Lance first called my new lawyer and then connected by conference call to the District Attorney.He put them all on the speaker phone after Bill Reed cautioned me to give only short answers, yes or no if possible.
The call didn’t last long, just enough for Maguire the D.A. to confirm what he was hearing and to set up a meeting in his office for two days hence where he would take a deposition each from me and Lance.I stated only what I knew to be fact.I skirted around what St. Anne might have known or not before the fire.I did not feel it was my place to say I had heard he wanted to cheat the insurance company.The head of the Ardent Brothers never said that to me.If he had truly stated that intention to my neighbor,Lance did not offer that information during the telephone call for his own reasons.What he said during his deposition later that week I do not know.
While I read the letter, Lance took the phone, told St. Anne he would call him back and hung up.
“Does the insurance company know about this?” I asked.
“No,” he repled. “And this is all news to me today.”
“I mailed this letter for Agnes the day before the fire,” I said.
When I finished, I sat with it in my hand, staring out at the mountainscape.
"The arson is a problem, of course,” said Lance. “But if the insurance company doesn’t know of ... or can’t prove ... Agnes’ claim, they could pay the full value of the monastery building," he said. "If the monastery and acreage were worth $500,000, they will say the land, the building's foundation, the water well are all undamaged and not reimbursable. The net will probably be about $200,000 to $300,000 and it will be paid to the owner of the insurance policy."
"I guess that would be ..." I said.
“You,” he said, “according to Agnes’ letter.”
“St. Anne wants you to not tell anyone we know this,” said Lance. "He wants you to collect the insurance money and give half to him. In return he will burn the letter so that the authorities don’t know of Agnes’ ... claim.”
“Lance, you’re also involved ... a co-conspirator or whatever youi’d be called,” I said.
Lance didn’t respond directly to that commnet, but said, “When we find the $199 thousand which Agnes supposedly left you, added to your half of the insurance money you’ll have upwards of a half million dollars to take care of your Brothers,” he said.
I looked at Lance, trying to read his face. “Or run off to Tahiti by myself,” I said.
“Yes, you could do that,” he said. “Everything is in your name.”
“Lance,” I said to him, with what I hoped was an earnest look on my face, “what do you think I should do?”
“What you think best,” he said without blinking.
I laughed. “Who should we call first,” I said, “the insurance company or the District Attorney?”
Lance relaxed and sat back. A smile formed on his face.
Aside from my drunken escapades on both sides of the Atlantic, I have not in my memory disobeyed my superiors, including you. I am unsure what I planned to do when you dispatched me to America to place the Brothers in other housing and/or jobs and sell the monastery. But when I arrived here, I realized I could not follow your instructions to the letter. There is something you did not know, in any case, and that is Brother SaintFlorian of Linz (Sparky) before he died signed the monastery over to me. And he had already sold five acres of monastery property to a neighbor and spent a portion of the proceeds. What’s left, $199,584.98, was also signed over to me shortly before his death when he revealed all to me and asked that I be a part of his scheme. I have since signed the bank account over to Brother St. Jessica, although he is not aware of it.
I also signed the deed to the monastery over to him. And I am going to burn the monastery down tonight so that Jesse and the Brothers will have the bank account just mentioned and the proceeds from the fire insurance too. So you see, as you requested, the monastery will go up in flames, but you will receive no benefit. The Brothers will be disappointed to lose their home, but they need to throw off their useless menial activity and desert this God forsaken shebeen before someone is injured. And you, Brother St. Anne will have none of the equity, nor do you deserve any of it. I have been witness to your wasteful and neglectful ways with the Order’s money for too many years to be part of any scheme to enrich you further. You need not pray for me. Wherever I wind up will be like heaven compared to this awful life I’ve been given to live.
The phone on the end table next to Lance's chair rang and he picked it up. It soon became obvious he was speaking with Saint Anne and Lance looked at me and raised his eyebrows. After a minute or two of trans-Atlantic conversation, he passed the phone to me.
"Jesse, Jesse, I don't know what to say," began Saint Anne. "I am so sorry the monastery burned down. And the loss of Agnes .. such a tragedy." I had nothing to say to this man. Had I wanted to be funny, I would have asked Lance for a barf bag. Instead I remained quiet.
"I don't want you to worry over any of the particulars." he said. "You shouldn't be bothered by details now. I'll work with Lance to see what has to be done about the ... about the details and particulars."
