Boston Noir

Mrs. Walsh, bless her heart, has already brewed the coffee and filled his cup. "Will it be eggs and toast, Father?"

  "Just coffee this morning, Mary." He stirs his coffee, lays the spoon in the saucer. "The monsignor left for Mass already, I see." For just a second there, Father Tom forgot that today is not like other days. "I never did what that man said, you know."

  "That's between you and the Lord, Father. It's no business of mine." She walks to the sink and peers out the window. "Sixteen inches already, and no sign of a letup. There'll be snow on the ground till Easter."

  "I can't even remember the boy very clearly."

  "He was one of your favorites, Father. Altar boy, he was. Tim Griffin's nephew. You called him 'Train.' He had the vocation, you used to say."

  "But didn't become a priest."

  "Became a drunk and a burden to his dear mother, may her soul rest in peace." Mrs. Walsh sets the dishcloth to dry on the radiator and straightens the braided rug by the stove, a rug she made herself thirty-some years ago from her husband's and children's discarded clothing. There's Himself's blue oxford shirt right there and little Mona's corduroy jumper. When she sees the shirt, she sees her dear Aidan in it and his gray suit and red tie on their honeymoon on Nantasket Beach. "There have been other accusations, Father. Other men have come forward."

  "I did nothing except be kind to those boys, give them the love and attention they didn't get at home. I never--"

  The doorbell chimes. Mrs. Walsh says, "That'll be Mr. Markey from the cardinal's office. He'll be wanting a word with you." She walks to the front door and adds over her shoulder, "He's a merciful Lord, Father."

  Mr. Markey unsnaps his earflaps and takes off his storm hat. He holds it by the visor and slaps it against his leg, then hangs it on a peg and toes off his shearling boots. He hands his gloves and scarf to Mrs. Walsh and hangs his wool car coat on the hall tree, claps his hands together, and rubs them. He takes Mrs. Walsh by the shoulders and plants a noisy kiss on her forehead. "And how's my favorite colleen today?"

  Mrs. Walsh blushes. "Enough of the blarney, Mr. Markey."

  Mr. Markey holds out his hand to Father Tom. "Francis X. Markey." They shake hands. Mr. Markey points to the parlor. "Care to join me, Father?"

  Father Tom sits on the edge of the sofa behind the coffee table, his hands folded on his knees. Mr. Markey drops into the upholstered armchair, leans his head back against the antimacassar, and runs his fingers through his hair. "I gave the monsignor five bucks and told him to get a forty-five-minute coffee at Dunkin' Donuts. It's the only thing open between here and the expressway." He leans forward. "You know why I'm here."

  "I've been threatened, Mr. Markey." Father Tom slides the vicious letter across the coffee table.

  Mr. Markey leans forward and reads it, steeples his fingers, and brings his hands to his face. "It won't be the last, I would guess. I should make one thing clear, Father. I don't care what you did or didn't do. I don't particularly care what happens to you. I don't care about you in any but the most Christianable way. I care about Holy Mother the Church."

  "I didn't do what I've been accused of."

  "You're up to your neck in shit, my friend." Mr. Markey walks to the French doors and closes them, then turns back to Father Tom. "You attended O'Connell Seminary, am I right?"

  "I did."

  "Yes, you did. You guys had a regular fuck show going over there, didn't you?"

  "I don't have to listen to this."

  "Yes, you do. I'm the only guy who can keep you out of Concord." Mr. Markey takes a handful of Skittles from the bowl on the coffee table and eats a few. "You do not want to go to prison."

  "I'm innocent. I won't go to prison."

  Mr. Markey smiles and shakes his head. "They'll put you in protective custody, of course. What you need to understand, however, is that the guards are scarier than the inmates when it comes to pedophiles. They'll piss in your food, shit in your bunk, and they'll sodomize you with a control baton if you complain. They'll degrade you in every way they can. And then one day while you're playing cribbage with another kiddie diddler, the guards will turn away when some trusty goes after you with a lead pipe."

  Father Tom puts his head in his hands. He takes a deep breath and sits back, stares at the ceiling. He hears Mrs. Walsh whispering--her prayers, no doubt--as she climbs the stairs. "Why has His Eminence sent you here, Mr. Markey?"

