurtured it.
They had met six years ago, when Parker had moved to Oregon for eighteen
months, in search of new subject matter for a series of landscapes done
in his unique style, which successfully married suprarealism with a
surreal imagination. While there, he had signed to g
ive one lecture a
month at the University of Portland, where Dom held a position in the
Department of English.
Now, while Parker hunched over the table, munching on nachos that were
dripping with cheese ared guacamole and sour cream, Dom sipped slowly at
a bottle of Negra Modelo and recounted his unconscious nocturnal
adventures. He spoke softly, though discretion was probably
unnecessary; the other diners on the terrace were noisily involved in
their own conversations. He did not touch the nachos. This morning,
for the fourth time, he had awakened behind the furnace in the garage,
in a state of undiluted terror, and his continued inability to get
control of himself had left him dispirited and without an appetite. By
the time he finished his tale, he had drunk only half the beer, for even
that rich, dark Mexican brew tasted flat and stale today.
Parker, on the other hand, had poured down three doubleshot margaritas
and already ordered a fourth. However, the painter's attention was not
dulled by the alcohol he consumed. "Jesus, buddy, why didn't you tell
me about this sooner, weeks ago?"
"I felt sort of . . . foolish.
"Nonsense. Bullshit," the painter insisted, gesturing expansively with
one huge hand, but keeping his voice low.
The Mexican waiter, a diminutive Wayne Newton lookalike, arrived with
Parker's margarita and inquired if they wished to order lunch.
"No, no. Sunday lunch is an excuse to have too many margaritas, and I'm
a long way from having too many. What a sad waste to order lunch after
only four margaritas! That'd leave most of the afternoon unfilled, and
we'd find ourselves on the street with nothing to occupy us, and then
without doubt we'd get into trouble, attract the attention of the
Koontz, Dean R. - Strangers Page 7
