Agnes Among the Gargoyles

by Patrick Flynn

  Great Man jokes about building 30 story abortion clinic on St. Basil's site "Just to get Clarence's goat."

  At the conclusion of the service, Father Clarence returns to the pulpit. "Jessica told me once that there was one sound she loved more than any other. She told me that nothing brought more peace to her soul than the sound of a carillon on Sunday morning. Our carillon has been silent for many years, but I can think of no more fitting occasion for it to sound again."

  The priest gives a little nod, and the church is filled with a thundering, crashing, deafening pealing of bells. Father Clarence seems entranced by the pomp and power of the display. Agnes just finds it uncomfortably loud. The church seems to buzz and shake. Is it Agnes's imagination? Apparently not. She watches a crack forming in the wall, right next to one of the confessionals. Father Clarence waves his arms to stop the carillon.

  "They warned me about that," he says.

  A crowd gathers around the priest as he probes the crack. Large chunks of plaster fall away, exposing the brickwork beneath.

  "It's a miracle," says Agnes.

  She threads her way to where the priest is standing.

  "Look at how the bricks are laid out, Father," she says, pointing. "Flemish bond. Look how the headers and stretchers alternate."

  Upset by the damage, the priest just shakes his head.

  "Headers are bricks with the end facing out. Stretchers have the side facing out," Agnes explains. "Header, stretcher, header, stretcher. That's Flemish bond."

  Now Malthus Grosvenor is right there with her, and several other key players in the Telamones Society. Grosvenor says, "Flemish bond is a characteristic of Federal architecture. From Greek Revival on, the bricks are set in running bond, which has only stretchers. After 1800, only one architect that we know of insisted on Flemish bond for his brick surfaces."

  "Conforte," says Agnes. "He had a fetish for it."

  The priest brushes the plaster dust from his hands. "This church was designed by William Waldrych."

  "That's what they say," sniffs Agnes.

  "I'm not the only one who sees Conforte's hand all over the place," says Grosvenor. "Do you know what this means?"

  "New evidence for the landmarks commission," says Agnes. She finds herself saying this directly to Madelaine, who has joined the crowd of the curious at the wall. Her daughter is right beside her. Sarah wears a long shapeless dress and wool tights and a burgundy beret.

  "Has St. Basil's been saved?" says Malthus Grosvenor rhetorically.

  "This is a beautiful church," says Madelaine. She is hesitant, not on her turf, but happy for a chance to come out on the side of the angels. "If you can show that St. Basil's should be landmarked, then no way is Ron going to tear it down. It just won't happen."

  The Telamones Society murmurs its appreciation.

  "My husband is interested in progress, not destruction," says Madelaine.

  Father Clarence is joined by his ascetic-looking assistant. Father Clarence gives him the names of people who must be called: architects and a structural engineer and, in Wisconsin, the manufacturers of the carillon.

  Sarah whispers in Agnes's ear. "They forget who they're dealing with. You know what my father will say, don't you?"

  "What?"

  "He'll say that it ain't fuckin' landmarked yet," she says, in gravelly imitation of the Great Man, "and then he'll send out a crew in the middle of the night to tear the place down."

  She knows her father very well, yet is still under his spell. She is proud of his cunning ways. This shouldn't surprise Agnes, who has known many women with a weakness for delinquents.

  "People don't like it when he does things like that," says Agnes.

  "Daddy's not afraid," she says. She points to Madelaine. "She's petrified, but not him."

  The priest resumes his position with the altar boys about midway down the church's nave.

  "We're sorry for the delay, Jessica," he says. "But I think you can see it was worth it."

  Father Clarence leads the casket out the front door of the church. On the steps of the church, Agnes discusses the remarkable turn of events with other Telamones members, then joins Sarah and Madelaine, who are arguing.

  "I don't agree with everything he said," says Madelaine, "but he has a lovely presence."

  "He's a fascist," says Sarah. "Remember what he said about the poor?"

  "All he said was that we'd always have poor people with us. I believe he was quoting."

  "Father Clarence said the world needs poor people," says Sarah insistently. "He said we need laborers and farmhands and factory workers. He basically endorsed sweatshops. He said the poor should stop seeing themselves as poor and instead as necessary cogs in God's machine."

  "So?"

  "It's all right for him, isn't it? His role in the machine is a comfy one."

  "Well, whatever he said, you could hear a pin drop in that church. Agnes, Sarah and I can't figure out how we're going to break the news about St. Basil's to Weege."

  Sarah and her mother leave for the cemetery. Agnes sits down on the steps of St. Basil's. The weather is cold and brilliantly sunny. The world seems in particularly sharp focus. A faint aroma of incense hangs in the air. Agnes seldom goes to church, but when she does, she typically emerges in a thoughtful mood. The world seems a varied and fascinating place. The cockroaches and pigeons and bums and receptionists and secretaries and word processors and writers and editors and brokers and architects and billionaires seem to make up a great urban chain of being. Agnes can almost imagine a divine intelligence watching over it all.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Bezel awakens to a vision of a damsel with a violoncello. She is gorgeous. Her face is like the face on a coin. She is sheathed in black.

