Forgiveness 4 You

by Ann Bauer

  March 19, 20--

  FORMER PRIEST AND MASON & ZEUS JOIN TO OFFER WORLD’S FIRST NONDENOMINATIONAL FORGIVENESS SERVICE

  Media Release

  Chicago, IL

  For thousands of years forgiveness has been a discriminatory practice, available only to those who tithe or pledge loyalty to a particular church. Mason & Zeus saw a gap—in the marketplace and in our culture—where forgiveness could be provided to the everyman. We have developed a service to meet this need and we’re calling it Forgiveness4You.

  Together with Gabriel McKenna, a priest in good standing for sixteen years who served at Assumption of the Blessed Virgin until his resignation over philosophical differences in 2011, we have created a model for absolution that relieves people of mental burdens regardless of their age, race, religion, or sexual orientation.

  As spiritual leader, Gabe McKenna brings a rich breadth of experience. He has studied in Rome and at the famed Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal. A leader in our own community, McKenna once ran the community service program at St. John’s, serving indigent and low-income individuals and families citywide. He brings personal understanding to this project, as well.

  More than twenty years ago, McKenna was arrested for possession of a controlled substance in his hometown of Boston. His case was suspended, and he was placed in a diversion program for young offenders that led him eventually to the priesthood. He knows what it is to stumble and right the course of one’s life. He is a living example of the power of forgiveness and wants to share that gift with the world.

  Forgiveness4You is a unique service that meets an urgent need in our marketplace. Like a hospital, Fair Trade food organization, or private adoption firm, our agency will work on a paid model designed to provide the most good to the greatest number of people.

  Tomorrow, an article will appear in the Chicago Chronicle announcing the creation of Forgiveness4You and disclosing Gabriel McKenna’s arrest record. We welcome your questions about both and suspect this is only the beginning of the media’s attention to a genuinely breakthrough business concept whose time has come.

  Please contact Isaac Beckwith directly for more information at 512-345-8921.

  Chicago Chronicle—ONLINE EDITION

  March 14, 20--, 11:56 p.m.

  Ex-Con. Ex-Priest. Entrepreneur?

  While the faithful everywhere followed news of a new pope this week, Chicago had its own Catholic drama unfolding—only ours is less world-worthy and more news of the weird.

  According to a source inside the ad agency Mason & Zeus, the company is about to launch a satellite business that offers forgiveness for a fee. And the person they’ve selected to lead this venture is former priest Gabriel McKenna, who came to our attention last year when he announced from his pulpit on Easter morning that he was resigning from Assumption of the Blessed Virgin due to differences with the Catholic Church.

  McKenna served the Church for sixteen years, including a stint as pastor at St. John’s on the South side, where he managed a $1.2 million budget for the homeless shelter there. But it’s since come to light that McKenna has an arrest record from 19--, filed in Halifax County, Massachusetts, that was processed through drug court and subsequently expunged.

  Reporters from the Chronicle have spoken to a source at the South Bay House of Corrections who confirmed that the former Father McKenna was detained in that facility for two weeks, pending trial on a felony charge, then placed in a diversion program for youthful offenders.

  “I don’t recall the particular case,” said Sgt. Tom Bradie. “But any time we get any kid through diversion and he turns his life around, I think that’s great.”

  Neighbors tell a different story, however. “You couldn’t trust him,” said Eve Daniels, who lived next door to the McKennas. “Gabe was a real smart boy, but he was trouble. He used to sell drugs to twelve-year-olds! Makes you wonder what he was doing all those years as a priest.”

  After entering the priesthood at age twenty-four, McKenna held posts in Rome and Montreal before being called to Chicago as lead pastor of the mission church St. John’s. That congregation was shuttered for lack of funds in 20- -, the year the archdiocese of Chicago removed eleven priests from clerical work due to the ongoing sex abuse of minors. Subsequently, McKenna was placed at Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, where he served until his abrupt resignation in 20--.

  Since that time, the former priest has been working as a clerk at Brooks Books in Bronzeville. Oren Brooks, owner of the store, claims to know nothing about the forgiveness business. “Gabe McKenna has always been a good employee,” said Brooks. “He’s very knowledgeable about literature and the customers love him.”

