He couldn’t steal and wouldn’t hustle and he got so desperate in the shithouse they were living in that he said a prayer to Jesus, “Dear Jesus, please don’t let me be found dead in this place, and don’t let me ever be taken in by front men or front women.” Those front men never took in Tremont’s daddy, who was hip. So Tremont decided from now on he would be new: I’m gonna do somethin’ that isn’t what somebody says I’m supposed to do. I’m gonna do somethin’ I want to do, or think I want to do, or don’t know I want to do but I’m gonna do it. Nobody said I hadda walk on Roy’s picket line or hang with the Brothers or go to Claudia’s and be a poll watcher or take five and give it back. But sometimes you’re ready for a little politics even if you don’t know you’re ready for it.
Nobody told Tremont to take that gun and go shoot target and then shoot those bums beatin’ on Rosie. Zuki just give him the gun and says we’re gonna have fun, scare a few people. But then he says to Tremont, we oughta shoot the Mayor.
We?
Yes, you.
Whoa, says Tremont, I don’t do what somebody says I oughta do, and when he took a long look he saw clear that Zuki was a front man. And Tremont had already took money and a gun from him. What the hell is wrong with you, Tremont? He started to drink again, nonstop, and when he got that pain he went down to Dongan Avenue and flopped on the stoop of his father’s old house that he couldn’t get into anymore and stayed there till Quinn and the Bish come by, and he told them about the gun and the Mayor.
Trixie tried to faint from shock but it wasn’t in her repertoire.
“Shoot the Mayor, Tremont? Shoot the Mayor?”
Tremont poured himself a shot of Pinch and held up the bottle. “I know you like the Mayor, Trix. Don’t you send him two cases of this stuff every Easter and Christmas? Seems I heard you say that.”
“The Mayor?” George said, “Is that who you want to shoot, Tremont?”
“Don’t wanna shoot the Mayor, George. Some fella said I should but I don’t think so.”
“Fella named Zangara shot Mayor Cermak of Chicago,” George said. “He was aiming at FDR but he missed. He was an Italian with stomach trouble and he lost two hundred at the dog races. They gave him eighty years but when Mayor Cermak died they sizzled him in Old Sparky.”
“Do the police know about the gun, Tremont?” Trixie asked.
“They might. It’s gettin’ around.”
“Then you gotta get outa here right now. I don’t want no part of this. No way I can explain you away if they come lookin’. And Rose, you gotta find your way home. What about that bleedin’? You bandage it up?”
“I can’t go out there yet,” Rosie said. “Gimme a little while.”
Matt had come back and was listening. “All we need is twenty minutes, Trixie. The car is coming.”
Trixie stood up. “Take ten and go down the back stairs and wait. Don’t let Tremont out front with that gun.”
“You got room for one more in that car?” Rosie asked.
“Sure,” Matt said. “It’ll be a squeeze.”
“You leave them be, Rose,” Trixie said. “You done enough. You just sit a while.”
Vivian had been studying the parlor, the mauve drapes, the wallpaper with the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe, the Maja painting over the mantel, the soft, indirect lighting, the oriental rug; and Trixie herself with those green crescent earrings and six bracelets and the long gown Vivian now sees is silk, and her lovely cleavage that was there but not overly, and her legs so elegant in those tall, black heels. Over sixty, must be, but so classy, so sexy. Maybe Vivian could take lessons.
“Miss Trixie,” Vivian said.
“Just Trixie,” Trixie said.
“Trixie. I admire your furnishings and the way you dress. I’ve never been in a house like this and I wonder if I might see the rest. I don’t want to intrude on anyone’s privacy.”
“Not much privacy here, honey. Most of it’s out in the open.”
They went out of the parlor and Trixie said, “That’s a bedroom. We got nine of ’em . . . and the wallpaper, it’s French, embossed . . .” and her voice trailed off as they walked down the hall.
“You’re old friends with Trixie,” Matt said to Tremont.
“Years. But I never sat in this room till right now. White dudes only down here. What the black man wants is to hug and kiss the girls, stay all night. The white man wants to get in and out and go home.”
