Songs in Ordinary Time (67 page)

The salesman had said he was adopted; then how would he know that Renie was his father; then again, maybe he didn’t want to tip his hand too soon. But what if he hated his father, hated the coward who had sired a bastard and left him to cry alone, his only solace Beatrice on her musty bed in that lightless room. Perhaps the son had spent all these years plotting his revenge. Renie’s hand trembled on the tabletop.

I
t was eleven o’clock and Joey Seldon was still in his popcorn stand. He paused in his cleaning and cocked his head. He thought he’d heard branches snapping where the forsythia grew, but the only sound now was crickets. With a sigh he hitched up his sagging pants, which were weighted down by all the coins in his pockets. Tonight’s crowd had been the biggest so far this summer.

He bent over the cooler and fished out the last two sodas from the elbow-deep water. All the ice had melted. He felt down the side of the cooler and unscrewed the metal plug, then smiled as he wiped his arms dry. In spite of the ruckus at the end of the concert it had been a grand night, just like the old days. “Come on, Joey, close up. As it is, there’s going to be hell to pay,” Sonny had snapped, last time he passed by. None of the commotion had been Joey’s fault, but the Chief’s patience had obviously worn as thin as everyone else’s.

In recent years whenever Joey had offered to retire rather than submit everyone to the bitter rigors of the annual license renewal, the Judge wouldn’t hear of it. Joey wasn’t just the Judge’s old friend, he was also his last cause. In his final quavery oration before the aldermen, the Judge had 326 / MARY MCGARRY MORRIS

declared Joey’s popcorn stand as much a landmark as the bronze statue of Ethan Allen, both symbols of the community’s goodness and strength. Joey hadn’t been surprised at the buzz that ran through the members. There were still people who thought he’d been up at Ark Towler’s still that night collecting hush money, when in truth his only crime had been love.

He sank wearily onto his stool. Lately he thought of her more and more, Winnie Towler, so young then with her tongue in his mouth. Sweet Winnie.

She thought he’d planned the explosion to get rid of Ark so he could have her all to himself. But by God’s all-witnessing eye it had been Ark who turned the flame a notch higher, then lurched at him with a drunken vengeance that for an instant had seemed just another crude and blundering misstep in a friendship that went way far back before Winnie, sweaty and jumping from his arms, from the bed, at the first creak of her husband’s loaded-down truck chugging up the road. Her long, high-boned face was the last image, the last vision he remembered having, even though he’d gone straight down to the still at the back of the barn when she jumped from the bed, so Ark would think it was him he’d come to see and not her, sweet Winnie with her heat-frazzled hair caught in his mouth, and her eyes on his through the moonlight, frightened to hear Ark back.
He tricked me
, she hissed.
I don’t know why he’s doing this
.

Shh Shh Shh—I’ll go down the barn and head him off
.

I do what he says, but he don’t even know what he wants anymore
.

Probably just forgot something
.

He’ll beat me
, she said, covering her ears as if she were hearing his heavy boots on the stairs.
That’s all he wants. That’s all he really wants
.

She was young, and Ark was his age, so once he started with her, love convinced him all she was to her husband was a drawing card, his bait.

Pretty young thing, three babies in three years, not a sag or flab anywhere, the only blemishes the violet menacing blooms of Ark’s legendary temper on her soft sweet flesh. But when he was thinking straight, he knew Ark Towler didn’t need any other attraction than his whiskey, the best in that part of the state. Times were mean and, fortuitously, Ark’s best friend had been Chief Joey Seldon. Or was he? Ark had demanded that night, as he turned so suddenly from the bright jet at the end of the copper coil that he hadn’t seen Ark’s club until it cracked against his chest, knocking the wind out of him. It wasn’t his whiskey, was it? Ark panted, whizzing the club past his head. It wasn’t his booze and his friendship that kept the Chief from shutting him down. Because all that time Seldon’d been fucking his wife, leaving his smell in her to mock him when he crawled into his own bed dog-tired night after night, until he couldn’t take it anymore, no more, no sir, he was going out of his mind because it was way past duty now, that was clear, more than a chore, so he’d circled back because Jesus Jesus Christ, it was just too steep a price to pay anymore.

