Father Sweet

by J. J. Martin

  “Easy for you to say,” Danny said. “That’s your job.”

  “No, it’s your job,” Padre said, suddenly loud, stabbing a finger at him. The outburst startled me.

  “You think that he doesn’t need any momentous change to stop touching little girls?” I said to him.

  Padre seemed exasperated. “No, no. You don’t get it.”

  Danny crossed his legs and breathed heavily, but didn’t take his eyes from the TV.  To me, he seemed as inscrutable as a lizard.

  “That’s what religious people always say when you confront them with their choices.”

  “Of course, I think it’s a momentous change. Grace comes when you choose to have a meaningful life.”

  “I’ve been trying my whole life to solve that one,” I said, making peace with him. It occurred to me that Padre might have his own drama going on with Danny, and my arrival stoked the coals.

  “Most people see meaning in what they do, not the other way around. That’s sin,” said Padre. “God wants us to do the right thing. Sin is justifying doing the wrong thing.”

  “I’m trying,” I said, sitting down and unsure if he directed his comments at me, or at Danny. “I’m trying to.”

  “Danny, turn off the TV,” said Padre.

  Danny clicked the remote and the room got quiet.

  “You said justifying doing the wrong thing …” I paused. “I know that. I know it. My dad made me believe he valued good. And that he was good because he knew good from evil, and I didn’t. And he had power. He was relentless for a hard, unkind good. A ‘good-for-you’ good. Like medicine that tastes like poison.”

  “All people have dark and light in them,” Padre said.

  “Really? He was suspicious of anything sweet. My dad trusted poison. And I think he believed I deserved —” I said, stopping short, suddenly unable to finish.

  Padre waited for me, hands folded.

  “You are justifying the wrong thing,” I said to Danny without looking at him.

  We were quiet.

  Padre was the sort of man who was untroubled by sitting in a room across from someone unwilling to talk. I could see his appeal as a confessor and distrusted myself.

  “You know,” he said, “we have to feed goodness. You can’t repress the bad. We need to understand our sins and reconcile ourselves with them.”

  It was seductive.

  I flushed hot. “Please,” I said, “I’m not your parishioner. Don’t give me that shit. Your idea of … morality is none of my business.”

  “All right. I’ll use your words then. People think they can find the good and avoid the evil, but they can’t. Instead of fighting, sit with it. Acknowledge it. Then, you have to feed the good impulse and starve evil. I’d ask you to please give some thought about how you view your dad.”

  “I don’t have to do anything,” I said. “He’s in the ground. And I’m sifting through what he’s left behind. Taken several trips to the dump already with my truck, and dozens of bags to Goodwill.”

  “You may not realize it, but you are trying to reconcile with him. It’s why you’re here. One reason, I know. Why you want to talk to Antony’s parents. We want to think everything is black and white, but often that’s how situations — stay with me now — such as what happened here with you and Father Sweet occur.”

  I felt faint. I looked at Danny, whose eyes were on the carpet before him. The room had dropped away to be little more than a black space filled with Padre’s voice close to my ear.

  “You are good,” Padre said, and he leaned toward me. “Children are good. We have no right telling them they are sinful and their souls are at stake over good and evil. Adults created this mess. I knew your dad. I heard his confession. I can tell you he wasn’t without shame.”

  “My dad did awful, awful things,” I said. Barely above a whisper. “He worked for the government doing bad things. His career was taking kids away from their families, and giving them to the Church. Native kids who lived in the sticks with their parents and hunted and fished for a living. They gave them to the priests and the nuns, who sterilized those kids, beat them and starved them until they died, or died running away.” I looked at Padre. “Kids died.”

  Neither Danny nor Padre looked surprised by what I said.

  “How do you know?” Padre said.

  “I’ve seen letters between my dad and that priest.”

  “Gast?”

  “And others. I am in possession of a lot of … damning evidence.”

  “How much evidence?”

  “Boxes and boxes.”