  "110th Street, Cathedral Parkway. 125th next."

  Slowly he becomes aware of his situation. He is on the subway, stretched out on the corner seats. The car is crowded, but not where he is. He feels violently ill. He shakes even when the train is motionless. He has been drunk for—how long? Weeks? Months?

  Thank God it's over.

  What became of the Frenchman? The last thing Bezel remembers is watching him rifle a poor box in a church. Heretic. Bezel wheeled over a candle stand for illumination.

  Two heretics.

  The train climbs to the top of Manhattan. Bezel opens and closes his eyes. He makes a fist. He wiggles one foot, then the other. He clears his throat.

  The effort exhausts him.

  He watches the sublime cellist. She must be with the Philharmonic. She won't look at him. Finally, she and her instrument and a lesser woman carrying a flute get off the train.

  A man enters Bezel's car. He has wild eyes and bare, gnarled feet that look like mandrake roots. A beggar. His hands and face are scaly. He stands next to Bezel and addresses the other passengers.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, please excuse this interruption."

  Bezel groans. He's going to ask for money. There should be a law banning these awful beggars.

  "I am not a beggar," the man announces. "I am not crazy. I do not use drugs. I do not smoke or drink. I am of the opinion that crack is a menace to the little ones of our city."

  None of the passengers pay much attention to him.

  "What I am is a victim of the city. I cannot get a job. My clothes are too shabby for an interview. I cannot afford to have resumes printed."

  The train lurches. Bezel almost rolls onto the floor.

  "Anyone in this city can become homeless," says the man.

  Yeah, right, thinks Bezel. Not bloody true. Bezel's never known anyone who became homeless, and he's known some good candidates.

  "I have nothing to offer," says the man. "I do not sing. I do not play the steel drum. I am dependent on you. I need money for a hot meal."

  The train pulls into a station. The man pauses while passengers get on and off. When the new arrivals are settled, he begins again.

  "I am a victim," he says, then points at Bezel. "Not like t
his piece of human shit. This man has destroyed himself with drink and drugs. He is possessed by demons. Look at him! Wretched, wretched creature. When he comes around asking for money, don't give him any. Give to those who truly deserve. I am their representative."

  At the next stop, Bezel, thoroughly humiliated, stumbles off the train and onto the elevated platform. The cold hits him. Well, he thinks, at least it's still winter. That's something. At least he didn't drink the whole season away.

  Perhaps he was too ambitious, getting up and off the train that way. He finds a quiet corner of the platform and curls up. The sun will wake him. Or maybe he'll never wake again. The way he feels now, that would be all right too.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Agnes meets Sarah on St. Mark's Place and Second Avenue. Sarah needs to find an apartment.

  Sarah has a pad full of addresses. For the next several hours she and Agnes trudge around the Lower East Side. It is a remarkably unproductive venture, as such ventures almost always are. Agnes and Sarah view only three apartments, rejecting the others without even going inside the buildings. Sarah is naive about living in New York, and Agnes is a big help to her. Agnes approaches each building like a detective at a crime scene. She looks behind cellar stairs for crack vials, and has a keen eye for mouse and rat droppings. At several buildings, no one answers the doorbell; at others, the super expresses astonishment that a vacancy has been listed. The three apartments that Agnes and Sarah do see are no standouts: one is a spacious dumbbell-shaped walk-up that couldn't be any darker if there were blackout curtains on the windows; one is on the first floor, protected by grim portcullis-like window gates out of The Count of Monte Cristo; one, a studio with a view of Tompkins Square Park, seems inoffensive until Agnes realizes that the blurry movements at the edge of her vision come not from fatigue and hunger—it's well past lunchtime—but rather from migrations of cockroaches disturbed by the intrusion.

  "Tough work," says Sarah cheerfully. They head off to look for something to eat.

  "Impossible," says Agnes.

  "Maybe we could cover Chelsea this afternoon?"

  Agnes is exhausted and irritable. "Let's be sensible, Sarah. Only people without money do what you're doing. It could take weeks. Go to a real estate broker and be done with it."

  "That's what my mother wants," says Sarah angrily. "Did she put you up to saying that?"

  "We need to eat," says Agnes.

  They have vegetable pirogis in a luncheonette on First Avenue. The waitresses, full-cheeked and just off the boat, barely speak English. They huddle near the grill and joke with each other in Polish.

  Sarah eats a dish of beets. "My mother's really scared since the shooting. She won't let my father put his name on things anymore. She wants him to keep a lower profile."

  "That seems prudent."

  "He's getting ready to open the new wing of Long Island Hospital. It's for Down's Syndrome research, so I suggested they name it the Niobe Pavilion."

  Agnes's ignorance is apparent. "Why?"

  "The personification of female sorrow."

  Agnes shakes her head.

