Songs in Ordinary Time Page 67

  “Chaos, your Excellency, that’s what it’s come to. You asked me to be patient, but this man needs help!”

  “Um, what kind of help do you mean?” There was a rustle of pages turning as if the Bishop had been reading a newspaper.

  “He needs to be locked up, that’s what he needs!”

  “Tom, he’s already spent a year in the hospital. And he came out with a clean bill of health. Maybe he just got a little overburdened.”

  “A little overburdened!” His flesh burned with insult.

  “You said you left him completely in charge. It was probably too much for him.”

  “Too much for him!”

  “Look, Tom. I’ll call his Provincial and get someone down there to talk to him. In the meantime maybe you could lighten the young fellow’s load a little.”

  The Monsignor was stunned.

  “And by the way, Tom,” the Bishop added. “We’re a little short of our goal statewide for the Bishop’s relief fund. Maybe you could pick up part of the slack with a special collection this Sunday.”

  “But it’s Saint Mary’s first fuel collection this Sunday,” he said in a cold voice.

  “Try to fit it in sometime soon, then,” the Bishop said airily, adding that he wished they could talk longer, but he was having a few people in for dinner and he really had to hurry.

  The Monsignor slumped in the dark room’s early twilight. What did the Bishop care, with his handsome face and silver-streaked hair that belonged up on a movie screen and not beneath the jeweled satin mitre that would never be the Monsignor’s.

  Overhead the floorboards creaked as Father Gannon paced back and forth in his room.

  For two days now, the house had smelled of vinegary spices and steamed vegetables from his sister’s canning. Samuel Fermoyle felt good, stronger, healthier than he could ever remember. It was midafternoon and he was on his way to see his daughter. When he had called earlier to see if Alice would be home, Benjy would only say, “Probably.” The conversation had been so strained that he’d almost decided not to go. But it was time to see them. He was ready.

  He braced his foot on the windowsill and tied his shoe. It was this easy, he thought, doubling the knot, leaving nothing to chance, not a moment untended. That had been the true lesson of Applegate. Not any of their psychological shit, but the order that had prevailed there.

  As he headed out the door, he heard Helen’s voice rise sharply in the kitchen and then Jozia’s angry reply. They had been bickering for the past hour. Jozia wanted something, whether a raise or time off, he couldn’t tell from her muttered demands, but Helen was growing angrier in her refusals. He felt himself borne by a great calm, an enlightenment, a contagion of wisdom and joy he would spread among his family, those doubters like his sister, who expected nothing more of him than the inevitable misstep, the lie, the omission.

  He passed the rectory and smiled at Howard, who was dragging a garden hose down the church walkway. “Hello there!” he called, but Howard continued to tug at the hose and did not look up. It was then that he noticed the young curate sitting on the bottom rung of a ladder that leaned against the back of the Church. “Hello, Father. Lovely afternoon, isn’t it?” he called. “Okay!” he muttered as Father Gannon looked quickly down into the bucket at his feet. Just keep going. Keep going, he told himself, determined to squelch the dread stirring in his brain. The Monsignor had probably warned the young priest not to get too friendly. A sudden image of himself shouting drunkenly at Father Gannon and careening through the polished rectory vestibule shot into his head. Jesus. Once again, he found himself adrift between the future’s terrifying void and the past, an even stranger emptiness, festering with so many of these amnesiac violations and humiliations. It was like being stalked by his own maniacal twin.

  He began to feel shaky. Maybe he wasn’t ready to see the kids. Maybe they didn’t want to see him. That’s why Benjy had sounded so funny. After all, not one of them had bothered to see how he was doing. Not even a phone call. Didn’t they care? Didn’t they know how hard he was trying? At the corner, he turned toward the park. He was surprised to hear rock-and-roll music blasting. The bandstand was filled with musicians. Because they weren’t in uniform he thought they were only practicing. But then he realized no one was playing an instrument. They stared glumly up at the podium, where Jarden Greene was waving his arms and shouting over the raucous din that they were a sorry group of musicians who had lost their passion.

  “Play it big!” he cried, raising his baton. “Play it so big and so full of yourself that you will forget the fool is there! Drown him out! Obliterate him!”

