by J. J. Martin
I fought the urge to say anything revealing, thinking only of Antonio, and instead nodded at Gast. He seemed cheered by this.
“Then you know his story, I imagine?”
I wondered what, specifically, he meant and concluded it didn’t matter. “I believe so,” I said.
“Haven’t you wondered how such a young man, barely out of the seminary, could become a delegate to Vatican II on such an important committee?”
“All part of the legend, I figured. His legend.”
“Bah. My extensive connections secured a place for Sweet. I and my brethren had delegates throughout the conference. They were sent to fight perversions — to keep celibacy intact, to prevent female acolytes, to maintain the monastic cloisters. Our guard to fight against liberalization.”
“Of course,” I said. “The important things, right?”
Gast turned to me. He eyed me like one unaccustomed to insolence. “The habits of our doctrine have not survived thousands of years from the lips of Jesus because of reform. Roncalli and Montini were perverts who destroyed that which was built on the rock of ages.”
“You’re the good guys in this story. I understand.” Roncalli and Montini were the pre-papal names of Popes John XXIII and Paul VI.
“Sweet was young. Foolish. Dazzled by the opulence of Rome. He came to believe Roncalli’s nonsense about modernizing the Church. The growth in the faithful that was meant to come, if only it became a ‘hippie’ church. Bah. He betrayed us. Betrayed his mission. He lost the thread out of the labyrinth, but now he sees the error in his ways. He sees the Church is weaker, and controlled by perverts.”
“But why are they perverts?” I asked.
“They turned their back on the sublime culture established by the Christ God himself to breed vocations. From boys to men. It has been thus since Paul Tarsus bent to circumcise Timothy.” Gast stroked Michael’s hair with his hand. The boy closed his eyes. “Instead, they focus on silliness. Marriage. Women. Bah. Feminization destroys everything God sent his only Son to implant.”
“Right. That’s perverted,” I said, rubbing my temples. Danny gave me a warning look. “What is with this system of processing kids? Get ’em young? What’s the point of making kids think of sin?”
My question took Gast aback.
“What are you?”
“I’m a visitor. What do you mean?”
Danny shifted in his seat and tried to speak, but Gast cut him off.
“I mean, where are you from?”
“Ottawa.”
“Yes, yes. But, I mean, your people. Where are your people from?”
“My mother’s family is from Cornwall. I think my dad was born in Ottawa.”
Gast appeared irritated and waved his hand. “I can’t quite see it. Some French arrogance? Perhaps Welsh? Around the jowls. No, German. That would explain your stern expression.”
I looked at Danny, who appeared dumbfounded. “What does it matter?” I asked.
“Bah. You sound like my old nemesis, Charles de Koninck,” he sighed and shook his head. After a pause, Gast resumed his diatribe. “The system worked for thousands of years, until it reached the filthy clutches of Roncalli and Montini. They never understood pure love. Only lust. Lust pollutes. Jesus’s sublime love for his disciples purifies them.”
The words — like wooing I heard thirty years ago — resurrected Father Sweet’s voice to me, and I relived the arcane logic of my old parish priest’s romantic ideas. I watched Michael’s perfectly combed hair succumb to Gast’s grooming claw.
“Transubstantiation is the same as having a pure heart,” said Gast. “The mystery of the Eucharist, which is the heart of our faith. Pure intention makes pure any action. It is functional and it works, just as transubstantiation works. The death and suffering of the Christ were made good by His pure intention to free us of sin. Thus, bread becomes body. But only if the objective is pure and its intent pure.”
Gast noticed my observation of his petting. “I believe the children are an invaluable commodity for our future,” he said.
“How poetic,” I said. “Didn’t you write lyrics for Whitney Houston?”
Danny leaned over to me and whispered. “Careful. Remember, he who saves one life saves the world. Think of Antony.”