“Black man’s always welcome in my parlor, you know all about that, Tremont,” Rosie said.
“That’s right I know it, Rose,” Tremont said.
“You should put that gun away,” Matt said, and Tremont broke down the AR-15 and counted the remaining rounds in the magazine, twelve gone out of thirty. He packed the gun in its case and dropped it into the sack.
“One for the road,” Tremont said, and Matt poured him a shot, took a Stanwix for himself and passed a bottle to George. “Whose car’s comin’ to get us, Bish?”
“Priest from Siena, a buddy of mine. He borrowed a student’s car.”
“Where we goin’?”
“I thought I knew until you turned into the Lone Ranger. Someplace they won’t shoot you on sight. I tried to reach Quinn to ask him about lawyers for you but he’s on the street, probably going to the protest meeting.”
“What size shoe you got, Bish?”
“Eleven, why?”
“I wanna borrow your shoes. They know I’m wearin’ these two-tones. Everybody know my two-tones and they be lookin’ for ’em.”
“What size are your two-tones?”
“Ten, but they been ten for a whole lotta years.”
Matt gave Tremont his loafers, tried on a two-tone and made it, but with laces loose.
“I be slippin’ around in these,” Tremont said, and he walked a few steps. “Holy boots. St. Francis, here come Tremont steppin’ out.”
“Now they’re gonna shoot at me,” Matt said, and he raised his right foot and shook it for display.
“I got shoes like that,” George said. “Black and white, and brown and tan. And I got a pair of black and gray, dyed the toes black myself.”
“You a dude, Georgie,” Tremont said.
“Drink up, gents. We’ve got to move,” Matt said. And he went to collect Vivian, who was talking with two light-skinned prostitutes in panties and transparent blouses. Vivian was asking how they liked their jobs and saying how difficult it must be to go with total strangers.
“We make friends pretty quick,” one girl said.
Matt gave Trixie the exit gesture, gave Rosie a nod, and went with Vivian back to George and Tremont who were singing,“I’m gonna dance off both of my shoes,
When they play those Jelly Roll Blues . . .”
Matt ushered them all down the back stairs to an alley that led to Franklin Street. Tremont picked up his gun and put a bottle of Stanwix in his coat pocket. Matt left the three of them standing in shadows on the corner and said he’d come back with the car. He walked on Franklin toward Bleecker and disappeared down the narrow, unlighted street.
“It’s so dark,” Vivian said. “Are you having a good time, George?”
“Life is just a bowl of cherries,” George said, and he put his arm around her.
“I haven’t had this much fun in years,” she said, and she gave George a long, soft kiss. Then she remembered Tremont and turned to give him a smile of chagrin at being caught kissing, but Tremont wasn’t there, and the alley was very dark.
Nick Brady, the Siena priest Matt was closest to, taught Tacitus and Virgil and booked horses ($2 limit) in class for his students, borrowed a car from the student who had led the campus protest against Matt’s silencing (of course take it, I’d do anything for Father Matt) and found Matt half a block from Trixie’s. Martin Daugherty, Matt’s father, was in the passenger seat, two canes between his knees. He looked like an old man but with young eyes. He squinted at his son.
“The sonsabitches kicked me out,” Martin said. “I
can’t believe Patsy McCall would do this, but I know he could. But I can’t believe it.”
“I got the letter two days ago,” Matt said. “I told them I’d get you tomorrow.”
“They couldn’t wait. They put me out in the hallway with my valise. I had no money for a taxi.”
“A nurse called the friary twice looking for you,” Nick Brady said to Matt. “They wanted you to pick him up this afternoon. I took the second call tonight but I couldn’t reach you, so when I got the car I went out myself.”
“The bastards,” Matt said. “They did this to get back at me.”
“I know,” Martin said, “and I’m proud of you, son. You’ve done more for the church than Pope Paul. You’ve redeemed the goddamned priesthood.”
“What about you? How’ve you been feeling?”
“I sleep a lot. I’m tired but I’m not sick. I’m just old.”
