“Are we drifting apart?” asked Devlin. He and Ginny sat in McDonald’s again. She had come out after a bad day at Hard Rock, as her friend Betty referred to the city room, eager to drink in a different environment. |

“I never thought I’d hear a phrase like that from you,” she said.

“I never thought I’d say it. Are we?”

“Yes. We are a classic case of drifting apart. Someone should put us ‘in a textbook.”

“Why are we?”

“I am not the expert on human nature. You are,” she said.

“Yes and no. I’ve been a careful observer, not a participant.”

“That’s all right. In fact, it’s better. Being a participant makes you no judge.”

“In this case I’m a participant, which is why I’m asking why we are drifting apart.” He said it with an elaborate smugness, sitting back with a satisfied smile.

“Aren’t you clever,” she said, turning away to look out onto Madison Street, where some children were crossing from the laundromat on the other side. “I wish I knew,” she said.

“All the years I have on you, and I don’t know either. These aren’t the kinds of problems people brought to me. I’ve been a belief-merchant. Then I ran out of belief to sell. Or give away, for that matter. There are places you can’t give it away, you know.”

“I’m sure there are,” she said.

“You know how I feel now?”

“How?”

“Like the spiritual writers say, arid.”

“You feel arid.”

“Yes. Great word for it, huh?”

“Great word for what, Patrick?” Her eyes widened in exasperation.

“For not feeling anything. No motion, nothing. Idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean. Know what I mean?”

“Shitty.”

“No, no. Not it. Shitty gives you something to fight against. Same with the blues.” He waved a hand for emphasis. The kids from the laundromat moved to a table near them, pushing each other. “When you’re arid, you feel nothing. You’re in a dark night.”

“Better than a stormy day.”

“Not a whit. Storms bring out the man in you.”

“In me?” she said.

“In me. When I say you, I mean me.”

“Yes.”

“Stormy weather. That’s worth writing a song about.”

“And Lena Horne singing it.” she said.

“Right.”

“We’re not in stormy weather?” she asked.

He smiled. “Ginny, sitting in McDonald’s discussing our faltering love affair in a disgustingly reasonable manner. You call this stormy weather?”

“You have a point.”

“Are you Irish?” he asked.

“Tl suppose so. Way back. Some Scotch, some English, a little Welsh. Mostly Scotch and Irish.”

“A regular potpourri of the British Isles, right?”

She shrugged. “Where I came from, it was not an issue.”

“It is here,” he said. “Here in Ethnic City.”

“You have to declare yourself?”

“Just about. Not like it used to be.”

“But you still want to know.” Her red hair touched her shoulders. He remembered for a flash the warmth of her face and lips. He smiled.

“Helps you forget how arid you are.”

“As a matter of fact, it does.” He eyed her hair and lips and the near-redness of her skin. “Ruddy Celt,” he said.

“I think I’m being seduced,” she said.

“On the contrary, it is I who am being seduced,” he said, a little louder than he intended. One of the laundromat kids, a girl about fourteen, glanced briefly at him, her eyes white against chocolate skin.

“I don’t think you are feeling as arid as you were a few minutes ago.”

“No, I’m not. The mood has passed.”

“What do the spiritual writers recommend at such a point?” she asked. “To plunge in and forget the consequences, as it were?”

“How’d you know? Abandonment, that’s it. To God.”

“And when there is no God, as you apparently believe?”

“Then to the reality that is its substitute.”

“Which I trust is not your friendly newspaper reporter,” she said.

“No.”

“What is it then? Come on. You got yourself into this. Get yourself

out.”

“It’s . . . “ He hesitated.

“Yes?”

“It’s . . . hard to say what it is. It’s whatever strikes your fancy at a given moment.”

She flinched. “My, you’re honest if nothing else. What a thing to say.”

“The devil made me do it.”

“Patrick, don’t talk that way,” she said. The chocolate-colored girl’s eyes flicked their way again.

“O.K. I’ll stop. No more talk like that. Let’s take a walk.”

Out on the sidewalk, they faced the spanking new village hall complex. “Let’s get married,” he said, pointing across the street. “I’ll bet there’s a J.P. there.”

“There isn’t. You don’t have J.P.’s around here. You have judges in the county building. Besides, I’m not in the mood to get married. It’s not the fancy that has my attention at the moment,” she said.

He threw up his hands in a shrug. “So? What is it you would like? Frozen custard? McDonald’s shake? Burger King delight?”

“I want to go home,” she said, heading for her car.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

“Mama, guess who I saw. At McDonald’s.”

“Who, Honey?” Melissa William said.

“Father Devlin, with a lady,” said Artie, who forgot he wasn’t supposed to ride that far on his bike.

“Oh?” said Melissa, distracted by the news from the fact that

Artie had wandered so far from the block. “Was it an old lady, Artie?”

“No, Mama, she was young, like you.” Artie had moved from his earlier assessments of age that put anyone over eighteen in the senior citizen category to something more realistic. A year or so before, Ginny Morgan would have been considered old. Now she was young like Mama.

“Red hair?”

“Red hair, Mama. Pretty too.” And for insurance as he began to remember he wasn’t supposed to ride that far, “Like you.” With a sweet smile.

To no avail. “You weren’t supposed to go that far, Artie.”

Artie hung his head, hoping repentance, or its appearance, would help. His mother being distracted, it did.

Melissa Williams was not happy to hear Father Devlin had been at McDonald’s with Ginny. She had hoped that business was ending, though she had no reason to hope it.

“Maybe he dropped her,” she had suggested to Arthur.

“I doubt that,” Arthur said.

“You think they were made for each other, or something?”

“I just don’t think he dropped her. Why should he drop her?”

“Arthur, he’s in a tricky position. He has a lot of reasons to drop her.”

“So he can go crawling to the archbishop, get a parish and pulpit again and return to the old grind? Melissa, he’s been burning bridges for months, if not longer. A priest doesn’t talk in the newspaper the way he did without knowing what he’s doing.”

“Maybe he was misquoted,” she said.

“By Ginny Morgan? He has a funny way of showing his displeasure.”

That was a few days before Artie had made his Devlin sighting in the midst of a long expedition to forbidden territory. Melissa duly reported the same to Arthur that night.

“In McDonald’s? Sure Artie didn’t see them in church? Maybe Artie’s been hanging around church these days and doesn’t want us to know.”

“McDonald’s.”

“More power to them,” said Arthur. “Not prudent, but who cares? Maybe he was counseling her. I don’t think he’s dropped her, at any rate, as you suggested the other day.”

“What do you think’s going to happen?”

“What do I think?” repeated Arthur. “I think Father Devlin is in the middle of a long, painful process of withdrawing his troops from the field.”

“He’s hardly been in a war.”

“Are you kidding, Melissa? He’s been in a war.”

“Fighting whom?”

“Himself and the powers of darkness.”

“Really, Arthur.” |

“Sure. You don’t think he’s been under warlike strain all these years? Since the bloom went off the rose?”

“Since he was first ordained, you mean?”

“Or some unspecified time thereafter,” Arthur said.

“Arthur, the same goes for any commitment, job, whatever.”

“Right, and he’s leaving a commitment. He’s changing his mind.”

“What if I changed my mind about our marriage?”

“I was waiting for you to say that. Marriage is different. But to answer the question, knowing you, I’d say you’d pull your troops. I picture Father Devlin pulling his with all the neatness of helicopters taking off from the Saigon embassy roof. It’s a messy business.”

“How is marriage different,” Melissa asked.

Arthur laughed. “Geez. How is marriage different? How much time do you have? Mainly, it’s considerably more intimate than being a priest. I mean if he’s married to the church, for instance, or to Jesus — wait a minute, that’s not write. Whatever. If he’s married to the people of God, in the same way I’m married to you, then he’s one hell of a polygamist, sexual switch-hitter and — the old tried and true ghetto word mother-f —.”

“O.K., O.K.,” she interrupted, seeing the word coming.

“Ah me,” he said, looking out the window on to their cul-de-sac, “when shanty became lace curtain, they changed their language too.”

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Ginny’s story on the psychiatrists was long gone and put away. She’d reported and written it, and it sat in her desk in hard copy taken off the printer. But more importantly, it sat in the memory of the computer, stored for future use every bit as much as nuts and things were stored by the squirrel for the hard winter. The city editor liked her story; so he squirrelled it away for a rainy day, preferably a Monday. SHRINK was safe in the machine. It was buried and would rise again on a rainy day, then to live again in glory or abuse, depending on reaction from sources and readers. There was no telling which would result, Ginny knew from years experience. In any event, it was out of her mind, and she was on to the next triumph.

Not entirely out of her mind, however, because Doctor Margo Gibson remained there, a woman with a mind of her own, used to probing others’ minds and hearts.

“You want to know how he’s hitting me right now, Margo? He’s hitting me like a pain in the rear. He’s nothing but trouble,” Ginny said.

“Trouble? But you love him,” Doctor Gibson said as they sat in her office on Michigan Avenue.

“But loving someone doesn’t mean he’s no trouble. Do I have to be the one who tells you that, Margo?”

“Yes, you do. I know it happens, but I don’t like it, and I don’t think it should happen or must happen.”

“He’s been a celibate so long,” said Ginny.

“He’s been a bachelor, a bachelor priest. Most are.”

“He hasn’t played around. He’s led a consecrated life. Am I, a Protestant, the one who has to tell you that too?”

“Yes and no. I assume, no evidence to the contrary, he hasn’t played around. I know he’s been consecrated. But I also assume, barring evidence, to the contrary, that he has ended up a bachelor priest. As I say, most are,” said Margo.

“Are you against celibacy?” asked Ginny.

“I have my doubts, but I wouldn’t go that far. But it’s Father Devlin we’re talking about, your bachelor priest.”

“Something about that phrase irks me,” said Ginny. “It’s . . .” She hesitated. “. . . contemptuous.”

“No it isn’t,” said Margo. “It’s a balancing phrase. Puts things in perspective.”

“But a bachelor is so everyday. Priests are special.”

“Priests have what specialness we give them. We can be unfair to them, and to ourselves, if we give them what they don’t deserve and can’t use.”

“You want to make them everyday creatures?”

