The Good Luck of Right Now

  “I have no idea,” Father McNamee said. “But I want to meet these people. God doesn’t do coincidences. You can bet your ass.”

  The next day I took Father McNamee to Max and Elizabeth’s apartment. He told them about Saint Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal and how he had planned on introducing me to my father at the very spot where Father McNamee first heard his calling to become a priest, back when he was a teenager. He explained very simply that God had ceased speaking to him and he believed that reuniting me with my father would please God and get Him speaking again. “Perhaps we should travel together,” Father McNamee said.

  “We’re not really religious,” Elizabeth explained, which was kind of awkward, because you could tell she and Max thought Father McNamee was absolutely crazy. “We’re just going to see Cat Parliament, because Max loves cats. It’s in Ottawa. Not Montreal.”

  “Cat Fucking Parliament!” Max interjected.

  Perhaps sensing he was losing the battle, Father McNamee said, “Well, I have money to finance the trip,” which surprised me, “and if you allow us to travel with you to Ottawa, and if you’ll travel to Montreal with us—the cities are only two and a half hours apart by car—I’ll share that money with you.”

  “How much money?” Elizabeth said.

  “Enough to pay for the car rental, gas, hotels, and food for all four of us,” Father said.

  “Why would you pay for all that?” Elizabeth said.

  “You’re friends of Bartholomew. He likes you both very much. That’s enough for me.”

  “I’m not his friend,” Elizabeth said. “We just met yesterday.”

  “He’s my fucking friend,” Max said. “And higher numbers of people decrease the chance of alien abduction, Elizabeth. It’s a proven fucking fact. Plus we’re fucking broke. You said you didn’t even fucking know if we had enough money to make it.”

  Elizabeth looked up at the ceiling of their living room and swallowed several times.

  “Call it a hunch,” Father McNamee said, “but I really think this is meant to be. And I do believe that Max and Bartholomew have already made up their minds. Don’t you think it could be fun?”

  “Fuck yeah!” Max said.

  “It’s your birthday,” Elizabeth said to Max. “It’s your present.”

  And then somehow—astonishingly—it was settled.

  This morning we loaded up a Ford Focus rental car and headed north.

  Elizabeth and Father McNamee took turns driving, because Max and I don’t have driving licenses.

  Like we were children and he was giving us a bedtime story, Father McNamee told us about the life of Saint Brother André Bessette, who was an orphan at the age of twelve, frail and often sick, uneducated, but a big believer in the power of Saint Joseph. Many came to believe that Brother André had healing powers, but Brother André always denied this—and even became incensed whenever people suggested he could work miracles. He said Saint Joseph worked the miracles. And yet, with the hope of being healed, people from all over still come to the oratory he built. “His heart is on display,” Father McNamee said. “I was inspired by this story when I was young—still am.”

  “His real heart?” Elizabeth asked from behind her hair, completely ignoring Father’s point.

  “Yes.”

  “What the fuck, hey?” Max said and then gritted his teeth.

  “It was stolen in the seventies, but then recovered.”

  “Why would someone steal his heart?” I asked.

  “I really have no idea,” Father McNamee said.

  “How did they get it back?” Elizabeth asked.

  “If I remember correctly, they found it in a basement,” Father McNamee said.

  Elizabeth remained silent in the front seat, hiding behind her hair, as I watched her in the side mirror, although I thought I heard her sigh quietly.

  No one said anything for a long time.

  We just drove north—all four of us looking out the windows at the dirty snow plowed and pushed up on the side of the highway, until we ended up tired and in great need of food and rest.

  And that’s how I ended up writing you from a motel parking lot in upstate Vermont, my breath silver in the air, and my hand red with cold.

  I’m fingering my new crystal, looking up at the sky searching for hovering orbs of light, but I haven’t seen one yet.

  Max gave me the tektite crystal at dinner. We ate at a diner called Green Mountains Food. He reached across the booth and put it around my neck for protection, as Elvis’s “Don’t Be Cruel” played on the jukebox.

  Elizabeth said that tektite formed when larger meteorites crashed into Earth’s surface millions of years ago, according to scientists.

  “So this fucker,” Max said, drawing disapproving stares from the surrounding diner patrons, “connects you to what’s beyond Earth’s fucking atmosphere, because it’s been in contact with the great fucking unknown above.” He pointed up and said, “Fucking impact theory. The meteors struck Earth so fucking hard, materials flew all the way up into fucking space and then rained down on our fucking planet like returning rock astronauts.”

  Max pounded the table with his fists to simulate the impact of meteors striking Earth.

  “And the connection to fucking space means fucking protection,” Max said, waving his plump index finger at me. “Fucking trust me. I know about these things—much more than your average fucking Joe.”

  I could tell that Max needed to pretend that this was true and that maybe Elizabeth was playing along—and so I quickly nodded and patted the shiny bronze-colored rock hanging around my neck.

  “What the fuck, hey?” Max said, nodding. “Fucking protection.”

  I nodded back my agreement (or at least my acquiescence) at Max.

  Then we ate dinner silently—but together, like a family. I couldn’t tell you the last time I ate dinner with more than two other people. Maybe it was after those teenagers broke into our house, trashed everything, and went to the bathroom on our beds.

