by John Fante
My father lifted his eyes.
“Until Christmas, Father? That’s sixty days.”
“You can say it in Italian.”
It pleased my father and he lowered his eyes. Father Ramponi absolved and blessed him, and the little ceremony was concluded. My father got to his feet.
“Thank you, Father. How about a glass of wine?”
The priest declined. They moved toward the front door. Suddenly my father laughed. “I feel good,” he said. “Real good, Father.”
“Next time I’ll expect you to come to the church for your confession.”
“We’ll see, Father.”
“And I’ll expect you at Mass Sunday.”
“I’ll try and make it, Father.”
They said good night and the door closed. I heard Father Ramponi’s car drive away. My father returned to the dining room. Through the keyhole I watched him pour a glass of wine. He raised it heavenward and drank. Then he turned out the light and all was darkness.
Scoundrel
SISTER MARY AGNES HAD BEEN my principal for eight years at St. Vincent’s. She knew more about me than my mother. But Mamma was like that.
For instance, it was Sister Agnes who got me out of jail for breaking street lamps. The police sergeant called Mamma, but Mamma didn’t believe him. Sergeant Corelli had caught Jack Jenson and me red-handed. I was standing right there when Sergeant Corelli telephoned Mamma. I could hear her voice in the receiver.
“There must be some mistake,” she said, “my son Jimmy would never do a thing like that.”
“I tell you this is your boy,” Sergeant Corelli said, “he’s right here. James Kennedy.”
“Oh no,” Mamma said, “I know you’ve made a mistake. There are lots of Kennedys in this world. My Jimmy isn’t like that.”
She hung up. Sergeant Corelli shook his head.
“You sure got her buffaloed,” he said. Then he asked me where I went to school.
I told him I was in the eighth grade at St. Vincent’s. He telephoned Sister Mary Agnes because she was principal and Sister Superior. She hopped into a cab and came right down to the city hall.
Jack Jenson’s father got there about the same time. We didn’t get along, Mr. Jenson and I. He shook his finger at me. “You’re responsible for this.”
“I broke two lamps,” I said, “Jack broke the other two.”
“That’s a lie,” Jack said, “I got that one on the corner of Ninth and Pine, and you know it. You only got one. I got three.”
“Why Jack,” I said, “that ain’t so.”
“Heck it ain’t.”
“I don’t know who busted what,” Sergeant Corelli said, “all I know is—four lamps is broke. City property.”
Sister Agnes clucked like a hen. “It’s scandalous,” she said to me, “perfectly scandalous. To think that you, a Catholic boy, of Catholic parents, educated in a Catholic school, should go around destroying public property. James, if I’ve warned you once, I’ve warned you a thousand times—stay away from bad company.”
Mr. Jenson’s mouth and eyes popped open. “Now wait a minute, miss,” he said, “you can’t call my boy ‘bad company.’ You may be a holy lady, miss, but I’m not going to stand here and let you call my boy a criminal.”
Just then Jack stuck out his tongue at Sister Agnes.
“I didn’t say he was a criminal,” Sister Agnes said.
“Let’s quit arguing and get to the bottom of this,” Sergeant Corelli said. “Now then: Why did you kids do it?”
Jack looked at me. “Go ahead and tell him.”
“To settle a bet,” I said.
Sister Agnes took a deep breath. “Why, James Kennedy. Gambling too. You know gambling is a sin.”
“Not a very big sin,” I said. “We were gambling for small stakes.”
“Of all the brazenness!” she said.
“What was the bet?” Sergeant Corelli asked.
Jack told him: “I bet him a couple of cigars against a pack of cigarettes that I could bust more lamps than him.”
“Cigars!” Mr. Jenson said. “So that’s where my cigars been going.”
“Cigarettes!” Sister Agnes said. “So you’ve been smoking again.”
We didn’t say anything. We were being honest, but nobody seemed to pay the least attention or to appreciate it at all.
“There you are,” Sergeant Corelli said. “They admit everything. Now—what’s to be done with these kids?”
