Subject is not, repeat not, planning anything dramatic or irreversible, being, after all, at his deepest core, a good Catholic boy.
Recommendation: Ignore all of the above. Subject has not dropped to his knees in a public place in a year. Ergo, Subject has been cured of what ails him and should be set free.
“Why do you insist on being so hard on yourself?” Matt asks after reading my assignment.
“I think I’m letting myself off pretty easily.”
I light a cigarette, self-conscious about my shaking hand, a side effect of drinking too much, secretly, alone with the lights off. Matt doesn’t comment on the slight tremor.
“I’m going to break the rules for you. I trust you’ll keep this between you and me.”
At last, a secret he’s willing to share!
I race through the document and, astonished, reread his conclusions:
The therapeutic regimen has been successful with the patient exerting appropriate impulse control. His sexual habits are unremarkable in the sense that that there has been no reoccurrence of public sexual activity. It is this observer’s professional opinion that the patient is unlikely to revert to prior behavioral patterns. Further therapeutic treatment is recommended to facilitate his successfully achieving his self-realization goals, but such further treatment should be voluntary and not imposed as a condition of any further court-ordered program.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Why did you do that, break the rules?”
“I thought it needed to be done to reestablish your trust in our relationship.”
“Do you like me?”
“Yes.”
“Why couldn’t you just say you did it because you like me?”
“Because that’s not why I did it. I did it because I didn’t want to risk invalidating the work we’ve done together over the last year.”
“But you do like me?”
“Yes, Andy. I like you.”
“Well, would you sleep with…no, let’s not use euphemisms here, would you fuck me if you weren’t a priest?”
“No. I’d still be your doctor.”
“Would you fuck me if you weren’t my doctor?”
“No, I’d still be a priest.”
“Fuck you.”
“Go ahead and ask.”
“Ask what?” I say, playing dumb.
“Would I fuck you if I weren’t a priest or your doctor?”
Does he really think I’m going to give him the opportunity to reject me?
“Why does a fucking priest become a fucking doctor?”
“He doesn’t. At least, I didn’t. I was a doctor who became a priest.”
I’ve learned that meaningful silence can elicit more information than the most probing questions. He recites his curriculum vitae. College (Loyola, summa) and medical school (Georgetown, with highest honors). Residency training program (Penn, selection as chief resident, of course, let no one mistakenly believe these Jesuits take a vow of modesty). Board certification. Novitiate. Dual master’s in theology and health care ethics (Georgetown again). Ordination. Practice. Ministry. All black and white, clinical, just the facts.
“Very impressive. But you haven’t answered my question. Why?”
“Because I believe I have two callings.”
“How did you know that?”
“I didn’t, at first.”
“When did you learn it? I mean, how did it happen? Was it like Saul on the road to Damascus, were you knocked off your horse?”
“Very funny.”
“I didn’t mean it to be. Really.”
“No. It was a decision I made after much thought and prayer and spiritual counseling, not unlike what we do here together.”
“If you had to give one up, which would it be?”
He shakes his head, signaling he’s done answering questions, and smiles.
“Would you struggle with it?”
“Everyone struggles.”
“Even you.”
It’s an affirmation, not a question.
“Even me.”
What is it you struggle with? I know I can’t ask you that question. Well, I can ask, but you’ll never answer. You’ll turn the tables, ask why it’s so important to me. And I would tell you I need to know if you and I struggle with the same thing, if you use that Roman collar the way I used Alice. Why would that matter? you’d ask, crossing your legs as you settle back in your chair. Because I need to know if, unlike me, you’ve kept your vows. I hope you have. In fact, I need you to. I need someone to be winning their battles.
“Do you ever preach?” I ask.
“Most weeks,” he says, telling me he’s an assistant weekend pastor of a small parish just over the state line.
“Can I come hear your sermon?”
“You don’t need an invitation to come to Mass.”
“I’d like that.”
“Fine.”
“Then maybe we could have breakfast. Go to the Country Buffet and pig out. My treat.”
He smiles, neither encouraging nor discouraging me.
It’s a pathetic scene, this needy little boy, begging his father for friendship, affirmation.
“Can I come back next week?” I ask.
“Of course.”
“Would you like that?”
“Yes, I would like that.”
“God, what I must sound like.”
“You’re hurting.”
So are you. So are we all. But at least one hour a week I don’t need to do it alone.
Bone Marrow Transplant
I’ ve got a hole in my hip.
Sounds like a lyric from an old standard by Cole Porter or Rodgers and Hart.
I’ve got a hole in my heart.
I’ve got a hole where my heart used to be.
It’s the kind of song you’d hear in a piano bar, a wrinkled old pixie with Vaseline teeth crooning away. I’ll write down the lyrics and send them to my furry blond friend in Honolulu.
Anyway, playing here tonight…
I’ve got a hole in my hip.
My sister returns bearing gifts, a towel and ice. The last pack melted on my leg and all over the sofa and my boxers are dripping wet. She offers to go upstairs and fetch a dry pair, but I decline, saying they’d just be soaked in a few minutes. Then I relent, knowing I’m selfishly depriving her of the opportunity to play Big Nurse in the Nocera family medical melodrama.
I reach for the remote and change channels. It’s late afternoon, the Day After. I’m exhausted. The oncologist says I should be feeling better tomorrow. I hope not. This provides the only acceptable excuse for dropping out. Soon enough, the routine will start all over again…
…Up before seven, a quick j.o., swallow coffee from a paper container (blue, with a frieze of Greek soldiers, like the Parthenon) and chew on a powdered doughnut, sing along, loudly, to the car radio, find a parking space, take the “shortcut” through the ER (“Hey, Steve.” “Hey.” “Sorry, gotta run.”), squeeze into the elevator (chattering nurses in soft, blowsy smocks; young orderlies, all hard muscles beneath those loose green scrubs; octogenarians, beyond gender, being wheeled to MRI), stop at the nurse’s station, ask if she’s awake, ask what kind of night she had, ask when the oncologist is making rounds, remember forgetting something, take the elevator back down, hang around the locked door to the Gift Patch, wait another five minutes until it opens at nine, buy a couple dollars’ worth of peppermint patties, stall a little longer leafing through the tabloids (Oprah’s Diet Secrets!: she has a personal trainer and private chef on call twenty-four hours a day. William and Harry’s Secret Anguish: fading memories of their mother), stop for a pee then back up the elevator, give my mother a good morning kiss and ask how she’s feeling, unwrap one of the peppermint patties, watch her place it on her tongue, squirm at the dry sucking sounds she makes, hope that it relieves the rancid metallic taste of the chemicals battling the tumors in her body, fall into the chair beside her bed, the day all but done by nine twenty in the morning, nothing to do but stare at the four walls, the television, my mother struggling to stay alive…