He thinks about the roommate he hasn’t met and buys more of everything. He stops in a packy and gets beer and a bottle of wine. After he deposits it in the apartment he showers, finds the least wrinkled shirt in his duffle bag, and heads for the T. By the time he surfaces at Downtown Crossing, it’s already nearly sixty degrees and climbing, and he’s glad he hadn’t carried that old windbreaker with him; he feels light—lighter than he’s felt in months.
The homeless are on the steps of St. Stephen’s Episcopal on Tremont, the warm weather having driven them outside their cot shelter and deposited them onto the steps of the Greek Revival church, where they sprawl out, some of them shirtless, heads up to the heavens like guests in a sauna at some spa. His experience working with outreach programs has taught him that you can find more people in church basements nowadays than in the sanctuaries upstairs. One of the men smokes a cigarette while he studies Jason.
“Morning,” Jason says.
“Seen you before.”
He’s young and white, with matted dark brown dreadlocks and a scruffy beard. His jeans are torn but not in the fashionable spots. In fact, Jason can see a bit of his penis through a hole near the broken zipper.
“Oh yeah?”
“Shelter in Roxbury.”
“Really?” Jason volunteered in many shelters during his six years in Boston but Roxbury wasn’t one of them.
“Just fuckin’ with you, dude. Just fuckin’ with you. Why the fuck would you be in a shelter?” He laughs, then coughs.
Jason wants to give him money, but he hesitates; he doesn’t have much with him and he’s not going to live off Ryan while he’s here. Yet he wants to give—always has this desire to strip himself of his trappings, pare down, make others more comfortable. Sure, the guy might buy a heroin fix. But then again, he might get a burger. One never knows, but one has to try. One has to hope.
“Can I buy you a coffee?” Jason asks.
“Already had my cuppa joe.”
Where R U? Ryan texts.
He’s saved.
Be there in five.
He is looking in the window of the jewelry store next to the building where she works, eyeing the price of diamond rings and feeling lucky to have had access to his grandmother’s when she taps him on the back. He spins around and hugs her but not too hard—he knows he was a bit rough the night before.
“Where to, legal lady?” He kisses her on the forehead.
“What’re you up for? Pho? Mexican?”
“How about we get a hot dog and eat in the park?”
“Well, okay. If that’s what you’d like.”
“You don’t want to?”
“Sausage sub works for me. There’s a great stand on the corner of Washington Street—the couple gives extra onions and peppers.”
As they sit on the bench, Jason pinches small pieces from his roll and feeds the pigeons. Before long, there’s a flock pecking around the walk in front of them, flying overhead, and swooping down around them. A woman on the next bench gets up and moves a good distance away.
“Do they bother you?” he asks Ryan.
“I can live with it.”
“Yeah, but does it bother you?” He never asked before if that sort of behavior annoyed her. He just assumed it shouldn’t.
“I don’t want to get crapped on. I washed my hair this morning.”
“Let’s move.”
“It’s more like give up the roll and move, unless we want company.”
“Right.”
He breaks off a large chunk, drops it on the ground, and pops the rest into his mouth. He picks up her bottle of water with one hand and grabs her hand with the other. It’s got to be different, he thinks. This time has to be different. I have to be different.
“I’m surprised you didn’t want to be a Franciscan.”
“Why? Jebbies don’t feed pigeons?”
“I just always saw you more as the St. Francis type.”
“I like to think of myself as the Ryan type.”
He puts his arm around her shoulder and kisses her head. She isn’t that far off about the Franciscan thing. Jason met one who was on his way to an Earth Day gathering while he traveled to the novitiate, and he was taken by their commitment to protect the environment as stewards of all of God’s creation. The brother talked about a new book that blended three interrelated disciplines: scientifically informed ecology, theology, and the practice of reflective action. There is something so self-effacing about the Franciscan friars, a humility to which Jason is drawn. But he is also drawn to the Jesuit legacy of intellectualism; he grew up with them as instructors. Which order could help him reach others best, the classroom or the street?
