"You cannot possibly stay there!” Saint Anne said loudly. “You can’t afford to pay the upkeep and we need the proceeds to pay off the loans we took out for you! You couldn’t get loans, so we indebted ourselves to send you money each quarter. This really isn’t our debt. It’s YOURS!”
“Sparky never told me that,” I said with honesty.
“I don’t care what he told you,” cried Saint Anne. “We’re stuck holding your debts.”
Well, that was all very interesting, but I still didn’t plan to sell the monastery and send a few hundred thousand dollars over to Ireland. And frankly it was difficult to imagine St. Anne borrowing against his credit to send us money. What money? As far as I knew, we never got anything from Fermoy. Sparky would have certainly mentioned it.
“I’m told the real estate market here is depressed and the monastery won’t sell for much anyway,” I said.
“Half a million!” Saint Anne almost shouted. “Don’t take a penny less!”
I was about to destroy St. Anne's hope of ever getting money from us and I wondered how to break the news to him. I decided to be straightforward.
“Here’s the plan,” I told him. “I’m going to rent out rooms to anyone who can afford to pay and is willing to live in some degree of quietude right alongside a group of semi cloistered monks.”
“Semi … ?” Saint Anne began.
“That’s right,” I said. “The ten of us are also going to get jobs. All of us, monks and other men, will live and eat simply and pay our bills. Anything left over will be sent to you in Fermoy.”
“Brother Jessica, that will hardly be enough," he said. "I need at least a hundred thousand dollars U.S. to flash before the crowd downtown and a promise of much more. You do realize I hope that the Fermoy Chapter House is responsible for the debt we took on for you and if you do not send us cash from the sale of your monastery the local banker here on the Quay will begin proceedings.”
“Then you have the same problem I have,” I replied. “I’m just trying to save my monastery. Welcome to the club.”
“You could sell West Saugerties and all come over here to live,” said Saint Anne.
“I didn’t think that was possible,” I said.
“Of course, we don’t have the room or resources to take care of you here,” he said, “but I’m sure we could find some accommodations in the town."
“I'm sure the Irish wouldn't want a bunch of Yanks descending on them to take their jobs, Saint Anne. And even so, we can do the same thing here in the States.”
“Yes,” he replied, “but if you came here you’d bring along the cash to pay your debt.”
“Nice,” I said. “Then you could live in your castle while we butt heads with your locals and sleep in a stable.”
I avoided the task for a few days after my “coronation.” Dropping the sarcasm, I will say we had a very nice liturgical ceremony in the chapel to install me as abbot. Finally, I sat down at the little desk and opened the check book and ledger. The first thing I wanted to know was how much time we had left. The answer was we had run out of money over a month before and the last ten checks Agnes wrote had bounced. I picked up the phone and called our superiors. Better to get to this chore before our telephone was turned off.
“Fermoy!” said the voice on the other end of the line.
“M&M, this is Abbot Jesse in Saugerties,” I said, “and I need to speak with Saint Anne.”
“Abbot Pro Tem, you mean,” replied M&M, “and he is sitting with me at this moment. I’ll pass you over to him.”
“Jessica!” boomed Saint Anne. “Congratulations on being elected Abbot. Sell that place immediately and send the proceeds by wire so I can get the bankers off my back.”
“M&M may have told you Agnes is on his way to you,” I said.
“Hmmm,” came the reply.
“His brother William ….” I began to say.
“Yes, yes,” said Saint Anne. “Very sad. He died a year or so ago.”
“A year ago?” I echoed.
“Yes, I thought that sending Agnes your way might be of help to him in some way.”
“Well, he should be in your office for you to talk to today or tomorrow,” I said.
“I doubt it,” said Saint Anne. “But not to worry. He’ll show up eventually. He always does.”
“He always ….” I began.
“Now to more pressing business,” interrupted Anne. “We need to make a substantial payment to the boyos on the Quay before they repossess our other house in Cloheenafishoge.
“Brother Saint Anne, I don’t mean to start right off with insubordination, but I am taking the monastery off the market this afternoon. I and the Brothers are staying here for the rest of our natural lives.”
Harpo has been visiting me in the cellar, taking care on his way down the stairs. He is a Brother, of course, but I try to think of him as a sibling brother, because I believe that’s why we call each other Brother and we should act like it. I should be thankful that someone wants to spend time with me, I suppose, but anyone reading this blog will know that I'm rather self-centered. I remember a time in Africa when we were up some god-forsaken river and the map was wrong (an accurate map in Africa should have won a Pulitzer Prize.) Another Brother and myself were bringing a young woman in from the bush to a tent hospital when she began to give birth right in the boat. My first thought was about the inconvenience, because now we would have to deliver her here and I’d miss supper and my evening card playing group. Of course we took care of the poor girl and she rewarded us with a healthy six and a half pound daughter. My spiritual director at the time said my actions were important, not my selfish thoughts. I wasn't experienced enough at the time to appreciate that my thoughts were certainly important and could be predictive.
