Prefatory Notes

With the attacks of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001, the significance of religious differences became palpable even to those who live on a continent separated by the world’s largest oceans. What had been confined to the Middle East and the Philippines spilled over into the West rekindling ancient hatreds and modern fatwas. It is against this backdrop that A Second Encyclical is fixed.

The narrative examines the effect of increased terrorism on a modern pope and ultimately the religious world. Spanning forty years, the novel traces the life of a popular French cardinal, Michel Abruzzi, through his tenure as pope, and it recounts the life of Argo Malle who becomes his protégé. While it is a work of fiction, much is drawn from headlines, recent research, and news stories from around the globe.

The narrative alternates between a first person account of Argo Malle by Willow Frederic, a woman he has known since their teens, and a third person account of the evolution of Michel Cardinal Abruzzi of Paris. Both accounts merge at the elevation of the Cardinal to the papacy.

The first encyclical of Pope Michael I is incendiary not only because of its overt condemnation of Islam but its departure from the ecumenism generated by Vatican II. It is the fear of a second encyclical that alarms the Curia, the governing body of the Church, and even, Argo Malle, a leader of the elite Legion of Christ.

A Second Encyclical is a novel of ideas and of the characters that believe in, wrestle with, and ultimately act on those ideas. The rise of secularism in the face of religious violence, religious intolerance among the major religions, Papal infallibility, celibacy in the priesthood, and embryonic stem cell research are examined both with some precision and objectivity.

Finally, while the novel is serious and at times refers to bits of science, history, and art that some readers might find arcane, care has been taken to ensure readability. Readers who invest some effort will be rewarded with a unique and carefully crafted, intellectually stimulating, and emotionally gripping tale from two separate perspectives.

Two Notes:

1. In uploading the ms. to this URL, normal indentations and other orthographic niceties were not copied. I hope these irregularities are not too disturbing.

2. I must thank Dr. John Comerford who helped me througout, especially with the chapter on the election of the pope, the miracle, and the section on Switzerland. And it was his expertise on the chemistry of stem cells which informed Argo's ability in the area. I would also like to thank my daughter Lara for her proofreading and suggestions for revisions.

Anthony Gael Moral

INTRODUCTION: IN THE BEGINING

In The Beginning

In the beginning was the word…. But the word is seldom only what it says.
To wordless memories and imagination we provide symbols, perhaps to make the images real, perhaps to understand them. Writers learn that words become their own reality, leaving elusive truth to lie undisturbed. Soon Willow Frederic would learn that in telling Argo’s story she would never quite capture the phantasms that haunted her memory.

“The wind had shifted southeast and with it came the sad fear of an inevitable storm. As the boat swept over an ocean still warm with summer, the whisper of hollow loss grew stronger. The Sanctum’s sails were full and proud, alive against the cobalt sky, but they were loud in the night --- sirens sighing sadly of the change that was to come. Holding back the wind and whispering a woeful warning, the sails were for the first time not powerful servants of The Sanctum but white, wailing shrouds --- waiting.
“I shuddered and went below to hide. As it always had, the fresh scent of unfinished teak greeted me before I could see it glowing amber in dim cabin lights. The sweet wood had become a sanctuary from all that was raw above, but that night its quiet warmth failed to work its charm. There would be no escape from the dread of the approaching storm, a storm not of the sea but of the man. And the man was standing dark and motionless at the helm.”


l

The New York sky was hollow gray, and on that blustery morning the black, white-capped water beat angrily against the walls of Battery Park in Lower Manhattan. On sunny days New York is as beautiful as it is in the movies, but on days like this it was as cold and as heartless as its reputation. As she leaned against the iron rail at the water’s edge watching the 9:12 ferry cross the Narrows, Willow felt the first chill of winter crawl up under her jacket. The mile-wide bay was the roiling mouth of both the Hudson and East Rivers which frame Manhattan island, and on that day only the boats that had to be on the water were out.
From her usual spot on the railing along the balustrade, she heard gulls proclaiming their territory as they patrolled the waterway, but the hollow wind called louder. Willow’s chestnut hair blew against the dark sky, and she raised her collar against the wind. She had thought about getting coffee at the terminal but decided to take the cold. In some perverse way, Willow wanted the cold discomfort.
It was the biggest news story of the century: the assassination of Pope Michael the First, and the earth was still quaking. Independent investigative bodies worldwide were working to unearth clues about who killed the controversial Pope and why, but facts were outnumbered by theories, most of them plausible but none correct. In the two weeks since his death, the Pope’s killers were as incorporeal as their motives.
As Willow shivered at the New York harbor, the Council of Cardinals in Rome was selecting the new Pope. It would also be the day Willow Frederic would begin the first pages of her manuscript. Even then she was unsure she would ever show it to anyone, but she hoped that at least in the writing she would come to understand more fully what had happened --- to capture the reality of the pangs of loss and the prick of guilt. She believed the writing itself might lessen the weight of knowing the answer to what had by then become the world’s greatest question. It would be two months before she would learn if she were correct, that if in the writing there would be relief.
Willow was a writer of legal briefs, not stories, and did not know how the narrative would come out. She did know that the story would be told simply from the beginning with no flashbacks or precious allusions to books she had read in college. It could turn out to be a book or perhaps be serialized in The New Yorker or The New York Times Magazine. It was important only that she write it out as it happened, or at least as her words could capture her memory.
It took a week to write the first pages on the laptop she propped up on the dressing table next to her bed. It was the table on which she had had her lighted makeup mirror, a trifle of vanity that seemed as useless as the lip gloss and eyeliners, which along with the mirror, now sat useless in the drawer below.

CHAPTER 1: THE COMING

Chapter One: The Coming

[From the Willow manuscript, Part 1.]
I had two younger sisters, eight and ten, and in the summer of 1981 I was thirteen. My parents must have grown more conservative as they got older considering they named their second two children Eileen and Karen. They named me Willow.
I don't know what they were thinking when they decided to name me after a tree, but as unhappy as their decision was, I don't think it would have been altogether bad had either of them been tall and slim. Sadly they were rather heavy boned and tended to gain weight easily, and so there was only the remotest chance that their daughter would be any different. At thirteen I had given up all hope of developing a runway model's figure, and I am sure that it became clear even to them that instead of a willow they got a bush, low, wide and a bit thorny.
There wasn't much hope for Eileen or Karen either, but they were blonde and cute, and they had no name to live up to. I truly loved my sisters and enjoyed seeing them dressed like dolls though it seemed I spent too many hours braiding their hair which always came undone in minutes. My hair was darker and more coarse but at least it stayed put. Mother insisted that we wear dresses, and I didn't mind, especially in the summer. But the truth was that I had always felt most comfortable in coveralls and sweats, and as often as I mentioned that, she would always look up and to the right in mother’s exasperation. Mom was from Charleston, and Southern belles always wore dresses, period. That we were living in northern New Jersey seemed not the least relevant.
From our back porch we could see across the Hudson River to Manhattan. It was an old house, large and dark with small rooms. The narrow halls were a maze leading from one door to another, some of which were always locked, all of which were solid and thick with white paint. The children's rooms were in the front, guest rooms on the sides, and our parents' room in the back facing the river. Everything in the house was old, and it smelled like it. Woolen rugs worn down to their backings were prized heirlooms, chipped furniture that matched nothing else were unique antiques, and original Hummels someone would no doubt pay a lot of money for were placed strategically around the place. Yellowed doilies covered each chair and sofa as much, I thought, to cover the worn parts as to add to the “look.” Mother called it Southern living, partly because she had a subscription to the magazine, but Dad called it Southern poverty. It didn’t matter though because everyone who visited thought the house had charm and bespoke old money contempt for the newly rich. I liked the big bathtub which sat on lion legs and which allowed me to submerge to my nose.
First children tend to do best in school, and that was so in our case. Our exposure to television was minimal, especially since my parents seldom watched it, except for talking head shows, and they had strict rules about not allowing the TV to be turned on before 7 PM, except for Sesame Street. And it was turned off by 9 PM, except if there was a special show that was good for the family to watch together. Naturally reading became an important means of entertainment, and the three Frederic sisters did well in school. But while Eileen and Karen were good, they weren't the best, and I suspect it was harder for them following their older sister who was. Of course, school then was largely memorizing details, especially at St. Timothy's. Neat handwriting and good spelling impressed nuns, and as we were seldom asked to explain things, it appeared I was smarter than others. I was smart enough to know that was untrue, but I was nevertheless proud of my A's.
My parents, Donald and Carolee Frederic, met at Duke University. Dad was from New Jersey, a lawyer, very Catholic, and politically liberal. Mother was a Colby, an affluent Charleston clan that made its fortune in paper processing. They were charming, Methodist, and more than a bit conservative. Unlike Dad, Mother never discussed religion or politics lest others be made uncomfortable. She was a typical Southerner who told you what you wanted to hear. Dad, a typical Northerner, told you what he wanted to hear.
Don and Carolee set up house in New Jersey because he had gotten a good position at Temple & Zimmerman, a small but successful Newark law firm. In truth, Mother was happy to leave Charleston as she had become a bit estranged from her family when she converted to Catholicism to marry Dad. Nothing was ever said, of course, and our yearly Thanksgiving Day visits were always pleasant. Though she would flash her beautiful smile often, Mother was always more quiet than usual during those trips.
She lacked the long-limbed elegance of some other women, but she had a cherubic face that dimpled when she smiled. Many times I saw it light up a room. She was most gracious, of course, and her Southern accent became particularly pronounced around men. They seemed to sense that she liked them, or at least liked being a woman, and that made her a most successful money raiser for Kane, a philanthropic organization devoted to providing scholarships for inner city youth. She received no pay for her work, but Daddy said she was worth more to his firm than he could calculate. When the firm became Temple Frederic it doubled its billings in the first year.
It was in the early summer of 1981 that we learned of a houseguest for whom we were to prepare ourselves. We were instructed to treat him as a brother and maintain our best behavior for the length of his stay, however long that might be. Never having had a brother I was unsure what particular treatment we were to afford him, but as we were cautioned to be on our best behavior, I had general misgivings about the entire arrangement, "however long that might be."
It was mid-June and school had been out for a few days when Mother returned with our visitor. While she was gone we had been left to ensure every room in the house was perfectly tidy, especially our rooms. Why our rooms had to be part of the campaign was puzzling since I would not have expected any boy to enter my bedroom nor the bedrooms of my sisters or parents. His bedroom, in the guest wing on the kitchen side, was already perfect since it hadn't ever in my memory been used and had so little in it. The girls dusted and I washed the windows, inside only. We were told also to be in the house and perfectly neat and unheated. Our dresses were to be spotless which meant that after the cleaning we were to dress and remain motionless until they arrived --- which we did, more out of nervousness than obedience.
He followed Mother in the side door carrying a suitcase in each hand. He was sixteen but only a bit taller than I, thin and pale, with very dark and wavy hair that seemed never to have seen a comb.
"This is Argo Malle," said Mother signaling us to smile our best smiles. "This is Willow, Eileen, and Karen." We curtsied but I don't think he saw us, thankfully. I looked to find his eyes, but his head was down. It seemed as if he said Hi or Hello but it really was more a grunt.
"What's an Argo Malle?" popped from my mouth. I know I didn't think it first. Mother shot a dagger at me. He looked at me shyly from under his brow and grinned. He had dark eyes that sparkled in the light. His black eyebrows were thick and wide, and he had lush eyelashes any woman would die for.
"Willow, I'm surprised at you. One would think by your age you could tell the difference between a person's name and an object."
She had of course already told us his name and other things about him, by way of preparation, no doubt. I didn't learn until the next school term that his name was indeed an object --- a boat. The Argo, it turned out, was the name of the ship in the myth of Jason and the Argonauts.
Argo’s mother had recently died leaving him in the temporary care of his aunt in Brooklyn. He had only a few months before he was to graduate from high school, and he stayed with his aunt who took him in until then. His mother had been working for an associate of my father as a housekeeper, but at sixteen, Argo could not be left to live alone, and his aunt, an alcoholic who made little, had nothing but a roof to offer the boy. The Kane Institute took on the case, my parents were contacted, and Argo became their ward.
I learned that Argo's father was a French chef who emigrated from Europe with his wife. She had been in France on a student visa from Greece when she met and married Henry Malle. Their son was born in France, came to this country at six, and was naturalized when his parents became citizens five years later. Not long after, his father abandoned them never to reestablish contact and leaving them to live in a small apartment over a bakery on 65th Street in a Brooklyn working class neighborhood named Bensonhurst. Aside from my dad’s telling me that Bensonhurst was an “Italian neighborhood,” my parents never said more about his situation, and I suspected that was because they did not know anything more.
What they did say about him then was that he was "special" and needed us to make him feel at home. We were going to be his family while he lived at a dormitory at Rutgers, which was only twenty minutes away. It was explained that in two years he would be of legal age, at which time he could live on his own. Daddy had seen to the legalities that would make Argo an official New Jersey resident and thereby qualified for a scholarship to Rutgers.
Between that day in June and the last day of August was to be the Summer of Argo.