  How McKenna became involved with the ad agency Mason & Zeus remains a mystery, but one of the agency’s own tells the Chronicle that the former priest is participating in a campaign designed to “smear the Catholic Church.”

  “As a Catholic, I’m just not comfortable with the way we’re marketing this service,” says Joy Everson, brand strategist with Mason & Zeus. “I believe only Jesus Christ can offer real forgiveness and what we’re doing is making a mockery of my religion.”

  Everson admits that she played a part in developing the new absolution business, even coming up with the name: Forgiveness 4 You. But after seeing marketing materials that made light of infidelity she had a change of heart, voicing her concerns to the agency’s creative director and withdrawing from the team.

  Isaac Beckwith, spokesperson for Mason & Zeus, says Everson is free to hold her own beliefs and claims she will not be penalized. “Of course, I wish she’d come to us first,” said Beckwith. “As to her concerns, I’m incredibly proud of what we’re doing with Gabe McKenna. Forgiveness4You is the first of its kind: a secular service that will ease people’s guilt without prejudice.”

  A fee-based, for-profit business, Forgiveness4You will operate under state and federal human rights laws that prevent bias based upon race, sex, age, religion, disability, national origin, or sexual preference.

  XIV

  IT WAS ISAAC WHO SHOWED UP AT MY DOOR ON THURSDAY MORNING with two coffees in a cardboard container and a folded copy of the Chicago Chronicle shoved under his arm.

  “It could have been worse, Father,” he said as I flung open the door in hopes of finding Madeline. Ever the addict, I’d been doing little since my breakfast with Abel but crave more of her; sex was all I could think about. I’d bounded from bed to the door with my flannel robe loose around me. When I saw it was Isaac I tied it tight.

  “What time is it?” I asked, my voice hoarse with disappointment.

  “Six-thirty.” Isaac walked into my hovel, arranging the cups on either side of the overturned crate I used as a coffee table. “I picked this up on the way over,” he said, opening the newspaper and refolding it neatly to reveal a specific page. “I read it online last night. Well, this morning actually, around two. Then I spent the next hour raging at myself for not vetting you better. Jesus, Madeline should fire me.”

  “When do you sleep?” I asked.

  Isaac smiled, but it was more of a scowl, and I saw the hollowed-out look of his eyes. “Not much these days, Father. You?”

  “I’m sleeping better than I have in twenty years,” I answered truthfully.

  “Well, that’s good.” Isaac sat in a springless chair and sank nearly to the floor. “One of us should be conscious today.”

  He drank his coffee steadily while I hunkered on the couch and read the story. Miss Daniels! I chortled when I remembered my mother’s tiny, cranky next-door neighbor, always—even in the middle of the day—wearing a nightgown and shawl. She was still alive?

  “What’s funny?” Isaac had revived a little.

  “Just remembering,” I said. “Eve Daniels is still a hothead.”

  “So you didn’t sell drugs to twelve-year-olds?”

  “Not directly,” I said, putting the paper aside and picking up my coffee. It was good; Isaac had put in my two sugars. “I wasn’t hanging
out at middle schools, pushing heroin on sixth graders. But that’s splitting hairs, isn’t it? If you sell drugs, they’re out there. Kids have access. Whether you can trace the exact supply chain or not.” I was, for the first time in twenty-four hours, not plotting my next move with Madeline. “I wouldn’t disagree with what she said.”

  Isaac sighed loudly. “You’re making my job impossible, you know.”

  “I know.” I stretched out to lie on the couch, arranging my bathrobe carefully, and gazed at a smoky-looking stain on the ceiling. “What will this do to the agency? To Madeline?”

  “Good question.” I craned my head to look at Isaac, and he stared back with tired, saggy eyes. “That’s exactly what I was asking myself all night. In the beginning, I thought I was coming back here to save the agency. I know … delusions of grandeur and all that. But also, I wanted to help Meadow make the biggest career move of her life. God knows, I owed her. She’d yanked me through one long, incredibly dire drunken year. Cleaned me up, paid my bills, kicked my ass ’til I finally hit the wall and went to treatment.” He stiffened, sitting up a little and squinting fiercely. “She’s a far better person than she lets on. Do not make me remind you of that fact.” Isaac leaned back again, closing his eyes and murmuring, “I don’t exactly relish the idea of beating the shit out of a priest.”

