When I awoke, I was back in the Chapter House asleep at a desk in the Scriptorium, but didn’t remember walking back from the kitchen house. There were certainly enough beds upstairs and I wondered why I wasn't in one of them. Frankly, these memory lapses were beginning to bother me.
My Brothers would recall a discussion that I had no memory of, or I might have been into town, I was told, but couldn't bring to mind driving there or returning. At first when it occasionally happened I laughed it off, but now I worried about these lapses.
What I did remember … vividly … from the previous night was a dream I’d had when I finally fell asleep. It was very early morning and I was in the woods where I had met Sally. But in the spot where the picnic table had been were two large tree stumps instead. I remember one part of my mind in the dream was not surprised with this change, while another part of my mind was surprised the other part was not surprised. I know that’s confusing, but dreams are often like that. I pulled out Bouncer’s knife and began to carve something on the stump where I would have sat across from Sally, almost knee to knee, except I thought we were at a picnic table. Somehow I knew I was carving a word, but for some reason I couldn’t decipher the word. It just wouldn’t give itself up to me. It was then I awoke with a feeling of frustration. What was the word?
A banging noise came from the side door and roused me. I waited for someone to investigate. I heard nothing except a repeat of the knock a few moments later. I heard one foot hit the floor above me upstairs, but a second did not follow. So I sat up, unzipped my bag, fell out on the floor, put on my jeans and walked to the side door in my bare feet. I had tried to get my feet in my shoes, but they were quite wet, as though I’d been out walking.
"What the hell took you so long" asked a smiling Terd when I unlocked and opened the door.
"I thought maybe God had sent down an angel," I laughed as we gave each other hug and slap on the back.
"Angels don't knock," said Terd. And I thought, they also don't call ahead.
I had not been sleeping well, fitfully tossing to and fro as my mind refused to leave the problem of how we would deal with leaving our home, if it came to that. As the new abbot I wasn’t making much headway toward a solution. I wriggled about in my sleeping bag and remembered a visit to Uncle Hank’s farm when I was a boy. Perhaps where I lay brought back the memory. Unable to sleep, I had dragged myself around the mostly empty summer resort half the night and finally stretched out on the large table in the center of the wash room in the old kitchen house that formed one side of our tiny back yard. The massive seven by ten foot surface I lay on was supported by six stout legs that I'm sure would support a small truck. The resort had raised and butchered animals in imitation of a small farm and in that day and age no guest would have quailed from the prospect of a poor dumb animal slaughtered just outside their window as they ate their poached egg and ham for breakfast.
Above me on racks hung large round wash tubs and an array of huge cooking pots. From the knife marks and wide gouges beneath me on the gritty surface, I guessed the heavy block table had been used for butchering, to carve up large animals after shooting the poor beasts outside in the yard. Hauled inside and up where I now lay, the carcasses would be cut up and parts could be tossed into various pots and set to boil. Afterward, the workers' bloody shirts and pants were scrubbed on the table surface with sand and thrown into other pots to boil before washing in the big tubs. This was the resort’s indoor abattoir and laundry, no doubt a useful combination when the old place served as a home to a large contingent of summer guests. I lie there imagining myself as a sacrifice, waiting for the haruspex to cut me open and to divine the future from my entrails, a quick but gory way for me to determine our prospects. Only slightly less painful would be inquiring of my Brothers for their advice, but I wouldn’t ask because I didn’t want them to think I couldn’t figure it out.
Twisted up in my sleeping bag like a victim strapped to the table, I lay there thinking of blood. Isaac, the son of Abraham came to mind. His father had been willing to sacrifice the boy on an altar, a holy butchering block, as he played Chicken with a God who demanded a loyalty that bordered on mania. If you love me, kill the one you love.
Blood can mean death, but also birth. Blood is sacred. In dreams it can signify transformation. When it begins to flow in a young woman, it is the dawning of her adult life. When it stops, it’s the beginning of a new life. Down through the ages, one squalling infant after another, blood has lived on through the unions driven by a joyous clasping of boys and girls together, a more effective design than the careful plans of their elders.
