The City Below

by James Carroll

  "Not in the world it ain't, kiddo. The pope is holding the line. Maybe he's right You guys live a pretty sheltered life."

  "Hey!" Terry stood up angrily. "'Hold my ground' you said. Shit, man."

  "Just don't play to the stands, Terry. Make your point, but keep it quiet That's all I'm telling you. That's all the cardinal —"

  "Then I'm out!" Terry said. "A nice quiet refusal, a few of us, and we're kicked out so fast our heads spin. I might as well quit."

  "Why don't you?"

  Terry was too shocked to answer.

  "You've never wanted to be a priest. I know that and so do you. Isn't that what's really going on here? You're looking to get booted."

  After a moment, but softer now, Terry replied, "That's bullshit."

  Squire shrugged, conveying a sublime indifference. "All right. Then make it work for yourself. It's one or the other, Terry."

  "I'm trying to make it work."

  "By humiliating the cardinal?"

  "By helping him to do what's right."

  Squire reached to his shirt pocket for his cigarettes, a confirming display of his essential detachment. He put a cigarette between his lips, where it stayed unlit, bouncing, as he said quietly, "Helping the cardinal do what's right? Who do you think you are?"

  "That's the question. That's what Gramps sent you over here to ask I'll tell you who I think I am. I'm Martin Luther, okay? And I'm Martin Luther King."

  "Dead meat. Dead, dead meat."

  "Don't say that! Don't talk about him like that."

  "Which one, the Prod or the coon?"

  "Oh, Christ!" Terry whipped away from his brother, and his eyes landed on Molly, sweet Molly whose diaper had come loose and was drooping through her short pants.

  "Here." Squire held his cigarette pack in front of Terry. "Have a weed."

  Terry laughed. "You trying to get me kicked out?"

  "I thought you were allowed to smoke now."

  "Next week, after ordination. That's the holdup, Nick. They don't make me a deacon until I walk through one last pile of this shit."

  "Go around it, Terry. That's what I do."

  The brothers stared at each other. Was it possible they had this in common?

  Squire said, "Keep your eye on the rim. Isn't that what you just taught that kid?"

  Terry shook his head. "Not the rim. You imagine a spot in the invisible center of the basket. Aim for the rim and that's what you hit You have to aim at nothing."

  Squire grinned winningly. "Hey, what do I know. Birth control, basketball —too complicated for the likes of me, huh? We should just stay on our loading docks and at our toolboxes while you sharpshooters sort this shit out"

  Terry took the cigarette, not caring who saw him. "You were always a better lay-up man than me."

  "Lay-up. Lay down?"

  "Right Believe it or not, getting laid is exactly the point A bunch of celibates shouldn't be the ones —"

  "Hey, hey, I was kidding."

  "Well, I'm not kidding. The pope is dead wrong."

  "It doesn't mean diddly, Terry. Nobody cares what the pope —"

  "I care. To you this is just mush from the pulpit, crap for the women to worry about, but I have to preach this stuff. I'm not preaching mush."

  "So don't. Just sign the fucker and preach what you want They don't care, Terry. Don't you get it? They just want you to let them have the feeling that they're still in charge."

  "The people are in charge."

  "Whoa!" Squire raised a clenched fist "Pow-er to the people. Pow-er —"

  "Nick, come on."

  But Squire went into a mock rain dance. "Pow-er to the people," he chanted, like the Yippies in Chicago two months before. Molly peered back at him from her place in the grass. Terry dropped his cigarette, stepped on it, and waited for him to stop.

  Finally Squire looked at him, a wide smile on his face.

  Terry said, "There's nothing funny about this."

  "It's simple, okay? You think the pope and the cardinal are wrong. Gramps thinks you're wrong. The point is, you guys have to work it out And right now, they got the power. Not 'the people,' Terry. Not you. Your job is to do what you got to do to get the power. That's just fucking life, okay? We all got to play by those rules." Squire backed toward Molly. "'Power to the people,' Terry? You know what that shit gets you? Richard fucking Nixon, that's what"

  "Not yet, it hasn't."