“For the most part,” said Margo. “It’s better that way. For them and for us. We should be sparing in our elevations and go light on the mystery. Are you put off by the mystery part?”

“Yes and no,” said Gimny. “Hah. See? I can talk that way too.” She smiled.

Margo smiled and said nothing.

“He’s mysterious in his own right. That’s r-i-g-h-t,” she said, spelling it out. “Rites, r-i-t-e-s, — are another matter.”

“Do you attend mass?!

“No.

“You should attend his mass.”

“Margo, that’s bizarre. Should I dress in scarlet and sit in the front pew?”

Margo laughed. “You reporters do have a way with words,” she said. “No,” she continued. “Be unobtrusive. But it’s part of his life. You have a right, r-i-g-h-t, to take a look.”

“Why do I have a right?”

“Because he’s on your mind, if nothing else. Anyhow, you are probably going to cast your lot with him. Right? R-i-g-h-t? So you deserve a look at what’s going on in his life. How would he feel about your attending one of his masses?”

“We’ve never discussed it, but I can’t imagine him objecting.”

“Good. Then do it.” Margo sat back with a smile on her face.

(end of chapter 20)

Devlin’s friend Ginny had a fair idea what the story was supposed to be but not a hundred-per cent clear one. It had something to do with psychiatrists and the troubles they have with patients. It had everything to do with that. But she was not sure what the troubles were, beyond the strain of dealing with mixed-up people.

“As a newspaper reporter, you should find the subject very familiar,” said the city editor. “I know that as a city editor, I would. Only difference is, I deal with them on the run, one after the other. The shrink deals with them sitting down in an office. Or lying down, as the case may be. Go to it, Ginny. You can do it. Tell you what. Get the shrink to lie down while you ask him questions. It should be a pleasant switch for the guy.”

“Or woman,” said Ginny.

“Of course. Goes without saying,” he said, looking back down at papers on his desk to signal end of conversation.

“He has the nicest touch,” said Ginny, returning to her desk.

“Inspiring, that’s what it is,” said Betty Smith, at the desk next to hers.

She got on the phone to the Chicago Medical Society, told the p.r. man what she needed, and left her direct number with him for a callback. Measuring the intensity of his boredom as shown in his voice tone, she decided it was acceptably low, and she ought to leave her line free. He might just be calling back.

Her phone rang almost immediately.

“Devlin here.”

“I thought you were the flack.”

“No. I’m your friendly parish priest.”

“I can’t talk now. Waiting for an important call.”

“I wanted to tell you the good time I had Saturday. Met this wonderful woman, and so forth.”

“I’ll bet you did. Sister Ophelia? Of the holy Punch Bowl? Listen. Let me call you back later. I’m waiting to hear from a flack.”

“O.K. Just one more thing. I’m straightening out.”

“What does that mean?”

“You know what that means.”

“No, I don’t. You’ll have to explain it. But not now. I’ll call you later.”

What on earth is he talking about, she asked herself when they hung up, then looked down at some articles about psychiatrists she had got from the library. One of them hinted at big trouble for the one whose patient had an attack of the violence-prone anxieties while they were going at it face to face.

Oh? thought Ginny. The patient gets violent? In the presence of the good doctor, who is only trying to help? She remembered the story Devlin told her about the priest-clinician whose patient went at his throat with the peculiar strength of craziness in his hands. The priest, who was also a musician, as calmly as he could suggested that the two listen to some of the nice music they had on tap for that session. The priest was a student of how music calms the beast within us.

Distracted, the throat-clutcher relaxed. He did too want to hear that nice music, it turned out, and the priest got off with a sore throat.

The joys of psychotherapy, thought Ginny. Find out what I’m doing with this crazy priest, who is too distractible and too relaxed for his own good.

The phone rang, and it was the Medical Society flack, aroused enough from his lethargy to sound actually interested. He had “these two guys” who were willing to talk. “Well one of them is a woman,” he said. Ginny appreciated that touch. He gave her names and numbers, she thanked him and hung up.

The woman was free that afternoon, the man not until Thursday. It was Monday. She decided she could wait that long. She looked them both up in clips and found to her great interest that the woman was a former nun who had made a splash with some articles about celibacy.

Two months before, she wouldn’t have cared. But now, with a celibate manqué as part of her life, she did.

She caught the woman psychiatrist at her office that afternoon. It was on the umpteenth floor of an old Michigan Avenue building whose elevators represented the apex of twentieth-century technology: buttons that lit up when you pressed them and a single small screen above them on which flashed the floor numbers as you rose or fell or stopped.

The first time Ginny ran across the buttons you pushed to light up, she had gloves on, and the heat from her fingers, needed to activate the light, etc., didn’t get through. So she pushed harder and harder, and the damn thing still didn’t light up. A senior editorial writer saw her struggling, raised one finger, getting her to back off, and laid it gently against the button. Presto! A little body heat, and the light went on, and progress picked up its dizzying pace.

Ginny had the presence of mind to smile and thank the man, a kindly. soul who refused to recognize her embarrassment. Ever since, she took her glove off when she came to such a button, and such buttons became her friends in the midst of a scurrying world, ready to light up when she touched them.

Doctor Margo Gibson shook Ginny’s hand and invited her to sit on her couch, an L-shaped affair that Ginny noted would suit her living room quite nicely. Ginny expected somebody very serious and self-assured — if you took people’s psyches into your hands, you must be self-assured — but instead found Dr. Gibson a petite woman with expressive eyes.

“You found me all right in this corner of the floor?” she asked Ginny, smiling.

“I followed the signs and arrows,” said Ginny. “You are tucked away, though.”

The doctor smiled. “Well, I’m not selling jewelry or eyeglasses; so I can do without prominence. Then maybe a patient might feel better finding me in a corner of the floor, where I go into corners of his mind.”

“Is it scary?” Ginny asked, surprised at her own jumping into the issue.

“You can run from corners of the mind, but you can’t hide. Joe Louis said that, more or less, talking about himself, in there. It helps you forge ahead.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Ginny. “It might inhibit you.”

“That’s where someone like me comes in. I’m a traffic policeman, giving stop and go signals. It’s a labyrinth, after all. A head-doctor — I shouldn’t talk that way — a psychiatrist presumably has been through it, many times. She knows her way, again presumably, and has developed a feel for the terrains.”

“Of the mind. What about emotions?” .

“Ginny — you don’t mind if I call you Ginny, I hope. I’m Margo — there are times when I want to ask, ‘What’s the difference? It’s the Great Inside, one way or another.”

“Inner space,” said Ginny.

Margo pointed in agreement. “Yes, that’s good. Inner space. I’ve heard that, and it’s good. To be explored. But not to get lost in.”

“You explore it with care, do you?”

“Ginny, I do everything with care,” Doctor Gibson said.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Mimi Skelton had called Carol Goodman and said, “Let’s talk.”

Carol, in the midst of putting up strawberries, had wanted to say no, but Mimi had insisted, and they were sitting in Mimi’s kitchen on the last day of school, seizing the moment before children came home for the summer.

“T feel like I’m waiting to go over the top, having my last smoke before we fix bayonets,” said Mimi.

Carol laughed. “It’s just as well I’m not in the middle of strawberries.

“I said I wanted to talk.”

“Talk,” said Carol.

“My friend Father Devlin,” Mimi said.

“Is giving up fatherhood.”

“How’d you know? Does everyone know but me?”

“He and Nate talk. You know. They’re old friends. I don’t pry, but I ask Nate how Father Devlin’s doing, and he gives me what he considers an evasive answer. There are no evasive answers in marriage, not in ours anyhow. Plus he’s different. Father Devlin. A likely prospect for quitting it.”

“Oh my.”

“I shouldn’t be so matter of fact. He’s your priest. I’m sorry.”

“Never mind. Do others know?”

“I don’t know. I suspect. Do you know?”

“He told me.”

“Oh my.”

“He wouldn’t be specific.”

“Is he happy, upset, what?” asked Carol.

“He’s Father Devlin. Same old Father Devlin.”

“Does he have a girl friend?”

“A girl friend? What a thing to say! She stopped. “I never thought of that.”

“Well that proves you’re Irish, Mimi.”

“But he’s a priest.”

Carol didn’t say anything. Mimi gazed out the window at nothing.

“You think he might have a girl friend?” she asked Carol.

“He wouldn’t be the first,” Carol said, then bit her tongue.

“Now wait, Carole You don’t know – – – ”

“The first man, I mean. He’s a man for all that, Mimi, priest or not.”

“Oh Carol, I’ve got to say you’re out of your depths on this one. Or sailing in strange waters or something.”

Carol didn’t say anything.

“Priests are different, is what I mean.”

“Different?” Carol screwed up her face.

“I don’t mean queer. I mean different. They have a commitment. They can handle it. Besides, he’s forty-five if he’s a day.”

Carol shrugged. “A lot of priests have gotten married, Mimi.”

“Well they left when they thought God wanted them to begin a new life, I know that. They moved to a new vocation. Marriage,” she said convincingly.

“Well I can’t quarrel with what people think God wants them to do. It’s always struck me as pretty high-flying stuff. But some people fly that high, I suppose.”

“It isn’t all that high-flying, Carol. Every Christian is supposed to do it.”

“Well every Jew isn’t, as far as I know. But then my rabbi might have a different view. I remain suspicious, however.”

“Of people who do God’s will?”

“Of people who think they do,” said Carol.

“Even if they’re sincere?”

“The more sincere they are, the more suspicious I am.”

“Oh my. And once we were going to write a Catholic-Jewish column.”

“Whatever became of that, by the way?”

“Father Devlin was going to ask . . .” She stopped.

“Pardon me?” Carol thought she missed something.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

They both sat, silent. A robin twittered in the yard. Carol’s look of mystification began to melt away. As it passed, her eyes widened for a second or two, and then she turned towards Mimi, intent.

“Father Devlin was going to put in a word for us, wasn’t he? With that reporter? What’s her name? Morgan?” she asked.

‘Mimi wore a strained look. “What reporter?” she asked.

“You know. The one that wrote him up a few months back.”

“Oh. Her.”

“He was going to have her ask what happened to our columns over at the paper. Remember?”

The phone rang and it was Devlin. “Mimi?”

