by Laura Rock
Goodness, the familiar refrain melts the heart: let children proclaim to every land. She ponders the problem of Mark, her only out-of-town child, who rarely visits. Kara being an unbaptized nothing doesn’t faze her; she likes a challenge, and it would be harder to convert a Baptist. No, the problem is Mark’s not in love. His posture betrays him: tilted away from Kara, hands in pockets instead of arm around her shoulder. While she’s no fan of public displays of groping, she fears there might not be many private ones, either. She wouldn’t wish Mark a sexless marriage for all the sake in China.
Her equilibrium falters as a vision overtakes her: lilacs dropping from the sky like St. Thérèse’s roses from Heaven, but the lilacs sting her face as though she’s being scourged. For what, by Whom, she can’t say. And then no lilacs, just black flickering dots. She blinks and swallows the word, “oh.” Her throat tightens. Shallow sips of air offer no relief. Perspiration beads under her hatband. What’s wrong with her? Woozy, she wills herself to march onward to the final verse. Guide my hands, she prays, and slowly, steadily, builds the wall of sound required to let all creation sing.
Martin Czernowsky’s conducting arm begins to ache before they’ve made it through the processional. Song as battle. Hymns to fight by. Accidents of birth aside, why does he come? Everyone knows the Protestants have better music. His jaw hurts from clenching. Mary-Pat has turned a light piece (saccharine, too accessible, but never mind) into a rafter-shaking dirge. She won’t go faster, no matter what he does.
Maybe age dulls the senses. He was almost late this morning because of some geezer stopping for each yellow light. The old guy probably felt like he was racing down the highway. It’s like his mother adding more and more sugar to her pies, not perceiving excessive sweetness. She doesn’t taste what he tastes, but a dutiful son chokes the pie down. He saw his mother come in earlier and was moved, briefly, by her halting pace as she tapped her cane. She’s sitting down there somewhere, the former piano teacher counting six-eight measures and finding fault.
When he raises and lowers his eyebrows in exaggerated time with Mary-Pat’s thunder-chords, the choir obliges him by smiling, a difficult feat for mouths rounded into Os. They’re good, his choir, especially since Martin recruited the tenors fresh from his old program at the conservatory, twin brothers who so far have delighted him not only with their musicality and taut physical energy, but also their rivalry, openly bidding for Martin’s favour. Patience, he thinks, on his optimistic days. Soon. On bad days he’s resigned to hapless celibacy.
The choir, his fledglings, would be better served by a skilled accompanist. And a new repertoire: out with the tired ditties and in with complexity. Martin longs to challenge them. Instead, he’s a human metronome whipping the air, as the organist—if you can call her that—rocks ponderously, oblivious, crushing beauty.
He turns to study the masses beyond the railing. People are moved, but in the wrong way. Some wear jokey expressions, catching each other’s eyes as they vamp the sacred song. Others snap their hymn books shut. They’re finished with this dross; if only he weren’t associated with it.
He distracts himself from Mass by planning the rest of his day. After a luncheon with his mother that will last too long, he’ll discover a headache that prevents him from staying for a watery coffee. Instead, he’ll retire to his basement apartment and drown himself in classical recordings for a few hours, headphones insulating his ears as he rests on his futon. Then perhaps he’ll see a film or drive into the city in search of an affordable rush ticket to the symphony. He’ll go alone, unless he finds the courage to call the tenors. But probably alone.
In the silence that follows the hymn, he takes in Mary-Pat gripping the organ bench, panting. Down below, the first reader steps to the lectern. Father Dan sits in his chair opposite, blank-faced. If he could convince Father to name him music director, he’d find a real organist and shuffle Mary-Pat to Saturday nights. She won’t want Saturdays, won’t like the nights, especially in winter. He can outwait her, time’s on a thirty-year-old’s side, but she’s taking forever to retire. If she would slide off that bench, the compositions he could tackle.
