The Good Luck of Right Now (16 page)

I don’t remember if these were the exact examples I came up with when I was in my twenties, but you get the idea—and as I sat in bed thinking of the many good things that had to happen all over the world in order to even out and nullify the horrible bad things that had happened to Mom and me, I started to see why Mom believed in The Good Luck of Right Now. Believing—or maybe even pretending—made you feel better about what had happened, regardless of what was true and what wasn’t.

And what is reality, if it isn’t how we feel about things?

What else matters at the end of the day when we lie in bed alone with our thoughts?

And isn’t it true, statistically speaking—regardless of whether we believe in luck or not—that good and bad must happen simultaneously all over the world?

Babies are born at the exact moment as people die; people cheat on their spouses, climaxing in sin, just as brides and grooms gaze lovingly into each other’s eyes and say “I do”; people get hired while others get fired; a father takes his son to a ball game just as another man decides he will never return home to his son again and moves to another state without leaving a forwarding address; a man rescues a cat from certain suffocation, removing it from a plastic trash bag, just as another man halfway around the world tosses a sack of kittens into a river; a surgeon in Texas saves the life of a young boy who was hit by a car while a man in Africa kills a child soldier with a swarm of machine-gun bullets; a Chinese diplomat swims in the cool waters of a tropical sea while a Tibetan monk burns to death in political protest—all of these opposites will happen whether we believe in The Good Luck of Right Now or not.

But after our home had been raped, it was hard for me to believe and pretend happily like Mom—maybe because I have always been a skeptic, maybe because I am not as strong as she was, maybe because I am stupid, retarded, simple-minded, moronic.

The next day I felt very anxious, and so I went to Saint Gabriel’s and found Father McNamee in his office writing personalized birthday cards to every church member born in the upcoming months.

I asked him to promise that no one would ever break into our house again.

“You know your mother’s theory, right? The Good Luck of Right Now?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Do you believe it’s true?”

“I tried to pretend I did last night.”

“And?”

“It helped. I admit it. For a few hours. But I still worry that—”

“Pray.”

“For what?” I asked. “That our house will never be broken into again?”

“No. What happens to
things
is not important. Pray that your heart will be able to endure whatever happens to
you
in the future—your heart must continue to believe that the events in this world are not the be-all and end-all but simply transient unimportant variables. Beyond the everyday ins and outs of our lives, there is a greater purpose—a reason. Perhaps we don’t yet see or understand the reason—maybe our human minds are incapable of understanding fully—yet it all leads us to something greater nonetheless.”

“What do you mean, Father?”

He laughed in this good way, licked and sealed an envelope, and said, “Wasn’t it nice seeing our flock rise to the occasion last night? They had other things to do, you know. But when they heard what happened to you, their hearts instructed them, and they immediately sprang into action and simply helped.”

“So?” I said, wondering how that could protect me from future home invaders.

“You wanted to sleep in a urine-soaked bed last night, did you?”

“No.”

“Well, those people made sure you didn’t.”

“I’m not sure I understand how—”

“That’s also The Good Luck of Right Now. That’s also part of your mother’s philosophy.”

“I don’t get how it will protect us from future vandals,” I said to Father.

“You’re missing the point!” Father McNamee said, smiling and chuckling—like I was a young boy, like he was about to tousle my hair, even though I was a grown man.

“What
is
the point?”

“You’ll understand it one day, Bartholomew. Without my needing to explain it to you. You will understand. I promise.”

Richard Gere, I’m not sure I understand any better now than I did back then.

Even still, I’ve been wondering what good might have happened when Mom died to balance out the heavy bad of the hungry brain cancer squid ending her life. I’ve been trying to pretend that The Good Luck of Right Now produced something extremely beautiful when she passed, because Mom was full of love—enough to wipe out much, much bad. But I’m finding it hard to believe in her philosophy these days.