  As they took up their instruments a few of the musicians glanced toward Joey Seldon, who sat on a stool in his lopsided stand where speakers amplified his radio songs. Two trash barrels were overflowing onto the ground. Bottles and popcorn boxes were everywhere in the grass and on the sidewalk. Three sides of the stand were buttressed by stacked cases of empty bottles and cans.

  “Gusto! Gusto! Gusto!” Greene shouted as the band played “When the Caissons Go Rolling Along.”

  “Joey!” Sam hollered, banging his fist on the counter, trying to be noticed through the concussion of music.

  “What do you want?” Joey yelled.

  “It’s me, Joey! Sam Fermoyle,” he hollered, leaning closer. The aluminum doors under the popcorn machine were ajar, and Sam was shocked to see a large black gun inside.

  “Plain or buttered?” Joey got off the stool.

  “Not today,” he shouted, then tried to explain that he’d just stopped by to say hello and see how things were going.

  “That’s how they’re going!” Joey said, pointing to the curled cardboard sign tacked overhead. It was an eviction order signed by Judge R. L. Begley.

  Now that he had been ordered to shut down, the town claimed it was no longer responsible for picking up trash from an illegal business. As a result he had also been served with public health violations.

  “It’s all him,” Joey shouted, pointing at Jarden Greene, whose body appeared to be vibrating on the podium.

  Across the street the pharmacy door flew open and Marco, the druggist, stood on the top step in his starched white smock shouting into a bullhorn.

  “Joey, turn off the radio! I repeat. Joey, turn off the radio! If you do not turn off the radio, then I am calling the police. I repeat. I am calling the police. And this time I’m swearing out a complaint!”

  Turning, Joey reached under the counter, and for a chilling moment, Sam was certain he’d pull out the pistol and start firing away. Instead the radio went louder. Joey had turned it up.

  “Joey! Joey!” he shouted. “What’re you doing?”

  “Same as they’re doing to me! Harassment!” Joey shouted. “I’ll stop when they stop.”

  Sam hurried down Main Street. When he got to Marie’s, Benjy told him through the half-open door that Alice was sick in bed. Relieved, he took a step down. No. He was here. He’d only stay a minute. Maybe he could make her feel better.

  “I don’t think so,” Benjy said, letting him in. “She’s really not feeling good,” he whispered, glancing toward the stairs.

  “What does she have, a cold?”

  Benjy’s eyes flicked away, then back again. “I don’t know. But she’s really sick.”

  Alice lay on her side, curled under the blanket. With the window shade down, he couldn’t see her face on the pillow, just tangled hair.

  “Alice?” he whispered, touching the back of her head. “It’s me, pet. It’s Daddy.”

  Her breathing seemed to stop. He said he would have called sooner, but did she know he was still a fugitive from the loony bin? It was too bad there wasn’t a reward out for him, because then at least she could make a few bucks off her old man. He laughed. She hadn’t moved. He had a new job, did she know that? Well, it was a real cushy position. He chuckled. Toilet paper, he had always wanted a career in toilet paper—bet she didn’t know that about her old man. It promised to b
e a real cleanup job—that is, if he didn’t mind wiping someone else’s…Oops, sorry for that rude slip. Well, anyway, it was a real sit-down job, if she knew what he meant.

  “Hon, are you awake?” He cleared his throat. Okay, let’s see. What other news was there? Renie and Helen were fine. Nana wasn’t doing too well. Yesterday the doctor had given her two more shots. Helen said they were penicillin and B12. But he was convinced it was some new embalming fluid. Nana just laid there. Well, sat up, really, to keep fluid from accumulating in her lungs. She never sang anymore. Every once in a while her eyes would open wide, but usually they were closed. Let’s see…what else?

  He told her he was reading a biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald. He was thinking of maybe getting all his teeth out and investing in some new choppers. Jesus, he thought, she doesn’t want to hear about that. He cleared his throat and asked how Marie was doing. She didn’t answer. He asked if she’d do him a favor: would she please tell her mother to stop throwing those pebbles up against his window every night? Thinking the bed jiggled with her faint laughter, he touched her shoulder and leaned closer.

  “Hey, what’s this I hear about you and the new priest?” He felt her hunch up. “Something about going into the convent? Is it true? Alice?”