For a moment, Gast appeared confused, but carried on. “The faithful here are quite good,” he said. “The families are pious. Obedient to the authority of the Christ God. It’s in the breeding. When the Spaniards converted them, it was not like those savages of the Fair Dominion I had to deal with. Oh no. Bare-skinned natives here already lived under imperial rule. Their priests, though heathen, nonetheless inculcated in their flock a fear of God. Today, our Church has solid footing everywhere south of this latitude, to the pole. Thanks to the Lord’s gift of a preparatory hierarchy and the good work of the missionary Society of Jesus.”
“You talk as if this happened yesterday.”
“You know, I did extensive missionary work,” Gast said, self-satisfied. “The Latino is a species not unlike the lost souls I encountered in your Canada, yet different in one major respect. The natives there were too infatuated with wilderness. They had no fear of God. They saw spirits and egalitarianism everywhere. Everything was a negotiation. Everything a dialogue. I struggled constantly to convince them of the very deep urgency to their souls’ fate. The black-and-white decision they faced in their own dire salvation. They have a primitive, shades-of-grey view of reality. A repugnant moral relevancy.”
At one time, I thought I found no better clarity in life than to stand in the bush and breathe in the natural air exhaled by plants. It was the suffocating order of the Church that seemed repugnant to me. Mike Racine’s kind face came to mind as he explained to me and the other Scouts edible plants and berries. The thought of Mike caused my heart to sink.
“I know of your work there,” I said.
Gast’s saggy face constricted. “How so?”
“You corresponded with my father. You worked on some … projects together.”
He squinted at me. “Your father?”
“He was an Indian Agent in the sixties and seventies.”
I uttered our family name and told Gast he had recently died.
“I remember him. A good Catholic. Strong sense of duty. I admired his ingenuity.” Gast chuckled at a memory. “Consider this sticky situation. I recall a small village in the Northwest Territories. Some vulgar little encampment. Say, a dozen cabins. We sent all the children to school in Saskatchewan. Months later, there was some unfortunate business that does not merit repeating here, but suffice it to say, it disturbed the parents. And they rebelled. Demanded the children back. The Mounties were quite annoyed!” He paused for lemonade. “We sent a priest to balm the Indians’ spiritual needs. It came close to an armed conflict. The priest himself became embroiled.… An outbreak of typhus swept the school that year and many of this village’s offspring succumbed. Your father was instrumental in solving the crisis before it became an embarrassment.”
“How exactly do you mean?” I asked, quaking.
“The village was disbanded, the groups broken up and sent to new settlements elsewhere.” Gast shook his head and tutted. “Such unproductive types. Anyway, within a few years most of them had expired. The rest became drunks, I imagine.”
“Did the children go back?”
Another sip of lemonade. “Herein lay your father’s genius. Those still alive by graduation had nowhere to go that could be called home, so they moved to the cities and, I am certain, became fully productive members of society.”
“My father eliminated the village?”
“In order to save its denizens,” Gast clarified.
“And those children,” I said. “Handled by you. And then … cast to the wind.”
“It must be great fun hearing stories about your dad, eh! My condolences on his passing. I’ll add him to my prayers this evening.”
Gast leaned back and chuckled to himself at the flood of
fond memories.
“I can’t believe it,” I stammered. With my shaking fingers, I wiped my eyes. I thought of Padre’s story about the medieval village and the Inquisition.
“Oh, do not lose heart, my son. It’s much easier here,” said Gast. “We have far more goodwill with the police and the local community. Mexico is Catholic, truly. We are a small operation, but still in communion with Rome, though we are Tridentine and Vulgate through and through. We get our boys like Michael here from Catholic families who give them to us. We don’t even need to ask.”
“Let me talk with him,” whispered Danny. “You’re going the wrong way with this.”
“I can’t take this,” I whispered back. “I want to pummel this old fucker.”
“Go to that motel up the road, the pink one. I’ll meet you there later.”
I stood up.
“Surely you’re not leaving?” asked Gast.