I couldn't resist. I asked, "Where are the Brothers and I to go, my Abbot Provincial."
"Ah, well yes, Jesse. And Lance tells me he is working something up for you."
“St. Anne,” I said, “did Sparky send you the money from the sale of five acres to Lance? You might use some of that to help us out.”
There was a silence at the end of the line before St. Anne answered me.
“Jesse, your Abbot did not send us one cent of that money.”
“Well,” I don’t know where it is either,” I said. “Unless Agnes
took it with him somehow.”
“I don’t think so,” said St. Anne. “Frankly, he sent a letter to me saying he was giving it to you.”
I was shocked and couldn’t speak.
Lance handed me a sheet of paper as St. Anne said to me, “I’ve faxed over a copy of Agnes’ letter. Perhaps Lance will to show it to you.”
Please Read The Letter - Robert Plant and Alison Krauss
"I've spoken to Saint Anne," Lance announced a week after the fire. The two of us were sipping coffee, enjoying the stupendous view from his Rock. Harpo and Bouncer and Cat had walked up through the woods to sift through what was left of the monastery.
"I told him I bought this piece of the property,” said Lance. “But he already knew it. He would like you to call him in Fermoy."
"I imagine he would," I replied. "Maybe I will someday ."
"He interceded for you with the county district attorney when there was a possibility you'd be charged with leaving Agnes in the fire," said Lance.
"How the hell did he do that?" I asked. "I can't believe the D.A. would pick up the phone to find a Barry Fitzgerald sound-alike leprechaun on the other end of the phone line and take him seriously."
Lance chuckled, "It was the Governor's office of New York that called the District Attorney, not Saint Anne. Your superior is well connected."
"I'd bet the D.A. didn't prosecute because he knew he wouldn't get a conviction," I said. "I'm no lawyer, but I can't imagine being found guilty at a trial by my peers. Of course, I can't afford a defense and I do have better things to do than sit in the prisoner's dock waiting to be exonerated."
Lance looked at me closely. "You really don't feel guilty, do you?"
"Of course I do," I answered. "But it's what Agnes wanted."
"But if I pulled out a gun here and now," said Lance, "and made as if to shoot myself, you'd stop me wouldn't you?"
"Absolutely," I said, "but you're not dying from something else. Look, I took the responsibility for a Brother. It was not easy for me to leave him," I said.
"Not easy to leave a burning building?" Lance asked.
I looked at the man to see if he was accusing me.
"That's what Saint Anne told the Governor," said Lance. “That you're a foolish old monk scared silly of fire who ran from the building and left your superior behind. And was afraid to admit he was still alive and in the building."
By now I was angry. I could not find any words to speak that would have been fair to Lance. I wanted to lash out at him for the accusations he was bringing to me, though I knew ... or at least presumed ... they were not his.
I did not run from the Agnes. When I went back into the building for him I could see a path in and out, and the fire was farther down the hall. I was not terrifically scared at that point. I looked at Lance finally and after taking a few breaths, I said, "That's not the way it happened, Lance."
Lance shrugged his shoulders, as if to say it didn't matter to him. Maybe he had seen men react in all kinds of ways, and valor or cowardice didn't surprise him.
"I thought you should know how you've been described to Dan Maguire, the D.A., " he said. "It might be important for you to choose a demeanor you want to affect in his presence, since you may see him again. Appearing like a frightened old man might be useful. Or maybe not. You'll have to decide."
"I hope I didn't appear that way in court at the inquest. And why would I see the D.A. again?" I asked.
"I've retained a friend as your counsel," he said. "Bill has spoken with Maguire and there's a concern about arson. The county forensic team thinks the fire was started."
"Started?"
"On purpose," said Lance. "Their analysis found advanced fire damage in a room near the print shop in the cellar. It looks like the fire was started in a travel trunk in the storeroom."
Harpo and Bouncer and I stayed in Lance's house the first week while the others went to various homes and shelters. Terd and Jack took in Headless and Cat to stay temporarily in Red Hook. The man who had opened his rented house to Terd not so long ago now had three house guests and he never asked for how long. But most of us were soon reunited when we took over almost half of a small workingman's motel, The Mountain Meadow Inn, staying in three rooms paid for by a "local businessman" who was probably Lance. The motel's owner was nice enough to charge by the room instead by the person. Compared to the Monastery, the quarters were quite confining and even in the cold weather most of us managed to stay outside much of the time. Our recently repaired SUV took some of us into the village and I spent time with Lance at his beautiful home, as did any of the other Brothers who cared to go along with me back up the road to where our old home now lay in ruins.
