Summer of Night (12 page)

"I thought you said he didn't talk."

The Old Man chewed his nail. "He didn't… I don't remember him talking at all… well, shit with it." He went back to reading the financial section.

Duane finished the review and then walked back to the House. Witt came out of the barn, obviously rested from one of his frequent naps and ready to go somewhere with Duane.

"Hey, boy," said Duane,"you see a doughboy from World War One wandering around in the barn?"

Witt whined slightly and cocked his head, not sure of what he was being asked. Duane rubbed him behind the ears. He walked over to the pickup and opened the door on the passenger side. The heated cab smelled of whiskey and old socks. There was a depression in the vinyl on the passenger seat, as if an invisible someone were sitting there now, but that had been there for as long as they'd owned the truck. Duane poked under the seat, checked the floorboards, and looked in the glove compartment. Lots of junk-rags, maps, some of the Old Man's paperbacks, several empty whiskey bottles, a church key, beer cans, and even a loaded shotgun shell-but no clues. No swagger stick or Spanish Mauser accidentally left behind, no diagram of trenches around the Somme or map of Belleau Wood.

Duane smiled at himself and went back out to the yard to read the paper and play with Witt.

It was evening before Mike and Father Cavanaugh ended their fishing expedition. Mrs. Clancy, who was dying of crotchetiness as much as old age, hadn't wanted anyone else in the house while Father C. heard her confession, so Mike had waited out by the pond, trying to skip rocks across it and wishing he hadn't skipped dinner. There were few things that would have gotten Mike excused from Sunday dinner, but helping Father C. turned out to be one of them. When the priest had said, "You've eaten already, haven't you?" to him, Mike had nodded. He would include that in his confession next time under the general category of Several times I've not told the truth to adults, Father. As Mike got older, he realized the real reason why priests couldn't marry-Who would want to live with someone you had to confess to regularly?

Father G. joined him by the pond by seven p.m.-he brought the fishing gear from the trunk of the Popemo-bile-and it seemed earlier with the June sun low but still above the trees. The two fished for over an hour, with only Mike catching something-a couple of sunfish which he threw back-but with conversation that was so rich that it made the boy a bit dizzy: the nature of the Trinity, what it was like growing up on Southside of Chicago when Father C. was younger, what street gangs were like, why everything else had to be created but God could just be, why old people came back to the Church-Father C. explained Pascal's Wager to Mike… or tried to-and a dozen other topics. Mike loved to talk about such things with the priest; talking with Dale and Duane and some of the other real brains among the kids could be fun-they had some weird ideas-but Father C. had lived. He was wise not only to the mysteries of Latin and the Church, but to the tough, cynical side of Chicago life that Mike had never imagined.

The tree shadows had crept across the grassy bank and were well out onto the pond when Father C. glanced at his watch and exclaimed, "Good heavens, Michael, look how late it is. Mrs. McCafferty will be worried." Mrs. McCafferty was the rectory housekeeper. She had tended to Father Harrison like a sister trying to keep a wayward brother out of trouble; she babied Father C. as if he were her son.

They stowed the gear and headed back to town. Driving south on County Six, a cloud of dust rising behind the Pope-mobile on the gravel road, Mike caught a glimpse of Duane McBride's home off to the right, then Dale's Uncle Henry's place on the left just before they descended the first steep hill and climbed again to pass Calvary Cemetery. Mike saw the graveyard empty and golden in the evening light, noticed the lack of any cars in the grassy area along the road, and suddenly remembered that he was supposed to have checked out Van Syke today. He asked Father C. to stop and the priest steered the Popemobile onto the grass parking strip between the road and the black wrought-iron fence.

"What is it?" asked Father C.

Mike thought fast. "I… uh… I promised Memo I'd check Grandpa's grave today. You know, see if the grass's been cut, if the flowers we left last week are still there. You know, stuff like that." Another lie for Confession.

"I'll wait for you," said the priest.

Mike blushed and turned to look out at the cemetery so Father C. wouldn't see the blush. He hoped the priest wouldn't hear the lie in his voice. "Uh… I'd rather be done for a while. I want to say some prayers." Good Mike, hat made a lot of sense. You want to say prayers so you tell a priest to get lost. Is it a mortal sin to lie about praying? "Besides, I may have to pull some flowers in the woods and it'll be a while."

