The Good Luck of Right Now

“That’s good. What else?”

  “I listen to the birds.”

  “And?”

  “I used to take care of my mother.”

  “Your mother is no longer with us.”

  “I know that.”

  “So what will you do now? What will we do today?”

  I hadn’t a clue, so I just looked at him, hoping he would tell me. But he only focused on his food, and by the time he was done, his white beard was striped like a candy cane with hot sauce.

  “God still hasn’t spoken to you yet, has He?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “God can be a bastard like that.”

  Father McNamee went into the living room and got down on his knees. He stayed that way for hours. I started to worry that maybe he was dead, because he was still as a rock.

  I listened for God’s voice, but all I heard were the birds.

  I wondered if maybe I should tell Father McNamee about you, Richard Gere, but for some reason I didn’t—and I’m not going to either.

  You are my confidant, Richard Gere, and I’m not about to share my pretending with anyone, because pretending often ends when you allow nonpretenders access to the better, safer worlds you create for yourself.

  I’d like for us to be secret friends, Richard Gere.

  I think I can learn from both you and Father McNamee, and I’d like to keep those two worlds separate for now. Like church and state. I learned that back in high school in the history class Tara Wilson was also in. Separation of church and state. Not that you are my state, because you are not. And evidently Father McNamee is no longer my church either.

  Your admiring fan,

  Bartholomew Neil

  5

  CHARLES J. GUITEAU’S DISSECTED BRAIN

  Dear Mr. Richard Gere,

  I had the strangest dream last night:

  Standing on the Ocean City boardwalk, I watched the sun come up. It was warm, so it must have been summer, but there was no one around for miles and miles, which made me think it wasn’t. The sun heated my face to just the right temperature as waves crashed in the distance and seagulls cried up above and even the metal railing I was leaning against was as warm as a woman’s arm.

  I was feeling so at peace in my dream until I heard Mom’s voice yelling, “Richard! Richard, help me! Help me, Richard! I’m going to fall! Help!”

  I looked around, but I couldn’t see Mom anywhere—or anyone else either.

  “Richard!” she cried. “Help me, please! I can’t hang on! It hurts! It BURNS!”

  Finally, I understood she was under the boardwalk.

  I looked for stairs to the beach, but I couldn’t find any.

  When I looked over the railing, all I saw was the ocean—little bits of sun refracting here and there like a twinkling galaxy.

  The beach was gone.

  “Richard! Richard! Help me!” she cried.

  Even though she was using your name in the dream, I knew she meant me, because of all the pretending we had done before she died.

  I dropped to my knees and peered through the cracks in the boardwalk and saw Mom hanging on to a live electrical wire that was sparking and shocking her; beneath her was a large black endless pit. She was young, how she looked when I was a boy—she had long black hair and her face was still smooth and unwrinkled—maybe in my dream she was the same age as I am now.

  It didn’t make any sense.

  Where was the sand?

  Where was the ocean?

  “Mom!” I yelled as our eyes locked.

  For a brief second I could tell she saw me through the cracks between the boards—her pupils focused and a strange, almost horrified look bloomed on her face.

  She let go of the wire and began to fall, shrinking farther and farther away. The whole time she was aging too: I could see her hair turning white and getting shorter, the wrinkles sprouting from her eyes, tunneling through her face, shriveling her hands and arms.

  In my dream I screamed, “Mom!”

  “Bartholomew?” I heard a man whisper.

  When I opened my eyes, Father McNamee was sitting on the edge of my bed, just like Mom used to do when I was a boy.

  I blinked at him.

  Only the hall light behind him was on—the lights in my room were still out—so his body was silhouetted. It took a second for me to realize I was no longer dreaming.

  “You were yelling in your sleep,” he said. “Are you okay?”

  “I was having a dream,” I said. I wanted to tell him what I was dreaming about, but it sounded too insane at the time, and it takes me a little bit to remember my dreams after I wake up, so I didn’t say anything.

