I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive (24 page)

"W-wait just a minute. I, I mean, begging your indulgence, Father, but you ... you read my letter?"

"Well, yes, of course. I am, after all, His Excellency's personal secretary. With the exception of certain high-level correspondence from Rome, I'm the first to open all of his mail. Then I respond—"

"So what you're telling me is the letter I received was from you, and His Excellency never even saw mine."

"Of course not. I mean, I read it first, and then I passed it on, and then I composed the letter you received, but I assure you, His Excellency is well aware of your letter and its contents."

"Oh!" The priest's face brightened and fell in the same breath. "Oh, I see. Then His Excellency isn't interested in what I've ... observed."

The older priest studied the younger's face in a way that made the moment seem longer than it really was. Not a piercing gaze, but a brief yet all-encompassing inventory of every hint that lay half hidden there. The mask of parochial cordiality vanished and was replaced by a practiced bureaucratic poker face, and the whiskey bottle was already out and the glass charged before Father Killen could refuse, not that Father Monaghan ever asked.

He drained his own glass and held the bottle expectantly until Father Killen emptied his in kind. Only after Father Monaghan had refilled them both did he set the bottle down and reply.

"His Excellency ... is concerned."

"As well he should be! Something special, something miraculous has occurred—"

Father Monaghan stopped the priest with an open palm before he could gain momentum.

"Miraculous? My dear Father Killen. That is precisely the kind of language that concerns His Excellency." He produced the priest's letter from the top drawer of his desk and thumbed through the seventeen dog-eared typewritten pages. "Words like
miraculous
and
divine
have very specific meaning and gravity in Church doctrine—"

Father Killen pushed away the untouched second shot of whiskey. "I'm well aware of their meaning, Father, having been educated in and by the Church since I was a boy."

"Please do not misunderstand, Father. No one, least of all His Excellency, is questioning either your grasp of language or your theological background. As for myself, as a humble administrator I have nothing but admiration for your dedication to your calling as a preacher and minister to your flock. You are truly doing the Lord's work every day out there in the parish where it counts. But then, well, there it is, isn't it? That's what it's all about. You know these people. You live with them, sharing their every triumph and tragedy. You feel their pain and their joy as well. So when one of them comes to you and tells you that he's witnessed something unusual, that someone, one of their own, after all, possesses certain ... gifts, then of course, you—"

"No!" Father Killen shook his head emphatically. "Graciela isn't from the neighborhood. She comes from Mexico. Someplace deep in the interior, I should think. She barely even speaks English!" Father Monaghan nodded knowingly but before he could utter any affirmation Killen stopped him. "I know what you're thinking, Father, but with all due respect to yourself and His Excellency"—he indicated his own correspondence on the desk with a wag of a forefinger—"this is no secondhand fairy story that I'm passing along for your entertainment or my own, and this is no ordinary Mexican girl! I have witnessed one miracle after another, Father ... No, I'm not talking about parlor tricks! I'm talking about lives, Father, real people's lives, not to mention their souls! I have baptized no fewer than four adults in the past six weeks. That's four new Christians, Father. I've confirmed a dozen more who were lost to the streets in their teens, and my catechism classes are bursting at the seams, not to mention the dozens of non-Catholics who turn up at all hours of the day and night. Yes, they're prostitutes and pimps and heroin addicts. Do you have any idea of the scourge of heroin in my parish, Father? There are those who swear that any woman or man who picks up that poison is doomed, and I believed that too, but that was before I watched in awe as one lost soul after another cast off those chains forever. They come to my church and they ask to light candles and they all say the same thing, that they came because Graciela asked them to. And then they're gone."

"Gone?" Father Monaghan asked in a tone somewhere between honest query and exasperation.

"Away! Home! Someplace where they can begin again. Oh, I realize that I can never prove that, Father, but I know in my heart that it's true. As of yet, not one has returned to the streets, I can assure you. As you say, I'm out there every day—"

"Which brings us to another matter, Father Killen. There have been, of late, several ... complaints from your parishioners ..."

