In God's House (44 page)

I had resigned as Dubois’s legal counsel the same day I said goodbye to him in the Thiberville jail.

According to a television news piece I saw a few days later, Dubois had been transferred to the Louisiana state department of corrections that same week and was now housed at Riverbend Prison near Baton Rouge.

The TV reporter mentioned that until recently the Riverbend facility had been a place that only housed juveniles and that a significant part of the population was still juveniles.
This is the prison the Knight of Malta, Judge Livingston, thought was perfect for his friend Francis,
I thought.
A place where the warden is a close friend of the judge. Dubois would be locked up with hundreds of juveniles.
The news made me sick in the same way I had been sick so many times during this saga.

During the first week of January, rain fell for four days in near freezing temperatures. The high humidity and frigid air settled the coldness in my bones. I rushed from the parking garage to my office. I wasn’t out of my raincoat when Mo said, “I’m dialing Father McDougall right now.”

I had last spoken with Des about Matt’s medical condition on Sunday and knew things were not good. I sank into my chair and watched the lights on the phone.

Mo buzzed.

“Des?”

“Yeah, buddy, you okay?”

“Fine.”

“Good, ’cause our comrade’s in trouble. Barbara called from Hope House and asked that I phone you. He wants to see you. You have to get up here if you want to see him and tell him goodbye.”

“My God, he’s dying?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll clear things here and be there tomorrow,” I said.

“Barb says if we want to see Matt, it better be tonight. They think he’s going fast.”

“Let me go, Des. I’ll call. Mo will call. Somebody will call and let you know when I’ll be there.”

Washington’s National Airport was deserted when I de-planed. Halfway down the concourse I saw Des coming toward me in his priest suit, carrying a big briefcase. We hugged and Des pulled me into a men’s restroom.

“Get outta your clothes.”

“What?”

Des opened his briefcase and pulled out some clothing. “It’s a priest costume. Trick or treat, Ren. Tonight you’re gonna be Father Chattelrault.”

“What?”

“Come on. Get outta your clothes and put this on. No visitors except clergy can get into the hospital after nine. We’re going in as priests.”

I started laughing. “Look, I have brown shoes.”

“What do priests know about fashion?”

We walked right past the security guards at the check-in point in the hospital lobby and rode an elevator to the eighth floor. A nurse
led us to a small, empty room and gave us each something like a paper space suit, a see-through outfit that covered us from our shoes to our heads and masked our mouths and noses. She showed us the door of Matt’s room and cautioned us, “Do not touch the patient.” I was afraid to enter first. Following Des into the room, I heard Matt’s labored breathing. It seemed he had lost 40 per cent of his body weight. We stood there in silence for a while. Then Matt opened his eyes. He looked at me and then turned to Des. He closed his eyes and tried to smile.

Matt spoke in a soft, scratchy voice. “I’m dreaming, right. Tell me Ren is not wearing a Roman collar.”

“That’s the program tonight,” Des said.

I kind of laughed. “Yeah. I’m a good guy who is with the program. Weird, right?”

Matt opened his eyes wide. “Thanks for coming. I asked Barb to find you rascals. I’m dying and I wanted to tell you something before I cross over.”

We both nodded.

“I’m not too sure of anything, but I’m pretty sure of one thing.”

We nodded again.

“I love you guys.”

Des bit his lip. I did not have that kind of control. I began to cry.

Matt put his hand on my arm. “It’s okay, Ren. I’m okay. You’ll be okay.”

“It’s not fair.”

Matt turned to Des and asked him to crank the bed up a bit. Looking directly at me, Matt continued, “You’re right, Ren. It’s not fair. But what you don’t understand is that it’s not fair to you. You’re being left behind.”

I nodded.

“Remember me like I was with you guys in Louisiana…” He coughed and continued, “Eating jambalaya, crawfish, seafood gumbo.”

I smiled and wiped my tears on the sleeve of the paper hospital suit.

Des spoke. “Is there something we can do for you?”

“Yes. I think some of the people on this floor think this room will be empty by sunrise. I think they’re wrong. I never died before, but I feel too strong to die just yet. This is the best I’ve felt since the last surgery, whenever that was.”

“What can we do?”

