The Bishop's Man

by Linden MacIntyre

  Mullins was unforgiving, and he had already called the RCMP. He was planning to turn the incident into a big deal.

  “You don’t know the lad as well as I do,” Mullins said wearily when I called. “He’s turning into a real nuisance. Maybe a stretch of probation would be good for him. I wouldn’t want him in jail or anything. But maybe he needs a bit of time to cool his heels. Frankly, I think the big problem is booze. Maybe even drugs.”

  I listened carefully, agreeing that there should be consequences. But I thought maybe the stain of a police record might be a bit extreme for property damage.

  “Property damage,” Mullins huffed. “We’re talking parish property here. The church, for God’s sake.”

  I noted the astringent tone. Remembered the word the boy used: asshole.

  “Well. It’s only a lawn.”

  “The lawn this time. But what next? Next thing you know, they’ll be tearing up the tabernacle. You hear about things like that. The vandalism.”

  I promised then to speak to Danny, maybe persuade him to pay for the damage. Make restitution.

  Mullins wasn’t impressed, but said he’d think about it and that he’d hold off on the charges for a few days.

  “He isn’t a bad kid,” I said. “I dealt with lots like him at the university.”

  “You’ve got a lot to learn,” said Mullins. “These aren’t university kids. These are the leftovers.”

  I didn’t notice her in the back of the church that Sunday until just before the end, when I was announcing that I wanted the teenagers in the parish to come to the hall for a short meeting the following Wednesday night. I wanted to find out what their interests were. Whether, together, we could cook up some activities that might engage them. Anything but bingo.

  We made eye contact and she smiled slightly. When I was standing at the door shaking hands, she approached and I said that I was surprised to see her there and she said she came out of curiosity. Plus she wanted to express her appreciation for what I’d done to help the family. I suppose my face showed some confusion.

  “Young Danny,” she said. “What you did there was a big help. He isn’t really like that. It was out of character.”

  Then I remembered that she was his aunt. His mother’s sister. Stella.

  I laughed and said something about everybody being connected to the MacKays, and she replied, “Well, you’re from around here, you know how it is. Everybody is more or less related.”

  “I understand.”

  “Good luck with the young people. But it’s going to be an uphill battle. Unless you can afford a bunch of video machines.”

  “It can’t be that bad.”

  “Social life revolves around school. The school is in town. That’s their community now. This is just where they sleep and eat.”

  “I want to change that,” I said.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t rule out bingo.”

  The eyes were twinkling.

  “Let me know if I can help,” she said.

  I watched her walk away, and there was an unselfconscious grace in the way she moved. Getting into her car, she turned, smiled awkwardly and gave a little wave.

  Feb. 2. last night jacinta told me she struggles to remind herself that i’m a priest. she was laughing when she said it. i don’t know what to think.

  Wednesday night I waited in the hall. The coffee pot was gurgling. I’d said eight o’clock, but nobody came. At five past eight I heard a car outside crunching the gravel, but after a minute of silence I heard it drive away. Nothing has changed, I thought, remembering how nobody wants to be first. Nobody wants to seem eager.

  By eight-thirty I could smell the coffee burning.

  In Honduras they’d come just to listen to the stories of what was happening around them. Looking for hope in the news Alfonso brought. Ferment in Nicaragua. Rural reform in El Salvador, where he was from. Christian communities, led by the lay people, taking over the work of the priests. Priests taking over the lay responsibility to fight repression, taking on the powerful. Priests in politics. Ordinary people and their priests, finally standing up to the elites, the handful of wealthy families that seemed to own everything. People risking life and limb for justice. Exodus 3, Alfonso kept reminding them. It’s all there.

  And the Lord said I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters … I know their sorrows.

  Stand up to the Pharaohs, he’d say, and they’d nod carefully. The Lord understands our sorrows. The Lord is on our side. Knowing that the Lord stands with us, everything becomes possible.