“Yes,” she said, recognizing the voice.

“Pat Devlin.”

“Yes, Father,” she said.

“Ginny found out about your columns,”

Mimi kept quiet.

“They got lost in a pile of things. But the editors are interested.”

“They are?”

Yes. They’d like you and Carol to come downtown and talk about them. Ginny could meet you and take you in to see them.”

“That won’t be necessary,” said Mimi.

Devlin hesitated. “Well it won’t be necessary, I suppose. But I thought you’d like it.”

“No, I wouldn’t like it,” she said

Devlin gave her a name at the paper and a phone number. They hung up.

Mimi turned to Carole “It was Father Devlin.” She told Carol about the breakthrough with the editors. Carol raised both her hands in tight little fists about ear-high, in delight.

“Ginny Morgan’s his girl friend, isn’t she?” Mimi said.

“I think so,” said Carol.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Terry Dolan was not having a good day. A woman from outside the parish boundaries had signed up as a member of St. Emma’s because Dolan, the pastor, had been good to her when her husband committed suicide some months before. Dolan did not object to this parish-hopping, which was once anathema to a good Catholic but was now acceptable. But in the case of this Mrs, McGee, he was beginning to wonder whether the old ways weren’t better.

What he had in the person of this red-haired, stout, bereaved woman was a personal fan, flattering but threatening at the same time. Where an ordinary territorial parishioner showed up at the front door with a problem, it was an appearance at the church door, as it were. The confidence was in the church as such, meaning the 2,000-year-old institution. In that case someone in Dolan’s position mainly had to be there and not do something stupid.

But when a personal fan showed at the rectory door, it was to feed off an individual. Such a fan put the individual priest, etc. on the spot. He — or she where a nun had the fan — had to produce from his or her own personal riches. But Dolan often felt as if he had no riches to spare. He had trouble enough making it to bedtime some days, without squandering his resources on a fan.

Mrs. McGee was a fan. “She’s after my meagre riches,” he told Devlin, who downplayed the idea.

“She loves you for the two thousand years you represent,” Devlin said.

“In that case, she should have at St. George’s. It’s a scandal the way people feel free to shop around these days. Don’t they know the sacraments don’t depend on who administers them?”

“They never did know it, Terry. It always was a hoax. An illusion, I mean. Cherished by the clergy. People always knew the difference between a priest who cared and one who punched a clock.”

“But they weren’t so blatant about it. They grinned and bore it and stayed with the institution where they found it. They weren’t so intent on instant relief of whatever ailed them. Whatever happened to good old Catholic stoicism? That’s what I’d like to know.”

“It disappeared with Protestant, Jewish and atheistic stoicism, Terry. There are no stoics any more, just people looking for relief,”

“Is that good, Dev?”

“Who am I to say, Terry? On the face of it, it’s bad. It means we’re effete. We’re ripening on the tree for some Marxist bastard to pick off, easy, without resistance. Or.” He stopped for emphasis. “It means we’ve decided there’s no point in beating our heads against the wall.”

“And besides us two clerics sitting here on St. Emma’s front porch, there is almost certainly no one else in Oak Park worrying about it,” said Dolan.

“Oak Park?” said Devlin. “Hell, the entire metropolitan area.” He laughed.

It was 10 o’clock or so on a mild midweek June evening. The village appeared to be sleeping already. St. Emma’s rectory was set back from a through street by a long, narrow, lush lawn that ran next to the Gothic church. Not even the through street had much traffic. The side street had almost none. If crickets were chirping, however, neither priest heard them, having long ago tuned out such sounds of nature. They did hear a breeze rustle some leaves in the big tree on the lawn. Otherwise it was silent.

“How’s Mrs. McGee doing anyhow?” Devlin asked.

“The shock’s been over for a few months. It was more than bereavement, of course. Self-shooting in the living room and all that.”

“At least they missed the trial.”

“Which must have been one purpose in McGee’s final act. He produced a final solution to his problem.”

“Too bad.”

“Yes,” said Dolan. “Well. As I say, she’s over the shock. The initial shot, as they say, and is now groping for guidance and comfort.”

“In the person of Father Dolan.”

“Yep. None other.”

“Is he doing his best?”

“Doing his best. Turning neither to drink nor women nor song.”

“Unlike some others you can name.”

“Unlike some others I could name, if I wanted to.”

The two sat in the semidark, silent.

“You think I’m a shit?” Devlin asked.

“Shit? No. You’re no shit, Dev. You’re my friend and you’re no shit. Let it be said that I, Dolan, do not think my friend Devlin is a shit.” He got up, shook Devlin’s hand, and sat back down.

“I’m touched,” said Devlin. “You say I’m no shit.”

“I’m figuring out another approach to your dilemma.”

“Tell me.”

“You are taking it on yourself to force a growth-leap of maturity on the Catholic community.”

“Me? I’d never do a thing like that. I like the Catholic community.”

“No. You are in the process of pulling away a support beam from the house of God.”

“Jesus.”

“Sure. And the house of God is just going to have to get along without you, that’s all. You go off with your bimbo and let the house of God fend for itself. And the house of God, the people of God, whatever, learns to stand up and be a man about it.”

Devlin threw back his head and laughed. Dolan looked at him expectantly.

“What do you think?” he asked.

Devlin came out of his laughter. “Listen. I’m still trying to get around this house learning to be a man.”

“My metaphor astound you?”

“Yes, your metaphor astounds me. All right. Me and the house of God. Pillar removed, house learns to stand without it.”

He paused, thinking. “I like it,” he said. “Salves my conscience.”

“Then it must be a good idea. Anything that salves a relatively upright conscience can’t be all bad. I’m glad I came up with the idea.” Dolan sat back.

Devlin thought he heard a cricket chirp. He dismissed the idea.

The two sat in silence.

“Terry.”

“Yes, Dev.”

“It’s not a hundred per cent clear to me.”

“That you’re leaving.”

“Right.’ I’m in a so-so mental condition.” He tilted his hands back and forth, palms down, in an uneven-keel gesture. “I don’t have my decks entirely cleared yet.”

“I didn’t think you did. The point is, have you reached the point of no return? That’s the big question.”

“That’s what I don’t know yet.”

“Oh,” said Dolan. “Hmm.”

They sat silent again. A heaviness descended on them. Peaceful in its way, but still a heaviness.

“I’m sorry to hear it,” said Dolan.

(end of chapter 19)

Consider the books on the subject, one of which has chapter and verse on the subject:

The papacy has long been linked to spiritual guidance and moral leadership for millions of Catholics around the world.

Yet history records periods when the men who occupied the papal throne acted in ways that shocked contemporaries and stained the Church’s reputation.

Some popes were accused of greed, corruption, brutality, or scandalous personal behaviour, and accounts from chroniclers, official records, and later historians reveal how these figures caused divisions within the Church and eroded its moral authority.

Among them, seven stand out for their notorious conduct…

Uh-oh.

1. Pope Stephen VI

Pope Stephen VI reigned from May 896 to August 897, during a time of extreme political instability in Rome.

His papacy is remembered for the shocking Cadaver Synod, a trial held against the corpse of his predecessor, Pope Formosus.

Stephen ordered Formosus’s body to be exhumed, dressed in papal vestments, and propped on a throne for judgment, accusing the dead pope of perjury and of illegally assuming the papacy.

After a mock trial, the corpse was found guilty, stripped of its vestments, and maimed, with three fingers cut off.

The body was later thrown into the River Tiber.

Etc. . . .

Another:

2. Pope Benedict IX

Pope Benedict IX, who reigned on three separate occasions between 1032 and 1048, is widely regarded as one of the most corrupt pontiffs in history.

He first became pope as a teenager, placed on the throne through the influence of his powerful family, the Tusculani.

Chroniclers described him as having a scandalous private life that combined immoral behaviour with violent excesses and acts of debauchery, although many of these accounts came from hostile sources.

Etc. . . .

3. Pope Alexander VI

Pope Alexander VI, born Rodrigo Borgia, reigned from 1492 to 1503 and has come to represent the worst of the corruption of the Renaissance papacy.

As a member of the powerful Borgia family, he openly advanced the interests of his relatives by relying on nepotism, which granted them high positions in the Church and Italian politics.

Chroniclers hostile to Alexander described scandalous parties held in the Vatican, including the so-called Banquet of Chestnuts in 1501: although modern historians debate whether some vivid accounts of this event may have been exaggerated or made up.

Alexander fathered several illegitimate children, including Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia, whose exploits became legendary.

He used papal power to expand his family’s political control in Italy and sanctioned military campaigns led by Cesare to seize territories.

Many contemporaries viewed Alexander as more of a secular prince than a spiritual leader.

His actions contributed to widespread calls for Church reform and increased criticism that would soon fuel the Protestant Reformation.

Etc. . . .

Enough . . .

Point being, if you think things are bad these days or if you’ve heard they are, consider this: Being a pope has never meant you are perfect, and Holy Mother Church has survived and will do so. It’s part of our Catholic belief, is it not?

The “lesson,” reading, on July 13 decades ago was from first Peter, 1 Pet. 5:1-4; 5:10-11: where Peter sent a message to his successors.

1 The ancients . . . that are among you, I beseech, who am also an ancient, and witness of the sufferings of Christ: as also a partaker of that glory which is to be revealed . . . :

2 Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking care of it, not by constraint, but willingly, according to God: not for filthy lucre’s sake, but voluntarily

3 Neither as lording it over the clergy, but from the heart.

4 And when the prince of shepherds shall appear, you shall receive a never fading crown of glory.

Moreover . . .

10 . . . the God of all grace, who has called us unto his eternal glory in Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a little, will himself perfect you, confirm you, and establish you.

11 To him be glory . . . for ever and ever. Amen.

Well. Such a goal he announced for successors, who are to look forward to the coming of “the prince of pastors.”

Then of course, the Gospel reading of this day so many decades ago, Matthew 16:13-19 . . .

13 Jesus . . . asked his disciples, What do men say of the Son of Man? Who they thought he was?

14 Some said John the Baptist . . . others Elias, others . . . Jeremiah or one of the prophets.

15 Jesus: . . . And you? Who do you say that I am?

16 Peter: . . . You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

17 Jesus: . . . Blessed are you, Simon. . . It is not flesh and blood, it is my Father in heaven that has revealed this to you.