Father Killen checked the awakening beast within him.
In through your nose, out through your mouth.

"What parishioners?"

Father Monaghan took notice of his darkening countenance and proceeded cautiously. "I have no knowledge of any name or names, and even if I had—"

"Then you wouldn't be disposed to divulge them. How convenient."

Father Monaghan stiffened. "Father, you forget yourself. I am, after all, His Excellency's representative in this matter. And His Excellency speaks for the Church and the Holy See, and His Excellency is concerned that you may be neglecting your until recently exemplary ministry to the faithful of your parish and have instead immersed yourself in a self-appointed mission to the miscreants of the adjacent red-light district."

"South Presa Street is well within the borders of my parish—"

"Your parish, Father, is your parishioners."

"And Graciela is one of those parishioners, as are all of the fallen who find their way back to the fold! What's more, I have neglected no duty that I'm aware of unless the diocese deems it my responsibility to assimilate every petty prejudice of my constituency. It would seem to me that my vocation would be better served by an example of Christian tolerance and forgiveness. It's not as if I woke up one day and rushed out onto the streets in search of a miracle, Father, and even if I had, South Presa Street would have been the last place on earth I would have looked. These souls, these poor lost souls, by the grace of God found their way into my church. And it was they who led me to Graciela! And not a moment too soon, I might add. Why, it is a miracle in and of itself that the child has survived. Abandoned in a strange country; no family, no friends. Forced to seek shelter in the worst kind of den of iniquity imaginable—"

"A brothel! Then she is a prostitute?"

"No! I have it on the best ... uh, authority that she is nothing of the kind. And it's a boarding house, Father! A seedy boarding house in a seedy part of town, that's all."

"You've been there?"

"Yes! Well, not inside. Only as far as the front porch. She wouldn't allow me—"

"Then how do you know what does or does not go on inside?"

"There are stories."

"Stories?"

"I meant, accounts ..."

"Stories, accounts—Father! Do you really expect His Excellency to respond seriously to the frivolous suggestion of the beatification of a—"

"Not beatification, Father. Sainthood."

"All the more outrageous! A cause of canonization brought by a newly minted parish priest and based solely on the idle gossip of harlots and pimps?"

"Not gossip, Father. Granted, without violating the sanctity of the confessional I can only—"

Father Monaghan audibly gasped and crossed himself.

"I can only ask for your indulgence and beg your pardon if I am unable to divulge the identities of my sources, but make no mistake, Father, there are worse than prostitutes residing in the Yellow Rose."

"Father Killen!"

"There are thieves!"

"Father Killen, I must—"

"Lesbians!"

"
Father Killen!
"

"Even an abortionist! An abortionist, Father! A murderer of the innocent operating under the same roof that shelters the blessed girl ... yes, Father,
blessed,
at the very least. And I know whereof I speak, for I have witnessed the difference she makes in the lives of everyone she touches!" Father Monaghan flinched as Killen held out his right hand as proof and then withdrew it when he realized that there was nothing there to show. "Oh, I'm so sorry, Father. But you
must
believe me: every word of that letter that you hold in your hand is true, and, as God is my witness, the girl Graciela bears the Mark of our Lord!"

Father Monaghan was out of his seat, around the desk, and to the door in less than an instant. Father Killen's ears popped as the heavy door thudded shut.

"
Stigmata,
" he hissed, "is yet another word that's not to be bandied about!"

"I have seen it!"

The older priest was behind him now, grilling him like a teacher who had caught a student not paying attention in class.

"Where? On what part of her body?"

"Her wrist."

"Aha! Well, as far as I know, every stigmatic recognized by the Church to date has received the Marks in the
palms
of the hands and the tops of the feet. Some even show the wounds of the spear in their sides and the Crown of Thorns on their heads, but unless I misheard you, this girl has only one?"

"I saw no other, Father. I've only met her the one time—"

The older priest leaned over his shoulder like a disapproving teacher. "One time?"

