The Gathering

by William X. Kienzle

  Father Robert Koesler became a simple parish priest. And so he would have remained had it not been for his accidental involvement in the serial murder of eight of the finest priests and nuns of the Archdiocese of Detroit. He happened by accident to come upon the second of these victims. Then, inexorably involved, he was helpful in assisting the police in the solution of those killings.

  Evidently, the police knew a good source when they saw one. For Father Koesler continued to be a resource in succeeding murders rich in Catholic character.

  When he wasn’t helping solve crimes, he, as did most priests, tried to understand the Council and its impact on Catholic life.

  At first, he vigorously dismissed the Council and its spirit. He grieved over the loss of the Latin Mass and argued that the Tridentine Mass of itself demonstrated the unity and universality of the Church. No matter where one traveled in the world, one had access to a Mass celebrated with identical vestments, the same gestures, the same rubrics, and most of all, the same language—Latin.

  In time, Koesler’s viewpoint evolved to the observation that Catholics could now drop in on a Roman Catholic Mass and not understand what was going on, in the same foreign language (Latin) in just about any country in the world.

  Still, he continued to miss the beauty and pageantry of the Tridentine Mass in which he had been reared and with which he had a lifelong familiarity.

  On the other hand, he accepted and became comfortable with the many humanizing aspects of the Vatican Council.

  He was, in a word, eclectic, choosing the best of both worlds.

  If any of the group of six had been undisputed leader, it would have been Robert Koesler. He was only one year older than the other five, but it was noteworthy the influence one year could carry in the context of the seminary and religious life. The reality of their relationship worked out in the way many hoped the Pope would eventually relate to bishops and leaders of all faiths and sects throughout the world—as “first among equals.”

  With that in mind, Bob Koesler was in position to evaluate the others. The sheerest of accidents had brought them together these many years ago. They grew so close they might have been blood relatives.

  Emanuel Tocco developed into a man of honor. Honor was a character value his father had instilled in him. If your word was not dependable, neither were you. If your word was rock-solid dependable, so were you.

  Koesler admired that in Manny.

  Koesler, Manny, and Mike Smith had attended the same parochial school. Because this school was humongous, they probably would not have met had it not been that all three were altar servers. And because they grew to admire the priests they served and were fascinated by the mystery of the liturgy, each thought he might one day become a priest.

  The linchpin of this continued association was their attending a diocesan seminary. Almost all the others from that parish who dreamed of the priesthood would test their vocation in a religious order setting.

  For all practical purposes, Manny Tocco considered himself a worthy applicant for this calling. He was hardworking, dependable, concerned for the welfare of others and destined to be a man’s man. If these were not the seminary’s requirements, they certainly fit the paradigm of fictional priests of popular novels and movies.

  In a hazy way, Manny was aware that he would be entering a womanless world. He wasn’t concerned about this; indeed, he barely gave it a thought. His interests fell into the masculine category—sports, pranks, studies. He had no sisters or even close female relatives, other than his mother. As for Rose and Alice, they were … well, just there. Rose was his buddy Mike’s sister, Alice was her shadow—and that was that.

  He even was separated from the girls in his own school. This sort of separation—boys from girls, men from women—could be made to seem natural in what was then the world of “Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up?”

  With this prelude, it was almost natural to consider life without the opposite sex as perfectly normal.

  Manny’s native intelligence was surely sufficient to get him through the academic demands of the seminary. In addition to this, there was Mike’s tutoring. Academically, Manny was set.

  Of course, such a high aspiration as the priesthood would expose any deficiency that might be underlying. Manny identified his weakness early on: his temper. He worked on taming it.

  Everyone has a temper. In the average person, usually this emotional drive calls for some sort of action. But tempers come in all degrees: Some people have a hair-trigger temper; others have such patience and self-control they rarely if ever lose their temper. The majority are somewhere in between.

  With Manny, his mother was the model for restraint. From time to time she would become angry. But the anger was always justified and always controlled. Manny wished he could be more like his mother. He wanted to emulate her moderated response to provocation.

  After much prayer and thought, his honest conclusion was that he took after his father rather than his mother. ’Fredo Tocco was quick to express anger, quick to get it out of his system, and quick to forgive. He had an infectious sense of humor. He could be counted on to handle most troublesome situations in a measured manner.

  Manny walked in his father’s footsteps, and a few steps further. He led a sheltered existence in the parochial school, then in the seminary. A temper was a part of everyone’s makeup. Controlling it was part of every student’s goal.

  To be honest with himself, as Manny constantly fought to be, he did improve over the years. There were pushes and there were shoves. But by and large he marched closely to his father’s example.

  There were exceptions. Those were what Manny feared in his response to naked aggression. He could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he had gone over the edge, or nearly so.

  That idiot, Blade, for instance. Twice Manny had been presented with an unavoidable altercation with Blade. And twice had come close to leaving his adversary more dead than alive.

  The first time, Mike—and even Switch—had intervened and pulled Manny off.

