The Greatest Evil fk-20 Page 14

  “Get serious, Tony. I see these stories about players who’ve been permanently injured. I don’t want you to be a statistic.”

  “I’m studying statistics. That way I won’t be one.”

  “Be serious!”

  “I am, lover.” Tony swung around, knocking several books off the couch and settling down with his head in her lap. “I know the game cripples some guys. But not all. And I’m one of the guys who’s going to come out unscathed.”

  “What makes you so sure?” Gently, she tousled his hair.

  “I’m going to stay healthy. I’m going to keep working out. I’m going to remain strong.”

  “And what happens if somebody hits you the wrong way, right at your knee joint? Your leg wasn’t made to bend that way. Then what?”

  As Tony listened to Beth’s depiction of the classic knee injury, he almost could hear the dreaded sound of the muscle tearing away from the bone. Inwardly he winced, but was successful in hiding it.

  He shrugged, picked up a book at random, and began flipping pages aimlessly. “What if I’m crossing a street and some nut in a car doesn’t see me?”

  “That’s an accident. I’m talking about an injury that goes with the territory.”

  “I don’t want to talk about injuries anymore. I’ve got a plan and I’m going to follow it. And that’s that!”

  She dropped it for the moment. There was little she could do. By unspoken agreement, they hadn’t mentioned the possibility that despite the plethora of raves, Tony might indeed not play pro ball after all. She read the sports pages, if only because sports was Tony’s primary interest. She had agreed with the pundits, especially the locals, who had written that Tony was a sure thing for the draft, with a glorious pro career to follow. And once he had been passed up, and his chances at that pro career seemed suddenly slimmer and slimmer, she had hoped to be able to stop worrying about his being injured. But she played her part: She realized that if she continued to act concerned that would bolster Tony; it would make him feel that there was still a possibility-that he still had a good chance of signing and playing with the pros. He must have a chance, else why would Beth still be worrying about his being injured?

  She was keenly aware of the physical dangers in the growingly violent game. Some nights she would wake suddenly from a nightmare, wincing, as Tony had, unbeknownst to her, just done.

  She knew how much he’d been planning on this, banking on this. And, as far as she could see, his plan had seemed well conceived. If it had worked out. And now? If a pro team signed him. And if he could avoid becoming a cripple.

  It was obvious that study was not in the cards this evening. She decided to change the subject. “Speaking of injury and discomfort, how’s your mother doing?”

  He didn’t respond for several moments. “I don’t know what to tell you, Beth. I go home usually once a week, maybe more. There’s nothing I can do, just be there for a while. I can’t relate. Once they decided not to try radiation, I kind of washed my hands of the whole thing. I can’t imagine not fighting. She couldn’t be much sicker than she seems to be most of the time now. We’re just waiting around for death. It gives me the creeps.”

  “Actually, isn’t there something? I mean, something instead of her simply dying of the cancer?”

  Tony snorted. “Vinnie’s ‘miracle.’ I don’t know what’s wrong with the guy! He’s smart enough … maybe the Church brainwashed him. ‘Miracle!’”

  Beth was on shaky ground. But then so was Tony. “Miracles happen, honey. Don’t you believe in them at all?”

  “Oh, I suppose … I don’t know; I never saw one. Never had one. Why should the Delvecchios have our own little miracle? Because the priest in the family wants one?”

  “You’d better go lightly here, Tony,” she warned. “You’re coming very close to making fun of God.”

  “What making fun?! I’m excusing God from suddenly turning nature on its ear because some insignificant family on the east side of Detroit wants a fatal illness to be erased. I ain’t making fun of God. He’s just not going to do it. I’m just telling Him it’s all right with me … that I’m not counting on it.”

  “Then what are you counting on?”

  “Nature. Ma got cancer. I don’t know how or why. There was only one thing that might have turned it around-”

  “Tony! You know what the odds are even with therapy.”