Harpo shuffled across the cellar and headed toward the only chair, other than my stool.
"Not there,” I called to him, “you'll sit on my guardian angel."
Harpo did what I expected and sat right down anyway as I was saying, “Only kidding!”
“I don’t have a guardian angel,” he said in his Low Country drawl.
“Maybe I don’t, either,” I said. “Who knows?”
“Yes, you do,” he said. “Sally.”
“You remember?” I said, surprised he recalled the name, and wondering if he would connect it to our real estate sales woman. I had not mentioned to anyone that I believed they were one and the same.
“Of course I remember!” he said. “Who could forget that great story of you meeting a bra-less woman in the woods!”
“I certainly don’t know for sure about her underwear, Harpo,” I laughed, now uncomfortable. “That would seem irreverent.”
“…and far be it from you to be irreverent,” he said with a smile. “I don’t normally notice such things, of course,” he continued, “but she seemed to be wearing a bra when Agnes introduced her to us in the Pit.”
“Why would you think they’re the same Sally?” I asked, my eyes averting his as I looked down at my type bench and pretended to busy myself fishing an en quad out of the typecase.
“Do you mean,” he asked, “why would I suspect you thought so, just because you acted like there was a Martian in our midst? And you spent the rest of the day and evening staring into space, adrift in some other world.”
“Sally in the woods,” I said, “and Sally Prendel look and sound exactly alike, Harpo.”
“Jesse, your mind has been known to play tricks on you, as you know.”
“I know,” I admitted. “And it can’t be true, but it’s … it’s … it’s …”
“It’s a mystery,” Harpo said. “As a Catholic I’m sure you’ve heard that line before. We Jews don’t have such a concept. If it isn’t believable, we don’t believe it.”
“You’re not Jewish, Harpo,” I said, “your parents were.”
“If they were here they would convince you otherwise,” he said.
We were quiet for a few moments as I continued to set type and Harpo sat in the desk chair, twirling his fingers through Tapioca’s hair. The silly dog sat there and panted as if she was thinking of a steak dinner.
“I used to have,” Harpo continued, “what you call ‘a manifestation of God personalized for my feeble mind’ that I saw as my guardian angel.”
For some reason, I didn’t think it was a pretty girl. “What was she like?” I asked.
“I don’t know if it was a he or she,” said Harpo. “It was an animal.”
“Ah, you’re a closet Totemist!” I said. “Was it Ayla’s uncle, the Cave Bear?”
“No,” said Harpo. “It was the Easter Bunny.”
Mention of the Easter Bunny in my presence always brings a negative response. I lost all appreciation for that icon many years ago when I was child.
Picture little me at maybe seven years old, tired and sleepy after a full day of Catholic school classes and Catechism questions, minding my own business as I sat in the living room, Dad at work on the night shift, Mom devouring a Reader’s Digest shortened novel. (I’m sorry, but I have to interrupt this post to ask what sniveling hack had the gall to cut up great novels and shorten the sentences! If you can’t hold any more than a dozen words in your head without it leaking, limit yourself to Hemmingway or the Daily News!)
Anyway, I heard a noise in the kitchen and I set down my novel by Erle Stanley Gardner … well, maybe it was a comic book … and walked to the other end of the flat. On this warm evening in early spring at dusk the sky dribbled a meager light through the kitchen windows to illuminate all but the deeper shadows. I noticed the door to the flat was open to the back hallway. I reached for the wall switch to turn on the ceiling light, but froze in horror as a shape emerged from the hall and stepped toward me in the semi darkness. A five foot high pink rabbit waved at me and a muffled voice cried “Hi!”
From my mouth came a screech so loud and piercing the window panes rattled and the rabbit drew back partly into the shadows. The lights came on as my mother rushed into the kitchen. The Easter Bunny pulled its head off and dropped to its knees, sending me right over the top. I tried to screech again, but I was still on my first and when I finished I wouldn’t have enough breath for a second. I wouldn’t have enough breath until midnight. Mrs. Hallack from next door, my mother’s friend when she wasn’t drinking (Mrs. Hallack), was laughing and down on her knees crawling to me. I grabbed a RevereWare copper-bottomed pan from the stove and hit her full across the face with it. I wasn’t sure what was coming after me. It didn’t matter. Had it been Pope Pius the Twelfth down on my kitchen floor in a pink rabbit suit selling his encyclicals he would have received the same welcome.
