Engagement

                                       Engagement

by Paul Crehan

Teddy helped a confused fellow named Joe find his way home. Home was the Maria Prima Senior Center. Once there, strengthened by relief, old Joe haled his fugitive reason back from the margin of his mind. He invited Teddy for a coffee in the rec room. The sun remained in the window, even as it sank below sight.

Teddy enjoyed Joe’s company. The man spoke easily of cabbages and kings in a delightful accent Teddy correctly identified as Corkonian.

As Teddy started making motions to leave, Joe seized his forearm. “And there,” he said, “is my Kathleen!” He nodded his head toward a woman who stood in the doorway, surveying the room. Her eyes landed on Joe. Her eyes lit up.

After introductions, Kathleen sat, then the gentlemen sat. Joe said that he was going to marry this girl, whereupon Kathleen blushed. Taking Joe’s willing hand, she told Teddy, as much as she told Joe, yes, it was their dream, but it could only be that.

Then, her tone of voice a mix of first-time explanation and for-the-hundredth time explanation, she said that things got tricky with insurance and living accommodations. And of course, there were Joe’s mental challenges. And of course, there was the fact that Kathleen was dying.

Oh, thought Teddy. This was suddenly a lot.

He pondered all that Kathleen had told him, as he walked the two blocks from Maria Prima to the rectory at St. Mark’s. He pushed through the door and, in two steps, crossed the thinly carpeted hall to the mail slots cubby. Nothing in the Fr. Theodore Iskander slot, except a copy of a letter from the bishop to the clergy at St. Mark’s.

Apparently, they had pissed him off again, but this time, things were serious. The priests were in error; had defied orders from their superiors; and if they continued their misreading of doctrine, St. Mark’s would be shut down.

And if that happens, Teddy thought, what would I do? Where would I go? And what about Vince? He was 90-years-old. Imagine poor Vince, defrocked at the end of a lifetime of service. He’d die from the upset and misery.

Teddy crumpled the bishop’s letter into a ball and tossed it into the lined trashcan in the corner, where all junk mail went. On the other hand, Teddy thought, he had better not rock any boat for a while. He had better keep the punctilious nature of his bishop in mind. Not to do so would lead to true error, because it would cause real harm. So. On to the straight and narrow.

And, Teddy thought, maybe St. Mark’s had pushed too hard and too fast, because the parish had, in fact, been hemorrhaging money, parishioners contributing less and less the more he and his brothers pushed their Jesus-as-radical agenda. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he and his brothers were wrong. Maybe they should swallow their perspective.

“I see you saw the letter,” Beatrice said. Teddy turned and found her next to him. How did she do that—materialize from nowhere? She was, Teddy saw, upset—making successive moues with her lips.

“I did,” Teddy said. He didn’t offer more. He didn’t like Beatrice; nor she, him. But they worked together well. She was a deacon here at St. Mark’s and a Eucharistic minister at the hospital. They often crossed paths there when Teddy was called to minister to the sick and dying, and their families. Beatrice was, he had to admit, good with the grief-stricken. But she was so old-school; exactly his age, but so very old-school. She didn’t like this new generation of priests—the very generation, Teddy often wanted to tell her—that made it possible for a woman to be a deacon.

“Well, what do you think about it?” Beatrice asked him.

“Plenty of food for thought,” Teddy said.

“I should think so,” Beatrice replied. She moved past him and headed down the hall. He didn’t mind watching her. He was a man, after all. Then Teddy shook his head, rather hard.

On his next day off, always a Monday, Teddy walked up the glittering paving stone pathway to the front entrance at Maria Prima. He would check in on Joe and Kathleen.

They sat in the garden. A St. Francis fountain burbled merrily. Birds chirped, or squawked, a mourning dove in a tree showed why he got his name. The sun had taken its leave, and its robe of light trailed after it, over the garden, over their bodies, over the fence.

Teddy saw that Kathleen was in poorer shape than last week—breathing a little labored, spirits a little low, her leave-taking had sped up. She was fully alert, however; mind sharp. Teddy could not say the same for Joe. He was confused; not as confused as he had found him last week; but things were escaping him.

Suddenly, Joe pointed at Teddy, his eyes on Kathleen. “We have a priest right here. He says the words. It’s done.”

Kathleen’s eyes turned beatifically soft on Joe. “Oh, my dear, beautiful man. Soulmates don’t need an institution. Why force them into one?”

Joe thought about this, at length, his eyes on Kathleen. “It isn’t an institution,” he said at last. It’s fulfillment.”

Teddy was surprised. That was a good response.

“It would give me joy, Kathleen,” Joe continued, “that you wanted me so much that you wouldn’t care what else happened. And to lie down with me in bed at night. To get up with me. To be mine. It’s different after you say the words. It’s all different.”

Kathleen took Joe’s hand in both of hers and wept. Joe put his free hand to her cheek and thumbed away her tears. Time to make myself scarce, Teddy thought, a surge of joy in his heart that he had the privilege to witness this beautiful thing blooming in a garden.

