Our Lady Of Greenwich Village

by Dermot McEvoy

  “That phony,” continued O’Rourke, rising out of his chair, “used to have a sound truck working the Bronx. In the Spanish neighborhood, it was ‘Vote for Ba-dillllo.’ In the Italian neighborhood, it was ‘Vote for Ba-dil-ooo.’ In the Jewish neighborhood, it was ‘Vote for Herman!’” McGuire laughed. “And that old starched pseudo-PR prick is still drawing a city paycheck from Giuliani. They are good at one thing—cashing checks. Not helping the people. Fuck the bunch of them.” McGuire could see that O’Rourke’s mood was turning black again.

  “Your midlife crisis coming back?” asked McGuire.

  “Oh,” said O’Rourke, “that’s just self-indulgent horseshit on my part, too. Every time I want to give up, pack it up, get away from those frauds, and move back to Ireland, I come up against this,” he said, pointing to the Monday morning edition of the New York Daily News. The Virgin’s appearance was the talk of the town, a topic almost as hot as Cyclops Reilly’s prose. BOGUS, proclaimed the News headline. Rupert Murdoch’s Post was just as strident: MOTHER OF GOD! “I can’t take it,” said O’Rourke laughing.

  “So you don’t believe the Virgin appeared to Congressman Swift,” said McGuire. “What kind of a Catholic are you, anyway?”

  “What the hell do you know about being a Catholic?”

  “Twelve years with the nuns,” said McGuire with passion. “I attended The Mary Louis Academy in Queens.”

  “Oh,” said O’Rourke, “not any old Mary Louis Academy, but The Mary Louis Academy.”

  “Yes,” said McGuire, laughing. “We had the best of pretensions and sophistication and Catholicism.”

  “Hard time?” said O’Rourke, also laughing. “Not that many black Catholics around.”

  “I’m not black.”

  “What?”

  “Well,” she continued, “not all of me. My father is a Harp, just like you.”

  “Bullshit,” was all O’Rourke could muster.

  “Honest Injun,” she said, holding up her right hand.

  “That’s some mix,” said O’Rourke.

  “Yeah,” McGuire said, “tell me about it. I’ve got an Irish liver and a black booty.”

  “That,” said O’Rourke, shaking his head, “is an awesome combination. Let’s see your resume.”

  He looked it over and said, “That’s good, no picture.”

  “Picture?”

  “Yeah,” he said, “I refuse to hire anyone who has their picture on a resume or uses the words synergy, proactive, or execute in the resume.”

  “Execute?”

  “Yeah,” continued O’Rourke, “you know, will ‘execute’ this or ‘execute’ that. The only executing around here is done by me!”

  “I get your point,” said McGuire.

  “I see you worked every losing Democratic campaign in the last ten years.”

  “Hey,” said McGuire, “I also worked Schumer’s.”

  “What do you think of him?”

  “He’d talk to a fire hydrant,” she said. “God, I hated those Sunday morning news conferences he loves so much. That was my job—weekend flack.”

  “Yeah,” said O’Rourke. “Old Chuck should take a valium or something.” He went back to looking at the resume. “I see you worked for Bobby Abrams against D’Amato and Ruth Messinger against Giuliani the last time out.”

  “Abrams, to put it mildly, was not John F. Kennedy on the stump.”

  “And Messinger?”

  “She didn’t have a chance,” said McGuire, starting to laugh again.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “She has the biggest ass on any white woman I’ve ever seen!” McGuire responded bluntly.

  O’Rourke savored her laughter, then said, “I’m glad you said that, because if I had even thought it, the National Organization for Women would be demanding that this misogynist pig be fired. You learn anything up there at Columbia?”

  “Yes,” said McGuire. “Drink in the West End Bar as often as possible.”

  “What did you write your master’s thesis on?”

  “Bobby Kennedy’s three-month campaign for president.”

  O’Rourke was quiet for a second. “What did you think of it?” he finally asked.

  “It,” said McGuire with authority, “was flawed.” O’Rourke nodded, beginning to feel uncomfortable. “Did you know the senator well?”

  “No,” said O’Rourke with a small smile, “not that well.” McGuire knew he was lying. O’Rourke got up and walked to the window again. He wanted to change the subject again. “You really want to work for me?” he asked. “You know I’m crazy.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “What I need help with is the culture.”