  The same thing had occurred the second fight with Blade. Manny might have understood and forgiven himself had he feared that Blade might kill him. But Manny honestly didn’t reflect on thoughts of his own possible death. The problem was that he had been totally irrational; he hadn’t thought, just reacted.

  Would he have backed off of his own volition after realizing that he had knocked out his opponent? Difficult to say. He, de facto, hadn’t let up, even after Blade was unconscious. Had the fight been carried to extremes, he, Manny, could have been charged with manslaughter, no small matter.

  As for that Piccolo jerk, again Manny had not provoked the fight. It was Piccolo all the way. Once again, Manny had responded in self-defense. And then he went further. If he hadn’t been stopped, would he have pulled back?

  Try as he might—and he tried and he prayed—he could not come up with a clearcut conclusion.

  Funny, thinking of it, the first fight with Blade was stopped only because two other boys pulled him off. In the second go-round with Blade, again others had intervened to stay Manny’s hand; otherwise he might well have killed Blade.

  And in the fracas with Piccolo, a mere touch by Alice, and Manny had quit.

  Then there was the Viking. In that instance, Manny had never come closer to a serious battle without actually engaging in one. That it hadn’t developed into a knockdown, drag-out battle … well, that was probably a tribute to the Vike. For a change, a potential fight was averted by the would-be aggressor.

  Emanuel Tocco didn’t abandon the priesthood capriciously. For one, the timing did not speak of impulse. He left the seminary at the eleventh hour as it were. He’d entered in the ninth grade—the earliest possible point of entry. And he’d stayed through high school, college, and three years of the theologate. He had invested eleven years, stopping only one short of the required dozen.

  Nor was it a single issue that caused his leaving. His temp
er had at times been close to and nearly homicidal … no mean consideration. However, he left for a wider spectrum of reasons.

  A retreat master had nailed these reasons many years prior to Manny’s final decision. It was an oft-told anecdote and one that Manny never forgot.

  It seems, according to the story, that a bishop visited a Trappist monastery at a time when the monks never spoke. An exception to that rule was when a bishop initiated conversation. One such bishop, thinking himself an amateur psychologist, engaged one of the monks in conversation, thus interrupting the monk from field work.

  “Brother,” said the bishop, “you seem to me to be very depressed.”

  “Yes,” the Brother admitted, “that’s right, Bishop, I am.”

  “Let me see,” the bishop pondered, “I’ll bet it’s this silence. You can speak to me, but you must not say a word to the people you live and work and pray with … that it?”

  The monk thought for some moments. “No, it’s not that.”

  “Hmmm.” The bishop thought some more. “”It must be your diet. It’s meager at best, and there’s no meat, ever.”

  “I don’t think that’s really it, Bishop.”

  “Hmmm. Is it the cubicle they give you for a bedroom? Straw mattress, lumpy, narrow … is that it?”

  “No, Bishop, that’s not it.”

  “Well, this is a hard case. Could it be your routine? Up in the middle of the night for prayer, then work and pray all day, then retire at an ungodly early hour. Is that what’s getting to you?”

  The monk seemed lost in thought. Finally, he said, “No … I’m sorry, Bishop, but it’s not that either.”

  “Then I give up, Brother. What do you suppose is the problem?”

  “I think, Bishop, it’s the whole damn thing.”

  And that’s what seemed to Manny to be his reason, or reasons, for leaving the seminary: the whole damn thing.

  At that point two events occurred that would radically change the entire direction of his life. He got a job at the Free Press, Detroit’s morning newspaper, and he married Alice McMann, albeit without benefit of clergy.

  They tried for Catholic validity, but the effort proved fruitless. The couple continued to attend Mass, though they never received Communion nor confessed sacramentally. This arrangement didn’t much bother Manny. It was a matter of much moment to Alice, though she never let on. If questioned, she, like Manny, would have said that they’d given it their best shot, and there seemed nothing else they could do.

  Having reached this conclusion, Manny did not let their sacramentless life bother him.

  It bothered Alice.

  In time, they had one daughter, who was baptized by Father Koesler. There would be those who criticized receiving a child of an invalid marriage into the Church. Koesler dismissed such criticism as, at best, pharisaical scandal. He knew this child would be raised Catholic, and a good Catholic at that.

  Manny started as a copyboy at the Free Press. Under the tutelage of City Editor Nelson Kane, he climbed steadily, distinguishing himself as a no-nonsense reporter who got the story first, but first got it right. He discovered he had a flair for making an otherwise dull story seem interesting.

  In short of due time, he caught the eye of several politicians and business executives.

  It didn’t hurt that he had built a solid reputation as a straight shooter. Even the crooks, in and out of political life, had to admit that Manny Tocco was an honest and honorable man.

  After long, serious thought, and after discussing the matter with Alice, Manny left the Free Press to become press secretary/speechwriter for a top Michigan executive who had his eye on the State House.

  There followed an admirable career that found Manny at home in the highest political and business circles. Though Manny was convinced that in the priesthood he had lost a noble vehicle for his life calling, still he was satisfied that he had done his best in his new profession. He was advised, respected, and, above all, trusted.