But the joy in his heart vanished when he found Vince seated in the chair next to the mail cubby, on the opposite side of the trashcan. Vince never sat in that chair, and it had been put there mainly for him—so the old man could sit, while sorting through his mail. But he never had mail to sort.

He held a letter he’d obviously just read. “He’s threatening to send in the goon squad,” Vince said. Teddy glanced toward his box. Another letter from the bishop?

Last week, baleful words, but they were addressed to the priests at St. Mark’s. This week’s letter had gone out to the diocese as a whole. And this time, the threat was specific. He was prepared to send in his Consulters to ‘initiate change.’ 

“Okay,” Teddy said, “he’s using us as an example: Don’t screw with me. But what does this mean in real terms? For us?”

“It’s an ultimatum,” Vince said. “And we can be sure it’s an ultimatum, and not bluster, because he’s committed himself now. To the entire diocese. We screw up, he can’t back off. He has to shut us down.”

Teddy thought this through. “And what constitutes a screw up?”

“That’s the problem,” Vince said. “He doesn’t choose to say. Ominous, no? It could be any one thing; any one thing he can construe as a big enough thing.”

Beatrice materialized halfway down the hall, heading toward them. “Sometimes,” she said, “you just have to clean up the Augean stables.”

Had she been listening to their conversation? Or had she guessed, from their furrowed brows, and the bishop’s letter in their hands, what their conversation must have been about? Didn’t really matter, what a mean thing to say—about them, and their work: that it was bullshit. Mean bitch, but he liked the scent she had on.

Two days later, Teddy was walking in his big circles in the parking lot that served the church, reading his breviary. Every now and again, he’d look up to behold the welcome infiltration of dawn, and this time, when he did so, something caught his eye. In the space between the parish admin building and the school’s gymnasium—the rectangular space a morning pink—he saw a figure—a man—pass. It was Joe. Teddy hurried toward him.

“Joe,” Teddy said, when he reached him. “What’s the matter?”

Joe’s lips trembled. “Trouble,” he said, looking every which way. Teddy saw that Joe was not all right.

“Who am I?” Teddy asked him. “Do you know who I am, Joe?”

“There’s trouble. I need to go to the hospital.”

“Are you sick?”

Joe thought about this. Hard. “No. You know…” He frowned. Frustrated. Anxious.

“Kathleen?” Teddy asked. “Is she in the hospital?”

“Yes,” Joe said. “Kathleen!”

“Stay here,” Teddy said. “I’ll get the car. Stay here. One minute.”

Kathleen turned her head their way, when Teddy and Joe entered her room in the ICU. Teddy saw that the movement of her head was merely coincident with their arrival. It had nothing to do with her seeing or acknowledging them. It was an agonized move, actually.

She’s on the way out, Teddy thought. He glanced at Joe. But he couldn’t read what Joe might be thinking.

There was no nurse around to tell them what they could or could not do. Joe hurried to her side and took up her hand. The touch, his touch, turned on a switch inside of her. Her eyes cleared; they cleared on Joe. After a moment, she smiled.

“Do you want to marry me, Joe?”

“Yes.”

“Ask me,” she said.

“Kathleen, will you marry me?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Joe smiled. “And look who’s here,” he said, and he turned enough to the side, so that she could see Teddy, now approaching her bed. But Teddy thought, as he greeted her, I don’t have a stole; no book; no rings; no witnesses—no everything. What can I do without? What do I absolutely need to make this stick? He didn’t know. How could he not know? But he didn’t. He heard Joe weep—in relief, in joy, out of anxiety and dread. He was breathing hard, too; awfully hard. My God, Teddy thought, he’s not going to drop down dead is he?

“Joe,” Teddy said, “listen.” He needed to distract him. “We need rings. Go to the cafeteria. Find something you can twist into rings. Tin foil. Get some tin foil and tear some bits off, and twist them up into rings you can wear. Okay? You got it? You understand?”

“Okay,” Joe said, still working a way through Teddy’s words. He looked challenged, Teddy thought, like he knew his mental acuity was escaping him. How awful that must be, Teddy thought—to know you’re losing your grip, and not be able to do a damned thing about it.

“And witnesses. Two witnesses,” Teddy said. “Two rings. Two witnesses. Hurry.”

Now, thought Teddy, what do I do with Kathleen?

He turned to her. “Kathleen,” he said, but he wasn’t sure what to say; some important-sounding nonsense, to be sure; something to give all this the sacredness it demanded.

An amber-colored button on Kathleen’s vitals box began to pulse, and an alarm began to ding, so loud it could wake the dead. A nurse rushed in. Kathleen’s eyes were open, but they did not move; sparkled still; but did not move.

There was a big life-saving to-do that couldn’t have lasted more than ten-minutes, and almost as quickly as the life-saving team had rushed in, they rushed out: another alarm was waking the dead elsewhere. But not Kathleen.

Teddy and she were alone in the room. The tubes and machines had been removed. She looked like a cocoon, a cast-off cocoon. Unnervingly, her eyes were not all the way shut; they were half open, her head turned a bit to her left, toward the door.

