Just A Canvas Bag

An hour and a half since lunch, then an hour and a half more and he'd be gone, slipping out of the office an hour early to catch his flight.  Ted's light last day before vacation was going according to plan. He updated a couple of spreadsheets, set a couple of meetings for week after next, alternated between staring at the webpage for the hotel he'd booked and staring at the page for the photography workshop he'd booked.  In Vegas.  He had his caveats, but that's where the workshop always was, so he had to bite the bullet or give up on ever attending.  

He was half way through the afternoon, half way through his muffin, and half way through his coffee - perfectly synchronized snacking.  His neighbor was happy to take in his mail and newspapers while he was out.  He'd checked in with his mom, and she was all set for the week and a half he'd be gone.  His sister would be checking in on her, and her neighbors always looked out for her.  She'd be fine.  Life would go on nice and quiet while he was away from everything for a week.  All the buttons were buttoned; all the "i's" were dotted; all the "t's" were crossed.  But there was one more thing, something that had slipped his normally very conscientious mind.  

He picked up the phone and dialed Roger, friend and gambler's anonymous sponsor, lo the past fifteen years.  This was the man who'd helped the most to keep his affairs in order, his hungers under control, his checkboxes checked, and his steps stepped off, all this time. He was also a partner in Meals on Wheels.  Not his partner - he was with another team - but he was flexible, and that's what Ted needed at the moment.

"Hey, Roger, it's Ted.  Listen, I need some backup on Meals on Wheels next week.  Terry's laid up with back problems and I'm going to be out of town at a workshop until Wednesday week after next.  Think you can cover my Tuesday route those two weeks, or arrange to get them covered?  No need to call back that's okay ... on second thought, give me a holler back either way, so I'll be sure it's covered.  Thanks - catch you later. "

The last loose end, he was pretty sure, had now been tied.  He went down the checklist again, and there were no empty boxes.  All was good.

Back to the workshop page, looking at the seminars.  He was continually re-arranging his priorities. Maybe he wanted the landscape photography track, which included an afternoon outing to the mountains outside one day and the desert another. That would be better than the studio and glamour photography tracks, which would've kept him inside the city, and closer to temptation.  Fifteen years of sobriety and he was still wary. Once an addict, always an addict was the rule, not the exception. 

Suddenly, right over the left edge of his monitor, there was movement - a running figure going left to right in the courtyard, jeans and a light blue t-shirt.  Just as Ted noticed the canvas bag in his hand, the man slowed and tossed it into the shrubbery, into a little gab between two bushes. He barely slowed, and was gone by the time things had fully registered with Ted.  Not ten seconds later, a cop ran past in the same direction, not slowing at all.

The view from his window was still and quiet again. Ted took a sip from his coffee and a nibble from his muffin and started processing what had just happened.  He waited.  No more visitors to the courtyard.  Ten minutes and nobody else came.

So there it sat - right there - not twenty feet from his window.  He was sure someone was going to be coming back for it, though he wasn't sure who.  There was the man who tossed it there and the cop who chased him through the courtyard.  Ted had to assume he was a criminal, after all, why would the cop be chasing him, otherwise? The criminal, the thief, had slowed just enough to skitter the bag across the walkway and into the low gap between the bushes.  It made a great nook.  It was just a little triangular gap, no more than ten inches high, and just as wide at the base, going straight back to the grey brick of the courtyard wall.  It was a happy coincidence that the light canvas bag blended in so well with the brick.  It might take forever for someone to notice it.  One of us bystanders that is, he thought.

Of course, it wouldn't take long for one of them to miss it.  The first man, the villain of our piece, surely had a very good idea of where he left it, and would most definitely be back for it, assuming he had the liberty to do so.  

The police officer, in contrast, might not know about the missing bag, depending on how his pursuit of the felon went.  If the man vanishes, so does any notion of what he might and might not ~ <buzz>

"Yes, Mrs. Allen?"

"Mr. Sayer, this is Mrs. Allen at reception.  I have a Mr. Berman at my desk, and he's wondering if you have a few minutes."  She always introduced herself, like he wouldn't remember who was at reception, and whose name he had just said, only seconds before.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Allen, please tell Mr. Berman that I'm booked up the rest of the afternoon, and leaving early on vacation.  I'd be glad to meet with him on my return, if he'll call and schedule something."

"Thank you, Mr. Sayer."

"Mmmm-hmm." <click>

~ any notion at all of what he might and might not still have on his person.  Of course, if he's caught, they might come to a pretty quick conclusion about the bag and start retracing steps to nail down its whereabouts.  Would he get away? Be caught? Who would likely come back the soonest?  And how soon?

He wondered, sotto voce, how long that might take.  He heard sirens droning off into the distance.  Did they have a different tone while in pursuit, he wondered, different from how they sounded in transit with dangerous felons with or without their stolen goods?

It was a large-ish bag, sack really.  Like a canvas tote.  Like a good-sized money bag. There was a glint of light as the man tossed it. Like maybe off of a lock on a money bag.

If I had my workout bag with me, he thought.  If I had something that size, he mused, it would just swallow up that canvas bag.

It's right over there.  Not twenty feet away.

<ding> <ding>

Two inbound emails, back to back.  Everyone wants a last little piece of you when they know you're going to be gone for more than a day or two.  More so when you're going to be more than a week, some of it in remote areas, and you've made it known that you've no interest in checking messages in your absence, even if you could.

Everyone is always so wrapped up in their own little things.  We miss the big picture, he told himself often, if we don't stop and clear our heads.  That's what he was about to do.  Soon, everything will be brand new again.

He glanced at the emails.  Both had a slight urgency to them - "Hope I haven't missed you.  Do you have a minute to" something or other with someone or other.  No, not really. Kind of busy at the moment.  One had a popup requesting a read receipt be sent.  Do I want to send that?  His cursor hovered over yes, then chose no.  Not really, thank you.  In fact, he decided to just mark both of them as unread.  No need to give more people than necessary the impression he's around and open for business this afternoon.  He had other things to concern himself with this afternoon.  After all, he was leaving for vacation shortly - and had a loose end or two.

He'd already been coasting through most of the day, even before the fleet-footed visitors in the courtyard.  He'd rechecked his packing list - all there - item by item.  Everything I need, except a nice bag of loot, parked under a shrub in the courtyard.  He amused himself with that thought.

Not that he knew it was stuffed full of lush green bills, but come on, on the face of it, you don't get chased through neighborhoods for carrying your lunch around in a bag.  A canvas sack.  Like a money bag. Like a bank bag with a lock on it.

It seemed full, from where he sat - and hefty.  It must've just squeaked through the gap in the shrubs.  A sudden thought occurred to him.  It could get wet.  Sometimes they change the sprinkler schedules or test at random times.  He might have seen the groundskeepers' truck around the other side just before lunch. Are they waterproof, those bags?  Under normal conditions, it probably wouldn't matter in the least if they were waterproof.  Of course, strange things happen, don't they?  Resistant, maybe, he didn't know.

And there are used grocery sacks in the break room, he told himself.  One of those - a couple of those - would protect the bag from rain or sprinklers or whatever.

In fact, it occurred to him, he could bring it inside, in the grocery sacks, two or three layers of sacks, and keep it here in the office, safe until he left at three.  It was only an hour away now.  Thirty minutes and nobody had come back for the bag.  If he went and retrieved the bag, on the way home, he could take it straight to the cops.  The station was only four blocks away and only a block out of his way.  That would definitely save them a trip, without putting himself out too much.  It was only 86 degrees.  A quick stroll in the courtyard wouldn't hurt, and would break the monotony.  Maybe he'd stop and sit for a bit on the bench across from his window.

Plus, if he saw it, someone in the offices next to his might have seen, too.  That sneaky SOB Mike Adams could be plotting to steal it even as he sat here, amidst his own plans to rescue it.  The person who came back - the hardened criminal who might already be on his way back right then, wasn't going to be happy about that, and would take it out on whoever he came across. That would serve Adams just right.  He never thought about anybody but himself.  Pretty shocking really, He forgot sometimes how much he loathed that opportunistic bastard.

He stood and looked around his office, like he was forgetting something. Or missing something.  He checked to make sure those two emails were marked unread, then locked his screen.  Always a stickler about security, he was.