Mr. Jenson opened his mouth and his teeth were like wolf fangs. “I know what I’m going to do,” he said.
Jack swallowed and rolled his eyes around.
“And I think I can handle this young man,” Sister Agnes said.
Jack left the city hall on tiptoe. Mr. Jenson had a strong grip on his left ear. I felt sorry for poor Jack. He was so sensitive, so easily hurt, and his father wasn’t. Jack could play the piano and he sang in the choir at the Methodist Church. Mr. Jenson was foreman of a construction gang with the state highway.
“I’m taking you to see Father Cooney,” Sister Agnes said to me. She asked Sergeant Corelli to call a taxi. The sergeant said he would be glad to have someone drive us back in the police car. This shocked Sister Agnes.
“I couldn’t do that,” she said, “but thank you so much, Sergeant. You’ve been very kind.”
The sergeant picked up the phone and called for a taxi. Sister Agnes and I sat on a bench in front of the window and waited. I was slumped forward, trying to think of something pleasant to say. Sister Agnes kissed the crucifix at the end of the brown beads which hung from her belt and began to say the Rosary.
“Sit up straight,” she whispered.
I sat up and folded my arms.
“Aren’t you going to pray?” she asked. “You ought to be grateful to Almighty God that you’re not behind bars. You should be on your knees, offering up thanks and begging Him to forgive you for this day.”
“Right here?” I asked. “In the police station?”
“At least pray in your heart,” she said closing her eyes.
I closed my eyes and thought out a prayer: Dear Lord, thanks a lot for getting me out of this mess. I think the whole thing is a bluff and they can’t do much to me because I’m only fourteen. But things could have been a lot worse. So thanks again. And please, dear Savior, try to fix it up so Sister Agnes won’t phone my old man. Please, Lord. If you ever did a fellow a favor, please, please, don’t let her tell my old man.
Bill Callen owned the Boulder Taxi Company. He drove it up to the curb and we went outside and down the city hall steps. A long time before, Bill had been one of Sister Agnes’ pupils. He opened the cab door and helped her inside.
“Anything wrong, Sister?” he said. “Anything I can do?”
“Nothing, Bill,” sister smiled. “Nothing at all. Just take us back to the convent, if you please.”
“Him too?”
She smiled again.
I got in beside Sister Agnes. Bill looked at me and said it all over again—“If there’s anything I can do, Sister, just any little thing at all, just let me know.”
“Thank you, Bill.”
He kept looking at me and I knew he was remembering the time we put the goat in his cab on Halloween. “Don’t forget now, Sister. Just any old time.”
“You heard her,” I said, “you drip. Get this jalopy up to the convent—if it’ll go that far.”
“Listen,” he said, “I don’t like you.”
“Aw,” I said, “now my feelings are hurt.”
“I don’t like any little rat who commits a crime and has to have a sister of our Lord keep him outa the penitentiary.”
It made me mad but I didn’t let him know it.
“You cad,” I said, “you nasty man.”
He slammed the door and got into the driver’s seat. Sister Mary Agnes sat with her long white hands folded. We drove down Pearl Street and through the middle of town. It was almost summertime, the last week of school, just a few days b
efore graduation.
“What are we going to do now, Sister?” I asked.
“First I’m going to take you to Father Cooney.”
That wasn’t bad. Father Cooney didn’t deliver very good sermons but he was a sucker for penitence. All you had to do was hold your head down and make a sad face, and he’d give you the shirt off his back.
“Father Cooney’ll be very disappointed in me,” I said. “I’d rather do almost anything than face him.”
“It’s my duty to report this,” she said.
“I know. I’m awfully ashamed. Poor Father Cooney.”
“And then of course I must tell your father.”
“My father? You mean, my father?”
“Your father.”
Father Cooney was one thing, but my father was something else again. My father was the strong silent type. He was mostly strong and he liked to throw his weight around. He wasn’t particularly silent, either. Something else: he lacked imagination. There was only one way he dealt with situations of this kind. It was very unpleasant to think about.