  It felt comforting, just having people around me—like being wrapped in a warm blanket with a cup of hot chocolate in your hands during a fierce winter night.

  I wish you were there, Richard Gere. You would have really enjoyed the meal—well, the sharing of food, at least.

  “Communion?” I said to Father McNamee when he snuck a sip from his whiskey flask.

  “Indeed.” He smiled at Max and Elizabeth.

  And then it was just the sound of knives and forks on white plates and oldies music playing softly in the background and other patrons talking about the weather and local politics and sports and gossip and the quality of the food they were consuming.

  Father McNamee kept humming “Don’t Be Cruel” even after the song was over—he hummed it all the way to the motel as he drove the Ford Focus and is probably still humming it in our room as he lies in bed.

  In our motel room, before I came out here to write you, Richard Gere, Father McNamee said my mom used to love Elvis, and she even saw him perform once before I was born.

  He said “Don’t Be Cruel” was one of her favorite songs.

  I never knew that.

  Your admiring fan,

  Bartholomew Neil

  13

  THEY LOVED LETTUCE MORE THAN CARROTS

  Dear Mr. Richard Gere,

  When we arrived at the Canadian border, we were made to wait in a queue and then stop our Ford Focus at the border patrol inspection booth. It looked like when you approach a bridge, only there was no gigantic metal structure connecting two pieces of land, nor was there any water—what I mean is that there were several lines of cars and little booths you had to drive through, only no toll to pay.

  When we reached our booth, a mustache-wearing, tall man asked—in a deep, angry, gravelly voice—to see all of our passports.

  Father McNamee handed them over, and the man looked at each for longer than seemed necessary, ducking down into Father’s window at times, checking to make sure our faces mat
ched the pictures. Our Canadian inspector wore an official-looking uniform and seemed to be disgruntled.

  “Business or pleasure?” he said quickly, hardly even opening his mouth. The way his forehead wrinkled suggested there was definitely a wrong answer and he suspected that we would give it, which made me nervous.

  “Depends on how you look at it, really,” Father McNamee said.

  Elizabeth was in the front passenger’s seat, staring out her window, hiding her face from the inspector.

  “What’s wrong with her?” the inspector said.

  “These sorts of things tend to make her uncomfortable, that’s all,” Father McNamee said.

  “Where you headed?”

  “Montreal and then Ottawa. Saint Joseph’s Oratory is the main attraction.”

  “Cat Parliament,” Max said from the backseat, managing to refrain from cursing. “Cat Fucking Parliament,” he whispered almost inaudibly, but with an intense look in his eye.

  “I used to be a priest,” Father McNamee quickly added, which made me think he’d heard Max curse and was trying to curry favor with the border patrol inspector, since many Canadians are Catholic, according to Father McNamee, anyway.

  “What is it you do for a living now?” Border Patrol said.

  “I’m retired,” Father McNamee said.

  “Priests can retire?”

  “Listen, I just need to take a quick trip into your good country. You could say it’s a pilgrimage of sorts. A very necessary one.”

  The border patrolman looked at Father McNamee for a few seconds, pushing his lips together so hard, they began to turn white.

  Father smiled back at him.

  “What about you, miss?” he said. “Miss? Can you turn and face me, please?”

  “What?” Elizabeth said without looking at the man.

  “What do you do for a living?”

  “I used to volunteer at the library.”

  “Now?”

  Elizabeth remained quiet.

  “Backseat?” he said, pointing his nose at me.

  “Yes?” I said.

  “What do you two do for a living?”

  “I have always worked at the fucking movies,” Max said, and I could hear the anger in his voice. He sounded very anxious. I could tell he was on edge. “What the fuck, hey?”

  “No need for profanity, chief. Dial it down back there. You?”

  I looked up and could feel the border patrolman looking at me from behind his mirrored sunglasses.

  “I used to take care of my mother,” I said, telling the truth.

  “That’s not a job,” he said. “Is it?”

  “It’s all I ever did.”

  “What do you do now?”

  I didn’t know how to answer that, so I remained silent.

  “Not a real job between the four of you,” he finally said, and I could tell he hated us—that he thought we were all retards.

  You are a retard! the little man in my stomach yelled.

  “What kind of a special crew do you have with you, Father?” the man asked.

  “A very special crew. The most special you can have! God’s special children here. I can assure you.”

  The border patrolman’s forehead was all wrinkles.

  “Your mother’s your primary source of income, Chief Two?” he said, and then pointed at me.

  It took me a second to realize I was Chief Two, but when I did, I said, “She was my mother.”

  “You don’t take care of her anymore?” he said. “What happened? Your mother fire you?”

  “She just died of brain cancer,” Father McNamee said. “And our trip is a bit of a memorial. You’re being a tad insensitive, aren’t you?”

  The back of Father’s neck was red, and I could tell he was angry.

  I could see Father’s eyes reflected in the man’s sunglasses; Father’s eyes were sucking again, like great whirlpools.

  The patrolman tapped our passports on his palm a dozen or so times, like he was debating what to do with us.

