The Monk

by Hallahan, William H. ;

  One morning Terry’s vibrations felt stronger than usual, and that afternoon when Brendan came in from school, Terry sat in the kitchen in his familiar slouch, one leg slung over the other, kicking slowly, cheek on fingertip with the expression on his face of a man who had just smelled a skunk. He didn’t speak to Brendan.

  Brendan felt embarrassed, seeing the man up close and knowing his most intimate boyhood secrets. It was as though he’d heard another man’s confession to a priest. He took a few hesitant steps into the kitchen.

  “I like your room, Terry. I can lie on the bed and look out over New York Harbor.”

  “I always kept the shade down on that window,” Terry said.

  Brendan left him talking to his mother in that whiny murmur of his, stirring his tea with a spoon absentmindedly as he talked. When Brendan came down later, Terry was gone, as furtively as he had come.

  “Terry,” Aunt Maeve said sadly, and shook her head. “God help me.” She radiated dismay and regret and guilt. Impulsively Brendan put his arms around her.

  “You’ll never go into a nursing home as long as I’m around,” he told her.

  “How did you know we were talking about that?” She looked at him curiously.

  “A guess,” he said.

  “Ah, well, he thinks I’m one of his stamps that should be safely stored in an album.” She smiled at Brendan. “Have a cup of tea and cheer me up. It’s not nearly time to talk of nursing homes. These modern medicines make things a lot different from Momma’s day.”

  The arthritis was getting into her knees and her hands, especially the left hand, and she had to wear rubber gloves whenever she washed anything in soapy water. She used a cane now.

  A little irritated, she pulled a colorful folder from her apron pocket and dropped it into the wastebasket. “GOLDEN YEARS NURSING HOME” it said in happy yellow letters.

  She smiled at him. “Brendan, don’t be so nice to the world. It doesn’t deserve you.”

  That night, Brendan was waked from a deep sleep by a sound on the landing outside his bedroom door. A board had creaked in the darkness.

  Then the door moved slightly. Something was rubbing up against it. Then he heard the snort of an animal. It rubbed against the door again, moving it on its hinges. The latch tapped back and forth, threatening to pop open. The angry snorting grew louder.

  Brendan sat up in his bed and watched the door. He told himself he was dreaming but the fear was real enough. The animal leaned forcibly against the door and snorted again in frustration. Brendan leaped from his bed, seized his desk chair and propped it under the doorknob. The animal sensed his presence and snorted again at the crack of the door. It sounded like a powerful beast with a coarse coat of hair that scraped on the door panels.

  Brendan waited. And the rubbing stopped. Brendan got back in bed and watched the stars westering.

  At dawn he awoke and remembered the bad dream.

  But when he looked, his desk chair was propped under the doorknob.

  It was at Anne O’Casey’s Christmas party that Brendan discovered he had a purple aura.

  Annie hadn’t seen him since that last sorrowful day at the seashore the summer before. A number of times she’d begun to call him, ready to start talking in her breezy style. The head-on method always worked best for her. Her mother called her Wham Bam Annie. But when she thought about his dead parents, she was afraid she’d sound disrespectful; she might offend him. She felt intimidated and didn’t call.

  But in December she found just the right reason to contact him: a Christmas party. So she picked up the phone and dialed, vowing that if he refused to come, she’d die of embarrassment.

  His voice had the same nice quality that she remembered. And he still had his sense of humor. She babbled so much she felt like a fool. Then she told herself to let him talk. He told her he was fine. He said he had planned to call her for Christmas—as a Christmas present to himself. He never mentioned his parents. Instead he made her laugh. He told her he was now 7 feet 15 and 350 pounds—a giant walking zit.

  Finally she said, “I wanted to see you so I decided to have a Christmas party as an excuse and I called to tell you you’re going to come or I’ll hold my breath until I turn blue.”

  He said that blue was his favorite color. And she told him to hold his own breath in front of a mirror then. And they both laughed and he said he would come.