What is it about the blood? Despite those awful 19th Century church hymns with dripping names like Covered With The Blood and Fountain of Blood, there does seem to be what one song says is Power In The Blood.
On the long ago visit to Uncle Hank’s farm, after the ladies left the living room he told a story about himself and Aunt Eva butchering a pig. My father coughed uncomfortably as I lay on the floor and continued to read a comic book, pretending not to listen. Uncle Hank said he and Eva were third cousins and hadn’t any romantic interest in each other until they found themselves smeared with the pig’s blood. That aroused their interest in each other, he said with a wink in his voice. While the rest of the family was in town that afternoon, Uncle Hank and Aunt Eva found their way to ecstasy in the barn as easily and quickly as every one of their ancestors had back to Adam and Eve.
"Well," sighed Uncle Hank, "we went right down to the minister the next day and told him we wanted to get married. The man asked me how soon? And I said, 'Before the train comes in, Pastor.’"
My father chuckled and Uncle Hank continued, "The Pastor looked at me and he said, 'Buying your ticket a little late, ain'tcha son?’"
The men in the room laughed. I hadn’t understood the punch line and I kept my face in my comic book. Even if I thought they would have offered an explanation, I wouldn’t have asked, because I didn’t want them to think I couldn’t figure it out.
In my sleeping bag, I flipped over on my other side, trying to get comfortable. I wanted to choose a course based on what was best for all of us and what God might want us to do in his service. After all, I was the abbot.
Frankly, I didn’t know if the Creator of the Universe cared about our puny efforts. I wanted him to know we were willing to be his hands, but as Augustine said, there isn’t anything he really needs to hear from us. Yet the great disappointment of my life would be if I found that none of my efforts had mattered. My Golgotha would be to see my work crucified.
It seemed to me I was wasting time and I wanted to have a plan for us and I wanted an answer as to where we should go. I wanted to buy my ticket before the train arrived. But sometimes the train never comes. Uncle Hank and Aunt Eva got married and built a house with many rooms. But Eva was never able to have any children.
“We were disappointed to have not been blessed with little ones,” Uncle Hank said on another occasion. “But the only thing to do in life is the next thing waiting to be done,” he said. “Otherwise, you might start thinking you’re in charge.”
Something had changed in me since I’d been forced to become the Abbot. The busy chores and constant issues had re-awakened my sense and capacity for work. But mostly, I cared about what happened now. I realized I could live what was left of my life by working toward laudable goals without knowing if they would bear fruit. Or like the old song I hate, I could cover myself with the blood. The red blood I carry in my veins links me all the way back to my ancestors who were so like me and who I will never know. Their blood runs in me and with it their faith bangs around in my heart. But the blood I carry in my soul was shed for me by the one who redeems me from myself.
Lying on the butchering table I thought how easy it was when I simply did as I was told by my superiors. Now, as the abbot I had to advise the others what to do, but only after I offered my will as a sacrifice.
I didn’t need a plan. I needed a lot more humility and trust. I would wait and listen.
Izzy’s brother Alfred and his friends are essentially playing a game of chess with criminal opponents. Izzy says that in “the business” those who work for the government are organized into two teams … this being a simplistic version, of course. One team is tactical and they make arrests and bring the bad guys to trial. The other team is strategic. This is the group to which Alfred belongs. It reviews information from tactical cases and puts in play various strategies to reduce the effect the bad guys have on the rest of us.
One of the strategies is to simply remove the criminal from the streets for a few weeks and place him in an isolated location where he can’t communicate with his bosses or minions. The subject may be arrested on suspicion of a crime or …. more often … he's simply asked to cooperate and go away to a quiet place so he can be interviewed. Not interrogated, but interviewed. No high pressure or good cop/bad cop routine. Just a wide ranging discussion where the criminal is given a chance to tell how important he is and the cop smiles and takes notes. Often, the criminal will be happy to accept such an invitation, especially if he is in some kind of trouble in his organization. There is seldom a criminal who is smart enough to realize that during extensive interviews he will somehow manage to compromise himself. And when his interview is sifted in with the many others conducted by Alfred’s co-workers, the resulting picture comes together like a jig-saw puzzle revealing its subject. This more complete view of the criminal world is fed back to the tactical team for action.