As a child, he recited nightly prayers with his older brothers and sisters. By the age of six he could produce a flawless Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, and the last, the prayer that wrapped a protective force field around his bed: Angel of God, my Guardian dear, to whom His love commits me here, da-daah, da-daah, da-dum. That was his favourite. His ex-lover, Patrick, thought it odd to have a favourite prayer, but in Martin’s family, praying was breathing. Every time the family moved houses, a priest had to sprinkle holy water over their new rooms. Statues of major- and minor-league saints peered calmly from the book shelves. The refrigerator was covered by a disarray of prayer cards pinned with magnets.
He still reveres the prayers for their poetic language, which might as well be tattooed on his body. The words are inescapably his. Nonetheless, his faith in a personal God has long been shaky. If pressed, he’d have to say he worships Art, or maybe God-in-Art, and it’s to that faceless entity he appeals with an involuntary spasm as Mary-Pat wallows in the opening notes of the responsorial psalm: please let her just drop dead.
The second reading finds Chevy in the midst of a daydream involving an A-1 babe and a bikini and a beach. It’s sunny; there are palm trees and drinks served in hollowed-out pineapples. The gal has an interesting birthmark to show him, right here—whoops, he missed it, he’s moving the bathing suit bottom with his work-rough thumb, when she opens her mouth and sings “Proclaim It to the World.” With a thud he lands back in church, doomed to relive the opening song. And now they’re standing and singing the Alleluia, and it’s a tug-of-war. Chevy’s not musical—his talent is taking up the collection—but even he notices that people want to go faster. He might not be the smartest guy around, but he understands the agony that settles over the church when someone makes Mass longer than it already is.
Monica nudges his arm and gestures toward the altar boys, where his grandson, Justin, remains seated, staring at nothing, while the other boys all stand at quiet attention. His daughter smiles sympathetically and whispers, “Poor little guy,” but Chevy’s torn between embarrassment at Justin’s error and wanting to rescue him—swooping into the sanctuary, lifting Justin off the pew, onto his shoulders, and outside into the brilliant spring sunshine, a fine escape for both of them. He can almost hear Justin’s toddler shrieks of joy. When did the kid become old enough to serve Mass? He feels like he swallowed a rock, the weight of it squashing his chest. Time running. Running out of time. The weight moves lower. He places a hand on his belly, over the bowels that don’t move without a blast of dynamite. Going in for tests, just a few tests, he rehearses the explanation as sung alleluias rise around him. How he will tell Mary-Pat. How he will avoid telling her until he either has a clean report from the doc or is so obviously riddled with cancer that she figures it out.
The kid should really stand up, though. Justin can be absent-minded—he’s a dreamer, more like his uncle Mark was growing up than Justin’s own father, Luke. If only—if only a lot of things. Chevy ticks off the rites of passage he should have given his boys but didn’t, such as hunting and camping, ice fishing, NASCAR races. Taking them drinking after, shooting the shit. But he was always at work, or else too tired. The adult Mark is a mystery, living far away, changing jobs and girlfriends all the time. And while Luke might be more of a steady-Eddie, working construction to support his wife and kids, lately Chevy strains to find something to talk about with his eldest. It used to be easy. He might still do that guy stuff with Justin someday, with a little planning. But then again, maybe he won’t be able to make it happen. And now—he swallows around a swollen throat, snuffles noisily into a handkerchief, and stuffs it back in his pocket—now that bastard Time has him in the crosshairs.
The Alleluia is almost over, the Gospel about to begin. He stares hard at Justin, willing him to ris
e. Don’t they train altar boys anymore? He still remembers the drill from his youth, the whole shebang. Everything in Latin back then. Those memories are fresher than yesterday: the freezing church, his balls shrivelled beneath threadbare, patched pants, his knees knocking. Trudging to church on dark, snowy mornings, his inadequate leather boots. And sour arthritic Monsignor Cleary—in his grave these many years, the old drunk—who would rap the boys’ knuckles afterward without explaining what it was they had done or failed to do. Chevy bet he could still perform the altar boy’s duties if he were suddenly pressed into service: to stand, kneel, ring the bells, scurry to hand the priest the right objects in the right order at the right time; to remain poker-faced and hide the yawns. At the front of the church, the tall robed boy next to Justin looks down and, without changing expression, subtly tugs Justin’s sleeve, pulling him to his feet. Chevy relaxes. He barely has time to form an approving thought about the older lad, surely a priest in the making, when Justin opens his mouth wide for a long toothy yawn. He flinches, while Monica buries her snort of laughter in his shoulder.