  Squire laughed again. His brother was an asshole, he forgot A Humphrey asshole, Humphrey Dumphrey. "There are rules, Terry." Squire had moved far enough away across the grass that he had to shout "Even for a revolution, there are rules." How ridiculous this was, him lecturing his seminarian brother on the rules. "That's what Gramps sent me to say."

  "You tell Gramps —"

  "No!" Squire cut him off cold, pointing at him, moving back "I'm telling Gramps nothing that will hurt him, get it? He's old, Terry. And you haven't been around enough to notice, but he's also cuckoo. I'm not hurting him, and neither should you. That's our job now, protecting the old coot Suppose you could beat the cardinal down on this, bring all kinds of priests and nuns and liberals and the Globe and Walter Cronkite in on your side. The side of what? Honesty and truth, huh? The side of change. Suppose you win. What in hell is it worth if meanwhile that man on Common Street in Charlestown is left with a broken heart?"

  "Why don't you help avoid that by explaining to him what I'm trying to do?"

  "Because I don't understand it."

  "You said you were on my side. My 'fucking side,' you said." Terry thought, First Father Collins, then Jimmy Adler, now this bastard.

  Squire shook his head. "Not against Gramps, though."

  "You lied to me."

  "Let birth control be a problem for people who screw, will you? None of us gives a shit what you people say. So you shouldn't give a shit either. The pope knows this —he's a wop going through the motions. You're the only guy taking this thing seriously, and it's making you an asshole. What's it to you, I mean really, who uses a rubber or not, who uses the Pill? You're picking this fight. You could walk around this thing."

  "No, I can't."

  "Then fuck you, Charlie."

  Their ancient pattern, from the funny to the furious to the futile. The four fs. Fuck you.

  Molly, attuned to the shift in the emotional weather, began to cry. Squire went to her, scooped her up, then found a shady patch of grass and lay her down on it He deftly began changing her diaper, holding her by the ankles, unsnapping her shorts, taking the pins in his mouth, using the dry tail of the dirty diaper to wipe her clean. Like magic, he produced a fresh diaper from his jacket When he finished, he hoisted her up and went over to a nearby trash can and threw away the soiled cloth.

  Terry couldn't watch him without thinking of his teacher, Didi. He could imagine her not only showing Nick how to deal with their baby, but showing him how to love doing it. Didi bent over a changing table, flourishing that pin. Didi ladling stew from a pot Didi at the cash register in the shop. Didi turning the blanket back. But Terry had never allowed himself to picture her in bed, in his brother's arms. The two of them naked. Making babies. Fucking.

  "Hey, Father Coach!"

  Bean Nicolson was standing on the path that led from the track up to the gym. Sweat poured off his face, making it shine. Shine, Terry thought No wonder they call them that, the slick moisture on the skin from slaving in the sun. Bean's warmup jacket was open. His wet shirt clung to his ribs. His stoop was more pronounced than before. If he was a beanpole now, he was a bent one. His teammates trudged wearily past him, heading for the showers.

  Bean said, "So, I see you Friday?"

  "Monday," Terry answered. "I'll be back on Monday." Terry's wave should have ended the encounter.

  But Squire was suddenly at Terry's elbow, holding Molly. "Introduce me," he said.

  "What?"

  "I want to meet the man. I'm a fan." Squire smiled that smile of his. He was ebullient and pleased, which calmed Mo
lly, but mystified Terry. Did this guy hold his feelings by the fingertips only, that he could so easily shake the hurt of their argument? "I'd like to meet your friend," Squire said. "Do you mind?"

  Nicolson stood awkwardly on the edge of the path, unsure whether to leave or stay.

  Yes, I do mind, was Terry's thought. But why? All at once he felt the familiar wash of guilt, and he knew for certain that this failure, like all of them, was his fault. Heresy, Monsignor Fenton had said. And Father Collins had accused him of hubris. And now his brother, of disregarding the only people who loved him. Terry raised an arm toward Nicolson, but he thought of Bright McKay. Bright did not think him a heretic, nor did Blight's father. But shit, that's what they were.

  "Bean, I want you to meet somebody."

  Nicolson did not move.

  Squire, then Terry, began slowly closing the distance. Terry smiled wanly. "I want you to meet my niece." And he took Molly's hand. She reached to him, and Squire let her go into Terry's arms. "Molly Doyle." Terry blushed when she hid her face in his neck. "She's shy. She does that..." His voice trailed off, not saying, Even to white people. "And her dad." Terry indicated Squire. "My brother."