  "I make problems go away." He shows Father Tom his handful of Skittles, rubs his palms together, holds out two fists and says, "Which hand has the candy?"

  "The left."

  Mr. Markey opens his empty left hand and then his empty right hand. He turns his palms to show he's not hiding anything. "Do you remember a priest named Dan Caputo?"

  "Died last year. Had a parish in JP and did all that social justice work. 'Speak truth to power,' and all that--he was an inspirational leader."

  "But he had a secret, as so many of us do. The cops found his battered corpse in an alley in Chinatown, his pants down to his ankles, a cock ring on his dick, and what would prove to be semen on his lips. When they checked his ID and found out who he was, they called the cardinal, who called me."

  "I didn't hear about any of this."

  "Exactly. We got rid of the porn magazines and videos in his car. He died a hero." Mr. Markey sits in the armchair and looks at Father Tom. "The Catholic Workers named their new place after him. The Father Dan Caputo House of Hospitality." He laughs. "Nothing is ever what it seems to be, Father." He reaches in his pocket. "Weather alert." He takes out his BlackBerry. "This event has all the makings of a Storm of the Century." He reads his text message. "Calling for three feet inside 128." He puts the BlackBerry away. "Now this is what we're going to do. First, I'm going to offer our Mr. Ferry a handsome settlement in exchange for a signed statement admitting that he has been lying about the molestations due to his profound depression and anxiety. He'll agree to check himself into a mental health clinic; you'll be reassigned to a desk job at the chancery for the time being, and in a while this aggravation will be forgotten."

  "It's in the papers."

  "You'll do a press conference at which you'll graciously and humbly accept Mr. Ferry's apology and forgive him."

  "And if he doesn't agree to your conditions?"

  "That would suggest that he is a man of principle. But a penniless alcoholic, we both know, cannot afford principles."

  "But if he surprises you, then we go to trial and I'm exonerated."

  "Neither necessary nor desirable." Mr. Markey walks to the fireplace and leans against the mantle. "Let me ask your opinion, Father, about this epidemic of predatory priests. Not you, of course. The guilty ones like Geoghan and Shanley. That lot. And Father Gale over here at St. Monica's. The priesthood turns out to be a good place to hide in plain sight. Am I right?"

  "I wouldn't call it--"

  "Six hundred and fifteen million dollars the Church in the States paid out just last year. That makes two billion total. Fourteen thousand felonies by forty-five hundred pedophile priests. And it's only the tip of the iceberg, believe me." He squats and warms his hands over the fire. "I have a theory, for what it's worth." He moves his left hand into the flame and leaves it there. "A theory of arrested development."

  "You'll burn yourself."

  "You go to the seminary out of high school, and it's all paid for. You graduate and get your parish assignment--no chasing down leads, no job interviews." He pulls his hand out of the flame and examines it. "Along with the assignment comes food, clothing, and shelter, a salary, a woman to cook, clean up after you, and do your laundry. You get a professional allowance, health insurance, and a pension. You snap on the Roman collar, and you have instant respect without having earned it."

  "That's unfair."

  "The Church stifles your emotional growth. You're a boy called Father. Not just you personally, Father. All of you."

  "Are you finished?"

  "Then there's the disagreeable issue of celibacy. Troublesome, am I
right? Me, if I can't release a few times a week, Jesus, I'm impossible to live with. Sure, you can masturbate and remain celibate and sane, but jacking off's a sin, so what to do?"

  "Pray."

  "You can pray away a boner?"

  "One chooses to remain chaste, Mr. Markey. It's a sacrifice, not a curse."

  Mr. Markey puts his hands behind his head and shrugs his shoulders. "But why little boys? That's what I wonder, and then I think, yes, of course, arrested development. If you're a boy yourself, you're comfortable among other boys, and you also know an abused boy would never say anything about sucking your cock for fear the other kids would call him a fag. Shame keeps him quiet. Am I getting warm, Father?"

  "You think you know me, but you don't."

  "Thomas Aloysius Mulcahy, born February 15, 1948, at Mass General, second son to Brian, postal worker, and Kathleen, nee O'Sullivan, Mulcahy. Attended St. Cormac's Grammar School and South Boston High; B student, perfect attendance in eleventh grade. You had mumps, chicken pox, measles, and rubella. You wore corrective glasses and corrective shoes. Your beloved brother Gerard died of spinal meningitis in 1958, and your dad blamed himself, drank more heavily, and abandoned the family six months later. So there you were at ten, alone with a hysterical mother and bereft of affection."