The two men had wrestled and grappled, staggering in one’s drunken, the other’s guilty, embrace as they toppled stools and barrels and crates of empty bottles stacked for the new batch. Suddenly there was a poof, a flare SONGS IN ORDINARY TIME / 327

of light, then flash after flash after flash as the spilled alcohol erupted in fiery hissing puddles across the wide-planked floor, and Joey dove for the door, heat-borne through the orange blast and the concussive roar. She knelt over him, shrieking that he’d killed Ark, hadn’t he? God, she never meant that, never meant any harm to come to the father of her three baby girls. So that was that and no one ever knew the truth, maybe not even her, sweet Winnie, who went a little crazy afterward, or maybe always was, and he’d been as blind then as now, only then it had been love, the last he would ever know of it. Besides, to be fair, what young widow wouldn’t be frantic, having lost not only the support of her husband (as well as any hope of it with a blind lover), but also all of Ark’s money, burned under a floorboard where he’d hidden it from the thieving revenue agents and the pretty young wife he’d known from the start he couldn’t trust, and so had put her to the test.

Sweet, sweet Winnie’s face, still luminous as a shimmering moon in this lifetime of nights. So after all he’d been through, all he’d lost, tonight’s trouble was nothing. He laughed. Damn boys, they’d done it again right when Jarden Greene started playing “Good Night, Irene” on his violin. Once again they’d managed to slip his radio out from between the broken boards and set it up on his roof, where he couldn’t get at it. Right before they took off, they turned the volume up full blast on The Platters singing “The Great Pretender.”

After the concert Greene banged his fist on the counter and told him to start counting the days; his time was up; the free ride was over. On Sonny’s last trip by, he’d begged Joey not to give Greene and his cohorts any more ammunition. He’d assured Sonny he’d be closing soon. Sonny said he’d wait and give him a ride home, but then the cruiser radio sputtered with the report of an accident up on the access road: car on its roof, teenagers inside. The cruiser door slammed and Sonny raced off, siren screaming.

After Joey wiped down the inside of the cooler, he propped up the lid with a stick to air it out. He checked the outlets one last time to make sure all his plugs were disconnected. Smiling, he wound the cord around the radio and put it under the counter. Poor Greene. What a fool. Now there was a man who had not lived enough. Joey sat on his stool and began to count his money before he put it into the cigar box. He continued to take his time. This was all he needed anymore, the clear night air, the soft rustle of the leaves, the black sky he imagined pierced with stars.

D
ressed in black, Robert Haddad peered out from the tangled forsythia.

Sweat stung his eyes as he watched Joey Seldon. His hands shook. It was the waiting.

A
t eleven-ten the telephone jangled through the dark rectory. Sound asleep for the last hour, Monsignor Burke put the pillow over his head and waited for someone to answer it. When the ringing finally stopped, he 328 / MARY MCGARRY MORRIS

rolled onto his side and fell asleep. Again the phone began to ring, this time louder, louder. Louder.

Monsignor picked up the phone, his gruff answer causing Sister Mary Patrick, the nursing-home supervisor, to stammer in apology, especially since poor Mrs. Ahearne had been through this twice before, but now there could be no doubt. The old woman was drifting in and out of consciousness.

With her kidneys failing, this was surely the end. “Finally, the poor dear,”

the nun whispered, as if the call were being made from the old woman’s bedside. “I tried to wait, with the late hour and all, but she’s going fast, Monsignor. And besides, it’s Father Gannon she’s asking for.”

He was relieved, if not a little hurt. A silly woman, given to nervous giggling in the confessional, Mrs. Ahearne had been his parishioner for years.

“Father Gannon’s been with her the last two times,” the nun explained.

“Such a kind young man, holding her hand and all, but surely I don’t think that’ll be enough this time.”

He assured her Father Gannon would be right up.

“Sorry to wake you,” Sister said. “I know what you’ve been through lately, Monsignor, with the poor Hinds family.”

“They’ve had more than their share lately,” he sighed. Most of his free time these past few weeks had been spent at the lake with his cousin Nora and her husband, Cleve, though it seemed Cleve was having to be in town most nights these last few weeks. Nora said it was just all too painful for him, although the boy was in remission now.

“The poor thing, and him being their only son. Bernard, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Bernard Thomas, actually.”

“Sure and that’s right, after you, Monsignor. I’d forgotten. Tell me now, is it…is it
that
?”

