Forgiveness 4 You

WHEN I LEFT JEM ON MONDAY MORNING I KISSED HER ONCE more on the top of her head—still the only place I had ever kissed her—to bless her on her journey. “Call me when you’re back in Cleveland,” I said, feeling guilty that I would not be accompanying her to the airport.

Jem nodded and slipped her arms around my neck. “Thanks for putting me up.” She smelled toasty and warm, like sleep, and I held on for one blissful moment. “It was really … nice.”

I walked several blocks to hail a cab—none would stop in my end of the neighborhood—and read the Mason & Zeus address off the card Madeline had given me. My driver grunted. He had a large wooden cross hanging from his rearview mirror and a statue of Mother Mary, in plastic, next to his clicking meter. Soft Christian rock on the radio. I sprawled in the seat, wishing I could ask him to drive around the city until the sun set. Here in this halfway place, maybe I could figure out my life.

An announcer came on the radio to describe the scene in St. Peter’s Square where hundreds of thousands of people were waiting in a rainstorm to see the smoke that would foretell the next pope. I had not seen Rome in more than a decade, but I could picture it as clearly as I could my childhood home. A few men I’d known at seminary had gone on to become bishops, including one of the worst and most calculating—a priest I’d suspected of being deviant long before the sex abuse news began to break. For years I’d been checking the newspapers, surprised every time that his name wasn’t among the accused.

I thought about how it would feel to don a dark robe and collar and walk among that crowd. People become dazed in Vatican City. They would reach out to touch me: the lame and poor of Italy and the businessmen from Seattle alike. Being a cleric in Italy was something like being a child TV star; you had celebrity but not the wisdom to use it. Moments of grandeur were followed by long hours of lonely self-doubt. The young priest within me ached to be there at the foot of the Sistine Chapel, filled with hope. The older, jaded man I’d become was glad to be here, in a taxi, watching the Blessed Virgin bob with the bumps in the road. Hope was too often followed by despair.

“Keep the meter running,” I told my taciturn but faithful cabbie. “I need to call up.”

Madeline didn’t answer on my first or second attempts, and I could feel the driver getting agitated, preparing to call the police and report nonpayment of fare. “I know she’s there,” I said, sweating as I dialed again. This time, listening to her message, I heard her prompt me to push “0” and page her. I did just that, waiting for another tense period, until finally Madeline’s ragged voice came on the phone.

“I’m downstairs,” I said. Then, because she seemed not to remember our deal. “In the cab?”

“Any way you can pay him and we’ll expense it out for you, Gabe? I am getting slammed up here.”

I glanced at the meter, which read $41 … click, now $42.25. My wallet held roughly $23, plus maybe a dollar’s worth of change in my pants. “Sorry, Madeline,” I told her. “I’m stuck.”

“Okay, tell the guy I’ll be right down. Why I didn’t just leave my American Express with you, I don’t …” Her voice faded and she hung up. And I thought how glad I was that her face-off with Jem had not ended with Madeline’s pulling a credit card out of her purse.

She arrived at my window, her haunted, older-looking face peering through the glass at me. She was like two different women: the Madeline overwhelmed or filled with guilt, who appeared tattered and fragile, versus the laughing, drinking, kissing version of Madeline with her soft skin and endless, grateful eyes. “Here,” said Madeline version one, wearing a trench coat and pushing her credit card through the crack my backseat window allowed. “It’s my card,” she said, flashing her driver’s license. Then to me: “Pay him, tip him, come upstairs.”

It flashed through my mind that I should tell the cabbie to take off. We’d have a good hour before Madeline, this strung-out version of her, realized I’d left and called her bank to put a stop on the card. By that time I could be somewhere else, with new shoes and fine food. Perhaps with a ticket to Rome. Only what good would that do me? The hotels were no doubt filled to capacity; now that I was defrocked, none of my old friends from the Vatican would have me on their couch.

I could fly toward my mother in Boston, but I had destroyed her faith twice—first, when I’d destroyed a life, then when I’d quit the priesthood—and could offer no way to fix it. There was Jem, now headed back to her life in Cleveland. What would she say if I showed up at her door with presents for Lou the guinea pig and no plans to leave?

“Here.” The taxi man shoved a scrap of paper at me and indicated I should sign the bottom.

“Thanks. Have a nice day.” I looked around the backseat, but there was nothing for me to gather.

Upstairs, Candy squealed when she saw me and came out from behind the desk to kiss my cheek. “The team’s been waiting for you, Father Gabe,” she said, walking ahead of me backward—so she could face me as she talked—teetering on transparent shoes, her gold-painted toes sticking out. “They have some amazing work to show you!”