  Father Tom closes his eyes and sees himself lying on the floor by his mother's locked bedroom door, crying, not knowing if she was also dead. He feels Mr. Markey's hand on his shoulder and opens his eyes, wipes them.

  "So you understood just how vulnerable boys who'd lost their dads were. They needed the love and guidance of an older man, and you reached out to them."

  "You're making compassion sound obscene."

  "You took them for ice cream, to Fenway, to the beach. Their mothers were so grateful. You were a savior. Lionel even thought you were using him to woo his mom. And, of course, with you being a priest, he was confused."

  "You spoke with him?"

  "Last night. He's still living in his mom's place on I Street." Mr. Markey stared out the window at the howling storm. "He said you took him to the movies."

  "I took many boys to many movies."

  "You bought popcorn, buttered popcorn. 'Butted,' he said. 'Hut butted pupcon,' and you held the box on your lap, and when he reached in for a handful, your fingers touched, and you let the touch linger. He said you licked the 'buttah' off his fingers--"

  "He's lying."

  "That could be. Or it could be false memories. That happens. But let me ask you this. Has any priest ever confessed abuse to you?"

  "If any had, I wouldn't tell you."

  "What would you do if Father X told you he boinked all the altos in the boys' choir?"

  "I'd grant him absolution if he were contrite and determined not to sin again."

  "That's it?"

  "If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him."

  "Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven."

  "I might also suggest counseling, therapy, prayer, and avoiding the near occasion to sin."

  Mr. Markey picks up a copy of The Pilot off the coffee table and reads. "Cardinal Law Appointed Archpriest at Vatican Basilica." He shakes his head, rolls the paper and slaps it against his leg. "Our ex-cardinal here once accused a six-year-old boy of negligence and culpability in his own repeated rapes. Under oath!" He drops the paper onto the coffee table. "I can't shake this paranoid fantasy I have of a fellowship of child-molesting priests all going to confession to one another, forgiving one another, and moving on as if nothing ever happened."

  "One would need sincere contrition."

  "They confess; they are contrite; they are forgiven." Mr. Markey checks his watch. "I'm going to need to speak with the monsignor alone. Maybe you should visit the church and pray for strength and guidance. By the time we see you again, everything should be taken care of." Mr. Markey puts his hand on the back of Father Tom's neck and squeezes. He pulls Father Tom's head toward his own until their foreheads touch. "Trust me."

  Father Tom feels a hot current of pain buzz through his skull like his head's attached to a live electrical wire, but he's rigid, shaken, and speechless, and he can't pull away.

  Father Tom lights a votive candle and prays for courage and understanding. He's always savored his time alone in a dark church where he feels hidden away. As a boy he'd arrive at 5 or 6 every Saturday morning, sit beneath the stained-glass window of the Last Supper, and pray the rosary. He wanted God to know that he was no Sunday Catholic; he was a boy God could count on, a soldier of Christ. Father Tom genuflects, walks to the pew beneath the Last Supper, and sits. The world seems far away. He remembers asking God to make him either dead or invisible. Dead he'd be with Jesus and Gerard; invisible he'd be alone.

  He looks up at the window. Jesus has a mole under His right eye. The beloved John has his head on his arm and his arm on the table. His eyes are shut, and he's smiling like he's tasted the honeyed love of his Lord. The apostle Thomas stands behind the others, and all you see is his single wide eye peering above the heads at Jesus, the way Gerard's single eye peered above the hem of the blanket on the couch when he ran his foot along Tom's leg. "Quit it, Gerard, or I'll call Mom!"

  When Gerard lay in his coma at the hospital, the nuns from St. Cormac's took up residence in his room and kept a twenty-four-hour vigil. They fussed and prayed over him. Sister Brigid saw the Angel Gabriel at the foot of Gerard's bed, weeping. Gerard was a saint, the nuns were certain. The ones He loves best, God takes first. When Gerard died in his mother's arms, the nuns hung framed photos of Gerard in every classroom alongside the president and the Pope. Then the stories of Gerard's sanctity started, how he had healed a starling's broken wing with just a touch, how he could be both in church and in school simultaneously, how he could smell the presence of sin, how the statue of the Virgin Mary on the altar had wept at the moment of Gerard's passing.

