“I don’t think I’m all that damaged … yet,” I said.
“If you don’t mind me saying so, I couldn’t help thinking how … natural it seemed, you and Stella arriving there together.”
And, unexpectedly, I wanted to hear more. How did we look, arriving there together? Friends? A couple? A scandal in the making?
“Stella? You always were a bit romantic.”
“Any time you want to talk.”
“We should get some sleep.”
“Okay. I just felt like checking in.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Good night.”
feb. 28. i write this in the spirit of penance and humiliation. away from her i can’t seem to concentrate on anything else.
{9}
As I recall it now, those gloomy days just after Christmas 1994 revealed the sinister outlines of returning doubt. Eventually there’s only so much reassurance to be had from Paul to the Corinthians: “He that is without a wife is solicitous for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please God.” Right. He was saying that if we are undistracted by the needs of women and children, we will be free to spend all our time in homage to the Almighty. And thereby we become a higher form of life. But then the flushed, boozy face of single Willie-what’s-his-name from Hawthorne came back to me. How much of his time has he spent pleasing God? From what I’ve learned, single men like him have been in the forefront of inventing a thousand twisted ways to please themselves. Even single men who have sworn fidelity to our Holy Mother, our apostolic institution. Preying on the vulnerable young is only part of it.
The struggle never ceases … the battle between faith and reason.
“Have you never, yourself … ever … strayed?”
The question was delivered with the confidence of the damned. The man had nothing left to lose. In fact I had liberated him from a pathetic, corrosive, delusional sense of personal security. Before I showed up, he’d actually convinced himself that he’d escaped detection. I put a stop to that. The boy is talking, I told him, and I believe him. This isn’t about he-says-you-say. This is about damage control.
His face revealed everything I had to know. He was down, now, to essential instinct. Accuse the accuser, one of their best tactics.
“I’d put money on it. You have your own skeletons,” he said.
“That’s neither here nor there.”
Weak, weak answer. I know it. Pathetic, in a way. But in such circumstances one must not fall into their traps. They want to lure you to a place where there are no certainties and where there are no rules, where struggles are won by nimble creativity.
“You tell me,” he persists. “And never mind the weasel evasions. You tell me with a straight face that you never, not even once, felt the heat of temptation. Man, woman, child, beast … something, somewhere, must have stirred the most natural impulse in your frigid being.”
“The point,” I replied, “is that we have made a conscious choice.”
“Aw, come on,” he said, waving an impatient hand.
I bulldozed onward. We were told up front. Explicitly. Choose between the desires of the world and the life of sacrifice and service. Nobody said it would be easy. In fact, we were told it would be hard. You stepped forward … accepted the order …
“But they didn’t tell us how hard,” he said.
I tried to read his expression for awareness of the double meaning. He had the eyes of a poker player. I decided to ignore the remark.
“Anyway,” I said, “the big issue here isn’t canon law. We’re talking about the Criminal Code. You could be in a worse spot than you are, standing here in front of me. Just be thankful I’m not a lawyer or a cop. Worse still … if his father ever got hold of you. You should be bloody grateful.”
He laughed, slapped his forehead theatrically. “Oh, oh. Now I get it. This is a situation that could normally be fixed by a thrashing or, say, a couple of years in Kingston Pen. And you … out of your innate compassion are going to spare me that. You’re just going to make me disappear. Like a magician. Poof. Oh. Thanks a lot.”
I think he realized that he’d gone too far, strayed into the self-pity that always dissolves the integrity of logic.
I just stared at him, letting it all sink in.
“Okay,” he said finally. “Let’s be real. It isn’t like I’m gay or anything. It isn’t like I’m queer … like this is going to be a long-term problem.”
“What the hell has gay got to do with anything?”
“Oh. Mr. Progressive, all of a sudden. Mr. Political Correctness. Come on. It was a stupid mistake. I’m sorry.”
“It was a lot of stupid mistakes.”
“Gimme a break, for God’s sake … He was looking for something. I happened to be a bystander. I was going through a bad time, mentally. Who’s the victim here?”
“He’s a kid, for Christ’s sake,” I blurted. “He was little more than a child when you first went after him. You exploited him.”
“Exploited him? I exploited him? Do you realize how it started? I gave him a hug. So it went from there. But it was consensual. You saw him. He’s a man, for the love of God—never mind his age. It started with a hug. I give lots of people hugs when I think they need them. People growing up like I did, not getting the warmth and love they need at home. So it went from there to a hand job. Not everybody is as lucky as you obviously were. Growing up secure … being nurtured. Being hugged. Full of moral certainties.”
“Fuck you,” I said before I had time to recover my control.
He turned his face away, but not before I saw the smile.
† † †
From my living room I can see down the hill, just below the road, to the new hall somebody built to replace the old barnlike wooden structure where we acted out our childish fantasies so long ago, channelling deep yearning and desire into the discipline of dance. Not the simulated copulation that passes for dancing now. The fiddle music drew the passions out and the physical energy of the jigs and reels frightened off the devils. Dancing was for fun.
