Our Lady Of Greenwich Village (43 page)

H
e couldn't get her out of his mind. Her name was Kathleen Fahey, but everyone called her Kat. She had the most wonderful red hair and a big smile. Only twenty-nine, she was all Irish and a terrible flirt. After a few drinks, she might take you into the bathroom, undo her belt buckle, and drop her jeans just low enough so you could see the discreet green shamrock she had tattooed high on her right buttock. You'd like to touch it, but she'd pull her pants back up and tell you that was enough for now and that you owed her a drink. Oh, what a bargain. That beautiful pink bottom and the solid green of St. Patrick's Holy Trinity. She was O'Rourke's constituent and he thought about her almost everyday. It was a strange one-sided love affair because they had never met. He called Kat his “WTC girl” because that was where she died on September 11, 2001. He had met her over at St. Vincent's Wall of Hope and Remembrance on West 11th Street. Her “wanted poster” was up there on the wall with the others who had perished, now preserved forever under Plexiglas. He felt for all the victims. They were up there, representing every conceivable color, age, and religion. They were there laughing at college graduations, weddings, christenings, all so alive and vibrant. But Kat was the one who became a symbol to Congressman Wolfe Tone O'Rourke. From her picture, O'Rourke could see that she enjoyed a joke and a drink. In fact, she was just the kind of girl O'Rourke could fall in love with.

O'Rourke felt that he had let the WTC dead down. They were working stiffs just like the rest of New Yorkers. They weren't all rich, they weren't all powerful, mostly they were only average people trying to get by. He wondered about all of the Cantor Fitzgerald people and all the people up there at Windows on the World. That was the wonderful mosaic of New York. Guys having their power breakfast who made a six-figure salary and the Hispanic kid in the kitchen who washed their dirty plates and made the minimum wage. Now they were united. The plane had hit under them, destroying their escape. Now all they could do was wait and feel the dread. Did anyone go behind the bar and take a good, stiff drink? Did the executive lend his cell phone to the young Hispanic so he could call his mother in Mexico? What do you think about when you know you're going to die within the next hour? The governor is not going to call with a reprieve. In fact, you'll be lucky if they find a body part. Vaporized is the sanitary word of choice. What people forget about September 11, 2001, is that it was the most beautiful day of the year. Not a cloud in sight, dry and the temperature in the low 80s. O'Rourke often wondered if it had been a cloudy, rainy, mucky day if the attacks would have succeeded. Maybe, maybe not.

Washington was in full cover-your-ass mode. No one was to blame. And the Republicans started lying by noon of 9/11. They lied about the air quality, they lied about their Saudi friends, and O'Rourke could not get a straight answer out of any of them. “Those were my fucking constituents,” he had told the Speaker of the House. “I worked for those people so don't patronize me or them with this God Bless America shit.” He had upset the Republicans mightily. He had fought against the Patriot Act, reminding people on
Sunday Press Box
that “when Washington puts a label like ‘Patriot' on any kind of a missile or a bill you can be sure that the taxpayer is getting fucked.” Danny Dorsey had gotten all upset because O'Rourke had used the F-word. “Grow up,” he had snapped at Dorsey.

His constituents backed him when he voted against the Iraqi war, but he had been declared “dangerous” by Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's National Security Advisor, on Fox News. The next morning the media caught up with McGuire and O'Rourke as they worked the West 72nd Street station on the IRT line. “What do you think, Congressman, about Dr. Rice's comments?”

As O'Rourke was about to answer, McGuire, who knew how much he despised Rice, stepped forward before he could say something that might come back to haunt him. “I'd like to answer that for my husband,” said Sam and O'Rourke realized he had been saved. “Let me say this to Dr. Rice,” continued Sam, “from one black woman to another. At least my husband didn't sell out his race, like you did, to work for this bunch of bigots.” First there was silence, then deafening applause from the commuters.

“Anything to add, Congressman?”

“Yeah,” said O'Rourke with a twinkle in his eye, “I guess we're having Rice-a-Roni tonight!” McGuire turned and kissed him full on the lips and his overnight poll numbers soared.

The Republicans were relentless and mounted a vicious campaign during the 2002 congressional elections. They had spent $15 million and had even talked Vito Fopiano into running against O'Rourke, although he didn't even live in the district. They told every lie they could think of, but O'Rourke was up to the task. He reminded everyone of Vito's connection with the Reverend Dr. Costello, who was doing time in Sing-Sing for child molestation; Menachem Mandelstam, who was hiding out from federal subpoenas in Israel; Vito's son-in-law Jackie Swift, who had finally beaten his cocaine addiction while serving time for money laundering at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York; and their friend, the devout Robert Hanssen, who was convicted of spying for Russia in 2001. O'Rourke beat them with 67 percent of the vote. “Shout '67 and the Bachelor's Walk,” sang O'Rourke.

The day before the election, Sam had told him that she was pregnant with their second child. That was the clincher. “We're outta here,” he told her. The next night at his election headquarters, he had stunned the victory celebration by telling the crowd that he was resigning from Congress, effective immediately. He never went back to Washington, and he was amused as Thom Lamè and Lizzie Townsend got ready to fight it out for his vacant seat. He had all the money he would ever need and he had taken Sam and young Rosanna back to Ireland to start a new life and wait for the new baby.