“Yes, Sister, it is.” Cancer. Leukemia, actually.

Father Gannon’s bed was empty, and the Monsignor was not surprised.

Out all hours of the night, the young man could barely get up on time for morning Mass. When he complained, the Bishop suggested he should be grateful the young priest had found such a suitable outlet for his idealistic energies as the Kennedy campaign. “Sometimes,” the Bishop reminded him, “to keep this new breed happy we have to let them roam just a bit farther afield than we might like.” And besides, the Bishop added, he and the Senator’s dad went way back.

He padded barefoot down the hallway, relieved when he came to the rim of light under the bathroom door. He tapped once, then turned the knob, bewildered to see Father Gannon at the sink, barechested, in his clerical pants, a razor poised at his lathered cheek.

“But I can’t,” Father Gannon said upon hearing that Mrs. Ahearne needed the last rites. “I’ve got a meeting.”

His stricken expression troubled the Monsignor. “You have a sacrament to administer, Father Gannon, and that is far, far more important than any meeting.” He looked at him, hard, adding, “With anyone.” No. No, he SONGS IN ORDINARY TIME / 329

thought, seeing Father Gannon wince. It couldn’t be. Not right under his nose. No. He was a better pastor than that. In matters of celibacy the Bishop held his older clergy responsible for guiding the young men.

“But I’m expected. And I can’t call now.” He swallowed with widening eyes. “Could you do it for me, please, Tom? Please?”

His insolence was shocking. “She asked specifically for you, Father. Not me,” he said.

Head bowed, the young priest shuffled miserably. “You could tell her I’m away. This sounds terrible, I know, but you see, this has happened before, and then nothing ever comes of it.”

Something hardened in the Monsignor’s throat. It hurt to speak. “I think you have a choice to make here, Father Gannon. I pray your decision is the right one.” He returned to his room, where he sat in the dark on the edge of his rumpled bed, feet fast on the prickly wool carpet, eyes hard on the shaded window, until he finally heard the garage door rumble open and then the tires of his car turning over the pavement. There had been distant sirens wailing, and now their growing urgency seemed to justify his firmness with the troubled young priest. All this talk of nerves and needs and complexes was ridiculous. Father Gannon had been coddled, plain and simple.

What he needed now was discipline before he ended up another of the insipid dilettantes who only dabbled in God’s work when the mood hit them.

The seminaries were sending them out in droves lately: me, me, me, and the needs of the Church be damned. Gone were the days when a young priest cared enough about advancement to do all he could to lighten his superior’s load. It was time now for a dose of reality, time to teach Father Gannon responsibility to his vocation and his parishioners. He would call his cousin Nora in the morning. If her invitation to the lake was still open, he’d accept and leave Father Gannon completely in charge here.

S
he didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t stand out here by the road any longer. Joe had never been this late before. All the lights in the lot were out. Mr. Coughlin had already left and the office was locked, so she couldn’t even call home for a ride. And she certainly couldn’t call the rectory and ask for Joe. Two of the girls had offered her a ride, and so had Blue Mooney, with Carper grinning and echoing everything his cousin said, until Blue had snapped at him to shut up. God, it was like living in a freak show, she thought as she started to walk down Main Street. It was worse at home, with Duvall in and out all the time, proclaiming that the soap was coming, yes, the soap was definitely on its way. He’d just heard, the soap was coming; the warehouse was working round the clock to fill all the orders. And now her mother was saying it, too:
When the soap comes
. What, you need school activity fees in two weeks? Well, maybe the soap will be here then. Whatever the problem, she’d take care of it after the soap came.

Her father had been home for two weeks now and hadn’t called them once. Benjy was a nervous wreck, and the open animosity between Norm and Omar was almost frightening. And on top of it all, last night as she was 330 / MARY MCGARRY MORRIS

putting her clothes back on in the Monsignor’s car, Joe had said that making love to her was all he ever thought or cared about now. Even during Mass.

Twice during the Consecration that morning he’d lost his place and had to start over. When he talked like that, she never knew what to say. Upset by her silence, he’d beg her to tell him what was wrong, what was bothering her. But how could she explain this violent commingling of guilt and longing that left her feeling bruised and sore, without it sounding like confession, an admission of the worst sin, desire but not love. What if Lester was right?