  “I couldn’t sleep either,” Father McNamee said. “You want a sandwich?”

  “No, thank you,” I said, because I wasn’t hungry.

  “Okay, suit yourself. But maybe you’d want to keep me company while I eat mine?”

  “Okay,” I said, and then followed Father McNamee down to the kitchen.

  I sat at the table as he made himself a ham and Swiss on rye.

  “Do you know anything about the twentieth president of the United States?” he said when he sat down. “James A. Garfield?”

  I just stared at his chewing face, trying to wake up fully.

  He had yellow flecks of mustard in his beard.

  “I’m reading this book about him,” he said. “It’s upstairs on the nightstand.”

  I nodded.

  He gestured with his sandwich, shaking it at me for emphasis, the lettuce hanging on for dear life. “James A. Garfield was indeed the twentieth president of our great country. He seemed like he was a good, noble man. Wanted to advance the civil rights movement. Provide universal education. Make sure all children—black and white—could read.”

  I wondered why Father McNamee was saying all this to me in the middle of the night, but I didn’t ask. I was very sleepy, and the experience was starting to feel more and more like yet another bizarre dream.

  “Do you know who Charles J. Guiteau is, Bartholomew?”

  I shook my head no.

  Father finished chewing a bite, swallowed, and then said, “He shot President Garfield and claimed God made him do it. What’s even more eerie is that when Garfield was shot in a Washington train station, supposedly he said, ‘My God, what is this?’ As if he were questioning God’s will. Garfield didn’t expect to be shot that day. He thought he was putting good into the world, doing God’s work perhaps. But two bullets made him question God. ‘What is this?’ he said to God.”

  It was like one of Father McNamee’s homilies. He had often made historical allusions in his homilies. But why was he telling me this in the middle of the night? Was it the whiskey?

  “Guiteau yelled, ‘Arthur is president now!’” A piece of lettuce flew out of Father McNamee’s sandwich and onto the table, leaving a mustard smear. “Arthur being the vice president at the time. And then Guiteau demanded to be arrested. He would later claim that God had used him to determine history.”

  Father McNamee took another huge bite, chewed, and swallowed.

  “Are you drunk?” I asked, because this late-night lecture was intense, even for Father McNamee.

  “Irish ex-priests don’t succumb to drunkenness, we just become more talkative on whiskey,” he said, winked, and then continued. “Because they didn’t know much about bacteria back then, people stuck their unwashed fingers in the wounds, President Garfield’s bullet holes became infected, and he died a long, slow, painful death. They moved him to the Jersey Shore at the end.”

  This mention of the beach made me think about my dream, seeing Mom disappear into the great hole under the boardwalk.

  Synchronicity? I thought.

  “And when he finally passed, Garfield’s wife supposedly yelled, ‘Oh! Why am I made to suffer this cruel wrong?’”

  Father McNamee paused to finish the first half of his ham on rye.

  He licked mustard off his thumb and said, “During the trial
Guiteau cursed at the judges and jury and seemed oblivious to the fact that he was going to be executed. In fact, he thought himself a hero and was sure the new president would grant him a pardon. The lawyers argued whether or not he was sane enough to stand trial. He was clearly insane, but they tried and executed him, anyway.”

  I nodded, because I understood that this was the end of the story, but I was too tired to say anything.

  Father McNamee said, “You don’t want to talk, do you?”

  I looked at the clock on the microwave and said, “It’s three a.m.”

  He nodded and ate the second half of his sandwich quickly.

  I felt like it was rude to leave, so I didn’t.

  When he finished, he stood, patted my shoulder twice, and said, “Sleep well, Bartholomew.”

  I listened to him climb the steps, and then I went upstairs too and soon was back in my bed.

  I lay there thinking about President Garfield and his assassin, my mother falling into a great pit and aging as she descended, and wondering if there was any connection at all.