  Before she hung up, she said, “It’ll be nice to see you again.” Then she spent the rest of the evening wondering if it had all sounded dumb to him. But it was true: It would be wonderful to see him again. So she planned a terrific party to please him. Maybe he would even be glad to see her.

  The O’Caseys lived in the mid-Fifties of Manhattan off Second Avenue in an apartment with a doorman. Brendan and several others from Brooklyn rode there in a cab, their laps full of presents; on the way they picked up Jackie Sharkey from his apartment over the family pub on Third Avenue.

  When they arrived, Annie opened the door and Brendan grinned with joy. She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. She had let her fair hair grow and now it was soft and springy and she’d tied red and green ribbons in it; she was wearing a white blouse and a long red Christmas skirt of wool that went to the floor. And when he stepped over the threshold, she carefully positioned him with a hand on each of his shoulders. She smelled like soap and water and her lips tasted like chocolate when she reached up and kissed him. Not a peck. A real movie kiss.

  A whole group of her friends with instant cameras took pictures of them kissing under the mistletoe. Brendan knew he must have said something very funny for everyone laughed but after he could never remember what he said.

  The two of them had been photographed from every angle, and in a few moments Brendan had seven color photographs of the event in his hand. He scanned them self-consciously and was tucking them into his jacket pocket when he paused and looked at them again. In each of the seven shots, over his head he saw a purple dot. So small it was not very evident. At first he thought it might be an imperfection in the film. But the dot was in every photograph. Like a satellite, the tiny dot floated above his head.

  It was a wonderful party. It was the first time Brendan had danced seriously. And he danced most with Annie. He held her in his arms unaware of what else was going on around them. He could hardly take his eyes off her. And yet throughout the evening, there was a part of his mind that dwelt on the seven photographs. The dot. The purple dot. He kept recalling his father’s last word: purple.

  Late in the evening he saw more instant photographs on the tablecloth by the punch bowl and he found several pictures of him dancing with Annie. In each one the tiny purple dot was visible.

  As they were leaving, Annie said, “I’m having a party every month from now on, Brendan. And the next one is New Year’s. Are you coming or not? And you’d better say Yes or I’ll kiss you again.” So he said No. And she kissed him again under the mistletoe as everyone cheered.

  He brought Aunt Maeve a piece of cake. Then he handed her the pictures. She smiled at each one, then frowned and shuffled through them again quickly. She rubbed her fingertip on them. At last she looked at the air over his head.

  “You see it too,” he said to her. “The dot, I mean. The purple dot.”

  She frowned at the pictures. “I wonder what it is. Maybe it’s in the film.”

  She got him to tell her about the party while she ate the cake. Later, when he went to bed, she sat at the kitchen table with the seven photographs of him kissing—and being kissed by—Annie O’Casey. What a wonderful dream. Brendan and Annie.

  The purple dot must have been caused by the flashbulbs, she decided.

  At regular intervals throughout the calendar, the shadow of the hawk would pass over Brendan’s rooftop, skim along the streets he walked, ever searching, ever on the alert.

  One night, when he was eighteen, Brendan had a particularly bad dream. Without warning, silently, the black horse came riding and on his back w
as the black-cowled figure. They were searching for Brendan. “Purple,” the cowled figure bellowed. “Purple!”

  Brendan sat up in his bed and looked out at the harbor lights, weary of the torment. He knew he would be found by the faceless black-cowled monk someday. Without weapons, without skills, how do you fight a demon? He wished he could be done with it all. It was the long years of constant threats and intimations that he wanted to escape. He decided he had to seek help. But where?

  Who could teach him how to fight a demon?

  In the morning at breakfast he made up his mind: The person to talk to was his uncle Malachi. This in spite of the fact that he hardly knew the man. He remembered him as a bustling, noisy man who exuded tremendous self-confidence, who smelled of lilac water, horses and, on his breath, expensive whiskey, a spraddle-legged figure standing by his stables in riding jacket and pegged cavalry-twill breeches with a stirrup cup in his hand, ready to ride with his wealthy Westchester County friends. The Irishtocracy, his aunt Maeve had called them. The family called Malachi, behind his back, the Squire. Or the Squire of Mayo.

