Blood on a Saint (2 page)

“Brennan, watch where you’re — ”

“Christ!” Burke stumbled and landed on his knees, hands flat on the ground. Monty could see his lips moving. A colourful string of curses, without question. He had tripped over a pair of crutches lying in the grass. He batted at the knees of his pants when he got up.

“Leave them, Father. Dirty knees will send the right message to your public; you’ve been kneeling in prayer at the shrine.”

“Feck off.”

“Isn’t that a fine way for one of my priests to be talking!”

No! His Grace, the Most Reverend Dennis Cronin, Archbishop of Halifax. But there wasn’t a trace of embarrassment on the face of his priest.

“My apologies, Dennis. I allowed myself to be baited by one of my parishioners here, and failed to control my tongue. If you knew him, you’d understand. Your Grace, may I present Monty Collins. Not a bad fellow really, when all is said and done.”

“Your Grace, it’s an honour to meet you.”

“Likewise, Mr. Collins. I have seen you and I know of your legal work, but this is the first time I’ve had the opportunity to be introduced. What do you think of all this go-ahead?” He made a sweeping gesture with his left arm, indicating the circus that had grown up around the church.

Monty just shook his head.

The archbishop was in his late fifties, tall, broad-shouldered, and handsome, with thick, fair hair going white and shrewd blue eyes behind a pair of stylish glasses. He wore a Roman collar and black shirt under a sports jacket.

“Are you here to take in the festivities, Bishop?” Burke asked him.

“No, I’m here to see you.”

“Ah.”

“How fortuitous that you should stumble into my path.”

“Yes. I am here to serve in any way I can, on my knees or otherwise.”

“Good man. Let me ask you this: have you ever heard of Pike Podgis?”

“Say that again?”

“Pike Podgis. Familiar to you at all?”

“No. What is it?”

“You don’t know?”

Monty knew, but he was not going to help Burke out. More fun to see him floundering for a connection.

“I know what a pike is,” Burke replied, “a long pole with a spearhead on it. You see them on monuments to the Rebellion of ’98 in Ireland. That’s 1798, Collins. Is that what you’re talking about, Bishop? If so, why — ”

“No,” the bishop said, “it’s not a
that
. It’s a
he
.”

“That’s someone’s name? Poor soul.”

“You may want to reserve your sympathy. He’s a talk show host.”

“Ah. One of those blathering individuals who gets people all excited on the radio?”

“He used to be on radio. Now he has his own show on CTV. Nationally televised.”

“Well, isn’t that grand. I don’t watch television, except for the odd football game or the World Cup. Or Midnight Mass from St. Peter’s of course, Your Grace. So I’ve never seen this fellow’s program.”

“That’s about to change.”

“How’s that, now?”

“The
Pike Podgis Show
is coming to town and I want you on it.”

“Are you
well
, Dennis?”

“This man intends to run a show about religion and miracles.”

“God help us.”

“Exactly. Michael O’Flaherty is dying to take part, though he won’t admit it. But I don’t want him on there. Mike knows his stuff, but this Podgis creature will eat him alive. Do you know Rob Thornhill at Dal?”

“Yes, I’ve met him. Teaches in the sociology department.”

“Well, he’s your opponent. He’s taking the atheistic position, and you’re on for Holy Mother Church.”

“This debate, will it be a reasoned, thoughtful — ”

“I won’t lie to you, Brennan; it will be the verbal equivalent of mud wrestling.”

“Then why on earth would we have anything to do with it?”

“Because if we don’t, it will look as if we are not willing to defend the faith.”

“We defend the faith every day, in our liturgy, our sermons, our service to the poor . . .”

“A week from tonight, nine o’clock, ATV studio on Robie Street.”

Burke bowed his head. “As you wish, Your Grace.”

“Offer it up, Brennan. Sorry to stick you with this, but it has to be done. You should watch the show tonight to get some idea what it will be like.”

“Life is short. I don’t want to waste any more time on this than I have to.”

“Suit yourself, my lad.”

†

Burke might not be willing to lose an hour of the finite time he had left on earth watching the
Pike Podgis Show
, but Monty could not resist. And he had persuaded Maura to share the experience. Monty and Maura had been living apart for several years, but were spending a little more time together these days. So there was nothing unusual about Monty making himself comfortable in the den of the old family home on Dresden Row and calling Maura down to join him when he tuned in to the program for the first time in its six-year history.

