“Enough!” Finn interjected. “Do we have pencils and paper at hand to align the sums and recall the burial sinks, plot on plot?”
The men muttered.
No one had thought to bring pencil and paper.
“Ah, hell,” groused Riordan. “We’ll recall the numerals, back at the pub. Out with you, Doone. In time, a volunteer, playing the male counterpart, will follow.”
“Out it is!” Doone threw down his bike, doused his throat with gargle, and trotted, elbows in a grand rhythm, over the endlessly waiting and terribly damp boneyard of sexual beasts.
“This is the silliest damn thing we ever tried,” said Nolan, tears in his eyes for fear of never seeing Doone again.
“But what a hero!” reasoned Finn. “For would we dare come here with a real crazed female if we did not know the logistics of tug and pull, devastation or survival, love-at-last as against another night of being strangled by our underwear?”
“Aw, put a sock in it!” shouted Doone, far out now, beyond rescue. “Here I go!”
“Further out, Doone!” suggested Nolan.
“Cripes!” cried Doone. “First you say it’s a silly damn thing we do, then you instruct me to the land mines! I’m furthering by fits and starts.”
Then suddenly Doone shrieked. “It’s an elevator I’m in! I’m going down!”
He gesticulated wildly for balance.
“Off with your coat!” Finn yelled.
“What?”
“Eliminate the handicaps, man!”
“What?”
“Tear off your cap!”
“My cap? Nitwit! What good would that do?”
“Your pants then! Your shoes! You must pretend to get ready for the Grand Affair, with or without rain.”
Doone kept his cap on but yanked his shoes and belabored his coat.
“The test, Doone!” Nolan shouted. “If you do not writhe to remove your shoelaces and untie your tie, we will not know just how fast a maid in the undressing or a man at his mating dance will slide from view. Now we must find is there or is there not time for a consummation devoutly to be wished?”
“Consummation—devoutly—damn!” cried Doone.
And grousing epithets and firing nouns to smoke the air, Doone danced about, flinging off his coat and then his shirt and tie and was on his way to a dropping of the pants and the rising of the moon when a thunderous voice from Heaven or an echo from the mount banged the air like a great anvil somehow fallen to earth.
“What goes on there?” the voice thundered.
They froze, a riot iced by sin.
Doone froze, an art statue on its way to potato deeps.
All time froze and again the pile-driver voice was lifted and plunged to crack their ears. The moon fled behind a fog.
“Just what in hell is going on here?” thundered the voice of Kingdom Come and the Last Judgment.
A dozen heads spun on a dozen necks.
For Father O’Malley stood on a rise in the road, his bike clenched in his vengeful fists, so it looked like his skinny sister, straddled and lost.
For a third time, Father O’Malley tossed the bolt and split the air. “You and you and you! What are you up to?”
“It’s not so much up as down to my smalls,” piped Doone in a wee piccolo voice, and added, meekly, “Father—”
“Out, out!” shouted the priest, waving one arm like a scythe. “Away!” he blathered. “Go, go, go. Damn, damn, damn.”
And he harvested the men with maniac gesticulations and eruptions of lava enough to lay a village and bury a blight.
“Out of my sight. Away, the mangy lot of you! Go search your souls, and get your asses to confession six Sundays running and ten years beyond. It’s lucky ‘twas me came on this calamity and not the Bishop, me and not the sweet morsel nuns from just beyond Meynooth, me and not the child innocents from yonder school. Doone, pull up your socks!”
“They’re pulled!” said Doone.
“For one last time, out!” And the men might have scattered but they held to their bikes in deliriums of terror and could only listen.
“Will you tell me now,” intoned the priest, one eye shut to take aim, the other wide to fix the target, “what, what in hell are you up to?”
“Drowning, your lordship, your honor, your reverence.”
And this Doone almost did.
Until the monsignor was gone, that is.
When he heard the holy bike ricket away over the hill, Doone still stood like a chopfallen Lazarus to survey his possible ruination.
But at last he called across the boggy field with a strange frail but growing-more-triumphant-by-the-minute voice:
“Is he gone?”
“He is, Doone,” said Finn.
“Then look upon me,” said Doone.
All looked, then stared, then gaped their mouths.
“You are not sinking,” gasped Nolan.
“You have not sunk,” added Riordan.
“I have not!” Doone stomped his foot as if to test, then, secure, he lowered his voice for fear that the priest, though gone, might catch the echo.
“And why not?” he asked the heavens.
“Why, Doone?” was the chorus.
“Because I distilled the rumors and cadged the notions that once on a time, a hundred years back, on this very spot once stood—”
He paused for the drama, then finished the act:
“A church!”
“A church?”
“Good Roman rock on uncertain Irish soil! The beauty of it distilled faith. But the weight of it sank its cornerstone. The priests fled and left the structure, altar and all, so it’s on that firm foundation that Doone, your sprinter, holds still. I stand above ground!”
“It’s a revelation you’ve made!” Finn exclaimed.
“I have! And it is here we shall conjugate our verbs and revive our faith in women in all futures, near and far,” announced Doone, way out there on the rainy moss. “But just in case..”
