True Confessions (2 page)

“It’s grand, as crippled as she is, with them wasted little limbs. Grand.”

“You give her the Blessed Sacrament and you see her shining little face all scrubbed nice and clean to receive the sacred body and blood and she makes you feel you’re doing her the grandest favor in the world.”

“A living saint, Father,” my mother said. I. think now she was wondering if living with the old man qualified her for living sainthood.

“Not like some, Mrs. Spellacy.” Then the knowing nod. “With the patent-leather shoes.” Reflecting the underwear in the gleam is what he meant.

“Marie O’Connor,” my mother said, with that special whisper she reserved for scarlet women.

“No names, Mrs. Spellacy.” No slander from the lips of Father.

The subject was quickly changed. “Tell me, Father, Tommy’s bowels are all plugged up. Would you recommend the castor oil or the milk of magnesia?”

Father folded his hands over his stomach. His advice was sought more often on matters of purgatives and politics than it was on questions of doctrine, and he gave as much thought about what laxative to take as he did about what Protestant or Jew politician to vote against. “The castor oil, Mrs. Spellacy. Oh, yes, a grand laxative, simply grand, like a physic. That’s the ticket, no doubt about it at all.”

“That’s high praise for the castor oil, Father, coming from a man like yourself with such a fine intellect and such grand grammar.” A little more tea in Father’s cup. “And tell me about Tyrone O’Keefe.”

“He’s still all covered with the bug powder, Mrs. Spellacy.”

Another living saint, Tyrone O’Keefe. Because of the tremendous growth of sanctifying grace in his soul.

My father wasn’t a living saint. Nor was his grammar very grand. He used to take Des and me on the streetcar over to Lincoln Park to ride the merry-go-round. It was working then. He was a snappy dresser, the old man, poor as he was, always jingling the coins in his pocket and smiling a lot. He had that sweet harp smile when he was drunk, but then he was pissed so much, he never lost it, even when he was sober. Which was like every other Feast of the Assumption. He wasn’t much with the words. I remember when Uncle Eddie Keogh died. Him and the old man did dig-and-toss work for the Southern Pacific, and the old man took me and Des to the wake over to Sonny McDonough’s funeral parlor on Boyle Avenue. That was before Sonny merged with Shake Hands McCarthy and McDonough &McCarthy began to plant every stiff in the county, even branching into fox terriers. Uncle Eddie was stretched out in his fifty-dollar coffin, wearing the black suit that Sonny had sold Aunt Jenny as part of the package, although she didn’t know the suit didn’t have any back and that Uncle Eddie was naked from the waist down under the coffin top, Sonny McDonough even then being into low overhead. Aunt Jenny was crying and everyone was saying, “Didn’t Sonny do a grand job, Eddie looks like he’s just received Holy Communion,” and Jenny throws herself on the old man and says, “Tell me what kind of man he was, Phil, you knew him better than anyone,” and the old man with that beautiful mick smile looked down at Uncle Eddie, lying there wearing Sonny’s fifty-dollar special, and finally he just took Jenny’s hand and he said, “He was a good shoveler, Jenny. Not a fancy shoveler, mind, but a good shoveler.”

High praise from Phil Spellacy.

The first Tuesday of every month I go see Mary Margaret. Mary Margaret is my wife. She is in Camarillo. Not to put too fine a point on it, Camarillo is a state mental institution. There is nothing really that wrong with Mary Margaret. She talks to the saints, is all. Especially to Saint Barnabas of Luca. Now being an ex-cop and all, I’ve done a lot of legwork on this Saint Barnabas of Luca and to the best of my knowledge he doesn’t appear on any saints’ roster I’ve been able to dig up. I thought I had a lead when the Pope gave the chop to Saint Philomena a few years back, but Barnabas of Luca doesn’t even appear on any morning report of former saints.

Barnabas first showed up after Moira was born. Moira is our daughter. Little Moira she was called. I suppose if a little elephant is little, then Moira was little. Poor Moira. When she was thirteen, she was 161 pounds in her stocking feet. A walking Hershey bar.

“What’s that you got stuffed in your face, Moira?”

She never lied, even then. “Tootsie Roll, Dad.”

“Jesus.”

A tear rolled down Moira’s face and some Tootsie Roll juice gathered at the corner of her mouth. I think she had a Mars Bar in there, too.

