The old man garrisoned all afternoon, every day, on a bench in front of the castellated facade of the Fremont Beach Public Library. Reading a book, always watching, he waited with blackthorn shillelagh at hand. You could never know when a cudgel might be needed; when the world would want one last warrior.
When the weather was fine, the priest sported sunglasses and straw boater with his rabbat and collar, sometimes even a wildflower boutonniere. If foul, tweeds, waistcoat, and wool walking hat. In the dirtiest of weather, the old man was prevented from leaving the rectory by the loving, but indomitable, Flora Pink, the housekeeper to whose custody his bishop had consigned him.
‘I’m in the hands of my enemies, Mrs Pink!’ The old man would protest. ‘I’ve got work to do. Dragons will run rampant down Fremont Avenue devouring maidens willy-nilly, like children eating candy floss at the circus. The castle is at risk. I can’t stop all day in this miserable oubliette.’
‘Lord knows you’re right,’ Flora always answered. ‘But I’m just doing my job, Father. It’s what the bishop pays me for.’
‘With parish money, Mrs Pink, with parish money!’ the old man always replied, going through the motions.
‘Why don’t I just turn on the television for you, Father? I’ll give you the remote control. With five channels there must be something for you to watch.’
Flora Pink was playing softball with her special friend, so, after she pitched, she paused for his rejoinder.
‘Mrs Pink! I loathe and detest that infernal, brain sucking, godless apparatus. I want it removed, but the kidnappers and stooges who oversee this thinly disguised penitentiary refuse my every demand, no matter how temperately put to them.’
In truth, when left alone in front of it, Michael Dugan occasionally watched television, but shaking his head in disapproval.
‘Sodom and Gomorrah,’ the old man would grumble. Or, more forcefully, ‘Dog shite! You gasbag, flatulent political whores!’ This, during the fall of election years and never when he thought Mrs Pink was within earshot.
It was Father Michael’s destruction by blackthorn of a previous television which had, along with the testimony of a twenty-four-year-old novice, convinced the bishop that the irascible old priest should be relieved of his duties and given a minder. In the four years since his enforced retirement, Father Mike had referred to the rectory as ‘FCI,’ St. Francis Correctional Institute.
Mrs Pink was different. The old man couldn’t get enough of Flora’s company. He loved her cooking; admired her intelligent, sweet face, her strength, and Wagnerian figure. Flora Pink, he knew, was a person like himself, misplaced in time. Flora’s physical magnitude marked her as a warrior queen reincarnated in this softer, degenerate age. Although he had grown to seniority in a world where interracial affection was taboo, Michael Dugan was sweet on Flora Pink, plain and simple. Moreover, the old man loved Flora’s orphaned grandson, Charley, who he watched in daily pilgrimage to and from his own detention center, Freemont Elementary School.
Flora Pink, a widow for more than half her 64 years, reciprocated old Dugan’s affection. She lingered with him over coffee and held his arm in a proprietary way as they walked the fierce gamut of old women on Freemont Avenue.
Flora was delighted that the old priest had invited her and Charley to spend Thanksgiving Day with him. She planned a feast. Knowing that her old friend secretly enjoyed televised football, she would turn on the set ‘for Charley’ after dinner. Father Mike loved Flora’s pecan pie. She’d serve that with homemade ice cream when the Raiders/Rams game kicked off.
#
Today, a sunny, chilly, rain-coming-soon November day, old Dugan sat in his tweeds on guard outside the walls of Fremont Castle (and public library). The wind blew. Mighty cumulus clouds roiled, collided, and dog piled wantonly as they coursed the wide Pacific Ocean on their way to the Sierra Madre Mountains, there to deposit a blanket of snow upon her pines and lonely crags.
Lost in the gentle dementia which had cost him his independence, old Dugan looked westward down Fremont Avenue with powerful binoculars given him by a soldier returned from the Japan war.
‘I see a mighty galleon struggling to make port in San Pedro before nightfall,’ Dugan reported to the handful of seagulls who’d abandoned the strand to become his retainers.
‘She may be carrying a bellyful of spice from Cathay or gold snatched from the Spaniard who sacked the hapless, holy Incas in their cloud-wreathed empire. With luck and the Lord’s blessing she’ll survive the tempest. Her owners will become wealthy, landed hidalgos.
‘And’ Dugan lowered his voice, ‘the sailors, God redeem their lustful, boyish souls, will get drunk tonight and sport the long legged, full breasted, legendary tarts of the Bottoms Up Bar. I wish those darling children every sinful, youthful joy before time and Mother Church bring them the gift of chastity. Without sailors and tarts the Almighty would be bored, the priesthood underemployed. St. Augustine, himself said something about achieving chastity after enjoying youth.’
A smile played across the old man’s face.
A patron leaving the library side-stepped to avoid the dramatic gesture of old Dugan’s walking stick but smiled at him.
‘How are you Father?’ He called.
‘What’s left of me prospers, Master James, I prosper.’ Old Dugan replied, his memory for names surprising Jimmy Soto, proprietor of Pizzeria Roma.
‘And yourself and goodwife? Are you still serving Chianti wine to wash down the finest pizza pie west of Mulberry Street on the Island of Manahatta?’