“Remind me what it is we’re going to be watching?” she asked.

“Perry ‘Pike’ Podgis, the Cicero of modern times.”

“Podgis. I’ve heard of this clown, but I’ve never seen him.”

“You’ve been lucky. But your luck is about to run out. As is Brennan Burke’s.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s going on the show next week.”

She looked at Monty as if he had turned back into the toad she knew he really had been all along. “Brennan Burke would no more go on a TV talk show than I would march down Spring Garden Road in a short, sparkly skirt, twirling a baton.”

“Bishop’s orders. Told him to defend the faith in a debate with a non-believer. It’s all because of the claimed Virgin Mary sighting at the church. Pike Podgis is coming to town to do a show on it.”

Monty clicked the remote to make sure he was on the right channel. Didn’t want to miss a thing. “Have you ever seen a pike, Maura?”

“No. What it is? Something you run through the guts of your enemy, isn’t it?”

“Yes. But there’s also a fish by that name, a voracious predator with a long snout and a great big mouth full of pointy teeth. They sometimes call it a water wolf.”

“Sounds lovely.”

“Wait till you see this guy.”

“I sound like Brennan here, but pour me a pint, would you?” She did a fair imitation of the priest’s Irish accent. “I have to fortify meself with drink to get through this.”

Monty sprinted up the stairs to the kitchen and returned with two cans of Keith’s, which he poured into glasses. He handed one to his wife.

“You’ve never seen it before either?” she asked him.

“No. The clients talk about it.”

“Your criminal clients, I suppose.”

“Right. Example: ‘Pike had these girls on that had, like, worms in their intestines when they moved here after working as whores in some really hot jungle country. And they showed these worms crawling around after they came out of their shit, and now they’re here, and this guy was sitting there with a bag on his head ’cause he’s got these worms that are like two feet long and he doesn’t want his wife to know, but she probably has them now too because one time he was sick and had an accident in the bed, if you know what I mean, and the wife cleaned the sheets, so she’s going to find out about the worms and the whores, and maybe have these worms herself and pass them along to other people, but he can’t work up the nerve to tell her.’”

“You’re making that up.”

“You don’t believe in the existence of intestinal parasites? You’ll be shocked then to learn that these things abound in certain parts of the world and — ”

“I know they exist, but nothing on this earth could compel me to go on television with or without a bag on my head and discuss them in public.”

“Well, let’s see what else people go on television and discuss in public.”

He turned up the volume. Loud, insistent theme music crashed into the room. “And now, Pike Podgis!” This was met by a rhythmic pounding and a chant of “Pike, Pike, Pike!” There was a lot of high-volume prattle about ripped-from-the-headlines issues, fearless debates, run but can’t hide, on and on, then viewers saw the head of a man with a thick-lipped mouth crowded with protruding, spiky teeth. The upper part of his head was recessed behind the enormous jaw, and the hair was dark, thin, and pasted to his skull.

“Hey out there! Lots to talk about tonight. Second half of the show we’ll have cheerleader moms! Cheerleader moms who kill other cheerleader moms, or their daughters’ rivals! Yeah! Girls, girls, girls! But first, pets in nursing homes! Nice idea, right? Herb Sproule says yes, Gladys Morton says no. I say, ‘What’s that under the bedsheets with Grandpa?’”

There was the sound of howling from the seats in front of the stage, and the camera panned the studio audience. The faces could have been painted by Hieronymus Bosch.

Podgis thrust his jaw at Gladys, a septuagenarian in garish makeup, sitting on his right. He leered at her and asked, “Gladys, whaddya say? What’s wrong with Fluffy or Fido in the room with Granny?”

The old lady blinked at the host, then peered out towards the audience. “Nothin’ wrong with it until they start doin’ unnatural acts with each other, and then it’s time for the dog catcher to be called in. Or the gerbil to be put back in the cage. Least, that’s what they tell me. After a thorough disinfecting!”

“Ooooo!” Podgis mugged at the camera. “Unnatural acts. Do tell!”

“Well, excuse me for sayin’ things that aren’t polite, but I’ve always been one to tell the truth however I see it, and if that upsets some folks, well that’s just too bad. There’s this one resident we’ll call Willie — ”

Podgis wheeled on the elderly man at his left. “That’s really you, isn’t it, Herb? Come on, fess up. Whatever this is, and it ain’t gonna be pretty, it’s about you, right, Herb?”

