*
Several days after the archbishop in Colorado had enjoyed his fifteen minutes of fame, Milton Casey received a call from Peter Merrick, a freelance journalist whose name he vaguely recognized from a series of articles in the National Catholic Reporter. Casey immediately disliked Peter. He was one of those journalists who pretended to be shocked and flattered when you said you’d read something by them. As if they didn’t all live for that kind of acknowledgment from total strangers, let alone someone in Casey’s position. They stumbled awkwardly through introductions and mutual praise for a bit before Peter revealed that he was interested in doing an article on the Vatican’s unprecedented entrance into American politics.
“Thank you for calling, Mr. Merrick,” he said by rote. “But Arthur Wyncott would prefer not to make a public statement about this. I can refer you to our communications office if you’d like a quote from them.”
“Actually, I’m not interested in Wyncott’s take on it. I understand he’s not in a position to comment publicly about this. And the piece isn’t specifically about the memo. I was hoping to speak with you.”
Casey wasn’t expecting that. “Me?”
Peter seized on his surprise to sell his pitch. “Everyone’s saying this is an unacceptable manipulation by the Vatican, but I’m writing an article on how this isn’t the first time it’s happened and it won’t be the last. People vote according to what their ministers say all the time. Evangelicals vote on abortion and gay marriage, issues their pastors frequently discuss as a moral imperative during services. But I don’t see that attracting the same attention. So why is this particular memo muddying the waters so much?”
While he spoke, Casey had begun nodding in agreement. Only when Merrick paused to get his response did he notice he’d been doing it.
Peter went on. “Anyway, you’ve been in the campaign business for nearly thirty years. I’m sure you’ve seen your share of these scenarios, so I wanted to pick your brain about the role of religious leaders in previous elections. We’re going to have to cover the memo to the US bishops, but it won’t be the main subject. And the focal point isn’t going to be Wyncott. More so religion and campaigns in general. Can I convince you to give me twenty minutes?”
A couple of days later, Peter arrived at Casey’s office for a brief interview. True to his word, the interview lasted just about twenty minutes and involved Casey offering his analysis of campaigns he’d had no part of. It was a perfect opportunity for him to point out that the candidates in those cases were clearly not as strong or viable as Arthur Wyncott, who had already spent nearly four years leading our nation to greatness. Further, he argued, Wyncott had a strong moral compass, and if religious leaders and their church members agreed with his positions, well, then it was a sign Wyncott belonged in office for a second term. In truth, he was somewhat disappointed when the interview wrapped up. He could have talked about campaign strategy for hours.
As Casey walked Merrick to the door, they passed Ally Larkin’s desk. She was hard at work on changes to her proposed religious-entity tax structure. Wyncott’s legislative assistants had sent it back to Casey with a string of edits designed to shore it up in time for Wyncott to present at an upcoming town-hall meeting in New Orleans. As Peter passed, he spotted the Thomas Nast print out of the corner of his eye and couldn’t resist stopping. The first time he’d ever seen it was in a class with James Ingram his last semester at Ignatius.
“Sorry to interrupt you,” he said. Ally jumped at the sound of his voice. “Your print—” He regarded the tasteful frame. “Is it an original?”
Ally laughed. “I wish. I really wish—but no.”
Milton stepped in. “That print gets more attention than if a goddamned unicorn were standing right here,” he said good-naturedly. He turned to Ally, then back to Peter. “Mr. Merrick, allow me to introduce you to Ally Larkin, one of our dedicated staff.” Turning to Ally, he continued. “Mr. Merrick is a journalist writing an article on campaign tactics.”
Peter reached out to shake her hand and noticed the class ring on her finger. In the center rose the letters IHS from the seal of the Jesuit Order.
“Where did you go to school?” He blurted out the question before he could stop himself.
Ally blushed a little. “Marquette. You probably haven’t heard of it. It’s in Wisconsin.”
“I know it. Of course, I know it. I went to Ignatius.”
She relaxed immediately, he could tell. “So you’re a member of the Jesuit Fan Club, too,” he continued.
She laughed. “I guess so.”
“Where did you find the print?”