l

Argo was quiet, almost uncomfortably so at first. He had a soft voice and almost always looked down, not so much out of shyness I thought but as if his head were too heavy. It wasn't until he brushed his hair back one morning that I realized his head was larger than it should have been given his slight frame and reedy neck. His big eyes moved quickly from under his brow as if he were trying to see everything but not wanting to seem too curious or stare.
That first night at supper Mother placed him across from me on Dad’s left, and that made Argo appear even more fragile, more pale and more delicate than he had at first. Daddy was broad and had thick hands with stubby fingers which he attributed to his peasant Italian heritage. Argo’s hands were small with thin fingers which he used to work his knife and fork like fine instruments, and he ate everything, even chicken wings, with a knife and fork. He cut his food into the smallest pieces and chewed almost imperceptibly. If there had been a poster boy for Emily Post, he would have been it. Daddy, who smacked through meals like an AK-47 and was anything but delicate, said that anyone that good with a knife should be a surgeon, and we all laughed, except Argo who blushed.
The first words he said to me, whispered though they were, was at dinner that first night as I cleared his plate from the table.
"But I know what a willow is."
I'm sure no one else heard him, and as I looked down I caught a glimpse of his eyes from under his brow. They were bright, and they were laughing. And I felt a twitch low in my stomach. It was my first time. He was beautiful with his finely chiseled features and jet black hair and eyes setting off white ivory skin, and I understood for the first time how women called some men dolls.
I showed him the way to the local library and Mother took him to the one at Rutgers. Other than those two times in the first week he did not step out of the air conditioning except when the family went to church.
Argo was dressed for church that first Sunday in a white shirt with an open collar and blazer. He had tan slacks, loafers, and looked like he had stepped out of a 1950’s Family Circle magazine. I realized then how thin men look best in clothes. Dad wore much the same outfit but looked like a box in a jacket.
Clutched in Argo’s had was an old missal. It was well worn, and Argo followed the Mass with it. With the prayer book opened, the right page was in English and the left page was in Latin. We sat together in church, flanked by Mother and Dad, and I could see over Argo’s shoulder that he had written notes on the English side but that he was reading from the Latin side.
“Are you reading in Latin?” I whispered.
He nodded and I looked at him, stunned. When he sensed I was staring, he looked over to me with a boyish grin.
“What?” he whispered. I didn’t know what to say.
He pointed to the Latin and pointed to each word as the priest was mumbling them at the altar. On the English side I could see references to the Gospels he had written. When we came back from receiving Communion and I asked him why he wrote in the Missal, he ignored me. I wasn’t sure whether he was lost in prayer or felt it inappropriate to whisper after just receiving Communion. In either case, I knew I should not have been whispering, and I knew Argo’s faith went far deeper than mine.
Every Sunday after church, Dad would ask me what, if anything, the gospel reading meant to me personally. The sermon was on the Gospel story of the master who hired day workers for one drachma each. When in the afternoon other workers asked for jobs, he hired them at the same rate. Those workers who had worked all day objected, but the master told the complainers that deals he may make with others do not affect the fair deal had had made with them. I was prepared to make an answer, but this time Dad asked Argo what the sermon meant to him.
Argo answered resolutely, “I should not resent the fact that God has given others what he has not given me.”
“Excellent, Argo. I doubt I could have been more succinct.” Argo seemed to take the compliment for granted; I beamed.
“He reads in Latin,” I said proudly.
“You do?” remarked Mother in her most charming Southern belle.
Argo nodded modestly.
“Did they teach that in public school?” she asked, knowing that he had not gone to Catholic school in Brooklyn.
“No, in released time.”
Released time was a program in which children were released an hour early from public school on Wednesday afternoon to attend religious instruction at the local parochial school.
“Do they teach Latin at released time?” Mother asked.
“No. A nun gave me a primer to study on my own.”
“Why did she do that?”
There was a pause. “Probably because she thought I would enjoy it,” Argo said with some uncertainty.
“And did you?” Mother asked with a smile knowing the obvious answer.
“Yes.”
Mother encouraged us to finish our meals so that we could have the ice cream cake she had bought at the always-crowded-especially-on-Sunday Avalon bakery. Half of the haddock still sat on my plate, and that had not escaped Mother’s notice.
“Willow, finish your dinner; everyone’s waiting for desert.
“It’s too fishy,” I said picking at it.
“Fish is a brain food,” she said as she walked to the kitchen. I looked across to Argo whose eyes were laughing.
“Brain food!” I said under my breath.
“How can fish be brain food considering how dumb they are?” whispered Argo.
“What?” asked Dad.
“Fish aren’t terribly smart creatures, are they?” asked Argo.
“No, they aren’t,” Dad answered with a knowing smile to Argo. Then he turned to me and told me to finish what was on my plate.

l

We were at supper, when most uncomfortable situations seemed to arise, and that day the conversation turned uncomfortably around to my summer assignment. We were taught just before summer recess about sonnets, and I was to write one before school resumed. Two months did not seem long enough, nor for that matter did a lifetime, which I am sure would not have been incomplete without having written one. But Sister Mary Esther loved Shakespeare and was convinced that the best way to teach us thirteen-year-olds to love him also would be to require us to produce a sonnet.
I am not sure why I remember to this day that a sonnet requires fourteen lines of ten syllables each, every second syllable of which must be naturally stressed. Compounding the problem is that the lines had to rhyme in a special order, and if that weren't enough, the final two lines had not only to rhyme but also summarize the previous twelve lines. Why there was a need for a summary of only twelve lines was never explained. Sister Mary Esther said that I would understand when I got older, her answer to many questions.
I asked Argo, the soon to be college freshman, why there had to be a summary, and he said in a way that suggested I should not have to be told, "That's a bad question. Nothing about poetry is needed." Stupid me.
"What's wrong with haiku?” I grumbled more to myself than to anyone at the table.
Summer vacation had dwindled to four days, and still I had no poem to show Sister, and this fact did not go unnoticed by Mother. I had no poem I said because it was simply too difficult to write, "And besides," I added, "I don't know what to write about."
"Of course you do," she insisted. "You can write about what happened this summer, your week with Grandma and Grandpa, the day we all spent at the shore. There are plenty of things you can write about."
I resisted saying that if I had wanted to write about those things I wouldn't have to write in sonnet form. Argo looked at me as if he knew what I had been thinking. A wry smile crept across his face.
"Certainly if Sister Mary Esther assigned the work it cannot be too difficult," added Mother. If she were right, and she probably was, that meant I was not destined to be a threat to Robert Frost, or Alan Ginsberg for that matter.
"Have something to show me by tomorrow afternoon," Dad said with an air of finality that ended the discussion and my dinner.
That night as I lay on my bed, pen in hand, legal pad reflecting the light from my night light, I heard a slight rustling at my door and saw a slip of paper being pushed through. It had to be Argo. I called to him, but there was no answer.
The paper had a poem with exactly fourteen lines, it was printed neatly and had an unusual title.