  “And what do you plan to do? With this evidence?” Padre’s voice went cold.

  I looked up. “I’m not sure yet.”

  Padre sought my eyes. “I could help you, take care of those boxes for you.”

  I looked away. “I have stuff that I could write down. I also have my own experience. And because I know —” I stuttered “— I know exactly what I know — there was more done to these kids. Stuff justified with some flowery language about Greek beauty and the Bible. Children are sinful and need to be corrected. But in the end, Padre, it’s just plain old molestation, isn’t it?”

  Danny put his head in his hands.

  “I don’t understand why,” I said. “Teaching children that they are sinful and need to confess. Teaching children to be guilty. Even while lives are being ruined. Kids are dying. And I don’t understand why you, you priests are … so goddamned confident you are right.”

  Padre leaned back. He was quiet. “Well,” he said at last. “I’m not. And even though I might have ideas about why, I can’t say either that I understand.”

  “Then what good is any of this,” I asked. “And what good are you? Just more bullshit gabbing and blocking. Idiotic complexity.”

  Padre sighed. A few moments went by, then he spoke slowly. “You’ll hear people say it’s a modern phenomenon,” he said. “Caused by the evil liberties of modern society. You know, pornography, casual Fridays, all that. Vatican II.”

  “Ridiculous,” I pronounced.

  “It’s not true, no. But it has gotten harder to handle.”

  “See? Right there. Handle. Handle what? What are you talking about?”

  “All I mean is the Church has fewer tools to solve these problems. I’ll give you an example. There was one pope — Gregory IX — who got word from Alsace about a full-scale revolt. A priest had been burned at the stake by villagers. Now, the official record says this priest had been ‘immodicus’ with some young people. Boys. It’s clear enough to see what happened if you read between the lines. A group of families were up in arms. With good reason, I imagine. Gregory sends a substitute priest to the village, who is killed upon arrival. Protestors tear down the local church. Gregory’s worried this could spread. So, he sends in the Inquisition. They quickly label the angry families as heretics, and all of them are burned — virtually the whole village — and then another priest goes in to rebuild the community. From scratch. Destroy the village to save it. The whole story was sealed up, locked away, and Bob’s your uncle.”

  “My god. When was that?”

  Padre’s eyes zeroed in on mine. “One thousand years ago.”

  I stared at Padre until my eyes stung.

  “That wasn’t the last time this happened,” I said.

  “Heavens, no,” said Padre. “But, you see, things are improving. We don’t destroy villages anymore.”

  “That’s not funny,” I said. “You want to treat symptoms, not provide the cure.”

  “Oh, come now. The Church is the cure. The political history of the Church,” Padre said, “is the history of Western civilization. And the outcome is we’ve got a civilization.”

  My lips curled at the word civilization.

  “Order over chaos. But there are … leftovers. Inside the Church some ancient traditions still lurk, like this … Hellenistic problem, if you like. Come on. You know all this. Why did you study anthropology of religion?”

 
“I don’t know,” I said. “I honestly don’t.”

  He stared back with suspicion. “The best of the Church — to any one of us — is this, what we have right now. Two guys sharing some time together, making the world less lonely, more meaningful. The Church is good for that. But if you believe the Church is God on Earth, and people do believe that, then you’ve got people who will do anything to protect it.”

  I sighed and shook my head at him. I hated this discussion and wanted it to stop. Padre was trying to convince me. “The whole apparatus needs to come down,” I said. “The Church is the problem.”

  “Catholics believe in forgiveness, but also in the inheritance of sin. So if you’re going to call yourself Catholic you take the good and the bad.”

  “I’m not Catholic,” I said.

  “Sure you are. You were baptized in the Catholic faith. You were raised Catholic. You’re in until the Church says you’re out. You can concentrate on the bad if you want. People want a safe place where they can talk about goodness. I’m here to make things better. You are Catholic. It’s nice to go some place once a week where people are nice to each other.”