He reminds himself that he’s here in Boston to see if he can accomplish his goals in yet another way—as a lay minister. Not at all impossible. The religious order of Maryknoll has lay couples—some even with families. All other denominations certainly do, just as Ryan insisted when he told her about wanting to become a priest. He’s getting excited, a warm rush filling him as he walks through the Common with the woman he professes to love, a spray of forsythia on the border of the winding path—a yellow brick road—guiding them.
“How’d you like to see Faye?” She breaks his concentration. “She’s in rehab with a broken hip.”
“I’d love to see Faye.”
“Tonight? After dinner?”
“Sure.” He squeezes her shoulder, testing to see if she’s really there—or if it’s he who is there.
* * *
“Well, well, look what the cat’s dragged in, and on St. Paddy’s Day, no less. Hopefully you didn’t bring bagpipers with you.”
Faye is in the Multi Room, with its dark blue rug, patterned pinch-pleat drapes, and wing chairs set around a coffee table to simulate a living room. She’s like a queen in the gilded wheelchair she got the young CNA Louis to spray-paint gold. Her knight, Harold, is in his own wheelchair to her right, while her lady in waiting—a woman named Ida with a chalky stark-white face—is to her left. They are focused on the large flat screen above the fireplace.
“I told you it was Steinbeck!” Faye cries out with satisfaction at having guessed the answer to Final Jeopardy, when all three of the contestants got it wrong.
“I could have sworn it was Hemingway,” Harold says. “You should go on the show, Faye.”
“I couldn’t press the buzzer fast enough. I’m only good for Final Jeopardy.”
“Way to go, Faye! I would have said Faulkner,” Jason joins in.
“And you would have been wrong. Come.” She motions to him. “Give me a kiss.”
Another grandmother would have sat and waited for the boy to pay homage to her, but Faye makes it her business to put everyone at ease (a little too easily this time); besides, she carries so much passion with so little time to express it that she jumps at any chance to unload some of it. Jason, still hesitant, crouches beside her and takes her hand in his; she uses her free hand to cup his chin, pulling his face to hers, and plants a smacker on his cheek.
“Is that your son?” Ida asks.
“I don’t have any sons. Just two daughters.”
“And this is your daughter?”
“No, dear. This is my granddaughter.” Ryan has met Ida several times before.
“Where’s Sylvia?” Ryan asks.
There’s an awkward silence and Faye grows serious.
“Gone,” she says.
“Home?”
“If that’s what you believe.”
“Oh—I’m sorry.”
“We come and we go,” Harold says.
“It’s like I’ve been telling you, bubeleh, we’re like ice cubes melting on a hot summer’s day. So—” She is determined to be upbeat: “What’s cookin’?”
“Well, Jason is back.”
“I can see that,” she says. Faye has no intention of letting Jason off the hook. “By the way, Jason, I’m forgetting my manners. Meet Ida and my boyfriend, Harold.”
A bit
surprised at the last statement, Jason attempts to be as cool as Faye and gingerly clasps first Ida’s, then Harold’s hand.
“Did you and God have a spat?” Faye cannot resist.
Jason chortles. “I’m on leave.”
“Jason is a priest,” she explains to Ida and Harold.
“Are you here to say Mass?” Catholic Ida lights up. By the looks of her ghost-like complexion she must be thinking he’s just in time.
“No. I’m not a priest yet. I’ve been in the seminary.”
“This is your son?” Ida asks Faye again.
“No. This is my granddaughter’s friend.”
To the relief of all, an attendant comes to wheel Ida back to her room and get her ready for bed.
“Yesterday, after her husband left, she was asking for an exorcist. She said he was possessed. Saw pink smoke coming out of his head. Today she’s a Kabuki dancer—made her face up with toothpaste instead of powder. Why don’t you write about that?” Faye tells Ryan, then wastes no time cutting to the chase.