  In a very few years, Alice McMann had packed in a lot of experience, starting as a teenager in a parochial school and then in the convent. As for her sexual awakening, it was frightening at worst and awkward at best.

  She’d had her dream of sexuality, always as romance, tenderness, and fulfillment. That had been seriously damaged by the adolescent, clumsy, and crude advances of a fourteen-year-old boy. As a result, one of the things Alice had come to associate with sex was being groped by a pimply teenager in a darkened movie house.

  As it worked out, the panting youth never even got close to what his crowd referred to as “first base.” Manny Tocco’s quick intervention had scotched that. It had taken no more than a threatening admonition from the redoubtable Manny to cool off the perspiring groper.

  It wasn’t much in the annals of knight errantry. Manny’s open-ended warning was enough to quiet the situation. Alice was not only grateful, she was flattered. She couldn’t bring herself to thank Manny, although she did try to subtly express her gratitude. But she was never sure that Manny had caught the drift.

  Besides, she was committed to the convent and a life remote from groping males, or, for that matter, any type of male. And Manny was headed for the seminary and the priesthood.

  Alice did not quite grasp what the priesthood demanded. But then neither did she understand what religious life entailed. A more than casual study suggested that nuns did all the work and priests got all the glory. But that was how things were if one chose to enter and proceed. So, romantic thoughts unspoken, Alice remained secretly in Manny’s debt.

  Then there was that brief interlude in the convent. Alice had learned in short order that she could never join Rose’s friendship with the demands of religious life. Alice concluded that she could be closer to her best friend as a layperson than were she to remain in consecrated life.

  Then came the generous support and help from Rose’s father, followed by Alice’s hiring on at the law firm.

  Rose was kept informed of each step along the way. Her information as to the events of Alice’s day-to-day life was far more detailed than it would have been had Alice remained in the convent.

  Rose was disturbed by John Piccolo’s interest in Alice. Rose knew that Al had an undeservedly poor self-image. Rose noted how Alice had given herself over to John, almost as a slave to an owner. Rose suspected this relationship would degenerate as time went on, particularly if it led to marriage.

  But Rose strongly believed that she could serve more constructively if she stayed on the fringe ready to help in any way she could in picking up the pieces. Besides, the communication between the two friends, while much freer now that Alice was unconstrained by convent rules, still was in no way what it had been before they had entered the convent.

  Alice married John Piccolo. As a bride she was the centerpiece of the wedding day. She was immensely happy. She would need the memories of this happiness to give her strength to survive what was coming.

  Alice tried to keep a stiff upper lip and hide from family and friends what she was suffering at the hands—and fists—of her husband.

  Infrequently the couple would dine out, usually with John’s coworkers. John used such occasions as a showcase of his mastery over his wife. These displays were humiliating to Alice, and embarrassing to everyone but John.

  The couple never entertained at home. Had they done so, the fact that theirs was a sadomasochistic relationship would have been obvious beyond doubt. And John wanted that doubt to take precedence over any certain knowledge. He knew that the firm had no place in its higher echelons for an overt sadist. And John very definitely wanted to climb.

  His approach left room for dalliances with lower-level stenos. Far from attempting to shield these sexually gratifying games from his wife, he boasted of them to her in nauseating detail.

  The word divorce seemed not to be in Alice’s lexicon. As a young girl, she had not always told the truth. On occasion, she had even lied to Rose—not often and not seriously. Sometimes she guil
tily thought of what might have happened had Manny not intervened in the Stratford Theater.

  That was it with Alice: guilt and punishment. She was supposed to love, honor, and obey—words that popularized the wedding ceremony but didn’t even exist in the Catholic ritual.

  So there it was: Lies and adolescent desire—she had sinned, done something wrong. She must have done something wrong. She must be doing something wrong to be slammed around as she was.

  Then came Manny’s phone call and finally her invitation to him to dine chez Piccolo.

  It would have been outrageous for such an invitation to originate with Alice—something like inviting a friend to witness one’s torture. But it would have been inconceivable that the invitation issue from John Piccolo. And yet, though Manny had no way of knowing, that’s exactly whence it came. He had indicated to his wife, in no uncertain terms, that she should invite her friend—“this paragon of virtue”—to dinner “… so we can see what he’s really made of.”

  John’s behavior that evening was beyond insane. Alice had never completely gotten over the memory of it. Occasionally, even now, when the Toccos dined out or had guests in, Alice would find herself stammering from the memory of those events.

  She remembered how strong and fit John had been. She had had the bruises to prove it. She also remembered her fear that he would humiliate Manny.

  As it happened, her fear for Manny turned into a fear of him. A fear that he would kill John. She had never witnessed such an uncontrolled fury, even with John at his worst.

  Yet at her first hesitant touch, Manny had stopped immediately and called up an unlikely self-control.

  The divorce followed and, mostly because, in the end, it was uncontested, it was not overly bloody. Next came the attempt at an annulment. Compared with the civil action, the Church’s procedures were like a bloodbath. Neither Alice nor Manny ever fathomed why the Church should demand in minute detail such intimate marital facts. In any case, the divorce was granted, the annulment denied.