When Terd brought Headless and Cat back across the river to the Mountan Meadow in a borrowed car, he took me off to the side.
“You got my note?” he said.
“Yes,” I said, “you must follow the path God has for you.”
“It’s a very uncertain path,” he said with a small laugh, “but I just don’t think I’m called to the same adventure as you guys. I’m going to take an assignment with the Capuchins again, maybe. I don’t know what it will hold for me. It may indeed be a mistake.”
“Maybe,” I said, “your path includes making what you call a mistake. You certainly wouldn’t be the first with that fate. But God is in all of it, Terd.”
“I know.” he said.
“Can you take making a mistake?” I asked, smiling at him.
“Don’t know,” he laughed. “I'm trying to remember the last one.”
At the inquest the assistant district attorney asked me, "How did you determine that Brother Agnes was dead?"
"He told me so," I said, an answer that landed on the front page of newspapers across the state the next morning.
"Would you explain that to us?" the A.D.A. persisted.
"He would not come with me. He wanted me to leave him to die," I said.
"Did you tell Fireman Kumminski that Brother Agnes was dead?" the man asked.
"Yes, I thought by then he was," I answered. This might have been somewhat disingenuous.
"Yet you did not know for sure," he said. "Brother Agnes might be here with us today had you said there was a man alive in the fire. Or even that you couldn't be sure."
"I suppose you're right," I said. "He'd be here dying of cancer and liver failure. And he'd be very angry."
I was not charged with any crime, but the judge attempted to lecture me on the value of human life. I interrupted him to say I was fully aware of it, but as an Abbot I was simply doing my best to take care of a brother. He told me to be quiet. The phrase, "my kingdom is not of this world" came to mind, but I stifled my urge to utter it while privately considering that I might never see the kingdom. Instead I asked if the judge ever had to make a combat decision. After telling me to be quiet a second time and threatening contempt of court, he continued his lecture while I remained mum. The silence was good practice for a future day when I will stand before my real judge.
I sit here with the known world out beyond the glass wall of Lance’s living room, typing on the Netbook he loaned me. It’s small, but the keyboard is large enough and I can adjust the font size. My words to the world via the Internet, if anyone is still listening, depend on those folks with Wi-Fi routers who don’t take the time to set up a security code.
As well, I can pick up a Wi-Fi signal parked outside of libraries and McDonalds, just to name a couple of places where I can get on the Web.
To those of you who have emailed me, please accept my heartfelt Thanks. I will try to write back to each of you as I have the time.
We lost the roof over our heads, that's for sure. And at least some of our antiquities work had indeed been important, but it wasn't exactly lost in the fire because it had been published. We held nothing valuable in our monastery except our lives. And every one of us who wanted his life kept it.
Perhaps I have been a bystander for too long. But I was made a player and I will answer for my sins as an active participant. I took years of evolution, a dance of atoms and molecules begun by a heavenly father, a part of whom no doubt evolved right along with his creation, and I ended a small part of it, just as surely as if I had shot Agnes through the heart. I stopped his cells' mitosis and meiosis and gametes and all those things and processes I learned in high school Biology class and promptly forgot ten minutes after the Regents Exam ended. I let a crazy man do himself in. I will some day stand before God and be asked if I thought I did the right thing in letting him die. I will be able to say only that I did what I thought was right when I needed to act.
Agnes did not go quietly. Five minutes after I told the fireman there was a dead man in the fire, our former abbot let out a scream I will never forget. When I dream of that snowy field on a Sunday afternoon so many years ago and hear the scream, I cannot tell if it is his or mine. But he was killed by the fire and I lived. It was a horrible enough way to die, but was almost made worse when a brave fireman rushed in and searched from room to room.I don’t know where they found him, evidently on the other side of the building, because I saw the firemen haul a stretcher over there and bring back Agnes’ body to the ambulance near where we stood watching the fire. He was dead by the time they hoisted him up into the ambulance.