“So you’re just visiting?” She’s still smiling, but the smile is frozen with expectation. “Are you here to torture my granddaughter? Pick at old wounds? That I will not approve of.”
“I’m considering leaving the seminary.”
“You’re breaking up with God?”
“Enough, Faye,” Ryan says, although she can’t say she isn’t enjoying the grilling.
Jason motions to Ryan that’s it all right. “It’s only been a day.”
Faye nods, dissatisfied with the answer.
“Then we’ll be seeing a lot of you,” Harold says, jumping in for the save. A typical guy thing, and just when Faye had Jason’s hand to the fire.
“I hope so,” Jason says.
“I hope so too. Not many of us around here.” Harold is referring to the scarcity of men at the nursing home.
“It’s not like we’re moving in,” Ryan tells him.
“Speaking of moving, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you, Ryan. As soon as Harold and I are back on our feet and can shed these spiffy accouterments, we’re moving into the new independent living section in the building next door. We’ve already put down our deposit on an apartment. It’s a lovely one bedroom with one and a half baths and a little den if you want to stay over, and a screened in patio. Your mother and father promised to help clean out my house in Newton and put it on the market. Harold is selling his condo in Brookline. And did I tell you we were getting married?”
Jason looks at Ryan wide-eyed. She shrugs her shoulders as if to say: Who knew?
“Should I get a dress?”
“We’ll just do it simply, bubeleh. Maybe at Anthony’s Pier 4. Just the family and a justice of the peace. Harold is an atheist.”
“It closed, Faye.”
“Anthony’s? When?”
“Not too long ago. I think there are condos there now.”
“Oh, no! That was the place to go. We went there after your mother and your Aunt Robin’s graduations. We went there for your graduation! The view of the harbor was the ultimate—so were the prices. But it was special. Do you know there was a photo of my husband with the owner?” she tells Harold and Jason. “He was an Albanian immigrant and my husband helped him get a loan to open his first big restaurant. Anthony Athanas, a little guy. My Sidney towered over him. And he never forgot Sid. There he was up on that wall with Athanas, alongside the likes of Liz Taylor and John F. Kennedy and Joe DiMaggio.”
She shakes her head. This has really thrown Faye, who usually rides the waves of change with a lot more grace. “Where will we go, Ryan? Jimmy’s Harborside is also gone,” she says of the other flagship eatery on the pier, and Ryan fears for Faye, who seems to have been tossed into her own sea of confusion with the loss of these landmarks.
“Don’t fret, Faye, dear. There must be other good restaurants in town.” Harold looks up at Ryan and Jason for confirmation, making it obvious that of late he hasn’t gotten out much either.
“There are some great new places,” Jason tells them. He turns to Ryan. “What’s that one by the seaport we went to with my mother?”
“That closed last summer.”
“Already?”
“But there’s another one a block away.”
“It’s good?” Faye asks.
“It’s really good,” Ryan says.
“Will you make the reservation, darling?”
“Of course, but for when? How many?”
“When, Harold?”
“How about in a couple of weeks. End of April?”
“Yes,” Faye says. “April in Boston. We should be in our new place by then. Just your mother and father and Aunt Robin and Uncle Jake, if they can come all the way from Seattle. Your cousin Peter is in India, and Emma can never get away from her residency, so they’re out. And you and Jason, of course, assuming you’ll still be here. But that’s it. Oh, and my friend Pearl—and Tilly, if her doctor lets her.”
“What about your family, Harold?” Ryan asks.
“My daughters are estranged from me, and my son was killed in a car accident a long time ago. Unfortunately, I’ve never had grandchildren. But I will now.”
At least the news has shifted the conversation away from her and Jason.
“I thought you didn’t want to give up the house, Faye.”