Smacked with a frying pan across the face, Mrs. Hallack sobered quickly. As blood began to trickle from her nose, she hauled off and threw a punch at me, but my mother intervened by stepping between us. Mom was on her feet, so she took the blow in the stomach and it was not appreciated. She grabbed Mrs. Hallack by her pony tail and dragged the woman backward on her knees across the linoleum and out into the back hall. She slammed the door and locked it. Mrs. Hallack would never visit us again. My Mom said she’d never been in a real girl fight before. Ever! She was breathing hard, but she looked pretty pleased with herself as she very carefully pried the frying pan from my hands.
Just a casting thought re Agnes were I to write a play.
So, I dreamed last night that Agnes ran off with Sally. I could not shake the dream from my mind when I awoke in the morning and I still cannot forget it.Maybe Sally is a famous Broadway actress who disguised herself as my angel for one afternoon! And for fun she sells real estate! When I resisted her, she returned a few years later and instead seduced Agnes, a distant second to me. Like Thespis, I’ll bet Sally is launching our former abbot on a career of stage and screen. He’s probably down there in The City applying grease paint as we speak.
“Raiser,” I said to my Brother after supper in the evening, “you’re a thespian, right?”
“No,” he said, “but we always wondered if my sister was.”
“If you wanted even a minor role on Broadway, would it be very hard to get?” I asked.
“You mean a ‘spear carrier’?” he said. “A lot tougher than you might think.”
“How long would it take Agnes to qualify for a role like that?” I said.
“Agnes? With his attitude, forever,” said Raiser.
“Suppose he knew someone who was really important in the Theater?”
“Oh, in that case,” said Raiser, “he’d be on stage the next afternoon in a matinee.”
“I’ll bet Agnes has succumbed to the theater.” I said. “Someday we’ll see him on stage, in the movies and on television.”
“All we ever see up here is trees,” said Raiser.
“A true consolation,” I replied.
But it isn’t Agnes who is on my mind lately. It’s Sally. She keeps returning in my thoughts. And sometimes my dreams. But not in the flesh. She hasn’t returned to our monastery. And I haven’t seen Sally since I went with Agnes to the real estate office to sign the papers.
I haven’t felt this way in a long time. With all the worries buzzing around in my head I am constantly distracted from my goal of figuring out a way through this mess. I’ve never been very good at concentrating on which task should be first or second or even last. When there’s a lot to accomplish I will sit down and make a list, but when I try to prioritize each item, to arrange them with the most important at the top, I keep moving all of them around, wasting paper as I re-order the list and write a new plan of attack. I’m not a “pick a task and go” style of person. All of this reminds me of Lassie. I know … it seems improbable, but you have to admit that Lassie herself was somewhat improbable.
When I was nine years old, there were three dogs named Lassie in our neighborhood. Well .. OK … maybe only two at the same time. The first Lassie was run over by the Salvation Army truck that came to pick up Mr. O’Reilly’s furniture after he died of Malaria. In truth he probably died of a heart attack or some disease we kids couldn’t pronounce. But we did know how to say Malaria and our young minds needed drama to balance the unbelievable fact of death, even a death from old age. Drama may be why Mr. Belcher was said to have been eaten by a tiger in Mexico and why Mrs. Lambertini was rubbed out by the mob.
Lassie was a popular dog name because of the famous canine movie star. Rin Tin Tin was also a famous movie star, but I never heard of anyone in our neighborhood calling their dog Rin Tin Tin. Or even Rinty, that particular dog star’s nickname. How Rin Tin Tin came to have his name in the first place was a mystery to me. I asked Mr. Banasznewski who ran a butcher shop where I was often sent on errands by my mother.
“Who would name a dog Rin Tin Tin?” I asked of the man.
“Only a Chinaman,” he replied.
“You think Rin Tin Tin is Chinese?” I asked, aware that the dog certainly looked like a German Shepherd.
“His name could be Chinese,” said the butcher, distracted by a long drive to left field that he was just hearing about on the radio that played constantly on the shelf above his blood-stained butcher block. “Look at all the letters in Rin Tin Tin,” he added.
“Doesn’t Banasznewski have more letters?” I asked.
“Maybe so,” he replied, “but they’re not separated into three words that rhyme … Rin, Tin and Tin.”
“Why would a German shepherd have a Chinese name,” I asked.
“International trade,” said Mr. Banasznewski. He turned the volume on the radio up another notch and then added, “The Germans and the Chinese exchange tea and … strudel.”
You could hear the crowd roar over the radio now as a line drive shot out away from the batter toward second base. I sensed Mr. Banasznewski was no longer fully involved in our conversation.
