The Gathering

by William X. Kienzle

  Manny felt a tentative touch on his cheek. No more; just a soft touch. He stopped punching, pulled back, and surveyed the damage. It was considerable.

  The dining room furniture was scratched and nicked; the chairs close to kindling. Alice’s battered face was streaked with tears. The walls and carpet were splattered with food, blood, and sweat.

  “Are you all right?” Manny gasped.

  Alice nodded. “How about Johnny?”

  Manny regarded his adversary. Piccolo was breathing. That was a relief. He might well not have been. “I think he won’t be conscious before we get out of here. Even if he does come to, believe me, he won’t have any fight left.”

  “‘We’?” Alice repeated, confused. “‘We get out of here’? What … ?”

  Manny noticed for the first time that some of the shed blood was his own. He also noted that in previous fights, he’d had to be forceably dragged off the loser. This time it had taken only a gentle touch from Alice to stop him.

  “Manny, you’ve got to leave. John will be furious.”

  “I think I kicked the fury out of him.”

  “He’s got guns—”

  “Where?”

  “Under lock and key … somewhere, I don’t know.”

  Manny considered this. A gun could change the complexion of the situation. “Get your things together. Quick!”

  “I can’t leave. I’m his wife.”

  “We’ll see about that. If I let you stay here now, he’d probably kill you. He’d probably kill me too. I think leaving is a better alternative. Take only what you need. C’mon,” he said insistently. “I’ll help you.”

  Alice hesitated. But Manny was right: Both of them had to be gone before John came to. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

  While Alice collected the essentials, Manny had time to think, if briefly. What had he done? Did he have to solve everything with his fists? What kind of monster had he become?

  Wait a minute: This was classic self-defense. He had fought for his life—literally.

  Over the long haul, he was making enemies. Tough guys who could think they had reason to maybe kill him. He was going to have to do something about that.

  But first, take care of Alice.

  After stowing Alice’s luggage in the trunk, Manny gently helped her into the front seat, then went around and slid behind the wheel. Before starting the car, he turned to look at her. “Shouldn’t we get you to a hospital? That eye doesn’t look so good.”

  “It’ll be okay. It’s happened before. It’ll go down given a little time. When it’s safe to travel around, I’ll see my doctor.”

  “This has happened before?”

  “Uh-huh.” She was embarrassed. “It’s my fault.”

  “Your fault!” You mean what he did to your meal and to you was your fault?”

  “I just don’t measure up. So he kicks me around a bit. But he always forgives me.”

  Manny shook his head. “Do you have a family doctor?”

  “Yes. Dr. Laura Gaynes.”

  “When Johnny kicks you around, he leaves scars and bruises?”

  “Most of the time.”

  “Your doctor sees the bruises?”

  She nodded wordlessly.

  “What does she say about them?”

  “They’re always superficial. I heal quickly.”

  “That’s it? The doctor patches you up and sends you back for more?”

  Alice tried to smile, but one side of her face hurt too much. “No. She’s been after me from the beginning to leave him. She’s disgusted with me.”

  “You get it from every side, don’t you?”

  “It’s my fault.”

  “We’ve got to do something about that attitude of yours. But first, we’ve got to take you someplace safe.”

  “Where?”

  “That’s what I’ve been working on. I think … yeah … let’s go home.”

  Neither Fredo nor Maria Tocco had gone to bed. They were watching the small-screen television that was, for them, a brand-new entertainment package.

  Manny let himself in and held the door for Alice. He called to his parents. They could tell from his tone that this was not an ordinary visit. All they needed was one look at Manny and Alice, and they knew something was wrong. Alice was one of “the six.” They had attended her wedding. Of course she was welcome in their house.

  Manny explained what had happened. He was going to have to deal with Johnny Piccolo. But for now, until they could enlist the help of Alice’s parents, she needed a safe place to stay. The Tocco guest room would be reclaimed from the den.

  Fortunately, Manny had found a sympathetic hearing. Maria fixed them something to eat, although neither he nor Alice had much of an appetite.

  The next day the process that would lead to a divorce was begun.

  Johnny waged a furious battle to retrieve and reclaim his favorite punching bag. But in the face of threatened testimony from her doctor, the neighbors, and several employees in the law firm, he eventually realized he didn’t stand a chance.

  Alice asked for and got nothing from Johnny. She wanted only to be free and have time to recuperate. Manny, in their final meeting, told Johnny that if he wanted to think of Manny as a Knight in Shining Armor, or as Sir Lancelot, no matter. But if Johnny ever touched Alice again—if he even so much as looked at her cross-eyed … well, a smart lawyer like him would have meticulously planned for a lavish funeral.

  In time, Alice was granted the uncontested divorce. Meanwhile, Manny had informed Bob, Stan, and Mike. Alice herself told Sister Marie Agnes, who was heartbroken for her.

  But life continued.