  Maybe that’s the problem, I thought. This place lacks danger. This place is spoiled by comfort and complacency.

  At nine I turned off the coffee pot and the lights and left.

  Bobby O’Brian told me that I shouldn’t lose any sleep about it. That they started losing their young people right after they lost their school. You can’t tell them apart from the town kids anymore. Whatever community means in their minds is anybody’s guess.

  “So I’m told,” I said.

  The message on my answering machine was from Danny Ban.

  “The young fellow has something for you,” he said.

  They were sitting at the kitchen table. The boy was sullen, staring at his large, rough hands, a shock of hair partly concealing his eyes.

  “Get it out,” said Danny Ban.

  The boy reached into a shirt pocket without lifting his gaze from the table and dropped a cheque in front of me.

  I picked it up. “Twelve hundred. Well …”

  “We got an estimate,” said Danny Ban. “That’s what it came to.”

  “You’ll give it to Mullins,” young Danny said.

  “Father Mullins,” said his father.

  The boy gave a half laugh.

  “I think you should give it to him yourself.”

  He looked at me then, and I realized that what I’d taken for defiance was actually despair. “I’d rather not. I don’t want to face him.”

  “It can’t be all that bad,” I said. “It’ll be good for both of you.”

  “I don’t like him,” he said.

  His mother looked shocked. “Danny.”

  I laughed. “You don’t have to like him. You just have to hand him a cheque and say you’re sorry.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Well, that’s what people say after … a mistake.”

  He was shaking his head. “I’m not saying I’m sorry.”

  “Stubborn,” his father said. “Too g.d. proud for his own good.”

  “Whatever,” I said. “What if I go with you?”

  He looked at me in surprise and I realized that, no matter how big, he was still a boy.

  “What do you think?”

  “I can handle it myself,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  “But my truck is still in the garage. If you could drive me, it would be a help.”

  “Sure.”

  “So when?”

  “How about right now?”

  He looked at me with dismay on his face.

  † † †

  Driving, we talked about boats and how, by then, most were on the shore, waiting for the winter. And whether there would be a lot of snow this year, and the outlook for fishing in the spring. He was slouched against the passenger door, looking straight ahead, trying to avoid engagement, but I kept talking.

  “There’s a lot of pessimistic speculation about the fishery.”

  He laughed bitterly. “Tell me about it!”

  “What do you think?” I coaxed.

  “They’re trying to kill the place,” he said finally. “The DFO … fisheries officers, supposed to be on our side, trying to close the small wharves. Shutting down the fishery for the small boats. Setting everything up for the big draggers and the big-money people. And the Americans and Germans buying up the land and driving up prices and taxes so a local fella doesn’t have a chance. If it wasn’t f
or the old man having a boat and a few licences, I’d be long gone. I’ll probably get his house someday. Otherwise …”

  “You make it sound kind of bleak.”

  “It is bleak.” And after a long silence he proclaimed: “Maybe it’s time for a revolution.”

  Mullins was ungracious. He took the cheque and started to deliver a little homily about personal responsibility, but I gave him a look and he stopped.

  “It wasn’t about the money,” he said, folding the cheque. “I just wanted you to be aware. Okay? We must take responsibility for our choices. I hope you’ve learned something.”

  Danny nodded.

  † † †

  “I’m glad that’s over with,” he said as we drove away.

  Driving up the Hawthorne Road, I told him I knew something about the stress of youth. And that he should consider me to be someone he could talk to frankly.

  “That would be hard to believe,” he said, opening the car door to leave. He was smiling.

  “What would be so hard to believe?”

  “You and stress. Growing up.”

  I just laughed.

  “I always heard how things were simpler then,” he said.

  “We had our stresses too,” I said, knowing just how lame I sounded.

  “I suppose you did.” He was staring at me with new interest. “People figure growing up out here in Hawthorne … it’s all … bonach and buttermilk.”