Father Cavanaugh looked west across the road, toward the sun that hung like a red balloon low above the cornfields. "It's almost dark, Michael."

"I'll get home before dark. Honest."

"But it's at least a mile to town." The priest sounded dubious, as if he suspected some mischief but couldn't figure out what it might be.

"It's no problem, Father. Us guys hike and bike it all the time. We play in the woods out here a lot."

"You're not going into the woods after dark?"

"Naw," said Mike. "Just do what I promised Memo and walk home. I like walking." He was thinking, Could Father C. be afraid of the dark? He rejected the idea. For a second he considered not lying, telling the priest about their hunch that something was wrong with Old Central-something involving Tubby Cooke's disappearance-and all about how he was planning to check on the toolshed behind the cemetery where Van Syke was rumored to sleep sometimes. Then he rejected that idea, too-he didn't want Father Cavanaugh thinking he was a nut.

"You're sure?" said Father C. "Your folks will think you're with me."

"They know I promised Memo," said Mike, finding the lie easier now. "I'll be home before dark."

Father Cavanaugh nodded and leaned over to open the door for Mike. "All right, Michael. Thanks for the fishing companionship and conversation. Tomorrow, early Mass?"

It was a rhetorical question. Mike served every early Mass. "Sure, tomorrow," he said, closing the heavy door and leaning forward to speak through the open window. "Thanks for…" He paused, not knowing what he was thanking the priest for. Being a grown-up who talks to me? "Thanks for loaning me the fishing pole."

"Any time," said Father C. "Next time we'll go down to Spoon River where there are real fish." He saluted with two fingers, backed the Popemobile out, and disappeared down the next hill to the south. Mike stood there a minute, blinking away dust and feeling the grasshoppers leap away from his legs in the low grass. Then he turned and looked at the cemetery. His shadow merged with the black and barbed lattice of the shadow of the iron fence. Great. Jeez, what if Van Syke's here?

He didn't think the part-time custodian, part-time cemetery handyman was there. The air was still, rich with the corn and dust smell of a humid June evening. And the place looked, sounded, and felt empty. He pulled back the knobbed bar on the pedestrian gate and walked inside, conscious of his shadow leaping ahead, conscious of the tall headstones throwing their own shadows, and especially conscious of the hushed silence after the hours of conversation.

He did stop by Grandpa's grave. It was about halfway back in the four-acre cemetery, three headstones left of the gravel-and-grass lane that bisected the rows of graves. The O'Rourkes were clustered in this area-his mother's people nearer the fence on the other side-and Grandpa's grave was the closest to the road. There was a wide grassy space here that Mike knew was reserved for his parents. And his sisters. And him.

The flowers were still there-wilted and dead but still there-from the previous Monday, Memorial Day, and so was the tiny American flag the American Legion had set there. They replaced the flags each Memorial Day, and part of Mike's sense of what season it was depended on how faded the flag was on Grandpa's grave: he had enlisted during World War I but had never gone overseas, merely spent fourteen months in a camp in Georgia. When Mike was very young, he had listened to Memo's stories of Grandpa's friends' adventures overseas in the Great War and received the definite impression from Memo that Grandpa's failure to see action was one of the few things the old man wished had turned out different in his life.

The colors of the flag were bright: blood red and crisp white above the green grass. The low, horizontal light made everything brighter and richer. Somewhere on Dale's Uncle Henry's farm one hill and a quarter of a mile away, a cow lowed and the sound was quite clear in the still air.

Mike bowed his head and said a prayer. Perhaps he wouldn't have to confess the little lies after all. Then he crossed himself and walked down the lane toward the rear of the cemetery and Van Syke's shed.

It wasn't really Van Syke's shed, merely the old toolshed that had been in the cemetery for years and years. It was set back near the rear fence, across a mowed strip of stubble far from the last row of graves-although, Mike thought, someday the cemetery would grow around it-and the thick sunlight lay across its west wall like butter spread on stone.