  But many in the family considered Malachi as smart as Brendan’s father had been. The two brothers had been competitive all their lives. Malachi had made two fortunes, one in the commodities market and one in the stock market. When he talked, others always listened. They said he’d beat the devil.

  When Brendan’s father and mother had died, Malachi had gripped the boy by the shoulders. “If ever you need help, if ever you need a strong arm, if ever you need a lifeline, money, advice, counsel—a confidant, a leg up, a push in the right direction, the opening of a door—I tell you solemnly, Brendan, I’m always available, my hand extended. Just call me. Anytime. Never hesitate.”

  Brendan had taken the speech to heart, and ever since, his uncle had been his rabbit hole. The lighthouse in a storm. Sanctuary. If ever he needed to, he could run to Malachi and be saved. Malachi had beaten the devil.

  After breakfast Brendan kissed Aunt Maeve and went off to school. He was enrolled in the center for social studies at New York University, and as he went along the winter-bitter streets to the subway, he thought about Malachi. He decided to go see him.

  Later in the morning he stood doubtfully in his uncle’s reception room. He felt comforted and intimidated both. There were plush carpeting on the floor and glass and aluminum paneling and soft-green walls. The chairs were expensive and the receptionist beautiful and in the vase the flowers were real. Well-dressed young men went to-ing and fro-ing along the corridors. The whole enterprise hummed like a well-oiled machine. Money. Power. Security. Brendan felt safer already.

  But in these practical precincts, talk of demons and super-natural Wars sounded absurd. He wondered if he should leave before he made a fool of himself:

  “Uncle Malachi, I want you to help me with this demon that’s pursuing me.”

  A door swung open and Malachi Davitt stood there framed.

  “Brendan?” he said with joy, and spread his arms. “Look at him. Are you that tall? You’ve got—let’s see—two or three inches on me. Four?” He laid a light punch on Brendan’s shoulder. “How good. I’m delighted. We’ll lunch together and talk. Let me have ten minutes to clean up a few details. Here. Sit, sit, sit. Read a magazine and I’ll be back.” He tapped his fingernails on the receptionist’s desk. “Reservations for two down the street in about half an hour,” he said to her.

  The restaurant was as intimidating as Malachi’s office. It was very old and determinedly expensive, right in the heart of Wall Street. There was rich brown paneling throughout, crystal lights overhead, oil paintings of early Dutch figures, English generals, sailing vessels along the New York waterfront.

  Leaded windows looked down a narrow street walled by lofty office buildings and crowded with stockbrokers and financial people hurrying through the cold. At the end of the street a piece of Trinity Church was just visible. Flags snapped and fluttered in the breeze that always blew through lower Manhattan.

  This was no place to talk of demons. The waiters wore white linen jackets, and there were white linen tablecloths and napkins and heavy silverplate place settings and ornate silver coffee pots. By the window a huge aquarium was crowded with somnolent lobsters, gently rocked by a rush of aerating bubbles. Periodically a chef in a tall white hat would come and pluck one of the lobsters from the tank and bear it to the kitchen on a silver tray.

  In the adjacent barroom, practical men with pampered pink skin and slightly flushed faces stood in expensive clothes and talked in low, well-bred voices of money and corporate adventures. Brendan observed them with doubt. Not one of them had ever seen a demon. They simply never thought about such unprofitable things.

  Malachi ordered a pint of stout and sat back. With his tweed jacket and tattersall vest, he looked, as the family said, like a squire come up to Dublin to his favorite pub for the day.

