135. Charity

Our Kitchen House (what's left)

I have to hand it to Sparky, nee John Henry O’Brien,  and I can’t say I’m all that surprised.  That he was his own man I have no doubt in my mind, but to brazenly lie to the leaders of his Order and essentially steal a part of their property … that left me very surprised.  I never sensed a crooked bone in his body.  He must have come to a decision to risk his soul in order to have Our Lady’s Monastery at West Saugerties do some good in the only way he could effect, by giving away a piece of it for the poor.  Our secretarial work for scholars did not impress Sparky at all.  He implied that to me often.  And that was the reason why he insisted we spend more time in prayer than in so-called practical pursuits.  He cared for our souls and he may have been one of the few placed above me who did.  When he found a chance to rip off his order for a quarter of a million dollars and give it to the poor, he seized it … if that’s what he did.  If he did anything else with the money, it would have been as Lance suspects, to save the money for us Brothers, wherever he put it.  In either case, Sparky had more self-assurance than I would ever possess.  I don’t think I would be able to make such a decision.  I have never had that much courage.

134. Maybe No, Probably Yes

When I called Lance and asked him if he was my landlord, he gave a quiet laugh and asked me to walk down the road to see him. I had never been in his house. Walking up the driveway I beheld a lovely large home sided in cedar and sitting on a huge outcropping of rock. On its own plateau, the structure was placed only twenty feet away from the face of the mountain. The giant expanse of glass spanning the entire front wall of the house spoke to at least one purpose of this mountain retreat, to surround one’s self in luxury while enjoying a gorgeous view of the entire valley and the mountains off to the west past Woodstock.

“I don’t own the monastery,” Lance said.  “You found a copy of the deed to just the five acres down here on the point” said Lance, after he settled me down in a chair that allowed a panorama of what must be half of creation. “Sparky needed the money and I paid him $250,000.”

This wasn’t the first time I wondered how the heck anyone could have so much money.

“Wait a minute,” I said.  “Why does St. Anne keep pressuring me to sell what he calls “14 acres” if there’s only nine acres left?”

“He doesn’t know Sparky sold it to me,”  Lance replied

“Could Sparky sell it to you?  I thought all property was in Fermoy’s name?”  I said.

“Not this property.  Sparky told me when he accepted the call to lead this monastery, he convinced St. Anne to put the place in the Abbot’s name so he could more easily get a mortgage here if he wanted to borrow money for leverage as he tried to make the place a reasonable property.  St.Anne probably agreed because he saw potential in both the monastery grounds and in Sparky, who had turned places around before.  Plus, I’d bet St. Anne was worried about liability and figured it would rest squarely on Sparky if he was the owner of record.  And of course it would be unheard of for an Abbot to NOT turn over any assets or cash to Fermoy.”  Lance said this while giving me a wink.  He continued, “No abbot has ever refused. That’s why St. Anne is hysterically upset over your insubordination.  He’s afraid you won’t send him any money if the place sells.”

 “He’s right,” I said.  “I wouldn’t.  You’ve been talking to St. Anne.  I didn’t know the two of you were friends.”

“He constantly wants to borrow money from me,” said Lance.  “But I can’t lend money to someone who doesn’t know how to handle it.”

“And he doesn’t know you bought this property?” I said.  “What does he think of your house sitting here on it?”

Lance chuckled.  “St. Anne doesn’t know that, either.”

“How the heck did the two of you ever come to know each other?”  I asked.

Lance looked away and said, “Oh, you know.  International money circles.”

Quite a coincidence, I thought.

“But what did Sparky do with the money?” I asked.  “$250,000 dollars?”

“He had a bank account,” said Lance, “and he spent a lot of the money quickly. He told me he went through the entire amount in less than five years.”

“Wine, women and song?”  I laughed, hoping against hope that wasn’t true.

“I think you knew your abbot better than that,” said Lance.  “Sparky gave it away to missions, local food pantries,  things like that.

