STANDING beside the Block, at the foot of the Mount, a tiny sentinel in front of 44, my face and hands as distantly visible as red flags, I became a neighbourhood fixture, the little Joyce boy in his oversized shoes, with large hands that flapped about on the ends of his wrists like the ears of a rabbit. I stayed close where my mother could see me from the kitchen window. I obeyed her order not to venture onto Bonaventure and simply stood by the Block, hoping to be noticed and spoken to. There was no better place to meet what Pops called “the vermin on the Mount.”
Most of the clerics waved to me as they went by or stopped to ask me how I was, even the spooky Capuchins whose faces I couldn’t make out and who walked with each of their hands in the opposite sleeve, each of them one scythe short of being the Grim Reaper. Some people thought my stained face to be an attendant symptom of retardation. Others, because of my oversized hands and feet, mistook me for a dwarf, doubly damned. Most grown-ups were quite friendly and called me by name. “Hello, Percy, how are you today?” “I’m fine, thank you.” “That’s good. You’re so polite.” I was sometimes given candy treats and was always hoping for one. “Poor little thing,” I heard a woman say to her husband after they had gone by. Poor little cheerful, attention-craving, candy-deprived, friendless son of a certain woman who already regarded with suspicion every face that turned his way lest he see in it a look of revulsion or be gawked at by someone who thought that no one with such a face would notice. Poor little boy whose innocence would not hold up much longer against what lay in store for him.
On the cusp of what I thought would be my first year of school, in the warm summer months, I kept watch at the Block. One day, a woman whose age I couldn’t guess and who was dressed like a nun came by and gave me a Mass card and told me to give it to my mother and have her teach me the prayer on the back that asked the Patron Saint of Unattractive People, Saint Drogo, to intercede with God on my behalf. She told me that, compared to Saint Drogo, who voluntarily hid himself for life inside a cell attached to his church lest his ugliness scare people into mistaking him for Satan, I was “a handsome young man.” She spoke slowly, deliberately, in a way that seemed meant to convey serenity, a fearless, God-conferred reconciliation to all possible happenstance and fates.
On the card there was a cartoon-like depiction of Saint Drogo, his grossly misshapen face more comical than otherwise as he stared out the window of his cell. On the back of the card was a prayer: “Let them not be judged, O Lord, by their earthly appearance, but let Your glorious Light shine upon them that all may see the everlasting Beauty of their Souls.” Beneath this, in smaller letters, the card read: “A small contribution would be appreciated. May God bless you and keep you, forever and ever. Amen.”
“Is this how she gets by, handing out prayer cards to children whose parents she expects will pay for them?” my mother said. “Saint Drogo. I’m sure there was no such person. Drogre is probably how they came up with it. Drogre. Dr. Ogre. I think I know where his office is.” She turned to me. “I don’t think you should keep this card.” She put it on the windowsill above the sink, and in the morning it was gone.
Medina said she knew the woman. They’d never met, but she’d seen her on the street a few times. She went by the name of Sister Mary Aggie, from Mary Agnes. Medina didn’t know her last name. “She’s harmless—she used to be a nun, or she thinks she still is one, or something.” She said Sister Mary Aggie was a kind of self-ordained missionary but was known to run a one-woman brothel out of the single room in which she lived. “A missionary prostitute,” my mother sighed. “Wonderful.”
Sister Mary Aggie made up a clerical order of one. She wore a headdress much like the one worn by the nuns of the Mount—a black veil and white cowl that completely hid her hair. It was not winged like those of the Presentation nuns, nor as high and narrow as those of the Mercy nuns. Instead of a frock, she wore a belted, tattered grey dress. Her shoes must once have looked like nun’s shoes, but they were encrusted with mud and dust and lacked laces so that she had to scuff along to keep them from falling off.
Medina told us she’d been at one time a patient of the Mental, but hadn’t been hospitalized in more than a year, having somehow got to the point where her eccentricities were indulged by the various local authorities, even the Church, which had not been amused by her nun-aping caricature. She now lived in the basement of a nearby house on Garrison Hill. One evening, when my mother, Medina and I went out for an evening walk, each of them taking turns holding me in her arms when I got tired, we went to Garrison Hill and saw that in the window of Sister Mary Aggie’s room was a picture of the Sacred Heart, the garish heart lit from within by a red Christmas light that blinked at heartbeat intervals. Above and below the Sacred Heart, the window read:
SISTER MARY AGGIE’S HOME FOR WAYWARD SOULS
Sister Mary Aggie returned to the Block one afternoon, talking loudly although she was alone. She looked at me and wiped her face on her coat sleeve as if wiping away a port wine stain of her own.
“Do you have something for me?” she said.
I shook my head.
She said, “That face is your mother’s fault. When she carried you, she went outside during an eclipse. That’s why you have that face. Now your face is stuck like that. Even if you go to Heaven, your face will still be stuck like that and people who earned their way into Heaven will have to put up with the sight of you. You’ll spoil Heaven for everyone else.” Her words stung but I could think of no reply.
She gave me another Saint Drogo Mass card. “Give this to your mother,” she said.