“We have a war room on eight,” she said, as if that phrase explained everything.

We took the elevator to a large warehouse-y space with many tables and cloth bulletin boards for walls. The tables held candy, soda cans, pizza boxes, at least fifteen dirty coffee cups, a mostly-empty bottle of Scotch, and what looked like the remnants of a kindergarten: paper-cuttings lay strewn about with brightly-colored pens, scissors, and glue. The walls were a collage. Under a card that read “Inspiration,” there were photos of the ongoing papal conclave, cardinals bowing in their red hats; illustrations from the Bible; ads for weight loss products and Alcoholics Anonymous; and Oprah Winfrey—probably the only television star I knew because she was from Chicago, and besides, who on this earth does not recognize Oprah?

Walking to the right, clockwise, the cards read “Print,” “Web,” “Bench & Bus,” “Radio,” “Mobile,” “Word-of-Mouth,” “Rewards,” and “PR.” Under each was something that might have been ripped from a catalog: images of extended hands, women talking at a table, men drinking beer, a large old-fashioned telephone, crowds of people looking up, a couple kissing in a park, people holding small children, an elderly woman beaming from her wheelchair, again Oprah—and me. There I was, wearing vestments, hands up, in prayer before the crucifix. Under this image, the words “Absolution for Everyone.” I flinched then moved in for a closer look. Where had they gotten this photograph? It was completely unfamiliar. I barely even recognized myself.

“Hello, Father,” Isaac was slumped behind one of the tables looking hairy and unclean. “Welcome to our cluster fuck. T-minus-three and counting.”

“Hey, excuse me,” Scott said, jostling past with something he pinned to the board. It was one sentence spelled out in Gothic letters on a license plate: “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” I stared at it.

“Yeah.” Isaac rose, stretching. He had wide armpit stains that gave off a skunky smell. “We need to start thinking logistics. Like where you’re operating, day one. And how we respond to media requests. You okay doing interviews? I’m thinking Good Day Chicago is going to eat this up.”

I turned to see Madeline at the door, wearing jeans and a tight Chicago Cubs T-shirt, tossing a shiny black smartphone from hand to hand.

“Um, here’s your card.” I handed her the piece of plastic, and she stuck it in a back pocket, her shirt—I couldn’t help but notice—straining over her breasts. “Thanks for the cab ride.”

“You’re welcome, Gabe. I’m glad you’re here. We have a lot to do.” I checked for signs of the morning, for hints about the kiss. But she was impassive. “First things first. Tell me you’ve quit your job.”

“No, in fact I’m due there …” I checked my watch. “In two and a half hours.”

“Wait a minute.” Isaac was rocking on his feet. His thinking stance; I already understood this. “Let’s explore this for a minute. We’ve got a humble priest working at a bookstore, which is as wholesome as you get. It’s local, that kind of sweet little corner shop deal.” He looked at me. “You’re not selling porn or running numbers out of the back or anything like that, are you?”

I thought about the raunchy books all the ladies came in to buy. It was too difficult to explain. “No,” I said simply.

“I say he keeps the job, reduced hours. We can use it.” Isaac was addressing Madeline, not me. “I’ll go in this afternoon and talk to the manager or the owner …?”

“Perfect. I’ll talk to Mr. Brooks and convince him that this is the greatest thing that could ever happen to his little bookstore. He’s going to have a local celebrity working there. It’ll bring in droves of people. He’ll bend over backward to make scheduling work.”

“And what about when people start going into the bookstore, asking Gabe for a freebie?” Madeline asked. I decided she was pointedly not looking at me, and it became my mission to get her attention. Just like that, I was back in junior high.

“What about when they pretend they’re looking for Anna Karenina?” Madeline went on, making me crave her attention more, the more aloof she was. “But really they just want to tell Gabe how they skipped their kid’s birthday party to go to Vegas and now they feel bad?”

Isaac shrugged. “We’ll just give him an elevator speech. ‘I can’t speak to you right now. I should be working. I’m committed to my employer during these hours.’” He shifted back to me. “That’ll work for you, won’t it, Father? You wouldn’t take time away from your actual job to forgive random people.”

“Ah, but he did for me.” Madeline’s voice was triumphant, and there was a moment of tension where I struggled to figure out what this meant in the context of the conversation—and Friday night.

“Totally different.” Isaac waved one hand. “He was doing that out of the goodness of his heart, which means he puts morality first every time. Helping you over working for Oren Brooks? Sure. But when he’s being paid, when it’s all become commerce, that’ll be different. Am I telling the truth here, Father? Help me out. I say that once forgiving people is your business, you’ll put it behind everything else.”