Sonnet
True as the light that wakes at each new dawn.
Soft as a mother’s hand on aching brows.
True as the love a doe has for her fawn.
Soft as the rain that washes grazing cows.

Warm as the brilliant sun that lights the sky.
Sweet as a songbird’s call in early spring.
Warm as the glowing in a lover’s eye.
Sweet as the smell that new mown hay does bring.

Bright as the smile on children lost in play.
Deep as the ocean’s floor so dark and still.
Bright as the hope of goodness for each day.
Deep as a hero’s great resolve of will.

True, soft, warm, sweet, bright, deep as these things are,
My love for you exceeds each one by far.


Each line has ten syllables, every second of which is stressed (So the first, third, fifth, seventh, and ninth syllables are unstressed. The word goodness, for example, could never be used to start a line since good- is stressed over –ness.) All lines are written in this same pattern or rhythm, called iambic pentameter.
As every second line must rhyme, the first line ending with dawn means that the third line must end with a word that rhymes with dawn, in this case it is fawn. The last two lines, however, must rhyme and serve as a summary. It is called a concluding couplet and must have a different rhyme from the other lines:
True, soft, warm, sweet, bright, deep as these things are,
My love for you exceeds each one by far.
Now while this poem falls short of Shakespearean standards, the sixteen-year-old Argo managed to follow the form of a sonnet, and like most of the Bard's, its theme was about love and nature. But Argo added something.
In Argo's sonnet, each line that rhymed started with the same word. So, both the first and third lines, which rhyme, start with the word true. The second and fourth lines, which rhyme, start with the word soft. Completing the scheme were the words warm, bright, sweet, and deep. The concluding couplet included those words. I suppose the standard Shakespearean sonnet was not challenging enough for Argo.
To say that representing this poem as mine was the embarrassment of my childhood would be litotic (I learned that word from a poetry class. It means understatement.) First I was asked to read the poem to the entire school in the auditorium, then it was published in the Newark Star-Ledger, and finally to make matters worse, I won first place among the ten thousand entries in the 1981 New Jersey Poet Search program. And while I "misplaced" the plaque I, or Argo, had won, I saved the poem. I fancied then that he had written it not only for me but about me. Looking back and given the title, I suppose I was wrong. It was more than likely an exercise, a means by which Argo could measure himself against the greatest writer of the language, and I knew then why my parents said he was special.
I had a notion before that about the special nature of the young Argo Malle, but it was in a different context, and it frightened me.

l

It was another impossibly hot afternoon in August, and On the Waterfront was playing at the Graham, a local theatre that played only arty films and reruns. Argo agreed to come with Eileen, Karen, and me probably because it is a film classic; for me it was just something to do on a lazy summer afternoon. The girls came because Mother insisted.
The young kids behind us were obviously less than rapt by Brando and began kicking the backs of our seats. Argo told them to stop, but that only spurred them on. It was when Argo finally got up to complain to the matron that he was jumped on by an older boy and punched viciously. Argo was helpless and the fight ended when the bigger boy stopped hitting him.
We were all made to leave the theatre despite my insistence that it was the boys behind us who should have been ejected. At least the management gave Argo a wet paper towel to blot the blood from his nose. When we got outside, the savage, named Jimmy Ross, warned Argo not to walk on the same side of the street and to run away when he saw him. Argo, the towel up to his face, did not meet Jimmy's glare and softly said okay. I could feel Jimmy's gaze on us as we headed for home.
My father filed a complaint, but the police told him it would not amount to anything since Argo was sixteen and no longer a juvenile while Jimmy, a public school pupil, was not yet sixteen and was a juvenile. In those situations, my father was told, nothing could be done. Age, not size, mattered. When Father said the same to Argo, whose both eyes were blackened, Argo shrugged slightly and insisted that it made no difference since it was just a bloody nose. I guess he hadn't looked in the mirror.
It was about a week later when Argo and I were coming home from the library that we saw the boys from the movie theatre. They were throwing stones at a tin can that lay at the curb. "Come with me," Argo said as he crossed the street toward the boys.
"I don't think we should, Argo," I said. Those boys were not the kind of kids you approached if you could help it.
"Why not?" he answered flatly as he picked up the pace. One of the boys whispered to another as we approached.
"So where's Jimmy Ross?" asked Argo in his gruffest voice. There was no answer. "I don't see him around here," Argo added looking around like a bad actor.
"In the hospital," said one of the boys.
"Hospital? What happened to him?"
Two of the boys answered simultaneously. "He got a concussion. He got hit by a marble."
"A marble? How can that be?"
"No one knows," said one.
"It came from a building --- from the roof or a window," said another.
"Damned shame," said Argo. He started back across the street. "A marble!"
We were silent on the way home, and I never said anything about the marble to him or to anyone else, and neither did he I am sure. It was obvious he wanted me to know what happened, and I thought I did know. It frightened me a little, or course, but it also excited me. We were walking home and Jimmy Ross was not around to bother us. Argo saw to that, and I was proud of him in a way.
But then there was the Joey incident.

l

We saw Argo once after that first summer when he left for the dorm at Rutgers, that was for Thanksgiving dinner, but he was due for a long visit during Christmas vacation. I remember how excited Karen and Eileen were when they knew he would be with us the next day; it was if their older brother were coming home from war. After only two months, Argo, the quiet, sweet young man, had become one of us. That, of course, made things even more exasperating. He was my brother, too, and a brother was not what I wanted him to be.
I had intended to knit him a sweater for Christmas, but once I started I could see that I was neither a patient Penelope nor was I cut from the same cloth as my mother, so to speak. The best I could do was an Afghan, and that took me right up until Christmas Eve to finish. It was the first time I remember looking forward more to giving a Christmas gift than to getting one, and when he opened it he seemed genuinely pleased. He looked at me from across the room with the most appreciative expression, and I could feel the tears well up in my eyes. Abruptly his expression changed. He was a wily fox laughing inside at what he but no one else knew.
"Thanks, I can use this. But I thought for sure you'd write me a sonnet."
Mom and Dad laughed and so did Argo. Those tears finally overflowed, and I did my best not to be noticed wiping them.
"So how long did you say you were staying?" I managed to say with my best pixie smile.
"He’s staying the week," Mother assured everyone, and we returned to the presents.
Argo was truly special, and despite his shyness, it wasn’t long before anyone could see just how special he was. But I learned things about Argo that no one else knew or could possibly guess. I suppose my parents knew I hadn’t written that sonnet, and if they did, they never let on. They knew how talented he was and suspected his generosity.
However, they did not know about the marble incident and what it said about his desire for vengeance, vengeance which sent a boy to the hospital. It seemed incongruous to this young teenager, but I simply accepted it. And as I said, I was even a little proud of him. But what I learned about him next, and only I knew about it, was not so easy to accept; and now, so many years later, I realize just how telling it was. My idol was truly more complex than I could ever have imagined.
Little Eileen since school started had been being bullied by the boy two doors down the street. His name was Joey, he was eleven, and his parents were psychiatrists. Father spoke to the boy and then spoke to the parents who said they would talk to Joey. There was no change, and when Father spoke again to the parents, they again said they would speak to their son. Father said they were less than pleased when he suggested they do more than talk.
Still, every now and then, Eileen would come home crying that Joey had been mean to her. Two days before Christmas Joey left the impression of his fingers on Eileen's face. Father threatened Joey's parents with a law suit if they could not control their son, but this time his parents did not say they would talk to him: they denied he was out of the house. Someone else must have hit her and she probably accused Joey out of habit.
When for Christmas Eileen got her bicycle with training wheels, the worst kept secret of the year, it was my job to stay outside with her to protect her if Joey were also outdoors. Eileen was forbidden to go outside and play unaccompanied either by my parents or me. Karen had no similar restrictions, as she seemed not to be among Joey's preferred victims.
I told the story to Argo as we watched Eileen peddle herself into eight-year-old ecstasy.
"Did you talk to Joey?" Argo asked as if I should have.
"No. Anyway, my father talked to him. Nothing works."
"Did your mother?"
"She hollered at him once from the porch," I said. "He was saying nasty things to her, and she came home crying."
"No, that's no good," said Argo looking at the Michael's house.
"What?" I asked. "Saying nasty things or hollering from the porch." He didn't answer because he seemed to be studying their house. "What are you looking at, Argo? I’m talking to you."
"The house."
My parents went to a Christmas luncheon the following Saturday, and I was left to mind my sisters. Argo was up in his room, and we started dressing to go outdoors so Eileen could ride her bike.
Argo hurried down the steps saying that he had to go out for a short while. He also asked if we could go in the back yard to play.
"She wants to ride her bike," I said. Argo turned from the door and gave me an impatient look. "She wants to ride her new bike; she can't on the lawn; she can't peddle on the grass."
"Just for five minutes, then you can let her ride on the sidewalk," he said looking at me as if to say something more.
"Why?"
"I’m asking you please. What’s the big deal?"
"Okay, ladies. We're taking a walk around the back yard,” I said taking Eileen by the hand and motioning to Karen to head for the back door. On his way out Argo let the front door slam rattling the stained glass. That was the first time he had done that or done anything loud, for that matter, and it was obvious that something was different.
"Stay here a moment," I told the girls as I went to the bay window. I saw Joey.
Argo rushed up to him and seemed to usher him down the driveway of the house next door. I could still see them from the bay window at the side of the house, and Argo was talking but I couldn’t hear. He motioned to our house, then he pointed up and down the block. Joey seemed to nod his head that he understood when suddenly Argo punched the boy in the stomach then grabbed him by his throat. Joey didn't cry, even when Argo threw him to the ground. He stood for a moment over the doubled over boy then started back to the house.
"Karen, you go out back with Eileen and I'll be out there in a minute," I said taking my knit hat off and unbuttoning my coat. "Keep her mittens on, Eileen."
Argo opened the door, took a quick look at me, and headed for the stairs.
"You punched him."
He looked at the bay window. "I thought you were out back."
"And choked him and threw him down."
Argo looked down and continued to the stairs.
"How can you punch a little kid? He's eleven." Argo stopped and turned toward me.
"And how old is Eileen?" he asked in his normal half whisper.
"That's beside the point. You punched him."
"So he won't punch Eileen."
I moved to the back doors. "How do you know? And what if his parents have you arrested?"
"Well, I'd simply say that someone else must have done it and that he accused me because he's used to directing his anger toward the Frederic’s."
"And what if he makes things worse for Eileen? He can get even with her when you're not around."
He drew closer. "He can't. I made him Eileen's protector." Argo spoke softly, but his eyes were black ice. "I told him that if anything were to ever happen to Eileen, if someone were to slap her, or call her names, or throw something at her, that would mean that he didn't protect her, and then I would blame him." He paused. "Then I showed him what it would be like if I blamed him."
"And you punched him."
"That's because words didn't work. Sometimes people learn that it really doesn't matter what is said. They ignore the words and do what they please. Then other methods have to be used." He started back toward the stairs. "Unless, of course, you don't mind being ignored.” And after two more steps, “Eileen would mind, though."
I got the girls from the backyard and let Eileen ride her bike, twice passing Joey’s house. Everything was eerily normal on Crane Street, and I felt chilled on that dark, gray day that was threatening to snow. I remembered how I felt when I found out about the marble hitting Jimmy Ross. It was wrong what Argo did, but it seemed right, and that puzzled me. Could something be both wrong and right at the same time, and more importantly, how could someone be kind and loving and also violent and cruel? I think it was then that I first realized that things were not as clear as they were in Sister Mary Esther’s classroom.
I went up to my room to get started on studying for my first high school finals after Christmas, but on that day I got no studying done. On my bed was a slingshot made from a branch. Wide rubber bands were knotted together and pulled tight around the two prongs. The bands were attached on the other end by a square piece of soft leather. There was a marble and a note.