  When first light poked through my window, I felt the tiredness weighing down my head because I had spent the whole night pondering.

  I showered and dressed and made breakfast.

  Father McNamee was reluctant to eat the food I prepared, saying he didn’t want me waiting on him all the time, and he should be cooking for himself, but I said, “I used to cook for Mom, so I might as well cook for you too—plus cooking makes me miss her less,” and he got a very sad look on his face.

  “I really appreciate your letting me stay here, Bartholomew.”

  Then Father McNamee and I ate in silence and the tough (or lazy) morning birds performed their symphony in the cold outside.

  I wanted to ask him if our middle-of-the-night conversation about the twentieth president wasn’t a bit insane, but I didn’t. Maybe I was afraid I was going mad like Mom and Charles J. Guiteau had. I didn’t think I could go through another battle with madness. I also worried that I was going to have to start pretending for Father McNamee now that he was living with me, because he was acting a little peculiar himself.

  I don’t think I could pretend for someone else’s benefit again, because now I need to pretend for me—so that I can keep living post-Mom. But I also worried that Father McNamee was trying to tell me something, and I was too much of a moron to understand.

  Don’t be Tara’s retard again! the angry man in my stomach screamed. Don’t trust anyone, and keep to yourself always!

  When we finished washing and drying the breakfast dishes, Father McNamee said, “Get your coat. I want to show you something.”

  Without saying a word, we walked for a long time through the winter morning sunshine and traffic toward the center of Philadelphia, ending up on South Twenty-Second Street.

  “Here it is,” Father McNamee said, and then I followed him through gray columns and heavy wooden doors into a brick building that turned out to be the Mütter Museum.

  Inside were various body parts and organs preserved in glass cases, deformed skeletons, surgical tools, and so many other curiosities. I could tell right away that it was a medical museum, but it also felt a bit like stepping into a horror movie.

  We stopped in front of a display and Father McNamee said, “Look at that.”

  It was an old-fashioned jar—the kind that maybe people used to preserve fruit. It was sealed at the top by a metal bar and some wax. Inside was a yellow fluid and what looked like artichokes.

  “Charles J. Guiteau’s dissected brain,” Father McNamee said. “They kept it because of the historical significance and so future generations could learn from it.”

  “What could they possibly learn?” I asked.

  I couldn’t make all the pieces inside the jar fit to make an entire human brain—but the museum looked very official, so I knew it must really be Charles J. Guiteau’s, just as it was labeled. Still, it didn’t look real.

  “He was a sick man. Doctors need to study sickness in order to understand it—so they can help other sick people,” Father McNamee said.

  I didn’t like looking at cut-up brains, and as I thought about those parts once being in a skull that saw and heard and breathed and spoke and commanded a body to walk around in this world, I began to feel as though I was going to vomit. Maybe it was because I hadn’t slept the night before and was feeling exhausted, but I have never liked thinking about dismemberment.

  “Can we leave now?” I asked, wishing Father were wearing his priest collar again instead of the wrinkled red button-up that many washes had faded pink.

  Father McNamee looked at me. “This upsets you, doesn’t it?”

  “A little,” I said, thinking, Who wouldn’t be freaked out by all this?

  “Let’s go, then,” Father said, and we did.

  We walked for a few blocks before I asked if we could sit down for a second.

  I sat on the steps of someone’s three-level home, which people around here sometimes call trinities.

  “Are you okay?” Father McNamee said.

  “Why did you wake me up in the middle of the night?”

  “You were yelling. You were having a nightmare.”

  “Why did you show me that cut-up brain?”

  “Are you angry with me?” Father asked me.

  I didn’t want to answer that question, so I remained mute.

  I did feel a little angry.

  Everything was happening too quickly.

  Father McNamee sat down next to me, and we watched the traffic pass for a long time, but I didn’t answer his question.

  The nausea subsided.

  My anger lessened.

  We sat so long my backside and thighs began absorbing the concrete’s cold.