Julio was carefully picked for his “vacation” in the Catskills. He was high enough in his band of bad guys to have access to valuable information. Also, he was not very smart and he appeared very boastful. He would probably be dead within the year, a victim of those who hired him.
Julio's interviews began a day or two after his arrival at OLWS, when Alfred returned and asked if there was a private office where he could talk to Julio “for a few hours.” I was glad to see Alfred back so soon. By that time new things to worry about had occurred to me and I wanted some answers.
“Should we worry about Julio trying to escape?” I asked Alfred.
“Escape? He’s on vacation,” said Alfred, “why would he want to leave this marvelous place?”
I could not detect even a hint of sarcasm on his face.
“He’s not going anywhere,” said Alfred. “He’s from Brooklyn and he’s more afraid of the bears in the woods than anything else."
“There’s what we call the Night Chapel," I said. "It's a room at the end of the attic. It’s heated and has a large stained glass window. There is a pew and a small temporary altar and I put a desk and a couple of chairs in there last week. I'm going to use it as an office and you're welcome to use it when you're here. It should have everything you'll need except those things you use to hang your prisoners on the walls,” I said with a smirk.
“No problem, Brother Jesse,” he said, “I’ve got a portable set in the car.”
At midnight a box truck wound its way up the driveway and Bouncer took a flashlight out to meet the driver. We didn’t think it safe to use the front porch, so the driver was directed to back up to the side door. Seeing the truck was full, I expected the driver to be on a route to various destinations, dropping off a small part of the truck load at Our Lady’s for Julio. But as we unloaded boxes it soon became apparent that the entire contents of the truck were for us. There must have been at least a thousand cans of vegetables and another thousand of vegetarian tomato sauce, boxes and boxes of pasta, jars of peanut butter, frozen meats that filled our old freezer and a small commerical machine for making bread along with the premixed ingredients, 150 pounds of coffee, boxes of black teas and herbals …. a cornucopia of food and supplies (900 rolls of toilet paper!)
When the truck was empty, Izzy and I watched the driver inch the truck down the driveway to the main road.
“What do you think?” I asked Izzy as we stood watching the brake lights get smaller.
“Either most of the food is for us or Alfred plans to make Our Lady’s the new Guantánamo Bay.”
“Maybe we should call him and ask about what we can use,” I said.
“He said we could take what we want. I’m sure he’ll be back before we go through even a tenth of it,” said Izzy.
While I was quite pleased to have real food in the house once again, some of the Brothers asked if we could trade some of it for beans and rice. They want to remain on the diet for monastic reasons. I can understand that, but at my age I’ll eat anything. When I was a younger monk, I was used to such an abstemious diet. It does not embarrass me that Harpo, who may be twenty years older than me, is one of the monks who prefer the rice and beans.
Milo has come to visit us. He arrived last night just after Compline. Raiser saw the headlights weaving up the driveway while he was doing the fire watch. That's what we call letting Tapioca out one last time in the evening and taking a walk around the building to make sure candles have been extinguished and everything is locked up. I was in the kitchen pantry trying to get a handle on how long our beans and rice would last us when Raiser came almost running and excitedly saying “Our first guest is here.” A heads-up text message had come in yesterday afternoon on the cell phone Alfred gave Izzy for use on official government business only. “Ya mean I can’t call my girlfriend?” Izzy had asked. “Only if she has sister,” Alfred had replied. What comedians.
The car rolled to a stop. Alfred was driving and he left the car running while he got out and came around on the passenger side and opened the door for Milo. The two came in the side door of the Chapter House and Izzy brought the pair into the living room where I met them.
Milo is a small man and has the look of someone about to have a brick dropped on his head. His shoulders were hunched up around his neck and his chin dipped down toward his chest while he looked up at Raiser and then Izzy and then me and said, “Holy Mother of God, I’m in a monastery.”
