Bishop's Man

by Linden MacIntyre

  “No. Thanks,” I said.

  There seemed to be a struggle behind the slightly amused expression on his face, something he wanted to say but couldn’t find the words for.

  “You’re kind of different,” he said at last, encouraged by his drink. “Not the kind of priest I’m used to.”

  “That’s probably a good thing,” I said, perhaps too quickly.

  “I’m used to Mullins,” he said, and laughed.

  “Mullins isn’t so bad,” I said carefully.

  “I suppose. Given half a chance he’d be all right.” And he fell silent again, looking at the contents of his glass. “But I don’t think a fellow would be able to talk to Mullins . . . about things. You know what I mean?”

  I waited for more.

  “I tried once. To talk to him. It was a big mistake.”

  “That’s too bad,” I murmured.

  “You, now. I figure a fellow could talk to yourself about anything. Right?”

  “I hope so.”

  “Maybe one of these days.”

  “The door is always open,” I said.

  “Okay, then,” he said, suddenly awkward in his manner and movements.

  I nodded in the direction of the two musicians, who were chatting quietly, the music finished for the moment. “You’d know those guys pretty well, I suppose.”

  He just stared. Then he stood up. “I’m kind of old-fashioned. They’re a bit too modern for me.”

  The smile was gone.

  “Charity,” the bishop said. “I’m wearing holes in the knees of my trousers praying for charity. It’s something I’ve always been short on. I don’t mind admitting it. Intellectually, I know things work out. They go away. They’ll think things through. Thank the Almighty for a second chance. Then they’ll come back to us, prepared to serve . . . often better priests for the encounter with their weaknesses. Better able to understand the weaknesses of others. Remember Augustine.

  “But it’s in here,” he said, pointing toward his bony chest. “It’s in here I have the problem. I have a hard time getting past the dirty details. I have a hard time not judging.”

  “Maybe,” I said carefully, “the judgment is legitimate. Condemnation might be called for. If I had my way, we’d hunker down, hold our noses and let the proper authorities handle them.”

  The reaction was instantaneous. “The proper . . . authorities? You think the cops and the prosecutors are the proper authorities? Have you seen what’s been going on in other places? The feeding frenzy . . . all the enemies of Catholicism dropping their phony ecumenical masks, thrilling at the discomfort of the Mother Church. Lay people using every opportunity to play up their own anticlerical agendas at our expense, blathering about celibacy, for God’s sake. As if celibacy is at the root of all perversions. You’ve got to get that thinking out of your head, boy. It’s an ugly world out there. We have to handle this ourselves. Keep the enemy out of it.”

  “I don’t disagree. But we can’t forget about . . . the . . . other parties. The youngsters.”

  “Go ahead and say the word,” he mocked. “‘Victim’? Is that what you’re trying to say?”

  “Call them what you will. I’m seeing damage there.”

  He waved a hand dismissively. “They’ll get over it. They’re young. If it wasn’t this, it would be something else. The dope. The cars. The promiscuity. Life is damaging, but never forget the healing power of the Sacraments. The Sacraments mitigate the damage. We can’t let a bunch of misfits and complainers undermine the Sacraments.”

  And I’ll admit it now. It made sense to me back then.

  Outside, the night was brightened by the pristine snow, a looming moon and flinty stars. The air was sharp and clear but tinged, I noted, by the spicy tang of marijuana. Effie and Sextus were in the car, waiting, engine running.

  I stood for a moment, patting my pockets as if searching for keys. Instinctive subterfuge. Then I looked around.

  “You’re leaving, Father,” said the fiddle player. You could see the glow of the cigarette in his hand.

  “I am,” I said.

  Archie was relaxed, but Donald O’Brian actually looked frightened, hanging back in the shadows.

  I considered neutralizing the moment with a disarming acknowledgement of the smoke, but decided against it. Too soon for such familiarity, I thought.

  I walked toward the car, snow crunching beneath my feet.

  Too modern, Danny had said.

  I smiled.

  The drive home left me edgy. Sitting alone in the back of the car, I was conscious of a feeling not unlike a childish disappointment. Perhaps, I thought, it’s my basic puritanism. People think that I’m straitlaced. Hard line, Effie said.

  feb. 20. tonight i touched her face. i couldn’t help it. i just placed my palm along her jawbone. her cheek is soft and warm. but i could tell it bothered her. she removed the hand, but held it briefly. and, god forgive me, i’m not sorry.

  I knew there was no possibility of sleep. So I poured a strong drink. A Christmas Carol was playing on TV, and I realized that I’d never really watched it all before, so I settled back to see it through. He understood it, I thought. Old Dickens. His insight into Christmas, the unity of past, present and future, the possibility of liberation through generosity.