“You took the Lord’s name in vain, Dad.”

Moira is Sister Angelina now. A perfect name. Short for angel-food cake. She never misses a family funeral. Fourth cousin once removed and there’s Moira, looking like a black battleship in her nun’s habit, knocking out the rosary louder than anyone else.

(This is where Moira really belts it),

It takes a lot of effort, the rosary, so Moira is always first at the eats table afterward. A little shrimp, a little ham, easy on the potato salad, a dumpling or two. Chocolate eclair? Don’t mind if I do. Twice. It’s like they starve her at that convent between funerals.

“How’s Mom, Dad?” says Moira, eyeing the platter of deviled eggs. “I sent her a spiritual bouquet for Christmas.”

“She’ll appreciate that, Moira.”

“How’s Kev?”

Kev is my son. I’ve lived with Kev and his wife Em since the last time Mary Margaret went to Camarillo. I make Kev nervous. He suspects I know all about his girl friend. I do. I was just keeping my hand in. To see if I had lost my touch. Kev is in the religious-supply game. That’s what he calls it. The religious-supply game. Scapulars, mite boxes, statues. And those cheap gold-leaf chalices with the fake emeralds and rubies that he flogs to parents whose sons are getting ordained. There was an article about Kev once in
Church Supply Quarterly
, with a picture of him holding up a new chasuble, and under the picture the line, “A Pioneer in the Design of Double-Knit Vestments.” Anyway, the pioneer was always going off to religious-supply conventions in Las Vegas, not that I ever heard that Vegas was a gold mine for double-knit chasubles. Em thought it was grand, of course. Kev going to Vegas all the time, keeping on top of the latest developments in altar linen. But as I said, once a cop, always a cop. So one night there I decided to follow Kev when he told Em he had to go to an affair honoring Monsignor Barney Carey on the occasion of his twenty-fifth anniversary in the priesthood.

“I whipped up a new silver chalice for him,” Kev said.

“Silver,” Em said. “Because it’s his twenty-fifth.”

You couldn’t say Em wasn’t quick.

“And the monsignor doesn’t know it yet, but they’re giving him a new car. A Buick LeSabre. Red.”

“What are they thinking of, Kev?” Em said. “Hungary and Albania and all those Polish countries going over to the Communists and they’re giving him a red car. Black is what priests drive.”

“They got a deal from Fuzzy Feeney over to Feeney’s Buick,” Kev said. “Red was all he had.”

“It’ll be a convertible next,” Em said. “And the sunglasses.”

I knew Barney Carey from the old days when he was a curate at Saint Vibiana’s. He ate on the cuff more than Crotty. So I was surprised he only got the red LeSabre. I figured Barney Carey good for a whole Buick dealership, easy. Not that Kev hung around long at Barney’s catered affair. He slipped out after the presentation of the silver chalice and headed over to the Valley. I kept a block behind. As I said, just keeping my hand in. He turned south on Winnetka and into the lot of a building called the Ramada Arms. In the space for apartment 6C. The rest was easy. The occupant of 6C was one Charlene Royko and she was a computer programmer for National Cash. Twice married and also banging a utility infielder for the Angels. Which was why she only played ball with Kev when the Angels were on the road.

I hadn’t lost my touch. Not that I told any of this to Mary Margaret when I went to Camarillo the first Tuesday of every month.

“How’s Kev?” Mary Margaret said.

“Getting his innings in.”

“And their boy?” Mary Margaret said. “Has he made his First Holy Communion yet?”

“Fourteen years ago.”

“That’s grand, Tom,” Mary Margaret said. “Napoleon always said that the day of his First Holy Communion was the grandest day of his whole life. With all his honors. Did you know that?”

“I didn’t know that, no.”

“Saint Barnabas told me.”

The headline said,

No known kin. Oldest priest in the archdiocese. Ordained in 1894. Had spent his declining years at Saint Bridget’s Retreat in Chatsworth since his retirement from parish duties. That was a laugh.

“You okay, Dad?” It was Em knocking at the bathroom door.

“Just having a laugh, Em,” I said. She hated me to lock myself in the bathroom. She thought I’d have a stroke or my heart would go and she’d have to call the fire department to take the door off the hinges and the new paint job would be chipped.

“Reading the funnies then?” Em said. She had this idea that old people had to sneak off to the crapper to read the funnies.