Willow---
I got the idea from the Bible. Growing up in Bensonhurst made it worth my while to become proficient in its use. I never thought I would need it in a neighborhood like this. But there are many things I was surprised to learn about how "the other half" live.

Forgive me,
AM
P.S. I know how much you like haiku; maybe you'll like mine.
Children out playing
Their parents keep protecting
Their children hate them

P.P.S. In case you don’t like that one, here’s another.
A little frog
Hopped blithely across my path
And into my heart
AM

CHAPTER 2: MIRACLE

Chapter Two: Miracle!

Archbishop Michel Abruzzi sat at his desk in the far corner of his more than ample office. The old maple desk was intricately carved with sufficient overhang in the front for two visitors to pull up chairs and have room to write. There was a large Spanish oak table in the center of the room with nine chairs where he would work with small groups, four chairs on each side and a single chair at one end. The end chair was clearly for the archbishop; by construction and position it said I am the superior of all who sit here.
The high-backed chair at the desk was even more ornate and bespoke grandeaur that was, for the new archbishop, discomforting. Its arms were carved panthers and the leather seat cushion was wide and well-padded. Though the size of the chair was suitable, he filled it well, though there was not too much fat on his forty-year-old. When he was elevated to Archbishop six months before, he moved into the residence of the recently deceased Phillipe Cardinal Benetois and inherited the office. Afer having the books and papers boxed and stored, Michel had the inlaid gold filigree of the chair back covered with leather cushioning, leaving Anna Maria, the housekeeper, to wonder why he would hide so rich scrollwork.
"Anna Maria, has it come yet," he called to her. She came to the office door from the kitchen where she had been preparing something to serve Father Montaire who had a three o'clock appointment. "Not yet. Father Montaire should be here soon. Should I bring it to you while you are meeting with him?" Anna Maria was in her 60’s, under five feet tall, and had been with housekeeper in the residence for twelve years. Her gray hair was pulled tightly back into a bun, and Michel had yet to see her without an apron, the ties of which were wrapped twice around her tiny waist.
"No, that can wait until after Montaire leaves."
Anna Maria had already learned that the new archbishop was what she called “a deux.” His outer persona, in his office and out among the people of his flock, was outgoing and even flamboyant. But upstairs was the small apartment where he read and slept. When he entered there he was different. There he seemed sullen, and she felt a bit uncomfortable knocking on the door if she knew him to be inside.
Michel had all the furniture in his chamber removed and sold. The replacement furniture was a simple closet for his clothes and a few other well-worn plain pieces. The bed was little more than a cot. It was a room suited for a monk from the strictest order, not typical of a secular priest, which Michel was. The bathroom, which had modern plumbing, was originally tiled in white and had a row of ornate pieces at eye level which ran around the room. Each of them had a red fleurs-de-lis baked on a white background. Michel had them removed and replaced with ordinary white ones. The new tiles did not quite match and looked rather like a patch job, which is what it was. Michel was pleased and Anna Maria perplexed.
It bothered her to see what was hanging on a hook the on the side of the closet. It was a woven leather handle with five leather straps attached. Each strap was knotted several times along their length. Each knot had a metal barb inserted in it. Anna Maria had seen these whips a few times in books and knew what they were used for, but seeing it hanging there next to Michel’s simple clothes was chilling. Of course, she was unsure it were ever used and hoped it wasn’t. Self-flagellation was, after all, something religious people did centuries ago and was certainly unexpected of a modern Archbishop of Paris.
The doorbell rang. It was the postman and Father Montaire at the same time. Father came in and greeted Anna Maria as the postman handed her the day's mail. Montaire had only to cross the street from the Offices of the Archdiocese of Paris to the residence, but it was a bitter day in January and even the short walk across the street was out of the question without a coat, which he hung up on the coat rack in the vestibule. Anna Maria brought the large manila envelope to Michel who slit it open as he swung around with his back to the door. He pulled out a copy of Time magazine, in English.
“Father Montaire has arrived,” she said of the prelate who stood in the doorway to Michel’s office waiting to be invited in.
"Stupide Americains!" Michel blurted out, and with a sweeping motion raised the magazine and slammed it on the desk. He kicked his desk hard then picked up the magazine in his thick hands, twisted it, and threw it across the room. It slammed against the window and landed splayed with its covers facing up in the sunlight.
It was the current December 7, 1979 edition. On the cover was a picture of Ayatullah Khomeini with a banner under the word Time proclaiming Khomeini “Man of the Year.”
Anna Maria hurried out of the room and Montaire quipped, “So, what’s new?”
Michel turned to his friend who was grinning like a boy.
"Did you see this?”
"Yes, it’s glowing in the sun. Nice likeness."
“Time's MAN OF THE YEAR!” exclaimed Michel.
"So?"
"So? Time just canonized Khomeini for the Muslim world. That cover,” he said pointing to the magazine, “will be reprinted in every paper in every Muslim community in the world. It will be translated in every local language.” Michel’s narrow eyes grew even tighter. “None of the Time article will be reproduced, of course, but articles will proclaim that even the American infidels recognize how great and holy is the Ayatollah.”
Montaire fetched the magazine.
“One of the most dangerous men in the entire world,” continued Michel, “and the Americans think that because they are an ocean away, this menace will not touch their soil. How naive can they be?”
“That’s their charm,” offered Montaire. “Of course, it will be worse for us here.” Montaire, only a few years older than Michel but with a full head of salt and pepper hair and looking much younger, was his closest friend and confident.
“Of course it will --- stupid American press.” Montaire handed the magazine to Michel who flipped it on his desk disgustedly.
Michel had seen hours of the televised Iran Contra affair and recalled Oliver North’s being pummeled for spending public money on a elaborate security system for his own home. North said it was necessary because he knew that he was on the hit list of the most dangerous man it the world. When asked who that most dangerous man might be, he answered, “Osama bin Laden.” Most of the congressmen did not know then who that was.
"They can't even identify their real dangers,” continued Michel. “Bin Laden's tentacles will one day reach into the very heart of America. And they lionize Khomeini!”
Montaire was silent.
“Let's get started." The two clerics sat down to discuss the business at hand, which did not include Michel’s own experience with the Ayatollah.
Khomeini was at that time living in Paris in exile from Iran. He was preaching openly to stir Iranian Muslims back home and to provoke the deposing of the Shah. When Michel was raised to archbishop, nearly every major religious leader from Paris and even some from neighboring countries came to visit and congratulate the young bishop on his appointment. Catholics for sure came, but so did every denomination of Protestantism in Paris. Rabbis came as did a contingent of Hindus. They were photographed with Michel on the front steps of the residence shaking hands, and Paris papers carried the news.
There was no contact from Khomeini, and when Michel’s office invited him, Michel was informed that the Ayatollah found no reason to chat with the "local leader of the infidels."
Montaire, as was his wont, put a positive spin on the snub by pointing out that it is best to know one’s enemies and even better to keep them from one’s friends lest the one taint the others.
Michel genuinely admired Father Montaire because he was a sincere and loyal friend. He had entered the seminary after a few years in the business world, but Michel found him rather less assertive than his intelligence demanded. He was a piece of American white bread, and a bit soggy at that, who was happy taking any side in a discussion. For Michel who loved him, Montaire lacked the crust of French bread. Aside from his priestly pious attitude and his lack of backbone, there was one feature in him that could not be denied. Montaire was a very good finance man. A graduate from La Sorbonne with honors, he was invaluable to the diocese and to Michel personally.
Montaire, of course, knew quite a bit about Michel Abruzzi, some things that no one else knew. He knew that Michel's grandfather Abruzzi came from Italy as a young man with a good education, lots of ambition and little else. He started working for a very small French bank and married a French girl. After a few years he started his own bank. It was not clear to Michel’s father where the starting money came from, but supposedly it was provided him by family in Italy. In any event, when the grandfather died, Michel’s father, Albert, inherited the business. As it became clear that neither Michel nor his younger sister, Michele, had any interest in banking, Albert decided to sell his interest in the bank. It was a simple move: he took the bank public, then liquidated his personal holdings. Before the transaction, however, Albert had made both Michel and his sister partners in the bank. Upon the bank’s public offering, Albert set up trust funds for each child in a Swiss bank. The siblings then each had nearly twenty million American dollars in a trust fund managed entirely and secretly from Switzerland. That enabled Michel to to finance from his own funds a number of local efforts to help the Parisian poor and establish a scholarship for needy high school graduates. Montaire would in time see more charity from the Archbishop as he handled all of Michel's personal finances as well as those of the Diocese of Paris.

