“Hello, Nick. Calling from home. Here checking on Irene before heading out to the club with Tommy.”
“Terrific day for it, Ted. Do you need a fourth?”
“Thanks, but Tommy and I have things to talk about.”
“Is Irene—?”
“About the same. Concetta’s here. But, Nick, I just heard that, after everything else that’s happened today, the bank has been vandalized.”
“Yes, graffiti painted across the east wall and window. Something from the Bible, I think. Getting someone to clean it up now. They’ve arrested a man named Johnson.”
“Johnson? Chester Johnson, probably. Bad seed. In and out of jail so often he should be paying rent.”
“That’s him. But he seems all but illiterate. Everyone says it was really your mad preacher who did it.”
“Edwards?”
“He must have sprung his cage. That dancer has been running around all afternoon like a headless chicken with her feathers up and tail showing looking for him.”
“I think I caught a glimpse. Are we ready to make those arrests?”
“There are still some jurisdiction issues, but, yes, the warrants are prepared for our boys to enter the church camp and we know where the minister is being kept.”
“So what’s holding things up?”
“Well, I was going to do it early next week.”
“Do it today.”
In the melancholic penumbra of St. Stephen’s, waiting for Father Baglione to turn up so she can take confession, Angela Bonali prays silently to the Virgin Mary, asking that the Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, intercede for her in restoring Tommy Cavanaugh’s temporarily lost affection. He is confused and frightened, O holy Mother, and does not understand his true self. There are many different images of Mary in the church — the pious Virgin, grieving Mother, triumphant Queen of Heaven; Angela has chosen to pray before a more voluptuous and youthful Mary, smiling sweetly, the curly-headed Baby Jesus at her ample breast. The sight of the infant nuzzling his mother brings tears to her eyes. I live my life in sorrow, she tells the Virgin, calling upon the White Dove song she shared with Tommy. Darkness hides me where I kneel to pray. I thank you, dear Mother, for your promise to help me in my need today.
Mary knows of course about the anal and oral sex and the dirty pictures and all the rest of it, and Angela can only hope that the Blessed Virgin in her Heavenly wisdom, for all her lack of experience, can understand and forgive. When she sees it through the Virgin’s eyes, it does look a bit sordid. But from deep inside herself, when lost in his embrace, suffering shivers of delight, it is mysterious and beautiful. Cosmic. It helped us feel so much part of each other, O holy Mother. We became as one person, it was really divine in the true meaning of that word, and I felt closer to God than I’ve ever felt before. She can see how Mary might not be convinced. It’s just so hard, she whispers, feeling a pain in her chest (and also in her rumbling tummy — she is starving!), to be a woman. Please don’t let me fall back into my dark ages. You remember how awful that was. I couldn’t bear it!
Gazing at Mother Mary looking down upon her so lovingly, no matter how sinful she might be, Angela is reminded of her own mother, whom she misses terribly. They came here often to pray together, though the last time she prayed alone. It was the day of her mother’s funeral, the loneliest and saddest day of her life. Her dad always barks a lot and stomps around the house like the most important person in the world, leaving his cigar butts and ashes all over the place, but her mom, big and warm and kind, was just quietly there for her. Someone to talk to, to lean on. She let Angela know just how she felt but she never scolded her. Now Angela is the woman of the house, cooking and cleaning for a sullen old man and a despicable bully of a brother, earning until now the family’s only steady income, and all her brothers and sisters expect this of her, so long as the old man is alive. A woman! It’s hard to believe she’ll soon be twenty! She crosses herself, feeling Death’s chill blowing past. Sancta Maria, Mater Domini nostri, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.
In catechism class, Father Bags always insisted on learning the Latin prayers; Angela was good at it and still remembers them. Deus meus, ex toto corde poenitet me omnium meorum peccatorum… I am sorry for my sins. Which, in Latin, seem less personal, less shameful, more like just the way the world works. One night, when Tommy caught her crossing herself before making love, he asked in his joking way if she thought that would make the sex better. She said she was only asking that their love be blessed. But wasn’t she sinning? No, not really, she said, gazing upon him, feeling almost feverish with desire. It was okay because she loved him with all her heart and would love him forever. That made him grin and blush, which was pretty unusual for Tommy Cavanaugh. His erection dipped slightly, so she knelt and kissed it as she might kiss the toes of a saint. And then, because one thing usually leads to another, not as she might kiss the toes of a saint. His manliness always thrilled her. Well, his whole beautiful body did, his handsome face, his excited gray-blue eyes, his smile of pleasure, his strong long-fingered hands and the way they gripped and stroked her. “His searching hand seared a path down my abdomen and onto my thigh.” She has written that in her diary. Should she tell Father Bags that in confession? How would you say it in Latin?