“In case?”
Doone waved over beyond them.
The men, straddling their bikes, turned.
And on a rise, unseen heretofore, but now half revealed to the sight, some hundred feet away, there appeared two women, not transfigured rose gardens, no, but their homely glances somehow turned fine by night and circumstance.
Short women they were. Not Irish-short but circus-short, carnival-size.
“Midgets!” exclaimed Finn.
“From the vaudeville in Dublin last week!” admitted Doone, out in the bog. “And both weighing half again less than me, should the church roof below suddenly lose its architectural roots and douse the bunch!”
Doone whistled and waved. The tiny maids, the little women, came on the run.
When they reached Doone and did not vanish, Doone called to the mob, “Will you give up your bikes and join the dance?”
There was a mass movement.
“Hold it!” cried Doone. “One at a time. We don’t want to meet back at the pub at midnight—”
“And find someone missing?” asked Finn.
Virgin Resusitas
She sounded crazy with joy on the phone. I had to calm her down.
“Helen,” I said, “take it easy. What’s going on?”
“The greatest news. You must come over, now, right now.”
“This is Thursday, Helen. I don’t usually see you on Thursdays. Tuesdays were always it.”
“It can’t wait, it’s too wonderful.”
“Can’t you tell me over the phone?”
“It’s too personal. I hate saying personal things on the phone. Are you that busy?”
“No, I just finished up some letters.”
“Well then, come and celebrate with me.”
“This had better be good,” I said.
“Wait till you hear. Run.”
I hung up slowly and walked slowly to put on my coat and reach for my courage. There was a feeling of doom waiting outside my door. I plowed through
it, made it to my car, and drove through a self-imposed silence, with an occasional curse, to Helen’s apartment across town. I hesitated at knocking on her door, but it sprang open, surprising me. The look on Helen’s face was so wild I thought she had come off her hinges.
“Don’t just stand there,” she cried. “Come in.”
“It’s not Tuesday, Helen.”
“And never will be again!” she laughed.
My stomach turned to lead. I let her pull me by the elbow, lead me in, sit me down, then she whirled through the room finding wine and filling glasses. She held one out to me. I only stared at it.
“Drink,” she said.
“I have a feeling it won’t do any good.”
“Look at me! I’m drinking! It’s a celebration!”
“Every time you’ve ever used that word, part of the continent falls off into space. Here goes. What am I celebrating?”
I sipped and she touched my glass, indicating I should finish it so it could be refilled.
“Sit down, Helen. You make me nervous standing there.”
“Well.” She finished her glass and refilled both and sat down with a great exhalation of joy. “You’ll never guess.”
“I’m trying hard not to.”
“Hold on to your hat. I’ve joined the Church.”
“You—what church?” I stammered.
“Good grief! There’s only one!”
“You have a lot of Mormon friends, and a few Lutherans on the side …”
“My God,” she cried. “Catholic, of course.”
“Since when have you liked Catholics? I thought you were raised in an Orange family, family from Cork, laughed at the Pope!”
“Silly. That was then, this is now. I am certified.”
“Give me that bottle.” I downed my second wine and refilled and shook my head. “Now, give me that again. Slowly.”
“I’ve just come from Father Reilly’s down the street.”
“who—?”
“He’s the head priest at St. Ignatius. He’s been preparing me, you know, instruction, the last month or so.”
I fell back in my chair and peered into my empty glass. “Is that why I didn’t see you last week?”
She nodded vigorously, beaming.
“Or the week before or the week before that?”
Again a wild nodding agreement, plus a burst of laughter.
“This Father Kelly—”
“Reilly.”
“Reilly, Father. Where did you meet him?”
“I didn’t exactly meet him.” She glanced at the ceiling. I looked up to see what was there. She saw me looking and glanced back down.
“Well, bumped into him, then,” I inquired.
“I—well, hell. I made an appointment.”
“A fallen-away-long-time-ago Cork-energized Baptist maid?”
“Don’t get in an uproar.”
“This is not an uproar. It’s a former lover trying to comprehend …”
“You’re not a former lover!”
She reached out to touch my shoulder. I looked at her hand and it fell away.
“What am I, then? An almost former?”
“Don’t say that.”
“Maybe I should let you say it. I can see it in your mouth.”
She licked her lips as if to erase the look.
“How long ago did you meet, bump, make an appointment with Reilly?”
“Father Reilly. I dunno.”
“Yes, you do. An appointment like that is a day that will live in infamy, or that’s how I see it.”
“Don’t jump to conclusions.”
“No jumps. Just hopping mad. Or will be if you don’t come clean.”
“Is this supposed to be my second confession of the day?” She blinked.
“My God,” I said, feeling an invisible stomach punch. “So that’s it! You came plunging out of the confessional an hour ago and the first person you called with the lunatic news—”
“I didn’t plunge out!”
“No, I suppose not. How long were you cooped up in there?”
“Not long.”
“How long?”
“Half an hour. An hour.”
