The other main topic for discussion was Scott's parents' visit this coming Saturday. His revelation nearly a year ago that he was gay had hit them hard. A reconciliation had taken place, but, as part of it, Scott had insisted they come to Chicago and meet me. We both had some apprehensions as the day drew closer. Meeting one's in-laws for the first time can be delicate.
Around eight-thirty we settled down to watch
Field of Dreams
. I'd gotten him the video for his birthday. We both love the movie. We sprawled on the couch, our feet up on the coffee table, a bowl of popcorn between us.
Neither of us cooks much, witness the pizza for dinner. He took a cooking course a few months ago. Big deal. All it means is when he makes the popcorn, he doesn't burn it anymore. Although to be fair he could make an occasional fabulous holiday feast even before he took the class.
After devouring the popcorn, I moved the bowl to the floor and snuggled, settling into a nice, quiet Saturday night. An hour into the movie, headlights pulled into the driveway. “That better not be the dynamic trio again,” I said.
“Maybe it's Kevin Costner wanting to do a threeway.”
“In your dreams,” I said.
It turned out to be my brother Glen and his oldest boy, Jerry. Of all my three brothers and sister, I'm closest to Glen, who's four years younger. Many Saturday nights he and his wife, Jeannette, stop by, and the four of us spend long happy hours together. Usually we play games. Monopoly is my specialty. Of my nephews and nieces, I'm closest to Jerry. Glen started bringing him on Saturday nights a couple of years ago. I love the kid, but he wins at Monopoly far more than a twelve-year-old should.
They didn't usually stop by unannounced, but it wasn't unheard of. Jeannette wasn't with them. Glen said they'd been
in the area and Jerry'd remembered he'd left his hockey skates here last weekend. They planned to stop only a minute.
Glen has the darkest hair of all of us and, at six feet, is the shortest, but he's probably the best athlete. Being youngest had taught him he'd have to fight twice as hard to beat the rest of us. He also has a wicked sense of humor. It cost him a trip to the doctor and ten stitches when he glued all the pages of our older brother Brian's secret stack of
Playboy
magazines together. Brian's got a mean temper.
Glen didn't take off his coat. He sat on the edge of a chair while Jerry searched. We chatted about the Bears' collapse during the past season. Ten minutes later Jerry's voice drifted up from the basement, asking if I'd come help him look.
Glen yelled for him to hurry. I shook off my lethargy and lumbered down the stairs. I found Jerry sitting on the workout bench tossing an old baseball between his hands. He'd only turned on the light for the stairs, so basement shadows drifted from corners and crevices. He gave me a brief smile, all braces. He resembled his dad more than any of his brothers and sisters, especially the way his right ear was slightly higher than the left. I wondered if his peers teased him about it, the way we teased his dad when we were kids. A tough fighter, an honest kid, not a whiner, wearing a junior high-school letterman's jacket a shade too big for him. When he lost a game, it was always, Let's try again. He caught on fast to tricks and strategies.
I sat on the second step from the bottom. Other than the brief glance with the smile, he wouldn't look at me. Tossed the ball back and forth.
“Not here for your skates?”
He shook his head.
I leaned back, resting an elbow on the fourth step. He'd confided a number of secrets to me in the past. Kid stuff, mostly, but I'd always taken him seriously and never betrayed his confidence. Obviously he'd come over to talk. I only needed to wait. In a few years he'd be talking to his buddies, not an
adult. For now he was still enough the trusting kid to try me first.
“Must be serious,” I said.
He nodded.
“Trouble at home?”
He shook his head.
I walked over and sat down next to him on the bench. It surprised me for a second, sitting next to him, to realize how tall he'd gotten. Hair as dark as his dad's; he'd probably pass him by a few inches in height. I reached over and took the ball from him.
“I'll help if I can,” I said.
I met the level gaze of his blue eyes. He gulped and said, “You know, Uncle Tom, how you said you and Scott would never live in fear just because you're gay?”