  “I can’t tell you how pleased I am to see you, Brendan. I’ve had you in my mind for weeks. Do you ride? You have the Davitt hands, I see. You’d make a fine horseman. Just the right carriage. You look a little like me, I fancy. More than just a family resemblance. Well, let’s talk seriously for a minute. Are you still in that school for social studies?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah, Brendan. You must get yourself out of there. You don’t want to become a threadbare mousey. I tell you you have to take care of yourself. You’ve got to put some pennies by. No one else will do it. In fact, I’ve some thoughts on that subject. Have you considered another career?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Malachi slowly took a mouthful of stout, considering his next words. “Listen, Brendan, have you been following this series in the paper on ESP?”

  “No. I’m afraid not.”

  “Well, actually the Russians have done the most important work on this. But it’s all very interesting. I’ve devoted considerable attention to this subject lately. I mean—Well, you should know what I mean.” He eyed Brendan speculatively. “How have you been?” he began again.

  Brendan saluted him silently with his stout.

  Malachi drummed his deformed, arthritic fingers on the snowy linen cloth. His hands looked just like those of his sister Maeve. They suggested the claws of the lobsters in the tank. Thoughtfully he traced the edge of a fork with his right index finger. “How can I begin this? You were always—when you were a child, I mean—you were always special. Do you know what I mean?”

  Brendan shifted in his chair.

  “Do you know what I mean by the word special, Brendan?”

  Brendan sat back, then shook his head.

  “You know it’s in the family,” Malachi continued. “Your mother, I recall, had the gift and there were others. Great-aunt Rosaleen Dugan. And Danny Tyce. And—well, others also. The selfsame gift. Do you get my drift?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, these Russians—oh, they’re such clever people, Brendan! They’ve done all this work on ESP. You know what that is? They fool around with cards. And someone tries to guess what card is coming up. That sort of thing. Under the strictest laboratory control. And they find these people with unusual gifts. Here—let me freshen that up.”

  “It’s only half done,” Brendan protested.

  “Come, come.” Malachi signaled the waiter, then watched him carry the two pint glasses to the bar for a topping. Once or twice he cast a furtive glance at Brendan. The waiter returned in a minute.

  “Now there,” Malachi said. “That’s better. Where was I?”

  “In Russia. With a deck of cards.”

  “Yes, of course. Well, you see, there are some people who can really guess the cards to an extraordinary degree. It’s a form of—well, of predicting the future, don’t you see?”

  “No.”

  “Well, damn it, man! You have that gift!”

  “What gift?”

  “To predict the future!”

  “Oh,” Then Brendan frowned. “Can I predict the future?”
/>   “Of course you can! The whole family knows that. You predicted a number of things.”

  Brendan was perplexed. “Are you afraid I’m going to predict something about you?”

  “You’re not, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Then that’s not what I mean. Not at all. Nothing bad. I mean—well, you see. I’m sure if you thought about it, you would recall times when you saw things coming. Like knowing in advance that someone was going to meet someone before they did. Or finding something someone lost.”

  “Precognition.”

  “Exactly!” Malachi smote the tabletop with an open palm. “There’s a place here in the city—a bona fine scientific laboratory, no gimmicks—that can take people with a gift like yours and sharpen it, don’t you see?—so that you can foretell the future even better.”

  “Shouldn’t you be talking to a fortune-teller?”

  “Oh, no. No, no. No, thank you. That’s not what I had in mind at all—floating trumpets and voices from the grave. No. I want the future, not the past.”

  Brendan shrugged indifferently. “I don’t know much about it.”

  “Now wait, Brendan. Let me finish. I have an important point to make. Listen. It doesn’t have to be anything specific, if you get my drift. In my time I’ve been in so many markets— stocks, debentures, commodities, then recently the gold market, and for a while your cousin Terry O’Grady and I did some good business in stamps. I even got deeply involved in horses—thoroughbreds. You see?”

  Brendan felt his face beginning to redden. He glanced around the room to see who was marking his embarrassment. Malachi plunged on, unaware.

  “Suppose you got a feeling about the wheat futures market. I could sit down with you and try to draw out what it is through my knowledge of that market. Or maybe you can get a glimpse of a future stock market report in a moment of—”