  "Nick Doyle," Squire said, offering his hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you. We're all proud you came to Boston."

  "Thanks, Mr. Doyle." Nicolson was just a needy kid. He accepted Squire's affirmation gratefully. After shaking hands with Squire, Nicolson said to Terry, "Father, some of the guys —"

  "Hold it, Bean. Hold it I'm not 'Father,' okay? Not yet anyway. Call me Terry."

  "Oh. Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, anyways." Nothing. Nicolson would call him nothing. "We thought you, uh, might come Friday after practice to the Hofbräu."

  "The kickoff party? You still do that?"

  Nicolson grinned. "The last blast before the season is official."

  "Thanks, Bean. Tell the guys thanks. I can't do it, though. No."

  "It's against his religion," Squire put in.

  "Have fun, Bean." Terry raised his hand, that concluding wave again. "Your last chance to tie one on. Watch out for those Hofbräu schooners. Another reason for making our next session Monday. You'll have the weekend to recover."

  Nicolson grinned so innocently it was clear the high life was not his thing. He headed up the path toward Roberts with his gawky, disjointed gait.

  "Nice to meet you," Squire called.

  But Nicolson seemed not to have heard.

  "Christ," Squire said, "inviting the clergy to come drinking. Wild bunch, these Eagles."

  The brothers stared after Nicolson in silence. Soon he and the other players had all disappeared into the gym.

  Squire said, "Listen, I'm sorry."

  "Forget it Actually, you had a point, and I heard it I want you to tell Gramps that" —Terry looked helplessly at his brother —"well, that I love him."

  "That's your job, bud. But I can do something else." He pressed Terry's arm. "If things wind up ... you know ... with you on your ear, I can help."

  "On my ear? On my ass is more like it."

  "I can get you a job."

  "Well, Gramps may not want me."

  "I don't mean at the stores, Terry. Hell, you don't want to sell daffodils. I know that much."

  "You sell flowers, that's what you said a few minutes ago. But you're not offering me a job in the stores? What do you have in mind for me, Nick?"

  The coldness with which Terry asked this question made Squire wonder how much he knew. But then he told himself, Terry knows nothing. Squire shrugged. "You're a War-on-Poverty type. Great Society, all that shit Right?" When Terry did not respond, he went on. "The new breed city hall, jacket off, sleeves rolled up. You're a Kevin White wet dream."

  "And you have pull with the mayor?"

  "Not me. I'm just a flower man. But Louise. Kevin owes Louise. And Louise owes me."

  "I despise Louise, Nick."

  "Doesn't matter. She'd be glad to —"

  "No, thanks." Terry looked at his hands, at the slivered welts where his nails had been digging in. "She's a goddamned racist"

  "Don't believe everything you read in Newsweek about Mrs. Hicks. And don't forget, she's what you and I come from."

  "No she's not."

  Squire shrugged. "I'm just reminding you, you got options."

  "So that I'll go quietly? So that I'll quit?"

  Squire shook his head sadly. "If you quit, the biddies in the parish are wrecked. If you don't, I guess Gramps is."

  "Unless I eat the shit."

  "Go around the shit, Terry. Go around." Squire held his arms out for Molly, taking her back. "I don't want you to quit either. It works for me, Charlie, you being a priest"

  "Why is that, Nick?"

  Squire shrugged. "Same for me as if Ma were alive. You a priest, I see you on Sundays when you come home for dinner."

  "I'm still in the family? When this is over, Nick, I may not be."

  "That's what I'd like to avoid."

  "Me too. But what the hell, I'm seeing this through the best way I can. I'm not the one who made the encyclical an issue of conscience —"

  Squire's eyebrows shot up.

  "—of conscience, dammit! They did. I have no choice."

  "We all have choices, brother. Keep that in mind. There are consequences too, and not just the ones you expect." Squire glanced at Molly, as if somehow her fate was also tied to this.

  Then Terry saw it Not her fate, but her future as his niece. It was true, his standing in the family was at stake.

  "So take good care," Squire concluded. And he walked away, with his daughter perched on his shoulder so that she could stare back at her uncle, blankly.