  "From the Greek myth," Sarah explains. "Niobe had twelve children, and she made fun of Latona for having only two, Apollo and Diana. They avenged the insult to their mother by killing all twelve of Niobe's children. Niobe cried herself to death and was changed into a stone."

  Agnes is bitterly jealous. Here is one more way in which life is made easier for the privileged: great vats of knowledge are poured into them without their consent, and thus any possible education regrets are headed off. Agnes has always been playing catch-up. She went to a terrible high school, then succumbed to flawed logic and enlisted in the army, passing up a chance to attend Yale, which was a huge mistake—the sort of boner the wealthy don't even get to think about making.

  There was never anyone to countermand Agnes's bad decisions. Hannah was no help. Having spent a night in New Haven on her honeymoon, Hannah was not impressed with Yale or its environs. "They pull in the sidewalks at eight-thirty," she told Agnes.

  Agnes convinces Sarah that Madelaine does have a point about real estate brokers. She's not just being over-protective and domineering. Sarah calls a woman on the Upper East Side, who promises to meet them at the luncheonette in twenty minutes.

  Sarah tells Agnes how impatient she is. She wants to get her apartment, get settled, and start making films.

  Agnes makes a face. "Why?"

  "Why what?"

  "Why do you want to make films—or movies, as anyone with any sense calls them?"

  The question puzzles Sarah. "It's just what I want to do. I think I can help people."

  "You want to help people? Join the Peace Corps."

  "Why are you being so hostile?"

  "Oh, I guess I just get tired of all the artists in New York," says Agnes.

  Sarah shrugs. "Become one yourself."

  "No. I'm one of the few people in the city who know they have no artistic talent."

  The realtor wasn't kidding about being there in twenty minutes. She must have dropped everything and sprinted to a cabstand. She is about Agnes's age and (Agnes estimates) of approximately her same social class. She has a Irish face: pale and plain, with a chin that almost juts out; not a pretty face, certainly, but nicely dignified. Her suit and raincoat and briefcase are obviously expensive, as are her shoes, with their strange latticework of straps. She spots Agnes as one of her own and ignores her; she is easily friendly to Sarah, dropping name after name of people whom they both know. She and Sarah are both highly critical of someone named Angelique, who turns out to be a boat. Agnes admires the woman's shrewdness. She knows that, ultimately, the rich are only really comfortable with the rich, or with those who aren't rich but willing to fake it. The woman (her name is Mrs. Faraday) got her ass to a Polish luncheonette just as fast as her little dominatrix pumps would carry her, but her manner is breezy and unhurried, as though she and Sarah were out for a day of museums and shopping and lunch and she just got it in her head to show Sarah a bunch of empty apartments in the West Village.

  "Madelaine wanted me to show you my Yorkville listings," says Mrs. Faraday, "but I'm sure you'd prefer Downtown."

  Mrs. Faraday shows them one stunning apartment after another. The gaudy splendor of Wegeman Tower failed to impress Agnes because its luxuries were not the sort she craved, but these apartments of Mrs. Faraday's, these carriage houses, these evocations of Paris with kitchens of blue tile—they take Agnes's breath away. You think you know what money can buy but you don't even, thinks Agnes. One of the apartments is furnished. The owner, a writer for Rolling Stone, is on assignment in Oslo. Agnes examines his books and his Emmylou Harris CDs and his terrycloth bathrobe and the beer in the fridge and thinks it all terribly attractive. She would marry him.

  Sarah is unmoved by all this. None of the apartments seem politically suitable. She doesn't get the feeling that the people who would be her neighbors have ever given a thought to the plight of Native Americans. She makes comments that are lost on Mrs. Faraday. "The carriage house was nice and all, but I'd feel like I was retired," she says. Mrs. Faraday grows irritated. She knows there will be no commission this afternoon. She starts showing the apartments to Agnes, whose awe is apparent.

  "Just smell that cedar," says Mrs. Faraday sadistically.

  Sarah and Agnes ride with Mrs. Faraday up to the East 70s. Agnes wants to buy a pair of sneakers, and she knows a store up that way that is having a sale. Sarah seems relieved that their day together is not coming to an end. They say a strained good-bye to Mrs. Faraday and walk together down Madison Avenue.

  "I know she's on the phone to my mother right now," says Sarah. "The two of them will go one for hours about how difficult I am."

  "I have to pee," says Agnes casually. She walks toward a place that looks like a restaurant but has no name. As she reaches the door Sarah jumps in front of her, blocking her way.

  "Let's go someplace else," says Sarah.

  Agne
s blinks at her. "Why?"

  "This is Palestrina."

  "The it is a restaurant—good, I wasn't sure. They'll have a bathroom."

  "You don't understand," says Sarah. "It's really a club. My mother comes here all the time. It's horrible. They'll be very nasty to you. And they won't let you use the bathroom."

  Agnes is touched by Sarah's gesture of protection.

  "Thanks," says Agnes, and goes inside anyway. Sarah follows. Agnes passes Xavier, the maitre d', who looks like he wants to call the police. Sarah catches up with Agnes in the dining room.

  "Surprise!"