He was almost on autopilot now, coming out of his office, then around the corner to the left, into the break room, and into the first drawer, bottom left, of the cabinets, like he did it every day he was there.  He walked out with what he needed, bunched up in his fist - two bags, no three - there was one stuffed inside the other.  Probably a good idea anyway, he told himself.  Out into the hallway and to the left again, toward the glaring light of the doors leading to the side entrance via the courtyard.  Trying to will himself to be invisible.  Or casual.  He thought casual was a practical substitute for invisible, and really the most he could hope for, given the current state of optical physics.

He was just about to turn to the left a third time, into the short corridor that adjoined the west wall of the courtyard, when he saw the Ramon's Landscaping truck.  He almost missed it, but there was one shaft of light glinting off the passenger side rearview mirror that, just before he turned, knifed through the hallway blinds and pierced his right eye like an arrow.  A thought.  A diversion.  He needed to make sure Ramon didn't pop into the courtyard at the wrong moment and interfere with things.

Out the double doors to the sidewalk now, with Ramon down the walk, doing something with the far flower bed.  He seemed about done, ready to move on.  Ted glanced around.  His mind darted about, wondering.  What are my options, he asked.  A glance down at his shoes gave him a thought.  Two feet to the right, he spied a pop up sprinkler head at the edge between grass and sidewalk.  He stepped to it, and, trying to move only his lower leg, slammed it three times with the heel of his right shoe, all the while watching Ramon.  On the second kick, he felt it give.  On the third, it toppled in its socket like a broken tooth.  And then he tried to look very casual, like he'd just come out for a walk, just like that, just like people do to clear their heads for a moment.  Don't glance around, he told himself, don't look suspicious.  If anyone had seen you do that, you'd know by now, he explained.  Ramon certainly didn't.  He was still shifting dirt around in the flower bed, filling holes left by dead plants.

"Oh, hey, Ramon!"

Surely, he heard me.  I yelled loud enough to raise the dead.

"Ramon!  Over here!"

"Ramon!!"

Damn it!

He walked around the bend to the main sidewalk and then another ten feet.  He wanted to be casual about it, but deaf and dumb Ramon wasn't making it easy on him.  

"Ramon?"

"Ramon ..."

"Ramon!!"

Ted tried to reset his face as Ramon looked up and began to stand, but he was sure he still looked flustered.

"Yes?"

"Sorry, Ramon, I wasn't trying to be rude, but would you come see this?"

Or should I just tell him?  What do people usually do? Doesn't matter, he's coming, shuffling over like he was the one about to go on vacation."

"Iss there a prolem?"  Ramon, though reasonably articulate and well-spoken, had a fairly strong accent that always seemed to grate on Ted.  Primarily, it seemed to Ted that Ramon had no control over his b's.  You don't want to annoy the guy by correcting him, but the word, by God, was problem, not pro-lem.  The b would disappear from problem and show up in another word, like Nobember for November. Drove Ted crazy.

But Ted kept himself from getting distracted by that this time.  Straight to the point.

"Hey, sorry to bother you, buddy," laying it on a bit thick, "I just remembered that I saw this when I came in this morning, and wanted to show you - there's a sprinkler head broken here."

What was that on Ramon's face?  Puzzlement, surprise, doubt, suspicion?

"See, right here" and he nudged it with his foot.

"Huh - thas very strenge."  Ramon wiped the back of his neck with his bandana as he pondered, walking toward Ted to get a better look.

"Yeah, maybe a cart or something took it out."

"Took it out?"

"Y'know, broke it."

"Thas very strenge."

"We've established that.  I get it.  I just wanted to catch you so you could take a few minutes to replace it."

"Wellllll ..."

I'm definitely getting annoyed now, he thought, why can't he just cooperate?  "Isn't that the kind of thing we pay you for?  Work??"

"Sure, I mean, tho, it's jus ..."

"... "strenge," yeah, I got that.  As long as you fix it, I don't give a fuck how "strenge" it is, okay!?"

That's a mistake, he chided himself.  People might not remember the whys and wheres of you asking for something.  They sure as hell remember every detail of you being a dick with them about it. But, he concluded, what am I going to do?

Ramon cocked his head.  Strange.  This whole thing was strange, but he decided to keep those words to himself.  It seemed that hotshot Ted here didn't want anything to do with strange of any flavor. He'd walked that very walk this morning, and couldn't recall anything out of place.  Still, things happen.

Ramon shrugged and turned back toward his truck.  Ted watched long enough to make sure he was going for parts and not just driving off.  Then again, driving off would work the same - keeping him out of the courtyard for five minutes was all Ted really wanted.  He shrugged and turned back toward the building.  Toward the hall and the courtyard, and the shrubs.  He now had everything he needed - three bags and ... well, however long it takes to change a damn sprinkler head.

Back into the building, then off to the right, back toward the courtyard, bags crushed and stuffed deep into his trouser pocket, crackling a little with each stride.

All systems go for mission, commander. Ted had committed himself now.

Down the hall and around two corners, he was at the courtyard doors before anyone noticed.  He slipped through one half of the double doors with nary a squeak from the hinges, then tracked vaguely in the direction of the bag.  The money.  The parcel.  After checking out two bushes he intended to never need the names of, he stopped and bent in front of the bush with the gap - and the bag.  Hmm ... what an intriguing thing there was, down in the dirt.  He bent to look and stirred up some soil with his fingertips.  At the same time, he withdrew the bags from his pocket, spread and nested them quickly, then dropped to one knee.  Grass stain, he cautioned himself, but his knee actually landed on the dry soil.  A bit of luck.  His right arm snaked in and grabbed canvas, dragging it back into the open maw of the plastic bags.  The inner bag folded in on itself, and he congratulated himself on the foresight of grabbing three.  All part of the master plan.

A little plastic-y rustle and all was done and bundled.  Not like a football, don't carry it like a football, he kept reminding himself as he strode back to the courtyard entrance, though it was difficult not to carry the bundle that way.  Protectively.  Ready to breach an opposing line.

Just by the handles, he admonished.  Like it's just groceries and nothing else.  It wasn't enormous or incredibly heavy, but he dreaded the handles on just two bags giving way.  He congratulated himself again on grabbing that third bag.  He played out snippets of scenarios in his head -   What's this you ask?  Oh, just gym clothes.  Might work out tonight.  Vacation?  Right, yeah - actually leaving for that shortly.  Should be gone already.  Was gone, stopped back by for ... these.  Stuff I forgot to pack, maybe, but then wouldn't it be at home?  Or at least, have no reason to leave the car, which I'll be using to go home and pick up the stuff I did pack?  Snacks for the trip - yeah - decided not to leave them in the hot car, y'know?

He was halfway down the hall before he settled on the most plausible bullshit he could think of.  He was pleased enough at his success to smirk.  He was tense enough that the smirk was born and lived its short life as a grimace.

He almost crashed into Lauren from HR as she stepped out of her office.  He managed to keep "the football", but dropped the smirk.

"Oh, hey, Ted, I thought you ..."

"I'm just passing through, not really here at all. In fact, I think that's my phone.  See you in two weeks, Lauren!"

Real smooth.  Great, epic calm.  You got balls of cheese there, Ted, he muttered to himself.  But still congratulated himself on not dropping "the football."  Like the briefcase of nuclear codes that followed the president everywhere.  Didn't take long for him to attach that name to it.  As he swerved to avoid Lauren, he protected it with his other hand.  Don't take my baby, lady.

There was something pliable in there, to be sure.  There was also something hard.  In there.  In the bag.  In his hands.  Almost to the office.  Almost safe.  He visualized himself walking through and shutting his door firmly without slamming, dropping the bag on his desk chair and closing his blinds.  The blinds that got him his treasure were not going to lose it for him as well.  No fucking circle of life bullshit now.

His heart pounded.  He could only think in sentences of four words or less. He spoke - to himself - in single words, highlights of his own staccato monologue.

Through the door, close the door, put it down, close the blinds, just like he pictured it.

He dropped the bag and stepped back, like it was radioactive and he still had children to father.  I t wasn't really real until he had fingerprints on the bag, and now it was.

He imagined a thousand things that might be the pliable part of the treasure - stacks of money, bricks of coke, secret documents, more money, bags of pot, a severed head ...    No telling, but hopefully not the last one.  They all had their own complications, but ... no.  Thanks, but definitely not the severed head.