Father McNamee said nothing when I asked him about it on the beach the night after the funeral. And lately, given how manic he’s been acting, I’ve been too afraid to ask him again, or even say “The Good Luck of Right Now” to Father McNamee, because I get the sense that he’s having a hard time pretending himself, especially since he never brings up Mom’s philosophy anymore.

And yet, your being born during the same year that China became a threat to Tibet gives me hope, because maybe you were really conceived to equal out the bad the Chinese government would do to Tibet. It seems like proof. Too significant to be coincidental. Jung would agree here.

And if you were a response to China’s planning to invade Tibet, it helps me believe in Mom’s philosophy, which gives me hope for my own postmother future and life in general.

I found this Dalai Lama quote on the library Internet: “Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.” And it seems to agree with Mom’s mantra.

I also found this other Dalai Lama quote: “There is a saying in Tibetan, ‘Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength.’ No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our hope, that’s our real disaster.”

What do you think?

Can we find some common ground here, Richard Gere?

Maybe our letter correspondence will be the good that comes of Mom’s death?

Maybe you will help me move on to the “next phase of my life,” like Wendy wanted me to do, when she was still around, before we figured out her secret?

Stranger things have happened, I suppose.

And this is the only hopeful outcome I have available to me at the present moment. So it’s important for us to continue the pretending, even if we can’t believe 100 percent.

Your admiring fan,

Bartholomew Neil

11

I DIDN’T UNDERSTAND WHAT TYPE OF MATH MAX WAS USING HERE, BUT HE SEEMED SO EXCITED THAT I DIDN’T INTERRUPT HIM

Dear Mr. Richard Gere,

After Wendy left, Father McNamee ceased praying and began drinking even more heavily than previously described.

Jameson straight from the bottle—about a bottle a day.

He called it his “Irish purification ritual.”

Sometimes I’d hear him throwing up in the bathroom late at night, although he never left a mess. The toilet flushing over and over. And the retching reminded me of my mother at the end of her life, after the treatments—but, unfortunately, Mom hasn’t visited my dreams at all lately, so I haven’t been able to consult her.

I’d try to speak with Father McNamee through the locked bedroom door, asking if he needed assistance, but he only said, “I’m okay. Riding out the downswing. Just need to be alone.”

Like when Wendy was on the couch, I attempted to take care of Father McNamee the best I could, leaving grilled cheese sandwiches or ramen noodles by his door, which he sometimes ate in the middle of the night and sometimes left cold and untouched for me to take away in the morning.

I’d knock on his door before every meal and ask if he wanted to join me in the kitchen, but he would hold my eye for only the briefest of seconds before he looked away in silence. Sometimes he was in bed; other times he was standing, staring blankly out the window.

He wouldn’t talk at night either or take a walk with me or even listen to the birds’ symphony over morning coffee.

After a day or two of this, I began to worry.

I went to Saint Gabriel’s to seek help from Father Hachette.

I found him in the church office, playing solitaire on the computer, looking rather bored. As soon as Father saw me, he said, “Why weren’t you at Mass, Bartholomew? Your mother would be gravely disappointed in you.”

(Do you think that his using the word
gravely
to describe my dead mother’s theoretical disappointment was in poor taste?)

It’s true that Mom would not want me to miss Mass, and since I didn’t have a good answer for him, I tried to change the subject. “Father McNamee is not well.”

“Edna told me about your attempt to save her daughter,” Father Hachette said. “Quite dramatic. Quite dramatic
indeed
.”

“Why are you smiling?” I asked.

“I’m not smiling,” he said, even though he was clearly grinning, as if he knew a secret and enjoyed keeping it from me.

His yellow teeth looked like petrified pieces of corn, and the way he was looking at me made the wrinkles in his face appear deeper than usual—so cavernous, I wondered if he had to clean them with a Q-tip.

The little angry man in my stomach woke up and got to work.

“Are you not worried about Wendy?” I asked.

“Actually, I’ve been to visit her and Adam. Edna came with me. The four of us had a very good talk just yesterday.”

“You did?”