“The obituaries,” I said.

Em wouldn’t see the humor of Saint Bridget’s Retreat in Chatsworth. Saint Bridget’s was a nice way of saying the old priests’ home. A lot of twinkly-eyed nuns laughing at some old boy’s jokes about Fat Phil Doolin. Father’s got such a sense of humor, they would say. He laughs so hard the tears come to his eyes. And the drool leaks out of his mouth, is what they usually forget to say.

The thing about Tim O’Fay was that before he was at Saint Bridget’s, he was in the old priests’ home at Saint Margaret’s in Oxnard and before that at Saint Stephen’s in Chula Vista. Eighty years a priest, Tim, and sixty-one of them he had spent in some old priests’ home. Which is one way of saying that Tim O’Fay was nutty as a fruitcake from the day he was ordained, although it took twenty years for the archbishop to figure it out, the archbishop never being known for being quick on the trigger. You can say that sort of thing now, but when Des and me were growing up, if you even hinted that the archbishop was a little short upstairs you’d get a cuff on the ear for your trouble. Nowadays, with Phil Berrigan and that crowd, all of them showing up on “The David Susskind Show” with the boots and the blue jeans and the turtleneck sweaters and the kids and the wife, who was the former Sister Theodosius, you can say that the archbishop is banging his housekeeper and the nuns will smile their twinkly little smiles and say, “A living saint, His Excellency,” probably because they’ve got a little going on the side with some curate who wears a gold chain around his neck.

“Monsignor O’Fay was well-known throughout the archdiocese for his musical endeavors.” I wonder where the paper dug that one up. The truth of the matter was that Tim O’Fay had one of the most beautiful tenors you ever heard. It used to be said around the archdiocese that Tim was the only tenor ever made John McCormack envious. Except he used to sing at odd times. I got that from my brother Des. My brother Des was Tim OTay’s curate. That was right after Des was ordained and long before he became famous in his own right as the “Parachuting Padre.” Des would call and say the monsignor was going to sing the solemn high on Sunday and not to miss it. Des had a little Berrigan in him, even then. So I’d drive out to Saint Malachy’s to hear the monsignor. He said a good mass, no flourishes, and with that voice and all it was a treat, like watching Charley Gehringer hit. Except that every once in a while, instead of singing the
Sanctus
or the
Agnus Dei
, the monsignor would wing into “My Old Kentucky Home,” or “Marching Through Georgia.” Of course there were people over to Saint Malachy’s didn’t appreciate the old Civil War standards, and they would complain and the archbishop would come out, but then Tim would just croon the best
Agnus Dei
you ever heard. Old Tim was shrewd and he had already served a stretch at Saint Stephen’s in Chula Vista, and with the archbishop there he wasn’t about to break parole. Until that last time at Morty Moran’s funeral, Morty being an old pal of the archbishop’s, what with him donating a new Packard every year, and Tim thought it would be a nice touch at Morty’s requiem mass if instead of the
Credo
he slipped into “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny,” since Morty was born in Roanoke and all. Right after which the archbishop shipped Tim back to the old priests’ home. For keeps.

’Telephone, Dad,” Em said later that day. “It’s Uncle Des.”

“How are you, Des?” I said.

“Carry me back to old Virginny,” Des said. “That’s where this old darky’s heart am long’d to go.”

“I figured you’d be calling, Des.”

My brother Des. The Right Reverend Monsignor Desmond Spellacy. Once regarded as a comer, a future Prince of the Church. Once upon a time. Domestic prelate before thirty years of age. Former chancellor of the archdiocese. Toastmaster and scratch golfer. A regular at Del Mar and the Thursday night fights at the Olympic. Friend of Sam Goldwyn and Stan Musial. Spiritual advisor to Willie Pep, as well as Shake Hands McCarthy and Dan T. Campion and all those other papal knights who held the paper on the archdiocese. The man who introduced Brandt coin collectors and Record-O-Lopes to the Sunday collection. For the past twenty-eight years, pastor of Saint Mary’s of the Desert in Twenty-nine Palms. I guess that’s my fault, Des being in Twenty-nine all these years. That’s what they call Twenty-nine Palms. Twenty-nine. Imagine being in exile in a place where they’ve got to count the palm trees to give it a name. And make no mistake about it, Des was in exile and I was responsible.