The singing stops but the organ continues as Mary-Pat takes a victory lap around the Alleluia and Father Dan waits, his mouth a thin line.
God, it’s awful.
He covers his face with his hands, feeling the stubble he missed while shaving. He’s sorry for Mary-Pat, he really is, despite the fact that she won’t stop watching him now that he’s given up drinking and started walking in the evenings. She keeps asking where he’s walking to. Why does it have to be anywhere? he answers. Once she said, “Hmmph. Mid-life crisis,” and he barked that she must be pretty daft if she thinks seventy-three is mid-life. She’s a hound sniffing for clues. Plainly, she suspects a gal on the side. Well, not anymore, lady. If only he could have those days back.
What will happen to all of them? Just a few tests. Don’t borrow trouble. But he can’t help fearing the ordeal ahead, the burden on his family. His decline, and after. How will they remember him, when he’s gone? Wait for the tests.
Christ, Mary-Pat and her attack on the instrument. She practises faithfully on the tinny electric organ at home but never improves. How will she fill her time when she can’t play anymore? For years since his retirement, her practice schedule has allowed him to disappear for an afternoon without attracting attention. He’d slip away to secret pals and secret dives, joints she’d never been to, which might have been the most attractive thing about them. And now he’s quit the drinking in a leap of faith. He should have listened to the health nuts earlier, reformed his bad ways.
He presses his fingers into bloodshot eyes, sparking flashes. It’s too late to pry the box of his choices open, even if he wanted to. It’s all too complicated to sort out. Sweet Jesus, let something be over. He’s tired. Let it end soon, one way or another.
Father Dan peers over his reading glasses at the two boys flanking the lectern, each hugging a candle half their height, shifting foot to foot. He shuffles papers, adjusts the mic. Scripture can’t be altered, of course, but he’ll keep the homily short to make amends for what they have to listen to. He does recognize an upside to the music: people pray harder while they’re here. That’s a plus.
He intones, “The Gospel according to St. Luke,” making the sign of the cross on his forehead, lips, and breastbone, and the congregation mirrors his movements, an amplification that nourishes him. Faith manifested bodily: statement, symbol, and action, simultaneously internal and external—he lives for this. Immediately afterward, though, reading Luke’s account of Jesus raising a widow’s son from the dead, his thoughts drift. A few ladies approached him yesterday, members of the CWL at war. He sighs, wishing he hadn’t seen the letter that appeared in his mailbox afterward, a missive one faction plans to send in support of some radical nuns on a bus trying to break into the priesthood. Nuns on a bus. A mental image of wimpled, wizened faces peering crossly from the windows of a yellow school bus tickles his lips. Not that kind of nun, he reminds himself, sobering. He pictures guitar-strumming sisters in A-line skirts and low-heeled sandals, outwardly meek yet willing to chain themselves to the gates of nuclear facilities and challenge Holy Mother Church at every turn. Someone photocopied the letter and sent it to him anonymously, hoping he’d intervene against the looming danger of women priests. Some days the CWL torments him. Don’t they realize he’d rather chat and charm? He makes ceremonies of receiving their bake-sale proceeds, isn’t that enough?
“Place yourself in the widow’s shoes,” he says. “Feel her desperation turn to jubilation when the miracle is performed.” His speech quickens, perhaps to outpace the bickering females in his head. Is he supposed to report the letter-writers to the bishop? Advise them not to send the letter despite his personal views? Join them and sign the letter? He finds himself strangely indifferent to the scandal that would cause.
Extemporizing, he draws parallels to modern medicine, seemingly miraculous, and yet nothing can touch the scene in Judea, which hinges on a woman’s simple belief. He envisions disbanding the CWL, locking all the ladies out of the parish kitchen, stamping his foot, sidestepping. His view is framed by candles held aloft. The light wavers, dancing and bending. He softens, takes a breath, and tries to wrap up.