“She wants me to pay her for the card,” I said to my mother.
“No,” my mother said. “She wants me to pay for it. If you give her a cent, she’ll never stop coming back for more. Perhaps you shouldn’t stand out by the Block. God knows what hurtful nonsense someone will spout to you next.”
I protested but she did not relent until Medina pleaded my cause, saying it was good for me not to hole up in the house, good for me to get used to people and for people to get used to me. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to people telling him such vicious things,” my mother said, and Pops, who’d been listening silently in the sunroom, piped up that no one ever got used to anyone. My mother said that anyone who stayed out by the Block long enough would meet all kinds. “So let him meet all kinds,” Medina said, smoothing the hair at the back of my head.
Sister Mary Aggie came back again. “Do you have something for me this time?”
I shook my head.
She gave me a third card. “You’re not baptized and you and your mother never go to church,” she said. “You might not even have a middle name.”
“I don’t,” I said.
“Well, things can’t be left like that. I’ll baptize you.” She took from the pocket of her frayed grey coat a small glass vial. “Holy water,” she said, “from the Shrine of Sainte Anne de Beaupré. You’re going to need more than a patron saint looking out for you.” She sprinkled the sign of the cross on me and sprinkled my face, saying: “I baptize you, Percy Patrick Joyce, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Nothing on earth will fix your face. Remember, no matter what happens, no matter what people say or do, God is always with you, Percy Patrick Joyce.”
And then she continued on her way down Bonaventure, talking loudly as if conversing with someone who was nearly deaf. I told my mother what the woman had done and gave her the third card.
“She can’t just go around throwing water on people,” my mother protested. “Or baptizing them or giving them names or handing out these cards as if they’re redeemable coupons. Anyway, Percy, your middle name is not Patrick, do you hear me?” I nodded. “And don’t tell anyone it is. She named you after the Archbishop. Especially don’t tell them that. Don’t tell them anything about the old woman.”
“Come on, Pen,” Medina said.
“Come on nothing! She’s fastened onto Percy as if she thinks they have something in common. I should have a word with her. What if it hadn’t been water in that vial? You can’t have a crazy woman going around sprinkling children with what might or might not be holy water. There could have been anything in that bottle. Even if it was water, it could have been water from a ditch.”
“Percy looks okay to me,” Medina murmured.
“Did you get any in your mouth? Did you swallow any?” my mother demanded of me.
“I got some on my lips.” I put out my tongue to lick them tentatively. “It tasted just like water.”
“Jesus,” my mother said. She announced she would have a word with Sister Mary Aggie the next time she came down the Curve of Bonaventure. She told me I should come inside and let her know if I saw Sister Mary Aggie coming down the hill. “And you stay inside,” she said.
I did as she told me, running inside the next time I spotted Sister Mary Aggie at the top of Bonaventure. It was seven in the evening in July, Pops was in his sunroom, and Medina and my mother were playing cards. “Here she comes,” I shouted, running into the kitchen. “Stay here,” my mother ordered. I stayed inside for as long as it took Sister Mary Aggie to reach the Block, then went outside and stood beside my mother and Medina. My mother looked down at me, shook her head with exasperation, then pointed at Sister Mary Aggie.
“You,” she said. “Sister Mary Aggie. Leave Percy alone. Use the other side of the street from now on.”
“You’re the boy’s mother. A Jezebel. Women like you used to work for me. Back in the days of the Empire.”
“She means Empire Avenue,” Medina said. “There was a whorehouse on Empire Avenue. But she was never in charge of it or anything like that.”
“Another Jezebel.” Two of them. Going at it like a brace of rabbits. It takes one to know two.”
My mother gaped open-mouthed at Sister Mary Aggie and then Medina, who ever so slightly shook her head.
“Shut up,” my mother hissed, looking around at the houses on either side of ours. “Shut up unless you liked the Mental more than I think you did.”
“Pardon me, Your Highness,” Sister Mary Aggie said, raising her eyebrows.
“I want you to stay away from my boy, Percy, from now on. I don’t want you giving him Mass cards or pretending you can baptize him or perform some other sacrament. I don’t want him to come indoors and tell me that he’s been confirmed or married or just went to confession or is doomed to Goddamn Hell. I don’t want you talking to him at all, do you understand?”
“Nothing I did was against the law. If you call the police, all they’ll do is talk to me. They like me. I know all of them by name.”
“I won’t call the police. I’ll call His Grace the Archbishop. He likes Percy.”
Sister Mary Aggie looked momentarily perturbed but quickly recovered. “I like the boy too,” she said.
“Here”—my mother extended the three Mass cards to Sister Mary Aggie—“I’m not paying for these.”
“I gave them to the boy. They belong to him.”
“He doesn’t want them.”
Sister Mary Aggie looked at me. “I think he does,” she said. “He accepted them. Besides, it’s bad luck to refuse a Mass card. To refuse three, well. Three is a very important number. Three blessings or three curses, as the case may be.”