My turn to nod. “You afraid of something? Somebody bothering you?” I asked this quietly. The dim basement light lent itself to confidences.
He gave a brief shiver in the coolness. “I can't tell my dad. You know how upset he gets.” Older brother Brian isn't the only one in the family with a temper. I have the longest fuse of any of them, but when I explode it's probably the worst of all.
“The priest at church.” Jerry gulped. “He told me he'd kill me if I ever told.”
Jerry, I knew, served as an altar boy at St. Joseph's Parish in River's Edge. Glen had married a Catholic and agreed to bring up the kids in her religion. Their religious orientation didn't bother me.
I watched Jerry carefully as he told me the story. He'd served Saturday morning Mass earlier today for Father Clarence Rogers. Jerry had actually forgotten his ice skates in the altar boys' robing room off the sacristy and had gone back to get them. He'd been rooting around in the back of a walk-in closet under a pile of old cassocks when he'd heard angry voices.
Jerry'd only recognized Father Clarence's voice, and he didn't hear everything they said, but a lot of what he did hear was about Father Sebastian. The two voices blamed each other for his death, one of them saying they were lucky to be Catholic priests in Cook County, where people still respected the clergy enough to know when to shut up. They'd yelled about screwing their stories up when they talked to the police.
Jerry'd frozen when the voices started. You weren't supposed to be in the sacristy without permission. The voices faded. Jerry began to think he was safe. He stretched to relax his tense muscles. In doing so he bumped a row of empty hangers. They clanged resoundingly. He prayed the voices had gone far enough not to hear, and for tense moments nothing happened.
Then the door swung open. Father Clarence dragged him out of the closet and raged at him for ten minutes about being a sneak, and a cheat who would go to hell.
“I kind of believed the threats, and kind of not. He was really mad, and he did scare me. Uncle Tom, I don't understand all this.” Jerry scratched the brush-cut side of his head. The hair on top and in back flowed in waves nearly to his shoulders. “He said if I told, I'd be sorry. I lied and told him I didn't hear anything, but I don't know if he believed me.
“I thought about it as I walked home. I know I'm not supposed to tell lies, especially to a priest, but I'm glad I did. If I listened to him, I'd have to live in fear. You told me you'd never do that. I won't either.” He looked proud, young shoulders squared, chin thrust forward just like his dad's when daring us to fight thirty years ago.
I said, “You were right to tell me. Don't worry about the lie you told him. You don't have to be afraid of some priest. His threats sound like those of a terrified man, not somebody who's practicing what a good priest is supposed to do.”
I watched some of the tension drain from his body. “I'm glad I told you. My dad would have yelled and carried on. He might not even believe me. Do you?”
“Yes.”
“You won't tell my dad, will you, Uncle Tom?”
“Not unless you say it's okay,” I said. I asked him a few questions about what he'd heard, but he only remembered what he'd already told me. I asked him about Father Sebastian. He frowned. Said he didn't know him well. Father Clarence ran the altar boy program and taught them religion classes at school. He'd only served mass for Father Sebastian twice. They'd barely talked before and after the service.
“What are you going to do?” Jerry asked.
“What do you want me to do?”
He looked at me carefully, then gave me a wicked grin. “Get the son of a bitch.”
“I think I'll have a little chat with Father Clarence in the morning.”
“Don't hurt him too much,” Jerry said.
I smiled. “I won't.” I clapped Jerry on the shoulder and stood up. “Maybe I'll beat you at Monopoly tonight,” I said as we mounted the stairs.
I won the last Monopoly game. First Glen, then Jerry, landed on Marvin Gardens with a hotel just after I made a fortunate deal with Scott. Served them right for bankrupting me in the first two games. They left at eleven.
I've got an old VCR and a small TV in the bedroom. We threw the unfinished movie into the system, turned the sound on low, got undressed, and crawled into bed. Scott sat up with his back propped by a mound of pillows against the headboard. I pressed my back onto his chest. He draped his arms around me. He waited until we were comfortable to ask what was bothering Jerry.