“I’ll phone him tonight,” she said.
I laughed. Not a loud laugh. Softly.
She glanced at me. “Why are you laughing?”
“It’s kinda funny,” I said shaking my head. “Just a little while ago I said a prayer to our Lord. I asked Him to please not let my father know about this. And now you’re going to tell him.”
“Of course I am.”
“I know,” I said. “You have to. It’s your duty. It wouldn’t be right if you didn’t tell him. Still, at the same time, the Catechism says that all things come to him who prays. I know you have to tell my father. I know that. But still, it only goes to show that sometimes the things you learn in the Catechism don’t work out in real life.”
She watched me with her big blue eyes. I curled my mouth and slouched down in the seat and smiled like a man who is sad but not afraid, and ready for anything. All the way up the hill to St. Vincent’s she sat there watching the trees and houses floating past, not saying a word. Now and then she bit her lip and looked at me. I didn’t say anything either.
Father Cooney was eating supper. He told his housekeeper, Mrs. Hanley, she could be excused. Sister Mary Agnes and I watched her go away. Father Cooney had started his dessert, which was chocolate cake. He was a tall heavy man with a bald spot on the top of his head. He pointed to the other chairs around the table.
“Sit down,” he said, “please do. You like chocolate cake, Jimmy?”
“Boy—do I!”
Sister Agnes did not sit down. Father Cooney took up the cake knife and cut off a big slab for me.
“After what this young man has done,” Sister Agnes said, “I don’t think he should be rewarded with a piece of chocolate cake.”
“Indeed?” Father Cooney said looking at me. “What’s this Jimmy? What’ve you done?”
“I got into trouble.”
“Trouble? What kind of trouble?”
I hung my head and didn’t say anything. Father Cooney put the piece of cake on a dish in front of me. Sister Agnes folded her arms. The look on her face said: Leave the cake alone. I sneaked down into the chair and sat with my hands in my lap. Father Cooney was watching us. I lifted my hand from under the table and picked up a fork. The cake was devil’s food, with about a foot of chocolate icing. I took one quick look at Sister Agnes. She was daring me to try it. When I moved the fork toward the cake she stepped up to the table and put her hand on my arm.
“You haven’t told Father Cooney why you’re here,” she said.
I didn’t put down the fork but I hung my head in shame. “I was arrested, Father. Another kid and me got picked up for busting street lamps.”
“Indeed,” Father Cooney said.
I told him how it had happened.
“He wasn’t a Catholic boy,” I said. “I should of known better than associate with him.”
“There’s no reason why you shouldn’t associate with non-Catholics,” Father said, “provided they’re good boys.”
“He wasn’t exactly a bad boy,” I said. “Only thing is, he said he could break more lamps than any Catholic kid in town.”
“Who won?” Father said.
“It was a tie. Two apiece.”
“Humph.”
He ate another mouthful of cake and sipped some coffee. He was thinking it over. I moved my fork toward the dish again. This time Sister Agnes didn’t stop me. The cake melted in my mouth. I sat back and tasted the thick sweet chocolate on my teeth and tongue, tasted it all the way down into my stomach.
“Super,” I said.
Father Cooney tried again to make Sister Agnes sit down.
“Do try this cake,” he said. “It’s marvelous.”
“No thank you, Father. My own supper is waiting for me at the convent. I brought this young man here because I feel he should be reprimanded. Destroying public property is a very serious offense.”
“It is a serious offense,” Father Cooney said. “It most certainly is. And I intend to punish him severely.”
Right away Sister Agnes felt better. But I wasn’t worried. We had a man named Phipps in our parish who was arrested for beating up his wife. Father Cooney said he was going to punish him severely too. But all he did was get Phipps out of jail and pay for his rent and grocery bills.
“I shall phone Mr. Kennedy immediately,” Sister Agnes said.
“A splendid idea,” Father said.