It was time to go!  Whatever actual time it was, his clock was suddenly pointed to quitting time.  He couldn't rifle through the bag here.  He had to be somewhere safe, someplace inside his comfort zone.  He had to go to ground, and ground was his apartment.  It had to be his exclusive turf, and that clearly ruled out his office.

What he also needed was some place he could freak out in, if that's what the situation called for.   He had no idea if his button-down life was about to come unbuttoned.  He didn't even know if that was going to be a very good thing or a very bad thing.

Thirty feet out from his car, he popped the trunk with his remote, and barely broke stride, tossing the bag - bags - in and slamming the trun shut again.  He was in his seat and buckled before the trunk lid stopped rattling, it seemed.  It's all cool, he thought, nobody in the lot, just get your ass outta here.  Book it home.  Book it, Dano.  Zip it Ted, he told himself. You always ramble when you're tense.

He drove cautiously through the lot, then when his front tires were on pavement, gunned it, fishtailing to the left down the street.  He checked himself - forty-five in a residential area is going to get him bound up before he even made it home. He usually meandered down side streets to and from the office to avoid rush hour traffic, but now he took the main drag.  No midafternoon traffic and the shortest point between two lines?  What??  Man, I'm shaken, he thought, shortest path between two points, dude.  Get a grip.

Was it sliding around in the trunk?  What was that sound back there?  Maybe his toolbag.  Maybe his old sneakers.  Maybe the bag.  Maybe it was all spilling out, leaving an uncontainable mess.  That's what I need, cocaine all over the trunk.  There are so goddamn many drug dogs around these days, I doesn't need planting a big red beacon on the trunk of the car.

He wobble-whipped into the next parking lot entrance, bracketed by a McDonalds and a Long John Silver, with a Super Target all the way at the back of the lot.  Lacking a drive-thru, but sporting a windbreak of shrubs, the LJS offered the best cover, so he spun around behind that.

Not wanting to seem panicked, he sat for a moment.  Even when he climbed out, he paused and leaned on the back driver's side door, arms folded to keep from twitching.  One-mississippi, two-mississippi, three-mississippi... there were twenty five Mississippis strung out in a row by the time he gave up and popped the trunk.

Rummage around a bit, he told himself.  No snatch and grab.  So, he straightened the trunk, rearranging all the things that weren't out of place to begin with.  He grabbed a fistful of grocery bag handles, hefted the bundle twice, then stepped to the passenger side and dropped it in the seat.  Walked back, shut the trunk, looked around, continued his arc back to the driver's side and got in.

From there, he rolled into the McDonalds drive-thru, suddenly craving a strawberry shake.  The second car back, he tapped his foot in tune with his pulse, which he could feel in one temple.  The lead car moved forward, and with the space open, he lost his craving and barreled forward, back into his singularity.

The bag.  Fuck the shake.  It's all about the bag, he intoned slowly.  It's ... all ... about ... the bag, Ted.  Focus.  Focus.  Two miles to go, bro.  Two miles to go, bro.  Go bro, go bro.  Zip it.

Back to the singularity.  Point A to Point B.  Right now, you're just the courier, and the bag is ... the bag.  He checked his peripherals, noting his blind spots, moving to the left to steal a jump on the car crawling in front.  Swung back into the right lane, slipping under the just-turned yellow light and gliding through the intersection.  Making good time, managing the lanes.  Let the amateurs crawl along, I've got somewhere to be - and something to check out once I get there.

His heart shuddered - cop on the opposite side about two blocks down, lights flashing all over the white wall of the dry cleaners he was next to.  He rolled past cop and the driver he'd pulled over, who was standing frustrated and twitching on the curb by his rear bumper while the cop ran his ID.  Poor bastard, he smirked to himself.  He glanced at his canvas passenger and patted it.  Good baby, daddy's taking you home.  Next intersection coming up, BMW moving one lane closer to him.  Don't cut me off, bro, he warned.  Suddenly, everyone was bro.  He had a bag of unidentified contraband in his possession for ten minutes and suddenly, he's street.  The guy swerved a little closer, and Ted tapped the horn.  Back off, man - keep to your own lane!  He threw the finger at him just as the guy looked up. He slowed.  He'll be the big man.  The other guy looked forward and slowed, too.  Bastard.  Ted slowed more.  The guy slowed even more, not even looking at him any longer.  Alright, you fucker, I'm taking it, Ted resolved.

He goosed the gas, the BMW dropping behind to the right, a big opening now in front of him.  Plenty of room to move over.  He started to drag the wheel to the right and

<BANG!>

He hears the bang and feels it as the car goes tumbling over.  Side air bags shoving him to the right, front air bag blowing talc into his face at about a thousand feet a second.  Through the sunroof he sees the headlights of cars and realizes he'd blown into an intersection while playing games with the BMW. That's why the BMW was slowing.  Tumbling, bouncing, face and chest slamming over and over against the steering wheel.

It all stops for a split second, and then goes in reverse.  Big impact and bounding back to the left, spinning wildly now, upside down.  All he knows is hold on and for fucks sake don't puke, but he's too shocked to puke.  Maybe when he has some leisure time.

Things stop and his eyes begin registering non-motion again.  They stop scrolling side to side and just wobble in place.

He's on his side.  No, the whole car is on its side, his window just a layer of twinking particles against the asphalt.  His head is lying in a puddle of oil or something.  Something viscous and sticky.  He knows a good dry cleaner, but can't think of its name.  The bag is now on its side, shed of all its outer plastic wear.  Canvas, light tan.  It has a little lock at the mouth, but a space of four inches where it wasn't zipped fully.  He wants to reach out for it, but his hand won't go that far.  He's no longer talking to himself, even in his head.  He just sees.  Pure zen-like perception.  A gift.  People work for years to gain this level of perception and he has it in a moment.  A certain elation, sense of completion, sense of finality.

He knows the sirens in the background are for him, but on one level - or more - it doesn't really register.  It's all good now.  Except for the fucking bag.  Like it's taunting him.  You can't reach me, can you?  He tries again and still can't reach.  Still can't move at all, evidently.  

Oh, and the throbbing head.  That wasn't there before or maybe it had always been there.  It certainly felt like it.  His head throbbing?  He guesses so.  Who else's head would it be?  Maybe the sirens will get here before it gets dark.  Things are hazy.  Smoke from the valley maybe.  What time is sunset these days?  He doesn't know.  What time is it now?  He doesn't know.  Is this unusual, being sore and on my side?  He doesn't know. He just knows he doesn't really like this.

He's tired.  Really tired and all he wants is a nap and then he'll wake up and sort it out.  He was so tired now, he could sleep even with the sirens screaming.

"Damn sirens.  I should move to a quiet neighborhood." Somebody said that.  In his head.  Some words were coming back, anyway.

"I'm just so fucking tired.  First a nap, then moving, maybe to the valley.  Where they have the trees and ... that other word."

"Nap, then the other stuff ..."

Or, maybe just the nap, and then nothing.

Turns out the EMTs didn't need the sirens on the way back.  You can't always make it in time.

Arthur Miller & Marilyn Monroe - proofsheet - by Richard Avedon

Absolution Like the Rain

There is nothing about that day I don't remember, even decades later, except for who the Cubs were up against. It was raining. It was just past five o'clock. The Cubs were playing someone I can't recall on WGN. If I thought harder about it, maybe I'd remember. Probably not, so I'll just lie and say it was the Giants, and then move on. That's what it was then, Cubs and Giants in a memorable match-up, one for the ages, in fact. Whoever the hell it was, I'd watch the game for a few minutes then watch the rain for a few minutes. Trucks would go by and splash muddy water right up onto the pub's front window and I'd watch it run down again.

It was going to end up a good day, I felt sure. We needed the rain. I've known very few farmers, but we all act like farmers on the Great Plains. We grow serious and sage and look off into the distance and tell one another how a bit of rain was a good thing, and that we were about due, and how much it was going to green-up the lawn and the shrubs. It's hard to be in a bad mood when the rains come to town. No day is good for a wake, but this was probably as close to not bad as it gets. Besides, one thing my dad and I always agreed on was that rain was good for somebody's crops somewhere, so I'd take that as justification enough.