“Two things. Please. There are some nuns next to that big ugly red-brick church on 16th. They make big wooden rosaries. Could you pick one up for me? The feeling in my hands…”

Des said, “Sure. What else?”

“Would you come see me separately tomorrow?”

We nodded. A nurse came in. “Excuse me, Fathers. I think that’s enough.”

Des started out of the room behind the nurse. I took Matt’s hand in my gloved hand. I leaned over the bed and touched his forehead softly with my other hand, stroking his hair back, remembering that he once told me about how important the human touch is to a dying person.

Matt’s eyes smiled. “Pray for me, Father.”

I called Julie at her parents’ home in Virginia and told her what was going on with Matt. After talking with her, I reflected on my relationship with Matt. We had worked together so intensely for so many months in so many different locations on things so important to us. I tried to distill Matt to a single characteristic, his gentleness. I wished to have some of his gentleness.

Julie arrived at the hotel shortly after I’d phoned her.

“Hey,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

“I felt I had to come. To be… for… well, hell, we’re in cahoots, remember?”

I smiled. “I guess we are.”

“What do you want to do?” she asked.

“Get a drink, a big tall drink. That’s what I want. And then I want another drink.”

She shook her head slowly from side to side. “Not now. Not this time. You’re going to have to go through this. You’re going to have to feel this.”

She propped up the pillows on one of the beds and motioned for me to settle there. She took the other bed and we began to talk. We were still talking when the sun came up. We talked about Matt dying, Will Courville’s suicide, my divorce from Kate and my separation from my children. For a long time I talked about the strong recommendations I had received from a couple of doctors that I should leave the stress of the legal profession.

“There can’t be many things more stressful than a law practice,” she said.

I nodded slowly. “But it’s what I am, who I am. Without it…”

At sunrise, Julie ordered room-service breakfast for us and commanded me to shower, shave and change into clean clothes. She was taking charge of me and I was comfortable being in her care.

“I want you to stay here with me until I fly home,” I said.

“I can’t. You know—”

“You can.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Technically, I am still a nun.”

“Technically, you’re still a nun? Well, technically, I’m still a married man.”

“Those technicalities are important, Ren. We may be in cahoots, but we can’t be any more than that.”

“I tell you what then, Julie. If that’s the case, this being in cahoots is not all it’s cracked up to be.”

She reached up and wrapped her arms around me and pulled me close, holding me tightly. Then she stepped back and put a finger to her lips, signaling me not to speak. She whispered, “One day it will be right. One day. Be patient with me, with yourself. One day, Ren.”

Then she was out of the door.

Des had a full day Wednesday, so we agreed I would pick up the rosary and visit Matt in the afternoon. This time I went to the hospital as myself without a priest costume, and I donned the paper space suit before entering his room.

Matt was delighted with the rosary. I told him how my father said the rosary in French and I confessed that I did not know the order of the prayers. Matt taught me. We prayed the rosary together. Then he asked me to have a seat.

I adjusted his bed so that we were face to face.

“Ren, you want to know what I prayed for?”

“Yeah.”

“I prayed for a short remission, enough good health to last a week.”

“You shoot low, Matt. I prayed for a miracle.”

“Ren, I think… Heck, I don’t know. I might have dreamed this. My assistant at Hope House, Barb, said I had some bizarre reactions to some of the medicines. She said I was hallucinating for a while. But I think I remember Cardinal Wolleski coming by sometime. I can’t remember time anymore. I’ve been in here so long it doesn’t feel like I was ever anywhere else.”

Matt was suddenly short of breath. I waited for him to resume.

“I want you to call Cardinal Wolleski and check this out. I believe he was sitting right where you are now. You know he gets a ride to Rome every couple of months on a private jet. As I remember, he told me he would put me on the plane to Rome with him and open the Vatican doors I want opened, if I could get well enough to make the trip.”

“Can you make a trip like that?”

“If I can go, Ren, will you go with me? I want only you to go with me.”

I nodded.

“The cardinal can’t take care of me. I think I’ll have to have someone with me who can take care of me. Will you do that?”

“I’ll do anything you want me to do. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Boy, I tell ya, this dying is some deal. Everyone wants to do things for you. Yes, there are some things I really want you to do for me.”