“First it’s blackmail,” my mother whispered. “Pay me for my cards or else.… You speak of curses and gossip in front of Percy once more and—”
“And what? If you’re really not afraid of curses and don’t want any blessings for your boy, you can tear up the cards and throw them on the ground right here in front of him.”
“We don’t want them.” She whispered again: “Say whatever you want to whomever you want. You’re as mad as a hatter and no one will believe a word of it.”
I wanted the cards, would have wanted them even if she hadn’t offered the choice of blessings or curses, but now I especially wanted them.
“Mom, can I have the cards?” I said.
“Out of the mouths of babes,” said Sister Mary Aggie.
My mother thrust the cards at me and wagged her finger at Sister Mary Aggie.
“Not one cent. That’s what you’re getting for your cards.”
“Jezebel. Slut,” Sister Mary Aggie said. “They’re not my cards. They belong to the boy now. He looks like he would pay me if he could.”
“You’re nothing but a common peddler,” my mother said. “You peddle superstition in the streets. I’m sure you have a card for every occasion and ailment.”
“The Holy Father sends them to me.” Sister Mary Aggie smirked.
My mother took a step toward her. “I think you’re a beggar. More lazy than crazy. Too lazy to work.”
Sister Mary Aggie faintly nodded. “In My name shall ye be persecuted. Scorn, torment and martyrdom shall be your lot if ye follow Me. But ye shall thereby enter into the Kingdom of God.”
“Now she thinks she’s God Almighty.” Medina laughed.
Sister Mary Aggie, without the slightest motion of her head, shifted her eyes to Medina. “I remember Mr. Joyce, your brother. Sometimes he gave me loaves of bread. He got away while the getting was good, didn’t he? He wasn’t getting any at home.”
“Where did he go?” I asked her, but she merely looked up at the sky.
“You wouldn’t happen to know who the Patron Saint of Hangovers is, would you?” Medina said, but she sounded nervous.
“Jezebels,” Sister Mary Aggie said, her voice as serene as ever. “A brace of Jezebels. A tandem of tarts. I know. It takes one to know two. Back at the Empire, your kind was in great demand. You could wind up in jail. Or worse. A lot worse. I know what goes on in the Mental. You’d be fried like fish on Friday. Or maybe have an operation. Two scars apiece. I made a lot of money during the war, from the Yanks and the British and the Canadians too. I know what’s going on. The bats are in the belfry and the rats are in the basement, mark my words.”
“Here, Pen,” Medina said, “here’s two dimes,” cocking her head at me and winking as she held the two coins out to my mother. My mother took the coins but put them in her pocket.
“Not one cent,” she said, making a sudden lunge at Sister Mary Aggie, who all but ran away, gesticulating with her hands above her head as if she were fending off things falling from the sky.
My mother grabbed my shoulder. “This is why I told you to stay inside. Don’t say a word to Pops about what Mary Aggie said. She’s out of her mind, but Pops might try to make something out of nothing.” She turned me briskly about and the three of us went indoors.
But Pops had been watching from the front window and wanted to know what had happened. When Medina told him as much as she safely could, he said, “You did the right thing, Paynelope. Percy doesn’t believe in curses, do you, Percy?” I shook my head without conviction. “You should burn those cards, Paynelope. Just so the boy doesn’t dwell on them.”
“No,” I put my hand behind my back quickly. “Mom gave the cards to me.”
“That’s right,” my mother said. “Sister Mary Aggie didn’t give them to you, I did. There’s no such thing as a curse, but if there was, the three of them would be on my head, not yours. Oh, what am I saying? Now you’re going to think I’m cursed.”
“No, I’m not.”
I taped the cards to the wall above the upper of the two bunks of my bed, two with Saint Drogo facing out, the other between them with the prayer side facing out: “Let them not be judged, O Lord, by their earthly appearance, but let Your glorious Light shine upon them that all may see the everlasting Beauty of their Souls.… A small contribution would be appreciated. May God bless you and keep you, forever and ever. Amen.”
When my mother saw them taped to the wall, she said, “Jesus, Percy, wouldn’t you rather collect hockey cards or something?”
“Well, Pen,” Medina said, “you told him you’d let him make up his own mind about religion.”
“Religion?” my mother said. “That’s not religion. It’s worse. Those cards won’t change anything, Percy. They won’t make anything better. You know that, right?”
I nodded. “They’re just for fun.”
“And whatever you do,” she said, “stay away from Sister Mary Aggie from now on. Not one more piece of her merchandise will come into this house, understand?”
I nodded.
She dropped her voice. “It’s important, Perse, to stay away from her, important for all of us. When you’re older, you’ll understand, okay?”
“Okay.”
I probably would have disobeyed her, but Sister Mary Aggie stopped coming by the Block, as if, having done what she could for me, she had moved on to some other part of the Mount, some other boy. My mother, Medina and I—I had nagged them into it by telling them I was worried she was back in the Mental—went up the Curve of Bonaventure, past St. Bon’s to Sister Mary Aggie’s room on Garrison Hill. And perhaps she was back in the Mental: the pulsing red Sacred Heart was gone and there were no curtains on the window. The room looked empty, but my mother let me knock on the door anyway. No one came.