“Oh.” Ally looked disappointed. “I didn’t, actually. Find it by myself, that is. It was a gift from the college newspaper staff when I graduated.”
“The newspaper, eh?” Peter nodded his head approvingly.
Ally beamed. “I was the editor.”
Casey cleared his throat. He wasn’t interested in a prolonged discussion about either Peter’s or Ally’s college experiences.
Peter took the hint. “Hey—look. I’ve got to go, but here.” He reached into his wallet and withdrew a business card like the one he’d left on Milton Casey’s desk.
“Here’s my card. If you ever want to talk about journalism or freelancing.” He cast a deferential look Casey’s way. “Once the campaign is over, that is. Give me a call. I’d be happy to help.”
He shook Casey’s hand once more, and with a quick nod to Ally darted out the door and down the hall to the elevator. He had just exited to the street when his phone rang. Mike Trencher, an old buddy from his days writing for the Wall Street Journal, had managed to track down the contact information for Kevin Garrity in Olmsted, Wisconsin.
CHAPTER 12
The rickety porch at 217 Anselm Street seemed to be a microcosm of Olmsted itself. What had once been a wholesome structure, perhaps part of a home to a middle-class family with children playing in the yard, was now depleted of color, strength, and form. Peter took large unwieldy steps to avoid breaking through the rotting floorboards, soft with pungent decay and streaked with paint that had long since chipped off or faded from its original hue. The house looked like most of the others in Olmsted, a small postindustrial town on the banks of a murky river that used to power its now-deserted textile mills. On his drive through the ten blocks that composed downtown, Peter noticed four churches, none of them Catholic, and a lot of shuttered shops. The houses on either side of this section looked to be the oldest in the area, large brick structures with covered driveways, and some with grandiose colonnades or side gardens. He spotted the sole Catholic church as he turned up into the hills, where the homes ceased to be standalones and merged into endless stretches of row houses with shared lawns and stairways. A set of battered wind chimes hung from the porch eaves of 217. Its decorative glass disks had broken into jagged shards, but most of the chimes remained, emitting tinkling notes despite their haggard appearance.
His phone calls to the house had gone unanswered. If Kevin Garrity was still living there, he didn’t have an answering machine, and not once in two weeks of calling several times a day had Peter caught a live person. The idea of living in this modern world with no answering machine, no cell phone, and no e-mail address, as far as Peter was able to find, baffled him. Peter himself was defined by technology and the many gadgets that kept him tethered to the outside world, intruding on him and Emma at all times. It was a deliberate choice, he concluded, for Kevin Garrity to remain disconnected from the world around him.
Peter pulled back the screen door that hung unevenly on rusty hinges and knocked lightly. If this door was anything like the porch flooring, he couldn’t be too careful. After waiting for over a minute, he raised his arm and knocked again, this time with a bit more force.
He heard a muffled grunt of recognition from inside the house but couldn’t make out the words. The peephole flicked open long enough for him to see movement on the other side, followed by the sound of multipl
e locks turning. A disheveled, overweight man opened the door. His threadbare T-shirt (Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet tour) couldn’t contain a gelatinous midsection that spilled out from under its edge.
“Yeah?” he said.
“I’m looking for Kevin Garrity,” he said.
“Don’t know why that would be,” the man responded.
Peter tried again. “I’m sorry,” he said, smiling and extending his hand. “I should have introduced myself. My name’s Peter Merrick, and I’m hoping to speak with Mr. Garrity.”
The man sized him up through pupils that were a little too large to belong to sobriety. “Depends on why you wanna talk to him,” he said. “You ain’t a cop so you’re either trying to sell me some shit or you want me to tell you my sad story.” He blinked, letting his eyes linger closed for a moment like he was tired or bored. “So which is it?”
Peter took a deep breath. He knew this was going to be a hard sell. “Actually, neither. Honestly. I’m . . . well . . .” He dug into his pocket and withdrew the letter from Ingram with “Return to Sender” on it. “See, Father Ingram—he died recently and I found this letter among his belongings and I—” A loud bang interrupted him. He looked up to see Kevin Garrity holding the fist he’d just slammed into the wall. “Are you okay?” he asked with genuine concern.
