The Prayers in Rossford

“REMEMBER,” ONE OF THE girls was saying, “there was this priest, and he used to go into the church and talk to Jesus on the Cross.”

“Yeah,” Tom Enright said. “And Jesus would talk back.”

“I thought that was so beautiful,” the girl said.

The chatter went on. Dan believed that he must have said something. He remembered saying, at some point in time, “Whenever I see Jesus on the Cross I want to cry. It just reminds me of how much he must love us.”

And he remembered hearing a bark of laughter, Fenn Houghton’s laughter. Fenn went to Loretto College, two hours from Citeaux, and Dan had met him on a trip to the National Shrine. This night, when he and his rosary group were talking about Father DeLillo and Jesus talking from a cross, Fenn was there. Memory was tricky. Surely Fenn was there. He remembers dragging Fenn to the rosary group. And he remembers Tom Enright, and he remembers very little of anyone else. They were so important back then. He wanted to be a priest. He wanted to be godly. These were the right people. There was so much wrong with him. If they approved of him, maybe he would approve of himself. What he knows to be true is how after the rosary meeting, Fenn lit a cigarette, and it was cold, cold like this Christmas night, they were walking around the fountain in the middle of Citeaux’s campus, the large structure of Saint Lutgarde’s over them.

“So… this man came into church and Jesus would talk to him?”

“Yeah,” Dan said, already knowing Fenn’s answer would be something contrary. “Isn’t that kind of cool?”

“If you were Jesus,” Fenn said, “on the cross and someone came to talk to you, what would you say?”

“I’d say,” Dann thought about it, stuffing his hands in the cuffs of his blue parka, “I guess… Love each other. And… Be good.”

Then Dan said, “What would you say, Fenn?”

“I’d say, get me the fuck off this Cross!”

Turn about was fair play and before he headed back home to Ohio, Dan came to the Christmas Mass at Loretto. At midnight they were singing this song.

The first Noel, the angels did say
Was to certain poor shepherds in fields where they lay
In fields
Where they
Lay keeping their sheep
On a cold winter’s night that was so deep!
Noel, Noel Noel
Noel
Born is the king of Israel!

And he saw Fenn as he’d never seen him, at the head of the procession, carrying, in his arms the infant Christ. And because it is his memory, and his imagination, Dan makes the baby alive. The music stopped then, as it stopped tonight, where the same ritual was repeated. The baby was placed in the empty manger and then they sang

Noel Noel
Noel Noel!
Born is the king of Israel!

That night, in his room, they exchanged presents and Fenn got him a new shirt, but Dan was embarrassed because, afraid that what he wanted to get would be too much, too extravagant, he had put away his first present and settled for a thesaurus.

“I’m so sorry,” Dan said right away. “I… I wanted to get you this rosary. It had glass beads. It was blue, and it was so beautiful. But…”

“It cost too much.”

“No,” Dan said. “I thought… you’d think it was too much. I thought you’d think I was too much. Too into you. And… so I got this.”

The First Noel still rang in his ears, and the lights in the church shone in his mind beside the snow falling outside of the dormitory. Dan wants to think he had the courage to start it, but he doesn’t know if that is true. In his memory, this time, he lets it be Fenn who kisses him, and he responds. And it is so right! No bells, no fear goes off in his head. Just this courage, just this knowledge that it is right to let everything fall away and love him right now. One of them murmurs through the kiss, “I love you.”

They part. Dan sits crosslegged on the bed, head down, fingers together.

“I could drop you off,” he says. “Instead of waiting for Travis, I could drop you off on my way home. We could leave tonight.”

“You could stay at my house. You could have Christmas with us. Or… Go on to your family in the morning. Whatever.”

“Yes,” Dan said. “We’ll figure it out.”

They go on talking, reasonably, as if nothing has happened. But Dan’s hand, moist, is moving in Fenn’s. Fenn’s hand swings in his.

Silent night
Holy night
All is calm, all is bright
Ron yon virgin
Mother and child
Holy infant
So tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace!
Sleep in heavenly peace!

WHEN IT CAME TIME for Communion, his disgust was too much. Noah was between James and his mother, and on the other side of James was Danasia, watching the Mass with the passivity of someone who was not simply, un-Catholic, but also uninterested in religion.

When Paul got up that was it. Paul was in a black suit in the row in front of him, and humbly he rose, followed by Claire. What had happened to him? Who did he think he was? Noah remembered coming to California, meeting Paul for the first time. He’d done his first pornos with Paul. Hell, this year he’d shot pornos and, yeah, done a three way with him. This was Paul Anderson, Johnny Mellow, who was screwing the church organist and Kirk at the same time. This was Pizza Slut. How dare he! Damn him, and that priest he was going to at the end of the line. He was Bick Throbbing!

So when it was their time to rise and get in the line, Noah went out of the pew, to the surprise of James, Danasia and Naomi, who did not. But he turned in the opposite direction, to leave the church. He went under the thundering organ, through the doors, into the cold vestibule. And then he just stood there.

It was too much. It was just too much. He hated all of this. He hated the way he was feeling. Why couldn’t he be like them? Why couldn’t he just make a go at normal life? He wasn’t great, but he knew what he was. He wasn’t trying to be someone else. He was…

“Pissed off,” Noah choked, through his teeth and stopped, surprised by the misery welling up in him.