18 And I tell you, Peter, He continued, it is on you, the rock, that I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it,

19 and I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

The Savior spoke, it was settled.

And we? What do we think of all this?

Start with Ecclesiasticus 24:14-16 with which most of us are not familiar, Wisdom speaking:

14 From the beginning of time, before the worlds as people know them, God made me [Wisdom], unfailing to all eternity; in his . . . dwelling-place I waited on His presence;

15 and now, no less faithfully, I made Sion (Zion) my stronghold, the holy city my resting-place, Jerusalem my throne.

16 My roots spread out among the people that enjoy his favor, my God has granted me a share in his own domain; where his faithful servants are gathered I love to linger.

Thus spoke Wisdom.

Linger? We can call it meditation: Dear God, sweet God, I believe You, I trust You, I respectYou, etc. etc., fill in the gaps with short calls to faith, trust, love sweet love . . .

Same day’s liturgy, something from Luke, 11:27-28, who made the best of not having known the God-man Jesus by interviewing those who had known Him.

As Jesus spoke to the multitudes, a woman . . . lifted up her voice and said, “Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts that nursed You.”

But He said, “Rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it.”

A line to remember, to say the least . . .

And then . . .

Isaiah 6:1-8

In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, with the train of his garment filling the temple. Seraphim were stationed above; each of them had six wings: with two they veiled their faces, with two they veiled their feet,
and with two they hovered aloft. They cried one to the other, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts! All the earth is filled with his glory!”

At the sound of that cry, the frame of the door shook and the house was filled with smoke. Then I said, “Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” Then one of the seraphim flew to me, holding an ember that he had taken with tongs from the altar. He touched my mouth with it and said, “See, now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.”

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” “Here I am,” I said; “send me!”

Great story here. Isaiah, the most willing of the prophets and co-author of the biggest of profits’ books, did not have to be talked into the prophet’s role, but was ready to go, confident in his leader’s help. Others were faithful to the Lord, but dreaded taking on the prophet’s role. “Here I am, send me,” Isaiah said.

Benedict, the world’s and history’s greatest when it comes to monasteries, said the same centuries later with fewer dramatics. He didn’t invent monasteries but immensely expanded them, giving monks a task that saved Western Europe, having them copy — by hand, my friend — the works of the Fathers of centuries past, literary giants of the East.

Saint Benedict, pray for us.

Devlin married the son of an old school friend on Saturday, driving out to the South Side to officiate. He knew the pastor, who greeted him warmly.

“How you doin’, Dev? You holding up?” he asked.

“Doin’ fine,” Devlin said, shaving the truth. “I’m living with Terry Dolan now, you know.”

“I heard that. Until you get a new parish.”

Devlin was known to be in hot water, having preached wildly and gotten some bad publicity, including the gossip-column item about him at the Corona, which most fellow priests suspected referred to him. But he was far from lost to the cause. He wasn’t a lush, for one thing, which meant he could probably make a comeback without a big to-do. He was eccentric, most priests thought. Ginny remained a well-kept secret. Devlin’s double life so far was charmed.

“Right,” said Devlin to the “new parish” explanation. He greeted the other priest warmly too. Getting out to Beverly was a break for him. The church was a low, modern structure, of the “two thin lines” variety, as he and Dolan referred to a certain style of church architecture and decoration.

The two thin lines were the “modern” cross which eschewed the flat, wooden naturalism of crosses and crucifixes they had grown up with. In their place had come the cool, metallic symbolism of the thin-lined cross — two pieces thin as dimes. If a Jesus were there, he was thin and symbolic too, with none of the medieval bloodiness and contorted body. The Beverly church was bright and airy and rounded, with no pillars to obstruct a view of the altar. Its neighborhood was overwhelmingly Irish.

“I forget what an Irish neighborhood looks like until I come out here,” Devlin told the pastor, a priest named Coughlin.

“This is it,” said Coughlin, pointing Devlin to the belt-high counter, the vesting table, where his liturgical garments lay.

Then Coughlin picked up the “Irish” remark. “It’s an ‘old’ neighborhood. I mean it’s like an enclave, but smoother around the edges. Identities are clearer, and there is less worry.”

“Was there worry in the old neighborhoods?” Devlin asked Coughlin, who was in his middle fifties. “I always heard from my father how carefree people were.”

“Yes and no. There was a sort of innocence, at least where the economic situation was in good shape, but there was a sort of huddling together too. Lot of suppressed worry about where they stood on the totem pole.”

“Well, being Irish in Chicago couldn’t have been too low on the pole,” said Devlin.

“Politically, no, though even that was really a 1930s thing, and tainted too, because of the corruption business. Economically too. Opportunities were there, you didn’t need a hell of a lot of education. But socially, outside the neighborhood or other enclaves — that was another story.”

“Doesn’t everybody live in enclaves?” asked Devlin, surprised to hear Coughlin go on so.

“I don’t think so. I gather there are people so secure in their situation that they look down — no, out — on other people’s enclaves. The Swifts and Armours don’t live in neighborhoods. Or didn’t. Did they? I heard they owned Lake Shore Drive.”

“Case in point,” said Coughlin. “They gave the drive to the city, and the shore rights to Lincoln Park. Which is why there were no toilets at Oak Street Beach until the middle “30s. My father told me about that. The Italian people from what’s now Cabrini-Green area went in the water. The beach got polluted. Because the original agreement, by the Lake Shore Drive people, was to keep buildings, apparently including outhouses, off the beach. Now that was a neighborhood that wasn’t an enclave. The rest of the city needed permission to use it.”

Devlin shook his head in disbelief. Coughlin went to his vesting area and began the process of draping himself in white linen and cords around his waist. Two altar boys watched. Devlin caught the eye of one and winked.

The kid smiled.

“What’s your name?” Devlin asked him.

“Pat,” the kid said.

“Same as mine,” said Devlin, widening his eyes in appreciation.

“You serve much?”

“Mass?”

Devlin looked at him as if to say, “You thought I meant dinner?” He nodded. The kid looked at him with big green eyes under red hair, like Ginny’s. He’ll have to ask her how she got so Celtic-looking, he decided.

“You like to serve?”

The kid shrugged. “Some of the time.”

“Beats squirming in a pew, that it?”

The kid nodded.

“How old are you?”

“Ten.”

“You go to St. Barnabas?”

“Yep. Fifth grade.”

Devlin decided to give up. He and Pat weren’t made for each other conversationally.

He was already starting to sweat around the neck, and the service hadn’t started yet. He wandered over to Coughlin, who was cinching up his alb and tightening his cincture.

“Where are the Swifts and Armours today, Tom,” he asked.

“God knows, Dev. They don’t live in St. Barnabas. At least, I don’t think they do.”

“There was Cudahy too, remember.”

“Oh yes. Catholic meatpacker. Irish, I suppose. Has buildings named after him at Loyola.”

“He used to shut down on Friday, I heard.”

Coughlin looked at him, blank-faced. “Shut down his# packing operation? On Fridays?”

“Sure. In honor of the prohibition. Against meat on Friday.”

Coughlin looked at him, blank-faced. “Shut down his packing operation on Fridays?”

“Sure. In honor of the prohibition. Against meat on Friday.”

Coughlin got it and laughed. “Dev, you’re full of it. Very good, very good. Cudahy Packing, closed on Fridays till further notice. Waiting for the Reformation.”

Devlin remembered how Coughlin regularly referred to the post-Vatican Two period as the Reformation, sometimes as Reformation Two. It was his way of recognizing the changes while keeping his distance.

“Can you imagine what it would have done to your faith to be a meatpacker during the meatless Friday times?” Devlin asked. “Worse than being a butcher. A butcher could always lay in a supply of fish. But packers were committed to meat.”

“While Cudahy’s church was making it a six-day-a-week affair,” said Coughlin. “He never thought to question it, though, I’m sure.”

“I’m sure he didn’t,” said Devlin, noticing that Pat the server was taking it in. “Would you have closed on Fridays?”

“What do you think, Pat?” he asked the server. “If you were a Catholic meatpacker, would you have closed on Friday?”

“I don’t know,” said Pat, unblinking.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

The wedding reception was at the Martinique, on 95th Street, a fancy place that matched St. Barnabas Church in its metallic, airy aspect. Staircases your could see through and brightness, brightness everywhere. Admit no gloomy, the place seemed viewpoint. You came with a smile plastered on, and it better stay there, or you might end in the huge parking lot, nursing new misery.

Devlin heard a man ask, “What is this, St. Patrick’s Day?” halfway into the M.C.’s introduction of the day’s proceedings. The M.C., who beamed unremittingly, laid it on thick and green.

“Anybody here from Cork?” he said. But most of it was about Chicago. “Anybody here from Mount Carmel?” He named a South Side high school. A cry went up.

He had his quartet play “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” and “Galway Bay” and a dozen other favorites. There was roast beef and dancing and liquor. Guests sat at tables of eight, some meeting for the first time and making connections: “You’re Tom Gilhooley’s cousin, right. I knew Tom at Fenwick.” Or. “Denny Moran? He’s my father’s brother. He’s married to your aunt? We’re cousins.”

Devlin sat at a center table with the groom’s family, swapping stories.

“You’re out in Oak Park, Father?” the groom’s uncle asked him.

“At St. Emma’s for now,” said Devlin. “They’re picking out a good parish for me. I used to be at St. Denis.”

“Oh yes, that was Monsignor Gavin’s parish years ago, wasn’t it?”

“He built it,” said Devlin. |

“I hear he was quite a ballplayer. Had a tryout with the Cubs.”

“That’s what we used to hear. I grew up in the parish.”

“Did you? Did you know the Corcorans?”

“Did I? We lived next door to them. Big family. He was in politics, right?” |

The uncle grinned, knowing more than he let on, his red, bald head wrinkling with the effort. “You might say so,” he said, which Devlin took as being as good as saying so, or better.

“I tell you this though, Father,” the uncle said, leaning toward Devlin and lowering his voice. “They never laid a glove on ‘im. Never touched him.” The man shook his head and made his jaw tight.

“They never did, you say?”