  I wanted to say: I grew up in a place like this. I think I even understand what you’re trying to say about Hawthorne. But this wasn’t about me.

  “A good way of putting it,” I said. “The days of bonach and buttermilk are long gone.”

  “Right. Ma and Dad used to live in Toronto and they say they moved back here because it’s supposed to be a safe place to bring up kids.”

  “You don’t agree?”

  “There are no safe places anymore. If there ever were.” He was outside the car then, but he turned and said he was curious about something. “If you don’t mind me asking, is it true that you were the guy who put the run on all those queer priests a few years ago?”

  “Why would you ask that?”

  “I was just curious. I’ve been following it. What’s starting to come out over in Newfoundland and down in the States. Some-body was saying you had something to do with it here.”

  I looked away, the old tired sadness washing through me. “It isn’t something that I can really talk about,” I said finally.

  “I suppose not. I admire you, though. If it had been me in your place, I’d have been tempted to do a lot worse.”

  BOOK TWO

  † † †

  Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity;

  for the Lord hath heard the voice

  of my weeping.

  PSALMS

  {7}

  Bobby O’Brian reminded me on a Sunday early in December that people would expect a special effort for the Christmas season. A nativity scene. Lights. The whole nine yards. In case I’d forgotten, having spent the recent years at the university, where others worried about such mundane things.

  “They still take Christmas serious around here,” he said.

  The challenge perked me up.

  Bobby and his wife were expecting their son home for the holidays. He was in his senior year at university, Bobby said proudly. I vaguely remembered a quiet loner named O’Brian wandering around the campus, or hanging by himself on pub nights when I’d stroll through the melee just to calm things down. Then: Maybe he’ll be coming to see you, Bobby warned. Maybe a little heart-to-heart about things. He’s trying to decide what to do after this.

  “Send him along,” I said. “That’s what I’m here for.”

  December 15 the weather forecast, as usual, was imprecise. Only five centimetres, they predicted. Starting around noon. Coming back from town, I saw the first beads of moisture on the windshield. The leaden sky hung low over the breathless bay. The wind whispered as I was carrying the groceries and booze and newspapers from the car to the house, sending a sudden chill deep into my bones. Brace yourself, it said.

  Dropping the bags in the kitchen, I glanced at the telephone answering machine and with a surprising twinge of anxiety noted that nobody had called while I was gone. I should be grateful, I told myself. But I couldn’t get rid of an odd empty feeling, looking at that unblinking light.

  By mid-afternoon, the hill above the house was disappearing behind hurtling waves of snow. A storm gives purpose to my idleness, I thought. Or justifies the lack of purpose. Maybe I should be thinking about a club for retired people. The place is full of pensioners, ever since the mill started cutting down the workforce by handing out redundancy packages. Too many able-bodied people with nothing to do but talk, or think of mischief. I can relate to that. Forget about the youngsters.

  Stella, who works with troubled youngsters in the school system, concurred. She’d been showing up at Mass just frequently enough to make some informed observations about what she called the “demographics” of the Sunday mornings here. “Your core constituency is middle-aged or older,” she told me. “So work with that.”

  According to the grapevine, people liked my homilies, which were short and down-to-earth, but were saying that I was remote and unsociable. Other priests would barge into their kitchens, looking for lunch or entertainment shamelessly. Their way of keeping in touch with the flock, she said. Nuisances, in my opinion, but she assured me people love the spontaneity of the unexpected visit. They mean it when they say just drop in. Gone are the days when the arrival of the priest meant trouble—sickness, death, marital distress, demands for money. I should get out more.

  “You must know how to play cards,” she said. “Auction forty-five, cribbage. If not, I’ll teach you. I’m a killer at crib.”

  Stella, since I’d become involved with her relatives in Hawthorne, had become a regular drop-in at the glebe house.

  “People don’t seem to need much from a priest,” I offered once.

  “You’d be surprised.” There was mischief in the way she raised her left eyebrow.