l

After nine years as Archbishop Michel was comfortable with his office. On this day he came down to say daily Mass at precisely six thirty, his usual time. Anna Maria waited at the bottom of the stairs to remind him that she would not be there in the afternoon as one of her children was coming from Bologne to visit. His footsteps were heavy as he rumbled down toward her.
When the Archbishop moved into the residence years before he had the carpet changed in the main entrance and on the stairs to the second floor. He had the first flight of stairs carpeted to match the entrance, but left the bare wood on the landing and top two flight of stairs. From the entrance one could not see the uncarpeted floor. Ascending the stairs gave Michel the feeling that he was going into another dimension where only God and the angels accompanied him. Anna Maria thought he did not carpet the top flights to save money, but she knew, as did so many others in Paris, that he give huge sums to charity. Money was certainly not the reason for his omission.
"You’re here early, Anna," he said matter-of-factly.
"You remember that I won't be here this afternoon. I came in to clean before I go."
"That’s not necessary. We can do without it for a day."
"No we can't."
"Of course,” he said with a smile. “Thank you for coming in. If I don't see you later, I'll see you tomorrow."
"Breakfast will be ready when you come back from Mass."
He went to the tiny chapel in the back of the residence to say his private Mass followed by a half hour of meditation. More and more his meditation focused not only the Church of Paris but on the spreading evil that attacked the Church worldwide. Catholics were slipping away from the Church in great numbers, secularism and agnosticism were already wide spread, and the physical as well as spiritual attacks of Islam were growing. The leadership of the Church would have to shift gears from vigilance to proactive action against its enemies. "Archangel Michael, please help me lead the way," he prayed.
His breakfast was the ordinary baguette or two with jam and black coffee, but it was the dinners he ate at the several weekly affairs his office required to which he attributed his weight. There would be another fund raising dinner at eight that night, and that meant another large meal tempting him beyond his control, and he would once again retire to his bed with a full and uncomfortable stomach. He had resolved to show at least some restraint that night.
Michel started taking his walks a few years earlier in the belief that the exercise would counteract the dinners; however, despite their increase, the length of his walks did nothing to decrease the length of his belt.
Before slipping out the side door leading to the alley, Michel would tell his secretary, Herbert Mintz, that he would be out taking his constitutional and that Father Herbert should “save the Church in my absence” or some like comment.
Michel enjoyed wearing layman’s clothes and passing on the street unnoticed. No one saw a middle-aged somewhat round man with a tonsure, “naturally provided” he liked to say, walk along the boulevards and side streets of the most beautiful city in the world.
Aside from the exercise his walks provided, Michel enjoyed the feel of the street, its people, its shops, and its buildings with old balconies and fascinating masonry. Even walking through poor neighborhoods where violence was not unknown, Michel felt a communion with the workers hurrying about and the vendors hawking their wares. The smells and sounds of the city seemed real in those neighborhoods, and while Michel was not of those people, he felt closer to them being where they lived their lives, most of them in just a few square blocks.
Once he took Montaire with him along the Rue des Mains, a street where anything could be bought at any price. Row upon row of carts lined the narrow sidewalk, and the two men interrupted their conversation as they neared two women screaming at each other. The younger woman was accused of having taken a scarf without paying. At the same time the older woman’s husband came running from around the stand to grab the younger woman and keep her from running off. Few other shoppers or venders paid them any attention.
“Nice place you’ve taken us, Monsieur Archbishop,” said Montaire taking his friend’s arm.
“Don’t be afraid, my man,” said Michel with a grin. “I’ll protect you from that screech owl.”
“It’s not the owl I’m afraid of. We’re getting too sedentary for a mob scene.”
“Then pray to St. Michael the Archangel to protect you.”
On another day, Michel walked alone along the Rue De Pais, a broad avenue favored by tourists. The avenue abutted a small inlet with a few piers for fishermen to bring ashore their catches. Seagulls swirled above, waiting for fishermen to filet their flounders or throw over their chum, and local restaurants, famous for their fresh fish, sent out their chefs to buy right from the docks. It was impossible, even on rainy days, not to have at least a handful of tourists watch the boats, the sales, and the filleting all to the tune of laughing gulls waiting their turn. The locals bought the filleted flounder and sole that lay like prizes on the well-worn fishing boats, and once or twice, so did Michel.
Aside from the idyllic scene played out every day of the year on the Rue de Pais, Michel was taken by the different languages he heard spoken along the avenue and down the side streets to the piers. What Michel lacked in a musical ear, he more than compensated for by his ear for language. He could speak fluently in five languages, and his hope was that before he died he would be able at least to understand all the languages spoken at the docks of the Rue de Pais. But there was little chance. He knew French, Italian, and English, of course. He was better at Dutch than German, but did reasonably well in both. He could get by in Spanish but not Portuguese. His problems were the Eastern languages. He understood only some Russian and Farsi, but Mandarin and Cantonese were more than a bit troublesome, and Korean was out of the question. Of course, there was Latin.
On this summer’s day, the normality of the hustle bustle which comforted Michel on his walks would be different. It was late June and it was hot, but it was not yet the dreaded, humid days of August which so many natives of Paris managed to escape. He decided to walk around to the north side of the inlet where there were private homes and piers for their boats. No business was conducted there, and locals, keeping away from tourists and fishermen, walked their dogs and jogged in relative peace. Michel wondered what it would be like to live in one of the charming homes overlooking the inlet, to get up in the morning, walk down to the dock, and take your boat out on the Seine. It would be a good life, he thought, simple and natural, the way it had been for centuries. The smell of the salt air was invigorating and a welcome change from the indoor life that was his lot.
The docks were newly painted for the season, and the sun glared off the whitened wood planks. This section of the dock could accommodate about ten small boats. Most were small power boats large enough to seat four or six. Not more. A few sailboats were mixed in the lot.
Michel walked to the edge of the dock and shielded his eyes with his hand to better see a small sailboat with a red triangle on its mainsail trying to make it back to the dock. It was a good wind for sailing, but the gusts made it a little tough for the young sailor who seemed no more than twelve. He was now about three meters from the dock and standing at the mast. He was trying to furl the lowered mainsail around the boom, but the boom was swinging about too much. The other person, the captain, was clearly the boy's mother. She sat in the back of the boat at the helm, one hand planted on the stern rail, shouting directions that Michel thought were less than helpful: "That's not the way he does it! Tie that rope to that metal thing on the side" she barked.
Michel smiled. Clearly the ferocity of the mother was having no effect whatever, and the boy continued to grapple with the uncooperative sail that flapped in the wind.
Two things happened at once, and Michel was never sure which came first. A power boat passed close to the sailboat at a speed too fast to be considered a polite approach to a dock area, and a gust of wind came up the inlet. The sailboat rocked unsteadily as the wind nudged the boom which had not been properly secured. The boy who had crouched to gather the flapping mainsail straightened up just as the boom swung, hitting the boy’s with a sickening thud. Michel gasped as the boy was knocked overboard. The woman began screaming and the boy went under.
Michel moved by instinct. He striped off his jacket, pulled off his shoes and dived into the water. In short, powerful strokes he reached the boat and reached down down for the completley overwhelmed boy. He could not reach him. Michel drew a breath and dived like a snorkler for a conch. The water was cold, more than three meters deep, and clear enough to see the boy, his hair straight above his head. Michel grabbed for it and pulled him up such that it allowed him to get under the boy and push him to the top. As Michel reached the surface, he drew in water with his gasp and began choking.
The woman was screaming uncontrollably. “Davide! Davide!”
Michel tried to say he had the boy, but all he could do was cough up water. He was able finally to draw a clear breath when the hull of the boat knocked him on the head and the boy slipped from his hands. Michel grabbed for him again, but it was in vain, and Michel lost sight of the boy.
“He’s behind you,” screamed the mother, but Michel heard nothing. The boy was barely conscious but was able to move his legs keeping his head bobbing in and out of the water.
"Hold on old man," heard Michel as he tread water. Somehow there were two men in the water. One said to the other, "Let him go, I've got him."
In a swift move the man rolled the boy so that his head and body were on his own chest. One hand on the boy and the other stroking, he made for the ladder on the dock.
"Are you all right? You’re doing fine. Hang on to me,” the the voice from behind.
“The boy,” said Michel.
“They got him. Are you all right? Do you think you can make it to the ladder?”
“Yes. Yes,” answered Michel. “Good. Take your time. That way,” said Michel’s rescuer pointing him to the dock ladder. “I’m right behind you. You did great.”
Michel managed his way up the ladder and sat on the pier. The boy was on his back getting artificial respiration, unneeded since he was breathing fine, and his mother was still screaming from the boat, its boom swinging back and forth.
“Someone tie up that boat before she has a heart attack,” said Michel’s rescuer. “I don’t need any more trouble.” He was wringing his pants legs. “New pants,” he said to himself shaking his head disgustedly.
“Thank you, young man,” offered Michel watching the water in rivulets run down his tan slacks.
“Not at all,” said the young man still busy with his pants. “I’m glad I could help.”
“Here, to pay for those pants,” said Michel offering the cash he had in his pocket. “I’m afraid it’s a bit wet.”
“Oh, no, sir. I’ll just have them dry cleaned.”
“Then this will pay for it,” said Michel with a smile. “I have plenty; take it.”
“That’s nice of you,” said the young man returning the smile. “My name is Alex,” he said taking the money and holding out his and for a shake.
“I’m Michel. You did a good thing, Alex,” he answered shaking the man’s wet, narrow hand.”
“You saved the boy. I saw you jump in from down the promenade.”
“And you saved me,” said Michel, feeling strong enough to stand.
“Maybe you better wait for the ambulance. It’ll be here in a minute. They called as soon as they saw you jump in.”
“I’m really all right,” objected Michel. It was only a few minutes before two ambulances made their way to the pier.
But Michel was dizzy, and the cold was finally making an impression, and though he objected once again, he was convinced to get in. Before the ambulance left Michel heard some men talking to a police officer who had just come on the scene.
"What happened?" the officer asked.
"The kid fell out of his boat,” he said pointing to Davide who has on a stetcher being wheeled into one of the ambulances. “He couldn’t handle the sail. It hit him good. The old man jumped in to save the kid and nearly got himself drowned. Kids that can't sail shouldn't sail without their father, and old, fat men shouldn’t try to be heroes."
The officer walked slowly to the ambulance where the mother was holding her son’s hand. He would get all the names, file a report, and that would be that. Case closed, he thought. Michel, who was already angry with himself for being talked into the ambulance, saw the officer getting the woman’s name as he was taken to the hospital.
It was run by The Sisters of Mercy, and one of the nuns in the emergency room checked Michel's pulse, blood pressure and temperature. She gave no indication that she recognized him and continued her duties as if he were any other patient. When asked for his name he said Michel Abruzzi. No one seemed to attach any significance to the name.
“The miracle” began to unfold before Michel’s eyes. Four men came running in pushing a gurney, rushing with glazed eyes to the main operating room. A man followed carrying a crude bucket that looked to Michel as if it had come from a construction site.
Michel sensed from the faces of the EMT’s that this was a special emergency and asked the nun, who had come in with them but who now stood behind as the emergency room door closed behind the gurney, what had happened. "He was working on the building project down the street. He fell into a big fan, the kind used to dry cement. It cut off his hand."
A young reporter came in, a PRESS card chained around his neck. A distraught woman being helped in followed, her head down and sobbing. Nurses ushered her to a chair and a nun sat with her, holding her like a mother would hold an injured child. The reporter, standing over them with pen and pad, asked questions.
It was a half hour before Michel was released from the hospital, and asked at the desk for a taxi. It would be a few minutes. Michel went to the wife and said: "I am sorry." His arm on her shoulder he added, "All we can do now is pray."
The woman looked up at him and saw only a tired man in damp, crumpled clothes. He certainly was not a doctor.
“Can I help you?” asked the reporter trying to protect the dsitraught woman from the seedy looking archbishop. Michel shook his head and started toward the door to wait for his cab. He heard a doctor introduce himself, and Michel turned to the wife whose head turned up to the doctor with plaintive, crying eyes.
"I’m Doctor Fournier. I'll be operating on your husband.” He was tall and distinguised, and his voice was soft and deep. “I have to tell you there is little chance of saving the hand, but we will do the very best we can for him." The woman closed her eyes in pain and nodded.
Michel instinctively joined his right index finger to his thumb and made a small cross toward the Doctor's back as he walked away. The reporter noticed the oddity.
"Who is he," asked the reporter in a voice to nobody in particular but to all who where standing with him.
A nun said: "I don't know, but I’ve seen him before. He looks a little like… but I’m not sure … it can’t be."
"Who can’t it be?"
"He looks something like the …, but it can't be him."
"Can't be who?"
"The Archbishop."
The reporter just stared at her.
"Bishop Abruzzi, Michel Abruzzi?” demanded the reporter.
“Yes. I think that’s who it is."
"Did he show any identification when he checked in, if he checked in?"
"I didn’t check him in. You’ll have to ask at the window,” she said pointing over her shoulder.
Michel was at the door when the taxi pulled up.
“Is that your cab?” called the reporter as he hurried over to him.
“Yes it is,” said Michel not looking back. "Let me get the door, sir," he said.
He opened the door with his back to the glass so that he was facing Michel as he opened it. He looked closely at him, seeing up close his dark, joyless eyes and Italian nose. He was the archbisop, and this was very possibly a story thought the young, reedy reporter.

