II
After a quick change into a T-shirt and jeans, I took the Macdonald Bridge and followed the traffic eastward. The Miller’s Tale was a once-respectable neighbourhood pub that had fallen victim to unchecked development all around it. Located on a main thoroughfare in the sprawling city of Dartmouth, it was surrounded by fast-food joints and X-rated video shops. There were a couple of beat-up
muscle cars with tinted windows in the parking lot. The bar was dim, and nobody looked up when I walked in. A few morose drinkers sat at the bar; several pool tables were in operation. I ordered a beer and told the bartender I was looking for Trevor Myers.
“You’re not looking very hard.”
“I don’t know him.”
“So what do you want to see him for?”
“A mutual friend, who won’t be able to join us for two years less a day, sent me to buy him a drink.”
“Yeah, right.” He raised his voice. “Trev, this guy wants to buy you a beer.”
A young man in a black muscle shirt straightened up from the nearest pool table. “I never saw this guy before.”
“So let’s get acquainted. What are you drinking?” “Alpine.”
“An Alpine for him and a Keith’s for me. We’ll be over there.” I nodded towards a table at the opposite end of the room.
Myers trailed after me. I had to resist the urge to turn and watch my back. He sat in the seat against the wall and looked at me with a bored expression. He was fairly tall, muscular, and would have been good-looking if not for the cheesy moustache, the long, straggly brown hair, and the greasy ball cap pulled over his forehead. His knuckles were tattooed. I inferred that his appearance had gone downmarket since the days when he enjoyed the attentions of a young woman enrolled at one of Canada’s premier liberal arts universities.
“Who the fuck are you and what do you want?”
I waited until our beer had been delivered and paid for, then got to the point: “I want to know about the fight you had up at Mount A in 1982, when the police got involved.”
“I don’t remember any fight.”
“Sure you do. What was it about?”
“I been in lots of fights. And I don’t even go looking for them. There’s a lot of assholes in this world. What can you do?”
“The sooner you tell me the sooner I’ll be out of your hair.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you do.”
I sat and sipped my beer as if I had all the time in the world. “Why do you suppose this man came flying out of his car and attacked you?”
“What’s it to you?”
“I’m interested.”
“You a friend of this guy?”
“You might say that. Do you know the guy’s name?”
“Why should I?”
“Just thought you might.”
He drained his beer and seemed to come to a decision. “He’s a psycho. He tried to fucking strangle me. Lifted me up by the throat with one hand and slammed me up against a tree.”
“Why do you think he did that?”
“Because he’s nuts, why else?”
“Did he say anything?”
“He was all bent out of shape about this chick, this girlfriend of mine.”
“He knew this girl?”
“Oh, yeah. Or wanted to, real bad. He had the hots for her and I guess he didn’t dig the fact she liked me better than him. Tough shit. Get your own piece of ass.”
“You told him that?”
“I don’t remember. Prob’ly.”
“So then what?”
“So then he cracked me in the face and I pulled a knife on him.”
“A knife?”
“Yeah, a knife. You deaf? I seen the look on his face and went right for his heart — it was either him or me.”
“Did you stab him?”
“I drew some blood. More like scratches. Mostly just managed to tear his shirt into shreds. He tried to get the blade away from me. Made a bloody mess of his hands, but that didn’t stop him. He managed to get it and he threw it away. After all, the prick had about fifty pounds on me.” He turned and looked at the bartender and I signalled for another beer for Myers.
“Did the police know about the knife?”
“Do I look like a fucking moron?”
“I’ll take that as a no. So he got the knife away from you. Then what?”
“Then he came at me with his fists. I’d like to see him try me now!”
A young lout with a shaven head and a goatee approached our table. “Hey man, Trev, you gonna —”
Myers whirled on him. “Fuck off! Can’t you see I’m busy?”
The interloper backed off. “Okay, man, take it easy.”
“You seem a little tense, Trevor,” I suggested. “Have you seen this guy lately?”
“No.”
“Did you take anything from him?”
“Huh?”
“The guy in the fight. Did you take anything?”
“Like what?”
“Like a neck chain.”
“He had on some Jesus medal or some fucking thing. Thought I might get a few bucks for it.”