Now and then, the murmuring of the broadcast crew would cut away to something different and I'd glance back in from the rain. A news update - Nixon shaking his head, refusing to do something or other. Then some Senate hearing room, someone looking over his bifocals, sitting at a green felt table, shaking his own head, no doubt reacting to Nixon's head shake. Everybody saying no, and nobody doing anything. That's what it felt like, anyway, with still more head shaking to come at the evening news.

Mike called from down the bar as he rinsed glasses, "Hey, Timmy, sorry, Father Tim, you good for now?"

I was good. Shot and a beer. The shot was gone in a flash, but I was still working the beer. Don't get sloppy before they even get here, I told myself.

Mike had owned the Three Rocks Pub for decades, through several name changes, maybe since the time it was a cafe. I'd known him going on twenty years, though I was only in my mid-twenties myself. My old man would bring me along with him when I was barely five or six. Back then, it was less shocking to have a kid tag along when you went into your neighborhood pub. My mom would send him on errands with me - "It'll be good for you, some time with your son, plus I get some quiet" - and we'd hit the hardware store or the pharmacy, or take TV tubes down to the repair shop to test them. Our TV was always blowing tubes. We'd have to load them into a box and take them down to the shop, then plug each of them into the machine. One at a time we'd try them until one failed, and that's the one we'd replace. Four months later, a pop and a flash, and it would be time to take them all down again. Each time a different one failed. Second hand TVs will do that. 

After the errand, we always seemed to end up downtown, maybe stop at the news stand where he'd get a dirty paperback from the little room behind the curtains, and I'd get a fistful of comics. Then, we'd find ourselves on 3rd Street. He'd say "Hey, let's stop in the Three Rocks for a minute" like he was surprised to find us anywhere near the place. So, Mike had been my personal bartender for something like two decades. At first, he'd hand me a piece of bubble gum and a soft drink when I came in. After a dozen years, I reached that magic age where he started handing me a shot and a beer, just like the grown ups - the other grownups, I should say. Except for the time I was off at seminary, that's how it was for countless Wednesdays over the years. Except that day was Tuesday. Wednesday is - was - evening Mass instead of morning. It was also CYO night, and even if Father Manuel were doing Mass, I never had anyone to fill in with the kids. The church's schedule is my schedule. Well, was my schedule.

It was almost a quarter after five. Somewhere off to the West, there were a few breaks in the clouds. Shafts of light were bouncing eastward down the street, turning lonely streaks of rain golden. The showers were moving north to south, though, so it was unlikely we'd get any more sunlight than that.  Suddenly, I was thirstier. "Hey, Mike, I wanna change my answer" I wiggled my finger at my empty shot glass.

Mike swung a whiskey bottle around from the back counter. One-two-three-four count; the bottle was back on the counter before the ripples had completely settled. Two seconds later, the drinking was done, too. I went back to looking out the window, my fingers absent-mindedly but efficiently striping the side of my beer glass, sweeping away the condensation one narrow column at a time. People passed by, indoors and out. Outdoors, they would race by, pushing through to their destination and hoping to get there with some article of clothing still dry. A few glanced in with a wisp of longing draping their faces. They all knew that, in just a few steps, they could be inside, dry and slightly less thirsty. But they had to settle for just the imagining for now, dragging their eyes and attention back out the window and down the rain-splashed sidewalk.

I was sitting quietly, trying to will the Cubs into action. Sure, I could've used my priestly powers and prayed for them to rally, but that wouldn't have been fair.  Nor had I found that to be generally effective.  Off at the right edge of my awareness, I realized I was being watched, not an unusual occurrence. Back then, when I was young, I was occasionally referred to as Father WhatAWaste, though I've never been that good looking.  The stare was always for the collar, yes. Back then, we were all still wearing our blacks everywhere. It was only from the 80s on that we started dressing like civilians in public. The reason for staring at the collar varied, though. There were those who stared daggers because they were angry at the church, and truth be told, it was often justified.  Others stared out of curiosity, seldom seeing a priest out in the wild, and sometimes puzzlement, should they be surprised at the idea that a priest might find himself in a bar with a beverage in front of him. The third big group were the ones that most often came up to talk.  They wanted to ask something or they wanted to ask for something. "Hey, father, what the heck is transubstantiation?" or "Hey, father, think you could help a fella out with ..."

I just sat.  That's what you do.  You don't want to spook them unnecessarily - or encourage them unnecessarily.  I could tell it was the same woman who was at the end of the bar when I came in.  She was a little older than me, maybe early 30s, dressed up a little bit, but not like she was going to the opera.  She was downtown for a job interview and had nerves that needed watering down, maybe.  Definitely nervous.  She'd had two drinks to every one of mine so far, and was working on more.

I waited, and then saw her in motion, very slowly growing in size until she was beside me. 

"Father ...?" her hand was on the lip of the bar, where it had been all the way up to me, just to steady her a bit.

"Yes?"

"Are you Catholic or ... the other?"

"Yes, I'm Catholic - how may I help you, Miss ...?

I left the sentence open, but she didn't fill it in with her name.

“I … uhh … it’s about my mother. She’s Catholic. So am I, or at least I grew up that way ..." I knew that if I blinked wrong, she'd flee, so I just held myself steady and tried a calm smile.  I wished she'd leave, but, that's not what I signed up for.  "Anyway, so, she's having surgery day after tomorrow, female troubles, which she just found out a few weeks ago.  Is there a special prayer or something ... like ...?"

"Like a Mass in her name, maybe? Or a novena? Does she need someone to visit her? It might be better if it were her parish priest, but I could make sure ...?"

I was already overwhelming her. Too many choices. I put my hand out, resting it on her steadying hand, which had turned claw like, digging into the edge of the bar for more traction.  "I'll say a Mass for her, how about that? And I can give you a card if you need more."

"Sure, yeah - yes, I mean. That would be nice.  I could tell her." She reached for her pocketbook. "Oh, I'm forgetting myself - how much is customary for ...?"

"No, please - no donation. What about you, though?"

This puzzled her and she started to step back. Suddenly, she seemed afraid I wanted her soul, or something even more intimate. "Me." Her intonation was flat. It wasn't a question, but a conclusion. Not the first time, clearly, she'd had that suspicion of someone.

"You're very upset. Should we pray for a moment?" I took her hands in mine, expecting her to simply lower her head. I'd wing something, she'd thank me, and hopefully feel a little better, and then we'd go back to our separate concerns.

She relaxed a little, but then looked furtively around the bar and then over my shoulder to the windows.  "Oh, father, that's really not ... I appreciate it, but ... I'm not very ..." 

She took her hands back. "I'll be sure and let my mother know, father.  I know she'll appreciate it."  With or without my help, she'd bucked herself back up, strong fake smile on her face now.  We were done. I think she actually curtsied a little before returning to her stool, back at the barroom's end.  After that, she kept glancing my way - or at least looking past me at the window.  I realized she'd left without my card, and was going to walk it over to her, but decided that she was probably happier without it.

I wasn't sure I'd done anything helpful. That's part of the job, also, not just having faith in God, but having faith that you're actually being useful, because, like God, you seldom get to see it clearly. When I was young, it bothered me more than it does now. The rest of my beer vanished pretty quickly, and Mike brought me my second, along with another shot.  "Slow," I reminded myself, "they're not even here yet."

Two older guys came in and lingered by the door as they shook water from their jackets. The older of the two also had an umbrella, which got shaken and stowed in the rack next to the door. I watched them, but they weren't who I was waiting for. I was expecting two of my father's friends, men of a punctual generation, arriving early only slightly more often than they arrived late, which was decidedly seldom. They wouldn't likely show up until just a few minutes to six. The older you get, the more predictable your habits, and these guys were old enough to be very predictable.

My eyes followed this other pair to a table off to the right, then let them go, drifting back to the Cubs game. Bottom of the seventh, Cubs ahead by three, but that might not last. Birds of despair often came to roost where the Cubs were involved.

A man in a big camel hair coat shoved through the door, shaking himself and his umbrella as he pushed back through the bar as though working himself upstream. Navigating around the tables, he brushed against my shoulder. "Sorry, buddy ... father, I mean, sorry father!" Sometimes, it's nice not being noticed. I waved a "no problem" and watched out of the corner of my eye for him to reappear as he passed behind me. He was very focused.  I turned to face the bar directly so I could see him out of the corner of my eye, and my guess was right. He was making a beeline straight toward my new friend. He kept leaning further and further to the left, and I briefly wondered if he'd started his drinking earlier somewhere else, but then I realized the truth of the matter. He was leaning left to block my line of sight. She probably wasn't his wife or sister ... or cousin, real estate agent, stock broker ... Tupperware dealer ... none of that.  He'd just rushed from the office to meet an attractive younger woman, dressed up a little but not too much, in a not-too-brightly lit bar at the less busy end of downtown.  

