The Good Luck of Right Now(63)
“You think you’ll find your f*cking father in there?”
I smiled and shrugged. “Let’s see.”
I started to walk, but Elizabeth grabbed my shoulder and said, “Wait!”
When I turned to look at her, she pushed the hair from her face, so that I got a full, unobstructed view of her eyes, nose, and mouth. She was even more beautiful than I imagined. My heart was pounding.
“Maybe we should save this visit for later?” she said. “Considering what happened today—Father McNamee. That was already a horrific shock, Bartholomew. One we haven’t fully absorbed yet. And I don’t know what would be worse: if we actually find your father, or if we don’t. Either might be too much for one day, and—”
“It’s okay,” I said, gazing into her eyes, which were the soft gray-brown color of mushroom pizza toppings.
I could see that Max was equally concerned.
Maybe this was also what Mom called The Good Luck of Right Now. The bad of Father McNamee’s deception and death had led to the good of Max and Elizabeth taking care of me now. It certainly felt like Mom’s philosophy was in effect once again—that she was even wiser than I had given her credit for when she was alive with me here on earth. And that’s really saying something, because I gave Mom tons of credit.
To my concerned friends, Max and Elizabeth, I said, “My father won’t be in there. Don’t worry. I came to terms with this earlier this morning.”
“How can you be so f*cking sure?” Max said.
“Because Father McNamee was my biological father.”
“What?” Elizabeth said.
“The f*ck, hey?” Max finished.
Their eyebrows rose.
“My subconscious suspected this for many years, but I’m just finding out now.”
“How do you know?” Elizabeth said.
“He told me,” I said.
“When?” said Elizabeth.
“This morning,” I said.
“But he was f*cking dead this morning,” Max said as a group of nuns in black habits exited a VW bus and began to stare at us.
“God bless you, Sisters!” I yelled at them, waving and smiling, because they looked offended by Max’s excessive use of profanity, which had become customary to my ear, but still rankled others.
“Bless you!” a younger-looking nun yelled back, and then almost all of them waved.
“Father McNamee whispered the truth from beyond the grave,” I said to Max and Elizabeth.
“Is this a Catholic thing?” Elizabeth said.
I laughed, and suddenly I felt light—like I had let go of a huge dark secret hidden inside of me for so, so very long.
I was still scared about the future—but I felt sort of free too, because the greatest mystery of my life was no more.
I wondered if I’d been subconsciously hiding the fact that I had known all along, maybe to protect Father McNamee. Even as a young boy I would have understood that Father’s fathering me would cause a major scandal in our parish, and would have prevented Father McNamee from doing all the good he’d done as a priest since I was born—almost four entire decades of altruistic deeds he was able to do because Mom kept his secret. Maybe I was part of the whole cover-up too; maybe I just played along, pretending I didn’t know, when really I did. I’m sure Mom would have gladly played this game with me—and, come to think of it, she did, telling me that my father had been murdered by the Ku Klux Klan, and therefore was a Catholic martyr.
We had all played the game together.
“Maybe it’s a life thing,” I said to Elizabeth, and then I led them into Saint Joseph’s Oratory.
We took several escalators up to the main cathedral, called the basilica, which was gigantic and felt a little like heaven, if heaven were a modern-style cathedral.
“It looks like the inside of a f*cking spaceship,” Max whispered, and I could see what he meant, because the concrete rose up into great arches and domes, and there was even a decorative UFO-looking silver ring suspended over the altar.
I looked over at Elizabeth, and her fists were clenched.
There were also wooden carvings of all the disciples, depicted as long, stretched-out giants—like what you might see reflected in a fun-house mirror, only wearing robes and the hairstyles of biblical times. We found my namesake Bartholomew quite easily, although he is labeled by his other name, Nathaniel. He is holding some sort of leaf, and his left index and middle fingers make the peace sign, the fingertips of which rest on his chin.
“These f*ckers look like aliens,” Max whispered, and I had to agree, as they were elongated and skinny and otherworldly looking. “What the f*ck does it mean? The disciples of Jesus carved to look like giant f*cking aliens?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Father McNamee would have known,” Elizabeth said.
“Perhaps,” I whispered, and then we gazed at the other apostles, who all looked stern and stretched and wooden and dusty and even alien.
Yes, alien indeed.
I wondered how many prayers had been sent up from this building—up to heaven like we beam information up to our satellites now, when we are in our cars and need directions.
We wandered out of the basilica, down escalators, and into a great hallway of candles where you could pay money to light one for many various reasons, sending prayers up to Saint Joseph.