Our Lady of the Forest (27 page)

Passing between buildings B and C on a causeway adjacent to the visiting room they saw the priest from the Catholic church in the no-man's-land between checkpoints. It's the priest, said Tom. That guy? said Meriwether. He doesn't look like a priest.

He is though.

Well where's his collar and all?

He doesn't dress that way.

He was dressed instead in jeans, chukkas, leather gloves, and an overcoat. Urban Casual, Tom thought. Fading hip guy dressed for getting bagels at ten on a Saturday morning. The priest elicited in Tom, always, a muted if vast antagonism. A disapproval fraught with private vehemence. Why couldn't he just dress like a priest, carry himself with priestly composure, wear clothes suggesting disdain for the worldly; wasn't that his task in life, to embody twenty-four hours a day the exalted life of the spirit? What was the point of a priest in jeans, a priest with no outward sign of his calling and no clear symbol of deference to the Church, a priest who looked like an earnest young lawyer on his way to a date at Starbucks? Tom blandly hailed him—pausing in the razor-wire checkpoint cage—by saying This is Marvin Meriwether, to which the priest replied with false cheer, A pleasure to meet you. Father Donald Collins. I forgot you were employed here, Tom.

Yeah.

I knew it once but then I forgot. I'm sorry I already forgot your name.

Marvin, Marvin Meriwether.

I'm terrible with names it's a curse of sorts or maybe a symptom of something deeper. I need to do a better job remembering names: Marvin Meriwether.

Yes.

Donald Collins. From the church in town. Tom's church. Marvin Meriwether.

Meriwether nodded. Excuse me, he said. But can I ask you a question? Sorry to ask you something like this but—what's a priest doing in a prison?

A priest in a prison, the priest shot back, takes confession from certain individuals, it seems, who have much to confess.

Meriwether tapped his broad dimpled chin. A large, blond, red-faced alcoholic, the doltish giant from a fairy tale who is eventually killed by an ax to the forehead or by a kettle of boiling pitch. Makes sense, he said. When you think about it.

Every Monday, the priest said pleasantly. For one hour: eight until nine. Or on request, of course.

I always wondered, Meriwether pressed on. What if somebody confesses to you that they murdered someone or robbed a bank? Don't you have to report it?

No.

That, said Meriwether, I don't understand.

What don't you understand about it?

Hearing about crimes from criminals, I guess. And then just sitting on your hands.

The priest's high forehead furrowed. He wagged his forefinger: priestly admonishment. What the penitent makes known to the priest, he said, remains shrouded under a sacramental seal. The penitent must be certain of this principle in order that he might be willing to come forward, emboldened by the assurance of privacy to deliver the contents of his soul. For this good reason I am not at liberty to divulge one iota of a penitent's words as spoken to me in the confessional.

I mean you could know who shot JFK. You could know that Cross here killed somebody. But you couldn't do anything about it.

No, said the priest. Except absolve them of their sins. And of course the conditions of absolution would include a public acknowledgment, a public confession, of guilt.

I guess that works, said Meriwether. Unless they just… refuse.

If they do, I carry their secret to the grave.

Me, said Meriwether, I couldn't do that. I'd have to tell somebody.

And I wouldn't be seeing them in heaven, said the priest. They wouldn't be going there.

So they can't win, said Meriwether.

Who can't win at what exactly?

The criminal who confesses to you.

He surely can win, the priest replied. By finding his way to the Lord.

Not too great of a win, said Meriwether. Because look it's either prison or hell—hell on earth or hell afterward, take your pick about it.

The priest smiled a thin wan smile. Tom saw he didn't mean the things he said, as if they were only metaphors. Well put, said the priest. Nicely articulated. But smart to always choose prison over hell. Eternity's a very long time.

Meriwether nodded. Hey, he said, and his eyes brightened as Tom had seen them brighten before for Jack Daniel's and Jimmy Beam. Changing the subject. You're probably in a hurry. I know that. But real quick. Sorry about this. But this is my one opportunity to ask. The mushroom girl. What is that?

The priest blinked, his jaw tightened, he bit his lip momentarily. She claims, he said, to have seen the Blessed Mother. She claims to have had… visions.

What do you think? Tom asked.

I don't think anything either way. It's premature to think anything without facts or evidence.

I went up there. I saw her in the woods.

Yes—we missed you at mass yesterday.

I hardly ever miss, said Tom.

Saturday night you can always attend. As well as twice on Sunday. The priest absentmindedly picked lint from his overcoat. So you went to the woods, he observed.

With a huge crowd. From all over the country.

The priest nodded agreeably but his smile looked contrived. Sounds to me, he said, like a revival meeting. Was there any speaking in tongues?