It only took him a few words and a gesture over his shoulder - a gesture my direction - for her to pick up her coat and gloves and head for the door, with him following.  They swung a wide arc around me, along the opposite wall. Sure, there was more room to maneuver back there, but mostly it was the distance it afforded them from me, a distance she augmented by powdering her nose and scratching her cheek as she walked, at least until she was more back than front to me, and then they were both out the door.  It was the adult equivalent of the child's gambit of "If I can't see him, maybe he can't see me." There was any number of less priestly places they might have been headed, maybe just to the nearest pub without a built-in priest. Then again, they could have decided to adjourn and move on to what was surely their final destination anyway. That end of downtown wasn't lacking in motels with casual check-in procedures, and probably still isn't. Afterward, she'd go home to a lonely apartment, or maybe her room at her mother's house, and he'd go home and kiss his wife on the lips and hug his kids tight.

Was I judging? I suppose I was, but not so much now.  She's probably a grandmother with her own kids and grandkids to hug, and her own husband to kiss. Like all of us, she's got her own regrets and her own things that keep her grounded in the world.  If we're lucky, we have the latter.

I turned from that game to the one on TV. The Giants had taken a one run lead, and the Cubs had two outs left to undo the damage. The count was full with two men in scoring position. The crowd was on its feet. The reliever was starting his windup. The front door opened. Rain blew in, followed by Henry and Roy, who shook themselves like dogs, then settled quickly into a booth at the front window, but farthest from the door. I grabbed my beer and overcoat and headed to their table, leaving my empty shot glass behind.  It wasn't going to hurt me to wait a few more minutes for the next. Since my coat was already starting to dry, I lifted Henry's from the coat rack attached to the booth and stuck mine under.

Roy was the first to notice me. He stood up from the booth and gave me a big back-patting hug. "Hey, Tim. Your dad would like this, one more for old times. How ya keepin'? Holding up okay?" Ray had met my dad in high school, and they'd been thick as thieves since.

I shrugged like you do for questions like that. Or you say "Eh, could be worse" or something along those lines. Why should you invite misfortune or divine retribution by complaining about the hand you're holding?

Henry reached for my hand across the table as I sat down. He gave me the once over. "You're lookin' okay, Timmy. Guess the priesthood agrees with you."

I shrugged again. I knew Henry too well to throw out some platitudes about the satisfactions of doing the Lord's work. Henry had met my dad and Roy right out of high school. He and my dad went into the Marines and got stationed together. They weren't that much alike, and Henry always set my teeth on edge, but saving my dad's life in North Africa had earned him a permanent invitation from my dad.

Even though I hadn't seen them in years, aside from my dad's funeral, I'd known these guys for decades, from back before time mattered to me. They were part of my dad's Wednesday night circle, usually here at the Three Rocks, but sometimes at Grey's, where maybe they'd have a slopper with their beers, or maybe Gus'.  Now and then, they went up to some dives on the mesa, or maybe one of the joints out on Northern that the steel workers would fill up at five o'clock.  Usually, though, it was right here. They'd been a quintet starting out, but Manny died of an aneurism and Kent moved to Ohio to spend more time with grandkids.

"Y'know, Tim, they changed the booths out a few years back, but ... " Ray looked around, trying to recall the old layout "... when you'd come in with your dad, sometimes you'd sit with us up at the bar, but sometimes he'd park you right about here so you could look out the window."

"All this time, I thought it was so I wouldn't be in the way, and so you guys could say whatever you want without, y'know, little pitchers."

He watched my face for a moment, then gave a sideways shrug. "You could see it a couple of ways, I guess. That's how I always saw it, but I guess I could be wrong." I'd embarrassed him without really meaning to. I was on edge, but it wasn't his fault.

I shrugged a half-hearted concession of my own. "Hey, it was a long time ago." I don't know why I was arguing with Ray. I never had reason for a face-off with Ray. Harry Truman said one of the best compliments he could give was to say someone was alright from the navel out in all directions.  That was Ray.  Henry may have been my godfather by way of North Africa, but Ray was the one who acted like it.

"And eventually you were joining us up there with the brews and the stories." He raised his glass toward me and smiled. I did the same.

"Yes, indeed. My move up from Pepsi and Bazooka Joe to Boilermakers."

"When I became a man, I put away childish things." I was looking at Roy, but his lips didn't move with the words. It took a moment for me to realize that the words came from Henry. I couldn't remember ever hearing him quote scripture before. I'd have remembered. I'd certainly have remembered if I'd heard him quote it in such a surreal context.

"First Corinthians, 13:11." That was my contribution. Henry squinted like he didn't get the reference. I moved on.

With the ice broken, the storytelling began in earnest, like a long, intricate poker game. I'll see your story about the time everyone piled into Manny's station wagon and went up to fish at Lake DeWeese at three in the morning, and raise you a story about what happens when you drink too much at your son's softball tournament and throw up on the trophies. Things happened that way. My dad was a good guy, with the occasional embarrassing, exuberant lapse.

Glancing at the rain, I remembered a different rainy day when Angie, Bill and I had been down at the park playing. I was no more than eleven, so they were six and eight, respectively. Things got dark and it started to rain, so we took off for home.  We'd made it almost to the carport when dark turned to dark green and hail started thudding down around and at us.  By the time we were under cover, the dime-sized hail had become quarter-sized, then very quickly as big as fifty cent pieces.  We were actually getting hit by fragments of ice thrown off when the hail came down right around the covering.  Looking up was like watching a bag of jiffy pop on the burner.  The sheet metal was going from very flat to very dented quickly. We huddled closer to the car.  "Listen," I told them.  "We might have to hide under the car if it gets worse. We can't make it to the house right now."  They nodded back, the fright on their faces speaking silent volumes. Then we heard our dad yelling from the front step.  "Tim! Bill! Angie!"  He got it out twice before I yelled back loud enough for him to hear above the doomsday clatter. "We're under the carport! We're under the carport!"  Their fears had made them mute; mine had helped me call out.

The front door banged shut again, and we just looked at each other.  We were resigned to wait out the storm. What could he do?  He'd probably get killed if he came out in this.

The three of us looked down at the front bumper, considering our next best option for refuge.  The hail wasn't getting any smaller. Worse, occasionally we'd hear a very loud bang when something even larger hit the covering.  Angie and Bill's faces were clear. They were wondering the same thing I was.  We expected any moment for the hail to start coming through, or maybe start bouncing off the sidewalk and ricocheting at us.

One of the bangs sounded different, though. Duller and more distant, not from above, but back toward the house.  I looked up and around and saw our dad running out the back door, covered in the heavy quilt my grandmother had made for my parents when they married.  He must've had a pillow under the quilt for more protection, because the top was wide and rectangular.  When he got to the carport, we raced for him, but he said "One at a time.  Girls first - Angie!" She tucked herself under the blanket and grabbed hold of his belt and they were off. Fifteen feet to the house, and they were at the steps just as mom opened the back door.

His improvised shuttle ran twice more, first for Billy and then for me.  At the last slam of the back door, all five of us were standing in the kitchen, looking a little astonished.  I looked around at everyone and started to cry. Bill and Angie followed after with their tears. I felt foolish, being the oldest kid, but the first to cry. We were safe and I was crying.  Dad came and put a hand on my shoulder, and I shook my head at my shame.  He pulled me closer in a half-hug and said, "It's okay.  I know it's scary sometimes being in charge."  I didn't realize until he spoke that that was exactly what I was reacting to.  I was only in charge and under fire for a moment, and I did okay, but it scared me how much Bill and Angie had been counting on me in that moment.

After playing the whole event through in my silent mind, I told Roy and Henry the story, which was one they'd never heard before.

