It's Hard To Be Holy

EP. 29: Chapter IX (Cont'd)

Coarse and Offensive Language. Reader Discretion Advised.

'They're bums,' howled Ed on the stoop. The Red Sox had lost again. The '66 season was going much the same way as '65 had done. 

And '64. 

And the rest of the 60s. 

And 50s—

'BUMS!' he shouted again, shaking his fist towards the sun, before the effort beset him, and he was forced to slouch against the wall, and hug himself in misery.

It was late June, and a black mood had descended over Edward Towne. It would last through the next year to the start of Spring Training when he would once more rise from his doldrums to foolishly declare, 'this is the year!'

'FUCK!' his voice carried over the courtyard, but Wino Willy hadn't been seen in months, so only the seagulls and pigeons were bothered. 'I hate 'em! They're a bunch of losers! Billy Herman is the worst fuckin' manager—HE NEEDS TO BE FIRED!'

'Fuckin' fired,' chimed in Bud, agreeing in principal on the Herman point, but far too hot to be so vehement.

'I'm done, Bud. I'm done! You know what?!'

'What?'

'I'm fuckin' done!'

The door to No. 8 opened, and out plotted two, aged men, both dressed head to toe in black, with a little white collar providing the only hint of tone from beneath of their double chins. The taller of the two, Father Peter Finley, the main pastor, kept his head bowed, his black fedora hiding his flaky, spotted, bald crown. From the altar, the wrath of God captivated his soul. On any topic, current or archaic, Father Peter claimed a zealot's opinion, usually with a fair bit of foam congealing at the corners of his mouth. Yet, in person, away from the safety of his pulpit and darkened halls of his rectory, Father Peter was an oddly diminutive figure. He was a man who both reveled in and seemed to fear the power he held over his parish, the power that comes from being a conduit of God. Give him a Mass and he would rage, but strip him of his environment, and Father Peter was a man out of place, out of time. He was, as can be said about too many of the clergy, a man comfortable in the theoretical. The application to the real world, the care that must be given to a community, the most important element of the job, escaped Father Peter.

The shorter of the two, older by at least a decade, was Father Peter's opposite.

Father Charles O'Bryan was new to St. Gregory's, having retired from his previous parish the year before. At the time of his arrival, many St. Gregorites were to remark on the oddity of retiring to the parish, but no one pressed the subject for they understood it as one of those strange eccentricities of clerical business.

Bud liked Father Charles. The old priest was equal, if not superior, to Father Peter's knowledge of the abstract, yet had the most unique skill with application. No topic was too pretentious that Father Charles couldn't apply it to his parishioners lives.

'Father?' Bud remembered asking after a Mass, 'what exactly is transubstantiation?' It had confused the boy for a long while, and Father Charles was just the person to ask. He was approachable. Inviting! Bud knew if he'd asked Father Peter, he would have received an hour long dissertation on the root of the word, rather than a direct explanation of the meaning of the thing.

'Transubstantiation? Hmm...That's a tough one, Alfonso.' There were only two people in the world that ever called the boy Alfonso. His mother, when she was angry, and Father Charles. He hated his Christian name out of his mother's mouth. It usually meant he was in for a whipping, but when the priest said it, the name felt natural to Bud, like Father Charles called him by it as a sign of respect, without the slightest inflection of exasperation. 'Transubstantiation...it's the ability for a priest to consecrate—you know what consecrate means?'