Mike noticed that the padlock was on the door and he strolled past as if he was headed for the woods and strip-mined hills far behind the cemetery-the kids' usual destination when they cut through here-and then turned back, stepping into the deep shadow on the west side of the little building. Grasshoppers leaped blindly from the stubble under his sneakers and brittle weeds cracked underfoot.

There was a window on this side-the only window the shed had-and it was tiny and neck-high on Mike. He went closer, shielded his eyes, and peered in.

Nothing. The window was too grimed and the interior too dark.

Whistling, hands in his pockets, Mike strolled around the building. He glanced over his shoulder several times to make sure that no one was coming down the lane. The road had been empty since Father C. had driven off. The cemetery was quiet. Beyond the road, the sun had gone down with the crimson, slow-motion elegance reserved for Illinois sunsets. But the empty sky was still burnished with June evening light, fading now toward true twilight and summer dark.

Mike inspected the lock. It was a solid Yale padlock, but the metal plate where the hook was attached to the doorframe was set into splinters and rot. Still whistling softly, Mike wiggled the plate back and forth until one-then two-of the three rusty screws were free of the frame. The last screw took some urging from Mike's pocketknife, but finally it came free. Mike glanced around, made sure there was a stone nearby to pound the screws back in when it was time to leave, and then he stepped into the shed.

It was dark. The air smelled of fresh soil and something more sour than that. Mike closed the door behind him-leaving a crack for light and so that he could hear if a car drove up to the front gate-and he stood there blinking a moment, letting his eyes adapt.

Van Syke wasn't there-that was the important thing Mike had checked on even before stepping in. Not much was there: a bunch of shovels and spades-standard equipment for a graveyard, he figured-some shelves with fertilizer and jars of dark liquid on them, some rusted and barbed iron bars, obviously part of the fence that had been removed for replacement, stacked in one corner, some attachments for the tractor that mowed the grounds, a couple of small crates-one which had a lantern on it and looked as if it had been used as a table, some thick canvas straps which Mike puzzled over for a moment before he realized that they were the straps that went under a coffin so it could be lowered into the grave, and, directly under the grimed window, a low cot.

Mike checked out the cot. It smelled strongly of mildew and there was a blanket thrown on it that didn't smell much better. But someone had obviously used this as a bed recently-a Wednesday edition of the Peoria Journal Star lay crumpled against the wall on it-and the blanket lay half on the floor as if someone had thrown it off in a hurry.

Mike knelt next to the cot and moved the newspaper. Under it was a magazine with slick, glossy pages mixed in with cheaper paper. Mike lifted it, began to thumb through it, and then dropped it in a hurry.

The slick pages held glossy black and white photos of naked ladies. Mike had seen naked ladies before-he had four sisters-and he had even seen magazines with naked ladies in them: Gerry Daysinger had shown him a nudist magazine once. But he had never seen photos like this.

The women lay with their legs open and their private parts showing. The nudist pictures Mike had seen had been air-brushed-no pubic hair, only a modest smoothness between the legs-but these photos showed everything. Hair, the ladies' slits, the open lips down there… often held open by the ladies themselves, lacquered nails tugging apart the opening to their most secret parts. Other women were on their knees, rump to the camera, so you could see their bum hole as well as the hairy parts. Others were playing with their titties.

Mike felt his blush fade, but at the same second, as if the blood had to flow somewhere, he felt his penis getting hard. He touched the magazine-although not picking it up again-and flipped pages.

More women. More spread legs. Mike had never imagined that ladies would do such a thing in front of someone with a camera. What if their families ever saw these pictures?

He felt his erection throbbing against his jeans. Mike had touched himself before-even rubbed himself all the way to the climax that had surprised him so much the first time it happened a year earlier-but Father Harrison had gone to great lengths to explain the consequences of self-abuse, both spiritual and physical, and Mike had no intention of going insane or of getting the special type of acne that self-abusers always suffered-thus letting the world know they were self-abusers. Besides, Mike had confessed his particular sin the few times he'd done it, and while it was one thing confessing something like that to Father Harrison in the dark and getting bawled out for it, it would be quite another telling Father Cavanaugh. Mike had realized that he would rather become an atheist and go to hell than confess this sin to Father C. And if he did it and didn't confess… well, Father Harrison had described the punishment in hell that awaited sinners who were depraved.