  Bob Koesler was ordained and began his first assignment at an east-side Detroit parish. Mike and Stan were made deacons and began their final year at St. John’s. Bob was inwardly convinced that the seminary had seen the last of Manny Tocco. Manny and Alice were spending so much time together that they had become an “item” to those who knew them well.

  And, indeed, they did fall in love, and thought of marrying. But there was the matter of a previous marriage and the necessity for a decree of nullity.

  Church law regarding marriage was taught in the seminary’s final year. Manny was not there for the study. He was aware, however, that an annulment was not easy to obtain. The services of a priest were required to get a couple through this legal maze.

  Neither Manny nor Alice wanted to ask Father Bob (as they chose to address him) for help. Which was no reflection on his competence. It was just that they were all too close—something like a doctor’s reluctance to operate on a family member.

  Manny had heard Stan speak of Father Ed Simpson. Something about how he’d gotten Stan into the seminary. They asked for an appointment. Reluctantly, Father Simpson agreed to see them. Stan was close to ordination now and Simpson, prematurely, was planning his new life in a desirable parish. If Tocco had not been close to Stan, Father Simpson would have refused to even see him. And that on sound grounds, since neither Alice nor Manny was a member of Guadalupe parish. After all, there was always the possibility that Tocco might do something to upset Benson’s—and thus Father Simpson’s—applecart.

  But after hearing Alice’s case, Simpson knew that her getting an annulment was another definition of Fat Chance.

  Alice and Johnny were Catholic; neither had been previously married, neither had denied the other the right to have children, neither had held a gun on the other to force marriage. Wifebeating might belong in the confessional or the counseling office, but was not an impediment that would make a marriage null and void from its very inception.

  Going down the short list of conditions that might favor a declaration of nullity, Father Simpson found theirs an open and shut case. A little too open and shut for the two young people. A more sensitive and caring priest would have let them down more gently. Simpson was not such a priest.

  Manny was not the type to brood over a decision. He did not think Jesus would be so tight in making rules and regulat
ions for people whose only crime was that they truly loved each other.

  Alice and Manny considered it, discussed it, argued over it, prayed over it, and finally reached a decision. They were married by a judge, the ceremony witnessed by two surprised but delighted secretaries who had been passing the judge’s chambers at the time.

  In the eyes of civil law, Alice and Manny were married. In the eyes of the Church, they were excommunicated. And as such they were no longer welcome in the homes of the Toccos, the Smiths, the McManns, the Koeslers, and even the Bensons.

  Of the clique, only Mike Smith joined in the shunning. The others, for their own peculiar reasons, could not break off their long friendship. Still, the unconditional acceptance no longer existed.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  YEARS ACCUMULATED.

  Fathers Smith and Benson joined Father Koesler in the priesthood. Shortly after Stan Benson’s ordination, Father Ed Simpson took up his vigil, waiting for the phone call that would at long last free him from Guadalupe and send him off to one of those plush, elegant parishes so prized by climbing clerics. It didn’t have to be a suburban church. Those were more apt to be gingerbread buildings built to serve beginning families as well as the growing exodus of “white flight” from Detroit city.

  Father Ed had done his part: He had delivered one medium-rare young man to ordination from about the least likely vocation producer in the archdiocese. Granted, it was a one-way contract; the diocese had promised no reward. But you’d think you could expect a modicum of recognition.

  Nothing.

  Father Ed was doomed to work this miserable parish until he dropped. He watched as, one by one, his elderly parishioners retired from mostly blue-collar jobs. During this era, retirement was not a consideration for priests. No one—or very few—wanted to be put on the shelf.

  On the other hand, Father Mike Smith was carving out a splendid career for himself. After a brief parochial stint, he was shipped off to Rome, the fertile soil that grew bishops. He was sent back to Detroit to the chancery and an expected eventual monsignorship.

  Father Stan Benson was disappointed in his early assignments. He was sent to parishes in the moneyed suburbs, first to Grosse Pointe, then to Birmingham. It was easy—too easy—to be noticed. Whenever something happened to these parishioners—and it frequently did—calls came from reporters in search of sidebars … human interest angles that could flesh out a story.

  The last thing Stan wanted was to be quoted in the news. It would thwart his secret goal of mediocrity. He wanted no one even to consider his background and discover a reason he should never have been ordained. His parents—especially his mother—were so proud of their son the priest. Stan was evermore determined to do nothing that would draw attention to himself.

  Father Benson was making mediocrity a profession. And he was getting very good at it.

  He was almost the personification of an Irish Bull: being so good at not being good at anything.

  There were few internal conflicts within the Church of that day. Catholics were confronted with a brick staircase. The steps were rules and regulations. If one kept the rules and climbed the stairs one got into heaven, although there was always the possibility, even the likelihood, of a bad time in purgatory. In any case, it was a simple system that could get complicated only by people.

  Take the situation in which Manny and Alice found themselves, for example. They had broken one of the biggies: entering an invalid marriage. This put them in the state of mortal sin. There was no escape from this state other than having the marriage convalidated or living apart.