After that, I told them about a time when I was fourteen.  My dad had just come back from visiting my mother in the hospital, and was really frustrated with how her cancer treatments were going. He came in and made sure we all had supper and were sent off to bed, then he went out in the back yard and tore half of our gazebo down until the steam was gone, his hands were bloodied, and his breathing came in sharp, hacking coughs. I watched out my bedroom window, absorbing more than watching or recording.  For my own reasons, I spent years trying to forget that story as the years passed, but it pursued me now, reminding me of the depth of his emotion, the raw side of his anger, in the face of a bitter wrong. Both Ray and Henry had come over the next weekend, along with a guy from my dad's work crew, and helped put it back in order. As far as I know, none of them discussed anything about it, sharing any emotions overtly. He asked "Hey, if you're not doing anything Saturday, think maybe you could give me a hand?" They said "Sure." When they got there, someone said "... son of a bitch, Steve ..." and he said "Yeah, I know ..." That was the extent of their conversational therapy, and the extent of his confession. "Yeah, I know ..." Sometimes the best and the worst you can expect is "Yeah, I know."

Henry changed the tone while still carrying forward the violence theme.  He insisting on telling us about the time he, my dad, and two guys both named Darren got drunk, got into a fight, and busted up a bunch of chairs and tables at La Tronicas, right in the middle of some old couple's anniversary dinner. It was a couple of weeks after they graduated high school. They were all going off to the military to "get straightened up and learn a trade," as my grandfather put it at the time. Ray shook his head. I shook my head. Henry's head shook with laughter. I'd heard the story before, and like most of Henry's proudest stories, it was Henry and the two Darrens causing trouble, or whoever was tagging along with Henry, and my dad getting sucked in to try to settle things.

Trying to get the stories back on a more positive track, Ray reminded me how my dad pretty much single-handedly ran the Parish Bazaar at St. Leander's every year, and how people would always say "You want it done, get Steve." Or Stefano, Esteban, Stefan, etc., depending on the ethnicity of whoever was talking. We had Anglos, Italians, Hispanics, Poles and others, but mostly the first three. "And," he said, "let's not forget boy's boxing, which is what kept a skinny bookworm like you from getting beat up every week - until you got that protective collar, of course." He slapped me on the arm, then said, "Whoa. Guess you kept fit at the seminary. Boy's got a bicep like an oak there, Henry." Henry waved the comment down, taking Roy's word for it.

I shrugged for what must've been the fifteenth time.  Part of the job. Priests are supposed to be humble and self-deprecating.  "Yeah, well, after a while, it became a habit.  I got used to it, so I kept up with it in the seminary.  And, it does make a pretty good workout."

"Your old man was pretty tough, Timmy, almost as tough as me, maybe. Think you coulda took him?"  Henry cocked his head and made an obvious point of sizing me up.

"What the hell kinda question is that, Henry?"

"Ease up, Roy. It's a damn joke."

Roy and I traded glances. Neither of us needed to waste our breath saying anything. Just let it die.

Mike came by to welcome the guys, and to slipstream into the conversation for a moment. "This guy - he's 'Father Somebody' now, but back in the day, I used to give him a pop and gum when he'd come in with his dad. Now, look at him. He talks with the bishop and he can still out drink the likes of you old ladies. His father, God rest him, would be proud."

They nodded and raised their glasses, which happened to be empty, in my direction. Mike clamped a iron-like hand down on my shoulder and scooped our empties up with the other. "You know he would." he said directly to me.

The refills came back on a tray. Beer and a shot, beer and a shot, another shot, then beer and something golden in a snifter. Before any of us could ask, Mike said "Benedictine" and clapped my back. "You should develop a taste for it, for when you become a bishop!" He laughed deeply, not in jest, but like he was already richly celebrating that moment sometime in his vaguely imagined future, when I might be consecrated as bishop. I wouldn't necessarily have wanted to be his pastor, but he was always "good people."  He hoisted his shot and called out "Down the hatch, boys - slainte!" A mumbled chorus replied in kind. I threw back my Benedictine as they threw back their whiskeys, then the shot glasses vanished into Mike's catcher's mitt of a hand. Mike took himself back to the bar, satisfied that he had made a contribution to the moment.

The three of us wandered through other topics, with alcohol and our wobbly conversational legs taking us in circles and tangents. I brushed aside mention of talking with the bishop - "it's nothing ... all the priests talk to him at least twice a year ..." or me becoming a bishop - "I just don't see that happening. A, I'm not a politician, and B, I've got plenty other things on my plate."

We talked some about how Angie and Bill were doing.  They were both younger than me, and after mom died, they both had some rough times adjusting.  I didn't seem to have as much trouble, but maybe I just didn't have a lot of time to have a rough time.  I was in middle school when she got sick and a sophomore when she died, and almost immediately after I transferred from public school into minor seminary, which kept me plenty busy.  Angie was three years younger and Billy was two years back of her.  They had memories and conflicts, and maybe more time to grow together and heal each other, and I had studies.

The light outside was starting to fade, going from rain grey to twilight blue.

I checked my watch. Back in the day, especially in the days of Manny and Kent, these sessions usually ran upwards of three hours, but I had no idea how long this might last, whether shorter or longer. It was our own little wake for my dad, in a place that was essentially his sanctuary. It would take as long as it took, and I just needed to let go for a while, let it play itself out.  Plus, there was a conversation I'd been waiting two weeks to have with Henry, and if he was loosened up more by the time we had it, I thought maybe it would be a good kind of loose.  Once he caught up, I just kept pace with Roy, or vice versa. Henry was easily outdrinking us, having three to each of our two. I knew his liver had lots of practice, but even so, I was a little surprised. Still, sometimes things happen for a reason.

Half the time when Henry drank, he'd spiral down into his own simmering pool of loathing.  This was turning into one of those times.  Already, he had gotten to the point where he was popping off about just about everything. Maybe the only people who didn't piss him off when he got drunk were himself, Jesus Christ, and Suzanne Pleshette.  I don't know the specific reason for his attraction to her, but he had an unshakeable fixation. When he was really drunk, it was just him and Suzanne Pleshette who held his favor. When it came right down to it, I suspected it was really only Ms. Pleshette that he didn't hate. He would fill his own head, his own space, with racist, sexist, creepy questions and comments, then unleash them on the surroundings. It was that unleashing that tended to cause him the most problems - the fact that he didn't keep it at his table or in his group. Already, he'd made comments about pretty much everyone within a dozen feet, which included five tables worth of people. Women grimaced and turned away, men squinted and shifted in their seats, prepared to get up if it turned necessary. Henry hadn't always been this bad, but I'd heard that by time my dad died, you could count on angry bystanders when Henry was drinking with you.

Roy and I admittedly had left him untethered for a while. He was going to do what he wanted in the long run, and sometimes a person got tired of playing nursemaid with him. Once we started paying attention again, I tried to get him to hold it down a little, as did Roy, albeit maybe a little less gentle than me.  Still, Roy didn't want to completely spoil things with a confrontation, and I wasn't inclined to rush a confrontation with Henry, especially one I considered off topic.  I apologized to people he was bothering, whether face to face or with a distant gesture. Before we could even ask, Mike signaled to us that Henry was cut off.

Roy and I talked for a bit about his family, while Henry stewed and threw out wisecracks, then we both came to the same conclusion.  Our time was done.  Now was the sending off.  At that point in time, our paths really hadn't crossed much for years. Given our ever diverging lives, I knew that that goodbye could easily be the big goodbye.  I didn't want to rush it for the sake of my dad's memory, but I also didn't want to drag it on and on.

Also, Roy had had more than his fill of Henry. It was time for him to leave, and the sooner he could talk Henry into the car, the sooner he could drop in at his house and be rid of him for a while. After several minutes of wrangling, Henry was far from persuaded that he was ready to go. I told Roy to leave him in my hands. I'd try to get him sobered a bit, then deliver him home myself. On the plus side, Henry's hostility curve was beginning to drop. I was hoping we'd get out of there without someone taking a swing at him, and it looked like we might have a chance. This was one of those times when having the collar was a tactical advantage.  People would say, "Well, okay, father, I'll let you handle it."  What they usually didn't add, but always meant was "... for now."  Trust in a priest's abilities only goes so far.

Roy slipped his coat on and paid his tab with Mike before slipping out into the wet night. Henry and I were alone with one another for the first time in maybe a decade.