“Monsignor, he needs to rest,” said Danny. “It was a long drive. We’ll see him later.”
“Michael,” said Gast, “won’t you see our guest out, please?”
Michael led me back to the first house, the way we came. We passed two other boys, walking with their hands held palm to palm before a black-cassocked priest.
“And here you are,” said Michael once we reached the door. “Good day. And go with God.”
I stooped to him. “It’s Miguel, not Michael, isn’t it?” I asked.
“I was,” he said. “But now, I am Michael.”
27
The evening sky ripened and before the sun set I had a warm tequila buzz.
Two doors from my new home, the Motel La Joya, was a bodega. After checking in, I bought a bottle. There had been no sign of Danny for hours, but I had no intention of returning to Gast’s and fetching him. Instead, I figured no harm would come from wandering the barrio, taking discreet sips from a forty-pounder in a paper bag.
Under my breath, and bumbling over the lyrics, I sang Cat Stevens, singing about coming a long way, changing, asking where the children play. I was drunk.
Despondent to be spending any more time in Tijuana, after a couple of blocks of liberal sipping, I felt lost, stuck, and frustrated enough that I used my still-relatively-new Blackberry to do my first ever drunk dial.
“How nice to hear your voice, sugar. I was just thinking about you,” said Melody.
“That’s a nice thing to say. You’re nice. You’re a nice person, Melody.”
“Thank you, but do I hear a little bit of alcohol in your voice?”
Oh my god. How did she know? And right off the bat, too. Experience, I realized.
“Maybe a little,” I said. I was walking aimlessly, scuffing my feet as I went.
“Where are you?”
“Tijuana, Mexico. We met the monsignor. He is a disgusting old goblin, I tell you. Really, really, really grody guy.”
“Hmm.”
“But don’t worry, we’re working on it! We’re working on the thing. You know. The mission.”
I heard Melody sigh.
“Sugar, listen, I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”
“No, don’t go, wait.” My voice cracked with desperation. “Please.”
“I’ve known too many people who get caught up in their own ropes,” she said. “Let me give you some encouragement. And then I need to go. You are a good man. You’re capable of doing good. And you are capable of fighting for good. But you gotta want to fight. Don’t give up now. You are very, very close.”
“I’m close?” I said. “To what?”
“Face it. I’ve seen this before. Keep it up. You are strong. You are almost there. It will be so good when you get there.”
“Where am I going?”
“You know where you’re going.”
I did. “Who am I to say what’s evil and good?”
“Mm. You feel like you’re in the dark right now, sugar? I’ve heard the best way to help yourself is to help someone else. That’s what I see you doing. And I am here cheering for you. I am clapping my hands hard as I can.” Melody’s voice was quiet, sincere, but clear as a trumpet.
“How?”
“Well,” Melody said after a pause. “You can convince yourself of anything. Right now, you fight to relieve suffering. Yours and that poor boy’s.”
Ahead, I saw the edge of a small dirt-ground playground with some benches. A few adults smoked and chatted in the park. I made my way toward them.
“Melody, will you come here?”
“No,” she said, but not in an unkind way. “I need to go. You sober up. Fight the good fight, sugar. Fight for the good win. Talk soon.”
I stopped walking as Melody said goodbye and hung up.
I stood dumb on the sidewalk for an embarrassing amount of time, long enough for the people in the playground to notice me. I held the paper-bagged tequila bottle by the neck, just like a rubby. Finally, I crossed the street and sat down on a bench, facing the street with the playground to my back. A man in his thirties wearing a red bandana on his head, no shirt, and a pair of dirty, baggy jeans approached and slid in next to me on the bench.
“Noches, güey,” he said.
“Hi.”
“Ay! You American!”
“Sure.”
“Hey, mang, welcome to Tijuana! You want to smoke?”
“No, thanks. Got a drink right here,” I said, patting the paper bag.
“Ah! Finest Mexican liquors.”