“Have you ever … yourself … ever strayed?” The answer echoes through the memory. I feel the trembling again.
Sextus came to me and said: “See those two girls over there? I’ve already lined them up.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
“Do? You do what Mother Nature tells you.”
Inside the car, her shoulder pressing tightly into my armpit, I felt a bizarre kind of weakness bordering on nausea. I remember thinking, This is supposed to be exciting.
Sextus said, “Expect me to be gone at least an hour. The rest is up to you.”
He winked. On the car radio Presley was singing a new song, “Treat Me Like a Fool,” as if he didn’t mean it.
The girl with Sextus was clutching a blanket like a child and smiling at me. And then they were gone along the shore.
And what if the bastard was right? Celibacy is the problem. Celibacy is unnatural and causes unnatural behaviour. The New Testament is terrifically unhelpful. A few vague references that can be used to argue either way. One of the “clients” actually tried to argue with me. I recall he hauled a book out, as if he’d been expecting my visit: “Reproduction is a primary function, an inalienable right … not to be extinguished by any vow.” He seemed so certain: trying to extinguish primal needs can lead to mental illness, deviant behaviour at the very least.
I had no reply. Just a folder with his plane ticket, the introduction to the chancellor in Toronto. Directions to a place called Braecrest. Maybe I couldn’t reply because part of me agreed with him.
This, I realized, is dangerous.
When we were alone, she leaned close to me, a small, serious face tilted upward, and said, “I hear you’re going into the priesthood.”
I felt the heat on my cheeks. She smelled of perfume and Juicy Fruit.
“I don’t know,” I replied, shocked by my false ambivalence. “Where did you hear that?”
She just looked away, dis
tracted by the night, the soft sound of water washing stone, a rattling of gravel.
“What do you want to do?” I asked, meaning with her life.
“Why don’t you just kiss me,” she said.
I stared at her, thinking, That should be okay. No danger there. And I leaned toward her.
Her name was Barbara.
It all seemed so spontaneous, predetermined as if by some primitive code. The kissing, where to put a hand. Accelerated breathing. Restless, rustling movements, bodies nestling into primal configurations as if programmed by a higher power.
“Barbara,” I whispered.
“Hmmmmm,” she said.
This is natural, I thought. How everything begins. All life. How the species has endured all the challenges of human history. It is only right that I should know this from experience. We suppress it at our peril.
But then I heard a gasp that was almost like a sob. And a cool breeze moved between us like a barrier. Then she was sitting up and staring through the car window. I thought she looked confused. The August night was pale blue.
“Did you hear something?” she asked.
“I don’t think so,” I lied.
She fell silent again, listening. “I guess you’re mad at me,” she said eventually.
“No, no, no,” I replied.
“Everybody thinks … automatically … that I …”
“I don’t,” I said.
“Yes you do. I know what everybody says about me. That’s why you brought us here. What do you think they’re doing out there?” She was studying me miserably. “I wish you really were a priest.”
“Do you? Really?”
“I could trust you then. I could, at least, talk to you.”
The sorrow comes in waves, the way the restless shoreline sighs and rustles long after the passage of a distant vessel. I turn to the bookcase and the old diaries, the silent guardians of my secrets. I take one down. Open to a random page.
april 22. afterwards, she cried and cried and cried. but when i tried to comfort her she told me she was happy. the tears are happiness, she said …
There was a knock at the door and Bobby O’Brian called from the kitchen. I went out to meet him. He was standing there with his son, Donald. He handed me a package.
“Fruitcake,” he said. “The wife sent it over. The old-fashioned kind, with brandy. Hardly anybody makes it like she does anymore. I think you’ve met the young fellow here. Donald.”
We shook hands again anyway. He was smiling. The nervousness I’d noticed the last time I’d seen him was gone.
“I was wondering,” Bobby said, “if you had a few minutes to spare. Something we wanted to discuss with you. Something we need from you.”
I told them to follow me to the den.
“You do the talking,” Bobby said to his son, who cleared his throat and thrust his hands deep into his pockets.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” he said. “How I want to spend my life. What I want to do, long term. And I’m pretty convinced … that I want to become a priest. To try, anyway.”
I was struggling not to seem surprised. I was more accustomed to watching them go, or encouraging them to leave before they became a liability to all of us.
“When did you decide this?”
“It’s something I’ve always had in the back of my mind.”
“He’s always been different from other kids,” Bobby said proudly. “I never encouraged him one way or another. You always dream of something like this, but you know from experience that it isn’t something you can influence.”
“I’m sure you’ve thought it through,” I said to Donald.
“I have,” he said fervently.
“But you must have questions.”
“Hundreds. Maybe we can talk again. One on one.”
“We can have all the talks you want,” I promised.
He needed a letter of introduction for the bishop. I said I’d write one and we all shook hands again.