“Okay.”

“You sure?” Matt asked.

“Sure.”

“Leave tomorrow. Go home,” Matt said.

“Okay.”

“Let’s say our goodbyes. When I die, don’t come back up here for the funeral. Spend the day of the funeral with your children. If I don’t die soon and we can go to Rome, we’ll go. Either way you must stop doing this work with the Church. The Church won’t change until someone puts a gun to the head of every cardinal in Rome. This work is gonna kill you.”

I nodded.

“One more thing,” Matt said.

“Yes?”

“Your girl, Sasha, loves animals.”

I nodded.

“When this is over. When I’m gone…”

I nodded again.

“Bring my dog Mozart to Sasha.”

I got my miracle. Matt rallied and was released from the hospital. We talked on the phone every day. He said his condition was complicated and hard to treat, but that he was responding well to experimental medications.

Most of Matt’s calls came at night, but this Friday morning his call came early. “How do you feel about Roma?”

“You wanna go to Café Roma? I can come tomorrow.”

“No. Italy. Cardinal Wolleski leaves Sunday evening. They’ll have a bed on the plane for me. The plane will stay on the ground in Rome for as long as we need to be there, and then they will fly us directly back to Washington. Wolleski tells me he has my appointment set up with the cardinals I need to see at the Vatican.”

“Which cardinals?”

“Kruger, Bertolini and Paginini. I wanna dump everything in their lap. Will ya work up the list of all the priests we have knowledge of – their names, their bishops’ names, the dioceses they are in. The list ought to be over five hundred, maybe over six hundred by now.”

“I already have that list done. Mo typed it months ago and kept updating it.”

“I’m going to put a time bomb in their laps. I want the name of every priest, his bishop, and the approximate date complaints of child sex abuse were made against him.”

“I have it,” I said.

I arrived in Williams Crossing Saturday afternoon. Matt was alone with Mozart in the den. He had experienced a drastic weight loss and his face had a strange pallor I had never seen in anyone else. He was sitting in a large leather chair with his feet on an ottoman. I made a fire in the fireplace and sat across from him.

“You look—”

Raising a hand, he signaled me to silence. “Please. In med school, I saw cadavers that looked better than me. Ren, only Barb here at Hope House knows what I’m about to tell you.” Matt paused. “I’m dying of AIDS.”

“How? How did—”

“I’m gay, Ren. I contracted HIV sexually.”

I nodded like I understood, but I understood nothing. I never knew Matt Patterson was gay. I tried to digest the news, formulate an appropriate response.

“You okay, Ren?”

“No. Yeah. I don’t know what to say.”

There are a lot of moments in our lives that there is no way to prepare for, impossible to rehearse, but I had never experienced one like this.

“I don’t think there’s an appropriate response, Ren. Are you scared? You saw how cautious the nurses were with me. They were afraid to touch me, to let anyone touch me.”

I knew I was scared I would not be able to adequately care for him.

Matt smiled and went on. “You needed to know this in case something happens on the trip. You need to know what to do.”

“You’re gonna tell me what I need to know, right?”

“Sure. There’s not much. We’ll have some pretty powerful dope with us and I’ll teach you how to give an injection. If I get out of hand, you’ll just knock me out.”

“What if… what if… you know…?”

“What if I die on you in Rome? It won’t matter to me anymore. Do what you think is right.”

“Whoa! I have no idea what’s right.”

Matt laughed. “Toss me in the Tiber River. I don’t care. Here’s the thing that’s important about when I die. I am not the first Catholic priest to die of AIDS. I’ve had patients die of AIDS in Hope House and there have been other priests who’ve died of AIDS. The cause of their deaths is just another secret the Church has hidden. The cause of my death is not going to be some dark secret. I don’t want to lie about my death. I want you to prepare one of those lawyer papers I can sign, an affidavit. When I die, if the Church tries to hide the cause of my death, then give it to the press. I want the world to know that AIDS is not something that exists only among needle junkies in New York or young gay men in San Francisco. I want them to know this Catholic priest died of AIDS.”

I nodded my assent. I was staying silent, sitting as an audience, allowing a dying man to have a full say. If he wanted to talk, I was going to listen.