“Never did,” the uncle said, sitting back.

Devlin turned to a woman on his other side, smiling, eager, just off the pace in her dress and hairdo, probably ten years or so older than he. She waited for Devlin to speak.

“I’m Father Devlin,” he said.

“How do you do, Father? Mary Ryan.” She continued smiling, expectant.

Devlin searched for a gem. “What a lovely place,” he said.

“Lovely place indeed,” she said.

“Quite popular out this way, is it?”

“Quite popular.” Plunk. Just like that, plunk.

Devlin glanced around. No, he thought, return to her, she’s a fountain of vivacity ready to be opened up. Give it another chance.

“I think the band is quite good,” he said.

The woman paused, looked thoughtful for a fraction, then said with the mildest of brogue, “As a matter of fact, I think the M.C. lays the Irish part on a bit thick.” She didn’t add “Don’t you?” either.

Devlin’s eyes widened. He looked at her more closely. She looked back at him with unblinking blue eyes. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “you’re absolutely right.” He grinned, but she didn’t.

“He ought to realized,” she continued

Devlin felt blindsided. He looked ahead for a moment, then turned to Mary, who was looking at him. “The people seem to like it,” he said.

“Very few do, in my estimation. They either look like they do, because that’s expected, knowing no better or they think they do, knowing no better. Once they knew better, they would never put up with it.

“You’re being harsh,” he said.

“No, I’m setting great store by what people are capable of. I’m being very optimistic, in fact.”

The quartet broke into “McNamara’s Band.” Some of the young people began dancing to it, taking their contemporary movements and adapting them.

“I like that,” said Mary Ryan.

“McNamara’s Band?”

“Yes, it’s lively and doesn’t take itself seriously. But especially the dancing. They’re going along with their own creation.”

A couple embraced in the middle of pounding out the obvious rhythm, then held each other polka-style and pounded out some more “McNamara” steps.

“Great fun,” Mary said, smiling at Devlin.

“What are they doing now, “Mary?” he asked. “Pretending or not knowing any better?”

“The people here?”

He nodded.

“Having fun,” she said. “I gave you a thesis, not a photographic description.”

“Sociological not photographic, right?”

“Yes, except some photography is sociological, isn’t it?”

Devlin smiled. From hearing they never laid a glove on Davey Corcoran to this sort of badinage in one turn of the head. Wonderful.

Mary Ryan sat there, hands on lap, looking out on the dance floor, back straight, eyes focused, a thin smile on her face.

“What’s your business, Mary?” Devlin asked.

“I teach.”

“Chicago schools?”

“McDade Classical.”

“Black?”

“Upper-class black.”

“Smart kids?”

“If you mean do they have advantages, yes. Adequate food, clothing, shelter, parents who work steady at respectable jobs.”

“Not smart?”

“The word means little to me. It’s not a useful description. What can I do with a dumb kid?”

“What can you do with a smart one?”

“Oh, let him know it. Let her know it. Don’t talk down. Press hard. Don’t let anyone get away with anything. I don’t know what I’d do with a dumb one.”

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Moving about later on, Devlin ran into the couple who polka-stepped to “McNamara’s Band.”

“Hi, Father,” the young man said.

“Hi, yourself, Your feet can’t keep from dancing, right?”

“We like it,” the girl said.

“You two goin’ steady?” he asked.

“We’re engaged,” said the young man.

“We’re gonna have a dozen kids,” said the girl, a round-faced brunette.

“That’s gonna make you very unusual.”

“It’s the only way to go,” the young man said. “Except the way you went, of course,” he added, with a gesture towards Devlin. They both grinned.

“See you, Father,” they said, whirling away.

“Father, can I buy you a drink?” A man came up to Devlin, smiling easily.

“I heard they’re givin’ ’em away,” said Devlin.

“Sit down a minute. I want to ask you something,” he said.

They sat and Devlin heard the man’s tale of woe: the man’s son, a communist, was living with a woman — a black woman, the man added sheepishly, as if he didn’t want to muddy the waters with what the Father might think irrelevant. What should he do?

Devlin and Dolan had discussed this ancient-mariner syndrome many times: the guy with the tale to tell and a collared face while he told it. They had considered various strategies: tell him to grow up and solve his own problems, immediately offer the name of a psychiatrist, change the subject, just sit and listen. They had decided that sitting and listening was the only out, painful as it was. Just don’t get sucked in, that’s all.

In the midst of a wedding party, Devlin heard the guy out. He had to admit it was real pain the man was experiencing. But the was nothing like drug addiction or being in jail either. The man heard the basic advice — wait it out, don’t cut communication — and mercifully broke it off.

“It’s living in sin that gets me, Father,” he said as a final comment. “Thanks, Father, for your help.” He shook Devlin’s hand warmly and left to join the party.

Devlin wandered back to Mary Ryan. “I just counseled restraint,” he said, sitting beside her, looking out at the dance floor.

“The older you get, the better it looks,” she said, looking out also.

“Restraint, you mean.”

“Restraint,” she said, turning him, then looking back at the dance floor.

“You mean you look back and realize it’s better you didn’t?”

“Didn’t what?” she said, looking at him again.

“Whatever it required restraint not to do,”

“Oh. You think it’s better.” she said.

“It might not be.”

“Father Devlin, what is it you are thinking of doing? Leaving the priesthood?”

“I didn’t say a thing about leaving the priesthood. What a thing for you to say?”

“How old are you?” She looked back at the dance floor.

“Forty-nine.”

She looked at him. “Normally, I’d say you’re too old, but maybe not.”

Devlin didn’t say anything.

“You have a girl friend?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Is she smart?”

“The word has no meaning for me,” he said.

She looked at him, her eyes widening for a fraction, then laughed. “Good one. Very good. You got me.”

He grinned. “What if she is smart? Then what?”

“If she isn’t, she won’t know what she’s getting into, and that would be bad for you both.”

“She’s already wondering what she’s gotten into.”

“At this wedding?”

Yes”

“That’s an interesting question.”

“She’d better, because you do.”

“I do?*

“Father Devlin, come on. This is your turf. You realize that. These are your people, like it or not. You’re part of all this.”

“I’m part of other things too.”

“Not like you’re part of this. You move in this crowd like you own the place.”

“Well I wouldn’t if I had red-haired Ginny with me. You certainly realize that.”

“Behold the problem, of course. Is she Irish?”

“Some kind of Celt. Protestant, though, more or less.”

“Your average secular modern woman.”

“Not average.”

“I expected you to say that. I know she can’t move with you in the same way. But she should be one who would fit in. You’d need a new identity but you’d never shake the old one completely. Somehow she would have to fit in. Unless you plan to help colonize the moon with her.”

“Moon people have souls too.”

“Souls? One of the first things you better forget about is people’s souls. You’re leaving the soul business.”

“What business am I getting into?”

“Now that’s a good question. It’s a new life, Father, full of annoying little realities.”

“You going to lecture me on the difficulties of earning a living?”

She looked at him, saying nothing.

“I take it back,” he said. “I brought it up, I know. Forget it.”

The band broke into a slow melody Devlin remembered from high-school days. He had an inspiration.

“Shall we dance?” he said.

“Let’s,” she said.

He took her hand and they moved out onto the floor, Devlin in his clerics, his white collar shining under his ruddy face, Mary Ryan in her off-the-pace dress and dated hairdo. They moved into the crowd, the fiftyish priest and the sixtyish school teacher. The band played “Red Roses for a Blue Lady.”

Devlin held her right hand in his left and with his right held her around her back, feeling her thinness. She took his lead well, and they glided about. People smiled to see them.

“See?” she said. “You’re dancing in your clerics at a wedding. You can do anything you want, Father Devlin. The sky’s the limit.”

She smiled as she said it, but she didn’t smile. Restraint, thought Devlin. She’s got restraint. What I counsel, she’s got.

“You’ll have to meet her some day. My friend,” he said.

“I look forward to meeting her,” said Mary. “I certainly do look forward to meeting her.”

The band finished the pretty song with a flourish, and Devlin and Mary Ryan joined the rest in standing and clapping.

(end of chapter 18)

“What are you gonna do, Dev?”

“With my life, Terry?”

“Yes.”

“You gonna evict me if I don’t tell you?”

“God knows.” I’m impulsive, irresponsible, weak-kneed, a typical pastor of any faith when it comes to sticking my neck out. Let’s see, what else is there about me to instill confidence?”

“I’ve got to sort things out.” –

“All right. That’s a start.” They sat in St. Emma’s kitchen. It was 10 o’clock or so. The house was quiet. So were the streets outside. It was a warm June night.

“Maybe I should see a shrink, like Kelly did for his drinking. I could do it for my . . . problem.” He hesitated before “problem.”

“You got a problem?”

“You know what I mean?”

“You’ve never quite told me, and I’ve been too polite to ask,” said Dolan.

“You’re polite if nothing else,” Devlin said, with a crooked smile.

“Can we come to terms on the matter?”

“What do you mean?”

“Can we develop a common language. I’m unsympathetic, I admit, but maybe we can come to terms.” He stopped, took a drink of beer.

Devlin said nothing. Dolan began again.

“Can I say that?”

“Sure”

“Good. I’m going for a common language, you understand, giving a little and expecting you to give a little too.”

“O.K., O.K., it’s all right. Go on.”

“You’ve got a lifetime identity, dating from, when? High-school days?”

“Late high school, if you want. You mean when I started to see myself as a priest.”

“Right. O.K. You spend, say, thirty years making an identity for yourself, carving out that little niche you expect to reside in for the rest of your life.”

“No, Terry, I never saw it that way.”

“No niche.”

“No. Too neat. I never saw my life that way.”

“A lot of people do.”

“I know they do, and I’ve never understood it. I’ve envied them but never understood them.”

“You’ve envied me?

“You? No. You’re a grappler, not a niche-dweller. You know what they say about you. You never fit in.”

“Well I think I fit in a little better than you at this point. You’re the one branching out.”

Devlin shrugged.

“Back to your life, O.K.?” said Dolan.

“Shoot.”

“Somehow, nice or not, you saw yourself for thirty years as a priest. Now you don’t.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” said Devlin, jumping up. “You can’t say that. You can’t say that, Terry. You made a big jump there.”