The monastery was a total loss. For a building filled with rot, it went up like a tinder box, throwing flames high into the sky and spreading to the nearby hemlock trees. The firemen worried about the possibility of a forest fire and soon were training their hoses on the nearby trees more than on the monastery. Everyone knew the building was gone.
All of our work for scholars from years past was now ashes floating in the pools of black water that ran off the steaming mass of what had been our monastery, doused with thousands of gallons of water pumped from trucks by the local fire departments, three of which showed up to battle the blaze.
The flashing red lights and activity around what was now a ruin lessened considerably after an hour or two as the hulk that had been our monastery fell in upon itself, sparks whooshing up in a curtain of applause for its last performance. I began to see the outline of the trees against the dawning sky in the east. Soon the sun would move up from behind the Taconic Mountains and pour itself over the valley just like any other day, as if nothing was new or changed.
"Poor Agnes, " I said to Harpo as we stood side by side and viewed the smoldering smoky ruin after the flames were subdued.
"Agnes made his choice," said Harpo.
I reflected on that for a moment, for the first time wondering if Agnes had been of sound mind. For all I knew he may not have been sober. But I could beat myself about the head for the rest of my life over "shoulda/coulda's" as Sparky used to say. It was done.
"We've lost everything," I said.
Harpo sighed audibly. "We are blessed to have had nothing to lose." he said. "I lost my Timex."
"All our work and records and manuscript copies ..." I said.
"You know as well as I that we no longer had any work of great importance," he said.
"We lost our rice and beans," I said.
"Thank God," said Harpo.
I turned when I heard Sally’s voice call my name. She walked up and stood hesitantly before me, then reached up to give me a hug. I couldn’t help myself, I folded her up in my arms and gave her the kind of embrace I had not given a woman since Immy. She did not resist. I couldn’t let go. I wanted to hold on to her forever. Hold on to the feminine, the safety, the beautiful golds and pinks and blues on the horizon, to life and maybe to “a manifestation of God personalized for my feeble mind.” I don’t know what I wanted. Sally’s hands slid down my arms signaling me to release her. I let go and sobbed.
“It will be OK,” she said.
“It will never be OK,” I said, trying to hold back the tears. “I am still so afraid.”
“But we’re not alone,” she said. “He is with us.”
“I want to be with you,” I said.
“You will always be with me, David, in my heart.” Gently, she continued, “I have a life to live. So do you.”
“Mine is so confused. I’ve lost the map,” I said.
“Forget the map,” she said. “Remember the dance.”
Looking up into my eyes, Sally kissed the hollow of her right hand and placed it on my chest, her eyes still holding mine. She leaned into me and pressed the flat of her hand hard on my chest. I felt my heart stop. Then she turned and walked back down the driveway, past the fire trucks, stepping lightly over the hoses that lay across the ground. The dawn broke in a bouquet of colors as Sally disappeared into the small crowd of firemen and neighbors. I never saw the young woman again, except in my mind, my fields of gold.
I remember thinking that we had nothing at Our Lady's that thieves would have valued and so I was wondering why in the middle of the night someone was holdng a pillow over my face as they tried to suffocate me. My eyes stung terribly and as I came awake an awful smell filled my senses. I tried to get up. I was going to be sick to my stomach. I heard the crackling. FIRE! The monastery was on fire! Oh, God! Don't let me be burned again! I was moving now but unable to breathe very much, choking each time I tried to inhale.
I crossed the small space to Beep’s bed and felt for him. I tried to punch him awake, but he seemed to not care, as though he would be perfectly happy to sleep through it. Fully awake now and terrifically frightened, I pulled on his arm and punched him again, but I wanted so much to be out of there I almost left him. Beep came awake and started coughing. I grabbed him by the front of his t-shirt and pulled him up and out of bed across the room and into the hall. The house lights were still on, but the smoke occluded much of what would have been visible. Beep was trying to speak, but he continued to cough and I shouted in his ear to go out the rear hall door to the fire escape. Thank God this place used to be a resort and the law required iron stairways down the outside of the building!
I had grabbed my robe in the rush from the bedroom and now I threw it over my head and let it fall down around me while I pulled the edge of the cowl across my face to breathe through. It helped a little. I could hear the other men shouting now and as one passed, he grasped my robe and towed me along down the hallway and out the door on to the fire escapes platform, where I was able to gulp some air.