He was still in no condition to go more than twenty feet under his own power, and maybe even with an assist. I glanced around the bar. There were some unoccupied booths toward the back, near the restrooms. I figured the thing to do was get him not only away from other people, but also closer to a place he could more conveniently be sick. I helped him wobble down the length of the pub, then poured him into one side of the farthest booth. I took the other side, facing out, so I could watch. I didn't want either of us to get ambushed by someone with a slow fuse. I caught Mike's eye and gestured for two coffees.

"You're a good kid, Timmy." Henry started nicely enough, the words anyway, but the tone was denigrating. The words themselves almost immediately became so, too. The next thing he said was that I "didn't understand the real world." According to him, it was a good thing I became a priest so I could hide from the bad things out in the real world. He said he was sure that my dad worried about right up until his death that I was too weak and kind, that he hadn't toughened me up enough. I only half believed him, and let him go on. I wanted to see how much he'd say, how close he'd get to hanging himself with his own tongue. He told some more stories about adventures with my dad, mostly when they were young, like just after the war. My dad was trying to stay in a trade school and learn tv and radio repair, and Henry was trying to hold down an apprentice carpenter job long enough to make it to journeyman. Still they'd go out a lot, and usually it was Henry causing trouble. Henry drinking too much, Henry starting fights that my six foot father had to finish for him, Henry harassing girls and getting too fresh, Henry stealing tools from his job.  Not that he put it that way, but I knew the lay of the land.  Because of the debt my dad felt he owed him, he was always within arm's reach of Henry's trouble. 

I thought maybe Henry was inching close to the particular confession I was waiting for, but not there yet. He was telling his own "war stories" now and reveling in his corrupt ways, ways he'd learned, he said, from his father, who was "a raging bull with huge brass balls," as he put it. "... taught me everything I know" he said.  Lay end to end all of the stories I'd actually heard from Henry over the years, and my dad had probably saved his life several times over for the one time in North Africa.  There was no debt, and hadn't been for a while. My dad had a surplus in the bank.  It was Henry running a deficit, and a pretty huge one based on everything I knew.

"Now, your dad, Tim ... he was a good guy. It was good for him that he met your mother, God rest her. I'm surprised she put up with me, Miss Nancy Purepants, but ~" I reached down and grabbed his wrist to get his attention. Steely. Vice-like in fact. I shook my head at him. I wasn't about to let him go there. He could shit on me and shit on my dad, but he was going to leave my mom out of this. He squinted up toward me, his eyes zigzagging up until finally finding my own. He knew what he was doing, and why I was responding like I was. He was intent on going for broke. "Y'know, your mom had the cutest little ~" 

I shifted my grip, twisting his wrist around and snapping it into an acute and painful angle, which seemed to help regain his attention and shift his focus.  "You know what makes for even better conditioning than boxing, Henry?  Ju-jitsu.  You should try it some time."

I had the table for leverage, so he wasn't going anywhere, not with his wrist intact. He yelped and his eyes watered. He tried twisting out of it, but that only pulled him downward, bouncing his nose against the table. As drunk as he was, he had left himself few options other than surrender.

"I had a special reason for wanting to see you tonight, Henry.  My dad told me a story just before he died. Kind of a deathbed confession, though it wasn't really about him. It was about you and something you did - something he let you keep secret and hidden all these years." I raised my eyebrows and waited for him to react. Would he argue, deny, plead? Cagey, even when drunk, he waited to see if I was going to continue.  When he finally looked up, he tried to read my eyes. He didn't know what I was talking about, but not because he was innocent.  Clearly, he was trying to figure out exactly which sin I was referring to, which I'd gotten wise to.

Tell me about your thing for young girls, Henry." His face changed a little, but the searching didn't stop.  What could he be wondering about, unless there were multiple incidents with multiple girls. Even if my dad wasn't aware of any stories than the one he told me, it was pretty clear that Henry had plenty.

I gave his jack-knifed wrist a little turn and saw heat in his eyes. His mind was drunk enough for a savage fight, given the chance, but his body was too drunk for it to end well for him. I was going to stay in control, he would confess to me, and then we'd both move on.

"Tell me - specifically - about Natalie Alvarez. I want to hear her story from your mouth, and then I'll take you home."

At that, his face relaxed. It threw me for a loop momentarily, then I realized why and a chill passed through me. Natalie wasn't the only one. He had bigger, darker secrets that had nothing to do with Natalie, episodes that dwarfed whatever he had done with her. She was a minor accident that my father happened to stumble upon. Furthermore, I'd just shown him my entire hand. Not only was Natalie the only one l I knew about, but once I got his "confession" all I intended to do was drive him home.

With a tight smile that bordered on a smirk, Henry began to speak, sotto voce, so that only he and I could hear, "Bless me father, for I have sinned ..." It wasn't so much the smile that did it, but when he paused at that point and winked. That was the thing that pushed my button. With a mind of its own, my free hand slapped him. I didn't glance up, but knew some people had to have turned to look back at us at that point.

"Start again - without the sacrilege, or I'll break it for you right now."

"There's no story, boy. I could tell she wanted it. I was going to give it to her. Your father came in and interrupted things, then got bent out of shape about it."

"You're a liar. Natalie was eleven. She quiet and shy and a year behind me at Parkview. I knew her because we both helped in the library.. Are you seriously going to try to pretend she came on to you?"

"Gimme a break, Timmy. I knew the family. Natalie was on her way to being a first rate little whore, just like her mother and aunts. It was only a matter of time before she showed her colors, boy."

"How did you get her alone?"

"I was clearing things out of the storeroom in the parish school. I took her along to find some books that Sister Innocentia wanted while I reorganized. Trust me, she was only too happy to help. We both rummaged around a while, then I asked her come to the back of the store room and give me a hand with something else."

He stopped long enough to imply that he thought the story was done. I tugged on his wrist to assure him that it wasn't. "Don't worry, your dad turned up a few minutes after that, looking for paint rollers. All I'd done was grope her titties and get one hand in her panties. If she hadn't been blubbering and squirming so much, there's no telling what your sainted father might have walked in on by then. I'd probably have had her doubled over one of the storage containers, and her precious little ..." he cocked his head at me, then changed tack, "... so little Father Timmy, am I getting you hard? You would've liked her, even before you became a priest. She was so cute and perky ... wait ... you did know her, didn't you?  In school together, right.  Library and stuff. Don't tell me you never thought of dipping your wick into ~" The second slap was even louder than the first, but this time, nobody bothered to turn. They had been surprised by the first. By the second, they knew that they didn't want it to be any of their business.

He lolled his head while I tried to keep myself under control.  I wasn't sure what else I was wanting from him, especially given his state of sobriety at the moment.  I knew I wasn't going to get any contrition from him.  That was a lost cause.  Was there anything more to tell me about Natalie?  I hoped not. As for the others ... no, I didn't know where to lead him, and didn't expect to want to hear what more he'd have to say. It was time to go, to put this all behind me.

"Listen, Henry, you're going to get up now, and step out back to get yourself together. I'm going to walk out front and get my car, and then you and I are going to leave here. I'll close you out with Mike. You're done. Now, get up."

With the help of the bench back and the coat rack, he ratcheted himself up to his feet. I could've helped him, but I couldn't stand the thought of touching him. He shuffled unsteadily past the men's room and up against the alley door. Before he pushed out, though, he turned and smirked at me again. "So, you're not going to make me promise on my mother's grave to never do anything like that again? That's what your father did, guess he probably told you. Maybe it would actually work, you bein' a priest and all. Anyway, thanks for being my confessor, padre."

He slipped out the door and it banged softly behind him. I wanted to just go into the men's room and throw up for an hour or two. This jackal - laughing at my naive father, who trusted and believed him, laughing in my face and claiming me as his priest confessor. I felt like pushing him into a dark hole somewhere.

I swung by Mike on the way out and said "He's sick - can I get him out of here and square both of us with you tomorrow?"

"You know you can, Tim. Hey, if I can't trust the bishop's right hand, who can I trust? Am I right?"

"He's very sick." I said absently.

Mike glanced toward the back door and shook his head. "He is at that, Tim. A long time now. Your dad, God rest him, was a saint for putting up with him all these years."  I nodded and hit the front door.

I trotted through the rain to my Olds, which was down at the far end of the block. I spun back over to the Three Rocks and whipped around the building into the alley. Henry was under the overhang at the back door, leaning against the building, out of the rain. I pulled up alongside and was about two paces away when he glanced up. I thought about taking my gloves off, in case he decided to throw up on me, but I decided that if my overcoat could take it, my gloves could.