"Yes. But ... it was weeks before I could even find the girl." He considered recounting his confusion when he left Graciela that day but thought better of it. It was a temptation by the devil, he had decided. His final test. "She wouldn't ask me in, Father, but she came out on the porch and I saw the wound clearly and—"

"And it was on her wrist?"

"It is a fact, Father," Killen recited, "that by all historical accounts, Roman crucifixions were accomplished by driving the nails through the subjects' wrists, the tissue and bones in the palms being far too weak to support—"

"By all historical accounts!" mimicked Father Monaghan. "And this being a matter of theology rather than history or science, historical accounts, no matter how credible in the academic world, are irrelevant. In fact, for the purposes of this discussion, the only versions of events surrounding the Passion of our Lord that matter are the Gospels, Father, which, when they mention any wounds at all, clearly state that they were located on the
palms
of our Savior's hands. That is
hands,
Father. Plural. And His feet. Did you see her feet?"

"Feet? I don't remember," Killen lied. Graciela had been barefoot. "But I saw the wrist clearly enough and it was just like they all said. On her right wrist, and the blood on the bandage was a vivid shade of red and still flowed freely only last week! Graciela received her wound last fall, Father!"

Father Monaghan returned to his side of the desk but remained standing, leaning forward to reengage Killen. "According to whom?"

"My parishioners! Good people. The salt of the earth," Killen replied.

"That's right.
Simple
people, Father. Mostly Mexican people. People who speak English as a second language, if at all."

Killen shifted in his chair. "I come from the west country, Father. In my corner of Ireland we still speak Irish every day of our lives."

"And I envy you that, Father. It is indeed a shame that the old tongue was all but dead by the time we drove the English out. But this is America, Father, and the language that's spoken here is English. There are many among your parishioners who have only recently arrived in this country. They are descended, after all, from primitive people. Savages who only a few generations ago ran naked in the jungle and offered up human sacrifices to pagan gods. They bring along with them not only their language but many customs and superstitions that they insist on clinging to even though they can only encumber their transition into their new lives. Imagine, Father, a New York City or a Boston where the Irish kept to themselves in insular communities. Oh, other immigrants have chosen that path. The Italians. The Jews. But the Irish, Father, have always assimilated even when and where we weren't initially welcomed. We worked our way up by doing the jobs that no one else wanted. In the mines. In the streets. As policemen and firemen. Even the priesthood, Father. We've done our bit as well. It took time but we've earned the respect of those that set themselves up as our betters until, well—America may have been discovered by an Italian sailing under a Spanish flag, but the first Catholic president of the United States was an Irishman ... God rest his soul."

Father Killen blinked as if momentarily dazed before allowing that he had admired the president very much. "I'm just not sure," he ventured, "what all this has to do with my letter."

"Everything, Father. Everything to do with your letter, your parish, and your parishioners. Your
real
parishioners. Not to mention your future. Your calling. Your career."

Killen opened his mouth to react to this latest implication but managed only a pitiful, dry clucking sound as his tongue separated from the roof of his mouth, as impotent as a revolver's hammer falling on an empty chamber. He slid down in his chair.

Father Monaghan stood over him for a meaningful moment before settling into his own seat. He pushed Killen's glass back across the desk and refilled his own. "Have you never wondered why an inexperienced parochial vicar not yet out of his thirties would be handed a parish of his own?"

"I ... I g-guess," Killen stammered, "I reckoned that there was no one else to fill the post."

"On the contrary, there were any number of more experienced priests around the diocese who qualified. And any of them would have been thrilled to have your post. Such a beautiful little church. One of the original San Antonio missions. Father Alvarez, for instance, wanted the position. From Incarnate Word College. He was born here in San Antonio. Grew up in the neighborhood. He told me that he had always dreamed that one day he would be pastor there. There are others. Father Echeverria, the associate pastor at Our Lady of Sorrows. Father Franco. All scholars. All good priests." He leaned forward and gestured for Killen to do the same, then whispered, "All Mexican."