  “Outside of a miracle that happens every other century there was only one alternative: therapy or death. They chose death.”

  “They chose a miracle.”

  “They chose death!”

  His exclamation was so vehement that Beth thought better than to pursue that line of dialogue further.

  In truth, she did not expect any miracle. She didn’t even know if there was such a thing. But she was concerned about Tony’s attitude toward his mother. Particularly at this stage of her life.

  Beth firmly believed that Louise was near the end of her days. And that she was suffering. Beth feared that when, inevitably, she would pass, Tony would bitterly regret not giving more of himself to his mother’s needs.

  But he seemed to have divorced himself from the drama being played out in his home. Resignation was a word not to be found in Tony’s lexicon. He felt only contempt for them all-for Dr. Schmidt, Father Koesler, Lucy, and, most of all, his brother, whose idea the miracle was.

  It was like Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney in those ancient movie musicals. Always there was some crisis solvable only with a wad of money. So the kids would borrow a barn and suddenly there’d be a wildly expensive set, dozens-hundreds-of Busby Berkeley precision dancers, and an ecstatically successful ending. And the original problem, was, of course, solved.

  And so it was with Vinnie and his brainstorm: Lucy would get all of St. William’s school and parish praying for this miracle. Likewise Father Koesler’s parish. Likewise Western Michigan University. Likewise St. John’s Seminary. The result of all this prayer was a miracle to be delivered by Easter. And a happy ending for all.

  In either the movie or Vinnie’s script this made for a pleasant diversion. But in the real world, a pile of crap.

  In any case, after a few more futile attempts at studying, Tony and Beth closed the books and went to bed-together. The Catholic Church of that era reminded sexually active people, especially young people, that steady dating was itself an occasion of sin: It had a nasty habit of leading to “sins of the flesh.”

  Tony and Beth were horizontal proof of that.

  Days turned into weeks.

  It was fortunate that Lucy was young. The demands of the situation were extremely stressful.

  Under ordinary circumstances, much of the preparation, trappings, and folderol of graduation would have been lovingly handled by her mother.

  As it was, not only was Lucy shouldering the demands of final exams and graduation, she was also taking care of her mother.

  Nothing was working out the way it had been planned. The help she was to have received was minimal at best. Father Koesler had volunteered what turned out to be a completely unrealistic presence to bail out Lucy. He and Vinnie had been swept up in the exhilaration of the moment when Louise’s choice became therapy or a miracle. Doc Schmidt came very close to his promise by dropping in occasionally and keeping the prescriptions coming.

  Actually, the one who came closest to fulfilling his promise-or lack of it-was Tony. He had promised nothing. And that pretty much was what he delivered.

  Early on, after that pivotal day, Louise got along rather better than anyone could have hoped.

  She tired easily. But that had been a symptom even before her illness was diagnosed. She clung to mobility as though it were a sign of health. If she was up and about, she considered herself well; when she lingered in bed, something was wrong. A simple formula.

  She attended daily Mass as often as she could-four or five days a week. Everyone in the church these early mornings knew what troubled her. Nearly everyone in the parish-at lea
st the active parishioners-knew. Father Walsh would not sponsor a crusade for a miracle. But he certainly did not discourage prayer. So word got around.

  She tried to believe a miracle was in her future. She really tried. And some days she felt so good, so nearly recovering, that she confused small remissions with a miraculous recovery.

  Lucy matured dramatically that spring. She was still of an age when death is not quite real. Surely she would never die; she was far too alive. Of course other people died. But not her mother; her mother was still a young woman.

  And then Lucy began to see it. It became more and more difficult for Louise to avoid lying down or at least sitting down. Her weight, never much, began to drop. To look in her eyes was to see pain.

  Louise bore it all without complaint. She taught her daughter how to pray for and prepare for the miracle. It wouldn’t be a miracle if she recovered from a less than terminal condition. In other words, she’d have to be a whole lot sicker than she was for the reality of the miracle to prove itself.