“Two hundred and fifty thousand?”  I marveled at that amount of money.

“That’s what Sparky said,” continued Lance, “but for some reason I didn’t believe him.”

“Why?”  I asked.

“Sparky and I used to talk fairly often,” he said.  “He came down here for coffee.  You abbot was very worried about what would happen to you guys when he died. He knew for a long time about his cancer.  Sparky would have put most of that money aside for you Brothers.”

“Where?” I asked.

Lance shrugged his shoulders.  “That I don’t know, he said.”

A turkey buzzard landed on the rail outside the sliding doors at one end of the transparent wall of glass. I had never seen one up close. The bird was truly ugly.

“Saint Anne sent Agnes here to get rid of us and sell the monastery,” I said.

“I figured,” said Lance.

“He never did a single thing except list the house with Sally.”

“Sounds like he didn’t care much either way,” said Lance.

“I don’t know what Agnes cared about,” I said. “I wonder if he knew about the $250,000 or what might be left of it.”

“If it exists and if you find it, you could use whatever is left.” said Lance.  “Without it, you'll need cash for operating expenses, food … how will you Brothers manage that?”

“We thought of  taking in guests,” I said, still harboring a desire for a quick money solution.

“A retreat house!” laughed Lance. “Do you think anyone will want to come to such a run-down place? They might not think it’s safe.”

“I think some people might still consider it very … safe,” I said,  a bit indignantly, wondering if I should call Albert back and ask him to take a chance and give us just one more “guest.”  But I have to keep myself from jumping for the brass ring of convenience.  Harpo is right.  We wait on the Lord.

133. Deed I Do

Sally called to tell me Agnes never sent her the deed. She wanted a copy before active marketing began. She was disappointed when I told her to stand down.  We are staying.

While I spoke with Sally I searched through the desk for the deed. I hoped we wouldn’t need it for a future sale, but it would be a good idea to find the document and put it in a safe place. It lay at the back of the middle drawer. I found it when I went back a second time to more thoroughly search among the papers and junk.

“I just found the deed,” I said, “and …. that’s odd. This deed is stamped “copy” and it says the property is deeded from … John Henry O’Brien to … let me see … Lance C. Kensington … Lance?”

“Who’s he?” said Sally.

“Lance is our neighbor,” I said. “We’re driving his van.”

“I guess you’re also living in his house,” said Sally.

132. Black Dress

“As a postulant,” I told Julio, “you’re not allowed a cell phone.”

“What cell phone?” he asked innocently.

“The phone Alfred said he gave you.”

“Oh, that cell phone,” said Julio.

“And you’re not allowed to lie to your Abbot, Julio,” I said.

“OK, OK,” he said, “but it’s a good thing I had it … to talk Maria in when she got lost on these roads up here.”

“You had your girlfriend up here to the monastery?” I asked, incredulous.”

“Don’t worry, not in the house. In the garage. She brought a few bottles of wine and we …. said goodbye …in the SUV.”

“You’re a real Casanova,” I said.

“And I’ll pay for the cassock I took from the back of the chapel,” he said.

“The cassock?” I said.

“Maria thought it was kinky when she wore it, unbuttoning all the way down the front and …”

“OK, enough, Julio,” I interjected.

“She’ll send it back,” he said.

“Tell her to keep it,” I said. The thought of the young woman unbuttoning the garment used in our services has unfortunately continued to  enter my mind.

A week later the UPS man brought a package.    As I opened the box  and saw the cassock, I was overwhelmed with the powerful smell of orange jasmine perfume,  strong enough to knock a good man down.  The only way to describe the smell is to imagine someone mixing  orange jasmine and Aqua Velva.    The vision of Maria in nothing but a loosely unbuttoned cassock had taken a week to begin to fade in my mind, but now it was back full force and I wondered when women discovered the effect of scents.  Soon after leaving the Garden of Eden, I presume.