I pressed the pause button on the remote control.
“How did you know he was upset?”
I felt him shrug. “Instinct.”
Scott is great with kids, especially those under six years old. When we'd known each other about two years, I agreed to baby-sit Glen's kids while he and Jeannette took a two-week cruise to the Bahamas over Christmas vacation. I half expected Scott to retreat to his Lake Shore Drive penthouse, a recent purchase after his first million-dollar contract. Instead, he'd eagerly volunteered to help. Some things I'm good at. They don't include little kids, but I owed Glen and Jeannette a big favor.
Jerry'd just turned five. The other kids were younger, down to six months old. Over the two weeks we'd done a couple of family things with my other nephews and nieces: Lincoln Park Zoo, the Field Museum. Scott amazed me. He can organize a herd of unruly kids as well as any mother. Then, after a mildly chaotic, kid-filled New Year's Eve, Jerry woke up in the middle of the night frightened, crying, and throwing up. I hadn't the
first notion of what was wrong or what to do. The kid wouldn't stop being sick. I'd about decided on a trip to the hospital emergency room when Scott padded into the kitchen. Through his yawns he quickly sized up the situation. He took the kid, and I ran to get dressed.
Minutes later I found them in the rocking chair in the darkened living room. I watched from the kitchen doorway. Scott rocked Jerry slowly, speaking softly to him. The crying had become intermittent. Once in a while Jerry asked for something to drink.
I brought a glass of water from the kitchen, knelt next to them, and offered him the drink. Scott shook his head. “He won't keep it down,” he said. “Bring me a towel.”
I dashed to the bathroom and hurried back. “What's wrong with him?” I whispered.
At that moment Jerry let out a series of plaintive cries. Scott soothed him. “He's probably got a touch of the flu. He shouldn't drink anything until he's done throwing up. When that's over, we could give him a few sips of warm Coke.”
Of course there wasn't any in the house. So I ran to the White Hen at 191st and Wolf Road. I got back in ten minutes. The two still rocked. Jerry was crying softly and whining, but his arms were tightly and trustingly entwined around Scott's neck.
“Let's try a little of the Coke. I think he's had time for his stomach to settle enough.” I opened it and gave it to him. The kid kept it down. The crying bouts came farther apart and the sips closer together. Some time before he sent me back to bed, Scott told me he'd learned his kid skills taking care of his older sister's family as he grew up. He spent most of his teenage years either playing baseball or baby-sitting.
Later, when I felt him crawl into bed, I glanced at the clock, saw it was five. He'd been up over three hours.
“Jerry okay?” I mumbled.
“Fine.” He sighed.
I snuggled close to him. I knew thenâif I'd ever doubted
itâthat I loved him and wanted to stay with him forever. Later I told him. Fortunately, he felt the same.
Now I filled him in on Jerry's story. His reaction was the same as mine: we had to check it out. I outlined my ideas for the next day. Besides a visit to the priest and the cops, I wanted to see Neil and his buddies. I'd find out if this Father Clarence committed murder, and if he did, I'd nail his ass to the altar. Nobody threatens my favorite nephew! When Jerry told me, I'd masked my anger for his sake, but while telling the story to Scott, I'd begun to get furious at this priest. Scott calmed me down, and we discussed strategy for meeting the priest the next day.
Around midnight we turned the movie back on. We wound up engrossed in Kevin Costner building his dream. We cried at the end as we always do. I clicked off the TV. Scott nestled into my arms, and we fell asleep.
Â
Next morning I woke Neil Spirakos at 9 A.M. He cursed at the interruption of his beauty sleep, which even he acknowledged he needed more than the rest of us, but stopped when I told him I'd changed my mind about checking into the murder and explained about Jerry. I told him I wanted to meet with the people in the Faith organization who had the closest connection to Father Sebastian. He promised to set up a meeting for some time that day. They had a board meeting at four and Mass at six.
I phoned the River's Edge police station and asked Frank Murphy if we could see him. A police lieutenant and an old friend, he agreed to meet us late that morning.
