The City Below (28 page)

When Bean Nicolson had zipped up his wine-colored nylon jacket, the coach led him over to where the Doyles were sitting. Bean's hands and wrists protruded from the too short sleeves of the jacket, a Buffalo-haired scarecrow.

"Terry?"

"Hey, Coach." Terry stood, then Squire did, with Molly. "This is my brother, Coach. Nick Doyle, and my niece, Molly Doyle." Terry touched the child's cheek, even as she buried her face in her father's shirt.

The coach nodded without really looking at them. "Terry," he said, "Bean says he'd like it if you could work with him. So would I. What do you think?"

"Gee, Coach, I don't know."

"I thought you said they wanted you hanging out with the team."

"They do. That's if I stick with the campus ministry."

"Well, why wouldn't you?"

Terry couldn't answer, and so Squire said, "There are a couple of other projects that asked for Terry, once he's ordained. They haven't decided yet."

"Is that right?"

"I want to work with you, Coach. And with you, Bean."

"So who do I talk to?" Ryan said. "Father Rafferty?"

"No, I'll take care of it." Terry and the coach shook hands, but Nicolson just walked away, trailing the others out of the gym. Ryan glanced noncommittally at Squire, then turned to go. "Coach?" Terry said.

Ryan looked back.

Terry deftly scooped up a basketball with his foot, a soccer move. He fired a chest pass at the older man. Ryan had to bring his hands up quickly to catch it, and the zing in the pass brought a smile to his face. "It's good to have you back, Terry."

"Thanks, Coach. So close, yet so far away."

"So, if you want to come with us to Madison Square Garden, work it out, okay?"

"Okay."

"And next time, wear sneakers."

"I don't have to dress like this, Coach."

"No, wear the outfit. It'll do the boys good to remember who you are now. Just wear the sneaks." Zip Ryan bounced the ball once, tucked it under his arm, and walked away.

Outside, in the balmy afternoon, Terry led the way to an open stretch of grass that lay between the gym and the sprawling, lime-lined athletic fields where various teams were working out, football players most noticeably, but also pole vaulters and javelin throwers. The basketball team could be seen loping around the cinder track in the distance, the oval between the brackets of the stands.

The brothers sat on a bench while Molly scooted away to chase pigeons. For a few moments the two sat in silence, Squire watching the athletes, Terry his niece. She squealed joyously every time she launched a bird.

"So what the hell, Terry," Squire said at last.

"What do you mean?"

"How are we going to bring the cardinal down from his tree?"

"I didn't know that was our job."

"Gramps is pissed like I've never seen before. He told me you should —"

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," Terry said. "
You
just told me to hold my ground."

"That's right, but —"

"So, why are you moving it under me? I'm not backing down, Nick. I'm not taking the oath."

"That isn't the issue, and you know it."

"Suppose you tell me what the issue is, then."

"The publicity. That's all the cardinal talked to Gramps about You're going to the newspapers."

"We're making a public statement. We have to."

"And television."

"Look, Nick, our only chance of getting the cardinal to back down is if there's pressure, and you know there will be. There'll be an explosion of support for us. Birth control! Nobody buys what the pope said."

"I do."

"What?"

Squire looked over at Molly scampering on the grass. On the hill in the distance were the crenelated towers of the college buildings, an image of the old Church that even Squire could recognize as such. "If we practiced birth control, that beautiful little girl wouldn't be here." He faced Terry. "Hey, old buddy, I know you've got your reasons for feeling complicated about this stuff. Maybe what happened between me and Didi —"

"That has nothing to do with this."

"I wondered, that's all. We never talked about it. Why is that, Terry?"

"What was to discuss, Nick?"

"Didi was."

"She's a free woman. I was gone. I told you how I felt. You're a free man."

"And that's that?"

"Yes."

"Then you are a cooler cookie than I thought."

"Look, Nick, I didn't second-guess you and Didi. I think you know it made me happy, since you're both..."

"We're both what?"

"Special to me."

"But we're the case in point, in this argument you're having. You think it would have been all right for Didi to get an abortion? Or that she should get one for the new baby we're going to have?"

"Nobody's talking about abortion. That's a completely different issue."