"Who's out?" I shouted.
"I'll do a count," said Bouncer, who had dragged me out with him.
"Get down the stairs and get them around you on the ground," I said, remembering how we used to account for everyone after a raid in Africa.
"Don't stay here, Jesse," Bouncer said.
"Get going!" I shouted in his face and pushed him toward the steps.
"Listen Up!" he shouted as he started down the iron stairs. "Harpo, let's hear you! Cat! Headless!"
A moment later he shouted up from the gound, "No Agnes! No Kickstart!"
"I'm here!" shouted Kickstart in the confusion.
I knew I had to go back in for Agnes. I could hear crackling, but still saw no fire. There were no flames showing. None I could see. Hall lights winked through the smoke so I knew we still had electricity. It was perfectly safe. But I couldn't move. I was petrified.
All I ever wanted to be was a man, but a live one. Physically I'd been a coward all my life. I proved it on the snowy afternoon of the plane crash years before. It had taken a long time, but eventually I came to accept myself and my limitations. At my age, I did not need to show myself I was something I was not and never could be. And on this horrible night, I did not need to go back in for a man who would be dead in a few months. True, I did not have a long and productive life rolling out ahead of me ... not at age 67 ... but it seemed fruitless to risk what time I had left for a dying alcoholic who couldn't find his way out of his room and down the hall to this fire escape.
So much for self-serving rationalization. I was the Abbot. Maybe Brother Jesse could justify not going back in, but as abbot I knew I had to go. It occurred to me to wonder how often the soul of a coward is moved to action by the role he has agreed to play. Pin a medal on the poor son of a bitch and he'll act like a hero. Such a concept of ennobling has probably gotten a lot of people killed.
I pulled my robe over my head and threw it in the corner of the fire escape where a drift of snow had built up. Kicking it into the icy mix and stamping the rough fabric with my feet to get it as wet as possible, I shouted down to Bouncer.
"I'm going in. DO NOT come back up." I don't know why I said that. I guess because John Wayne would have. He wore a lot of medals.
As soon as I pulled my wet robe on and moved through the door I saw Agnes standing 30 feet down the hall. The breeze behind me cleared some of the smoke, but it was still thick. I could see flames a short distance beyond where he stood, licking out from under doors and moving along the ceiling. Agnes might be quite confused from his medicines, I thought, but I suspected this was not the case.
"Come on! This way, Agnes!" I shouted, but he did not budge. I huffed to his side and repeated myself. Tears were carving white streaks down his smoke stained face. "No," he mouthed.
"Agnes, this is no way to end it," I whined. "Follow me," and I pulled on his arm.
"Stop!" he cried. "Leave me be!"
"You know goddamn well I can't leave you here, Agnes!" I shouted in his face.
"Can't you do this one thing for me?" he said. "Can't you just leave a man in peace to die?"
"You don't really want to die this way," I said.
"YOU don't want to die this way," he shouted at me, "so Leave!"
"Agnes, I can't leave you!" I repeated.
"I know. You don't have the guts to let a man die. You've never had the guts to do anything! Goddammit, Jesse! Do the right thing!"
If I did what he asked I would spend the rest of my life agonizing in guilt, for it is a terrible thing and a mortal sin to let a man take his own life.
"Order me to leave you, my abbot," I said to him.
"No," he replied. "Do it yourself. Be MY abbot. Help me to die!"
How can leaving a man to his death be the right thing? I still ask myself that. I turned and ran down the hall to the fire escape. When I got to the foot of the stairs and staggered across the icy ground, Bouncer ran to me.
"You didn't find him, for chrissakes? His room is right down the hall!"
"He wouldn't come with me," I said.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Bouncer turned toward the fire escape, but I grabbed his arm and stopped him.
"Stay here, Brother," I said.
"You can't just leave a man in there," he cried.
"He deserves to make his own fate," I said. "Right or wrong," I added.
Bouncer looked me in the eye and then looked away. A fireman in his rubber coat and helmet rushed up to us and screamed, "Is everyone out?"
Guest Postulant Julio now insists on driving me around when I go out to do a chore. I let him, since I know it is difficult for the young man to settle into the contemplative mode and he needs a break from time to time. I don't know if he will continue in his vocation for very long, but more than just humoring him I hope we provide an example of a lifestyle from which he'll bring a bit of wisdom when he re-enters his old world. It is for similar reasons that I try to combine necessary trips to the villages with some time spent sitting on the one bench in Saugerties or one of many throughout Woodstock, a town of peacocks and spectators. I enjoy speaking with anyone who approaches me. I am not a lighthouse, but I can speak for who I am.