I stared at him for a second then nodded. I couldn’t have parsed it so clearly, yet Isaac had nailed exactly how I would behave.

Madeline laughed, and the brazen, beautiful version of her that I’d been longing to see reappeared. I was momentarily pleased then disappointed, because some artifact of my twelve-year-old self wanted her to be inconsolable that she’d found me with Jem.

“You are not making me feel better, Beckwith!” Madeline cried. Was it possible, I wondered, that she was trying a little too hard to appear carefree? “Your argument is that once we get this business going, our only service provider won’t care about it.”

“Precisely.” Isaac leaned against the wall and scratched himself. “That’s one of the most appealing things about Father Gabe.”

“Well, if I’m going to get to work, I’m going to have to catch the train in …”

“Don’t be silly. I’ll make sure you get to work,” Madeline said. “We’ve actually got something we’d like you to do today. Sort of a dry run.”

“It was her idea,” Isaac said, poking his thumb toward Madeline. “We gave a 50 percent friends-and-family discount to everyone in the building and told them to sign up ASAP, so you’re not booked with outside clients. Do you know how many takers we got?”

“Nineteen!” Isaac stretched again. I was getting used to his odor. Oddly, at this point, I almost liked it. “Including four from our own agency. We’re billing you at $100 per hour online, $150 by phone, and $180 in person. So these are people willing to pony up $90 bucks apiece, no questions asked.”

“But I haven’t …” I cleared my throat and reminded myself of what Jem and I had talked about. “I don’t remember signing a contract. So far it’s been just talk—and you two buying me clothes and meals and cab rides, which I appreciate. But what happens when I start working? I don’t even know what the terms are?”

Jem had coached me as we lay in bed on Sunday night. “I don’t know if they have contracts for priests” she said. “Maybe you had some ritual involving holy water. But out here in the real world, they have to promise you some percentage. I’d fight for 60 and settle for 50.”

Now Isaac looked at Madeline, and she looked at him, and I thought she might burst out laughing again. “You’re right, Father.” Isaac bowed his head. “We’ve been moving so fast, we’ve let go of some of the important stuff. Tell you what: We have a meeting set up for you in twenty minutes. Some woman from downstairs, receptionist at an architecture firm. I think her name is Sandy. If you’re willing to talk to her, I’ll have Mason & Zeus’s lawyer draw up the contract at the same time. Should be fairly simple.”

This time I heard it. Madeline chortled behind me, and I felt her fleeting touch on my sleeve. It disturbed me slightly that one woman’s advice was winning me attention from another, but I told myself this was one more tradition among lay people that I’d have to learn.

“We own the idea, the design, the tagline and the franchise rights. If this becomes a movie or a TV show, we own that, too. We might use you and pay you a performance fee; we might not … We can hire or fire you—and anyone else—at will. We use your image and reputation to sell the idea.” Isaac rattled these off so rapidly, even I could tell several conversations had been had.

“You take away 50 percent, clear, from the sessions you do personally,” he continued. “When the time comes that we hire other people—I’m already assembling a team of spiritual counselors from other faiths—your commission drops to 15 percent on those. You don’t get an ownership stake at first because the entire start-up investment was made by Madeline and her people. But we can revisit that after a year, maybe offer you 5 percent.”

I stood stock-still. The only thing Jem and I had discussed was my percentage, and Isaac had met the number she threw out as she reclined with her hair spread like sunrays on the only pillow I owned.

“Do you have an attorney that you want to look at it before you sign?” Madeline asked. “It might not be a bad idea, Gabe. For you to have representation of your own.”

“No,” I said. Once, my congregation had been full of lawyers who fed me steak and relied on me to forgive—without a set hourly charge—their misdeeds. But to call one of them at this point would be excruciating. “Draw it up just as you said,” I told Isaac. “I’ll sign.”

“All right, let me show you your workspace.” Madeline took my arm lightly, the way she had Friday night. “You,” she said to Isaac. “Go take a shower. You stink.”

We walked out of the room like a couple strolling through a park. And it was in this moment that I reconciled myself to the fact that I would never understand women, ever, at all. I would have predicted that Madeline’s showing up to see Jem that morning had destroyed something fundamental. Possibility, trust, both … But here she was, acting easy and treating me like an old friend.

Then there was Jem herself. She was peculiar in ways that created a distance between us. Yet it was she who had asked the only question that mattered, the one I’d been trying to answer for myself. “Why are you doing this?” she’d asked yesterday, on that long rainy afternoon. “It doesn’t seem like you: taking confessions for pay. Though, personally, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.” She’d placed a palm on my chest. “I’m just curious. Why?”