He’s mid-sentence when the smallest altar boy darts across to assist one of the candle-bearers struggling to rebalance his load. The taper tilts. The boy reaches for it as it falls, catching the billowy curtain enveloping his arm. It happens so fast that Father can’t do a single useful thing in response to the gasps of people in the front pews. What is that child’s name—Jordan, Jayden?—no, Justin. The organist’s grandson, God love him.
A spark, a flaring at the edge of the boy’s sleeve. His face twitches: horror. He tries to run, but two men spring forward to catch him in the centre aisle, and Father knows without having to look that one of them is Chevy. Wordlessly, they tackle the boy and roll him between them. The younger man—doesn’t he know him? One of Chevy’s boys?—lies prostrate in the aisle, covering Justin with his body. Like a supplicant, like a priest being ordained. Father darts from behind the lectern. He belongs with them, his people in need. As he reaches the trio, the man rolls off the boy and pulls him into an embrace while Chevy crouches nearby, awkwardly patting his grandson. He’s fine, thank heaven. No worse for the wear.
Music swells: the offertory hymn too early, lentamente and fortissimo. Laughter, then applause, erupts. Father shakes Chevy’s hand and says, “This is your part, my friend.”
Justin returns to the altar servers, solemn and pale, and Chevy’s son—Mike? Mick?—to his attractive companion. Chevy trolls the aisle, passing the collection basket.
Seated, Father closes his eyes. He doesn’t have anything to do with the candles. The head server prepares the altar before every Mass, gliding importantly across the carpet in sock feet, silent except for the click of the barbecue lighter—they haven’t struck matches in ages. After Mass, a younger boy is deputized to blow the candles out. It’s no one’s fault, but he’ll have to call a meeting to review procedures. A small hassle—gratitude anoints him, leaving no room for irritation. How much worse the accident could have been. He draws his fingers to his lips, pondering the nature of miracles, and floats a petition to the Lord: might an inconvenient letter be destroyed through some joyful, as yet undiscovered, mystery?
The offertory hymn claims Mark’s racing pulse, insisting on a slower pace, but he resists. Kara puts her arms around his waist and squeezes. She says something in his ear that his mother’s relentless playing blocks. She tries again. “God saved him. God saved him through you.” He peels her off and nods at the altar, where the Eucharistic rite is in progress. She drops to her knees, a thing he’s never seen her do in a church. Which leads—he can’t help it—to a looping clip of the two of them naked, blurry and out of context. She falls, she goes down; he banishes each image as the next arrives. They roll around his mind, but he feels no desire for her, which is
strange. Lust has kept him with Kara for six months. It’s been the constant of their relationship. But now—he looks at her breasts, remembers last night—no, nothing. He can’t catch his breath; it’s as though he was sprinting uphill on his bike. He tries to calm himself by remembering how his second wind kicks in just when he thinks he’ll collapse from exhaustion; how the rhythm of pedalling takes over.
When it’s time for the congregation to kneel together, he remains standing. Steady, he tells himself, but he can’t think over the pounding in his ears. The fuck, what the fuck, what the—?
He sees the priest notice them out of sync and pretend not to notice. Folding his arms, he feels not his own torso, but the imprint of his nephew. Brave boy. No crying, jumped back in line with the big kids, but the tremors passed through him as he pinned Justin to the floor. The smell of singed cloth lingers. His legs fail, and then he, too, kneels. Kara weeps silently, dripping on the pew in front of them. He doesn’t comfort her. If he were to smash every gilded, glittery object, where would he start? The candle stands.
At Communion, Kara gets in line, although his mother told her not to. “I’m afraid you, as a non-Catholic, dear, are ineligible to receive the Host,” she had said, patting Kara’s hand. “Don’t take it personally.” The music starts: “Be Not Afraid,” #481, played in the contemplative style of a dying animal. He stays behind. When Kara reaches the front, she falls at the priest’s feet, arms crossed over chest; her shoulder blades heave as she receives his blessing. Mark slumps, head on hands: no, no, no. He half expects Kara to crawl back to her seat, a penitent pilgrim, but Father gently pulls her up, and she walks like a normal person who hasn’t been touched by divine intervention. In an instant, the things that had been so good between them flipped to intolerable. He can’t say why, but neither can he deny it. They are finished.