“You’re the one that’s jumping, Dev. Sit down.”

Devlin sat.

“O.K., O.K., said Dolan. “I made my big jump there, and I got a rise out of you, We’re getting somewhere, I think. I probed around and found a nerve,”

Devlin sat with a wry grin on his face. “Aren’t you proud of yourself.”

“It was clever, wasn’t it?”

“You should be a shrink. Or a lawyer. What a Perry Mason you’d make.”

“Or newspaper reporter. Right? Don’t reporters get you all in candid, in-depth interviews?”

“Now you’re getting personal. Right?”

The two of them sat looking at each other expectantly, seeing which would blink first.

Dolan did. “You don’t want to go into that.”

Devlin nodded. “I don’t want to go into that. It’s too, ah, personal.”

Dolan looked at him. “Too personal. I thought we were getting personal from the start. It’s your life we’re talking about. This is your life, Dev old boy.”

“Terry, I’m tolerating this. I’m not handing my psyche over to you.”

“Shit, I don’t want your psyche.”

“You’re just tryin’ to help.”

“Uh-oh. Sounds like if I say yes to that, I condemn myself. Friendly busybody tries to help. Worst kind of busybody.”

“No, I wouldn’t say that.”

Another pause.

“Back to the question?” said Dolan.

“Back to it.”

“You hit the floor when I suggest you no longer see yourself as a priest.”

Devlin started to say something.

“Wait,” Dolan continued. “You resent the implication, and that’s fair enough.” He paused again. “May I make the slightest reference to your dilemma?”

Devlin waved consent.

“O.K. As a priest, you are expected to go it alone. No romantic involvement.”

Devlin furrowed his brow but stayed quiet.

Dolan continued. “Apart from the, uh, eschatological ramifications . . . “

“Cough, cough,” said Devlin.

“Apart from, you know what I mean, what we talked about on the golf course.”

“And other occasions.”

“And other occasions. Apart from all that, there is the general expectation that as a celibate you don’t carry on in your spare time, et cetera. O.K. But you appear to be involved. Behold your dilemma.”

Devlin sat glumly, first looking at Dolan, then looking past him at a cute little clock on the kitchen wall. The clock fascinated him. It had a cuckoo mounted on it that never said or did anything. Just sat there, watching.

“What should I do?” Devlin said.

“Pat, we go from ‘Mind your own business’ to ‘What should you do?’ I don’t want to tell you what to do. What good would that do?” Dolan got a horrible sinking feeling about Devlin, who threw up his hands.

“Shit,” he said.

“Those are my sentiments too, for what it’s worth,” said Dolan.

The two of them looked at each other and broke out laughing.

“Shee-it,” said Devlin. “Let’s have a beer.”

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Mimi Skelton called on Devlin the next morning. She’d heard he was at St. Emma’s, between jobs, and wanted to see how he was doing. Devlin welcomed the visit.

He was ripe for some pleasant female companionship that didn’t give him a sense of obligation. Mimi, with all her kids and husband and breezy manner, was good for him. She fluttered about, landing gently now and then, and he didn’t feel oppressed by her.

“What are you doing at St. Emma’s, when you could be running St. Denis into the ground?”

“How’d you know I was ruining St. Emma’s?”

“That’s why they bounced you, isn’t it? You couldn’t bring in the shekels? You didn’t cut the financial mustard, right?”

“That’s all you lay people ever think of, money. You should be more concerned with spiritual things. It’s your heaven-can-wait attitude that destroys the foundations of parish life.”

“Now Father, you betray the heritage of a long line of Irish pastors when you talk that way. If they didn’t make heaven wait while they piled on the bricks and mortar, who did?”

“I can’t win an argument with the modern Catholic layman. He’s too smart. Overeducated. Some of the women too.” He winked. “We should never have educated them. It was a mistake. We should have kept them dumb and stupid in the kitchen and ditches.”

“We had to be educated in order to rise socio-economically, didn’t we? How could we rise from the bogs and patches otherwise? And bring the clergy with us? It was a cruel dilemma the clergy faced.”

Devlin laughed. “How you doin’, Mimi? How are the kids? Last time I saw Tom and Donna, they were at a party, Donna enjoying herself immensely and Tom running things. Very serious about it. Wonderful kids.”

“We’re all fine. Ted’s wonderin’ when you’re goin’ to the basketball game again. To watch all those black players.”

“Ah yes, De Paul’s black Demons. That’s a natural result of equal opportunity, you know.”

“How so?” she asked.

“Equal opportunity leads to unequal results, because ability isn’t distributed equally. Give black kids a fair crack and there goes the basketball team — black, victorious, good enough to put a school in the big time, et cetera. I’m for equal opportunity, with its unequal results, even if it does lead to envy and backbiting.

“What about you? Are you the victim of envy and backbiting?”

“No, of equal opportunity. I’m caught in the backwash of progress, shelved and rotting.”

“I don’t believe it. You’ll have to come to dinner. I went to see Father’s place, you know.”

“In deepest Lawndale? Stout woman.”

“Nothing to it. Had a good time. Saw his school — their school. Walked around the place. Saw his new boiler too.”

“The one he cadged off the St. George’s laymen last fall? That little effort shook me to my foundations. Pious Jerry groping, stumbling through the jungle of lace-curtainism and finding the pot o’ gold.”

“Ted helped.”

“Your husband too. Taught me something about the children of light.”

“What?”

“That Gospel saying. Children of this world on the one hand. Children of light on the other. Jesus’s people. They plunge ahead, think not about what the morrow may bring. That’s people like your brother-in-law Jerry.”

“Sounds like the way to be.”

“I don’t know,” said Devlin, smiling.

“You’re waiting for an assignment? Is that it?” she asked, hesitant.

“Awaiting assignment, right. They are, uh, leery of me, it would seem.”

“It’s those sermons you preached. Is that it?”

“No, stealing from the Sunday collection. They have strong suspicions they can’t quite prove. So they hide behind ideology. I’m off on doctrine, they say, but the real problem is thievery. I keep my bank accounts all numbered, however, so they will never catch me. Never.”

Mimi laughed. “You dare speak that way here? In St. Emma’s? Where the walls hear?”

“Yes, because my friend Father Dolan is in it with me, and he sweeps the place regularly. If there are bugs, he knows about them. In those rooms we play loud music all day, like in spy books.”

“Have you ever thought of becoming a spy?”

“A Reverend Mata Hari, wheedling secrets in the confessional?”

“Or out of it. In church parlors. Who knows where?”

Mimi laughed. “I’ve noticed that.”

Smart woman. Shrewd. Mimi looked good. Trim and slim, with only enough widening to make her figure more interesting. Devlin enjoyed her company. Sexually, she was attractive. But he was less mindful of that part than before he connected with Ginny. Before, it was a constant barrage he had to deal with when talking to a beautiful woman. Now it was a melody in the background, adding to the enjoyment but not distracting.

He was freshly awakened to sex, as if a new friend had entered his life. But it was a fairly unobtrusive entrance. Not a demon, as he had once imagined. He did, however, briefly think of Ginny, and he found that distracting. There was nothing unobtrusive about Ginny. She made a lot of waves in his life, none of them yet subsided.

“Hello there. Hi there. It’s me, your devoted parishioner. Hi there.” Mimi was waving her hand in front of his face. “Are you there?”

“Oh. Sorry,” he said, smiling. “Mind wandering. Thinking of a good sermon topic. When you’re dedicated the way I am, you never know when you’re gonna go off.

“It must be.” She looked at him quizically. “Are you all right? I never saw you do that. You’re always on the alert. As if you might miss something, But just now you faded away.”

“I’ll never do it again.”

“It’s not bad. I mean, it’s not all bad. It’s just — not you.”

“Spies do that all the time. They communicate that way with their superiors, who sit in darkened rooms all day, tuning their minions in and out. They’re not actually doing that, you know. Actually, they are listening to transistor radios, staying up with the news.”

“Patrick . . . Do you mind if I call you Patrick?”

He wrinkled his brow as if very upset.

“Patrick, you do carry on. They should make you a roving ambassador to far-flung parishes.”

“I could spy for the archbishop.”

“Cheering up the troops.”

“Like Bob Hope in Korea.”

“Sure. Help with morale.”

“Father Pat’s happy hour. Come in a grumpy, go out a happy priest or nun, What if I got atheistic about it? Slipped in an untoward comment or two?”

“That would be part of it. You would offer them something new and different. Refreshing.”

“It could give them a chance to flirt with atheism, see how the other half believes. No.”

“No?”

“No, Mimi, none of that, because I’m getting out.”

“Out?”

“Of the priesthood.”

(end of chapter 17)

The Williamses hadn’t heard from Father Devlin for two weeks, so Arthur called the St. Denis rectory. He was told to call St. Emma’s.

“What are you doing at St. Emma’s?” he asked Devlin.

“I’m between jobs.”

“Why aren’t you at St. Denis?”

“I was judged unfit for such an illustrious parish. Couldn’t cut it. They needed a safer man.”

“You’re not safe? Safe for what? Or from what?” You’re being your usual mystical self.”

“Nobody has accused me of being mystical.”

“Why don’t we jog together some morning? Tomorrow? Since you moved deeper into the village, we’ll stay out of Columbus Park.”

They set it up for next morning.

Arthur came by the rectory at six-fifteen on a lovely June day. If he knew the names of the flowers, he would have announced they were blooming to Devlin, who was bouncing up and down on the sidewalk.

“The flowers are blooming, the flowers are blooming,” he announced instead.

“The sun is shining. All’s right with the world,” replied Devlin. They got in step and headed north down a side street.

“God’s in his heaven, right? That’s the line, right?” said Arthur.

“I think so,” said Devlin.

He slowed them down to a half bounce, half shuffle, pleading stiffness. “A priest in the morning can’t overdo it, Arthur. How’s Melissa and the kids?”

“Kids are fine. So is Melissa, except when she remembers you and the night at Corona and so forth. How’s Ginny, by the way?”

“Ginny is fine, except when she remembers the Corona business. And the Tribune item.”

“Was that you and she at McDonald’s other night? Living it up?” They stopped at Lake Street, waited for cars to pass, then continued.

“None other. I was helping her with her homework.”