“No!” the man squawked. “It’s not me! I don’t do nothing with dogs!”

“Dogs, eh? You know what they say, Herb. Lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. I should know.” Podgis put his right hand under his left armpit and made a big show of scratching himself, then pulled his hand away, put it up to his nose, and exclaimed, “Peeuuw!” He waited for the guffaws to subside, then continued, “But anyway, let’s hear more, Gladys. Herb here said something about dogs. You said something about some guy called Willie. Is there a connection? What do you guys think?” He gestured to the audience and was rewarded with shrieks and wolf whistles.

“Yeah, well, old Willie,” Gladys said, “he always says this dog, Bucky, reminds him of the dog he had on the farm when he was a little boy, and so he wants to be alone with his memories. But why he really wants to be alone with Bucky the dog is so he can feel his . . .”

Maura drew her hand across her throat: end it now. Monty pressed the remote and made it go away. They looked at each other. They were both thinking the unthinkable: the Reverend Father Brennan Xavier Burke, B.A. (Fordham), S.T.L. (Pontifical Gregorian), Doctor of Sacred Theology (Angelicum), making an appearance in such an arena.

Monty set the remote on the coffee table. “We’ll turn it on again when the local news comes on. I heard that one of my clients had an entourage at the courthouse today. Someone I’m representing on a certificate from Legal Aid. I was still in the courtroom talking to the Crown when they staged a performance for the cameras.”

Sure enough, Monty’s client made the news as he left the courthouse following his bail hearing. The perp turned towards the camera, giving TV viewers the benefit of his pale but spotty face, patchy facial hair, and missing front tooth. He stuck his tongue out at the cameraman, then stepped back, grabbed his crotch and delivered himself of a string of invective that the broadcaster bleeped out. His hangers-on, male and female, got into the act then, with lots of crotch-grabbing, breast-squeezing, butt-crack-showing, and one incident of full-moon-pulling that was made blurry in the production studio.

“Their mothers must be so proud,” Maura remarked.

“Don’t get me started on their home life,” Monty replied.

“No need.”

Monty was about to turn the television off, possibly for all time, when he saw the statue of St. Bernadette and heard yet another story from the site of the claimed apparitions. He expected to see Befanee Tate in her usual pose before the statue: on her knees, gazing over the saint’s head, ostensibly ignoring the cameras. But this time it was another girl being interviewed. Tall and slim with long, lustrous dark hair, Jordyn Snider was the latest to have seen the Virgin. Jordyn was decked out in a flowery dress with wide shoulders and a wide white collar. Her eye makeup had been applied with care, and not a hair moved out of place in the wind that blew the reporter’s curly locks across her face.

“I saw a beautiful lady,” Jordyn said, “floating up over the statue. She was dressed in blue and white, or more like aqua and cream, but that could just be the light. She didn’t say anything but smiled down at me. Not just me. Us, everybody here.”

“What do you take from this?” the reporter asked. “What do you think it means?”

“I think it means I was meant to be here.”

“Will you be joining the pilgrims now?”

“Oh, yes. I never want to leave.”

She turned gracefully, offering her profile to the camera, and looked out at the pilgrims assembled in the churchyard. “All these people. It’s a beautiful thing.”

The camera followed her line of vision. Here came Befanee Tate. A closer angle revealed that Befanee too seemed to have been granted the gift of a wind-proof hairdo. Her dark blue dress was plain but her makeup was more pronounced than in the earlier photos Monty had seen. She was holding a little blond girl by the hand. The child was wearing an ankle-length white dress.

“Befanee,” the reporter called out, “are you still having the experience of seeing the Virgin Mary here?”

“Of course!” Befanee avowed. “She has been with me since the beginning. The first day.” And not, presumably, with the gatecrasher in the flowered dress. “I am going to read a short statement.”

“Is it a message from Mary, Befanee?” the reporter asked.

“Well, it’s not like a message from her. I mean, she didn’t tell me what to say. It’s just . . .” She groped around in her handbag and withdrew a piece of paper, cleared her throat and proceeded to read. “It was the most amazing experience of my life. At first I could just see her and not hear, but then I felt she was communing . . . communicating with me. It was like her voice was inside me, and I knew what she wanted me to do. To love and support the poor. To give whatever I can, to give whatever we can, all of us, to make the poor’s life better. And I should spread the word that this is what she wants, that anyone who can give should give.”