  “Culture?”

  “Yeah,” said O’Rourke, “I am completely oblivious to popular culture. Until a few months ago, I actually thought it was Gladys Knight and the Pimps.”

  “Oh,” said McGuire, “you didn’t!”

  “Yes, I did,” said O’Rourke. “I’m at that stage in my life where the cover of Playboy magazine says ‘So-and-so Naked!’ One, I don’t know who she is, and two, I don’t care. I need help. I think I started blocking out popular American culture about 1985.”

  “I’ll cover your ass.”

  O’Rourke smiled. “Okay, let me test your political acumen.”

  “Try me.”

  “Name me,” said O’Rourke, “every one of FDR’s vice-presidents.”

  “John Nance Garner of Texas,” said McGuire, “twice. Henry Wallace of Iowa, once. And Harry Truman of Missouri for a couple of months.”

  “Pretty good,” said O’Rourke.

  “Pretty good?” said McGuire. “That was very good.”

  She was right. O’Rourke knew that she was perfect for him. He had to admit it. “Fuck, you’re good.”

  “Yes,” said Sam McGuire with another beautiful smile, “I know.”

  8.

  The five o’clock alarm rang, and Monsignor Seán Pius Burke awoke with a start. For a moment, he lay in bed and listened to the occasional passing car on Madison Avenue. It was still dark, but he knew his boss, Declan Cardinal Sweeney, was already saying his five o’clock mass in the chapel of his private apartment, located just across the hall. Burke swung his legs out of the bed and stiffly stood up. At forty-one he was one of the youngest monsignors in the New York Archdiocese. “A man going places,” everybody—including the Cardinal—said. Burke slid into the hot shower, and the stiffness left his athletic body. As he scraped his face with his razor, he turned on the radio to WINS to find out what was going to befall him this day.

  He knew the news would be bad. The Cardinal had once again attacked everybody in his Sunday sermon at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. He said he had been inspired by the Virgin’s appearance to Jackie Swift. He started with the homosexuals, went on to the abortionists, and then attacked every politician who supported abortion. The phones had not stopped ringing all Sunday afternoon as the governor, the mayor, and then congressman after congressman had called to ask, basically, if the Cardinal had flipped his lid.

  Burke didn’t know what to tell them. He couldn’t tell them that, yes, the Cardinal had torn up the truce between the Catholic politicians and himself—a truce that Burke had worked so hard to declare. Burke had a doctorate and a law degree, but when it came to reasoning with the Cardinal, it often was an impossible task. Burke couldn’t control the man. He looked in the bathroom mirror and smiled. What was he going to do? The Cardinal, he thought, was the Church’s answer to George Steinbrenner. The poor man couldn’t help himself: He was a media contortionist. He loved mugging and posing. Give him a baseball cap to wear for the camera and he was as happy as a child. Let him see a TV camera, and he went berserk. He was good copy, always talking off the top of his head, throwing out names and issues. One week the evils of rock music, the next the problems with condoms, the next, the insidious filth of Channel 35 on Manhattan Cable Television. (“Eminence, who brought this filth to your attention?” Billy “
Eminence” Owens, the obsequiously pious religion editor of the Daily News, had innocently asked at a press conference one Sunday to the howls of the press—and the cold stare of Declan Cardinal Sweeney.) His Sunday sermons, which were carefully monitored by the New York press corps because they often turned out to be great copy, had become circuses, and the press conferences afterward were just as wild. In the immortal words of Abe Stein from the Post, “You just can’t make this stuff up.”

  Cardinal Sweeney’s Sunday morning sermons had been intensely covered by the media since his infamous Palm Sunday sermon. It had all started rather innocently as the Cardinal had ascended the pulpit to talk about Jesus’s triumphant entrance into Jerusalem and the events that would lead up to his crucifixion by Friday of the same week.

  “Jesus,” began the Cardinal, “rode into Jerusalem on his ass.” He paused for effect, then almost shouted, “His bountiful ass.” There was total silence among the congregation. “Yes,” the Cardinal added, lowering his voice for effect, “his bountiful ass.” This time the silence was interrupted by a snicker, then a cough. The Cardinal arched an eyebrow. “I see that, even in this holy house, the simple, innocentsounding word ass can be misinterpreted.” By now there was shuffling in the seats as the Cardinal, clearly distracted, had turned beet red.