“This is from my mother,” I said and held out a folded slip of paper.
Mr. Banasznewski turned from the radio immediately and stepped over to me. Taking the note, he raised it to his face while pushing his rimless eyeglasses up on his forehead. His brows furrowed as he squinted to read my mother’s handwriting. A smile now grew on his face and he looked up at the ceiling, as if enjoying a private reverie. Then he turned and bent over his butcher block. From the upper part of his apron I could see him pull out a black grease pencil and he used it to write on the back of the paper I had given him. Then he handed the note back to me. I’m not supposed to read other people’s notes, but I could see his answer in big block letters, two of them. “No,” was all it said.
Arriving home, I found my mother in the kitchen listening to our small radio that was tuned to the soap opera, “Young Doctor Malone.” “If a dog’s name has three parts that rhyme,” I said to her, “is there a chance he’s Chinese?”
She smiled at me and said, “Why would you think so, darlin’?”
“Mr. Banasznewski said so,” I replied as I watched her reach across the kitchen cupboard and turn up the radio. An organ blared from the speaker and a voice droned on above the music to bring us up to date on how many women were in love with Young Dr. Malone.
I held out the square of paper. “Here’s his answer to your note.” Her eyes widened a little as she took the slip of paper from me and read the butcher’s message, “No.” A look of concern came over her face and she said aloud, “What was the matter with her?”
“Her?” I asked.
“Aunt Lydia,” came the reply. My mother’s sister, Lydia, worked at the butcher shop. Mom handed back the note. It read: “Darlin’, can you come over tonight?” I handed the note back to Mom.
“Was the note for her?” I asked. But seemingly more concerned with Young Doctor Malone’s admirers, my mother didn’t answer. Staring at the radio, she absent mindedly placed the note into the drawer in which we kept bottle openers and soup ladles. Dad found the note that night before he went out to his bowling league.
Young Doctor Malone was now performing an emergency appendectomy on a woman he had met the day before in the hospital cafeteria. Did Mom tell me who the note was for? Did I see Aunt Lydia at the butcher shop? I didn’t remember. I was still trying to figure out why someone would name their dog Rin Tin Tin. And by the way, I wondered, what’s a strudel?
There will be a short quiz after the video. In English.
In the phone book under “F,” probably for Fermoy, was an international number for the monastery of the Ardent Brothers of the Holy Varlet. After quite a few of those European ring tones, someone answered.
“Fermoy!” was all the man said when he picked up the phone.
“This is Brother Jessica, the Abbot of Our Lady’s Monastery at West Saugerties,” I said. And for good measure I added, “We’re Ardent Brothers of the Holy Varlet.”
“Hey … Saugerties! Well, me lad, and how’s the skiing over the mountain at Hunter?” he asked. “And mightn’t you be a wee bit presumptuous with your Abbot talk? Where’s old Agnes?”
“He’s left to come back to you,” I said. “Who am I speaking with?”
“Brother Mary and Martha, M&M to you, you old bloke! Don’t you remember me?”
I did indeed, now that he told me his name. He had been here visiting in the mid 1990’s for a month and I remembered that Sparky had taken him skiing. Times were better then.
“Agnes is a bit ahead of schedule, I’d presume,” said M&M. “So you’re all sold and settled? I didn’t hear anything about our bank balance increasing.”
“I just dropped Agnes off at the train station. He said he had to come back to tend a sick brother. The Gang … I mean the Committee approved his trip home early.”
“News to me,” said M&M, “and I write the minutes for all the business meetings here.”
“Do you think something is wrong?” I asked.
“I’d certainly say so,” M&M said. “Let me speak with Brother Saint Anne and get back to you.”
I drove home from Rhinecliff Station puzzling over the “Not forever” statement by Agnes. Something seemed wrong in all of this. When I parked the van behind our Chapter House and entered the kitchen, Izzy was tending the two dinner pots.
“And has my lord and master delivered my other lord and master to the train?” he asked.
“No need to bow, faithful servant,” I said. “What do you think of all this, Iz.”
“He sure seemed to get out of here awfully fast,” Izzy replied. “And do you really think he’s made an arrangement with the Bunderhoff? That does seem unusual.”
I stepped into the small office where two days before I had been informed of my impending ascendancy. Rummaging through the little desk, I found a small personal telephone directory. I could see various samples of handwriting, no doubt from Sparky and earlier abbots. Flipping back and forth through the pages, I found a listing for Bunderhoff under “B.” I dialed the number and asked for Brother Gustav.
When he came on the line, I introduced myself as the abbot of Our Lady’s monastery at West Saugerties.”