“Hey. No need to explain. You’re not gonna do anything stupid. I have confidence in you.”

“Whoa there, big fellow. You too?”

“Me too?”

“Worrying about me.”

“Worrying about you? I said I’m not worried.”

“Not worried about what?”

“Whoa there, big fellow yourself. I say I’m not worried, and you say not about what?’ If I said I was worried, what would you say? Or do?”

They jogged along in silence for a while, taking in the fresh air and big green lawns that village-son Ernest Hemingway once said belonged to people with narrow minds. Spots of red popped out at them from the midst of shrubbery. They loped past the big houses.

“O.K., Arthur,” said Devlin. “You got a point.” They ran along a half block more in silence. “But don’t ask me to be responsible quite yet, OK?”

“You’re not ready for that.”

“Right.”

“Well don’t put it off too long. It can get to be a habit.”

Devlin looked at him. “You know?”

“I know.”

“You too were once a priest on the ropes?”

“Not quite. I was, you might say, a member of society on the ropes. I teetered on the edge for a while.”

“Of society?”

“You betcha. I stood like a kid on a fence, balancing one minute, beginning to lose it the next.”

“Why? What was your beef?”

Arthur looked at him quickly. “What was my beef?” he repeated, half smiling.

“I take that question back,” Devlin said, expressionless. “In every conversation, you get to take back one question. I just took mine back. No questions asked.”

“Anyhow,” continued Arthur, “there I was, wanting freedom now and yelling it on a Loop street in the midst of a bunch of other freedom-Lovers, watching white men in three-piece suits across the street watching me with strange looks on their faces. And there I am looking back at them with what to them had to be the strangest look since the little men from Mars peeped into their kitchen windows.”

“Freedom now.”

“You better believe it. The issue, as I recall, was police treatment of demonstrators the day before.”

“Demonstrators? What were you?”

“A demonstrator. I was demonstrating for the demonstrators. Get it? It was a very productive effort for all concerned. The ‘sixties. You know.” He grinned.

“And what had those demonstrators been demonstrating about?”

“The day before?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t remember. Christ, Pat, it could have been one of a dozen things. Take your pick. Housing, swimming pools, jobs with the fire department, slums. Oh, I said that, didn’t I? That’s housing.”

“What happened?”

“I was hot and bothered, let me tell you. Twenty years old and loaded with wisdom and experience. Revolutions are made with people like me as I was then. And you know somethin’? My parents didn’t even know I was there. I was playin’ hooky and demonstratin! And my momma and poppa thought I was some place else. I’m yellin’ ‘Freedom now,’ and I haven’t even worked it out with my parents.”

“You were a mean little kid.”

“I was bad, let me tell you.”

“What happened?”

“I saw this cop who had been in the midst of it the day before, pushing people around. Real mean mother. And there he is in front of the federal building with this look on his face, watchin’ us march around. To the three-piece-suiters we were just weird. To him we were familiar. And he hated us.”

“White cop?”

“What you think, Pat, some nigger’s lookin’ at us like we were traitors to the human race? They had all the black cops on the other side of town anyway. Yes, this was a white guy. And you know what I did?”

“What?” Devlin took his eye off trafic as they crossed Division Street, beginning to fill up with rush-hour drivers, and a car swerved and honked, the driver looking astonished and angry at the two joggers, himself almost hitting oncoming traffic when he looked back at them a moment too long. The two kept running.

“I gave him the finger.”

“Whoops. Ill-advised, under the circumstances.”

“’Ill-advised under any circumstances I can think of.”

“What happened?”

“You know, to this date, I’m not quite sure. I do know he reached for me. I do know he banged me with his stick. And I do know there was a free-for-all, mainly because I was on the bottom of a pile with this hand hanging on to my shirt and some warm, wet stuff dripping down my face. But like the reporters that wrote it up afterwards, the rest of it was conjecture. Pure conjecture.”

“You got arrested??

“Of course I got arrested.”

Now who’s getting touchy?”

“I am, that’s who. How’d I get talking about this in the first place?”

“You were giving me a lesson in how to be cool under pressure. Something like that. And now you’re breathin’ heavy being amazed at my honky ignorance.”

Arthur kept breathing heavily but didn’t say anything for a block.

They got to North Avenue and turned around.

“Anyhow,” said Arthur as they headed back south, “I got busted and my parents came and bailed me out, mad as hell at all concerned, including me. And I spent a few weeks wrestling with my bruised everything while my daddy gave me a few lessons about long-haul commitment, dealing from strength and all that. And I started attending classes again and ended up jogging in Oak Park with a priest. Is that progress or isn’t it?”

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

“You are not your usual witty self tonight,” said Ginny.

“I didn’t think you’d notice.”

“You and I have been an item now for, what is it? Five weeks? And you didn’t think I’d notice when your quips are not falling where they may?”

“Oh. Right. Dolan always knows when I’m down too.”

“Oh my. It’s a good thing you’re as straight as you are, Patrick. Your life could make you a pushover for gay activity.”

“I’m not a fruit, if that’s what you mean,”

“I know you’re not. Neither fresh, frozen, canned, dried or any other kind. You like girls. That’s your problem, Patrick, you like girls.”

“Specifically, you.”

“Specifically, me. And I like you. If I were a Catholic, I’d have you for my priest.”

“Well you better turn quickly, or you may not have the chance.”

She reached across the bed and moved the backs of her fingers across his cheek.

“I never thought of that.”

“Me leaving the priesthood?”

“No, me turning RC and having you for my priest. What a bizarre idea.”

“You’d be my first convert. Me and my priestly unction and manly charms. Snatched to Rome. Rome unveils new secret weapon in the war for souls with the heretics. Patrick Devlin comes out of the closet. Confesses rampant heterosexuality, takes wife. She converts. Children on way. Wife considered fertile and good catch for Romish priest. Read all about it.”

Ginny laughed. “You could announce me from the pulpit. ‘Sitting in the front row, my dear people, is — dah, da-dah-da-dah, trumpet for the strumpet — my woman. Will you please welcome! dah, da-dah, Ginny (last Protestant in America) Morgan. Her arrival signals the beginning of the end for the revolting heresy that came upon us some four hundred years ago. Praise the Lord.’”

“They might accept you on those terms.”

“Us.”

“Right. Rev. and Ms. Patrick Devlin. Pastor and woman of St. Augustine Church, St. Augustine because he had a woman for many years, ‘woman’ because church law would forbid me to marry you.”

“The woman of St. Augustine. I can hear it now. Also known as Ginny Morgan, formerly reporter for Sun-Times, now reporting to the Lord from St. Augustine parish. Where is St. Augustine parish, by the way?”

“We’d have to invent it.”

“I always said, if there weren’t a St. Augustine parish with live-in woman friend of the pastor, we’d have to invent one. Where should it be?”

“Can’t beat Oak Park. Very progressive community, with a good public high school.”

“Patrick, what does a high school got to do with it?”

“A good public high school, I said. Where the white kids can go without forking over big dough for private schools. Look, in the city you can gentrify an elementary school area, but a high-school district is a lot harder to do. And it usually takes sufficient clout to get boundary lines redrawn. In Oak Park you have the high-school district wrapped up along with elementary schools.”

“You’re losing me.”

“O.K. Live-in pastor’s friend flies only in progressive community, right?”

“Right.”

“That means racial integrationists, up to a point, right?”

“Up to a point?”

“Up to the point where where there aren’t enough white people,”

“The tip point.”

“Right. The point at which white folks head for the doors, move farther west and so forth,” you blame them for that?”

“Ginny, if I were the kind of guy that blamed anybody for anything but child abuse and political torture, would I be here in bed with you carrying on this discussion about racial integration?”

“No.”

“Best you can do is manage normal stupidness so it doesn’t get out of hand. One of the things you do is have a good high school. It keeps things on an even keel.”

“And retains the progressive character of your town.”

“Precisely.”

“I’m being battered by thoughts of the future.”

“They have a way of interfering with enjoyment of the present,” said Ginny.

They lay there for a few minutes looking at the ceiling of Ginny’s apartment.

“Your position is untenable, Patrick.”

“I know.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Don’t ask.”

“T don’t like that answer, Patrick.”

“Neither do I. It’s all I can develop for the moment.”

She sighed. “How’d I get into this?”

He looked at her.

“Neither do I,” she said.

They lay in silence for a few minutes more. Ginny looked at her watch on the bed stand. “You know what?” she said.

“ What?”

“It’s time for the priest in residence to head for the doors.”

(end of chapter 16)

Ginny was on the high of her life. She went at her work each day as if every one of those sometimes shopworn stories were the first one she did for the college paper. Her editors were impressed.

“Good story on the mother with the Down’s syndrome kid,” said one. She had forgotten about it, noting its page one location almost in passing in the midst of making calls for an edition story.

“Thanks, Eddie,” she said. “Got a cigarette?” She’d gone back to smoking, partly because she was enjoying life so much and wanted to savor all the little pleasures. Amazingly, she kept her butt consumption down, which helped preserve the fleeting joys of drag and exhale.

“What have you got for tomorrow?” Eddie asked.

“Never satisfied, are you?” she asked, grinning.

“The insatiable journalistic maw? You kidding? Million stories in the naked city, kid, and room for every one of them. If they’re good enough.”

“Sure, sure, old buddy, except on tight news-hole days. Right?”

Eddie waved her away and took a phone call.

She hustled back to her desk to take a call. “Ginny?” It was Fred the banker.

“I can’t talk now, Fred. I’m very busy.”

“I won’t be long,” he said. “Listen. About the other night.”

“What other night?”

“Oh, That night. You want to apologize.”

“Well, yes,” he said, faltering.

“It’s O.K. Fred. No hard feelings.”

“Really?”

“Really. We all have our moments.”

“Well yes, but —”

“No, really, Fred. Don’t worry about it.”

He seemed to brighten. “Well that’s good. I’m glad I called.”

“Thanks for calling,” she said.

“Well I was thinking we might get together. For a drink?”

She thought of telling him she was on the wagon, but didn’t. “I tell you, Fred,” she said. “Let’s not for a while, O.K.? Let’s go our separate ways for a while, O.K.?”

“How long?”