After they were gone, I sat for a long time staring out over the frozen fields. The dull, chalky day was fading. This time of year you can see the murky darkness rising like sediment, dirtying the daylight. What will I tell this Donald O’Brian? How much will I disclose about the isolation? The struggle against idle speculation, or worse? The pain of personal impotence? The sterility of moral power in the age of secular celebrity? Struggles I didn’t know about before becoming a priest, or only in some abstract way that I was able to belittle and defer. Living alone but without privacy. The burden of trust without intimacy. Watching the endless nights rising from the scattered ashes of innumerable solitary days. Struggling with fantasies about the ordinary.
How much should he know of this, or we of him and all his secret challenges?
I poured a drink.
And I remembered Father Roddie, the philosopher, and his words the week before my ordination: Nobody is perfect, not in this life; but we have to show, by example, how to manage imperfections.
But Father Roddie didn’t reveal to me the secret weapon for the management of imperfection. I had to learn that for myself. I had to learn about hypocrisy alone.
New Year’s Eve, Stella called. Wanted to know my plans for the evening. I laughed. No plans. Tomorrow is Sunday. A workday.
“If you have nothing better to do, you can drop by for a drink,” she said.
I said I’d think about it.
New Year’s Eve. The end of 1994. After the evening Mass I decided to walk over to Stella’s. I considered crossing through the field behind the church but was daunted by the likelihood of snowdrifts. So I took the longer way, along the highway then up the mountain road for about a kilometre. Years ago, in another country, I walked like this, still innocent of the perils that lie in the perceptions of others, walking toward the warmth of hospitality unconscious of any potential for danger there.
She was watching television. She had a glass of wine beside her, but there was also a bottle of Scotch on the cupboard. I poured, irritated finally by the nervousness that always grips me in moments like this. Envying people like Sextus, with all his certainties. I made the drink stronger than I normally would have.
“I expected a party,” I said, and immediately regretted it.
“Cheers,” she said, raising her glass. “We’re it. I hope that doesn’t make you nervous.”
She was wearing jeans and a bulky turtleneck and her feet were bare. The occasion of sin? We watched the television in silence. During a commercial break she explained that she’d long ago concluded that she hated New Year’s parties and all the false cheerfulness.
I agreed.
The program started again.
The tension diminished with my drink.
We spent the evening like that, sitting in big chairs sipping drinks, laughing occasionally at the television. Venturing briefly into large speculations, backing away from areas of potential disagreement. There’s a warmth in her house, I thought. A living warmth, partly from the way she’s arranged it. The furniture. The light. Rugs. Soft and full.
Could it really be like this? I mustn’t spoil it.
“I like your place,” I said.
“Thanks.”
“There’s talk of a new glebe.”
“I heard. What do you think?”
“It doesn’t matter to me. I probably won’t be here long enough to appreciate a new place.”
“What do you mean by that?” she said quickly. And I felt oddly thrilled by the anxiety in her voice.
“You know the way it is. Like the army. You keep getting transferred.”
“Not necessarily. We expect commitment.”
“Since when did the priest’s commitment matter to you?” I said playfully.
“Touché,” she said, raising her wineglass.
At midnight we toasted the year ahead and for a moment I considered taking her in my arms. In a brotherly way, of course. But I thought better of it. Fear of misunderstanding. It can start with someth
ing as simple as a hug.
“Here’s to ‘95 and all it brings.”
“All kinds of joy,” she said. “I have a good feeling about ’95.”
Before I left, I mentioned that I’d had a visit from the O’Brians. Bob and Donald.
“Ah,” she said. “They went to talk to you.”
“Yes. Obviously you know why.”
There was a long, deliberate silence as she studied the last of her drink. “Maybe a nightcap?” She smiled.
“I’m okay.”
She sighed. “Donald told me, Christmas night, that he was hoping to talk to you. He was nervous.”
“Nervous!” I laughed. “I can’t imagine why.”
“Because you caught him smoking a joint,” she said.
“Does he actually think, after all my years at the university, that I’m shocked by the smell of grass?”
“Of course, you realize there’s something else,” she said.
“Oh? What might that be?”
She studied me for a moment then focused on the wineglass again, tipped it, swirled the contents thoughtfully. “He’s probably gay.”
I laughed. “What gives you that impression?”
She flushed. “Just a feeling that I get.”
“Ah, well. We all have our little challenges.”
I can see her still: the way she cocked her head to one side, skeptically, then looked away from me and smiled as if to some invisible third person in the room.
It was time to leave, but I lingered at the door.
“I’m glad you came over,” she said. “I enjoyed it … the nicest New Year’s Eve for years.”
“Yes,” I said. “For years.”
And wanted to say more. But caught her hand briefly then let go, turned away and left.
There was a message on my answering machine. Effie and Sextus. Wishing me the best. Also asking if I’d heard from John. Sitting alone in my darkened living room, staring out over the black bay with my second large whisky in my hand, I realized that, one day, I’d have to tell them everything. Probably for my own good.
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