  I bit my lip at the insinuation. Nice to each other. Sure. Like in the sacristy when Father Sweet would pinch the altar servers’ bottoms — nice.

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “You were trying to understand Father Sweet,” said Danny to me, as if he had been thinking about it the whole time. “That’s why you studied religion. You were trying to understand what happened.”

  “You don’t know anything,” I snarled. “Shut up.”

  “Just trying to help.”

  “Well, stop. I don’t know why I do anything.”

  “That makes two of us,” Danny said.

  “Good Lord,” said Padre, sipping his beer. “What a pair, you two.”

  “But I’ll tell you,” I said, directing it over his shoulder, mostly at Danny. “I know what I’m doing now.”

  “Give some thought,” Padre said. “About those boxes. I can take them for you.”

  None of what this man says is genuine, I thought. He’s someone with charm and big words, but behind the smile is someone all in to “handle” this situation. And perhaps light a fire, if I’m not careful.

  “One more thing,” I said. “I’m not in until you say I’m out. I’m out because I say I’m out.”

  15

  At the house, I did laundry in the basement. As I removed clothes from the dryer, I laid them out on the linoleum floor. Five pairs of underwear. Five pairs of socks. One pair of jeans. One pair of khaki trousers. One nice shirt. Five T-shirts or polos. Toothbrush, paste, deodorant, et cetera. Aspirin. Notebook and pen. Bottle of whisky.

  I folded my gear into my old vinyl Adidas bag I’d found earlier then went upstairs. I dialed Jamie’s number and told him I would see him in a week or so.

  “Text me when you get there,” he said.

  “I’ll be back in time for your surgery.”

  After closing up the house, I drove to the rectory. Danny answered the door, holding a mug of coffee.

  “You look so professional. All clean-cut like you are,” he said.

  “You oughta try it,” I replied.

  In addition to his mess of hair and prospector’s beard, Danny was not wearing deodorant, which was evident despite my being outdoors while he stood on the transom.

  “Where’s your comrade?”

  “Padre? Doing hospital rounds. Should be back any minute. He wanted to catch you.”

  Padre’s Camry came up the drive and parked next to mine. He wiped his eyes and approached us.

  “You don’t look happy,” I said.

  A weary grin briefly wafted across his face. “Rough morning.”

  “Yah? Not enough in the collection plate or something?”

  Danny backed up. “Hey, man, that is not cool.”

  I felt ready now. I would hit Danny.

  Padre’s eyes levelled with mine, and they were cold. “No, it’s okay. Our friend here simply doesn’t understand what it’s like to sit in an embrace with parents on a hospital bed while their child dies in their arms. And that’s what I did this morning. And, yes, it’s exactly as bad as it sounds.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “I guess.… Well, maybe it’s a hard job. Sometimes.”

  “Keeps getting harder,” Padre said brushing past me into the house.

  He left Danny and I standing alone together saying nothing. When he returned, I was relieved to see him.

  Padre handed me a piece of paper.

  “This woman’s name is Melody Cary,” Padre said. “Here’s her email, phone number, and everything. I spoke with her already. When you guys get to Los Angeles she’ll help you with your bear hunt. You’ll find Sweet.”

  “No, no, no. I want nothing to do with him,” I said. “I told you I want to talk with Antony’s parents.”

  “Yah, yah. She’ll help with that. I gave her a heads-up. She’ll meet you at the airport when you land.”

  “Do you understand that I only want the parents? It’s important to me to talk to those parents.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you?”

  He took a step closer to me. “I try.”

  I looked at the paper with Melody Cary’s contact info. “You’re a cleaner,” I said to Padre without looking at him. “Sent to clean a mess.”

  Padre shifted his weight and folded his arms.

  “What if I am?”

  “National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Wow. And what’s SNAP?” I said, pointing to one of Melody Cary’s two email addresses.

  “It’s a group that you might be interested in. Melody can tell you more. They have interest in justice. They help people who have been … mistreated by clergy. She’s a local volunteer in California with experience. A former detective. She worked with state police and now works with that missing and exploited children outfit. You’ll want to talk with her.”