All at once the cake had a flat taste. I couldn’t swallow any more. Sister Agnes said good-by to Father Cooney. At the door she stopped to say she wanted to see me before I went home. I felt better after she was gone. Father Cooney got me a glass of milk, and he gave me another piece of cake. For a long time we ate without talking. Then I finished my cake and sat back. Father Cooney lit a cigar.
“Last night I was reading the life of St. Paul,” he said. “A wonderful man—truly wonderful.”
It was coming. It was going to be a sermon about St. Paul and everybody in the parish agreed that Father Cooney’s sermons were the worst of any priest in the whole diocese.
“The Apostle Paul believed in the doctrine not of faith alone, but of faith by good works. Not mere lip service to our Blessed Savior, but piety as well, and good works; setting a fine example among the early Christians as well as the heathen.”
“Yes, Father.”
He tipped the ash off his cigar and leaned forward. “Let me put it this way, my boy: How would it have been if, in the early days of the struggling young Church, the blessed apostle, instead of setting an example by good works, had gone about the countryside breaking street lights? What chance would Christianity have had?”
“Not a chance,” I said.
“Indeed not.”
“Did they have street lights in those days, Father?”
“Perhaps they did, and perhaps no. Nevertheless the Light of Faith in Christ shone in the hearts of St. Paul and his loyal followers. They were willing and even glad to brave persecution and death in His name. In those humble men the light of Christian charity and brotherhood was nourished by the goodness in their hearts. Everywhere they traveled, they set an example that endeared them to God and man. It was not the light of destructiveness, of breaking things. It was the light of faith, of gentleness, of human brotherhood. You see what I mean, son?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Good. Fine. More cake?”
“No thanks, Father.”
He pushed back his chair and stood up.
“You may go now.”
He put his hand on my shoulder and walked to the door with me. “I’ll check with the Bureau of Power and Light, and see about the damage. But promise me you won’t do it again.”
“I promise.”
He shook hands with me just like I was a man. “Good night, Jim.”
“Good night, Father. Thanks for the cake.”
It was almost six o’clock. The nuns lived in the west wing of the school build
ing. I still had to see Sister Agnes, so I decided to go to the back door. At that hour it was most unusual to be seen knocking at the front door of the convent. It could only mean that a fellow was in some kind of mess. Besides, Sister Mary Thomas was in the convent kitchen. She did the cooking for the nuns. She was always good for a cooky or a piece of pie.
After I knocked, Sister Thomas opened the back door. She was the oldest nun in the convent. Some people said she was almost seventy. Her face was red and shining from the hot stove and her hands were covered with flour. The kitchen smelled like heaven, of apples and cinnamon.
“I have to see Sister Agnes,” I said.
“You always have to see Sister Mary Agnes. Little man, what now?”
“Nothing much.”
“Of course not. Just some trifle like bank robbery or something. And you probably wouldn’t like a piece of apple pie, either.”
“Just a very small piece.”
“I know,” she said, “just a very small piece.”
I sat down at the end of the long table that ran the length of the room. On the table were six hot steaming French apple pies. Sister Thomas cut me almost half a pie.
“We have some strawberry ice cream,” she said, “but I don’t suppose you want any; not very much, at any rate.”
“Just a bit.”
She laid three scoops of strawberry ice cream on the pie.
“That’s plenty,” I said.
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
The pie was so hot that the ice cream melted and the pink cream filtered through the cinnamon and apples. It was wonderful. It was even better than Father Cooney’s cake. Sister Mary Thomas waited until I was almost finished before she called Sister Agnes on the house telephone. All the nuns were plenty scared of Sister Agnes. Being Sister Superior, she gave the orders around there.
I put the last bite of pie in my mouth just as Sister Agnes came into the kitchen.
“What’s the meaning of this?” she said.
“He looked hungry,” Sister Thomas said.
“Hungry? He always looks hungry—the scoundrel.”
I stood up and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. Sister Agnes was so angry she stamped her foot. She walked to my empty dish and banged it with a fork.