“A small one,” I said with a smile as I stuck out my hand in greeting and said “Welcome to Our Lady’s Monastery at West Saugerties, Mr. Milo.”
“Who?” he said and glanced over at Alfred.
“You are Mr. Milo,” said Alfred, “or just plain Milo, if you prefer.”
“My name is Julio,” said Milo.
“OK,” said Alfred, “but JUST Julio.”
“I’m starving,” said Julio-Milo.
And that would be the first problem to attend our initial guest.
“Mr. Julio, “I said, we have nothing but rice and beans at the moment and I can offer you some.”
The small man looked up at Alfred and said, "What the hell kind of safe house you running here?"
I looked at Alfred and said, “I presume other food supplies will be arriving.”
“At midnight,” said Alfred. He stuck out his fist and put a roll of bills in my hand and said, “Send a posthumous out for burgers.”
With that he turned and left. Back out the door to his car with the motor running and no doubt back to the City and his other “friends.”
We've all been in a high state of anticipation regarding our first "guest" and I've noticed that even a slight noise coming from outside will cause one or two of us to look out the window. Of course I shared our new venture with the Brothers. They have a right to know and I explained everything after supper on the day Alfred toured the monastery with Izzy. I asked that we vote and the result was unanimous in favor of having a guests at a thousand dollars each per week.
"How many guests at a time?" asked Bouncer.
"There was no discussion of that," I said "but it's our house and we can limit it. I think we would take one at the start and the max might be three, since that’s how many spare bedrooms we have. If we take more than one, each arrival should be spaced a week apart, so that we can asses whether each man fits in. We don't want three problems to arrive all at once."
"Will they eat with us?" asked Harpo.
"Unless we run into a problem," I said, "I'm for treating any visitor like a postulant, except possibly for the chores. So I think they should eat with us and sleep upstairs with us, but each in their own room. They have to attend prayers, because I don't want them wandering around unattended. One or two can have a small desk in The Pit. I think we have spare desks and we can find spaces to put them in. Maybe they should help out, like doing some copy machine work. Or for all I care they can fall asleep in a corner."
“Will any of them be criminals” asked Headless
“Hard to tell,” I said, “but we have nothing for them to steal. As far as physical danger, Alfred assures me that will not be a problem, but we should keep a distance, I think.”
"A monk's life is not for everyone," said Bouncer. "What if they can't take it? They won't even be able to play a portable radio, I presume?"
“I don’t see why they can’t play one low in their room,” said Izzy.
“How will we control what goes on in their rooms?” said Harpo.
"How about we not worry over what they do in their own room as long as we don't hear it?" I said.
"But they don't bring their girlfriends in," said Kickstart
We have a DVD player at the monastery and we play liturgical music (chant, etc.) in our chapel and sometimes at meals, although our tradition is to listen to readings during meals, with each brother volunteering to read in succession. And of course, the first thing two brothers fight over when sent out in the SUV is whether to listen to a news station or a music station. Cat is a country music fan and Raiser prefers the classics. Harpo likes to listen to Dr. Laura.
And I play the piano… sort of. In the very front room of the Chapter House is an old piano from the Resort days. When I have a moment I play my old favorites, but at a super slow speed so no one can tell I’m playing “La Vie en Rose” or my absolute favorite sax song, “Harlem Nocturne.” Harpo enjoys my dirge-like version of "Let's Twist Again Like We Did Last Summer." He's never admitted he knows what I'm really playing. Agnes came into the room a few months ago and said he recognized the piece I was playing from his seminary music training. I was very slowly tinkling the ivory through Chuck Berry’s “Roll Over, Beethoven.”