  She curled into a ball and moaned. He took his hand away and said he hoped he hadn’t upset her. Well, whatever she wanted to do with her life was fine with her old man. There was a gasp. The bed shook.

  “I mean that, pet. I know I haven’t always been much of a…well, the kind of…kind of father you deserve, but I’m trying now, pet. I really am. I feel so good now. And it’s more than the job and staying sober. The thing is, I want to make you kids proud of me.” He took a deep breath. “Because I’m really proud of you three kids. Really, really proud, pet.”

  He realized she was crying into her pillow. He lifted back a strand of her hair. “You know, when you came to see me at Applegate and I made you wait? I wasn’t getting ready all that time. Christ, I was so happy you were coming I’d been up since five a.m. getting ready. All that time you were down there, I was sitting on the edge of my bed, that’s what I was doing. Just sitting on the bed and trying to work up enough courage to go down and face you cold sober. I almost didn’t make it,” he said, sniffing and wiping his runny nose on the back of his hand. “But then a nurse came and walked me out to the elevator and pushed the button.” He closed his eyes as she sobbed. “I’m not trying to make you feel bad, pet. I’m just trying to explain something here. You see, when I’m sober, I’m usually walking around, you know, with my tail between my legs, and I’m feeling like such a loser all the time. Like I screwed up everything, you know, my whole life, you kids, your Mom’s life. But then this day I was in Renie’s shop and I saw those pictures he had of you kids on the register and I just got so damn mad. I kept thinking, Who the hell is he to put up pictures of my kids? What the hell’s he trying to prove? And all that day it just kept bugging the hell out of me, and then that night in the middle of the night my eyes opened wide and it hit me. You’re not even his kids and he’s so proud of you, he wants everyone to know he’s your uncle. And here I am, I’m your father, and the thing is, I’m such a shithead I don’t know how to be proud of anything anymore, even my own kids. And I realize, you kids are a lot to be proud of.” He grinned. “I mean that, baby. I really do.”

  “No,” she groaned. “No, no, no, no, no, no.”

  He leaned over and tried to hold her, but she recoiled, her body rigid and convulsed with moans.

  “Oh God, look what I’ve done. I didn’t mean to upset you like this.” He stood up and reached for the door. “I’ll go!”

  “No, no, no, no, no.” Her moans tore through him.

  “I’ll call your mother. She’ll—” He covered his ears. “Oh God, Alice, stop it. I don’t know what to do!”

  “No, no, no, no, no, no…”

  Benjy met him on the stairs. He had to get out of here, away from the boy’s torn sneakers, the fuzzy television picture, the caved-in couch, the lamp with its red-and-gold Gypsy, her chipped dirty arms ending in plaster stumps.

  “What’s wrong with her?” he asked.

  Benjy shrugged and couldn’t look at him.

  “Did something happen? Is it school? Is she nervous about school?”

  “I don’t know,” Benjy muttered.

  “It’s not because of money, is it?” The expression on his son’s face said it all. “Oh shit, don’t tell me that’s what happened.” He felt like such a fool with all his talk about getting on his feet and pride in his kids while she lay up there devastated because she had no money for college.

  Renie was dreaming. He and a man had been following the steady heartbeat. They were walking down a narrow corridor. The man opened a door and the heartbeat stopped. Here, there was a sun-drenched laboratory. The white walls were lined with shelves. Glass jars glistened on the shelves. Suspended in the clear liquid that filled every jar was a gelatinous sac. The man said because he had not come the fetus had been aborted, expelled from Beatrice’s coarse womb.

  Let me see him, Renie said.

  Christ, that was a million years ago, the man said.

  Let me see him.

  Him? Who? What, you think they give them names?

  I want to see him.

  You think it’s some kinda weird nursery, man, with the bottles all lined up so the proud pops can come in and look? The man laughed.