  I distracted her by asking if she’d seen her nephew Danny lately, and the smile vanished. “That’s a whole other story.”

  I waited for elaboration.

  All she said was: “By the way … don’t make any plans for Christmas Day … after everything.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Just keep it open.”

  The darkness thickened outside. Large, ragged snowflakes swirled just beyond the window, streaking tracers flashing past the street light at the end of the driveway. An invisible snow-plough roared past. The electricity failed in the middle of the early evening news.

  Sextus had warned me about the winter. It’s the one big test, he said. I reminded him that I’d spent more winters here than he had, but he pointed out that a winter living alone in an old house would introduce me to a kind of isolation that would challenge whatever survival assets I thought I had. Maybe even my faith. I assumed he was joking. “You’re going to have to get yourself a girlfriend,” he said, laughing. “You wouldn’t be the first.” He assured me that I wouldn’t notice the loneliness until probably mid-February. That night with the storm hammering the house, the feeling of vulnerability was overwhelming. And it was only the middle of December.

  Is this what drives priests crazy? Is there a link between deviance and isolation? How many deviant ministers do we ever hear about among the Protestants? Effie and Sextus attribute everything to celibacy. Alfonso would have disagreed. Loneliness, he’d say, is the natural fear of extinction. It’s that simple. We are liberated from loneliness by the Resurrection, not by procreation or society. Deviance is a loss of faith.

  I remember saying to him: Try explaining that like you really believe it.

  He stared at me, half smiling. And you don’t, he said. It was not a question.

  Today I’d ask him: What of idleness? What about the toxic mixture of idleness and isolation? Is
this where deviance begins?

  Mullins pretended to be surprised when I told him I was having trouble keeping busy. “Any time you’re feeling bored, come on down,” he said. “There’s lots to do here.” His best year was when Brendan Bell was there. “Took the load off in a dozen little ways. Reduced the grind. Be my guest,” he said. “Better still, be my curate.”

  “Did anybody tell you Brendan’s out?” I asked. “He’s left. Up and got married.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me a bit. Too much of a social animal for this racket, our Brendan Bell.”

  The truth of the matter, he declared, is that there really isn’t much to do anymore unless you work hard to make yourself useful. Especially in a place like Creignish, where there’s no school or hospital or jail. No critical mass of misery. So you have to get out among them. Figure out their needs. Boredom is a luxury. “Though I’m not surprised you’d find it quiet there,” he said, “considering all the drama you’ve been involved in.”

  The lashing snow obliterates the memory of kinder weather. Will there ever be another summer? I tried to picture the Jacinta, now high and dry, propped up proudly among her sisters, prow thrust against the harsh north winds. It is a relief to imagine her perched there on the shore, out of the fickle, racing sea. A boat is like a mistress, I imagine. Unpredictable in her moods and physical needs. You never know when she’s going to hit you with some new demand for attention or legitimacy. Not that I know much about mistresses. Or women in any capacity. Or boats.

  But the name is perfect. Jacinta.

  feb. 8. fifth sunday after the epiphany. fr. a. talking this evening about growing up. three brothers and four sisters. very poor, working a small piece of land for subsistence. puts my own growing up in perspective. but i want to know more about her. she’s a mystery, he says. comes from the mountains in el salvador. he thinks she might have once been married back in their own country. el salvador, the saviour.

  I was developing a grudging respect for old Mullins. The isolation didn’t bother him. He could see that, maybe, I had too much on my mind. Maybe, he thought, I’m one of those poor fellows who thinks too much. Wallows in regrets. He told me straight out: You have to understand the feelings of a lot of people in the deanery. Those were difficult times for all of us. There are a lot of conflicted feelings about the way things were handled. But I shouldn’t take small quibbles personally, about my mysterious connections with the bishop, my mysterious involvement in certain … shall we say, disappearances. “You know what they used to call you?” he said.