Writing of the piano reminds me of Fred the piano man. I had been slowly stepping through Proud Mary on the piano six months ago, thinking of the piano tuner and hoping all continued to go well for him. I threw in an arpeggio between each of the notes that John Fogarty and Credence never intended. (Fogarty’s sense of humor broke through and he laughed hilariously when an NPR correspondent asked him if his pronunciation of “keep on toining” in the song was authentic New Orleans. “I just made it up,” he finally was able to say between giggles.) My runs and arpeggios may have sounded like Billy Joel with arthritis, but Agnes thought the song had a familiar ring and he guessed it was from the work of Tomás Luis de Victoria, a Spanish contemporary of Palestrina. I feigned ignorance and refrained from comment until he asked me how I could play a piece without knowing the author. I told him I believed it was from an Opus of y Tragof, which is Fogarty spelled backwards. Not caring to admit he’d never heard of y Tragof, he found someone else to bother. Oh, yes … Fred. I was thinking of him because the only time this piano played real music was when he came to visit. And he’s the fellow who sent me a Father’s Day card.
“I’ll bet you didn’t know Jesse got a Father’s Day card!” Kicksktart told Cat on a lovely June evening after supper. I was sorry I had told Kick the story, but I laughed good naturedly as I was prompted to explain the reasons why anyone would send me such a greeting.
“So who’s it from?” asked Raiser.
“Remember Fred, the piano man?” I asked. To the nodding heads around the tables I said, “He’s my boy!” drawing general laughter. Fred can’t be more than ten years younger than me.
Fred used to come up to Our Lady’s every 6 months or so to tune the piano, which as I mentioned is in the very front room, so Fred’s playing and tuning never bothered anyone. And it was a chance for me talk with someone from off planet. No one ever plays the piano but me, and not very often. So the instrument didn’t need his frequent attention, but he insisted on it and charged us nothing. He simply wanted to contribute. I enjoyed sitting and talking with him while he went about his work. Fred was a comfortable guest, and I was thankful for his company. We talked fishing, he tuned and I played badly.
Fred didn’t make much money at his trade, but I know he loved making a piano sing as much as a plastic surgeon enjoyed making a woman beautiful. He was in the prime of life, a big guy in his forties, and when he arrived and set up his little tuning forks and tiny rubber mutes and tuning hammer it always appeared odd to me that such a giant of a man enjoyed using such small tools. You’d expect a fellow his size to come through the front door with a fence post over his shoulder and a sledge hammer swinging on his hip.
Although Fred often stayed for 2 or 3 hours, he would only tweak a string or two. Then he’d take the piano for a ride through a little Chopin and afterward slide into some old stuff by Gil Evans. After that, we’d just sit and talk and drink coffee. He always brought a five pound bag of a great blend.
He seemed troubled one day. I could hear it in his voice. I knew his Dad had recently died and I wondered if that was bothering him, as such a loss will continue to do. He started to play a few notes of Gershwin and gave up because of an injured thumb. I knew he would tell me about it, and I wondered if the adhesive patch and gauze on his forehead were part of the story.
“When I got out of bed this morning, I had a firm resolve to get the damned motor home out of the driveway, “ he began. “I called a friend who lives up on the state highway and he said I could put it on his lawn and it would sell in a week.
“I could hear Pop griping, ‘What took you so long? I’ve been dead 3 months! Why pay the insurance on it? I sure can’t drive it now.’ His logic was always sound. Mine always questionable. Fathers are always in charge, right? No matter what. Even when they’re wrong. Even when they’re dead.”
“Even when he did something stupid, like sell his car and buy a motor home from his dead brother’s daughter, telling me, ‘Of course it doesn’t get good gas mileage, but I don’t go anywhere but camping anyway.’ He sold his Buick so could he could pay the money to Nancy, who I’m sure used it to put more coke up her nose. And Pop had never gone camping in my memory, although it was something he might have planned to do. After he bought “The Monster” as I called it, he took it out once, dragging me along on the worst weekend of my life. I couldn’t get away from him in a thirteen foot camper. Not like at home where I hid out in the basement while the old man watched old TV shows like Gunsmoke and Happy Days.
“Dad was a sad case, waiting out his days until the Grim Reaper appeared on the scene. ‘Hopefully with quick slice to the neck,’ he often said. Mom was dead, his brothers were dead, his friends were dead. Dad was dead, really, or at least walking with the dead.
“The motor home was out of commission most of the time. He couldn’t get it to start. So he often borrowed my car to go to the liquor store and to the Office for the Aging where he flirted with the lady workers.