  As Alfonso said repeatedly: the Holy Spirit dwells in all of us, rich and poor alike.

  The Ghost of Christmas Past was reminding Scrooge of forgotten happiness when the telephone revived me. It was Effie.

  “Just checking in,” she said. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “No, no. Is everything okay?”

  “Sure. I just felt a little guilty. I was sharp with you before. Then watching you go into that dark house all alone. I should be staying with you.”

  “Come on. I thrive on solitude.”

  “Sure. That’s what I used to think.”

  There was a long silence. I could hear slow music in the background.

  “Did anybody talk to John today?” I asked.

  “We tried to call this morning. To see what he was up to. There was no answer.”

  “Oh?”

  “Sextus thinks there’s a lady somewhere. And I hope so. You’re both alone too much. It isn’t good for you.”

  I ignored the loaded comment. And we just sat there, at our opposite ends of the ephemeral connection, wondering where to go next.

  Finally, she said for the thousandth time that she wished the Church would wise up and allow people like me to find partners, that nobody should be expected to live in emotional isolation without becoming damaged.

  “I don’t think I’m all that damaged . . . yet,” I said.

  “If you don’t mind me saying so, I couldn’t help thinking how . . . natural it seemed, you and Stella arriving there together.”

  And, unexpectedly, I wanted to hear more. How did we look, arriving there together? Friends? A couple? A scandal in the making?

  “Stella? You always were a bit romantic.”

  “Any time you want to talk.”

  “We should get some sleep.”

  “Okay. I just felt like checking in.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Good night.”

  feb. 28. i write this in the spirit of penance and humiliation. away from her i can’t seem to concentrate on anything else.

  {9}

  As I recall it now, those gloomy days just after Christmas 1994 revealed the sinister outlines of returning doubt. Eventually there’s only so much reassurance to be had from Paul to the Corinthians: “He that is without a wife is solicitous for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please God.” Right. He was saying that if we are undistracted by the needs of women and children, we will be free to spend all our time in homage to the Almighty. And thereby we become a higher form of life. But then the flushed, boozy face of single Willie-what’s-his-name from Hawthorne came back to me. How much of his time has he spent pleasing God? From what I’ve learned, single men like him have been in th
e forefront of inventing a thousand twisted ways to please themselves. Even single men who have sworn fidelity to our Holy Mother, our apostolic institution. Preying on the vulnerable young is only part of it.

  The struggle never ceases . . . the battle between faith and reason.

  “Have you never, yourself . . . ever . . . strayed?”

  The question was delivered with the confidence of the damned. The man had nothing left to lose. In fact I had liberated him from a pathetic, corrosive, delusional sense of personal security. Before I showed up, he’d actually convinced himself that he’d escaped detection. I put a stop to that. The boy is talking, I told him, and I believe him. This isn’t about he-says-you-say. This is about damage control.

  His face revealed everything I had to know. He was down, now, to essential instinct. Accuse the accuser, one of their best tactics.

  “I’d put money on it. You have your own skeletons,” he said.

  “That’s neither here nor there.”

  Weak, weak answer. I know it. Pathetic, in a way. But in such circumstances one must not fall into their traps. They want to lure you to a place where there are no certainties and where there are no rules, where struggles are won by nimble creativity.

  “You tell me,” he persists. “And never mind the weasel evasions. You tell me with a straight face that you never, not even once, felt the heat of temptation. Man, woman, child, beast . . . something, somewhere, must have stirred the most natural impulse in your frigid being.”

  “The point,” I replied, “is that we have made a conscious choice.”

  “Aw, come on,” he said, waving an impatient hand.

  I bulldozed onward. We were told up front. Explicitly. Choose between the desires of the world and the life of sacrifice and service. Nobody said it would be easy. In fact, we were told it would be hard. You stepped forward . . . accepted the order . . .

  “But they didn’t tell us how hard,” he said.

  I tried to read his expression for awareness of the double meaning. He had the eyes of a poker player. I decided to ignore the remark.

  “Anyway,” I said, “the big issue here isn’t canon law. We’re talking about the Criminal Code. You could be in a worse spot than you are, standing here in front of me. Just be thankful I’m not a lawyer or a cop. Worse still . . . if his father ever got hold of you. You should be bloody grateful.”

  He laughed, slapped his forehead theatrically. “Oh, oh. Now I get it. This is a situation that could normally be fixed by a thrashing or, say, a couple of years in Kingston Pen. And you . . . out of your innate compassion are going to spare me that. You’re just going to make me disappear. Like a magician. Poof. Oh. Thanks a lot.”

  I think he realized that he’d gone too far, strayed into the self-pity that always dissolves the integrity of logic.

  I just stared at him, letting it all sink in.

