by Chris Martin
The photograph of Humphrey gives way to another one, a picture of a man in jeans and black sweater among a sidewalk encampment of street kids.
“The death of the girl, this is how you found or met Peter?” Carson asks.
“I already knew who he was. But that’s right.”
Like a teacher consciously working with hipness, the man lays on the sidewalk, propped on an elbow, his back against a wall papered with torn bills, petting one of the kids’ pit bulls. He is surrounded by filthy clothes, and a farrago of debris and personal items, camped in their camp. The only one standing, shielding a match from the wind, a little outside the camp, is pierced and filthy Humphrey.
Carson zooms patiently on the man visiting the street kids.
“He was just Father Peter, then, to you.”
“Correct. He would come around, check on kids sleeping on the street, the runaways, the homeless, even us, the anarchist diehards, the trouble makers. Though not very often. We liked to chase him away. Or they did. It always surprised me how glad I was to see him.
“Even though, at the same time, I was – literally – aglow in this perfect little kiln I made for myself. I was still in love with hate. Pure hate and glad of it. But he didn’t try to soften it or dilute it, never tried. I remember congratulating myself that this handsome, interesting man was actually impressed with this state I made for myself.
“It doesn’t seem likely that a priest would be impressed by someone’s hate,” Carson adds.
“No, no it doesn’t. But it felt like he did. That is – I thought he was giving that approval to me, even if he wasn’t.”
“Sounds like crush logic.”
Carson catches Humphrey – it makes Humphrey chuckle and relaxes his austerity. “Well, priests, teachers, anyone with true authority, you know, is good at bringing that out. A well-meaning con, yes.”
Still grinning, he dips his head and reels it all back in. It takes a few moments. When he returns, his eyes are slightly wider, softer. “But inch by inch he was leading me somewhere else, where ...” he pauses, easing the words out one by one, “....Where, rather than being this body on fire, a wild fire at that, without any kind of sentience, Peter taught me to grab a hold of that fire with both hands. Pat it down, like ....” his face loosens slightly, a self-conscious raise of the eyebrows, “.... in his words, Prometheus.
“And, I didn’t completely realize it at the time, but that was my task in the alcove. Seeking that balance and control. And is probably why I went to him before anyone else, about the girl. I remember finding him, in his office, reading and with this terrific, upright detachment, I said, ‘A girl’s died. Next to me.’ ”
A remembering pause. “Leaving her was more difficult than I thought it would be. I was afraid for her, leaving her. Actually I was afraid of leaving what I’d made of her.
“Any way, I was there in his office and I wanted him to be impressed with my resilience, to have been next to someone and let them die and to speak of it naturally, candidly. I still don’t know why he didn’t assume I was the one who killed her.”
A photograph, a newspaper photo, from outside an abandoned warehouse. The coroner’s van is partially out of frame, cop cars nearby. A couple kids running away, more being herd-ed by cops, yelling at the cops. Peter, hands on hips, watching from the side.
“Did you ever learn who she was?”
“There was an investigation, of course. Peter and one of the detectives hunted for next of kin. I told them no one knew her and I didn’t want to find out her name, though all along I kept expecting they would. So I kept waiting for that moment. But it never came. She was never found out.
“Except, the other thing that happened that – when I walked to tell Peter, I also reviewed in my mind how I was destroying the squat, that group. I full of purpose regarding that. As if I alone had decided that now was the time to destroy all that. That I would be persona non grata to the other kids. And I was.”
“But you didn’t immediately leave the streets.”
“No, not right away. I think I found a couple places by myself, or lived behind a soup kitchen or something. But I kept going back, kept going back to see Peter. Then started to work around the church, help him on his rounds. And always talking. Talking, talking.”
A short video image, slowed to a mesmerizing crawl, in the poor, orangey candle light of a sanctuary somewhere. Peter and Humphrey sitting side by side. Peter looking watchfully as Humphrey, short hair mushrooming from his head, leans forward, head down, arms triangulated on his knees. Peter runs his fingers over Humphrey’s head in a single petting motion. The touch sends Humphrey out of his crouch, back against the pew they are sitting in, a smile opening on his face.
Carson narrates: “This is one of the few images he’s shown me. My guess is he thinks it says what he wants said about their relationship. It goes without saying that Peter figures prominently, intimately, in my brother’s life. Not the least being a guide wire to where he is right now.
“I don’t know much else to describe Humphrey’s relationship with Peter, Father Peter Giles. He declines over and over again to say more, and I’m often left to my imagination. But to me, I think they enjoyed one of those rare charismatic relationships you only hear about.”
A found moment of monastical light in Humphrey’s Mashipan cell. Then a slow move to four crosswise photographs hung on the wall next to his bunk: the top one, of Peter; the bottom, of Humphrey and Peter together. To the left and right, two portraits of men not Humphrey or Peter. But we home in on the broad kind smile of Peter.
“Despite my brother’s circumspection, though, I should be more clear and concise. Especially since I met Peter and visited them occasionally.
“Peter was a Jesuit priest, with extended missions to Africa and South America. He grew up in Seattle and eventually returned there. Which is where he met this man, Father Max Lincoln.”