  “Ex-priest,” I said.

  He sighed. “Still.”

  “So you said that was the beginning. What about now? Why are you still here? What are we doing?”

  “Which question do you want me to answer?”

  I stopped to think. “Do you believe what you said in the paper, that we’re providing a ‘non-discriminatory’ forgiveness service to people?”

  Isaac’s head popped up. “Of course not! Jesus. Don’t you know that’s the one question you never ask? Do I believe one brand of toothpaste is better than the others? Or that the psychotropic drugs we’re pushing on people will really improve their lives? That the candy-flavored vodka we market mostly to sixteen-year-olds makes their parties sparkle and twirl like the ones we show online?” He had broken out in a light sheen of sweat, which probably had more to do with fatigue than with anything I’d said. “But I don’t sit around thinking about these things, because if I did, I wouldn’t be able to sell anything. I just, you know, take a leap.”

  “I see. So really, that’s your job.” I was still lying with my head perched on the arm, which was beginning to make my neck sore. But I didn’t move because I’d learned over the years that gravitas requires a certain outward peace. “You believe ardently no matter what your doubts, and in doing so, you encourage others to believe as well.”

  Isaac bellowed, a huge laugh, and his eyes were gleaming. He looked, dare I say, healed. “You bastard!” he choked. “The only thing that makes this shit-show worthwhile, today, is that you’re such a smart and weirdly fucked-up kind of priest.”

  “Thank you,” I said, gathering my robe in the most dignified way I could muster and rising from the couch. “I’m going to get dressed now. If you don’t mind waiting, we can go into the office together.”

  Isaac slumped back in his seat. “Take your time, Father.”

  Instinctively as I passed him, I reached out to place my hand briefly on Isaac’s forehead. He bowed his head, and I felt the blessing pass from my fingers into his skin.

  When we got downstairs, Isaac pressed the keys for his hot little sports car into my hand. “I’m so fucking tired,” he said. “You can drive, right?”

  “Of course!” I said, trying to remember the last time I’d done so. Perhaps eight years before.

  St. John’s had owned a creaky old van that I drove most nights in winter, looking for homeless people in the killing cold. You’d think they might have come toward us, me and whatever volunteer was working at the time. But instead, the people we sought ran; they separated and dove into drainage ditches or corners to hide. Wearing layers of thermal clothing and carrying thermoses of hot cider—partly because the people we served needed both warmth and calories, partly just to keep our hands warm—my angels and I would dive after these frightened souls and argue, citing windchill and death statistics and eventually leading them back to our van.

  But that had been an ancient Chevy with a “three-on-the-tree” transmission. This was a low-slung little thing, flat-nosed like a snake, with a stick that showed six gears—double the number I was used to and excessive, it seemed to me. I slid into the driver’s seat and its leather cupped my body. The clutch was stiff, manly. And the engine, when I turned the key, growled like an animal that meant business.

  “Go north ’til you’re out of the hood,” Isaac advised, then closed his eyes and began (real or not, I couldn’t tell) to snore.

  If I lurched and ground the gears a few times, there was no one but me to notice. And within a few miles, I was smoother. I’d decided to ignore the upper gears, just work with the ones I understood. At a stoplight, I pushed a button and successfully turned the radio on. Country music filled the car, twanging in a way that made me irritable as I lurched toward the next red light. It was a blessedly long one, allowing time for me to find a station playing George Michael and settle back.

  As I pulled forward, there was a chuckle from the passenger seat. “Not a fan of Kenny Chesney?” Isaac asked, his eyes still closed.

  But I heard this as if on a time delay; Isaac was back asleep by the time I thought to answer. So I thought about the scene this music conjured up: Aidan’s mother’s basement, with its tile floor and mishmash of old furniture, “Faith” playing on the stereo, the sweet smell of cheap pot mixed with the scorch of incense.