Suddenly, a contingent of four police cars arrived from two directions, stopping in front of a crumbling yellow bungalow. A dozen heavily armed men exited the cars and took up positions around the yellow house. Six entered the front door and then marched back outside escorting a man, no older than me, in handcuffs.
The man was in his underwear, with no shoes, and was bent forward by two cops who shoved him into the back of a car. My companion sucked air through his teeth. The other people in the playground silently and discreetly left the scene, but for a few of the youngest.
The man’s family rushed outside. His wife banged on the roof of the police car and spoke rapidly to the commanding officer. I could not understand anything. An older daughter, or perhaps an aunt, had her arms around two children younger than ten. I could not tell if the kids were boys or girls, they were dressed in T-shirts and shorts, with trimmed hair. The children watched this lurid, dramatic scene with eyes so large I could see their whites from across the street illuminated by streetlamp only.
“Ay,” said my friend. “So hard. Same thing happened to my papa when I was a kid.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Never saw him again.”
The children stood in shock. They had no real expression on their faces except extreme alarm. They were neither speaking, nor crying.
“I wonder what the guy did? It’s a good thing that girl is there to look after them,” I said.
“Who?”
“The kids, man. Look at those poor kids.”
“Güey, every kid in this barrio is a poor kid.”
Two police cars left, taking the man away, and my companion chose that moment to leave, creeping away into the night.
While the wife cried and appealed to the remaining police officers, the “aunt” led the children back into the house. They were like zombies, not blinking, not turning their heads. Her care and serenity with the children, so gently talking and guiding them, moved me to the point I was blinking away tears.
“Antonio,” I said. Out loud. Like a crazy drunk man sitting on a bench, drinking discount tequila from a bottle in a bag.
Back inside my motel room, I felt a seasickness I believed was coming from the neon green paint of the walls, lit by a fluorescent ceiling lamp. The room was hot, ugly, and smelled of mildew.
I dialed Jamie’s phone number.
“Jamie,” I said. “I need to talk with you.”
“It’s two in the morning,” he said, croaky with sleep.
“It is? Oh shit. I’m so
rry. I have no idea what, what the, you know. What the thing is. I’ve been travelling.”
“You’re drunk. Where are you?”
“Tijuana.”
“Tijuana … bro, what the fuck? You’re calling me soused at two in the morning from Mexico. You’ve been totally closed off from me the past couple weeks, I have no idea what’s going on, and I’m going into the hospital in a couple days.”
“I know, I’m sorry.”
“You said you were going to get help, you said you were going to pull it together.”
“I know, I know.”
He told me to hang on a minute. I could tell he was getting out of bed and going someplace quiet in the house so he wouldn’t wake Clare. The guilt rose up from my stomach like a mountain climber using my organs as holds. I regretted calling.
“You there?” he said. “What in great green fuck is going on?”
“I wanted to come back already and be there for your surgery,” I said. “But I don’t know now.”
“Not only are you blitzed in Tijuana, you’re off the wagon and partying too much to come back? This is not what I thought you had in mind when you said you were going to figure things out your way.” Jamie moaned. “I’m disappointed in you, man.”
“Jamie, listen.”
“I expected more,” he said. “You selfish prick.”
“Listen, I’m sorry I’ve been drinking. I really am. I don’t know when I can come back yet. But I feel like I’m close.”
“Close?” His voice changed into a whisper-scream so he didn’t wake the house. “What the fuck are you talking about? I’m going in for brain surgery in a couple days. It’s not like having a tooth pulled! I may not wake up! Even if I do, I may not come back all the way! I’m scared shitless. I’m scared like you wouldn’t believe.”
“I want to come back right away. I don’t want to be here,” I said.
“Then come back. Now. Go get on a flight.”
“I can do that, but then everything I’m working on will fail.”
“What are you, a secret agent? I don’t understand.”
I made indeterminate noises, trying to find the first thread.
“I can’t take this anymore,” Jamie said. “What the fuck are you doing?”