l

The charity-dinner gala that night gave Michel no joy. He was exhausted physically and emotionally, yet he shared the experience with no one. His secretary sitting by his side at the large table at the Cotillion Terrace where such functions were often held, mentioned that Michel looked piqued and asked if he were all right.
“Of course,” said Michel. “It’s just that I lack the spirit for these things; they are tedious.”
“Monsignor Benette sent the books this afternoon,” mentioned Father Mintz. Then he added as if to prompt the prelate to tell him of his whereabouts, “You were out for some time.”
“Remarkable observation, Herbert. I must remember to write you a commendation."
“Forgive me Archbishop,” replied the secretary without looking up.
The next day by seven he had been to mass and was sitting in the dining room at breakfast flipping through Le Monde. It was surprising that there was no mention of the events of the day before --- nothing about the boy or the man who lost his hand.
“Anna Maria,” he called. “See if you can get me Humanite, and Figaro. Both dailies had small stories about the severed hand but nothing about the boy and no mention of the outcome of the operation.
Sunday was uneventful, but on Monday morning when he sat down to have his two croissants and coffee, Anna Maria handed him a copy of Figaro. There was his picture from their archive and a banner headline across the page reading "Archbishop Performs Miracle!"
“There are reporters outside the residence. They’re asking for an audience,” said Anna Maria with consternation. “There’s a crowd.”
“Where’s Father Mintz?”
“He hasn’t arrived yet.”
“When he does, tell him to send the reporters away and then see me.”
The article was written by Pierre Langone, the reporter from the hospital. Michel read the story twice, underling some sentences and phrases as he went through it a second time. His phone call to Mintz went unanswered and Michel left a message instructing that he wanted to meet with him and a few others to discuss the article in the paper.
At the top of the article Langone quoted Dr. Fournier: “It was certainly a miracle that he has any movement in his fingers." He explained that the hand had been completely severed in an industrial accident and that Dr. Fournier reattached it in an eleven hour surgery involving two other specialists and dozens of medical aids and nurses. On the second day after the surgery the workman had slight movement of his fingers.
The article went on to say that Archbishop Abruzzi, who had been treated at the hospital the day the workman had been brought in, was seen by several people including the reporter, make “a special sign” on the workman’s body and “whispered an invocation under his breath.” According to a hospital spokeswoman, the Archbishop had been brought to the ER as a precautionary measure after he had dived into the Pais Inlet to save a drowning boy.
Langone had the basic facts correct: Michel had jumped into the water to help a boy who fell in, got taken to the hospital, gave a blessing to an injured workman, and left. As for the rest, Langone ventured into creative reportage. In truth, the reporter had interviewed some people at the pier and managed to talk to one of the men that jumped in the water to help.
But ther hungry reporter gave Michel a larger part in the rescue than he actually had. The article described the Archbishop as comforting the injured man's wife and praying with her. He was said to have blessed the doctor before he went into the operating room and to have blessed the room itself from outside the doors.
Langone's article reported:

"The Archbishop appeared in the hospital in the clothes of a simple shepherd and an unidentified orderly reported that Michel’s body showed a bright blue light around his head when he gave his blessing. No one else was said to see the glow."