  Aidan had been after me all week to come over, as if we were still in grade school making a date to play with the little Army men that filled the one gallon ice cream bucket on the shelf. He looked like a six-foot-two-inch ten-year-old, his body gangly and childlike for eighteen, all hollow, rubbery muscle. As soon as I got there, I pulled out a stub of an old joint and said I was going to teach him something. I took the first hit and passed it to him, but he reached for it all wrong, palm up as if I were going to drop it into his hand.

  “Like this.” I remembered it as clearly as if I’d been right there, watching myself at seventeen—half a year younger than Aidan but far more schooled in the ways of men. (Or so I’d believed.) I’d flipped his hand over roughly, making a pincer of the forefinger and thumb. “Now,” I’d said, pressing the burning roach in between, “inhale the smoke, then take another little breath and hold it.”

  Aidan had had trouble with this direction. He’d been confused by the word “inhale,” and even after I’d explained, it was like I’d asked him to rub his stomach and pat his head. He hadn’t been able to get the order right; twice, he’d sucked the joint into his mouth and had had to remove it with his fingers. I’d given up on sharing it with him and had spent the next thirty minutes coaching him until he’d been left with nothing but a charred bit of paper. We’d actually laughed a few times; I’d felt like I was doing something unselfish and that my mother—if we took the pot out of the equation—would have been proud. Aidan’s eyes had been glassier than usual, full of lostness and wonder. I had told him he could eat the last little shred of the joint and he had done it.

  It was in the midst of this memory that I saw the bar where Scott and I had smoked in his truck—a quarter century of my life collapsing into bookend stoner events—and realized I’d gone too far. I made a U-turn, grinding the gears, and Isaac woke again with a hideous face.

  “If this were my car,” he said, “I’d kill you.”

  “We’re almost there,” I said, slowly coming back to the day, to Isaac and my still-adolescent middle-aged self.

  “Park in the garage.” Isaac flipped the visor down to look at his grizzled face in the mirror. “Fuck, I’m kind of scary today. Eh. Maybe that’ll help when I talk to Joy.”

  “What are you going to say?” Every word of this conversation helped me put more distance between this
moment and Aidan’s mother, still living in that same house with the beat-up futon in the basement and the huge stereo from 1975. “Isn’t it settled? You told the Chronicle she had a right to her opinion.”

  “Yeah, that was total bullshit. She has a right to her opinion as long as she keeps it to herself, but she’s legally bound by her contract never to disclose Mason & Zeus business. That’s airtight. She’s in violation, and we’re not only within our rights to fire her, we could sue her for breach.”

  “So why did you tell the reporter her job was safe?” I turned carefully into the garage, and Isaac handed me a card to flash in front of the ticket machine. The car was so low, I had to strain up and out the window, waving the card until it took and the mechanical arm slowly rose.

  “PR, man,” Isaac said. We entered the darkness, and I drove blindly until my eyes could adjust. “I wasn’t going to hash out our employee policies in the media. And since we’re talking about forgiveness here, I couldn’t afford to come off as vindictive either. But that doesn’t mean we can’t deal with Joy in our own way, in our own time.”

  “What about the reporter?” I parked and cut the engine, filling the car with stuffy silence.

  “Are you kidding?” Isaac seemed to have revived completely. Even the bags under his eyes were fading. “He doesn’t care. You’re the story. You and your ‘checkered past.’ Joy could walk down Michigan Avenue naked and never see her name in the paper again.”

  We exited from our respective doors, Isaac easily while I had to clamber, with one hand on the headrest hoisting me out. “She’s young,” I said as we walked toward the elevators. “You could give her another chance.”

  Isaac pushed the button and stood, hands in his back pockets, tipping forward onto his toes. “And what would that teach her, Father? I’ll tell you what. The same thing she’s been learning all her life: that she can do whatever the fuck she wants without ever suffering the consequences.” He kept looking up but his voice got softer. “I think, actually, I’m the one doing her a favor. Maybe she’ll learn from this and do the right thing next time.”