“Is Reilly, Father Reilly taking a nap now? He must. How many dozen years of sin did you unload? Did he slip a word in edgewise? Was God mentioned?”
“Don’t joke.”
“Did that sound like a joke? So you trapped him for an hour, did you? I bet he’s chugalugging the altar wine right now.”
“Stop it!” she cried, and there were tears in her eyes. “I call you with good news and you spoil it.”
“How long ago did you make this appointment with Reilly, Father, that is? Your first appointment, for instruction. It must take weeks or months. He does most of the talking, right, at the start?”
“Most.”
“I’d just like to know the date is all. Is that asking too much?”
“January fifteenth, a Tuesday. Four o’clock.”
I figured swiftly, sending my mind back. “Ah, yes,” I said, and closed my eyes.
“Ah, yes, what?” She leaned forward.
“That was the last Tuesday, the final time you asked me to marry you.”
“Was it?”
“Asked me to leave my wife and kids and marry you, yes.”
“I don’t recall.”
“Yes, you do. And you recall my answer. No. Just like the dozen other times. No. So you picked up the phone and called Reilly.”
“It wasn’t all that quick.”
“No? Did you wait half an hour, forty-five minutes?”
She lowered her eyes. “An hour, maybe two.”
“Let’s say an hour and a half, split the difference, and he had the time and you went over. A glad hand for the Baptist. Jesus, Mary, and Moses. Give me that.”
I grabbed the wine back and did away with my third glass.
“Shoot,” I said, looking up at her.
“That’s all,” she said, simply.
“You mean you brought me all the way over here just to tell me you are a practicing Catholic and have unloaded fifteen years of accumulated guilt?”
“Well—”
“I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
“Shoe?”
“That glass slipper I slipped on your foot three years back, the one that fit so perfectly. When it drops it’ll break. I’ll be on my feet till midnight picking up the pieces.”
“You’re not going to cry, are you?” She leaned forward, peering into my face.
“Yes, no. I haven’t decided. If I did, would you put me over your shoulder, like you always do, and burp me? You always did that and made me well. Now what?”
“You said it all.”
“How come I thought I was waiting for you to say it? Say it.”
“The priest said—”
“I don’t want to hear what the priest said. Don’t blame him. What do you say?”
“The priest said,” she went on, as if not hearing me, “since I am now a member of his flock, that from now on I mustn’t have anything to do with married men.”
“What about unmarried men, what did he say about those?”
“We only talked ‘married.’ ”
“Now we’ve almost got it. What you are saying is that …” I figured swiftly, counting back. “Is that the Tuesday before the Tuesday before last was our last tossing-the-blanket pillow fight?”
“I guess so,” she said, miserably.
“You guess so?”
“Yes,” she said.
“And I’m not to see you again?”
“We can have lunch—”
“Lunch, after all those midnight banquets and delicatessen-appetite-inducing brunches and made-in-heaven snacks?”
“Don’t exaggerate.”
“Exaggerate? Hell, I’ve lived inside a tornado for three incredible years and never touched ground. There wasn’t a hair of my body that didn’t throw sparks if you touched me. I no sooner got out
your door with the sun going down every Tuesday than I wanted to charge back in and rip the paper off the walls, crying your name. Exaggerate? Exaggerate! Call the madhouse. Rent me a room!”
“You’ll get over it,” she said, lamely.
“Around about next July, maybe August. By Halloween I’ll be a basket case … So from now on, Helen, you’ll be seeing this Reilly, this father, this priest?”
“I don’t like you putting it that way.”
“He’ll be instructing you every Tuesday afternoon, right as rain, on the nose? Well, will he or won’t he?”
“Yes.”
“My God!” I got up and walked around, talking to the walls. “What a plot for a book, a movie, a TV sitcom. Woman, lacking courage, no guts, figures amazingly clever way to ditch her boyfriend. Can’t just say, Out, go, be gone. No. Can’t say, It’s over, it was nice but it’s over. No, sir. So she takes instruction and gets religion and uses the religion to call a halt and regain her virginity.”
“That’s not the way it was.”
“You mean to say you just happened to get religion and once you were inoculated it suddenly struck you to call the Goodwill to come get me?”
“I never—”
“Yes, you did. And it’s a perfect out. There’s no way around it. I’m trapped. My hands are tied. If I forced you to love me now, you’d be sinning against Reilly’s good advice. Lord, what a situation!”
I sat down again.
“Did you mention my name?”
“Not your name, no …”
“But you did talk about me, right? Hours and hours?”
“Ten minutes, maybe fifteen.”
“How I was good at this and that and you couldn’t bear to live without me?”
“I’m living without you now and free as a bird!”
“I can tell by that fake laugh.”
“It’s not fake. You just don’t want to hear it.”
“Continue.”
“What?”
“Go on with your grocery list.”
“That’s all.”
She laced and unlaced her fingers.
“Well, one other thing …”
“What?”
She took out a tissue and blew her nose.
“Every time we made love, it hurt.”
“What?” I cried, stunned.
“It did,” she said, not looking at me. “From the start. Always.”