She cured a woman of warts, said Tom. And she helped her get off cigarettes.

Worth considering, the priest replied. The warts and cigarettes both.

I didn't hear about this, said Meriwether. I mean cigarettes, that's one thing, a person can decide they're going to stop smoking, but warts—do they just go away like that?

They do, said the priest. Spontaneously. Warts are a viral phenomenon, so immunity can rapidly develop. Not to mention the psychosomatic, the salutary effect of belief.

Neither prison guard answered. What in God's name was the priest trying to say? Tom asked himself. Established medical fact, said the priest. It helps to believe in one's treatment, one's medicine. It helps to be convinced of a therapeutic effect inherent in some pill or other. Even if it's merely a placebo, a fake, with no bona fide benefit.

Hey, if it works, agreed Meriwether.

We can all celebrate good outcomes, said the priest. There's nothing wrong with good results—as long as the means that yield them aren't evil—though we can't extrapolate backward from good results to validate a particular Marian apparition. On the other hand, bad results would surely be cause for the church's definitive invalidation of a seer. Ill effects would not arise from a genuine manifestation of Mary. And so far, regarding the thwarted warts—not to mention the snuffed-out cigarettes—so far, so excellent, no cause I can see to denounce our local visionary. Though these particular positive outcomes still don't mean anything.

We'll let you go, said Meriwether.

And I you, replied the priest.

He tipped an invisible hat in their direction and, it seemed to Tom, fled. There was a long vent at the back of his overcoat, and when the priest turned toward them, one hand on the gate as the tower guard buzzed it open, a gust of wind made it flare. Come see me sometime, he called back to Tom. We ought to talk more often.

About what?

About… matters.

I don't get much out of talking, Father.

Through me you can talk to the Lord, said the priest. Come see me, Tom.

Then he was gone. Meriwether made a show of scratching his forehead. Bizarre, he said. Real strange guy. When I was growing up our pastor was… I don't know. You couldn't even speak to him.

What religion?

Lutheran.

This priest is new, Tom said.

You like him?

I don't know.

He's a liberal.

I see that.

He's probably for fags getting married and all. Or probably he's a fag himself.

Maybe.

How is it priests are so far left?

That's something I don't claim to get.

You'd think it'd be the opposite.

I don't know what goes on inside his mind.

He's thinking, said Meriwether, about guys I'll bet. About fondling altar boys.

         

Town was a zoo. Cars everywhere. The parking lot at Gip's was full for the first time Tom could remember. There were even lines to get gas at the minimart for the first time since
OPEC
. The Sportsman's Motel had no vacancies, and neither did the North Fork Motel. The parking lot at MarketTime was full and cars had spilled over into the Assembly of God lot, which was full as well. It was not even nine but the drugstore was open for business as were the auto parts store, the Dew Drop Inn—until today serving only lunch and dinner—and the hardware store, its front window filled with a banner reading
SALE
! Tom decided against going to MarketTime. He waited his turn at the four-way stop, rolled down his window, leaned out, and called to Jon Hicks, who was walking in the gutter, It's like the Alaska Gold Rush Jon you better put your hat out.

Up yours Cross.

Where you going?

To hell—same as you.

You need a ride?

How's your son?

Still paralyzed.

When you coming by the Vagabond with us?

Get your hat out right now.

The parking lot at the Tired Traveler's Guesthouse was no better than the rest. There was still the trailer from the Greater Catholic Merchandise Outlet and the car with the
DON
'
T TAILGATE
—
GOD IS WATCHING
bumper sticker, plates from California, Arizona, Colorado, and Nebraska, a man in rubber rain gear checking his motor oil, another man loading up suitcases, a woman with a poodle on a retractable leash, an old woman sitting in an idling car who made brief frightened eye contact with Tom before looking the other way. Tom had lost his parking space. He drove in between two trees, killed the engine, and walked toward his cabin still wearing his guard garb, pausing to light a cigarette so he might have reason to ogle Jabari with her hair bundled up beneath a paisley scarf and her wide South Asian derriere sheathed in baggy red sweatpants. Making her sad lonely cleaning rounds. Did anybody else in the world wear red sweatpants? Scarlet jodhpurs—gay Englishmen on polo ponies. She had on cheap gaudy running shoes, too. He could see brown skin above her thin white socks, between the socks and the bunched anklets of her sweats. Not that she meant to show anything; her clothes were dedicated to concealing her figure. She was pushing the clean-up cart across the gravel like a Bengali peanut vendor. He imagined her drowning in Bangladesh, squatting on a rooftop over murky floodwater, doe-eyed victim of another famine, sunken ferry, overturned bus, CNN train wreck, malaria. Good morning, he said, it's still raining.