I tried calling the rectory but only got an answering machine. It said their office hours were Monday through Friday nine to eleven-thirty, two to four, and seven to nine. I'd never heard of part-time clergy before. I figured if you wanted to be a priest, it was sort of like being a doctor. People's troubles don't usually come conveniently according to fixed schedules. Maybe I'm
old-fashioned, but if you're in the business of helping people with problems, aren't you on duty twenty-four hours a day?
We decided to drive over and confront Father Clarence unannounced. We arrived at St. Joseph's Church to a slowly emptying parking lot. Caught in the traffic as we inched toward a parking spot, I had time to read a prominently displayed historical marker. The plaque boasted that the structure in front of us had been built with the earnings of the good farmers and first burghers of River's Edge. Since this is the oldest southwest suburb of Chicago, after Blue Island, the church was well over a hundred years old. The faithful had kept it in pretty good repair. The original red brick, aged to a depressing maroon, enclosed a stolid rectangle broken only by narrow strips of stained glass that crawled two stories up the side of the building. There used to be a steeple, but it had burned three years ago; the firemen were just able to save the church itself. An ultra-modern complex sprawled around the old building: a school of gleaming new bricks, a gymnasium complex, a rectory that was obviously somebody's idea of a modest $500,000 suburban bungalow.
“I thought these Catholic Church guys were supposed to help poor people, not live in luxury,” Scott said. “This looks like something a TV evangelist might build.”
“Don't be prejudiced,” I said. “I don't think it makes a lot of difference which denomination they are. The clergy's pretty much the same all over.”
“I guess,” Scott said.
Several parishioners pointed us toward the sacristy at the back of the church. We entered a well-lit stairway that led up. As we climbed, a door banged open. Seconds later two giggling fourteen-year-olds tumbled by us. We heard the door below burst open, then crash shut. At the top of the stairs was a room filled with cabinets, benches, desks, cupboards, and cubbyholes, all made of wine-dark mahogany. A stained-glass window let in daylight. A muffled voice called that he'd be with us in a minute. The only light came from the window, a few lighted
candles, and a doorway through which I could see an altar surrounded by mounds of fresh flowersâa large expense, I thought, in cold January.
A smiling young man emerged from the closet. His face clouded when he saw us. “I'm Father Clarence. May I help you gentlemen?”
Model-handsome, his black suit emphasizing his leanness, this was a man who would turn the heads of both men and women as he walked down a street.
“New to the parish?” Father Clarence said, striding purposefully toward us, hand outstretched. He pointed to Scott. “You look familiar.”
I introduced us as Jerry's uncles and explained our concern about what Jerry had said. He responded with words of wounded innocence and calm reason. The bastard almost pulled it off. Maybe he went to suave school. The old ladies of the parish must eat up his act. They'd want to mother him, and let it show, and secretly want to pinch his youthful ass, but hide that deeply. Yet he'd escaped the effeminacy so often associated with priests and ministers. Men would like him. He'd play baseball and drink beer with them. I almost missed the oily shiftiness in his eyes. Without seventeen years of teaching school and ferreting out teenage lies from truth, I'd probably have been fooled too.
He denied everything Jerry said. Claimed the boy'd been troubled for some time. Thought of talking to his mother about changes in the boy, a new moodiness. He didn't like to bring it up, but perhaps a few signs of drug abuse? He tossed this last statement off casually.
I think his smugness infuriated me the most. That and his calling Jerry a liar. Scott recognized the signs of my rising anger and stepped between us. He rarely loses his temper. The media call him “the iceman” for his cool under pressure.
“Look, buddy,” he said. “We're going to check out everything we can about Father Sebastian's death. You've called Jerry a liar. Kids do lie. In this case, I don't think he did. When I find out
the truth, and if you're implicated ⦔ He paused and gave the icy stare that had paralyzed more than one Major League batter. “If you're implicated,” he repeated quietly, “we'll be back.”