Without thinking, I hung the cassock with the others in the back of the chapel.  But Maria's perfume was terrifically potent, like an evil spirit.  Soon all we could smell at our prayer services was orange jasmine.  When I saw the monks close their eyes in meditation, I had to wonder what they were meditating on.  None of the Brothers had met Maria, but her scent would guarantee not one of us would ever forget her.

131. Interrogation

When the three of us entered the Night Chapel, Julio walked to the altar and seated himself on the platform that raises the small altar a foot off the floor. Izzy and I took the only seats left, the pew. Sitting there hunched before us, Julio brought to mind a poor field worker seeking sanctuary at the altar, his betters raised above him on the high pew. But the pew wasn’t any higher than a dining room chair and we weren’t Julio’s betters. We were his hosts. To him, however, we had become his brothers.

“I feel like I’m a part of you guys now,” he said, after we told him of our call to Alfred.  “I don’t wanna go back to that life.”

“Yes, but…” I began

“I can’t pay you the kind of dough Alfred was probably giving you, but I can certainly pay for my own rice and beans,” he contined.

“Well, but …” I started again.

“Bouncer told me it isn’t unusual for you to take in a regular citizen from time to time to get him back on his feet,” said Julio. “So why ain’t I that kind of person? I wanna start a new life, too.”

“Julio, I said, “you’re a member of a criminal organization and …”

“Not no more,” he interjected. “And what did you know about other guys you took in?”

Nothing was the correct answer, but I didn’t offer it.

“Julio,” said Izzy, “we’re an order of monks. With your background and past sins, can you swear to really believing everything our church teaches?”

“Can you?” asked Julio.

Julio is no longer a Visiting Scholar. He is now a Guest Postulant, whatever that is.

130. Over And Out

I added up the weeks and determined the United States Government owed us money in arrears. I was aware Alfred had not been to the monastery in some weeks.

“What do you think?” I asked Izzy. “You want to call your brother or shall I?”

“I have a feeling the deal is over,” said Izzy. “I think Alfred heard about the meeting we held. Julio was there, you’ll remember.”

“But we didn’t come to a consensus,” I said.

“True,” said Izzy “but a couple of the Brothers spoke very vehemently against this arrangement and you did not defend it at all.”

“I’m not of fan of it, either,” I said. “Just the money.”

“When people in my brother’s business sense trouble, they’re out of it quickly,” said Izzy. “All that’s left is the smell of their after-shave.”

We used the loudspeaker on Izzy’s cell phone when we called Alfred.

“It was a nice idea, folks,” said Alfred, “but you were outted when Julio got through to his girlfriend, who turns out to be everybody’s girlfriend, if you know what I mean.”

I wasn’t sure I did, but I let it go.

“I can send you a check for $2,000, but that’s it.,” said Alfred.

I accepted the offer. It could very well be the only money we’ll have to pay any expenses of getting out of here.

“What about Julio?” I asked. “He’s still here.”

“I guess you’ll have to kick him out. I can send someone to help if he doesn’t want to leave, but it won’t be pretty,” said Alfred.

Lord, no,” I replied. “We’ll talk to him.”

129. Translation

I just had to get away from everyone this morning and so I came back down here to my old haunt in the cellar.  In an idle manner, I looked around the Internet.  It occurred to me that I hadn’t thought lately of  Bulgarian artist Bozhidar Boyko, the painter who executed St. Lucy on stained glass. Googling him up, I discovered Bozhidar is evidently no longer in the small town of Bozhurishte near Sofia, but according to a local news article that I was able to translate using Babelfish, he has left town. It's always dangerous to trust language translations from Babelfish, of course. I once heard about the terrible autobahn accident that a well known Brother in Germany survived and I sent him a note. I cranked the phrase "wishing you a speedy recovery" into Babelfish and emailed the results in German off to Stuttgart. Later his assistant told me that in vernacular German it actually said "I demand you quickly re-assemble yourself."

Anyway, after running the Bozhurishte Daily Bugle news article through Babelfish, I’m aware Bozhidar has left town to either buy a serpent or to marry his sister.