“Could it have been a cross?”
“I don’t fucking remember. Like, I wasn’t going to wear it, man.”
“This girlfriend you had. Did she like the way you talk?”
He smirked. “She liked me well enough. I didn’t say ‘fuck’ in front of her. She didn’t like it. The word, anyway.”
“How did you meet her?”
“I was taking a couple courses at the college. Told her I wanted to be an engineer. She liked that. I gave her some bullshit about trying to better myself, so I’d be good enough for her! She fell for it. For a while anyhow. But I ended up dropping out. It was boring.”
“How did the police find the guy who beat you up?”
“I took down the guy’s licence number, like a good citizen. Or maybe it was because I thought I might get a couple guys and go find this asshole again and kick his head in. But turned out the car was a rental. He didn’t stick around.”
Neither did I. On the way back to Halifax, I tried to make sense of Myers. The altercation was a little more serious than I had imagined, but, otherwise, the story was pretty much what I expected. The only thing that struck me as curious was his utter lack of curiosity about my identity and that of his assailant. Could I seriously believe he didn’t know who Burke was? I didn’t figure him for a regular reader of the newspaper, but had he never seen the television news? Burke and I had both had more than our share of publicity. I grew
weary thinking about trying to raise the subject with my client again, but I headed for the rectory nonetheless.
III
When I got there, I didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved. Burke was not alone. I was pleased once again to see that, although his wings had been — understandably — clipped following his conviction, he still had priestly company once in a while. He was sitting in his room chatting with a priest a few years older than he was. I had seen him on occasion around the city, at sporting events, if memory served. He was introduced to me as Father Bernie Drohan. They invited me to sit and have a drink.
“We were just discussing the Vanier Cup,” Father Drohan informed me. The national college football championship, which was coming up in a few weeks’ time. “Next year, Brennan, you and I will go up to Toronto for it. Your troubles will be all behind you by then, and —”
He looked towards the open door. “Are you going to hammer nails with that, O’Flaherty?”
Father O’Flaherty had halted by the door. He was carrying a large Celtic cross, made of stone with the familiar circle through its cross-pieces. Drohan said: “If you’re going to bear Our Lord’s crucifix through these hallowed halls, Michael, show a bit more reverence, would you?”
O’Flaherty’s face blushed a bright pink. “You’re right as always, Bernard. I didn’t even realize.” He held the cross before him as if processing into the church for Mass. “Better?”
Father Drohan and I laughed. Brennan was staring at the cross as if he had never seen one before.
Mike explained: “I’m taking it down to Mrs. Kelly. She wants one to show a relative but, of course, she didn’t want to bring the woman up here. She might see us peeing or otherwise being less than holy, and lose her religion as a result.” He trotted off.
Father Drohan shook his head. “Sweet guy. Mike showed me the ropes when I came here from Newfoundland.”
“When was that?” I asked.
“Oh, back in the mid-sixties.”
I turned to Burke. “Did you know Mike back then, Brennan? I’ve received mixed signals from him on the subject.”
“No. I didn’t even know he was here.”
Drohan asked: “What years were you here at the first choir school, Brennan? I know I saw you around at some point in the past.”
“From 1968 to 1970.”
“Oh. Well, Mike may have been banished to the weeds by then, and he might not want you to know about it,” the priest said uncomfortably. “But he was back in the game not long afterwards.”
“Banished! What do you mean?” This I had to hear.
Father Drohan directed his reply to his fellow priest. “See, the thing was, Mike took part in an exorcism, which went way —”
“A
what?!”
Brennan barked.
Drohan cleared his throat. “An exorcism.”
Burke stared at the other man, who busied himself with the ring of condensation his glass had left on the table. Round and round went his finger, then he added more water from the side of his glass.
Brennan found his voice: “You can’t just do that sort of thing on your own. You have to get permission, don’t you? Well, what would I know about it?” He got up and raised his glass. We all agreed to a refill. “When did this event take place?”
“Late sixties, or so I understand.”
“Where was Archangel Michael stationed when he launched his operation against Lucifer?”
“Right here in Halifax.”
“Here?” Burke slapped his hands on the table and glared at Drohan.