Carson slides the camera down and left to the photo of Father Max: dark, sharp like Anthony Perkins. “Together, Max and Peter started the outreach that led them into the lives of Seattle runaways and squatters. That eventually led Peter to Humphrey. While Peter was working his way into Humphrey, a soul saving way, Humphrey was doing the same to Peter. And away from Max.”
The bottom photo on Humphrey’s wall is a photograph of Peter relaxing on a tidy mid-century mustard couch, his legs on a glass and brass coffee table, reading. Behind is a wall of books. Humphrey, his head on Peter’s lap, sleeps with a book on his chest. We don’t stay here; a dozen more photos of Humphrey and Peter flow on, as if wherever they went, another photographer discovered them together, in soup kitchens, libraries, hallways, at dining tables, in groups, alone. Reading, studying.
“As with any new relationship, Humphrey was dazzled by anything associated with Peter. Especially his faith. For a little while he enjoyed, even accepted I think, the pageantry of the liturgy. Peter had found work in a large, wealthy congregation and Humphrey never missed a mass Peter led. The depth of Catholic theology, its careful scholarship, amazed him. But just as quickly, he tossed the orthodoxy aside once he discovered the early Christian apocrypha, the Gnostic and other heretical writings, Byzantine mysticism, the early theological arguments. Anything which challenged, ran counter to or was banished from modern Roman Catholic doctrine was fascinating.
“Which might have been his way not to lose himself entirely in religion, faith being something my brother continues being suspicious of. But he was vigorously devoted to whatever ideas Peter had for aid or good works. Organic soup kitchens. Bedside readings in prison hospitals. Difficult return visits to the anarchists and street kids. Shelters for women and children.
“So while Peter pulled Humphrey toward social engagement, at a more gradual pace, I think Humphrey led Peter to renunciation.”
Carson lingers on a photo of Humphrey and Peter sitting on a rock, shirts off, vividly talking. Humphrey picks up where he left off.
“One of our favorite pastimes was f
ine-tuning a plan, the ultimate mission. Waiting for a train, going up an elevator, one of us would say ‘convert derelict buildings into free housing’, or ‘organic farms for shelters,’ or ‘teenage health care without parental involvement.’ That sort of thing.“
“Did anything come out of this?”
For the first time, Humphrey allows himself a little sentimentality. “One of us would get excited. And then usually it was me who’d look a little more closely into it. And inevitably I’d find that these were being done already, or someone tried it and it didn’t work, or if it did, it wasn’t always in the church.
“Which usually was Peter’s directive. He wanted us to work them through the church. To bring meaningful, contemporary insights of charity and social justice into the church. And more and more, that was something I didn’t want to do. To do these things on behalf of the church. Any church.”
“Why?”
A Humphrey-sized pause. “The lazy answer is, oh, the bureaucracy. Monumental bureaucracy. Many well-intentioned religious people stop there. But I found, and became leery of and frustrated by, the inevitable co-optation of whatever effort someone makes by the church. Any church, any institution. If you want to feed the poor it has to be through this institution, with its bylaws and logos and doctrines. When it comes to a church, that is their core operation: to spread doctrine, like a brand, through the good efforts of others.
“Also, and not to be overlooked: Peter’s Roman Catholic Church would never allow the kind of kind of partnership we had in mind, let alone what we enjoyed in our home. And converting to Catholicism for me was – is – unthinkable.
“He had gotten very good at accepting what he could from his church. And ignoring the rest. But to me, the Catholic church is – “ he leans back into his chair. This is Humphrey’s favorite act of mischief, unveiled: “I assigned my own anathema to the Catholic church.”
Carson expects to hear more but that’s it. “Based on ...?”
Humphrey answers as if this were obvious.
“That for whatever ideals it professes, the church is antithetical to them by its ... structure. Structure assumes institution, institution supplants the idea it embodies. Ideas are alive, proof of energy. But an idea no longer exists once it is institutionalized or made into doctrine. That Christianity should exist as the Catholic Church is eternally contrary to itself and thereby abominable.
“Two things happen when you provide charity or relief or aid or just a helping hand: one, is that another person is helped. And two, that transaction occurs between two humans, one to another. It is a benefit to both. That is the highest calling of any human life. But not so when one party is an agent of an institution. An institution contains an agenda that is separate from the act of charity.
“Performing any of these works and allowing the church – again, any church, any orthodoxy, any religion – to receive benefit, I wanted to avoid that more than anything.”
Off camera Carson quips, “Peter could tolerate a lot.”
And with all seriousness, Humphrey answers, “Yes. He could.”
Turning back again to the four photos on Humphrey’s wall and another slow push toward Peter’s gentle handsomeness, Carson says “Whatever their plans were, they never had a chance to enact them. Peter died six years after my brother left the street, from cancer.”
A photo, fluorescently green-tinged and uncertain, peeking from a distance in a hospital corridor at Humphrey stopped, grieving, a large bony hand covering his face, the other holding a paper bag, a lunch bag made silly under the circumstances, as if he’d gone to the deli only to come back too late. Someone unidentified is holding him, tentatively.
“Like my brother’s reticence over their relationship, he keeps his thoughts about Peter’s death to himself.”
* * *