I’d paused. It was partly her hand over my heart. The place no one had touched since I’d bared it for Sol and his ink gun, years before. But also, I’d been scrambling for an answer that made sense.

“I’m good at one thing,” I’d told her, placing my hand over hers. “I was a good priest. Maybe someday I would have been a great one. But I couldn’t …” I’d stopped, and she’d raised her head to give me a questioning look. “Being a priest meant being silent about things I could not abide. I had a pastor who was … I don’t think he was molesting kids. Teenagers, actually. It wasn’t so clear-cut, you know? It wasn’t ten-year-old altar boys. He had more, well, I suppose, acceptable tastes. Sixteen-, seventeen-year-old girls. He spent a lot of time with them, and I think he only … well, I’m not sure what he did. None of them ever complained.”

“Then there was the money. I wanted to stay at St. John’s. That’s where I was needed, serving the poor. But the politics were crazy. We were collecting millions of dollars in the congregations like St. Hedwig and Holy Name. But all that money had to be used for maintenance. For rebuilding. For the archdiocese. I couldn’t get $5,000 to run a van and pick up the homeless in January. Don’t even get me started on the last pope. He looked the other way when children were being abused. His politics were very fourteenth-century. I just couldn’t serve …”

“You’re not answering my question.” Jem’s interruption had been abrupt enough to sound mature and for just that moment, I hadn’t felt like a dirty old man. “Why this? Why start up with some shysters who want to charge people for confessing?”

“Because.” We’d stayed there for a long time staring at the ceiling. Finally, I’d given the only answer I’d been able to come up with. “I don’t know what else to do.”

Scott—

I almost forgot and used our work email accounts for this message! That would have been awful. Cuz I’m pretty sure Madeline is spying on every single thing we write.

So I’ve been reading Abel’s radio spots, and I really don’t like the one about the married guy who had an affair, but I’m wondering if I should say something. The other one’s okay. Actually it’s pretty good, except I can’t in a million years imagine sitting down at a table with another woman and listening to her problems, then giving her some toll-free number to call. Maybe it’s a generational thing.

But the second one makes a joke of adultery and the Church, and I’m not feeling good about that. I think I’ll talk to Isaac. I mean, I am a Catholic, and I think we should take sin more seriously. Plus my mom and dad are hanging on every bit of news, waiting for the new pope to be announced. So what do you think?

By the way, I have a surprise for you tonight. <3 <3 <3

xoxo,

Joy

Christ, Joy, do I have to be the one to remind you that YOU are having an affair with a married guy???? WTF? Why do you always want to cause trouble?

Abel’s a little wierd, but his spots are great. Plus, Madeline thinks he’s a genius and the priest guy seems to like him, so please, just let this go. Also, I forgot to tell you I fucked up and shot off my mouth to King Isaac so I have to lay low for a while and that means YOU DO TWO!!! Okay?

Tonight may be tough for me. I have Magenta and anyways I’m kind of tired. Can the surprise wait til Friday?

@IBeck: What do u think of Abel’s work?

@MMM: First spot sounds canned to me. I wd never sit down at a table with a friend and dump like that …

@MMM: The other one is brilliant. Love the pay-off.

@IBeck: Concur. I’ll talk to AD. What’s up w Gabe?

@MMM: Coming later. Had some things to do.

@IBeck: Some things, or someone?

@MMM: u r disgusting.

@IBeck: Kidding!

@IBeck: You OK?

@MMM: Tired. This idea has to work. Jim Lynch is up my ass in a bad way.

@IBeck: Getting close to new pope and I’m worried. Cd be a decent guy this time.

@MMM: What’re the odds?

@IBeck: We shd have a backup plan if pp like him. Fewer Catholics defecting ….

@MMM: That’s where cheating guy comes in. Church will never okay adultery. Great space for us to play in.

@IBeck: Agreed. That 2nd spot is brilliant. Going to talk to Abel now.

@MMM: Bring good chocolate. Always helps.

Hey Team—

I know you’re all wiped out, and I want you to know how much we appreciate your hard work. The campaign is starting to come together, and everything looks great. Kudos to Scott and Abel for being creative around the clock!

Heads up, sources say they’re probably going to announce a new pope tomorrow and he won’t be a Nazi, like the last one. So if this guy is someone people feel good about, we’re going to have to tread a little lighter around the Catholic issue. The PR team is standing ready to take people’s temperature as soon as the announcement is made.

Our plan is to launch this sucker on Friday, if there are no surprises. So it’s going to continue to be a long week. Please apologize to your families from me personally, and let me know if you need anything (toothbrush, Vitamin Water, Adderall—just kidding!) to keep working. This is all going to be worth it in the end.

Cheers!

IX