  “Okay,” he said finally. “Let’s be real. It isn’t like I’m gay or anything. It isn’t like I’m queer . . . like this is going to be a long-term problem.”

  “What the hell has gay got to do with anything?”

  “Oh. Mr. Progressive, all of a sudden. Mr. Political Correctness. Come on. It was a stupid mistake. I’m sorry.”

  “It was a lot of stupid mistakes.”

  “Gimme a break, for God’s sake . . . He was looking for something. I happened to be a bystander. I was going through a bad time, mentally. Who’s the victim here?”

  “He’s a kid, for Christ’s sake,” I blurted. “He was little more than a child when you first went after him. You exploited him.”

  “Exploited him? I exploited him? Do you realize how it started? I gave him a hug. So it went from there. But it was con-sensual. You saw him. He’s a man, for the love of God—never mind his age. It started with a hug. I give lots of people hugs when I think they need them. People growing up like I did, not getting the warmth and love they need at home. So it went from there to a hand job. Not everybody is as lucky as you obviously were. Growing up secure . . . being nurtured. Being hugged. Full of moral certainties.”

  “Fuck you,” I said before I had time to recover my control.

  He turned his face away, but not before I saw the smile.

  From my living room I can see down the hill, just below the road, to the new hall somebody built to replace the old barn-like wooden structure where we acted out our childish fantasies so long ago, channelling deep yearning and desire into the discipline of dance. Not the simulated copulation that passes for dancing now. The fiddle music drew the passions out and the physical energy of the jigs and reels frightened off the devils. Dancing was for fun.

  “Have you ever . . . yourself . . . ever strayed?”

  The answer echoes through the memory. I feel the trembling again.

  Sextus came to me and said: “See those two girls over there? I’ve already lined them up.”

  “So what am I supposed to do?”

  “Do? You do what Mother Nature tells you.”

  Inside the car, her shoulder pressing tightly into my armpit, I felt a bizarre kind of weakness bordering on nausea. I remember thinking, This is supposed to be exciting.

  Sextus said, “Expect me to be gone at least an hour. The rest is up to you.”

  He winked. On the car radio Presley was singing a new song, “Treat Me Like a Fool,” as if he didn’t mean it.

  The girl with Sextus was clutching a blanket like a child and smiling at me. And then they were gone along the shore.

  And what if the bastard was right? Celibacy is the problem. Celibacy is unnatural and causes unnatural behaviour. The New Testament is terrifically unhelpful. A few vague references that can be used to argue either way. One of the “clients” actually tried to argue with me. I recall he hauled a book out, as if he’d been expecting my visit: “Reproduction is a primary function, an inalienable right . . . not to be extinguished by any vow.” He seemed so certain: trying to extinguish primal needs can lead to mental illness, deviant behaviour at the very least.

  I had no reply. Just a folder with his plane ticket, the introduction to the chancellor in Toronto. Directions to a place called Braecrest. Maybe I couldn’t reply because part of me agreed with him.

  This, I realized, is dangerous.

  When we were alone, she leaned close to me, a small, serious face tilted upward, and said, “I hear you’re going into the priesthood.”

  I felt the heat on my cheeks. She smelled of perfume and Juicy Fruit.

  “I don’t know,” I replied, shocked by my false ambivalence. “Where did you hear that?”

  She just looked away, distracted by the night, the soft sound of water washing stone, a rattling of gravel.

  “What do you want to do?” I asked, meaning with her life.

  “Why don’t you just kiss me,” she said.

  I stared at her, thinking, That should be okay. No danger there. And I leaned toward her.

  Her name was Barbara.

  It all seemed so spontaneous, predetermined as if by some primitive code. The kissing, where to put a hand. Accelerated breathing. Restless, rustling movements, bodies nestling into primal configurations as if programmed by a higher power.

  “Barbara,” I whispered.

  “Hmmmmm,” she said.

  This is natural, I thought. How everything begins. All life. How the species has endured all the challenges of human history. It is only right that I should know this from experience. We suppress it at our peril.

  But then I heard a gasp that was almost like a sob. And a cool breeze moved between us like a barrier. Then she was sitting up and staring through the car window. I thought she looked confused. The August night was pale blue.

  “Did you hear something?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so,” I lied.

  She fell silent again, listening. “I guess you’re mad at me,” she said eventually.

  “No, no, no,” I replied.

  “Everybody thinks . . . automatically . . . that I ...”<
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  “I don’t,” I said.

  “Yes you do. I know what everybody says about me. That’s why you brought us here. What do you think they’re doing out there?” She was studying me miserably. “I wish you really were a priest.”

  “Do you? Really?”

  “I could trust you then. I could, at least, talk to you.”