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Authors: Linden Macintyre

BOOK: Bishop's Man
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“Come in,” he said.
The boy was in the living room with his mother, who was smoking a cigarette, her face a mask of contempt.
“When did it happen?” I asked.
His father answered. “It was about five years ago. When he was serving on the altar. We never suspected anything at the time. It only came out recently. At school, with the guidance counsellor.”
“How old were you?” I asked the boy directly.
“He was only eleven friggin’ years old,” the mother said.
“You probably know the guy,” the father said. “He’d be about your age.”
“Would you be comfortable telling me what happened?” I asked gently, ignoring the parents.
The boy shrugged, blushed slightly.
“Go ahead,” the father said, lighting a cigarette.
“He came on to me,” the boy said. “We were just sitting there talking about something. Close together like. Then he started talking about sex things. Telling me I shouldn’t feel bad about getting … you know. And that even priests get them sometimes. And he took my hand to show me and I never thought anything of it. He was a priest, right? Then the first thing I knew he was—”
I could feel a liquid substance stirring in my gut.
The father interrupted. “I always knew there was something funny about that one. The way he always had young fellas around the glebe. Giving them stuff. Lending them the car even. Now I hear he even let them drink.”
“Just beer,” the boy said.
“He’d offer them liquor,” the father said.
“Can you tell me how far this went?” I asked. “He took your hand.”
“I’d rather not,” the boy said, looking nervously at his father.
“I got him to write it down.” The father handed me a thick envelope. “This thing went on for quite a while. It’s all here.”
“That’s good,” I said. “I’ll read it. We can talk again. In the meantime—”
“He wanted to go to the cops,” the father said. “But I put a stop to that. Figured there wouldn’t be much point. Cops going after a priest? Not likely, eh. Figured the bishop would be best to handle this.”
“You did the right thing,” I said.
“I want that bastard in jail,” the boy blurted, eyes suddenly full of tears.
“You shut your mouth,” his father said quickly. “He’s still a priest.”
I sat for a long moment, head down, hands clasped before my face. Fighting the embarrassment and nausea. The room was silent. Help me here, I was thinking. Help me find the words and the wisdom to navigate through this. Then I felt the anger swelling within me, imagining the fool who exposed himself and all of us to this potentially lethal awkwardness. And an unexpected wave of resentment directed at the whining adolescent in front of me, dredging up this garbage to deflect God knew what crisis in his own miserable life.
“In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,” I said, crossing myself.
Father, mother and son instantly lowered their faces and clasped hands in front of themselves.
“Lord, comfort us in this time of pain and sorrow. And grant us the wisdom to conduct ourselves in a spirit of healing and justice.”
We sat like that for a full half minute. I stood then, clutching the damning envelope, and approached the boy, reached out and shook his hand. “I’ll read this. It was wise to put it in writing. But you should know that I am in no doubt, no doubt at all, about the truth of what you’re telling me. I believe you. The bishop will know of this. Corrective measures will be taken. There really isn’t anything the police can contribute at this point, but if that changes, I promise you we will spare no effort to ensure that something like this never happens again.”
“I wasn’t the only one,” the boy said.
“Never mind,” said his father. “Father just told us that he’s going to deal with it.”
“God bless you all,” I said, with a brief gesture of benediction.
At the door, the man confided that the boy was going through some difficult times. Doing badly in school. They recently found some pills in his coat pocket. Painkillers, it turned out. Stolen from his grandma, who has brain cancer. They’d always been an open family, talking things through. Figured they’d deal with this head-on. That’s when the stories about the priest surfaced.
“I believe him,” the father said. “But I think it’s all a part of something bigger.”
I agreed.
 
“They’re right,” I later told the bishop. “I think something major happened.”
“I was always leery of that fellow,” the bishop said. “Always organizing ‘youth’ activities away from the parish. Big in sports. What do you think they’ll do?”
“I don’t think they’ll do anything. What about the letter?”
“I’ll take care of it. And what about buddy? What should we do about him?”
“You tell me.”
“We’ll get rid of him,” he said.
“How?”
“I’ll think of something. You’ve done your thing for now.”
“For now?”
“Best if it’s you who breaks the news to him. You’re a contemporary, I believe?”
 
Walking back to campus through the silent town, I was asking myself: How could I not have known? We were in the seminary together. I’d seen him a dozen times since ordination. Was I blind? Or did the priesthood change him? The bishop said he was glad that I was shocked. A good sign, he called it.
I should have asked him: why was it a good thing to be shocked this time? The last time I was shocked, he sent
me
away. And then I remembered what I told the family, about justice. Something about healing and justice.
You debased the word, I told myself. What kind of priest have you become?
 