  A man in an expensive-looking overcoat and silk scarf walked up to us and said, “These are my steps, and you are loitering.”

  Father McNamee nodded and said, “Forgive us.”

  The man pushed through without saying another word. His knee hit my shoulder as I was trying to stand, and I said, “I’m sorry,” even though it wasn’t my fault, and I sort of felt like the man kneed me intentionally—like he wanted to hurt me.

  We left.

  After fifteen minutes or so of walking, Father McNamee said, “Has God spoken to you yet?”

  “No,” I said.

  “You can bet your ass God didn’t speak to Charles J. Guiteau,” Father McNamee said.

  I didn’t say anything.

  I didn’t want to talk about Charles J. Guiteau anymore.

  Mostly I didn’t want to think about his dissected brain preserved forever in a jar.

  “How am I so sure God didn’t tell Guiteau to kill Garfield? Do you want to know?”

  I felt Father McNamee’s eyes on me, so I nodded. I didn’t really want to know, but I knew nodding was the easiest thing to do—what he wanted, and what would end this discussion most quickly.

  “God doesn’t tell you to do bad things. God doesn’t tell you to kill your president. Even when God told Abraham to kill Isaac, he didn’t let him do it. He sent his angel to stop him. That was a test. But God has already tested you, Bartholomew—with your mother’s sickness—and he has found you to be good, pure of heart. You endured it well.”

  I didn’t like what Father McNamee was saying because it implied that God gave Mom cancer to test me, and if that were true, I don’t think I could believe in God anymore.

  “Something tells me you’re soon going to help others in quiet ways,” Father McNamee said.

  I thought about how maybe Charles J. Guiteau imagined he was doing what was best for the country when he killed President Garfield—that maybe he really truly believed he was doing the right thing. Or maybe he was just plain crazy. But I didn’t want to argue with Father McNamee. He looked so confident—like he had delivered the most important homily of his life. And I was starting to believe that maybe he was going crazy himself.

  “God doesn’t always use words to speak
to us, Bartholomew,” he said as we waited for a red light to turn green. “Sometimes we simply get feelings. Hunches. Have you had any of those?”

  I shook my head no.

  We walked the rest of the way home in silence.

  Father knelt down in the living room to give praying a go again, and I walked to the library, enjoying the feeling of being in motion and the cold air in my nose and the warm sun on my face.

  The Girlbrarian wasn’t working.

  I pretended to read current events magazines like Newsweek and Time, but mostly I thought about my dream—Mom falling into the great black pit under the boardwalk.

  When I returned home several hours later, Father McNamee was still praying—eyes smashed shut, fists strangling each other white, lips mouthing words with alarming speed, and temples moist with sweat.

  He didn’t come to dinner.

  He was still on his knees when I went to bed.

  I wonder what he says to God for so many hours.

  Your admiring fan,

  Bartholomew Neil

  6

  “A SITUATION COMPLICATED BECAUSE OF HIS OPPRESSIVE TENDENCY TO OVER-ANALYSE”

  Dear Mr. Richard Gere,

  Wendy came to the house for her regular visit while Father McNamee was praying in the living room, like he does for hours and hours, even when I am watching television. Nothing bothers him when he is praying. It’s like he goes into a deep trance. You could dump ice water on his head and he wouldn’t even flinch.

  “What are you doing here?” Wendy said to Father McNamee.

  “He’s praying,” I answered when Father McNamee failed to look up. “Let’s go into the kitchen.”

  “Why is he praying in your living room, Bartholomew?”

  “He always prays in my living room.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since he moved in with me. He defrocked himself, and now—”

  “Father McNamee?” Wendy yelled.

  When he didn’t respond, she went over and poked his arm three times.

  Father McNamee opened one eye—like he’d only been pretending to pray the whole time—and said, “Yes.”

  “What’s going on here?” Wendy said.

  “I’ve moved in with Bartholomew.”

  “Why?”