“So this morning I was thinking, if I could somehow get those rusted license plates off the damned bumpers, I could bring them in to the snarly folks at the Motor Vehicle bureau. Then you have to take that slip of paper to those thieving bastards at the insurance company to try to retrieve some of the payment he should have made only a few months ago. There should be almost half of the annual premium coming back. That’s if Pop didn’t pull one of his asinine tricks and sign the check, “The Lone Ranger” and then throw out the overdue notices.
“Pop didn’t just get strange in his old age, I think he was always strange. He didn’t want an answering machine in the house, said it was too impersonal. But since no one ever called him, not even his brother, I don’t know why he cared about being personable. When I insisted I needed the machine for my business, because I couldn’t be home all the time. he grudgingly said OK.
“Wouldn’t use a microwave either. I bought one anyway, and some days when I came home I could see he had used it to cook his vegetables. I think he just wanted to be difficult.
“The problem with these license plates is I couldn’t find the correct tools to remove them. Pop never put anything back after he used it. I can’t imagine that anyone but myself putting up with him. Certainly not any other woman than my sainted Mom. Not any woman I would admire.
“But I never took a chance and asked a girl to come home and live with me, to marry me. I’d date one here and there for a while, but then I realized it was useless. I couldn’t afford to live elsewhere on my earnings, and a woman would never live with us for very long with my father in the house.”
Fred was quiet for a moment, as he moved his mutes and hammer around aimlessly on the little table he’d set up next to the piano.
“Did you get the plates off the camper?” I finally said to break the silence, a bad habit of mine.
“Do you know what it’s like to be chained to a house, a life and father who hates you?” said Fred.
“Fred, he was an old man …”
“Not when I was a kid and he took my bike to the dump because I forgot to put it away in the garage one night. Not when he called up the girl I asked to my senior prom … my only date in high school … and called her a whore so she’d break the date because he said we didn’t have $40 for me to take her.”
This time I remained silent.
“Yeah,” said Fred, “I got the plates off” … and here he switched to a deep voice of lecturing authority … ‘with the right tool for the right job.’ But not with the wrenches. I looked all over the workshop for them. Then I noticed the crow bar next to the driveway door. I took the damned thing, went outside and jammed it in behind the plates and ripped them right off the bumper.”
“I guess that works,” I said.
“Then I took that effing crowbar and I broke every goddamned window in the camper!”
“Really?”
“Yes, Really! And I pried the doors off and I punctured the tires, and then I went inside the camper and broke everything I could with that crowbar.
“When I swung down on the steering wheel, the crowbar bounced back at me and almost tore a hole in my forehead. You know head wounds … blood all over the place.
“But I kept going and I broke the toilet and the little kitchen table and then I was ripping the curtains off with my bare hands, because the blood had made the crowbar so slippery that when I swung it at the stove it went flying into the TV set and glass exploded all over the place.
“Geez, Fred,” I said
“I killed him, Brother Jess,” he said. “That’s when I realized what I was doing. I killed my father. The blood was everywhere.”
“Fred,” I said,” you may have felt like it, but …”
“No,” he interrupted, “I have to tell someone the truth. I almost did kill the bastard a month before he had the heart attack and died. He was abusive to a customer who called a little late one night and we got into a big argument. He said some things he shouldn’t have said to me. I ran out of the house and into the garage. And I stared at that crowbar, and I can stand here and tell you I was this close to taking it back in the house and murdering the man, my father.
Fred began to gather up his tools and fold up the little table. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything for a some time.
“Fred,” I said after a while, “sometimes we never know what we’re capable of, but we never know for sure that we would actually commit such an act.”
He was quiet, just shook his head as if in agreement while he buttoned up the little kit of tools. Then he said, “How can a man make his son so angry that he wants to kill him?”
I had no answer for that, nor does anyone.
Fred doesn’t tune pianos anymore. He gave up the business, sold the house and moved to Florida, where he works for a small insurance agency. I miss him sometimes when I walk through the front room or sit at the piano.