  Finally, he said, “Welcome to Canada,” and handed Father McNamee our passports.

  “Whew!” Father McNamee said as he rolled up his window and drove away. “I thought he was going to search us. And I have a half-dozen or so undeclared bottles of Jameson in the trunk!”

  We drove for ten or so minutes in silence. I could tell that patrolman had made everyone feel extremely anxious. But we didn’t talk about it; we just stared out our windows.

  “What the fuck, eh?” Max said, finally breaking the tension, and then laughed at his own joke.

  Elizabeth groaned.

  When no one said anything, Max added, “We’re in fucking Canada, eh?”

  Father McNamee laughed like he finally got the joke, and when I asked what was so funny, Father said people in Canada often end their sentences with the word eh?

  “That’s a stereotype that will offend the locals,” Elizabeth said.

  “What the fuck, eh?” Max said again in a funny voice and elbowed me.

  I laughed, even though I knew Elizabeth didn’t want me to.

  Then no one said anything for a long time.

  “I didn’t like that border patrolman,” I said to my reflection in the window.

  No one said anything in response.

  As we drove through the bleak snow-covered flat countryside, passing so many silos with French names written on them, moving farther and farther up into our northern neighbor, it looked like the world wasn’t really round, but an enormous tabletop that some giant had made into a diorama called Canada, and I kept thinking about the questions the border patrolman had asked.

  Are those types of questions able to define us as people—measure our worth, our goodness, and whether or not we are safe visitors?

  Where are you going?

  What do you do for a living?

  Business or pleasure?

  Do the answers prove whether our lives matter, and whether we’re worthy of being admitted into Canada?

  If we’re dangerous?

  What was the point of asking any questions whatsoever, especially considering the fact that we could have easily lied and said anything that came to mind?

  Any criminal worth his or her salt would be a proficient liar and could easily get through the border patrol stop, but—left to our own devices—people like me will fail every time.

  I wish we had said we were doctors trying to cure brain cancer and were off to a secret underground laboratory in the northern territories—that we were on official world-saving business and didn’t have time to answer petty and asinine questions.

  “Stand aside, Border Patrol, for we are off to do great things that will amaze you,” Father McNamee might have said, and we would have felt so proud. “Dare not stop us, for you do not want to block progress for all humankind!”

  You, Richard Gere, would certainly have been able to act your way through that situation with ease and grace. You, Richard Gere, would have charmed the border patrol and had a much easier time. But the truth is this: you wouldn’t have had to do any acting at all, because the border patrol would have instantly recognized you as a famous movie star—he would have welcomed you into Canada without asking a single question, except maybe a request for your autograph or for you to appear in a photograph with him, arms around each other’s shoulders, smiling like you had been friends for decades.

  Why is it that the people who are very good at answering difficult questions never get asked difficult questions, while people like me are always being forced to do things that are seemingly impossible?

  The worst part was knowing this to be true: if Father McNamee wasn’t with us, the border patrolman wouldn’t have let us into Canada—he probably would have arrested us and thrown us into jail, because Max, Elizabeth, and I would have choked and freaked out during the question-asking part of the border-crossing experience, and the border patrolman would have not been able to understand why we were acting so—what he would call—strangely.

>   Idiot! the tiny man yelled, and I believed him this time.

  Nothing else really happened until we arrived in Montreal.

  Father McNamee had booked us into a fancy hotel where we parked underground and could swim on the roof, because there was a heated pool that was half outdoors and half indoors. Max and I scouted it out, but we didn’t swim because I don’t know how to swim—I’m actually terrified of water—and neither Max nor I had a bathing suit.

  Standing on the roof deck, watching the heat rise up out of the pool and into the winter air, Max said, “How the fuck are we going to pay for this? Elizabeth and I are broke! This hotel has to cost a lot of fucking money! What the fuck, hey?”

  “Father McNamee said God will provide,” I said.

  “You really fucking believe in God?” Max asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “Do you really believe in aliens?”

  “Fuck, yes,” Max said.

  “What will you do after we visit Cat Parliament?”

  “Don’t fucking know,” Max said. “We brought all our clothes. Left our fucking keys in the apartment. Skipped out on the last month’s rent. We’re fucking homeless.”

  “Aren’t you worried?”

  “Fuck,” Max said, nodding and lifting his eyebrows.

  “I’m worried too.”

  “Why are you fucking worried?”

  “Because I don’t know what to do without Mom. I’m not even sure how my bills are getting paid. Like electricity and water and cable and all of the other bills Mom used to take care of.”

  “You don’t pay those fuckers?”

  “No.”

  “Someone’s paying those fuckers. Or they would have shut you down by now. Fucking nothing is free.”

  “Who would be paying?”

  “How would I fucking know that?”

  Every time I had thought about this in the past, my head started to hurt.

  Just as soon as I knew who was paying my bills, I’d owe a real person money. Since I had no money, I wasn’t exactly eager to end that mystery, truth be told.

  I turned around and gazed out over the city of Montreal.

  “It’s pretty remarkable, our being here together. You have to admit,” I said. “Extraordinary, even.”

  Max nodded.