  “We are reduced to this,” he said deliberately, sadly shaking his head. “Our liturgy has been reduced to this, a mere television sitcom.” He remained silent for what seemed a minute. You could hear a pin drop in the cathedral. “Yes,” he thundered, “we have been reduced. And reduced to what?”

  By this time the Cardinal even had the attention of Cyclops Reilly, who had a feeling that his Eminence was about to blow a circuit.

  “We are reduced, like a television sitcom, to tits and ass!”

  There was a collective gasp from the congregation.

  “Tits-and-ass!” screeched the Cardinal as he reached his hands toward the heavens, beseeching the Almighty. Reilly got up and headed for the back of the cathedral so he could beat the others to the telephone.

  “And where,” asked Declan Cardinal Sweeney, “does tits-and-ass lead us?” He paused for effect. “It leads us to masturbation!” shouted Sweeney. “Oh my God, silly, sinful masturbation!”

  Reilly stopped in his tracks. He could see the Cardinal was clearly out of control and he waited anxiously to see what was coming next.

  “Masturbation,” the Cardinal continued, “is not merely the spilling of God’s precious seed. Masturbation is murder! First-degree murder!”

  Cyclops Reilly nearly broke an ankle as he tore from the church. He decided to forego the telephone and hailed a cab and headed for the Daily News on West 33rd Street. He burst into the near-empty city room and headed straight for his computer. At the city desk, Peccadillo Fogarty raised his head as Reilly passed by in a blur. He picked up his phone and dialed Cyclops at the other end of the city room.

  “What’s up?” Fogarty asked.

  “The Cardinal has lost it,” Reilly said and relayed the Cardinal’s performance to Fogarty.

  “Write it,” said Fogarty.

  “Let me do an in-person sidebar,” said Reilly.

  “Go to it, Cyclops.” And Cyclops did. After writing a straight factual story, he began his sidebar with the memorable sentence: “If masturbation is murder, then there’s a holocaust going on in my bedroom every night.” He then called several lawyers and got differing opinions on whether masturbation was first-degree murder.

  “Yes,” said Carney of the DA’s office, “there is definitely premeditation to an act of masturbation.”

  “Manslaughter is more like it,” said Sapperstein of the Legal Defense Association.

  “Are you nuts?” screamed Horowitz of the ACLU.

  The headline of Monday’s New York Daily News shouted: MASTURBATION MURDER! The New York Post declared: NO HAND JOB! The New York Times thoughtfully scribed: IS IT MURDER? Wednesday’s Village Voice finally got it right: JERK-OFF!

  Reilly’s sidebar column was titled: “The Secret Holocaust?” Reilly had had his fun. Now the Cardinal would demand retribution. Reilly found himself writing about rat shit in restaurant kitchens and Fogarty found himself working the lobster shift. But what goes around, comes around. And with the appearance of the Blessed Virgin, the Cardinal found himself battling his two adversaries again.

  “How are ya, Johnny Pie?” the reporters would tease the monsignor. He was one of them. They knew him and his cousin, Cyclops Reilly, well. “What’s the Red Hat going to say today, Johnny Pie?” “I need some good stuff, Johnny Pie. Any idea what’s up?”

  The newspapermen were good guys. Some were from the old neighborhood and he had gone to school with some of them. They were only doing their job. You couldn’t blame them. Sweeney was great copy. And they sure knew how to get him into a lather.

  Yesterday’s debacle had started innocently enough. The theme of the Cardinal’s sermon the Sunday before St. Patrick’s Day was to be, in fact, the patron saint of both Ireland and the Archdiocese of New York, St. Patrick himself.

  At his regular ten o’clock mass, the Cardinal took the pulpit. “The best day of the year,” began the Cardinal, “to many of us Irish New Yorkers happens this week, when we celebrate the feast of St. Patrick.”

  From the sides of the cathedral a chant began: “GAY-LICK!, GAY-LICK!, GAY-LICK!, GAY-LICK!.” Irish tri-colors and banners proclaiming “Cardinal Unfair to Irish Gays” were unfurled as the NYPD, always on guard when the Cardinal spoke, raced down the aisles to intercept the demonstrators before they reached the pulpit.