"Not in the world it ain't, kiddo. The pope is holding the line. Maybe he's right You guys live a pretty sheltered life."

"Hey!" Terry stood up angrily. "'Hold my ground' you said. Shit, man."

"Just don't play to the stands, Terry. Make your point, but keep it quiet That's all I'm telling you. That's all the cardinal —"

"Then I'm
out!
" Terry said. "A nice quiet refusal, a few of us, and we're kicked out so fast our heads spin. I might as well
quit.
"

"Why don't you?"

Terry was too shocked to answer.

"You've never wanted to be a priest. I know that and so do you. Isn't that what's really going on here? You're
looking
to get booted."

After a moment, but softer now, Terry replied, "That's bullshit."

Squire shrugged, conveying a sublime indifference. "All right. Then make it work for yourself. It's one or the other, Terry."

"I'm trying to make it work."

"By humiliating the cardinal?"

"By
helping
him to do what's right."

Squire reached to his shirt pocket for his cigarettes, a confirming display of his essential detachment. He put a cigarette between his lips, where it stayed unlit, bouncing, as he said quietly, "Helping the cardinal do what's right? Who do you think you are?"

"That's the question.
That's
what Gramps sent you over here to ask I'll tell you who I think I am. I'm Martin Luther, okay? And I'm Martin Luther King."

"Dead meat. Dead, dead meat."

"Don't say that! Don't talk about him like that."

"Which one, the Prod or the coon?"

"Oh, Christ!" Terry whipped away from his brother, and his eyes landed on Molly, sweet Molly whose diaper had come loose and was drooping through her short pants.

"Here." Squire held his cigarette pack in front of Terry. "Have a weed."

Terry laughed. "You trying to get me kicked out?"

"I thought you were allowed to smoke now."

"Next week, after ordination. That's the holdup, Nick. They don't make me a deacon until I walk through one last pile of this shit."

"Go around it, Terry. That's what I do."

The brothers stared at each other. Was it possible they had this in common?

Squire said, "Keep your eye on the rim. Isn't that what you just taught that kid?"

Terry shook his head. "Not the rim. You imagine a spot in the invisible center of the basket. Aim for the rim and that's what you hit You have to aim at nothing."

Squire grinned winningly. "Hey, what do I know. Birth control, basketball —too complicated for the likes of me, huh? We should just stay on our loading docks and at our toolboxes while you sharpshooters sort this shit out"

Terry took the cigarette, not caring who saw him. "You were always a better lay-up man than me."

"Lay-up. Lay down?"

"Right Believe it or not, getting laid is exactly the point A bunch of celibates shouldn't be the ones —"

"Hey, hey, I was kidding."

"Well, I'm not kidding. The pope is dead wrong."

"It doesn't mean diddly, Terry. Nobody cares what the pope —"

"
I
care. To you this is just mush from the pulpit, crap for the women to worry about, but I have to preach this stuff. I'm not preaching mush."

"So don't. Just sign the fucker and preach what you want They don't care, Terry. Don't you get it? They just want you to let them have the feeling that they're still in charge."

"The people are in charge."

"Whoa!" Squire raised a clenched fist "Pow-er to the people. Pow-er —"

"Nick, come on."

But Squire went into a mock rain dance. "Pow-er to the people," he chanted, like the Yippies in Chicago two months before. Molly peered back at him from her place in the grass. Terry dropped his cigarette, stepped on it, and waited for him to stop.

Finally Squire looked at him, a wide smile on his face.

Terry said, "There's nothing funny about this."

"It's simple, okay? You think the pope and the cardinal are wrong. Gramps thinks you're wrong. The point is, you guys have to work it out And right now,
they
got the power. Not 'the people,' Terry. Not you. Your job is to do what you got to do to get the power. That's just fucking life, okay? We all got to play by those rules." Squire backed toward Molly. "'Power to the people,' Terry? You know what that shit gets you? Richard fucking Nixon, that's what"

"Not yet, it hasn't."

Squire laughed again. His brother was an asshole, he forgot A Humphrey asshole, Humphrey Dumphrey. "There are rules, Terry." Squire had moved far enough away across the grass that he had to shout "Even for a revolution, there are rules." How ridiculous this was, him lecturing his seminarian brother on the rules. "That's what Gramps sent me to say."