At the meeting with his staff Michel was decisive. He would hold a press conference that afternoon at two to set the story straight. That would give him enough time to craft precise phrases that would likely become soundbites that very well could be heard all the way to Rome.
The diocesan meeting room was dark, paneled, and smoke-filled. The two large Venetian chandeliers were ornate and certainly not practical for reading, but the chairs were well-padded and helped some of the older men sneak micro naps during some of the marathons. The only change Michel had made to the room was to hang a large tapestry of Elmo’s fire surrounding a schooner at sea. As a lad he read about St. Elmo, the patron saint of sailors, and admired him. On that day it seemed a propos.
“We must make sure someone from Le Monde is there. The tabloids are a disgrace,” Michel told the priests. What he did not say that Le Monde was read world-wide and published in six languages, including Farsi, and that insured that the growing Muslim sector in Paris would see the story. “Also send a memo to the diocese that there will be a meeting here at four.”
“We have an appointment with…” started Mintz.
“Cancel all appointments today. We have a mess here and we can’t let it get worse.”
“We are going to need something in the Sunday bulletins. Father DuTale, see if you can get the pastors to give us space --- every church-- and meet with me at six. We’ll put together a few paragraphs.”
“Now, we must consider TV.” Michel asserted. “They’ll want interviews.” But after a few minutes of discussion it was decided that appearing on TV might be seen as a self-promoting.
“So they’ll have to make do with the press conference. Finished.”
The press conference was held in the conference room, and when Michel made his entrance an appropriate fifteen minutes late, he found the room lit with 500W klieg lights, six microphones, two cameras, and packed with noisy reporters. He wore a plain cassock and his usual crucifix, a simple piece made of two grapevine stems wrapped at the joining by thin vines. It hung around his neck by a tightly woven, heavier trio of grapevines. His purple cap, covering his bald spot, was surrounded by thin, close-cropped gray hair. Michel made an elaborate sign of the cross to the congregation and stood at the head of the conference table making eye contact to as many of the reporters he could. The room was silent in seconds.
“Thank you for coming,” he said barely above a whisper as he lowered himself deliberately into the bishop’s intricate Luis XIV arm chair. “Would you kindly close the lights and cameras.” Almost immediately questions were called out, but Michel held up his hand to stop them.
“There will be no cameras,” he said firmly and waited for the klieg lights to go out. “If you don’t mind, I would prefer not to take questions at this time. Rather I would like to tell you in my own words what transpired both at the inlet and the hospital. This will be most helpful in writing your stories.”
“But we were told this would be a press conference,” called out one of the reporters.
“You were misinformed,” said Michel sternly. He held his left fist in his right hand on the table. “I would prefer no interruptions.” It was clear that Archbishop Michel Abruzzi was in charge.
He spoke without notes, easily, frankly, and without hesitation, and no one could suspect that he was delivering a well-rehearsed commentary on Friday’s events.
Michel started by saying there was no miracle at the hospital, stating that a miracle in the eyes of the church was something that could not be explained by any ordinary means and that only the Church investigators after a great deal of research could pronounce a miracle. A successful operation, even with extraordinary results, is more likely the result of the extraordinary skill of a very gifted surgeon than a miracle in the eyes of the Church. Each of us, he explained, experiences things in our lives that are unexpectedly good outcomes for which we or others prayed. These are answers to prayers and should encourage us to appreciate the effect of God's beneficence in our daily lives. In this situation God acted through the surgeon. The miracle worker, in the vernacular, was Dr. Fournier. He and his colleagues, through the Lord, were the ones who deserved our thanks and praise.
Michel pointed out that he was not dressed in “shepherds clothes” as has been reported but merely in the ordinary dress of an ordinary man. As for his jumping into the water to save a drowning boy, that was what any Frenchman would do under the circumstances. Then he smiled sheepishly, “You know, we old men think of ourselves as forever young and certainly able to swim as well as when we were stronger.” The reporters laughed, admiring his modesty.
“And now,” said Michel sensing he had won his audience and rising from his seat, “this old man has much work to do, so I thank you for coming and for your patience. Go with God.” He blessed the group and ignored the few reporters who insisted on asking further questions.
That night Michel went to the kneeler in his room as he always did before he retired. It was a plain wooden piece with no pad to cushion his knees. In front of it, hanging on the wall was a crucifix with a relief of Jesus, in pain and bleeding from his wounds. Michel knelt and prayed, but soon began to cry, a few tears at first, then a flood of sorrow, grief and self-loathing. This day he had acted in the interest of Michel Abruzzi, not the Jesus hanging in pain for Michel’s sins on the cross.
Michel knew well the effect his words to the press would have; he planned for it, and wanted it. But there was no joy. God had given him the gift to persuade, and Michel was not using it in His service but to further his own career. Was it the office which made him the calculating fox, or was it his own pride? His was a gifted intellect with impure motives. His words to the press would help the Church in a number of ways, but they could not mask the thread of ego and its attendant desire that lurked deep inside.
Michel tried to pray but it was impossible. God would not be moved as long as the flame of desire burned in his chest. He tapped his heart and repeated his unworthiness, but God would grant him no peace. "Eli, Eli lama sabacthani," the words Mathew wrote in the original Aramaic, attributing them to the dying Christ on the cross. "My God, My God why hast thou forsaken me?"
He would have to atone for his damnable hubris even if it meant that it be beaten out of him. He walked to his closet, tears filling his eyes, and reached up without looking. His hand felt the leather, and soon the leather felt his back.