  Louise was aware that a significant number of very sincere people were praying for her. The times when the pain was more intense she consciously fell back on all those prayers. And when she did, the pain became quite bearable.

  Father Koesler had been unable to convince his pastor to mobilize a prayer campaign. But Koesler enlisted the prayer and concern of many friends and/or parishioners. Together, he and they learned a lot about prayer through this experience.

  Koesler, who talked with Tony from time to time, knew that the young man was neither supportive nor productive-or even encouraging, for that matter. The priest knew that Lucy was doing literally all she could. So there was not all the prayer they had anticipated in the beginning. Still, many good people were storming heaven for Louise’s sake.

  The anchor of all this dedicated prayer was Vincent. No one else had his confidence, his faith. He was in the seminary chapel whenever he was not called to another duty. He spent an unaccustomed amount of time with his Bible. He repeatedly called up passages that spoke to him of requited prayer.

  With this in mind, it seemed that the entire Bible was a romance between God and mankind, and that the language of this romance was prayer.

  Vincent was encouraged by the frequency of prayer stories in the New Testament. It seemed that Jesus was always assuring His disciples that anything they asked the Father for they would receive if they had faith. Jesus Himself, when performing his miracles, would express His faith. Anything, everything was possible through faith.

  And Vincent had faith.

  He prayed, “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.” But there was little unbelief in Vincent’s prayer.

  He believed. He had faith.

  All those marvelous people were a source of encouragement and support.

  But this was Vincent’s miracle.

  Vincent’s life of prayer and faith so impressed the rector that he relaxed his previous restriction for a one-day-a-week home visitation. Now Vinnie was home from Friday night to Sunday night each week.

  Though Vincent was not notably popular among his fellow students and classmates, a goodly number of them caught his fervor and began praying for his mother’s cure.

  Each Sunday evening when he returned from home, many, faculty and students alike, asked after his mother. He never tired of explaining that while she seemed to be failing, her faith was strong. The miracle could happen any time now. And the miracle, by definition, could happen no matter how frail she was. Indeed, the more that physical hope declined, the more appropriate would be God’s merciful intervention.

  So he encouraged them to continue his prayer with him.

  But, without doubt, it was Vincent’s show.

  16

  Palm Sunday

  The gangbusters church congregations for Holy Week had begun. Attendance at Mass this morning at St. Norbert’s was up markedly from what could be expected on an ordinary Sunday. Father Koesler knew the other parishes were experiencing the same phenomenon as his small suburban parish.

  He knew also that he could anticipate a full week of virtually nothing but eating, sleeping, conducting liturgies, and hearing confessions.

  Confessions would be by far the heaviest burden.

  “The Box,” as the confessional was called by some, was not designed for comfort. In many cases it was more a torture chamber.

  Penitents knelt in murky obscurity on an unyielding board set below a shelf on which one could rest one’s elbows-depending on one’s size. Short people had better luck resting their chins on the support while tall people could distort their spines trying to lean down. At least the penitents were captive for a relatively short period.

  Not so the priest confessor. His center booth shared the musty darkness. His chair, more often than not, was uncomfortable-extremely so. Usually, his hole-in-the-wall cavity was too small for comfort. So there he sat, cramped, conducting business in whispers. He whispered and the penitent whispered, as they blew germs at each other through a tatty, unwashed curtain. He sat in the center compartment of the box for hours. During the Christmas season and during Holy Week, he sat there for days on end. His end.

  St. Norbert’s added one additional torment. The church was heated through blowers in the ceiling. No matter that heat rises. Some pseudoarchitect, probably the founding pastor, thought this method of heating, by having warmth fight against its natural direction, inventive.

  As a consequence, the congregation’s feet were colder than their heads. Meanwhile, in the Box, heat poured down on the priest confessor from the blower just above his head until the box reached a saunalike temperature-at which point the blower would automatically quit, allowing the cold air to rush upward from beneath the door.