If one sits on the green in Woodstock long enough … maybe five minutes, maybe less … you’re sure to meet one of the Crazies in town. People here do use that term affectionately. It’s part of the culture to be nice to anyone who is different, whether the person's particular challenge is neurologically induced, chemically induced, spiritually induced (more than you’d think) or even put on, the last two being virtually the same. In short, if you’re crazy … hey, pull up a chair and tell us about your home planet!
Wendell has often sought me out. I would first see him loping across the street through the traffic of passing cars and bicycles while he peered up in the air instead looking both ways. He was always interested in the sky and carried an umbrella in any kind of weather. When he spotted me, a big smile would light his face and he’d hurry to sit down next to me.
“He’s the patron saint of working men, you know,” said Wendell, as he shifted his large frame and got comfortable on the bench. We were going to have another one of Wendell’s goofy conversations.
“You mean St. Joseph?” I guessed.
“Oh, sure,” he said. “That’s why he traveled around looking for work all over the place.”
“With Mary on a donkey?” I asked?
“Well, sure.” said Wendell, “on that night, anyway. He probably heard there was work in Jerusalem.”
“You mean Bethlehem.”
“Right. He was a carpenter, don’t cha know. Might have heard the news about a palace or a sindagog going up somewhere. So he pops Mary up on old Donner and off they go again.”
“You mean Blitzen,” I said.
“Right.” says Wendell. “ There wasn’t any Union Hall to go to. No bulletin board with job postings back then. You had to keep your ears open and hang around down by the station for the camel drivers to come through and ask if they heard of any construction starting up.”
“And drink beer,” I interjected.
“Don’t be a smart ass,” said Wendell, “they drank wine.”
You could feel sorry for my dopey friend Wendell, but if you had spent any time watching him cross the road or ride his lawn mower to the store when no one could run fast enough to stop him, you’d realize he must have the hardest working Guardian Angel this side of the Pearly Gates. They say God protects drunks and fools. Ordinarily Wendell was neither, until the night thirty years ago when he went out drinking after his freshman biology exam. He lost control of the Chevy convertible as it spun wildly off the road and crashed into a sleepy fleabag hotel in the Catskills. Without a seatbelt, it’s a wonder Wendell stayed in the saddle, so to speak. The Chevy bounced off 6 parked cars and a US Mail truck, before plowing into Units Number 3 and 4. The latter was occupied by a young lady and an older man who would have a lot of explaining to do when he got out of the hospital.
Wendell’s head must have hit every two-by-four as he went flying through the High Peak Motel. He hasn’t been the same since. He lives out Tinker Street with a sister, and each day walks down to the Green, oblivious to the cars that zoom by him on the busy road. When he gets to the center of town, after wandering on and off the pavement inspecting anything along the side of the road that catches his interest, Wendell looks around for someone to talk to.
“So, “ I asked Wendell, “Saint Joseph traveled all over 48 states looking for work?”
“Don’t be silly,” he said, “ there’s 50 states now.”
“Oh, I forgot,” I said, “we bought Mexico.”
“No-o-o! Alaska and Puerto Rica. You don’t know your geology. Hahahaha!”
Wendell loves it when I play the fool, though I’m pretty sure he suspects the ruse. His sister and her family have grown tired of his banter and his needs … unfortunate, but understandable … and he seldom has the opportunity to feel important, much less superior. So, I often ask his advice on little things.
“It’s clouding up, Wendell. Do you think rain is coming?” I asked that afternoon.
“Rain? Coming? Only one way to tell,” he said. And with that, he got up from the bench walked to the street. Proudly making a production of the joke he’d just thought up, he shuffled up to the road, puts his toes on the edge of the curb as if it was the end of a diving board, and then bowed way out over the road’s surface. I cringed, thinking he might lose his balance and fall into the path of an oncoming car. Leaning even further out, Wendell put his hand to his forehead, shading his eyes like some long ago Hiawatha. He looked east, then swooped the upper half of his body around and stared off to the west. Then he turned and ambled back to the bench.