"You tell Gramps —"

"No!" Squire cut him off cold, pointing at him, moving back "I'm telling Gramps nothing that will hurt him, get it? He's old, Terry. And you haven't been around enough to notice, but he's also cuckoo. I'm not hurting him, and neither should you. That's our job now, protecting the old coot Suppose you could beat the cardinal down on this, bring all kinds of priests and nuns and liberals and the
Globe
and Walter Cronkite in on your side. The side of what? Honesty and truth, huh? The side of change. Suppose you win. What in hell is it worth if meanwhile that man on Common Street in Charlestown is left with a broken heart?"

"Why don't you help avoid that by explaining to him what I'm trying to do?"

"Because I don't understand it."

"You said you were on my side. My 'fucking side,' you said." Terry thought, First Father Collins, then Jimmy Adler, now this bastard.

Squire shook his head. "Not against Gramps, though."

"You lied to me."

"Let birth control be a problem for people who screw, will you? None of us gives a shit what you people say. So you shouldn't give a shit either. The pope knows this —he's a wop going through the motions. You're the only guy taking this thing seriously, and it's making you an asshole. What's it to you, I mean really, who uses a rubber or not, who uses the Pill? You're
picking
this fight. You could walk around this thing."

"No, I can't."

"Then fuck you, Charlie."

Their ancient pattern, from the funny to the furious to the futile. The four
f
s. Fuck you.

Molly, attuned to the shift in the emotional weather, began to cry. Squire went to her, scooped her up, then found a shady patch of grass and lay her down on it He deftly began changing her diaper, holding her by the ankles, unsnapping her shorts, taking the pins in his mouth, using the dry tail of the dirty diaper to wipe her clean. Like magic, he produced a fresh diaper from his jacket When he finished, he hoisted her up and went over to a nearby trash can and threw away the soiled cloth.

Terry couldn't watch him without thinking of his teacher, Didi. He could imagine her not only showing Nick how to deal with their baby, but showing him how to love doing it. Didi bent over a changing table, flourishing that pin. Didi ladling stew from a pot Didi at the cash register in the shop. Didi turning the blanket back. But Terry had never allowed himself to picture her in bed, in his brother's arms. The two of them naked. Making babies. Fucking.

"Hey, Father Coach!"

Bean Nicolson was standing on the path that led from the track up to the gym. Sweat poured off his face, making it shine. Shine, Terry thought No wonder they call them that, the slick moisture on the skin from slaving in the sun. Bean's warmup jacket was open. His wet shirt clung to his ribs. His stoop was more pronounced than before. If he was a beanpole now, he was a bent one. His teammates trudged wearily past him, heading for the showers.

Bean said, "So, I see you Friday?"

"Monday," Terry answered. "I'll be back on Monday." Terry's wave should have ended the encounter.

But Squire was suddenly at Terry's elbow, holding Molly. "Introduce me," he said.

"What?"

"I want to meet the man. I'm a fan." Squire smiled that smile of his. He was ebullient and pleased, which calmed Molly, but mystified Terry. Did this guy hold his feelings by the fingertips only, that he could so easily shake the hurt of their argument? "I'd like to meet your friend," Squire said. "Do you mind?"

Nicolson stood awkwardly on the edge of the path, unsure whether to leave or stay.

Yes, I do mind, was Terry's thought. But why? All at once he felt the familiar wash of guilt, and he knew for certain that this failure, like all of them, was his fault. Heresy, Monsignor Fenton had said. And Father Collins had accused him of hubris. And now his brother, of disregarding the only people who loved him. Terry raised an arm toward Nicolson, but he thought of Bright McKay. Bright did not think him a heretic, nor did Blight's father. But shit, that's what they were.

"Bean, I want you to meet somebody."

Nicolson did not move.

Squire, then Terry, began slowly closing the distance. Terry smiled wanly. "I want you to meet my niece." And he took Molly's hand. She reached to him, and Squire let her go into Terry's arms. "Molly Doyle." Terry blushed when she hid her face in his neck. "She's shy. She does that..." His voice trailed off, not saying, Even to white people. "And her dad." Terry indicated Squire. "My brother."