Garrity shook his head and clutched his fist. “You fucking guys,” he said quietly. “You always wanna know if we’re okay. But me saying I am or I’m not”—he leaned against the lintel and rubbed the back of his hand—“that doesn’t make it so. And you asking all the time doesn’t either.”
Peter nodded. He didn’t know why, and he suspected doing so was another example of the empathy Garrity had to come to despise. But like Ingram before him, he felt the need to do or say something. “Let’s get some ice on that and talk,” he pleaded. “I promise you—I’m not here to make anyone feel better or worse about what happened to you. But Ingram was important to me. I looked up to him. And these letters—you’re not the only person Ingram reached out to. He wrote letters to a number of people, and I guess I’m trying to figure out why. I need to know why. You can understand that, can’t you?”
Garrity winced, and his lip trembled as though he were going to cry, but the tears wouldn’t come. Peter knew they had probably stopped coming a long time ago. “Okay,” he finally said. “Come on in.”
The couch was as threadbare and worn as Garrity’s clothing. Even though it was mid-May, the nights could still be cold. There didn’t seem to be any heat in the house; it was freezing. Garrity’s hand was swelling up fast. When Peter offered to make coffee for them, he turned on the oven burner to find it gasping and sputtering. No gas came out to ignite. Garrity pointed to an electric teakettle in the corner. “Worth its weight in gold, that thing,” he said. He smiled for the first time, and Peter saw the gaps—teeth missing from both the upper and lower rows in a mouth that, like Garrity himself, would never again be whole. A few minutes later, he set a steaming mug down in front of Garrity along with an old bread bag full of ice. (“Brownberry Whole Wheat,” Garrity said. “My grandma always said it was the best store-bought around and she was right.”) It was wrapped in a filthy towel, the only kind he could find.
“I’m here,” Peter said, “because I came across these.” He pulled the letters out and caught Garrity’s stricken look when he spotted the opened flaps. “I read them. I know I shouldn’t have and I’m sorry. I found them at his office after his death. I thought it might make me feel better or something.” Garrity didn’t look as upset now. “If you don’t mind my asking about it,” Peter said gently, “I’m not trying to exploit this, I promise you. I believe he contacted a number of people like you and I—”
“People like me?” Garrity snapped. “What the fuck’s that supposed to mean? Broken? Damaged?”
Peter backpedaled. He hadn’t meant for it to sound that way. “Survivors,” he said finally. “People who were broken, were damaged by someone else. And who survived it.”
Garrity calmed down a bit. He shifted on the couch and stared out the window.
“Look, I knew Father Ingram for a long time,” Peter tried again. “A very long time. I thought I knew everything about him that mattered. His values. What made him tick. But I found a bunch of these letters.” He pulled out the rest and showed them to Garrity.
“The only thing I know about all the people who received them is that you’ve, every last one of you, been involved with suits and settlements filed to hold the Church responsible for what happened.”
“Yeah, so what?” Garrity said. “I knew I wasn’t special—these guys’ve been doing this stuff to kids forever. It’s not like there was something in the water in Wisconsin.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.” Peter was struggling to make his point. “What I mean is, I can’t figure out why Ingram was reaching out to you. Or to this person”—he tossed another envelope on the coffee table—“or this one. He never mentioned any of these parishes or towns in all the years I knew him. Was never even sent here—formally or informally—according to archdiocese records.”
“I wouldn’t believe a goddamned thing they tell you.” Garrity almost spat the words as he stood up and walked to the kitchen. “They’ll tell you they didn’t know anything about any of this, but they knew. Hell, some of them were even here when it happened.”
Peter took a breath. He was afraid to ask the question, afraid that the answer would destroy his memory of Ingram. “Was Ingram here? When it happened?” He closed his eyes and said the words. “Was he the man who did this to you?”
Laughter was not what he was expecting to hear. He opened his eyes and saw Garrity doubled over in the doorway to the kitchen.
“What are you talking about?” Garrity said between chuckles. Somewhere along the way, his laughter turned into hiccups and hyperventilating breaths he couldn’t control. “Did you read any of those letters?”
“Only the few I found. I didn’t know what to make of them. He kept apologizing in all of them. Saying he took responsibility for what happened and wanted to make things right.”