“Any rain coming?” I asked as Wendell plopped himself back beside me. I’m a good straight man.
“Huh?” He looked truly confused.
I knew he’d forgotten what he had been about. His eyes screwed up in thought. In a moment he would realize he’d lost a conversational thread again and begin to feel bad.
“Did you see any rain coming up the road?” I reminded him. “Or anyone on a donkey?”
“No,” he said, now deflated. “This isn’t the road to Jerusalem.” He was silent for a few moments, while for the first time I wondered if this might be the Road to Emmaus. If you weren’t listening in Sunday School, that’s where Christ disguised himself as a mere mortal after
his resurrection to show people truth is often hidden.
“You want some coffee, Wendell?”
“I’ve had my two cups today,” he said.
I knew he wanted a cup. He always wants a cup. He was afraid to break one of the many rules his sister has made for him, this one to keep him from getting too jittery.
“You won’t tell anyone I had coffee, will you?” Wendell asked.
“Your caffeine secrets are safe with me,” I said with a chuckle. We walked to the small deli down the street. I settled him at a tiny table and started toward the counter to purchase the coffees with the five dollar bill I had taken from the jug in our kitchen.
He looked up suddenly and said, “Who is your patron saint?”
“Saint George,” I said, without a thought.
“You mean the guy with the dragons and the roundtable and all?” he asked.
“No, the guy with the piano, George Gershwin.”
“But he’s Jewish,” said Wendell.
“So is God,” I replied.
Well, you’d think I’d just made the funniest joke this side of Paradise. Wendell laughed and laughed, and was still giggling when I brought the mugs back.
Quiet for a moment, we sipped our coffee. Wendell takes his black, no sugar or cream, but stirs it anyway. While he was thinking about God-knows-what, I sat and thought of all the things in town I needed to do … get another beeswax ring for the toilet off the kitchen, buy a package of Lifesavers for Bouncer, check out the …..
“I have a patron saint,” said Wendell.
“Who’s that,” I asked.
“You,” he replied, without looking at me.
Ah, me. What could I say to that? It’s a heavy responsibility to be someone’s patron saint, I was thinking. Still, I’ve never received a nicer compliment.
“You could find a better one, Wendell,” I said.
He looked down at his coffee and continued to stir.
“Maybe,” he said. “But this one comes with a free cup of coffee.”
Let's Hear It For The Boy - The Stunners. The Stunners? Nice arrangement, anyway.
Agnes and I sat in silence for a while and then I got up to leave.
“Jesse,” he said, “I have some papers that need to be in the mail tomorrow. Could you mail them for me?
“Sure,” I said, “I’m going to the hardware store for Bouncer tomorrow. I’ll drop them off at the Post Office.”
The next morning, Agnes looked anxiously at me as I hung my work robe on the hook next to the side door and put on my jacket.
“Can you take this to the Post Office?” he asked, pushing the envelopes toward me.
“Yes, of course,” I said with a little annoyance in my voice.
“They’re very important letters,” he said.
“Does this have anything to do with Sparky’s money?” I asked.
Agnes’ head flicked back as if I’d just popped him on the jaw. But he recovered quickly and looked down on the floor.
“I cannot answer you,” said Agnes. “Just trust me this time.”
Of course I looked at the envelopes once I got in the SUV. I justified my curiosity by telling myself I was his abbot. There were four, two quite thick. One was addressed to a solicitor in Fermoy, another to a local bank in Saugerties, the third to St. Anne in Fermoy and the fourth to what appeared to be a local attorney’s office. I have since been accused of opening the letters, reading and resealing them. But I did not do that. I came close to doing so, but for reasons I’ll never understand, in fact I decided to trust Agnes one more time.
As the letters dropped from my fingers into the mail box outside the Post Office, I remember thinking: I can probably go inside and beg for them back, citing one reason or another, and then read them. But I decided not to. And I’ve since been told the Post Office workers would have never given them back to me.
I have not told my Brothers about Sparky’s money. They would tear the monastery apart looking for it. I somehow doubt it’s here. I don’t even know if it really exists. Besides, it would not be a fortune in this day and age and I need to think about how we would use it. Maybe we should indeed give it all to the poor. We are, after all, mendicant monks, sworn to a vow of poverty. Of course we do need a roof over our heads. But maybe there’s only a few hundred dollars left.