Fred sent me the Father’s Day card 2 years ago. He wrote on it, “I saw this card and wanted to buy it. A man should have someone to send a Father’s Day card to. I knew you would understand.”
A very ordinary looking Chevy drove up the driveway this afternoon and parked in the circular drive. I could see the car as soon as it left the main road because I was up on the roof. Now, don’t worry. I have been going up there lately to pray. You may laugh when I tell you it’s closer to heaven, but that’s technically true. And I can see right across the valley just like I was flying.
I hurried downstairs and met with Izzy and Alfred in the front room. They each sat in a wing back chair and I sat on the piano bench, getting a little height on them. Hey, it’s an old trick I learned in Africa. Alfred might have been a twin to Izzy. They are both short and solidly built, but Alfred has longish hair, a mustache and he’s fidgety.
We didn’t talk very long. Afterward, Izzy took his brother on a tour of the monastery. They found me in the kitchen about twenty minutes later.
“Would you like a check, Brother Jesse, or shall I arrange to make a direct deposits into the monastery’s account?” said Alfred.
“A check is fine,” I said. “Things are tight for us, as you probably know. So I’ll ask you how much the check is for.”
“We like to pay in advance to cover all eventualities,” he said. The initial payment will be for $10,000. And we’ll need to have a stock of food and supplies here. If you have room, I’d like to send a truck this week. You and the brothers are welcome to use any of the food, of course. Have Izzy let us know when it needs to be re-stocked.”
“We eat in a Spartan-like manner,” I said.
“Then your guest will eat as you do,” he said. “Meat and potatoes.”
“We may eat only the vegetables,” I said.
“Whatever you want,” said Alfred. “We certainly don’t want to disturb your lifestyle.”
“I think it would be a fabulous idea for you to tell me what that was all about,” I said to Izzy when he came back out the door fifteen minutes later and we were leaving the building.
“My brother Alfred works for the United States Government,” he said.
“So does our mailman,” I said.
“Alfred is employed by an intelligence service,” came his reply.
“I would have to say that our mailman is not,” I said.
“I have identification that assures anyone in a constabulary function that I am legitimate,” he said.
“A legitimate what?” I asked. “A spy? For crying out loud!”
“Of course not,” he said as we were getting in the van. “The ID card is pretty impressive, but I’m just a relative of someone who is in the business.”
“The “business?” I asked, still shocked at this turn of events.
“Alfred needs a place for some of his … friends … to stay from time to time. Away from the City.”
“New York?”
“Yes. They’re not in the business themselves, but they are often crucial in one way or another.”
“Crucial?”
“You catch on pretty fast, don’tcha” said Izzy
“Look, Iz, I don’t know …”
“They pay well. They’re used to paying high rents.”
“How much?” I asked.
“A thousand a week is not uncommon,” he replied.
“Are they witnesses or something like that?” I asked.
Izzy gave me an exasperated look.
I laughed, “Do they like beans and rice?”
“Oh,” he said, “food is no problem. It would be trucked in. That’s true for all the safe houses.”
I guess we’re out of touch with the world. Neither Izzy or I realized how difficult it would be to find a pay phone. We drove around and parked outside a drug store, a chain grocery store and the local sports pavilion, while Izzy ran in to look for a phone. Cell technology has evidently made pay phones a losing business proposition. Finally, Izzzy told me to drive to the town hall. I walked inside with him and he asked the first worker we met to direct us to the police department.
Just inside their swinging doors, the police had a small waiting area with chairs lined up against the wall.
“Sit here and don’t go anywhere,” Izzy told me. He walked about twenty feet across the space to a window on the opposite wall, behind which sat a policeman in uniform. Izzy pulled out his wallet and opened it for the policeman to see. I could not hear their short conversation, but in a moment a buzzer sounded and Izzy turned and walked through a door on the far wall. I sat their staring after him in wonder.