Garrity grew serious. “Yeah, he did.”
“How do you mean?”
“Do you know how many of them knew this was going on? How many times I told them? How many times my mom told them? She went to the other priest. I said something to a nun at my school. When I still had to see him every day, my mom went to see the monsignor. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he told her. ‘We’re taking care of it.’ Taking care of it. Yeah, they took care of it—just enough so I didn’t have to see him in school anymore. So he stopped talking to me. But I still had to see him around town. You’ve seen this place. It’s not big or nothing. He was with a different kid every time, a little blond boy or occasionally one with brown hair. Like you could just swap us out for each other.” The description made Peter sick to his stomach.
“He was gone, my dad. Took off when I was ten and it started not long after that.” Garrity said the words like they were any other, a comment on the weather, a matter-of-fact observation about holiday shopping crowds. He pulled a cigarette out of a box on the table and lit it. “My mom was all over the place after he left. Couldn’t keep a job, couldn’t fucking think straight. My baby sister’s sitting in her high chair for hours, with shit spilling out of her diaper she ain’t been changed for so long, and my mom would just sit there with this dead look on her face. Like she didn’t care, like she didn’t see us there. I couldn’t understand it then—how she could be so dead inside and still be walking around.”
His hands were shaking as he lifted the cigarette to his lips. “I didn’t like being around that. I hated having to come home after school. There was never any food. My kid brother always whining that he was hungry, or someone on the phone hassling us about money we owed them. I’d hang out at school for as long as I could. I wasn’t supposed to be there late, so I’d follow the janitor around and get him new water, hold the door open, anythi
ng to keep him from yelling at me to go home. God, it was great. I’d get home and my mom would be mad, but it didn’t matter ’cause by then it was only an hour or two before I could go to bed and forget all about it and wake up and get out of there again before she was up.
“My teacher, Sister Lucius, pulled me aside one day. Asked me the last time I’d taken a bath. Some of the kids were complaining I smelled. I just started crying. Like a fucking baby. She took me over to the rectory and made me a sandwich. While I was eating, she went into the office to talk to—” He tried to say the name but couldn’t. “To the Father,” he finally said.
“When she was done, they came out with big grins on their faces. He asked me how I’d like to come work at the office after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Said he could pay me a couple of dollars every week, and he’d drive me home after dinner. It was such a relief, you know? Like I didn’t have to sneak around anymore. I had an excuse to be there all the time, and my mom wouldn’t yell at me when I got home. She was proud of me for it. Didn’t care what time I got home because every Tuesday when he dropped me off late, so much later than the other days, he’d bring bags of groceries. Cans of soup and stuff. ‘You’re too kind, Father,’ she’d say. She acted like a complete flake when he was around. ‘I don’t know how we can repay you. It’s too much.’”
Garrity leaned back on the couch with his hands behind his head.
“Well, I was already paying for the groceries. The first time he bought them, nothing happened. He smiled at her and smiled at me and said I was a good boy and it was no bother and he’d see her next week. My sister stopped screaming all the time and started sleeping better. My mom would clean up the house a bit on Monday nights so he didn’t see how messy it was the rest of the time. It was kinda like before my dad left. That first Tuesday it happened, we went to the store. He always let me pick out something just for me. Froot Loops or Lucky Charms—the expensive cereal we could never afford. I helped him load the bags into the back of his car. It was dark already ’cause it was winter and the day was over before you knew it. We were about halfway home when he pulled over on the side of the road. Asked me if I liked spending time with him. I said it was great. He smiled and said he was glad. Because he liked spending time with me. He put his hand on my thigh and started rubbing it. Then he unbuttoned his pants with his other hand. He took one of my hands—they were frozen at my side, like—and stuck it down there. He made my fingers close around it, around him, and starting moving my hand up and down. I just stopped feeling, you know? I was staring out the window but I couldn’t see nothing, it was so dark out. So I just stared at the dark, waiting for it to be over. He kept thanking me afterward. Told me I was so good. After that, every Tuesday he’d take me home a little late. My mom never asked why. She was just happy with the food and the money I got.”
The Shepherd's Calculus Page 12