“What, in our house?” the older priest chided. “I suppose O’Flaherty would say the devil does his work wherever he sees fit. After the incident, Michael was transferred out of the city parish he’d been in, Holy Trinity, I believe it was. He was sent to some little village, I can’t recall where, for a few years. Had to undergo some sort of re-education. Counselling maybe. He and old Rory Brosnan.”
“Brosnan? I remember him,” Burke said. “Great big fellow, rather wild-looking with a huge mane of fiery red hair. Talked as if he had just crossed over from County Kerry. I heard him say Mass in Irish one time.”
“That’s the man. He had done this kind of thing years before, in Ireland. A child way out in the country was supposedly possessed. Brosnan was the
primum mobile
of the Halifax episode. O’Flaherty was his acolyte.”
“So tell us,” I broke in, “what exactly happened?”
Bernard Drohan looked at the open door as if concerned, even after all these years, that the wrong ears might overhear. “It was a young child here on your turf, Brennan. St. Bernadette’s, though back then it was an orphanage.”
“Oh Christ, don’t be telling me that,” Burke muttered.
“I don’t know whether you had anything to do with the place then.”
“If anyone asks, no! But yes, I used to teach the kids music a couple of times a week. Helped out once in a while, if something needed to be done.”
“Well, this one child —”
“Boy or girl?” I asked.
“Boy.”
“Who?” Brennan demanded.
“Honestly, Brennan, I don’t remember his name. Jamie? I don’t know. Anyway, he was around twelve or thirteen, a bit of a handful but not uncontrollable. Not until this night back in 1967 or whenever it was. The kid went nuts —”
“A sounder diagnosis than the one made by Dr. O’Flaherty, I’m thinking,” Burke butted in.
“Oh, well, it was Brosnan who saw the devil’s hand at work, apparently.”
“God!”
“Now, Brennan. Jesus of Nazareth cast out a few demons Himself,” Drohan reminded him with a smile. He got up and quietly closed the door. “This kid attacked one of the other children when he was sleeping. Began hitting him, kicking, biting. Screaming obscenities at him, and babbling incoherently. The poor little boy in his bed didn’t know what hit him. I’m assuming the sister in charge got the miscreant subdued for the night. But when they tried to deal with him next day, he went after the nun or the priest who was brought in to straighten him out. I don’t know the sequence of
events, but Rory Brosnan got involved. He brought O’Flaherty into it somehow and, well...”
“Well what?” Burke asked.
“They took the kid out to a camp or some other isolated spot.”
“Wouldn’t that look brilliant in a tabloid headline?”
“Nobody ever found out. Thank God. Anyway, out they went and began the ritual.”
“What made them think this was possession as opposed to just bad behaviour or a psychiatric disorder?” I asked.
“I think it had something to do with the things the boy was saying. Mike spoke to me about it a few years ago. Long after he had done his penance and returned to the fold. I remember he was, by turns, sheepish about it and defiant. He said they went out there in their surplices, with a violet stole, holy water and copies of the
Rituale Romanum,
and started the procedure. Lots of prayers, signs of the cross, laying on of the stole. They kept him out there for two nights, maybe three. By the time they had finished, the interior of the building was virtually destroyed. There was a rumour afterwards that the priests whitewashed the walls to remove whatever was scrawled all over them during the uproar. O’Flaherty wouldn’t answer when I asked him about the walls. But he did say that, with the benefit of hindsight, he believed he and Brosnan were right. That it was a case of diabolical possession. Whatever it was, the boy settled down at the end of the session. They took him to a medical doctor, and he was treated —”
“A little late in the day,” Brennan observed.
“— for some cuts and bruises he suffered while thrashing about. He was given some kind of medication, I don’t know what.”
“Whatever became of the boy?” I asked.
“Don’t know. He may have gone back to the orphanage. Or he may have been placed in a foster home. It’s possible he was sent out of the city, or out of the province. He wasn’t a local boy. Who knows?”
“Probably in a psychiatric hospital somewhere, to this day,” Brennan commented tartly.
“Or prison,” I added. “Father O’Flaherty seems like such a gentle old guy. I cannot imagine him in a situation like that.”