‘I am, Father, and the missus is pregnant again, thank you for asking. She’s been staying home the last few weeks. My Carmella will leave me if she doesn’t have a girl this time.’
‘God bless all the Sotos, and may Mrs Soto’s wish be granted,’ old Dugan called, returning to his field glasses and the Pacific Ocean.
‘The world needs girls, Master James. I’ll remember you all in my prayers.’
Then, looking up Freemont Avenue, Father Mike saw Flora Pink’s grandson, Charley, running pell-mell followed by the two of his usual trio of after-school tormentors.
‘Young Squire Pink,’ the old man announced to his seagull chorus, ‘is pursued by the infidel. Where, do you suppose their rat-lord thug lurks this afternoon?’
As he asked the question, old Dugan saw its answer. Scott Smith, a thirteen-year-old bully held back in 6th grade, was crouched behind a hedge two houses away from Charley Pink. Smith leapt out as Charley flew by, intending to knock him down, but missed his timing and ended up in very close pursuit as the cluster of boys neared the library. Stride for stride, Smith was gaining on Charley, shouting ‘Run nigger, run!’
Sudden as snakebite, Father Dugan lashed his shillelagh between Smith’s legs bringing him down hard, sprawling onto the sidewalk. A quick backhand with the walking stick brought Charley’s other pursuers down behind their leader. The three made a pile of crying, but fundamentally unharmed bullies. Charley Pink got away.
No one witnessed Father Mike’s part in the chaos.
Addressing his walking stick, he said, ‘Sheila, old love, I didn’t know you were still feeling so frisky. I’m sure Squire Pink is indebted to you, but I’m concerned to be accompanied by such a bellicose companion.’
Turning to the posse of Charley’s tormentors, he announced ‘You’d best be on your way you pack of churls! I have summoned the Freemont Constabulary, corpulent and ineffectual though they be.’ And, with that, the bullies were gone.
‘They’ll bloom to spawn Skunkweed and Oxalis, not an honest man-cub among them,’ the old man announced to his seagull chorus as he tossed another handful of peanuts from the side pocket of his tweeds.
‘Let’s look for another pod of migrating leviathans. A blessing on those great rolling beasts of the sea!’
#
The following day after school Charley Pink walked down Fremont Avenue unpursued. The sun was warm in front of the library. He joined Father Mike on the bench. The seagulls, wise in the ways of boys, gave wider berth.
‘Father Dugan,’ Charley asked, ‘did you trip those big kids chasin’ me yesterday?’
‘I wished them perdition and confusion, Squire Pink, but the deed wasn’t mine. My lovely Sheila here it was who leapt to your defense.’
‘They’re afraid of you, Father Dugan.’ Charley said. ‘They say you’re crazy.’
‘Those nascent assassins are straight on both charges, Charlie. They should fear the righteous. And, I am crazy. The bishop has a certificate authenticating my mental incompetence bearing the endorsement of a duly elected public cretin. They play golf together, Charley, the bishop and that unspeakable Tammany Hall lackey. May they lose their balls!’
Charley Pink loved Father Dugan, even if he was crazy and used funny words. He felt comfortable sitting with him on a park bench surrounded by sea birds. The afternoon breeze was cool, but the sun was warm and the sky a true Carolina blue. Charley watched in wonder as old Dugan scored a big naval orange with his little pocketknife and removed the orange’s peel in one beautiful spiral. He could smell the sweet acid smell of the juice that hides inside the skin of an orange.
‘Would you like half of my orange, Charley?’ Dugan asked.
‘Yes sir!’ He replied, devouring his share in three bites.
Father Dugan lingered over his half orange and tossed another handful of peanuts to his seagull congregation.
Charley unwrapped his harmonica. ‘Do you mind if I practice my harmonica here, Father?’ He asked.
‘Laddie, my heart yearns for the lonesome wail of a harmonica – that and some salt wind in my rigging. My friends here,’ Dugan gestured to the ever-patient gulls, ‘might be induced to accompany you with their voices, but I warn you, not one of the little buggers can half carry a tune. It’s not their fault you know, they’re sweet children of the air. The Dear Lord just didn’t give them the pipes for it like you and me.’
Charley practiced his harmonica for perhaps twenty minutes, and the old man closed his eyes, lost in a reverie of his own. He dreamt airily of turkey, oyster stuffing, candied yams, and mountains of mashed potatoes and gravy prepared in his own kitchen by the magical, beautiful Flora Pink. And after that, pecan pie a la mode!
Then Charley rolled up his harmonica, returning it to the pocket of his denim jacket.
As he put his harmonica away, Dugan spoke.
‘Charlie, do you think your grandmother would object if you had a slice of pizza to hold you until supper? I fancy a glass of Chateau Soto’s finest plonk.’
‘My grandma would be happy, Father Dugan. She says you’re a fine man, sir, an’ I’m always a little hungry.’
So, as the gulls sailed home to the Spanish-speaking sea, Father Mike Duggan and Charley Pink walked in the afternoon sun toward the seductive fragrance of Soto’s Pizzeria Roma, purveyors of the finest pizza west of Mulberry Street on the Island of Manahatta.