He returned to New York infrequently, the last time for the funeral of Declan Cardinal Sweeney in 2003. The Cardinal had been exhausted by the 9/11 tragedy and had worked himself to death going to funeral after funeral. They had wheeled his fine mahogany casket down the center aisle of St. Patrick's and all the politicians had shown up for one last time. Clinton was there, right next to Senator Hillary. President Bush and his wife were sandwiched between the two Republican Catholics, Pataki, the governor, and Giuliani, the national icon. Giuliani, involved in an ugly public divorce, had actually gone up to the altar rail for Holy Communion, which brought a smile to O'Rourke. Newly minted auxiliary bishop Seán Pius Burke, host in hand, had laughed. “Get moving,” he had said to Giuliani and had watched as the comb-over meekly went back, host-less, to his pew next to the President. Bush's expression never changed. It was obvious that he was uncomfortable in a Catholic Church. Johnny Pie stared down the president, who averted his eyes from the
sagart
from Hell's Kitchen. “Fuck Bob Jones University,” O'Rourke thought he had read off the lips of Bishop Seán Pius Burke.

A few tourists came into the Moat for the last day and recognized O'Rourke. “Congressman O'Rourke,” they said, happy to see what to them was a celebrity. “Could we take our picture with you?”

Shipman started to say something, but O'Rourke raised his hand. “That's okay, Saul,” he said. “I'd be delighted to have my photo taken with these nice people.” Everyone smiled and said “cheese” and were captured for posterity with the infamous O'Rourke.

He liked the anonymity of Ireland. In Wexford, no one cared about his politics. Their biggest curiosity was why this middle-aged white guy was with the young, beautiful black wife and the gorgeous bronzed children. He thought of Sam, Rosanna, and his baby son Declan, who he had named after the Cardinal. He wanted to go home to Ireland. Right now. He didn't want to wait around and see the old faces again. The Moat was done. It was time to get out before the wake began. He took out his cell phone, which Sam insisted he carry at all times, and called Aer Lingus. There was one seat left on the flight back to Dublin tonight. “Saul, I gotta go. I'm going back to Dublin tonight.”

“You're not staying around?”

“Saul,” said O'Rourke sadly, “there's nothing to stay around for.” He didn't want to see Cyclops, Moe Luigi, Fergus T., or any of the others at what was sure to be a depressing wake. The next time he saw them he wanted it to be on his own turf, in Ireland. Shipman nodded his head, comprehending what O'Rourke meant. “You come visit me and Sam and my little brown babies in Wexford. Promise?”

“I will, pal,” said Shipman, his morose eyes black with sadness. “So this is it?”

O'Rourke smiled. “Yes, this is it,” he said, now not wanting to leave.

“I hope,” said Shipman, “you won't be bored in Ireland.”

“I don't think so,” said O'Rourke.“
Sinn Fein
is looking for a candidate for the
Dáil
from South Wexford in the next general election.”

Shipman raised his eyebrows in shock. “You wouldn't,” he said.

“I haven't decided yet,” said O'Rourke, a small smile brightening his face, “but as the Bible says, “As a dog returneth to his vomit . . .”

“. . . So a fool returneth to his folly,” finished Shipman.

“Proverbs 26:11,” said O'Rourke.

“I know.”

O'Rourke stepped back from the bar and looked at the joint and thought of Joe Flaherty and Nick Pinto and all the laughter and tears he had experienced here over the last forty years. He almost expected Hogan and Barney to come walking out of the back room, but they didn't. Maybe the ghost of Bobby Kennedy was still back there, stuck in a 1968 brood.

He got off his bar stool and smiled at Shipman. “
Slán agat
,” he said as he went through the door of Hogan's Moat for the last time.

I
want to thank some of the people whose kindness and opinions helped shape
Our Lady of Greenwich Village
.

Joanie Leinwoll, who was always willing to read; Tania Grossinger, who kept cheering me on; Michael Coffey, for his wise counsel; Ann Hostetler, who was crucial in reshaping this book; Heather King, a new friend, who shares a keen interest in Holy Mother Church; and Diane Raver for holding my hand during the publishing process.

I'd like to thank my Dublin first cousins for their help in finding missing pieces of the Dublin of one hundred years ago: Monsignor Vince Bartley; Maura and Jerry Bartley; Declan and Adrian Bartley; Mary and Terry O'Neill; Brendan and Geraldine Bartley; Father Kevin Bartley; and Ann Bartley Kelleher, who started the Lombard Street research.

I'd also like to thank four close friends, all Vietnam veterans, for helping me shape the Vietnam career of Tone O'Rourke: John Hamill (USA), Neil Granger (USMC), Kenny Moran (USA), and Kevin Griffin (USMC). I'd particularly like to thank John Hamill, former army medic, for his advice on how a Vietnam corpsman might do his job.

I want to thank Frank McCourt and Rosemary Mahoney for their help and support. Not only are they two of my favorite people, but they are also two of America's greatest writers.

And lastly, I want to thank all the people at Skyhorse Publishing: Tony Lyons, my publisher now on two novels; Bill Wolfsthal, who continues to have an answer to all questions; and Erin Kelley, my editor extraordinaire. I'd also like to thank Tom McCarthy, who first published me at the Lyons Press, for his input on this book.