I’d passed Saint Boniface a few times in my wanderings around the Tenderloin. It looked like it belonged on a beach in Mexico with its soaring yellow towers and pink accents and dozens of looming stained glass windows. It was an object of wonder and beauty in one of the worst San Francisco neighborhoods.
I gingerly pulled on the door. I hadn’t been to church since my parents’ funeral. A tiny part of me worried I’d burst into flames when I walked in, but instead I was stopped dead, frozen by one of the most stunning altars I’d ever seen. The entire church was full of swooping arches, inlaid gilt and gold and beautiful pictures of saints and the virgin Mary and Jesus. From the floor up everything was either gold or a myriad of brilliant gem tones. The floor was plush red carpet. So many murals and gold and stained-glass windows.
It wasn’t until I had taken a few steps inside that I realized something was off.
A soft rumbling filled the church. It took me a moment to realize what it was.
Dozens of people snoring.
That’s when the smell hit me. Along with the usual incense of the Catholic church, which I remembered from my youth there was also a faint unpleasant stench of unwashed bodies and perspiration.
The drone of snoring was accompanied by shuffling and coughs and the occasional snort. But I could see no one.
Slight movement in one of the pews caught my eye. As I grew closer, I saw.
Each pew held a body curled up for the night.
Most were wrapped in dingy gray or brown blankets, but there was also an occasional flowered or checked blanket. I did the math in my head, counting the rows of pews. There must have been more than one hundred homeless people sleeping in this church.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
It was so unexpected and so right.
Above all the sleeping bodies, thirty feet in the air, a bevy of painted saints in brilliant colors looked down from the ceiling upon these people seeking shelter in a house of God.
I heard a throat clear at my shoulder and wasn’t surprised when I turned and saw that instead of a priest, a man in monk’s robes was at my side.
“Welcome, sister. Are you here for confession?”
“Uh, no,” I said, feeling guilty since I hadn’t stepped foot in a church since my parent’s funeral. “I’m here to pray and light a candle for a very ill friend. He might not make it. He was beat up and I think it was my fault.” I choked the words out. There. That was a close to a confession as I was getting on this night.
“Please, his name. I will add him to my prayers.”
“Thank you, brother. His name is Kato.” He didn’t blink when I said the name, only led me to an alcove with a statue of the Virgin Mary. When I crouched down on the kneeler, my jacket opened and my gun gleamed in the candlelight. The monk’s eyes rested on the shiny metal for a moment before he raised his eyes to me.
“Good luck with whatever you are seeking, sister. Stay safe.”
I thanked him and he turned and left. I stuffed twenty bucks into the box used to collect money for candle lighting. I lit a candle and said a prayer. I was rusty. I hadn’t prayed for a long time, but I still believed that if there was a God, he could not turn his back on somebody as good and righteous as Kato.
After my prayer, I stood and as if in a daze once again took in all the homeless people seeking shelter in this ethereally beautiful church. I stuffed a hundred-dollar bill in the offering box and then got out another and wadded that up until it fit in the narrow opening. It wasn’t much, but I’d be back.
As I left, I saw a head wrapped in a familiar paisley scarf. Ethel.
I got off the bus a few blocks away from San Francisco General and walked to the emergency entrance. It was late. The middle of the night. I knew any visiting hours had ended hours ago. I walked in the back door like I knew where I was going and what I was doing and headed for the back stairwell again.
On the sixth floor, I cracked the door and looked into the hallway in front of me. Empty. I slowly closed the door behind me. The area was hushed and quiet. I peeked in as I snuck past the family waiting area. At the nurse’s station, one woman with short gray hair was talking quietly on the phone. She held up one finger asking me to wait. I smiled gratefully. I’d expected her to immediately kick me out. I shrunk back and leaned against a wall, trying to look like I wasn’t paying attention to much. Finally, she hung up.
“Visiting hours are over,” she said and raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah, I’m sorry, I know. I just was wondering if you could check a patient’s condition for me?” A note of begging had crept into my voice and I didn’t care. Please, help me.
“Are you a family member?”
I knew I could lie, but I decided just to tell her the truth.
“No. I have no family. He’s as close as I have.” I didn’t mean to play on her sympathy but my voice did choke on a sob as I said it.
She gave me a long look. “Patient name?”
“Kato Mazuka.”
She tapped on her keyboard. “He’s in stable condition in the ICU. Just moved there from recovery.”
“Um, I’m sorry to not know this, but when you say stable, does that mean, like fair condition or critical or what?”
She looked over her glasses at me. “It lists him as critical, but I think he’s regained consciousness. Although I’m not really supposed to tell you that.”
“Thanks.” I gave a sigh of relief. He was awake.
“Also, he’s in room 412. But I didn’t tell you that, either.” She winked and I smiled gratefully and headed for the stairs.