  GAYLICK was a militant organization that supported the right of Irish homosexuals and lesbians to march in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. They had been reviled by Francis X. McNamara of the Ancient Order of Hibernians as a “bunch of faggotry queers.” It was noted by several columnists in the tabloids that Francis X. McNamara was a master of hyperbole, not to mention redundancy. McNamara had retorted with a straight face that he was “a master of Hibernians.”

  Monsignor Burke had only sighed. “Let them march,” he had urged the Cardinal. “The more you point them out and fight them, the more you legitimize their cause.”

  “Not after what they said about my priests,” replied the Cardinal.

  The monsignor just shook his head. After the Cardinal had declared on TV that there would be “no homosexuals” marching in the parade, Bull O’Shea, the lesbian leader of GAYLICK, had responded in her thick Derry accent, “Sure, what’s he talking about no homosexuals in the parade? What about all his priests!” As the Cardinal watched Bull O’Shea on TV, the color of his face began to match his red vestments.

  It was obvious there was going to be no solution this year. Monsignor Burke had met with GAYLICK secretly, but they were as adamant as the Cardinal. Burke always thought that if they just didn’t take themselves so seriously, if they had called their group the Casement/Pearse Brigade—in honor of Roger Casement and Patrick Pearse, two of the 1916 rebels who were executed and who were also probably homosexual—they might have shamed the AOH into granting a marching permit. But to Burke it seemed that everybody wanted more to make a statement than to find a solution.

  As they drew closer to the Cardinal in the pulpit, GAYLICK changed its chant to “SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!” The cops caught up to them well before they could get to the Cardinal and dragged them by the necks out the side doors into 50th and 51st Streets. The congregation hummed in horror.

  “Please, please,” said the Cardinal. “Please be seated. It’s over.” He could still hear the chant from the street outside, “GAY-LICK! GAY-LICK! GAY-LICK!” The Cardinal had had enough.

  As the congregation reseated itself, he began. “Shame,” he said. “Did you hear them, lecturing me about shame? What is shame? Do they know shame? Does this feckless generation of MTV and abortion rights know shame? Do their parents know shame? Do their politicians know shame? Do the governor and the mayor know shame?” He was silent. You could hear th
e rustlings in the cathedral and people nervously clearing their throats.

  “Shame,” he shouted into the microphone, “unfortunately, is not in the vocabulary of this country! Seemingly, we have no shame. Who are the good people? Who are the enlightened few? As I look at the trash that just used this holy house as their personal hate toilet, I feel shame. They have shamed me—my own Irish—in the presence of the Lord. Yet, I am reminded of some of the good people. The people, like yourselves, who have not forsaken Holy Mother Church. I think of Representative Jackie Swift, the congressman who represents the district where this holy house sits. I think of Congressman Swift, in St. Vincent’s Hospital, fighting for his life—and our way of life. Jackie Swift is a man of principal who goes against the grain. You don’t see Congressman Swift voting to extend abortion rights to every feckless woman in this country—as our governor and mayor would like to do. You don’t see Congressman Swift voting to legalize pornography so little children can be photographed naked by perverts.” He stopped momentarily. “NAKED!” he shouted for emphasis. There was absolute silence in the cathedral. It reminded many of the journalists of nine o’clock mass when they were kids. After some forty years, many of them were terrified again.

  “And don’t you doubt for a second,” said the Cardinal, “that the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to Congressman Swift. You’ll hear them snickering in the media about how this appearance is ‘bogus.’ But what do they know? We know the Virgin appeared to Jackie to tell us—her children—of her abhorrence of filthy abortion.”

  The Cardinal was caught up in his own voice now. His mind was racing. He remembered the subway ad that someone had pulled from a number 1 train and mailed to him. The ad was for the “Doggie Gynecologist,” a veterinary clinic that promoted veterinary medicine with a modern twist. Not only would the vet, Helen McManus, DVM, do the regular spaying, but she was also an expert on championship dog breeding, doing DNA testing to make sure that championship parentage was indeed confirmed. She also did canine abortions if the bitch’s mate wasn’t up to snuff, so to speak. The “Doggie Gynecologist” was sent by a devout Catholic who found any kind of abortion abhorrent. Now, all the Cardinal could think of, as he began to froth at the mouth, was the “Doggie Gynecologist.” Unfortunately, it didn’t come out that way.