“You’re no older than you were five years ago.”
“I’m older than most oak trees.”
“How are you walking these days?”
“I walk like that actor with rubber legs. Leon Errol. But I’m all right with the canes.”
“Did you have dinner? Did they feed you?”
“They gave me a cheese sandwich and an apple in a brown paper bag. I ate half the sandwich.”
“We’ll have to feed you. Do you need to lie down?”
“I’m all right. I slept in the chair in the hallway.”
“Where do you want to stay? I’ll set you up someplace tomorrow, but what about tonight?”
“Someplace that won’t break the bank.”
“We’ve still got some bucks in your account. I’ll figure out someplace. But right now we’ve got three people to pick up in the next block. George Quinn and his lady friend.”
“George. And a lady friend. He must be in good shape.”
“He’s a little spacey.”
“It’s going around,” Martin said. “George and I were in France together during the first war. We were having a drink in Aix-les-Bains when we met Sergeant York in a hotel bar. He had just captured a hundred and thirty-two German soldiers and thirty-five machine guns single-handed, greatest hero of the war. We bought him a drink.”
“George and his lady friend are going to the DeWitt for a jazz concert. We’re also picking up Tremont Van Ort. You know him?”
“Big Jimmy’s son?”
“That’s him. He’s in weird trouble. Somebody set him up to shoot Alex Fitzgibbon and they gave him an AR-15. He shot two thugs with it. They were beating up a woman he knew.”
“Why in the hell are you picking up somebody like that?”
“To help him. He’s a friend of mine.”
“He’s a trigger-happy felon with a gun.”
“I know, and he’s probably all over the police radio. Man with a gun. Dan Quinn and I want him to surrender himself, and the gun, to Doc Fahey, the Albany cop, before they kill him on the street. You know Doc Fahey?”
“Not as a cop. I knew him as a kid in North Albany.”
“You don’t get this kind of action out in the Ann Lee Home.”
“We’re all on the death watch out there. It’s quite exciting when you hear that the fellow in the next room didn’t wake up this morning. What do you mean they set Tremont up?”
“It’s political. I don’t think anybody wanted to shoot the Mayor. What they want is to bring down some local black radicals. Tremont’s not really a radical but he can pass for one, and he mixes with the Brothers, who truly are radical for this town. You know the Brothers?”
“I read about them. I don’t know their particulars.”
“It’s a good story. You’d be writing it if you were still working.”
“Maybe so. This actually was my old territory. The Times Union was a few blocks up at Beaver and Green. All the papers were there—the Knickerbocker Press, the Albany Evening News, the Argus, and the Journal was down on the Plaza. I knew every inch of these streets, including this one we’re on. This is Trixie’s street. Are you in front of Trixie’s for any priestly reason?”
“It’s a long story, but yes, I’ll tell you later. I like Trixie.”
“She’s the Queen Bee and has been for years.”
They drove down the block and picked up George and Vivian but no Tremont.
“Hello, George,” Martin said. “It’s Martin Daugherty. How the hell are you?”
“Martin Daugherty,” George said. “Wibble stu hobbleski, mox neex aus, I run with all mine shwiftness.”
“You haven’t forgotten your German,” Martin said. “Voulez vous promenade avec moi ce soir, mademoiselle? Isn’t that Vivian Sexton?”
“It is, hello, Martin. I haven’t seen you in years.”
“So George, I was just saying that we met Sergeant York in France. You remember?”
“We bought him a drink. Great fella. He captured five hundred Germans and seventy-five machine guns, all alone. A hell of a thing.”
“You remember what he drank?”
“Coneyack.”
“Right.”
“He wanted a beer but they didn’t have any. The French don’t go for beer. All they get over there is grapes and watermelons.”
“Where’s Tremont?” Matt asked.
“I turned around and he was gone,” Vivian said. “That was ten minutes ago. He never said a word to us.”
“He’s playing hide and go seek,” Matt said. “Go around the block, Nick.”