  What Father Tom will admit to if they ask--because it's pretty normal anyway--is that there are two selves in him. There's the self you see, the Father Tom he wants to be, the he who is pastoral, devout, compassionate, prudent...and what else? Vulnerable? Yes. And washed in the blood of the Lamb. And this is the bona fide Father Tom Mulcahy. And then there is the sinner, the carnal scoundrel who is impulsive, selfish, devious, and insatiable, a wolf inside who knows the secret of Father Tom's loneliness and hunger, and who would, if he could, twist Father Tom's selfless love and earnest affection into something loathsome and viperous. Father Tom will admit, this is to say, that he is indeed human and flawed, no better than they. And he'll explain to them his obsessive vigilance and tenacity in the battle with his pernicious other, and how he has always vanquished the interloping demon and has done so at a staggering price.

  One day after sledding and making snow angels, he and Gerard built a snowman in the small backyard, and his brother took the carrot for the nose and stuck it down there and made it a weenie and told Tom to get down on his knees and eat it. He wouldn't, so Gerard pushed his face into the snow and sat on his head until Tom couldn't breathe, and he was terrified and his mother wasn't here to save him.

  He hears a noise, like someone dropped a hymnal, but when he looks around, he sees no one. He says, "Mr. O'Toole?" and hears his voice echo. He listens to the howling wind and to his beating heart. And then he hears his sobbing mother say, Why Gerard, dear God? They are in the hospital and Tom is in a corner, peering past the nuns at his mother, prostrate on his dead brother's bed. Why the beautiful one? she says.

  Father Tom prays for wisdom, guidance, and deliverance. He'll do God's will, and if God wants him to suffer unjustly, then so be it. But he's done with waiting. He'll speak with this Judas, this traducer, this Lionel Ferry, and give him a chance to confess his lies and to accept God's grace into his heart.

  When Father Tom enters the sacristy, he's surprised by a man in a cumbersome green snow suit standing in a puddle of melting snow. "Mr. O'Toole?" Father Tom says. A black balaclava covers most of the
man's face. His mustache is white with ice, and his glasses are opaque with fog. This man, who is apparently not Davy O'Toole, who is, Father Tom realizes, several inches shorter than the custodian, has a snowball in his left hand, which he lobs to Father Tom. When Father Tom catches the ball against his chest, the man swings what must be a club and strikes him on the side of his face, and he drops to the floor. His skull is shattered, he's certain, but it doesn't hurt. He hears the squeak of footsteps, hears the church door open, squeal, and slam shut. After several minutes, he opens the one eye that will, touches his face, and feels the drilling pain. His left ear is ringing.

  Father Tom holds a handful of numbing snow over his swollen eye, presses the buzzer, and waits. He kicks aside some drifted snow and forces the storm door open. He knocks on the inside front door twice and then shave-and-a-haircut. A voice says, "Come in if you're beautiful." Father Tom drops the snow from his eye, shakes off as much snow as he can from his coat and slacks, steps inside the unlit parlor, and lets his eye adjust. "Hello!" He can see his breath. He can make out a sofa and a sleeping bag spread on the floor. He hears, "Be right with you. Gotta drain the lizard."

  The parlor is spare, grim, disordered, and in need of a good airing out and thorough cleaning. The flock wallpaper is peeling and water-stained. Next to the sleeping bag is a white plastic lawn chair stacked with magazines. There's a small TV on the floor and a bookcase crammed with videotapes in black boxes. He hears, "Make yourself at home." He steps around pizza boxes--pepperoni and sausage, or are those mouse droppings?--and piles of funky clothing and sits in an old wooden kitchen chair with a slat missing from the backrest. He notices an unframed paint-by-number portrait of Pope John Paul II hung over the light switch by the closed door to what had been Lionel's bedroom. He sees those eyes that follow you around the room.

  Lionel enters cradling a bottle of vodka. He's wearing a waist-length leather jacket with an extravagant fur collar, black patent leather shoes, and no shirt. His khaki chinos have been pissed in.