Jesus, she thought, he really wants to know how long. “I don’t know.”

I should tell him never, she thought. “I . . . don’t know Let’s just let it ride for a while. O.K.?” Eleanor at the desk was signaling her another call. “They’re on my tail here, Fred,” Ginny said. “I have to go.” She hung up and took Eleanor’s call, she thought from a source.

It wasn’t a source, but the Trib columnist, wanting to know, of all things, the phone number for Father Patrick Devlin.

“Why are you asking me?” she said. It was all she could manage, stunned as she was by the caller’s boldness.

“You’re his friend, aren’t you? I thought you’d know.”

Ginny clicked the line dead, then sat there, staring. Chutzpah, she thought, then turned to her notes.

But she was distracted. What did her answer tell the Tribune fink? She should have played games with him. Hanging up told all. Patrick and she were an item. An eye-tem.

She called Patrick.

“Hello there,” he said. He called her “Sweet” in private, but on the rectory telephone spoke differently. “How’s the scandal business?”

“Please. Not now,” she said. “I don’t feel like it.”

“Got a headache? Ho, ho, ho, ho,” he said.

“How you doin’?”

“Oh, I’m just sitting here mulling a traumatic lunchtime conversation with my confessor.”

“You went to confession?”

“To my friend Nate.”

Is he at St. Emma’s?”

“There hasn’t been a priest at St. Emma’s named Nate since Jesus appeared in the upper room.”

“Patrick, will you make sense?”

“O.K. Nate’s not a priest. He’s a lawyer and former basketball player at Columbus Park. No, Austin Town Hall. He played baseball at Columbus. Second base. Weak arm, so he played second base. Great on the pivot.”

She was smiling by now. “You know, I’m forgetting why I called you.”

“Why did you call?”

“I forget,” she said, breaking off in laughter. Eddie turned from his spot at the desk a few yards away as she laughed, giving her a stage look, over his glasses. He grinned, shook his head and turned back.

“I called because that columnist called, from the Trib. Wanted your phone number. Said I’d know because I’m your friend. It bothered me.”

“Pay no attention. Are we news?”

“To some we are. Let’s face it.”

“I’d rather not,” he said. “Since Nate heard my confession, I’m not the same devil-may-care fellow.”

“He threatened excommunication?”

“Nothing that bad. He just foretold financial disaster. Nothing serious.”

“For the nation?”

“For me.”

“For you? Why? Your portfolio in trouble?”

“My career, as you might say from outside the church. My vocation, as seen from the inside. I’m at a crossroads.”

“Because of me?”

“I would have to say you represent a major part of the conundrum, yes.”

“Hmm. We’ll have to talk about this some more.”

“Why? It’s only a major life decision, calling for all our powers of will and concentration.”

“Why don’t we have dinner? In an hour or so, after I’m through here. At a McDonald’s or Burger King. Where the price is right?”

Normally I’d say no,” he said. “You don’t discuss impending financial disaster at a Burger King. The Ritz Carlton is where you discuss financial disaster. You fold the napkins neatly as the Titanic begins to tilt radically forward. But in this case I’ll make an exception.”

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

They stood in line at the McDonald’s on Madison Street in Oak Park.

Devlin had suggested it rather than some place downtown, because he didn’t feel like going downtown and Ginny didn’t care. In fact, she said she would just as soon leave downtown behind for the moment. Her story hadn’t panned out, she’d had to put it off for later in the week, and Eddie had twitted her about breaking her string. All in good fun, but she was a bit irritated.

Time to flee west.

“May I help you?” asked the pretty black girl from behind the chrome-like counter top. It was the patented McDonald’s “May I help you?” but it had a smidgeon of willingness to make contact about it. The girl had not succumbed to becoming a robot.

“Let’s see,” said Devlin, dressed in open-necked sport shirt and slacks.

“We’re at McDonald’s. You’re supposed to know,” Ginny told him, smiling at the counter girl.

“I know, I know,” said Devlin, looking up at the display of possibilities.

“Let’s see, let’s see. You go,” he told Ginny.

“Hamburger, small fries, small coffee,” she said, adding, “For here.” He looked at her in amazement.

“Geez, you sure make up your mind fast.”

The counter girl looked at him, pencil ready.

“Uhh,” he said, then paused. “The same,” he said, going for his wallet.

But Ginny had money ready. Putting out her hand and touching his arm, she said, winking, “Wait. Let the steady income take the check. Hard times coming and all that.”

The girl watched with a glimmer of a smile, took the money and gave change with what which Ginny took as a “That’s O.K.” look on her face, and turned behind her to pick up the burgers and rest.

They sat near a window, from which Devlin could see St. Denis’s steeple a few blocks away.

“I been in this neighborhood a long time,” he said. “Since I was a kid.”

“Mmmm,” she said, biting into the hamburger. “Mmmm,” she said again, holding up the burger. “Good.”

He bit into his and stared out the window. “We used to get shakes at the Daisy Dairy down the street.” He motioned east with his head. Remember milk stores?”

“No,” she said.

“People bought their milk there.”

“Really?”

“I mean they were stores that mainly sold milk and cream and so forth. This one had a soda counter too. Had a nervy, lippy, good-looking dame behind the counter. Took nothin’ from nobody. Buddy of mine left without paying once’, she told me, ‘Hey, Shorty, go shag your friend in here. He owes me money.’ I said something about he couldn’t be any friend of mine if he skipped that way. She called me ‘Shorty.’ I didn’t think I was particularly short.”

“Were you?”

“Hey, who’s side are you on, anyway?”

“What if someone sees you here with me. We’re in your back yard, aren’t we?”

“At McDonald’s? Are you kidding? Second only to the Daisy Dairy for wholesome surroundings. You’re my cousin from Podunk Corners, Ohio, in for the weekend. You’re someone I’m counseling. You’re a newspaper reporter I’m trying to dissuade from exposing the archbishop any further than he’s been exposed already by your snoopy confreres. No problem.”

“Really. Anyhow, you don’t know where a priest will turn up these days, dressed in what sort of civilian clothes and in what sort of company.”

“You even read about it in the newspaper. You know that columnist called me today? Mike Reid?”

“The one exposed me? Me the Rush Street Brawler? He wanted my new phone number.”

“Right. How’d you know?”

“He got it, and called me. Since we talked.”

“No.”

“Yep. Wanted to know what’s up, why I lost my job at St. Denis. Was it connected with the fight and so forth?”

“What’d you tell him?”

“The unvarnished truth. It’s all I’m capable of. All I’m good for, at this point.”

“Namely?”

“No. Not connected to my fight.”

“You confirmed the fight?”

“What, do you want me to lie to the guy?’ If I can’t tell the truth, what good am I?”

“Patrick, you innocent! You babe in the woods! Couldn’t you at least equivocate? Be Jesuitical about it?”

“Oops! Protestantism hanging out there. Tuck it back in. Actually,” he continued, “there is opinion to support that. In fact, I read an article about it by a Jesuit once. He said you could do that, the Redemptorist said you couldn’t.”

“What are you talking about?”

“A journal article. On the morality of lying. I mean equivocating. The Jesuit emphasized the inquirer’s right to know. The Redemptorist emphasized proper use of the faculty, in this case speech and its equivalents. Like in birth control. Use the faculty for what God intended it and for no other purposes. In the case of birth control, the faculty in question is —” He lowered his eyes towards his lap, then shifted them towards hers, bending over the table as he did so.

“Patrick, stop it,” she said.

“I’m just giving you a short course in moral theology.”

“What’s a Redemptorist?”

“Another order. Strict constructionists. Nice fellows but very strict. Used to be, anyhow. To be frank, I haven’t read anything in the field in twenty years.”

“And Jesuits?”

“Jesuitical, actually. Very smart. So smart they figure loopholes, which makes them very helpful to the rank and file, who can’t figure them. Often liberal, therefore.”

“That’s their reputation.”

“Sure. It’s because they’re so smart. They are very smart bastards, let me tell you.”

She sat back and looked at him, drinking her bad McDonald’s coffee.

“What are you going to do?”

“Wait for him to call me again, and then equivocate. He’ll see through it, though. I’m no good at it.”

“I don’t mean with Reid. I mean with yourself.”

“He looked down again. “Tell him I’m not gonna play with myself, if that’s what you mean. There’s no future there—-”

She held up a hand, as if signaling “Stop.”

“You mean my life and vocation and financial future and all that.”

She nodded.

Well for openers, I’m going to keep my head when all about me are losing theirs, or at least letting them twirl around a bit on their necks.

Catholic friends aren’t worried about it.”

“How many know you’re in transit?”

“Am I in transit? Let’s not jump any guns here. They got guys up in the South American mountains who do a nice job saying mass and so forth,

things. We ought to relax a little. Maybe it’s time for a rennaissance of clergy concubinage in Oak Park. Our native son Hemingway would guugetgs be roud of us.” |

“You are a stubborn bastard, aren’t you?”

“What I am is cute. I’m one cute pr ——” He stopped when he noticed a woman looking at him. “ — bastard,” he said, looking self-satisfied.

“You’re incorrigible.”

“Hey, watch your language.”

(end of chapter 15)

In the Apocalypse.

1 Be sure of this, that in the world’s last age there are perilous times coming.

2 Men will be in love with self, in love with money, boastful, proud, abusive; without reverence for their parents, without gratitude, without scruple,

3 without love, without peace; slanderers, incontinent, strangers to pity and to kindness;

4 treacherous, reckless, full of vain conceit, thinking rather of their pleasures than of God.

5 They will preserve all the outward form of religion [!] , although they have long been strangers to its meaning. From these, too, turn away.

6 They count among their number the men that will make their way into house after house, captivating weak women whose consciences are burdened by sin; women swayed by shifting passions,

7 who are for ever inquiring, yet never attain to recognition of the truth.

This prognosis helps in perceptive.

More of same from the day’s 2nd Paul to Timothy 2: 8-15 :

Beloved: Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David: such is my Gospel, for which I am suffering, even to the point of chains, like a criminal. But the word of God is not chained.

Therefore, I bear with everything for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, together with eternal glory.

This saying is trustworthy: If we have died with him we shall also live with him; if we persevere we shall also reign with him.

Hope springs, yes.