They circled the block and Matt went into Hapsy’s, a small crowd out in front, a mecca tonight since so many legal downtown bars were closed by the tension. Hapsy had no bar in his place, more like a small grocery. He was a puffy black man wearing a skullcap cut from a fedora, said he hadn’t seen Tremont. Among the crowd Matt saw Cole Travis sipping on a bottle in a paper bag. Claudia had taken Matt to see Travis and his wife, trying to get them help. They lived in a cellar across from Tremont, and over the winter Travis had chopped out his ceiling beams to feed the stove that took up half the cellar and was too hot to sit near even when it was below zero. Plumbing didn’t work, no fridge, and Travis and his wife were deep into the wine; no job, no prospects, no friends, no money; how do they pay the rent, how do they get the wine? Two of the sorrowful mysteries. Matt talked to the city housing chief, brought students from Siena to clean, fix the beams, fix the toilet. But Travis kicked everybody out saying I’m movin’ outa here.
Matt told the chancellor of the diocese about Travis (during the same visit when he presented his list of twenty-two whorehouses) and said we gotta help this man. The chancellor said the only thing that will save those people is religion, which Matt used without attribution in his next sermon—a discourse on Bonhoeffer’s cheap grace and how it relates to the abstract, nebulous, gaseous blather that passes for morality in contemporary churches. Grace is a high-end item. You’ve got to work at it. Is it a healing church? Is the church the light on the mountain? Oh, yeah. Is the church the salt? Oh, yeah. What Bonhoeffer knew was the imperative to be extraordinary and Matt also threw in Augustine’s take on God: higher than my highest. I’d work day and night down here if they’d let me—that was Matt’s dream. Find a way to help the Travises. I beg for a floor to dance, a room to sing, a floor without walls, a room without ceiling, and when my prayer is outworn, there is no sap, no juice, no suckle. When each day is a dead mother, I remember when, and at that point the memory has sap, juice and suckle. Oh, yes it does.
For two years prayers had been coming to Matt and he wrote them down, direct from soul to page. He believed they were God’s truths, also his own, and the prayers were fervent but querulous, for the God he was writing to was a muddle, no way around it. “Father, I walked down a street cobbled for pushcarts and hooves. Is this you?” . . . “Father, I seek soil, not dust . . . Soil is a full hand.”
Quinn said he sounded like a dealer who liked the long odds, but Matt didn’t expect his questions to make it to the big prayer book. “God shorted me,” he tol
d Quinn. “He knows I’m no poet. But the prayers keep coming. I stick them in the sock drawer until I’ve got enough to send to an editor, and they do publish this stuff, not under my name, I’m not that egotistical, or that brave. I like to quote Paul on this—‘What I do I do not understand, for I do not do what I want.’ No way to do what I want.” What’s more, all prayer henceforth will be private. The political church and the pious polity have delivered their favored dictum on communion: Let there be silence.
Within the soul-hollow an abyss,
A dead child’s bed, a widow’s cell,
A Cain flushed of rage,
A voided snail shell.
My plea: I starve for the Great Fill.
You alone fill my God cave.
Father, bait and hook these predators.
Bags weigh heavy as I walk down an alley
Seeing my shadow thin on wet cobblestones.
To ease the burden I stop walking.
I cannot move.
This is a God tomb.
Do I hold onto this lie?
My joy, a morsel. My peace, a hovel.
A split-tongue never shields a traitor long.
The answer is surrender,
The price a shriveled soul.
But I am the dream of God.
If I drop the worry cloak,
If I cool the boil within,
If I cease dogging my will,
If I leave the carcass in your hands,
If I quit the God match, the God dare,
Then let them have their silence.
But I will not. No, I will not.
Quinn made his case to Doc Fahey about Tremont—the faux assassin as a provocateur’s dupe—standing in the lobby of the Palace Theater as police were closing it down after the death of the white youth. Doc was reasonably sympathetic; he’d known Tremont for years, one of the rocks on the street, not a mean bone in him, but you can’t trust a wino, and with that AR-15 and the Mayor as his possible target, real or unreal, Tremont wasn’t going to get the kid-glove treatment.