“I prayed with them. We had a productive back-and-forth. Wendy confessed to me afterward, here at the church. Let’s just say, to ease your conscience, Bartholomew, things are looking up for our young mutual friend. So do not worry too much about her.”

It was hard to believe Father Hachette was able to do what Father McNamee could not. Also, I knew he shouldn’t have told me that Wendy confessed, because confessions are confidential. It was like he was bragging—like he wanted me to believe he was a better priest than Father McNamee. Father McNamee would never have bragged like that. Never. Nor would he have betrayed the confidence of a parishioner.

“Is she really okay?” I asked, thinking Adam should have been the one to confess, not Wendy, and wondering exactly what Wendy had told him. Did she mention the hurtful things she’d said the last night she stayed in our house? How much did Father Hachette
really
know?

“She’s wrestling with her soul. Adam is too. They have a lot to sort out.”

“He’s evil, you know. He beats her. Didn’t you see her bruises?”

“People are not evil or good. It’s much more complicated than that.
Much
.”

“How could it be complicated when a man hits a woman repeatedly?”

Father Hachette looked down at his desk, took a cigarette out of a hard pack, tapped the filter twice, and lit up. “Why did you come here today, Bartholomew?”

I understood that he wasn’t going to talk about Wendy—and to be fair, maybe this had to do with keeping what was confessed confidential—and so I said, “How can I help Father McNamee overcome his depression?”

Father Hachette frowned, blew smoke out the corner of his mouth, back over his left shoulder, and said, “You should come to Mass, Bartholomew. You should continue what you and your mother have always done. The routine of our shared faith will save you. In the end, the routines will save us all.”

“Yes, I will. But what about Father McNamee?”

Father Hachette held my gaze for an awkward moment, and then he said, “Let me guess. He’s drinking heavily. He’s claiming God abandoned him. He’s sulking alone in a room and emptying his guts into a toilet nightly? That’s his ritual. Mountaintops and valleys. That is his pattern. And I bet he blames you for not hearing God’s voice—for not providing him with divine instructions. Am I far off?”

He was not far off, as you know, Richard Gere, but it didn’t seem like Father Hachette was going to help me today.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “You told me to come to you when I needed help. You came to my house specifically to offer your help. Was that a lie?”

“I’m glad you came, Bartholomew. Saint Gabriel’s is your spiritual home. But you need to work on
yourself
. You need to grieve for your mother and then begin a new life without her. God can help you accomplish this task.”

“But you don’t want to help Father McNamee? You’re not interested in his depression?”

“It’s like trying to fight a hurricane with your bare hands—punching at wind and rain. Only a fool would try. You need to wait it out. Trust me. I have some experience with this. Father McNamee will right himself eventually. He always has in the past, anyway.”

“Then why did you come to Mom’s house and offer your help?”

“Honestly? It’s
you
I’m worried about, Bartholomew. Not Father McNamee.”

“Me?”

He nodded slowly behind a skinny finger of cigarette smoke that cut his face in half.

“Why?”

Father Hachette took a few more puffs of his cigarette, studied his hands like there was something written down on them, and then said, “You still don’t know why Father McNamee came to live with you, do you?”

“To help me get over Mom’s death—to help me move on with my life.”

Father Hachette smiled, and I noticed how thin his neck looked wrapped in that black-and-white collar, like a fishing line leading up to a red-and-white bobber.

“And yet it’s you who wants to help Father McNamee now. Things got flipped. You see?”

“Why are you talking to me like this?”

“Like what?”

“In riddles. Like I’m slow-minded. Too stupid for the honest truth.”

Because you are a retard!
the tiny angry man yelled.

“I’m sorry, Bartholomew. You see, I’m in an unfair position. I have an advantage, because I know more than you’ve been able to piece together. But it’s not my place to tell you what you need to know.” He stubbed his cigarette out in a bronze bowl full of butts. “Has he mentioned Montreal yet?”

The man in my stomach froze when I heard the word
Montreal
, because that’s where my father supposedly was from.