"Where the fuck you been, you little shit? I'm soaked to the bone."

I kept calm while he was saying it. I really did.  I was ten feet away and very calm, very focused. I knew my objective. I'd get him in the car and home, then my hands were clean of him. That was fine for me, sure, protecting myself from getting tangled up, but I then remembered Natalie in the library, and realized I got tangled up the moment my dad confessed to me. I saw her face laughing at something silly I'd done. Now, I was trapped. I knew and had to do something.  I knew, and held their pain in my hands.  I had to say, to do something, and he would get justice for those girls all those years ago. Or ... maybe there were new girls somewhere, too, a trail of violations right up to today.  He could've stopped on his way to the Three Rocks to molest someone, for all I knew. My head felt like it was filling with water.  I felt the pressure, and everything outside was muffled. He could've done it even today, but I could stop him from doing it again.  My dad didn't stop him, though.  His naïve trust in his friends failed him, and that failure cascaded down to Natalie and all the others, whatever unnamed others there might have been. Maybe people would find out about my father knowing. Every good thing he'd ever done would be darkened and I would be powerless to protect him. From a more self-serving perspective, I wouldn't even be able to protect my own career in the church.

The alley became a river of shame, and I swam upstream, trying to reach Henry before I got swept away, before I drowned inside my own head. He didn't realize what danger we were in, watching me with a sick sneer on his face.  I was almost to him.  I could stretch an arm out and grab his collar and drag him into the car where we'd both be safe. My left hand scraped at his coat until it reached his collar and locked on. Once I had a hold on him, though, the waters began to boil.

My arm turned to flame, my neck tensed, and the tension spread down the length of my arms, flowing down into my hands, and tightening them into fists. I made a bargain with myself. I would punch him once, just once and then stop myself. With that satisfaction, I'd load him into my car, and once I delivered him home, our next meeting would be with the law between us. With a fistful of his collar, I yanked him forward, then drove the other fist full force into his stomach, doubling him over. I told myself to stop, even said it out loud. The first shot was too satisfying, though. His pained expression, the guttural sound he heaved out as he folded around my fist seemed to drive the waters back. I watched myself from somewhere upstream, repeating that first shot over and over. I knew I should intervene, but I couldn't move myself to. 

A few more hits, and I managed to back myself a few feet, trying to get some real distance from the situation, wanting to regain some sanity. No sooner had I stepped back than I reached for him again. I spun him against the car and resumed flailing. As my fists pummeled his face, bending him back against the car, I asked him, "So, Henry, correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounded in the bar like you were asking to have the shit beat out of you. You were, right? You were just asking for it, right? Just like Natalie and who knows how many little girls were just asking to be fondled or raped, right? I'm sure you wouldn't want anyone to come out and get all bent out of shape and try to stop me, now would you, Henry?"

Whatever his reply was, it gurgled out between gasps of air. His broken nose was leaking blood not only into his throat but down his face and over his mouth. All of that was keeping him busy enough, but he was also trying to figure out how to make his arms do something useful to protect himself. That was alright, though, because when his arms moved to cover his face, I punished his belly. When he shifted his shield down, I shifted my aim up. Easy, right? You don't have to train for fifteen years to figure that out.

My arms were tired, my legs, my whole body was somehow aching.  The flood was going down, the muffled sense in my ears was being replaced by my own rasping breath and pounding pulse.

A small light, a flash of awareness, entered in. I was only making matters worse.  Henry would be consumed for his sins, yes, but so would my father, and so, most assuredly now, would I. Could I even go to the police with my accusations? Would everything be tainted by my rage? Everything had become a question.

Some of those questions got answered very quickly, when in the midst of moving top to bottom, I swung wild and nailed him right in the throat. Suddenly, he had a lot more blood flowing into his throat, and no good way to clear it.  His eyes rolled and his legs wobbled.  Suddenly, all he cared about was the air he could no longer have.

I'd seen that before, serving Extreme Unction in the hospital. He was leaving now, and I had sped him on his way. I let loose of his body and he slid slowly to the ground, flailing about like a dying fish.

I stepped back and watched as the spasms diminished. There was a mile between us now, and he was spiraling still further away.  I could take him to St. Mary Corwin - or maybe Parkview was closer, but he would be gone by the time I hoisted him into the car. In fact, as I was thinking that very thing, he left, his life energies gone like a fist when you open your hand.

My gloves were bloodied. I was drenched in rain on the outside and sweat on the inside, but as far as I could see, only the gloves showed blood. Henry was dying, no, already dead. I could barely connect the two inside my pounding skull - my bloody hands, his empty body. Up to that point, I'd had no idea that anything like that was down inside of me. Priests are supposed to know what's down inside their soul, or so we're told.  It was just the two of us out there, and that hailstorm of violence could only have been my doing. I'd planned a showdown with Henry, but this was nothing like I'd imagined, nothing like I expected that I could imagine.
  
I waited for my breathing to slow and steady itself, watching as the rain rinsed the blood off my car. Enough time had passed. I knew I'd have to act soon, do something to make things look right, look plausible, and myself look innocent. I yanked off my gloves, then in a burst of inspiration used a thin metal bar nearby to pry a hub cap off my car and stuff them inside. Surely, nobody would think to look there. I backed the car up a few feet so it was just shy of Henry's body. I took his wallet out with my handkerchief, stuffed the money into my pocket, then tossed the rest of it over by the trash cans.

I checked for a pulse, confirming what I did not doubt. When I was satisfied that there was none, I took his body against mine and dragged it just under the overhang. It seemed right.  There was now blood on my coat, blood that would make sense to a cop.

All that done, I took a couple of deep breaths, then burst through the rear door, shouting for Mike to call the police and an ambulance, and for someone to come back and give me a hand. "Henry was robbed and beaten in the alley!" I added. One of the dads from earlier, the one who looked ready to give Henry a beating himself sprinted back toward the door as Mike reached for the phone.

When the man, whose name turned out to be Dale, got there, he found me cradling Henry's head in my hands. He watched me check his neck for a pulse I knew wasn't there, and his eyes for movement that I also knew was absent, then surrender to the inevitable. He also heard me say, "Don't worry, Henry. I'll tell Natalie you said goodbye." It was egregious and cruel, yes, but no more cruel than Henry himself, and no more egregious than beating him to death on the suspicion that he was a serial rapist. Plus, only Henry, God, and I would get it.  Really, all Dale could suppose was that I was carrying a message to a loved one.  I dug an umbrella out of the car and asked him to hold it over Henry for me.

I leaned against the hood of my car, the headlight half obscured by my overcoat.  I tried to examine my knuckles without making it too obvious.  I didn't seem to have any hard-to-explain abrasions, though they'd very definitely be sore the next day.

Dale looked at me, then looked at Henry, and then back at me. "Ain't you gonna give him last rites, Father?"

"Last Rites are for the living. He's long gone by now, but yes - there is still a blessing."

I shoved myself off the car bumper and knelt again next to Henry. I made the Sign of the Cross on his forehead and began "Ego facultate mihi ab Apostolic Sede tributa, indulgentiam plenariam ..." as a lone siren made its way toward us. At least as far as God was concerned, he was absolved of all his sins, despite the fact that he had just become the only person likely to be healed of the aftermath of his actions. It wasn't my preference, but it was my job. 

At my next confession, I admitted to being enraged and to beating a man, savagely even, but I left off the part about "to death" so by any standard, it was an invalid confession. Since that day, I've repeated that half-honest confession scores of times with scores of confessors. With each try, I've inched closer to honesty, but still have yet to achieve it.  For forty years, I've tried to tell myself that we've all been better off without Henry. Sometimes, I'm half comforted by half believing it. The next day, I went back in to settle up with Mike and I haven't been in Three Rocks - or any bar - since I paid the tab. This past December, in fact, I picked up another chip, marking forty years of solid, conscientious sobriety.  I won't lie to you and pretend that makes it all worthwhile, but there is one small positive to take from the experience.

I've wished every day since that it was true, what Henry said - that wearing the collar protected me from the real world. But that's not how it is. It wasn't then and it isn't now. Nor, evidently, does it protect the real world from me.

Wherever you hide, the real world finds you.