Noah Riley pushed open the doors and stood outside. A few cars drove by, their red taillights winking. The snow had stopped, and the sky was hard and blue black with white stars sitting steadily in its darkness. His breath formed white and round, and so palpable that he could actually feel it, could not only see his breath, butfeel it. It almost hurt to breathe. But this was a good hurt, a hurt outside of time. And he would stay outside of time as long as he could.

When he turned around and entered the vestibule, something thawed in him. In his re-entry into the church and real time Noah heard. The voice was too gentle for a man’s, too old and stern, too masculine for a woman’s. It spoke with no words. It spoke into his heart, carved onto his knowing.

Everything that ever touched you was my kiss. Everything in this world is my love. There is nothing in this world that is not made of Love, comes from Love… Returns…. To Love…

There was a knocking on the door of the little restroom. It came again, and then Fenn’s voice:

“Noah, is it you? If it’s not you, I’ll go, but I think it is. You walked out and I was worried.”

A few moments later, Fenn said, “I’ll feel really silly if it’s not you.”

Noah opened the door, and Fenn came in shutting it behind him.

“Noah… What’s… what’s happened? You….”

Noah turned his face from Fenn and sat on the toilet with his face in his hands.

“I…”he began. “I left. I was angry. I was…”

“I know,” Fenn said.

Noah took his hands from his face and said, “You know?”

“Knowing’s the problem, isn’t it?” Fenn said. “I know too much about those people in there. You know too much. Paul had to go and change and leave you the way you are. Or the way you think you are. I’m not blind. I’m an actor. I see these things.”

Noah nodded slowly.

“Yeah,” he said. “Only… I don’t feel that way, anymore.

“I felt so… I didn’t even know I felt it. Tight and angry, just drawn up like this little, pissed of knot, Fenn. You know. I wanted to cry, I hurt so bad, but I was so… frozen. Nothing would come out.”

Fenn said nothing.

“Fenn, do you believe God speaks to people?”

“Yes.”

“Has… God ever spoken to you?”

“Yes,” said Fenn.

“Good,” Noah said.

“And did God speak to you? Just now?”

Noah sat up straighter on the toilet.

“Yeah… I think so. I mean, yes. He did. She did. Whatever.”

“Oh,” Fenn’s expression changed to something like pride. “And what did he say?”

Noah had not expected that. But Noah, haltingly, told Fenn.

“Everything is…”Fenn repeated the message. “But… yes. Yes.”

“And that’s why I’m here, like I am. I mean….”Noah shook his head and rolled off some toilet paper to blow his nose, “What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?How do I take that back into church? What do I…?”

Fenn didn’t know that he could say anything, so he just sat on the sink beside Noah and dropped an arm around his shoulder.

“I…. Shoot ass flicks. I am in ass flicks. I… suck guys’ cocks for money. And you know what, I kinda like it. When I don’t hate it, I like it. I fuck up everything. I can’t find what I should be doing in life. I… I’m mean, and I’m angry. And… I don’t trust. I don’t trust anyone. I see the bad in everything. I’m bitter. I’m cynical. You remember when I lived with you what an ass I was, and… Everything is love. What am I supposed to do with that?”

“You took in the mother who, let’s face it, screwed your life up. You faced death this year. And, you know what? You ran that money down to the Cayman’s for me. You… Everyone loves you,” Fenn said. “Claire loves you. Danny. You have this hold on them. And Paul too, who you think you’re angry at. Why do you think that is?”

“I didn’t have a hold on you,” Noah said. “Not when we met.”

“You were strung out, mean and ungrateful when we met,” Fenn said. “But I knew there was more to you. And I was right. And I am right.”

“And what is that more?”

“Are you fishing, or are you seriously ignorant?” Fenn said.

Noah looked up at him.

“That more is the love in your heart,” he said, squeezing Noah’s shoulder. “All that love and all that passion. I’ve always thought that the God who speaks to us is the God that… comes out of us, I mean, out of our essense. That’s why God didn’t tell you to stop being… whatever you think you need to stop being. That’s why God told you he was love. Because I think you are too, sir.”

“Guys, you can go back to the apartment,” Noah said, after Mass.

“We only came because of you,” James said. “We can wait. Plus we have to talk.”

“When you say you have to talk,” Danasia began, “You mean the two of you, or all three of us?”

“A little bit of both,” James said.

Danasia nodded, and then she said, “Well, it might be the two of you and Naomi, cause I’m gon catch a ride with Tom and Lee. I need to see this new baby. This is a strange family set up we got going.”

Danasia headed across the crowded church to Tom and Lee and Noah said, “We need to talk. You and me. But I need to talk to someone else right now. He sort of asked me to.”

“I’ll be back at the apartment, then, all right?”

Noah nodded and hugged James quickly, whispering to him, “I’m so glad you’re here.”

And then he went back into the church and waited. And he waited until Keith McDonald was through all of the people, and when he was clearing out, the priest came back in and stopped, seeing Noah.

Noah stood up and came to him.

“You were right,” he said. “I… don’t listen so good. If you want me to listen, then I will. Right now.”

Keith looked not happy exactly, but satisfied.

“Good,” he said. “Let me take all this off, and then… You could come to the rectory? Did you drive?”

“No.”

“Well, then I can take you home later, all right?”

Noah nodded. “No one I know is really going to sleep for a long time, anyway.”