“Let’s be practical here. I’ve come to my senses. I really won’t be able to go on in that big place much longer. Let some young family make memories there. Besides, the food’s pretty good here, don’t you agree, Harold? So go to the house some day, take what you want. I’ll be bringing some of the furniture and a few paintings and treasures. The rest is going to the Salvation Army, or whatever your mother wants to do with it. It’s the new way, that Japanese thing about only keeping what you love.” She smiles at Harold. “So, Jason, what do you think about this Brackton affair?”
He’s bewildered.
“I guess you haven’t told him, bubeleh.”
“No, Faye. We haven’t gotten that far.” Ryan does not find Faye’s bringing up the contest amusing.
“I didn’t think so.” Faye is pleased with herself for having let that cat out of the bag.
A little boy about two or three and his mother have been sitting with an older gentleman across the room, taking in an earful. As they wheel the man out, the boy approaches Faye.
“What’s this?” he says, pointing to the forearm that rests on her lap. With its deep dry ridges, it resembles a Yule log, and Ryan cringes for the appearance-conscious Faye, who smiles at the child.
“Just a very old arm, sweetheart,” she tells him. “Just a very old arm.”
* * *
O’Hanrahan’s has turned into the Emerald Isle, with glittery shamrocks hanging from the ceiling and servers dressed as leprechauns amid a sea of green-clad clientele jammed into the small establishment. Jason and Ryan stand—pints in hand—at the crowded bar waiting for two stools to become available, but the possibility is slim here and at every other bar in Boston on this day. A young woman who looks like a cross between Peter Pan and Little Orphan Annie in her black tights and a skimpy green outfit Irish step dances on a makeshift stage and serves as a distraction from the issue at hand.
“I can see sending the essay,” Jason says, continuing the conversation he began as they left the nursing home. “I mean, you like a challenge. But this wasn’t a game.”
“I never thought I’d win. It was a fluke. I thought the whole thing was lame anyway, and I have to admit, I read the ad in a weak moment.”
He gulps down the last drop of his beer, wipes his mouth, and motions for the waitress to bring two more, although Ryan has only drunk half of hers. It was her idea to go to O’Hanrahan’s, their St. Patrick’s Day tradition, even though the holiday has never been high on her list of celebrations. But what is also in keeping with tradition is the fact that they find themselves in a crowd with a hot personal topic simmering between them.
“I don�
��t know why you’re so upset,” she says, watching the dancer’s legs bending at the knee and straightening like a jackknife repeatedly opening and closing.
“Ryan, you used my name. You implicated me.”
“Relax. It’s not like they’re going to indict you.”
He shakes his head, astonished at her logic.
“Okay. It was unethical. It was dishonest, and irresponsible, and downright mean to the citizens of Brackton. Fuck, Jason! Do you know what I’ve gone through the last year and a half? You pulled the fucking rug out from under me without warning. Sorry if I cared so much I couldn’t erase three and a half years of a relationship from my mind—from my heart.” The dancer’s mountain of red curls are bouncing every which way as she jumps.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“No, I’m sorry. I was wrong. You’re right—as usual.” She stays fixed on the dancer.
“I mean I’m sorry I hurt you.”
“You already apologized.”
“I don’t think I fully understood the toll it would take on you.”
“How could you not?” she says, returning her gaze to him.
“Selfish, I guess.” Now his eyes move to the dancer. “Wishful thinking. Made it easier on me.”
“And would it have changed your decision if you had taken it into more serious consideration?”
“No.” He stares into his glass.
“So there you have it. You did what you had to do, and I did what I did.”
They have whittled away enough at their defenses (and drunk enough beer) to confront one another face-to-face.
“So what’s the plan for Brackton?” he asks.
“Tell them the truth. What else?”
“You’re playing your hand.”
“You think I’m bluffing?”
“If you were going to come clean, you’d already have done it.”
“So I’m stalling, is how you see it.”
“Of course.”
“Can’t blame a girl for trying.”
“You like the place?”
A Day in June Page 14