“So what’s new at church?” my father asked.
A flat question, not mocking. He was holding a cup of tea before his face, elbow on the table. It was when he’d move the cup to his lips I’d see the trembling.
“I talked with Father after Mass.”
“Go ’way with you. Not about me, I hope.” When he laughed, tea dribbled from the corner of his mouth.
“About after I graduate, next year.”
“Ah, yes. You really think you’ll graduate?”
“Where in Scotland was my mother from?” I asked, and his face clouded over.
“Who wants to know?”
“I need to know. I need her baptism certificate. And I need to know where you were born and baptized. And when. Plus your parents’ names.”
He looked away. “So why would the priest be interested in the family tree?” he said, staring out.
“I need to know.”
He shrugged. “I got a bible upstairs. They gave it to your mother. When she left home over in the old country. I’ll look for it. I think there’s a page of names.”
“Really?”
“As for me …” He laughed. “Well. That might take a bit more work.”
“You said you were brought up. Adopted.”
He looked at me sharply, as if about to speak. Then looked away. Sipped shakily from the cup, put it down. Began to roll a cigarette.
“So where were you born?” I persisted.
He sighed. “Out back,” he said after a long pause.
“Out back where?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“What if it does?”
“Why would it?”
“I think I want to be a priest.”
“A what?”
“They need to know. There must be records for adoptions.”
He laughed. “Records o’ what? She gave me up. I never saw her again. I couldn’t tell you what she looked like. They used to say, ‘He never had a mother. His aunt had him.’ Comical, eh? That’s what I put up with.”
“But—”
“You just tell whoever wants to know it’s none of their g.d. business.”
“You told me once your mother came from some place called Hawthorne.”
“I told you that?” I expected anger, but the eyes were sad.
I just stared.
He stood up, looked away, then headed for the door. Just before he closed it, he turned and said: “You’ll never be a priest.”
I just stared.
“They don’t let sons of bastards in the priesthood.”
I asked Alfonso: Why did you become a priest?
Because I’m a coward, he said.
He could see the confusion in my face.
The priesthood was my disguise, he said. My life insurance.
But unfortunately, I had this urge to do something.
What was the alternative?
He laughed.
An AK-47 maybe?
The bishop’s words came back:
They’re desperate men. They’ll use anything.
The policeman in Honduras made it clear: it should be swift and clean. And that was how I did it. I remember how his face lit up when he saw me standing on the doorstep. His old classmate from Holy Heart. I didn’t smile. Once inside, I didn’t hesitate.
“You’re in a lot of trouble.”
He wept. The sobs rose in spasms. “It will kill my mother,” he said. “All she wanted from her life was to see one of us ordained. I was the youngest of seven. I was her last chance. They slaved and sacrificed to get me through. And now?”
I struggled to keep the Honduran policeman in the forefront of my mind. Don’t ever let him engage. Desperation endows great strength to the doomed.
“We were in the sem together—”
I cut him off. “Your mother doesn’t have to know. The point is, nobody must know.”
“She’ll know.”
“You should have thought of that years ago. Act like a man for once.”
The look was incredulous. Like a man?
“God forgive you,” he said.
Forgive
me?
 
The bishop was smiling when I reported back. “He can relax about his poor old mother,” he said. “We’ve loaned him to Boston. I figure with the wops and the Irish down there, he’ll keep his nose clean if he knows what’s good for him.”
I remember an unexpected feeling of achievement.
“We have to be careful,” the bishop said, draping a collegial arm across my shoulders. “We can’t get hung up on the homo part of it. The natural revulsion.” He grimaced to emphasize his point. “You have to control your imagination. You have to set your prejudice aside. It has nothing to do with being queer. It’d be the same if they were chasing women. This is about the violation of a sacred vow. It is an act of personal rebellion that challenges the very foundations of the Church by jeopardizing the faith of ordinary people. Scandal, Duncan. This is about scandal. The Holy Mother Church being scandalized by little men. Weak little misfits. We have to root them out. Word of this garbage gets around … who knows what the impact might be. You know yourself how you were affected by what you only
thought
you saw. Imagine someone who’s been through it for real.”
For real?
I laughed. It was a reflexive expression of surprise. He waited for my mood to pass.
The room seemed suddenly small and airless.
“You don’t look well,” he said.
“I’m fine,” I said.
Alfonso told me that he was the first in the family to get beyond grade five.
So was I, I said.
People were amazed, he said. Did I tell you that my father was a half-breed? They all thought that I’d amount to nothing? A half Indian … descended from the Pipil.
The what?
The Pipil … an ancient community.
A man of the Pipil, I said.
He looked away and sighed. Very original, he said.
Contrite, I said, I can believe it. Nobody thought I’d amount to anything, the way we were. My father was … illegitimate. A drunk. They didn’t want me, because of him.
He took my hand in his. We’re brothers, he said. Really. They never really wanted either one of us.
“A vocation,” Father said, “would be a blessing for the parish. The last one was before my time. Father MacFarlane, I think.”
I listened carefully.
“So when you see the bishop, emphasize your own determination. The purity of the call you’ve heard. Voices even.”
I nodded.
“You’ve heard voices?”
I shook my head.
“It happens sometimes. All the saints heard voices. It’s a sure sign of sanctity.”
Yes.
“So when you see His Excellency, you’ll have to gloss over certain … blank spots in the family. On your father’s side.”

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