  Could she have done such a thing? No, it could not be. He struggled to wake up. His eyes closed heavily. He was floating in a jar of pickled cauliflower, and yet he lay here on his bed perfectly still, his arms folded over his chest, the dim room taking shape around him as he floated in the glassy brine. The lowering sun cast a blush from the window, an acrid stillness whose bilious sediment would stir at the slightest movement and rise to fill his nose and mouth, already puckered with the pinched sting of vinegar that seeped in from the kitchen. Over the bubbly clatter of boiling canning jars came the hollow chopchopchopchop of Helen’s knife on the cutting block. It was canning time. She’d started early this year. He couldn’t move. He hadn’t been to the store in days. Losing Tom had drained him of all hope and energy. All he wanted to do was sleep, and yet it was never enough. He was exhausted, sometimes too weak to lift his head from the pillow. He hadn’t eaten, but he wasn’t hungry. He knew he had to get up and eat and wash and get back to work, but he was just too tired.

  For the first time Sam detected a faint odor of urine from his mother’s crib as he paused on his way to the kitchen. Between the canning and his mother’s worsening condition, Helen had been on her feet for days. He dreaded going in there, where every surface was littered with peelings, pots, and spice cans. He hoped Helen’s mood wasn’t as foul as it had been yesterday, when Jozia had walked out in the middle of bathing their mother. Helen muttered something now as a cupboard door banged shut. Water began to run into a pan.

  He reached between the bars and touched his mother’s arm, shivering to find her skin so slackly thin and cold. Her eyes were closed and her mouth gaped open with wheezy breathing. At times she frowned and seemed to wince as if in pain.

  “Here we go, Mum,” he said with a sigh, then removed the thin notebook from his breast pocket. This at least would have pleased her. He was going to demand that Helen give him his money for Alice’s college expenses.

  The kitchen was a mess. Helen stood by the stove, her hands bound in white towels. She almost looked like a child in Jozia’s long, red apron that came to her ankles. Sam sat at the table, which was covered with cucumber peels, tomato skins, corncobs, seedy pepper cores, and scummy bowls. Helen lifted a rack of mason jars filled with red tomatoes then lowered it into the kettle on the stove. She set the lid on carefully, pausing a moment before she turned. She glanced from Renie’s closed door to the yellow notebook in Sam’s hand.

  “Lunch is long gone,” she said, unwinding the towels from her hand.

  “I ate,” he said.


  “If it’s supper you’re after, get it yourself.” She began slicing cucumber rounds with a long, sharp knife.

  “Is that the knife Dad used in the store?” he asked.

  “How would I know?”

  He had forgotten. It had been Helen who had walked in on their father and the Sicilian tenant’s daughter in the back room of the little grocery. After that neither Helen nor their mother ever again entered the store.

  “You look tired,” he said.

  “Look tired!” she said with such an angry fling of the sweating white rounds into the bowl that the vinegar splattered in her face. She took off her glasses and wiped her eyes.

  “Why do you bother with all this, Helen?”

  “What should I do? Let it rot?” Her voice quivered as if under the weight of a question she had asked herself countless times.

  “Send some over to Marie and the kids,” he suggested with a twinge of pity now for his sister, whose garden grew because it had to, who had no friends to share her harvest.

  “Hah!” she snorted. “That’s good coming from you.” She spooned sugar into the fizzing marinade, then carried the bowl to the sink. On the stove the pressure was rising in the dull steel cooker, hissing and vibrating loudly. Helen reached for the rattling lid and a jet of steam whooshed against her wrist. She jerked back her hand with an angry cry. He wet a towel and tried to hold it to the red splotch on her wrist. She knocked away his hand and the towel fell on the floor. “Leave me alone!” she cried as she bent to pick it up.

  “Helen!”

  “Get out,” she said. “Just get out and leave me alone! Everyone, just leave me alone!”

  “Helen, there are other people you can get to help….”

  “Hah! Misfits, nothing but misfits. The misfits I’ve wasted my life on! All these years I kept her on rather than see her used by such filth, such…”

  She was crying, the tears and the kettle’s harrumphing steam fogging her glasses when she looked back at him. “My father, my brother, my mother,” she moaned. “And did I ever ask for anything? Did I?” she demanded. “For myself? No! All I’ve ever wanted was a little respect, that’s all, some pride. That’s all I’ve ever wanted!” she cried, striking the tabletop with the knife handle. “Just to be able to hold my head high. That’s all! That’s all I’ve ever, ever, ever wanted!”