The Senator and the Priest

by Andrew M. Greeley

  The books vanished while there were still at least a hundred potential readers. The store promised it would have more books by noon tomorrow. The Senator promised that if you order them today or tomorrow morning he’ll sign them tomorrow afternoon. And you’ll be able to pick them up here in the evening.

  Tommy rose from the chair.

  “This has been fun! Thank you very much! And thanks also to our redoubtable musicians. Read the book early and often! I have only this one left. I thought I’d give it to the incumbent who is just down the mall. What do you think?”

  He autographed the book. I glanced over his shoulder.

  For Senator H. Rodgers Crispjin,

  All the, Best, Tommy Moran

  Laughter and applause.

  The cameras were ready in front of the First Bank of Naperville. Followed by a crowd of his admirers, all clutching their precious autographed copies, Tommy walked to the front of the bank, slipped through the handlers around the Senator, and handed him the book.

  “I thought you might want a signed copy,” he said, extending his hand. “Good luck.”

  As luck—and clever maneuvering by my husband—the words went out on the public address system.

  The Senator was flummoxed.

  “Thank you,” he stammered, shaking hands. “Very thoughtful of you.”

  “All the best,” Tommy said slipping away as easily as he had slipped in.

  Our crowd cheered. The Senator’s crowd, much smaller and less demonstrative did nothing. If looks could kill, the daggers from the Senator’s staff would have torn my poor little man apart and his blood would be all over the floor in the Naperville Mall.

  Mary Alice cornered us on the way to the van.

  “Was this a coincidence, Tommy?”

  “Hey, our weekly schedule is public knowledge every Monday morning. We figured it would look like I was afraid to be in the same place if I didn’t show up. His people must have figured the same way.”

  Zinger!

  We entered the van, our next stop was a Spanish language television. I would appear on camera too, the excuse being that I spoke the language better than my husband.

  I maneuvered us into the last seat, Ric and Linda in front of us.

  “They will attack me at this station for exploiting Latino culture,” Tommy said, sinking into self-pity, as he had all too frequently lately.

  “You will reply that you are celebrating it. You will say that most Anglo citizens of Illinois did not know mariachi and now they do and love it. They will say there are other kinds of Mexican music. You will say your experience is especially in Sonora and mariachi is in its origins Sonoran music. You also admire Nortefino, Banda, and Tex-Mex. They will say that you and your wife speak with Sonoran accents and that is not a very cultivated form of the Mexican language. You will say that large numbers of Sonoran natives or their children who are watching won’t like that comment. They will say that your wife and children are not Mexican Americans. You will say they are Americans with great affection and respect for Mexican people and their language and their culture. They will ask whether you support bilingual education. You will say that is a decision for parents to make about their children. However, a command of English is necessary for success in American society, as every immigrant group has learned, including the Irish. They will wonder about that. And you will say that before 1870 most Irish immigrants spoke Irish fluently and they felt they were forced to give it up. In the world we live in no one should give up a language proficiency. Then you will praise their religion of festival and celebration. They will not be very gracious because they don’t like gringos but they’ll know you routed them.”

  “Same old shit,” Tommy sighed. “Nothing about issues.”

  “They may say that most Mexican men believe that they are the head of the family.”

  “And the Senator will say,” Tina intervened, “that most men think that too and that most women know that they are.”

  “The usual boring shit,” Tommy sighed. “I need a nap … Why doesn’t anyone ask about issues?’

  “Say that at the end of the broadcast,” Ric suggested. “Wonder why they didn’t ask about proposed immigration reform. There will be legislation before the Senate in the next session. Surely their listeners will like to know that you will do all in your power to support a reform which will protect the human rights of all immigrants, no more bodies in the Sonoran desert.”

  “OK, good night all.”

  He closed his eyes and went to sleep, the creep.

  Well, I’d have him to myself in bed tonight and I’d get even.

  He woke up for the Spanish TV station. I was kind of glad that he had caught his nap. This would not be a taping which would be cut down for soundbites. It would be a half-hour interview to be played in its entirety. The station staff was nasty to the point of being hostile. Were they in the tank with H. Rodge?

  “Why don’t you Anglos give Latinos more political power?”

  “I’m not Anglo, I’m Irish. I believe that is demeaning and patronizing to ask why political power is not given. Political power has to be taken and the place to do that is in the voting both. There seems to be a lot of Latino power in Cook County. If I am given a chance to serve in the United States Senate, I’ll be a voice for Mexican Americans.”

  “You don’t even speak good Mexican Spanish.”

  “Oh?”

  “Sonorans do not speak good Spanish.”

  His answer for that was already prepared. He did a good job running down Ric’s agenda. He would turn to me every once in a while when he was seeking the proper word. I would also smile pleasantly and as docilely as possible provide it.