  The other biggie, the one that forced adult Catholics into frequent, fruitless confession, was “artificial” birth control.

  Pope Pius XII had blessed the rhythm method of family planning. It offered some relief. Before rhythm, Catholics had a choice of intercourse open to life (i.e., unimpeded by any manner of contraception) or abstinence. However, the rhythm method was somewhat less than sure-fire; for those with irregular periods, it was more familiarly known as Vatican Roulette.

  All heaven and hell was about to explode.

  In 1958 Pope Pius XII died. The Cardinals assembled in the Sistine Chapel were initially deadlocked in finding a successor to Pius. The best they could come up with was an interim papacy. They elected Cardinal Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, who became Pope John XXIII. Overweight, elderly, with an unconventional sense of humor, John was supposed to entertain for a little while. After which the Cardinals would get serious about a successor to Pius.

  As his first public (official) act, John, in view of the fact that he weighed many more serious pounds than his predecessor, increased the salary of those bearers who carried him in the sedia gestatoria in and out of St. Peter’s Basilica.

  Then, in 1959, John called for a reform of Church law and the convening of an Ecumenical Council, which became the Second Vatican Council. He did not live long enough to see either the desired reform or the Second Council implemented. He had initiated the Council, but it was left to his successor, Pope Paul VI, to finish it. John would have had to wait until 1983 to see revised Church law published. And it was anyone’s guess what he would have thought of it.

  Detroit, as an example of dioceses throughout the world, could not help but be affected by Vatican II. Many priests, not to mention lay people, paid scant attention to what was going on in Rome. So a bunch of bishops were meeting; what’s that got to do with the parish debt and yet another collection on the horizon?

  Then, suddenly, these disinterested Catholics were hit by a vernacular liturgy. The Latin Tridentine Mass, with which everyone had grown up, was offered in English. And the priest, who had whispered much of the time, with his back to the congregation, turned around and looked at the Faithful.

  TWENTY-SIX

  BETWEEN 1965 (the conclusion of Vatican II) and 2002 (the present) this humongous Roman Catholic Church changed to the extent that it would never be the same. No one person or no collection of people would be able to shut the windows that John XXIII had opened to aggiornamento—the letting in of fresh air. To try to close the windows against the winds of change would be to try to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

  The Nicene Creed, a product of the Nicene Ecumenical Council in A.D. 325, is still recited at Mass. Most Catholics say it by rote, pleased that they no longer need a prayer book. Some theologians would deny its every assertion. Most of the dissent springs from the spirit of Vatican II.

  Medical advances challenge a divided post-Conciliar Church.

  Cloning: Is it a reproductive phenomenon or a departure from the missionary position?

  Harvesting organs: Questioning the transplanting of organs (heart, kidney, liver, etc.) from a dead to a needy person.

  Stem cell research involving the destruction of human embryos: Leading to enhancement of life, or committing murder?

  Sexual ethics:

  Does personal conscience take precedence over abstract rules?

  Are artificial contraception and sterilization always wrong?

  Or should a couple themselves decide whether they should be open to reproduction?

  If that decision is “not now,” does it matter how pregnancy is avoided?

  Is the evil of masturbation the result of a misreading of the Old Testament story of Onan?

  Or is autoeroticism intrinsically wrong?

  Is anything intrinsically wrong?

  Is homosexuality against the Natural Law? Or is there a genetic cause for that state?

  in vitro fertilization: Is it morally acceptable when only husband and wife are involved?

  Is it morally wrong when it involves a third donor or a surrogate mother?

  Or, perhaps the most difficult and pressing question of all: The morality of abortion.

  Is it always immoral?

  What if the life or the health of the mother is threatened?

  Roughly half a century ago and more, many of these and related questions were not even asked, let alone answered. B
ut the documents of the Council and its spirit demanded that the Church catch up with the real world and the knowledge explosion.

  Over these most recent years it has, indeed, been interesting to be a concerned Catholic.

  On the one hand, a number of Catholics, from Cardinals to segments of the laity, have fought valiantly to preserve a Church that has survived extraordinary persecution, the Reformation, scandal, and assault. They consider Vatican II to be at worst an unmitigated disaster and at best a rank-and-file seduction from Mother Church to the evils of the modern age.

  On the other hand, a number of Catholics, from Cardinals to segments of the laity, have fought valiantly to achieve what they perceive as an “openness” to the Holy Spirit and to have confidence in the Spirit’s direction—wherever that may lead.

  Of course, these nearly forty years of internal turmoil had their effect on the young—now elderly—people we’ve been following. The questions posed by our age were addressed in different ways by Bob, Mike, Manny, Stan, Alice, and Rose. Though all now were in their early seventies, somehow most of them felt much younger. They had no idea what effect seventy years of life was supposed to have on humans; all they knew was that they just didn’t feel like seventy.

  And one of them would die of suspicious causes.

  As we’ve seen, not all of the six achieved their primary goal in life. Yet all but one would be satisfied with what they had accomplished.