  “What’s in this for you?”

  “Think about what you’re trying to do.”

  “Yah, what are you doing, man?” Danny sounded like a stupid parrot.

  “A good turn every day,” I said, unsure why those words left my mouth. “For the first time in a long while. I’m trying to protect a little kid.”

  “Me, too,” said Padre. “I became a priest after Vatican II. Building the Church openly, and doing good is my life.”

  “You mean doing good for the Church.”

  We eyed one another. Padre took my hand in his and mumbled a few words. He was praying. Maybe even blessing me.

  “Whatsoever you do for the least of us, you do for the Lord. Be a channel of peace.” He looked up and smiled. “You won’t like it if I say trust in God, so instead I’ll say don’t be afraid.”

  “Okay,” I said. Then I surprised myself and said, “Thank you.”

  “Have you given any thought about those boxes of your dad’s?”

  I shook my head. “You’re asking about this again.”

  “Where are they?”

  “My dad’s house.”

  “If you leave me a key I can go through them for you.”

  This was the third time he had asked after them. He saw the answer in my face. Like my father, I projected disapproval with great conviction. It’s all in the eyes and brows. Like Clint Eastwood.

  “Can you at least believe,  just a little bit, that I want to replace systems of oppression with systems of goodness and kindness?” he asked. “Creating an open, natural spirituality where we can encounter God as a friend. That should be the journey of our pilgrim Church.”

  “I don’t give two shits for your pilgrim Church,” I said. I turned to Danny and took a breath the way you do before walking into the dentist’s office. “You ready to go?”

  I threw his duffel violently into the Sport truck.

  “Hey, look at that old Adidas bag,” Danny said, full of cheer and climbing into the passenger seat. “That
really brings me back! Reminds me of the old days.”

  “Fuck the old days,” I said.

  16

  Southern California was not lush as I imagined it to be. In my mind, and my mother’s celebrity glossies, Los Angeles appeared green, golden, and teeming with beautiful women, art deco villas, and shiny sports cars. As our plane began the descent on a cloudless afternoon, I watched the dusty yellow hills and sooty bushes roll under us, and I wondered why I expected it to appear more as a jungle. Two fires burned on hills to the north, sending long grey plumes out over the ramshackle clutter of the city, sunbaked as a desert junkyard.

  The plane landed. Danny turned to me and said, “Our first priority has got to be replenishing the supply.”

  Airport security had taken my whisky bottle back in Ottawa, which is where I discovered Danny had made the same mistake and tried to sneak in a forty-pounder. We didn’t buy booze at the duty-free because we were inexperienced travellers and unsure if we would go through security again at the other end.

  We followed our cohort of passengers along the terminal’s overcrowded and greasy hallways to the baggage carousel, and that’s where we discovered Melody Cary searching for us. Like a shield, she held a homemade sign with Danny’s and my name on it, bracketed by a heart on one side and a smiley face on the other.

  She was a tall woman with short, frizzy hair who used barely any makeup. Her eyes were enormous and bright. She wore what looked like expensive white jeans and a bright pink crew neck that made her flawless, rich brown skin pop like gold. When I waved at her, she broke into a colossal, welcoming smile that made my face tingle.

  “You look like my sister-in-law,” I said.

  “Then c’mere, give me a hug, since we’re family,” she said in a happy drawl. We embraced and I breathed in a fresh, wonderful scent. She wore bangles on one wrist and they jangled in my ear. Clare’s hair was long and straightened, but Melody and Clare did, in fact, share a resemblance.

  Danny got a hug, too.

  “I’m always glad to meet some fellow travellers,” she said, laughing.

  Outside, the dry heat felt like treasure, and Danny whistled at the summertime vibe. Then the Los Angeles air hit us, smelling of diesel fuel and cigarette smoke. We dodged eight hot lanes of arrested and honking traffic to reach the parking garage.