  The four interviewers continued to be supercilious and hostile, hinting that they did not accept any of his answers or simply did not believe him. I noticed a slight furrowing of my husband’s brow beneath his wavy hair. He watched the clock and when we were down to two minutes, he interrupted a particularly nasty question from a particularly nasty woman and spoke in Spanish:

  “I’m wondering why you haven’t asked any questions about immigration reform. Is that because you’re not interested in the issue? Or do you think that your viewers are not interested? There will be legislation before the Senate on that subject. I will fight every inch of the way for the full human rights of everyone living in this country, their inalienable rights which no one should try to take away from them. I will in particular defend the rights of families to remain intact, no matter what the Department of Homeland Security tries to do. I will do everything in my power to put an end to the mass murders which happen in the Sonoran desert every year. Poor innocents are killed by the rules of the United States Government which seduces them into the country with de facto offers of employment and then makes them risk their lives to find such employment. I will do all in my power to fight those sinful rules … Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear on this program.”

  It had been a tour de force—an outburst in his second language in a hostile context and timed exactly to end when the time of the program ran out.

  The woman whom he had interrupted stormed away from the table. The other interviewers glared.

  “Feliz Navidad, everyone,” he said standing up.

  The “host” shook his hand. “Well done, Senator.”

  He wanted us back some day. Or maybe some favors if we won.

  Ric and Tina burst into the sound stage and spit out insults in such rapid Spanish that I couldn’t catch it. My husband smiled, the kitten who had just chased his first canary.

  “I’ve got a tape here,” Ric shouted in English. “If you dare to touch a single response, you’re roadkill. Come on, Senator. I apologize for the rudeness of these jerks.”

  Tommy smiled benignly.

  “See you at the election celebration, guys!”

  Suddenly it was November and there were only a few days left. The Daily News endorsed us in ringing terms.

  A NEW VOICE FOR ILLINOIS,
AMERICA

  Mr. Moran ran a brilliant campaign, despite a torrent of personal attacks, including two attempts on his life. With a limited budget he fought off a hurricane of negative advertising, some of it dishonest in the extreme. His is a bright, brave new voice in American politics, a voice which the whole country needs to hear. Despite his whimsical Irish charm he is in fact one tough customer. He says hard things that no one wants to hear especially about the increased concentration of wealth in this country and the exploitation of poor Mexican workers.

  To our knowledge Senator Crispjin has not responded effectively to any of these campaign issues. Indeed, he has not responded at all. His campaign consists of the frequent repetition of the catchwords “maturity” and “experience.” But those attributes, unquestionably important, should not be grounds for excluding younger and more innovated men from political life. One wants to know what evidence there is in Mr. Crispjin’s record that maturity and experience have contributed to wise legislation. Indeed, his “record,” frequently cited though without any specific content, consists mostly of giving more money to those who are already rich. His attack ads demonstrate the vicious incivility which Mr. Moran describes in his book and create the atmosphere in which political assassinations can happen.

  We urge everyone to vote for Mr. Moran to be the next United States Senator from this our Prairie State.

  “How many votes will it swing?” my Tommy, now in deep discouragement, wondered.

  “A couple thousand,” Joe McDermott replied. “People from out of the city who can’t figure out our politics and think the Examiner is a paper for nutcases. They are the serious earnest type who look to the media for endorsements. In a close election, they’re important.”

  “Not as important as a Mexican turnout in the suburbs.”

  No one of us disagreed.

  Channel 3 endorsed us, the other stations announced that they did not make endorsements, though they had in the past. Mary Alice Quinn read the announcement with considerable vigor.

  It will be good for this state and for the country to have a bright, creative new voice in the Senate. The people of Illinois will be happy that they voted for him.

  The polls all reported that the race was too close to call. The media also reported a dramatic increase in activity in conservative Protestant churches for “responsibility” and “maturity” and “red-blooded Americanism.” They speculated that this initiative was a sign that the Republicans now, for the first time, realized that they could lose this seat in the Senate. National Republican figures also appeared on the scene, including the vice president, to urge stability and continuity in the Senate. “We don’t need another liberal demagogue,” the Vice President announced.

  “That will help their turnout,” Joe conceded, “but it won’t have any effect on the Black or Latino voters.”

  “Hmpf,” Tommy said.

  The next and probably final hurdle was the debate the PBS channel was going to stage—with only one debater—on Sunday night.

  CHAPTER 15

  ON THE Sunday before the election the churches weighed in against us and captured the headlines. “Christian” churches distributed brochures attacking Tommy as a killer of millions of babies. A downstate Catholic bishop issued a pastoral letter warning his people that if they voted for the Democratic candidate they were not “worthy” to receive Communion. Father Tony called to crow over this setback, sending Tommy deeper into his tailspin. My uncle, Father Ed, who knew the bishop in the seminary, told us, “No one pays any attention to him. He has one of the worst records on pedophilia in the country. He couldn’t deliver a pack of starving vampires to a blood bank …”

  During the nine o’clock Mass at St. Luke’s I finally realized that I had been Tommy’s escape from his family. I was passionate love, an alternative to rigid control. It was astonishing that Tommy was able to make that choice and stick with it. When the pressure and self-doubt closed in on him, he needed me.