Izzy came to the doorway of the office while I was on the phone arguing with St. Anne and I motioned him inside. Izzy always struck me as a steady hand and I felt he might as well know what was happening. When you live with ten other men, you get a sense of who is capable and whose judgment you can trust. I would need someone to bounce ideas off and Izzy was one person who would give an issue careful thought and yield up an honest opinion. So would Bouncer, if he were in the mood, but lately our resident plumber was dealing with the crisis in his own way by not talking about it. The denial was coming out in the smallest things as anger, which left him upset and doubting himself.
My telephone conversation with Brother Saint Anne ended without resolving my problem or his. We hung up without any agreement when I told him neither of us could afford the telephone charges.
“You want to turn the monastery into a boarding house?” said Izzy.
“Got a better idea?” I asked
“If there was a big employer in the town who provided good jobs, your idea might work,” he said, “but the only boarders we’ll get are gonna be itinerant woodchucks who won’t pay their rent after a couple of weeks.” “Woodchuck” is the local term for an unskilled young man who starts calling himself a carpenter when he’s out of work.
“We’ll just have to hope they can pay,” I said. “I really don’t have any other ideas.”
“And what about our cloister? The silence? Our way of life?” said Izzy.
“Our way life is going to change,” I said, “when all of us go out and look for work. We’re not going to be classic contemplatives working along side other store clerks and laborers.”
Izzy was silent for a moment. Then he got up from his seat and walked to the window and looked out. I turned in my chair to follow him.
“Do you think,” I asked him, “it’s worth trying to save the place and our religious life under these circumstances, Izzy? Maybe we should all just quit and head out.”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“If we open a boarding house we’ll at least be able to keep the monastery. We can find ways to separate from our boarders some of the time,” I said.
“How would that work?” Izzy asked.
I chuckled. “I don’t really know,” was all I could offer.
“Look, Jesse, I have an idea,” Izzy said, “but I don’t want to lay it out until I’ve checked on a few things. Can you drive me into the village to a pay phone?”
“Why not use this phone?” I asked, pointing to the one I’d just hung up.
“What do you think? Good, huh?” I said to Harpo after I handed him the letter and waited a minute or two for him to read it.
“This is terrible,” he said. “You can’t even show up in person to speak with your younger self? Instead you deputize and send in an imaginary young woman?”
“She’s my Guardian Angel, Harpo, not a fake,” I replied.
“Well, let’s just say she’s not a verifiable entity,” he said.
“I verified her personally,” I said, knowing I was stepping out beyond the truth as well as the reasonable, a dangerous two strikes.
“Don’t you see what you did in this letter?” he asked. “You refused to speak with your old self. And you used an unrealistic notion to write a fairly innocent account of your behavior. Look, I’m not saying you should deal with Jesse if you’re not ready. Or that you’re to just pick on his faults. This shouldn’t be a guilt fest. But get the actors to play themselves before you go any farther.”
I’m not sure how long ago that took place, but I have not yet got around to trying another letter.
“Dear Brother Jesse the Younger,” she wrote. “I have to tell you that you were quite an asshole 40 years ago and although there has been slight improvement, it is not easily measured. Oh God! … literally … I was so scared when you boarded that Pan Am Super Liner for the flight to … (Sally names the place, but for publication here I’ll call it the Republic of Tangeroo. That’s not its real name, of course, but I still have friends there I don’t wish to embarrass.) I knew only that a plane crash was in the future, but I had no details, so each time you boarded an airliner, I quaked with fear for you. When we touched down in RikiRiki, I finally relaxed with a great sigh.
I knew you were not suited to this assignment. I had been listening to you speak with your spiritual director, your friends and counselor and I had even been inside your head and I couldn’t fathom why you thought it was time for you to give greatly of yourself so that others might live more abundant lives in better health. You were such a selfish young man! And naive! Need I add illogical and often downright stupid? I have to admit I came close to breaking my vow as a Guardian and letting you walk in harm’s way. I felt that some of the people you were about to meet and minister to might be safer without your help. Don’t ever expect me to choose your welfare over that of large groups of your associates. Yes, He certainly loves you, but expect a little justice along with it.
But I have come to love you over the years. You may not often make sense, but you’ve got guts. Sometimes.