  Such was Father Koesler’s prospect for the coming week. And, short of falling grievously ill, there was no escaping it.

  All this, of course, paled before the greater pain and fear that held Louise Delvecchio in their grip.

  Koesler had mixed feelings as he sat in his car in front of Louise’s house. In a way, Louise was an inspiration. Even if she could no longer care for her family, still she fought to at least care for herself. She tried to be a burden to no one, particularly to Lucy, who was by far her most constant companion.

  On the other hand, Koesler was angry, so very angry with this disease that seemed to be eating away at Louise from inside. In the face of such ravages, how could he give any thought whatsoever to the minor inconveniences in his own life? They seemed so inconsequential in light of the load Louise carried.

  But he hadn’t traveled from Inkster to Detroit’s east side to sit in his car and give free rein to his stream of consciousness.

  In response to the bell, the door was opened by Vincent, done up like a good seminarian: black trousers, black shoes and socks, and a white collarless shirt into which a clerical collar would fit easily.

  As he entered the house, Koesler noted fresh palm fronds hung from wall decorations. Nodding at the display, he said, “Who let you guys play in the palm fields? You got enough to plait a South Seas hut.”

  Vincent smiled. “St. William’s is generous when you ask nicely.”

  Koesler wondered at Vinnie’s good humor. Then he remembered the miracle and Vincent’s faith. Why not be happy? Vincent’s mood was comparable to one standing near Lazarus’s tomb while knowing how the story would end.

  Lucy appeared from the kitchen. An apron covered most of a pretty spring dress.

  “The little homemaker getting supper ready?” Koesler asked.

  Lucy nodded. “Can you stay?”

  “I don’t want to be the Man Who Came to Dinner.”

  “Don’t worry: It’s spaghetti and meatballs. That stretches forever.”

  “Okay then. Is Tony here?”

  Neither Vincent nor Lucy responded immediately.

  “No,” Vincent said, finally. “He won’t be here today.”

  Lucy snorted. “He won’t be here any day.”

  “Lucy!
” Vincent chided.

  “I don’t care,” she said. “Father’s practically one of the family … he ought to be plugged in on our dirty laundry.”

  “Lucy, you shouldn’t-”

  “Lucy’s right, I think,” Koesler broke in. “I’m too close to this not to be allowed to know what’s going on.”

  “I can be brief,” Lucy said. “I think that Tony thinks Mama’s process of dying is going way too slow.”

  Vincent, about to say something, decided to let the remark pass.

  “Tony doesn’t come home at all?” Koesler asked.

  “Yeah,” Lucy said, “he does … once in a while. But not for very long. What I really think is that he doesn’t know how to handle this. I don’t know why. People get sick.” She was about to add that not only do they get sick, they die. But in deference to the expected miracle, she didn’t.

  “You have to keep in mind where Tony’s coming from,” Vincent said. “His world is built around physical fitness. For him there can be little or no compromise with sickness. He never, not for an instant, bought our decision to reject therapy. Besides, it’s hard to watch your mother be so ill. However”-he looked almost beatific-“that will make the miracle all the more joyous.”

  Rather than have to respond to the possibility of a coming miracle, Lucy quickly said, “By the way, Father, Mama wants to talk to you. We’ve got a while till supper. Maybe you could see her now … before we eat?”

  “Of course.”

  “She’s upstairs in her bedroom.”

  “Is it okay if I just go up?”

  “Sure.”

  Before entering, Koesler peered around the edge of the door. Louise, completely clothed, lay atop the bedclothes. She was so frail she almost blended into the quilt; Koesler didn’t find her immediately. She seemed to be napping. He might have let her sleep, but she had asked to see him …

  “Louise …?”

  Instantly she was awake and smiling. “Father, come in …” She gestured to a rocking chair near the bed.

  Koesler pulled the chair closer and sat down. “How are you feeling, Louise?”