Matt coughed, sipped some juice, and continued. “I am not ashamed to die of AIDS and I am not ashamed of how I contracted it. I’m not ashamed of how I have lived my life. I know I have lived a good life.”

“If that’s what you want, I’ll prepare the affidavit tonight,” I said.

“I am a man, a priest, and I am gay. I contracted this disease somewhere along the way. That’s the truth and this thing called Holy Mother Church will have to deal with it, and so will all the Catholics who read about it.”

I looked at Matt in amazement. His body was gone, but his mind and his will were unaffected.

I said, “I have the document you asked me to put together. It lists way over five hundred priests who have had complaints made against them. It covers over half the states. I listed the names of the priests and the bishops’ names as well.”

“Good, I will put that in Rome’s lap. Then let them deny there is a massive problem, a crisis, now.” He leaned back in the chair, perspiring heavily, breathing deeply. “I get so tired.”

“Shouldn’t you go to bed?”

He nodded weakly. “You will have to help me. Go to the counter and get some gloves out of the box and put a gown over yourself. I have sores on my legs, my left arm and my chest. Be careful not to touch the sores.”

Moving Matt to his bedroom took some doing. As he stood at the edge of the bed, he fainted and fell into my arms. I could not believe how light he was. I picked him up and put him in bed the way I would Sasha, tucking him in. Mozart had been right behind us. He peered over the bed, watching Matt for a few minutes and then curled up on the floor next to him.

Matt was strong when we checked into Hotel Hassler Monday morning. I joined him on the terrace. He joked about whether Des was celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day back in the States. Then Matt pointed to carriages near the Spanish Steps. “We ought to take a carriage ride tonight on the way to the restaurant.”

“I’m wiped out, jet-lagged, and you want to go out to dinner?”

“Cardinal Wolleski invited us. We’re going.”

“Okay. You’re the boss.”

“I studied here for a year, a long time ago, loved the city. I’m now seeing everything for the last time. I know this. It’s a lucky thing to die this way.”

“Lucky?”

“I think it’s a fortunate thing to know you are dying, seeing everything for the last time.”

“Do you?”

“I don’t know, but you overlay any memories you may have of
the way it was at other times in your life. The vision becomes more textured, a bit blurry, and then clearer than you can imagine. The feelings of dying are rich feelings, intense.”

I nodded, not in understanding, but rather in acknowledgment of what he said.

“Ancient places like Rome, old walls, old buildings, make us realize how inconsequential, how unimportant we are. What is our life measured against thousands of years? The things we do in life do count, but they don’t matter. Everything counts, nothing matters.”

“Everything counts, nothing matters?”

“That’s it, Ren. Remember that.”

The proprietor of Ristorante Rinaldi on Piazza Navona was waiting for us when we opened the door of the crowded restaurant. I gave Giovanni Rinaldi our names and he led us to a semi-private area at the rear of the big room. We passed a pianist, violinist and heavy-set, bearded singer. Cardinal Wolleski was waiting for us at the table, wearing a thick sweater. Giovanni hovered over us and took our drink orders.

Cardinal Wolleski turned to Matt. “Your meeting for tomorrow morning with cardinals Hans Kruger, Gregorio Bertolini and Niccolo Paginini is set for ten o’clock. My friend, Monsignor Josef Majeski, has arranged it. Meet him at the Porta Angelica.”

The dinner at Ristorante Rinaldi was memorable. Matt led the old cardinal down memory lane. Wolleski told stories about smuggling Jews onto ships during the war. And he told us in great detail about his first years in Rome and his romance at the ice-cream stand with Isabella Rinaldi. It was a beautiful story. Twice he had us get up and walk with him to different corners of the restaurant, first to see the small coat closet that had once been the ice-cream stand, and then to show us a photograph of Isabella dressed as Charlie Chaplin.

The ruggedly handsome cardinal was stirring his coffee as he looked across the room at the photograph of the grinning girl. “To
have loved, really loved, if only once, is a great gift. Only by loving deeply do we realize our humanity. Without love, there is no humanity. Part of the hardness you encounter in the Vatican, in the entire Church, is due to that. Too many men in the Church never loved deeply, never realized their humanity.”