  Of course.

  Why hadn’t I seen it before?

  Now I ask myself why I still don’t get it?

  As time went on I began to realize that Father Tony was something of a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde character. I had attended a day of recollection he gave for professional women at a North Shore parish where some of my legal colleagues lived. It was during the time before the Senate race when Tommy was still Mr. Mom and writing his first book. I figured it would be interesting to see what he had to say to women and perhaps I would understand a little better why he hated me so much. I told Tommy while he and the kids were fixing breakfast for one another that I was going to a day of recollection. He seemed surprised but said only, “Say a prayer for us.”

  “Especially for poor Daddy,” Mary Rose said with a giggle.

  The church was packed with professional women and stay-at-home moms. I expected that Father Tony would come down hard on the former and praise the latter. In fact, he avoided that issue completely and talked almost entirely about hope—the need for it and the difficulties all of us encountered in hoping. His talks displayed little depth but they were humble and encouraging to women. I could hardly believe it was the same man who disrupted our wedding breakfast. Moreover, during the lunch he moved among the women with charm and grace. Not as much charm as Tommy and not as much grace either, but still he was better than many priests would have been in such an environment. I sat in the back of the Church with a veil over my head to hide the giveaway carrot top.

  But he saw me in the lobby of the church as I was trying to sneak out.

  “Mary Margaret,” he said, reaching out to shake hands, “how good of you to come! I wasn’t expecting to see you … I’ll walk with you to your car.”

  This was not the same priest who almost ruined my wedding breakfast.

  “Your talks were very good,” I said somewhat primly.

  “Thank you! I feel so inferior to the women who attend these days. They are so good and work so hard at being a wife and a mother and a career person. I don’t think that they realize how much God loves them. Maybe my words will help them to understand that women like you are saints of the everyday.”

  Honest, that’s what he said. I wrote it down before I started my VW.

  Maybe that’s who he really was most of the time. Only when he was talking to his “little brother” did he go over the top. I remembered his words to me at the end of his father’s funeral, a stricken man reaching out for comfort from his family. Maybe that’s who he really wanted to be. Perhaps he still felt, however, that with his parents gone, his obligation to protect his “little brother” was even more sacred. It had become an obsession and he was Mr. Hyde, poor man.

  So some of the time on some occasions and as angry as I was at him, I did feel a touch of sympathy for my husband’s brother. When I told Tommy about the day of recollection, he did not seem surprised.

  “He’s a good priest, Mary Margaret. He has just one blind spot—me.”

  Later Tommy had taken an enormous beating during the campaign, attacks from every side, from the media, from the churches, from his family, from the would-be killers, and from the attack ads. How had he been able to hang in there and remain his articulate, charming self?

  How did he survive people like his brother or Leander Schlenk or Lupe Gonzalez, the bitch on the Spanish language TV station, both of whom would be on the “debate” panel this evening. My poor, dear man was incredibly resilient, but he needed more passion from me. I had not understood that when the world closed in on him, he suppressed his emotions, perhaps fearing to risk rejection from me.

  I’d never done that.

  But I must take the initiative. That ought not to be a problem. I love the man and I desired him. Why did I back off when he plunged into one of his moods. God forgive me for it, but my body became aroused at the Eucharist as I was thinking of it. Well, really, there was nothing to forgive. God expected spouses to lust after one another.

  So when we went up to our room after Mass and
I closed the door, it was time. I slipped out of my dress, kicked off my shoes and stood there in my bra and pantyhose, a pose which usually turns him on.

  He was reading again the attack brochure of the “Christians.”

  “Well?”

  He turned, looked at me, and gulped. Well, I could still make his eyes pop.

  “Do I see an invitation?” he asked with a sly little grin that always turns me on.

  “A demand.”

  “Warriors take their women after victory in battle,” he said.

  “I read somewhere that the ancient Irish took them both before and after.”

  “That seems like a good idea.”

  We progressed from there.

  “I’ll wipe them all out tonight,” he said after we were finished and while we were clinging desperately to one another. “Then I’ll come back here and settle matters with you.”

  “I might just fight back.”

  “So much the better.”

  Love as campaign strategy? No, just love as love.

  As time would tell, I still had a lot to learn about love.

  The panel Channel 11 had assembled for our mock debate were not a promising bunch for our side, Leander Schlenk from the Examiner, Lupe Gonzalez from Spanish-language TV, Graham Grayson from the Defender, Mary Alice Quinn from Channel 3, and Harold Honeywell from the Daily News. The last two were on our side, but they wouldn’t cut us any slack. The first two hated us. Grayson would probably complain that we had ignored the Blacks.

  Tommy was in great form as we road over to the Albany Park location of PBS. He whispered obscene suggestions into my ear, including his intent to tie me up and torment me all night long.

  “You’ll be lucky if you’re able to do it twice in one day,” I shot back.