“West Saugerties?” said Gustav. “I never knew there was a monastery there.”
“Then you had no agreements or discussion with our former abbot, Brother Agnes?” I said.
The news that Agnes planned to walk out on us stunned me. How could anyone spend a year here, do nothing toward the goal of helping us to transition to new lives, and then just get up and leave?
“You’re leaving?” I asked, incredulous.
“Yes,” said Agnes. “It’s a bit premature, of course, but my brother is failing quite rapidly and the Committee will allow me to come home to be with him. He lives near Fermoy, so I will be able to live at the Fermoy Chapter House. I’m afraid my brother William will not be long with us.”
“I am very sorry for you and your brother, of course,” I said, “but can’t the Committee send someone here in your place?”
“There is no one to send,” he replied. “Besides, I’ve spoken on your behalf to the Committee and they would like you to be the next Abbot.”
That was almost laughable. In fact, it was indeed laughable. I laughed out loud.
“Agnes, that would be the second time this year our tradition of electing an abbot was broken.”
“Then I will announce to the Brothers that you are the candidate preferred by their Order and I will ask your Brothers to elect you forthwith,” he said.
He did. They did. Agnes left the next morning. I took him to the Rhinecliff Station, where he began his trip back to Ireland. Driving over roads that had been snow covered the last time I was on them and probably right past the spot where I had spun off the road,
I took my ex-abbot to his train. Strangely I was now his abbot.
“Will you wait for the train with me?” Agnes asked when we had removed his two suitcases from Lance’s van. I was angry and had said not a word on our trip over. He had not tried to get me to talk.
“I can’t,” I said.
“Please,” said Agnes.
We walked into the old station and I found a seat among the ancient stripwood benches. Agnes purchased his ticket and then came to join me.
“I know you’re disappointed in me,” he began. “I did nothing to help. I hope someday you’ll understand.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Just that … well, I’ve been going through a great depression and I have hardly been able to even pray. And I wasn’t able to accomplish much.”
The train was announced over the loudspeaker and the few travelers in the small station stood.
He looked me in the eye and said, “I ask your forgiveness, Jesse.”
“Agnes,” I said, “you are a Brother and you are forgiven.” And just for a dramatic flourish, I added, “Now and forever.”
He looked away and said, “Not forever, I fear.” Picking up his bags he left me and headed down the stairs to the train.
“I have a plan for the Brothers,” Agnes said after he closed the door to his little office and sat on one side of the window while I sat on the other. I had to twist around in my seat and lean my back against the armrest, not a comfortable position since the sharp corner of the flat wooden piece bit into my back.
The morning was bright and beams of sunlight lit up the motes of dust hanging in the air over the ancient oriental rug in the center of the small room. Against one wall was an old student desk that the Abbot used to write what few checks we mailed out each month for utilities and such. On another wall hung a portrait of the current Pope. There had been two Popes during my tenure at Our Lady’s, but the old portraits of John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II were in the attic. If I set the photos up in a row with Benedict XVI included, they would have shown a symbolic dwindling of picture frame size over the years, from the two by three foot oldest painting to the current 8 by 12 inch photo of “B16.” (John Paul I, who immediately followed Paul VI, served only 33 days before dying in what some consider mysterious circumstances.)
“I want to share my thinking with you, Brother Jessica,” Agnes continued, “because I know you’re anxious about this, and also I have a favor to ask of you.” He waited for a response, but all I could do was nod my head.
“First, I have spoken to Brother Gustav of the Bunderhoff and I felt a few of our younger Brothers might be able to work in the Bunderhoff toy factory. Our Brothers may have to live outside in secular housing, in which case the Bunderhoff would no doubt pay them wages so the men can afford rent. I think our fellows would be allowed to eat their meals at the Bunderhoff dining hall.
“Agnes,” I said, “the Bunders aren’t even Catholic. And the Bunderhoff is hardly a cloister.”
Agnes said nothing. “There are women there,” I added lamely.I sensed that Sparky, our last abbot, would be rolling over in his grave.
“And I think,” said Agnes, as if a train had come rushing down the mountain and through the woods to drown out what I had just said, “it would be good for you and Brother Gertrude (Harpo) and Brother Bilhild (Bouncer) to live together in an apartment. Bilhild can work somewhere full time. You and Gertrude should be able to do something lucrative and together the three of you can scrape by and live as well as you do here.”
I waited for more, but there was none.The Abbot was finished presenting his thoughts.
“That’s not much of a plan, Agnes” I said. I was trying to be kind. I was trying to not show my anger. I could not believe Agnes had spent months doing nothing except to place a telephone call to the Bunders.