  10

  BY FRIDAY the number of men ready to protest the birth control encyclical had dropped to eleven. "The Twelve," Hal Forrester, one of the protesters, cracked as they left St. John's, "if you don't count Judas."

  "We have a class full of Judases," Moose Moran, another protester, said. "Right, Terry?"

  "What the hell, guys. Everybody makes his own decision."

  They fell informally into line, some carrying posters, some carrying stacks of the leaflets they had run off. The posters read Honesty in the Church, Keep the People in "The People of God," Vox Populi, and "Humanae Vitae" Is Not Infallible.

  Each one wore his good black suit and his Roman collar; his shoes were shined; a photographer could find a point of focus in the part of his hair. But they were a dispirited group, and even those who'd sought to layer anxiety with repartee fell silent now that they were out of doors, actually doing it at last. It was late morning of an overcast day.

  Terry looked up at the leaden sky. "That's all we need."

  But it wasn't raining, and maybe wouldn't.

  Other seminarians watched from the bay windows of the library. A group of junior students at work period, leaning on shovels near the statue of Saint Patrick —a bishop standing on a snake —stared openly as Doyle and his classmates trudged up the hill toward the cardinal's residence.

  The plan was to form a picket line on the Comm. Ave. side of the mansion, actually the back of the building. Hedges and a low wall stood between the house and the street Neither the cardinal nor anyone else of importance had rooms on that side, but they were no longer the point The people passing in the street were the point, anyone who might notice and ask, What are you doing? Reporters were the point. The sidewalk behind the house was public property, so nobody could stop them.

  Forrester had proposed reciting the rosary as they walked, but the others had merely groaned. Someone had suggested Psalms, but no one had seconded the motion. So now they moved solemnly but silently at the edge of the grounds, in and out of the chilly, faint shade of huge old elm trees, following the graceful serpentine of the long, sloping asphalt roadway. Some of the seminarians were blank-minded, putting one foot in front of another, a dreamlike procession out of a long subservience, but also out of the closest thing to paradise they would ever know.

  To a man, the eleven
had found themselves wanting the priesthood more than ever this week —the odd effect, perhaps, of quickened consciences, but also of knowing it might be forfeit now. Tomorrow they would be not deacons but spoiled priests, and their big problem would not be birth control but the U.S. Army draft. But that was tomorrow. This, this was today.

  They were coming to the crest of the next hill, an invisible border between their own turf —their turreted, dark-ages building, their ball courts and fields, the wooded corners in which they prayed —and that of the senior clergy staffing archdiocesan offices —the parking lots and the fresh brick, flat-roofed structures, fifties modern, built to look efficient and up-to-date but resembling in the end a soon-to-be-seedy motel complex. Terry could not bring himself to look at the windows, for he knew that to the assistant chancellors, tribunal judges, canon lawyers, and their blue-haired secretaries, he and his fellow protesters —protestantr —were Judases and nothing else.

  At last, following one more turn in the roadway, the cardinal's house itself came into view, sited majestically at the top of yet another rolling hill, crowning a sweep of broad, open lawn. The vista was punctuated here and there by lone trees, cypresses and poplars. In the valley from which the grassy plain sloped upward were a pair of chipped Roman columns hinting at Old World ruins, since they upheld nothing. The isolated trees and the columns seemed positioned in relation to the cardinal's residence, a deliberate framing of the palazzo intended to evoke Tuscany, the Umbrian Hills, the rare country near Assisi. To young, untraveled Boston eyes, it succeeded utterly. Only the futuristic antenna disk plunked on the roof, with its oddly protruding arms aiming, no doubt, at the hills of Rome, undercut the impression that this was a domicile of another era.

  As they approached the spot where the roadway would take them past the mansion, Terry could hear a trolley rumbling by —his trolley, what he'd ridden to school each morning years before. But all he could see still was the building itself, the three-story, sand-colored brick façade, the bright balustrade marking the roofline off from the gray sky, the formal portico before the driveway, an entrance fit for principati.

  Ahead was a statue of Mary, and as they approached it, Terry looked forward to getting that image of compliance behind them. Oh, to be off the grounds, beyond the house, out into Boston, into —here was the feeling —America.