Joe hurried into the room, followed by a male nurse Teddy had seen around on his visits here—and Beatrice. Teddy’s face fell. She saw it fall. So, this is how it ends, he thought, because Teddy was Teddy and committed to his course of action.

“Joe,” Teddy said, “would you please stand here, right by me at the bed? Thank you. And witnesses,” he continued, “if you would take your places behind the two of us, demonstrating and acknowledging your support of Joe, and acknowledging, too, the right of the church, in this state, and through his minister—me—to join these two souls together.”

This was a lot of nonsense he was spewing; totally made-up bullshit—though a tiny part of him was rather proud of it. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Beatrice; to see how much of this, if any, she was swallowing. With Joe and him in front of the two of them, and standing between them and Kathleen, how well could they see her?

“Do you have the rings, Joe?” Teddy asked. Joe looked at him blankly. Sweat sprang from Teddy’s temples. “The rings for you and Kathleen, Joe,” Teddy said, his voice raised—to indicate that Joe was merely hard of hearing: He had to be careful about what he said, and how he said it. Beatrice couldn’t know that Joe was mentally unfit to make the free will decision to marry.

A streak of lightning shot through Joe’s eyes, and, he said, “Yes!” He opened his palm to reveal two ragged circles of tin-foil. “All right,” Teddy said, “let us begin.”

He took half-a-minute to explain that these were exigent circumstances, requiring that he get right to the heart and soul of the wedding ceremony, in other words, to the bits that made this legal and sacramental. Then, he launched into the rite, racing to, “Do you, Joe, take Kathleen to be your lawfully wedded wife?” He omitted the last bits—the having and holding, and the til death do us part business. Asking Joe to swear he’d do all that, when of course, he couldn’t do any of it, was a step too far even for the far-stepping Teddy.

“Is something wrong, Kathleen?” Joe suddenly asked. “You look funny.”

Teddy, tilting his chin down and away from Joe, and doing the best old lady voice he could summon, said, “I’m fine. Just very sleepy. Go on.”

Joe said, “Okay. I do.”

Teddy felt Beatrice’s eyes on him. His back was burning up. “And do you, Kathleen, take Joe to be your lawfully wedded husband?” Teddy paused for half a beat and said, in his Kathleen voice, “I do.”

Then, Teddy led Joe (and Kathleen, in absentia) through the ring exchange, Teddy pressing his shoulder right up against Joe’s to better block Beatrice’s view. He lifted Kathleen’s cooling arm and supported her hand with his own, so that Joe had a steady target. Joe’s aim was true. The ring was on. It was awfully loose, but it would do.

Then Teddy panicked. How was he to get the dead Kathleen to put a ring on Joe’s finger? “As for your ring, Joe,” and Teddy was speaking even before he knew what he was going to say, “Kathleen said while you were gone that she did not need a man-made symbol to show your love and fidelity. She didn’t need to see anything on your finger, when she knew you carried her in your heart. So, please, she said, no ring. Isn’t that right, Kathleen? Joe and these witnesses need to hear you say yes.” Teddy took a half-beat and said, as Kathleen, “Yes, that’s right.”

“You may kiss the bride,” Teddy said quickly, abruptly. Joe bent toward his bride and gave her a chaste kiss on the lips.

“You’re a little cold, my darling,” Joe said, “let me get you a warm blanket.”

He turned and left the room. The nurse looked at his watch. “We’re done? Do I sign anything?”

So, Teddy thought, I’ve fooled him, at least. “Not at the moment, no,” he said. “I’ll find you in a bit.” The nurse nodded and left the room. Teddy moved—he thought rather adroitly—to place his body between Kathleen’s and Beatrice.

Beatrice exhaled, as if she’d been holding her breath for minutes. She said, “Do you know how many church and state laws you’ve broken just now?”

“A lot?” Teddy said.

“You just deceived a man by marrying him to a corpse!”

Teddy shrugged. What to say, if anything? She was right. When this got back to the bishop, Teddy would be terminated. Defrocked. Fucked. The bishop might also make a call to the cops. Priest Marries Demented Man to Corpse the headlines will say.

Where was he going to go now? What was he going to do? And all of them—all his brothers in Christ—he’d probably sunk all of them. It wasn’t exaggerating to say that he had sowed the seed of Vincent’s death.

He couldn’t say to Beatrice, I thought it was the right thing to do. She’d think he was certifiable for saying that; criminal, for saying that.

And yet, what he'd done was just a little pretend, a lovely little bit of pretend to give an old man a bit of joy.

Beatrice gazed at Teddy and made nervous moues with her puckering lips. She shrugged. “Anyway, I have the marriage forms in my desk. I’ll sign them as witness and find that nurse for you.”

Teddy studied Beatrice. What was she telling him?

She teared-up. “What if I’m going to hell for you? Am I going to hell for you?”

“The opposite, Beatrice,” Teddy said. “You’re going to heaven.”

She burst into tears and sank to the ground. Teddy hurried to her and got down on the floor with her. He held her. He rocked her. He had never held a woman before—not like this—his cheek against the top of her head, one of her breasts touching the top of his forearm. He felt funny all over. Woozy. He didn’t mind it.