The most fleeting eye contact of all time—made the old woman in the idling car seem brazen by comparison. So Jabari could claim to have acknowledged him and yet not acknowledge him. Why? Who was she? She turned the key in Cabin Eleven. Were they Muslims or Hindus? He didn't know for sure. He didn't even know their real names. What had Pin said about the Ganges? They might be Sikhs or something else. Or those people who swept the road before their feet so as to not end the lives of insects. Her ass was indeed a wide brown sailor's chart of spicy India. And the red sweatpants were ridiculous, clown's clothing, but she seemed so ignorant of their absurdity that her ignorance was ultimately alluring. She probably wore matronly underclothing, navel-high briefs and grandmotherly bras. The image of Jabari stripped to her underwear presented itself to Tom's mind.

He stood in the doorway of Cabin Eleven, leaning casually against the jamb in an attitude of sexual aggression. She was already plugging in the vacuum cleaner. Busy around here, he said.

Very much.

Wouldn't it be nice to slow down and relax?

Very busy.

So what needs fixing?

My husband in the office will answer this question.

He loved that lilting birdlike trill, her low throaty soprano. Also the stink of curry in her clothes—or maybe it was saffron and sweat. But can't you think of something I can fix? he asked. Something you know needs fixing?

Jabari wouldn't look at him. My husband will say, she answered.

But what about you? Tom asked. You must notice things as you go from room to room. Things you see with your own eyes.

If you will please now speak to my husband, sir.

But—

He is in the office. Speak to him. There was a new pressure in her voice suddenly, a female householder, upper caste, claiming authority in a tone she'd used in wherever, maybe the Punjab.

Okay, said Tom. I'll talk to him. But in the meantime think what you might need fixed and holler—I'll fix it for you.

In his cabin Tom sprawled wide on the bed and watched the television. Or rather changed the channels restlessly, stopping only to consider an attractive woman or to wait for something violent to unfurl. No sports. He didn't really care about games. That was an act, something communal. Tom napped with the heat on as high as it would go. It was not really sleep although in this state he noted that time seemed to pass more quickly. He looked at the clock and when he looked at it again it was significantly later than he would have projected, so in some form he must have slept. But it didn't feel to Tom like sleep exactly. Did he ever really sleep? In the way he used to? His limbs felt dead but his mind stayed active. He thought of his son: his mind alive but his body… dead weight. Tom hadn't seen him since before the restraining order, but he guessed Junior still watched television constantly. Not hard to guess—what else could he do? Junior had his own remote controller, a special remote with very large buttons that Eleanor had gotten from a catalog for invalids, there seemed to be a catalog for everything these days and Eleanor had them all. Junior could work it with remarkable speed for someone who was paralyzed, a plastic rod seized between his teeth, he viewed each image for a fraction of a second, the satellite dish—forty dollars a month—could hardly keep up with his dental dexterity, it gave him fifty or sixty options, the boy would cycle through them twice before pausing for a respite. It was irritating but who was going to stop him? Who had the heart to halt this routine? It wasn't possible to spoil Junior. Whatever he wanted he ought to have, including his own big Compaq computer, compliments of the Cross Family Committee. Somebody's retired desktop, charity, Tom's needs were other people's tax write-offs now. Pulled up close on a swiveling tray, outfitted with something called a Sip 'n Puff in lieu of your normal mouse. If the TV wasn't on, the computer was, sometimes the two were on together, Eleanor had put in a second line, it was almost thirty-three dollars a month, it didn't cost them any more than that because Junior had free Internet service, somehow or other he'd figured that out, how to get something for nothing. What else could he do, lying there? Tom had looked over Junior's shoulder at the endlessly shifting monitor screen, Virtual Paraplegia, Quadriplegic Bulletin Board, Spinal Cord Injury Information Network, Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, Junior sipping chat-room messages or puffing them into the ether.
Have worse pressure sores with this new wheelchair, need info on cushions that actually might work, regarding assistive devices for gait I can only say they're a mixed blessing, really, you fall you're in for more injury, it doesn't feel like walking anyway, maybe a little once in a while just for the change of pace.
Or:
This morning I went to a pool for therapy; the transfer was really dangerous on the wet floor, does anyone have a good design for a really effective brake? Arnie B., Charlottesville.
This sort of thing made Tom depressed. Quadriplegic computer nerds. Invisible paralyzed strangers sharing tips. Static ghosts in rooms across the world. Ephemeral presences exchanging ephemera. Net surfing, Web sites, chat rooms.