CHAPTER 3: O LITTLE TOWN OF BENSONHURST

Chapter Three: O Little Town of Bensonhurst

When Irene Malle’s husband left her and Argo in 1972, Argo was starting school in the seventy-year-old P.S. 12 building in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. They lived in an apartment over the Chiffon Bakery on 65th St., and the walk to school was only three blocks, but it was a particularly stressful three blocks for the frail six-year-old.
Argo could read by age five and could write by the time he entered first grade at age seven. His ability with language was not impeded by the fact that he had few playmates and preferred to stay at home with his mother. When the television stopped working and there was no money to have it repaired, Irene encouraged her precocious child to read for entertainment. She taught her son to write the alphabet in block letters, and in little time he was writing his name and hers. But when she sent him to kindergarten at age six, trouble began.
The boys in the Italian working class neighborhood found Argo an easy target, and even the least of the neighborhood boys found bullying him a sure way of raising their esteem among the others. Frequently Argo would come home crying because he was unable to defend himself, and the more he cried, the more he had to tolerate their cruelty. Gary Conn was Argo’s age but much bigger, and he found Argo a particularly attractive punching bag. Compounding the problem was that Gary lived between the bakery and the school.
Kindergarten presented its own problems for Argo who found the basement classroom intolerable. The class was noisy and smelled of stale milk because of the rubberized tablecloths that held the odor long after the numerous accidents, which were daily routines. The teacher would inexplicably place the cartons of milk delivered to her classroom on the radiator until snack time, and by the time it was served to the children it was warm and tasted oddly like the tablecloths.
Much of the school day consisted of drawing with thick crayons on large newsprint replete with chunks of wood splinters. Argo complained to his mother that the crayons were too big for his hand and that the colors were duller than the Crayolas his mother provided at home. Music appreciation seemed to play an inordinate part of the curriculum which provided “instruments” for each child. The music was to be attained by striking two sticks together, banging on metal faced tambourines, blowing on plastic flutes, or striking tin drums with small drumsticks --- all to the tune of whatever the teacher played on the ancient upright piano. The daily cacophony was dizzying.
It was forbidden to teach reading and writing in that 1971 kindergarten, and as Argo could already read and knew how to copy letters of the alphabet, there seemed little value in his attending class. That fact coupled with the assault on Argo’s sensibilities led the six-year-old on some days to walk straight past the school and wander the streets of Bensonhurst.
After a few such truancies, the school officials decided that Argo Malle was “school-phobic” and advised his mother to keep him home until first grade at which time he might mature enough to work and play well with others. This was good news for Argo but not Irene who was forced to leave her child at home alone while she went to work.
Fortunately, Argo was content playing by himself and could be trusted not to answer the door or telephone. Argo’s favorite toy was a set of plastic cowboys and Indians which could be set on plastic horses and which were kept in a shoebox in the hall closet. He also had a cap pistol and holster with which he played in front of the mirror behind his mother’s bedroom door. His G.I. Joe helmet firmly in place, Argo shot his .45 at the enemy in the mirror. When Irene found him scraping the few grains of gunpowder from the roll of caps with the intent of making a “bomb,” the caps were taken away. The gun lay untouched and useless on the floor of the closet until her mother gave it away.
On the first day of first grade, Argo left for school with only a little less trepidation than that of his mother. Within five minutes of having left, Argo met Gary Conn and returned crying. Irene felt that if Argo had had a father to teach him how to fight, things would go better for her son, but she had failed to keep her man from leaving them. Guilt and frustration welled up as she looked down at her crying child, and she screamed at the boy to go back outside and defend himself. When he refused, she grabbed him by the hand and walked him to the school. The teacher marked him late, and the principal assured her that she would speak to the children about bullying. She also suggested that Irene accompany her son back and forth to school for the first week. That would mean that she would be late for work, of course, but something had to be done.
On most days Argo managed to avoid confrontations and got to school and back without incident, but on the days he was attacked, he would come home, using the key that hung around his neck to get back into the apartment. Irene could do nothing about those days, and Argo’s report cards always had his number of days absent circled in red. Being a single mother with a boy like Argo living in a neighborhood like Bensonhurst was not easy.
Fortunately, the landlords, Mr. and Mrs. Machiarolla, lived directly beneath Irene and Argo, and they owned the Chiffon bakery. Their children were grown, and Argo became one of their grandchildren. On many evenings, Argo ate supper with them and on those occasions got to watch TV. The Machiarollas went to bed by 9 and were up at 4, but they were available the rest of the time, and Irene often took advantage of their kindness when she had to work late or when Argo was sick and needed babysitting.
The Machiarolla’s son, Tommy M., lived in a brownstone on 66th Street, two blocks away, with his wife and son Joseph, who was in Argo’s class. Tommy M. was a well-known and respected figure in Bensonhurst, and he had money. Since it was unsure what he did for a living, Irene was virtually certain he was a Mafioso. Given the neighborhood, her suspicion was justified. It also was correct. But Tommy was good to Irene and to his parents, and while his folks were too busy at the bakery on Sunday mornings to go to Mass, Tommy picked up Irene and Argo and drove them to church along with his family. He always had the latest model Cadillac, and for Irene and Argo, it was their only brush with wealth. Tommy, it should be noted, was a major church benefactor at Brooklyn’s largest and most opulent church, Regina Pacis, Queen of Peace.
In fact, Tommy M. was the silent owner of several pizzerias. The stores were staffed by immigrants from Musina, Sicily and managed by Tommy’s associates. He ran things from the back room of the Knights of Columbus storefront on 18th Avenue. From there, Tommy M. laundered the Bonanno Family drug money, ran the entire New York numbers racket, and, on Tuesdays and Thursdays only, doled out favors to local residents who needed help of one type or other. Sometimes the help was a simple cash gift to tide a family over until work could be found. Other times it was a more complicated task like helping an unconnected businessman with a competitor. Sometimes, it was to even a score. The idea of helping neighbors was the brainchild of Lucky Luciano who believed that local good will was good business. In this way, local citizens knew they had nothing to fear and much to gain by living in a neighborhood run by the Mafia, or Cosa Nostra as it was known then.
Tommy’s parents, who emigrated from Musina, did not approve of his activities, and though he continually asked them to sell the bakery and live a more comfortable life under his support, they steadfastly refused. The rotund Cosmo Machiarolla liked to work and was proud of his success, having arrived in America with nothing but his ability as a baker, which he had learned as an apprentice in Sicily. Carmen, his wife, supported her husband despite the prodding from their only child, though her arthritic knee made her retirement imminent.
In the summer of 1968, New York saw civil unrest reach its highest, most violent point. Starting in the black section of northern Brooklyn called Bedford-Stuyvesant and reaching to the southern border at Coney Island, bands of angry blacks swarmed through neighborhoods rioting. All police were called to duty, but still neighborhoods were burned, stores looted, and whites beaten. Everywhere along the path, that is, except for the square mile that was known as Bensonhurst. Even the angry mobs knew enough not to enter that neighborhood, which went about its business as if nothing were the matter.
Bensonhurst was mostly Italian and largely Jewish, and it was 100% white. When the city assigned a black welfare family to a house it had taken over through a government seizure, the house was burned before the family could move in. Despite the redline real estate laws, no Bensonhurst family ever sold a house to a black. In fact, homeowners never had the chance; real estate agents never brought black families to the neighborhood.
It was in the winter of 1970 that Tommy M. received a phone call from Father Gioffi, the pastor of Regina Pacis. The opulent Church had been vandalized, the sacristy violated, and bejeweled crucifixes, candlesticks, and chalices stolen. Newspapers ran front-page stories, and TV crews surrounded the church. Tommy M., a great believer in Lucky Luciano’s dictum that any media coverage was unprofitable and to be avoided, decided that this situation was different and allowed himself to be interviewed by the local ABC-TV affiliate.
“The people of the parish are devastated,” he told the reporter who introduced him only as a devoted parishioner. “Why anyone would violate a church is beyond understanding. I’m sure that whoever did it will realize that this was a big mistake and will return what was taken right away---and just the way everything was---with no damage. There’s no question about that.”
And there was no question. A day later, everything found its way back. No one seemed to know who took the items or why or how they came to be returned, and Bensonhurst returned comfortably to its cherished anonymity. Fr. Gioffi sent a basket of flowers to the home of Tommy M., and the card said only “Thank you.”
While Argo got to go to church every week with Joseph Machiarolla, they were not friends. Argo wasn’t part of the group of families whose fathers worked with Tommy M., and those outside that group were steadfastly avoided. The families were a clan, friendly to others, but from weddings to funerals, baptisms to first Communions, from birthday parties to barbeques, the families of the Bonanno Family socialized only among themselves. Irene was treated a bit differently only out of respect to Cosmo and Carmen; no such distinction reached down to the boys.
Joseph Machiarolla was a bright boy but did not like school and was often without his homework. Because of their last names, Argo and Joseph were often seated together, but Argo was different from the other boys, and Joseph did not like the difference. Argo’s being the teacher’s pet made things even more difficult.
Even in the third grade, Argo was still being bullied by Gary Conn, as well as by some others, but getting to school presented less of a problem since Argo circled Gary’s block on the way to school to keep from being seen. Now even though the classes in the grades were grouped according to ability, and Argo was in the best class, he was far more advanced than the others. Assigned work that the teacher would allow 40 minutes was completed by Argo in five, and reading lessons wherein each student in turn read a paragraph aloud was a particular waste of time for Argo. Mrs. Hanley decided that Argo would be a monitor for the Principal during the reading lessons. Sitting on the bench in the main office outside the Principal’s door would provide Argo the time to read independently, and on the occasion that the Principal needed a note delivered to a classroom, Argo would be the messenger. The situation was ideal for Argo.
It was on a warm day in May and Mrs. Reynolds, the Principal who three years earlier had decided that Argo was too immature for school, left her door open to the outer office to create a breeze. She and her assistant were discussing the letters that were going to be sent to parents of children who would be receiving bad report cards at the end of June unless improvement were shown. Argo heard Joseph Machiarolla’s name as one of the children whose parents would be receiving letters.
“I heard the Principal is sending a letter home to your parents,” Argo told Joseph that afternoon as the teacher was writing on the blackboard.
“What letter?”
“You’re gonna get a bad report card.”
“I don’t care.”
“Your father will,” said Argo with the same uncaring attitude.
Tommy M. chose not to send his child to Catholic school precisely because he knew that the nuns were far more demanding than public school teachers, and he wanted to reduce the chances of having his son run into problems. That Joseph was now causing him a problem in school was unacceptable, and his son was going to bear the brunt of his frustration. Joseph knew that angering his father was always a losing proposition and that school was going require some attention.
Joseph was unquestionably bright, but his short attention span made rote memorization difficult. Spelling and the multiplication table were particular banes. By the end of the third grade it was expected that children learn the multiplication table up to the 10’s, and Joseph on a good day could get only half of them correct.
Mrs. Hanley’s means of teaching and testing students was largely oral, and she would drill the number facts round robin style during arithmetic lessons. Sitting at her desk, she would call a student’s name in a most dreadful tone then give the multipliers. The student called out the answer.
“Joseph Machiarolla,” she intoned. “Seven times eight.”
“Forty-nine?”
“Wrong!” she said putting a mark in a book. “Argo Malle?”
“Fifty-six.”
“Correct.”
These lessons would go on for the approved forty-minutes before she engaged the class in another lesson, often round robin reading, at which time Argo was excused to the Principal’s office as a monitor.
Joseph had to show major improvement if he were to escape his father’s wrath, and while his spelling did improve, he seemed to have a mental block for multiplication facts. Mrs. Hanley made flash cards for Joseph who had to practice with them as extra homework, but the improvement was minimal.
After another week of round robin drills, Mrs. Hanley declared a test for the next day. All books and papers had to be cleared from the desks, which were tables for two with storage under the tabletop. As usual, no whispering was allowed, and anyone caught doing so would receive a demerit and a zero for the test. But Mrs. Hanley’s mistake was in failing to require that pencils be stored, and Argo held on to his.
“Joseph Machiarolla,” she called from her desk. “Six times eight!”
“Forty-eight,” answered Joseph, certain of his answer having read the number written on the table by Argo.
It was an unintended consequence that Argo’s help made him a fast friend of Joseph Machiarolla, but had he planned it, Argo could not have been more fortunate. For one thing, Argo was able to walk directly to school without fear of meeting Gary Conn on the way. No one in the neighborhood bullied or even teased him, and Argo was now to be included in all the games after school and on weekends. The latter turned out to be a mixed blessing, but not being assailed on a regular basis was a boon, and instructive.
Not long after the multiplication test, Argo’s class was dismissed for the day at precisely the same time as Gary Conn’s class burst out of the doors and ran for the street. Gary’s unbound joy at his release was no doubt instrumental in his shoving Argo from behind and sending him headlong to the pavement at the bottom of the school steps. The palms of both hands took the brunt of the fall, and they were scraped raw. The left knee was also scraped as the thin cotton pants offered little protection. Argo began to cry, but when he saw that it was Gary Conn who had bowled him over, he held back his tears.
“Hey, you,” said Joseph Machiarolla running at Gary, grabbing him by his shirt. In his toughest street language, Joseph warned Gary never to touch Argo again and told him that if Argo were ever to be set upon by him or by anyone else, Joseph would hold him responsible. Gary was to be Argo’s protector, and if he failed in that capacity, Joseph would beat him. Gary’s eyes were wide and frightened, and Argo saw for the first time a little boy instead of a little monster. Then, in a flash, Joseph began punching Gary and cursing until a teacher stepped in. Argo had become a protected personage in P.S. 12.
Being a friend of Joseph Machiarolla, as was being a friend of his father, was not always without its downside, however.
After lunch, students were required to take recess in the schoolyard. Boys and girls played dodge ball in the winter, and in the spring and fall, boys played softball and girls had jump rope contests and played potsy. Basketball and handball were always in season, but only boys played them. Argo played only in dodge ball games because all that was required was to avoid being hit by the soft rubber ball. Being rather small and naturally agile, he was good at the game and sometimes he would win by being the only one unhit. Most of the time, however, he watched the others play, choosing to stand close to the teacher on duty. All of the teachers in the school knew Argo or knew about him, and while they should have encouraged him to play with the others more than they did, they found talking with the boy a delight as they served on rotated yard duty.
When school started after Labor Day, Argo was in a different fourth grade class from Joseph, who had been placed in the middle ability class. But that was not the only change. The rule in grades four through six was that all the boys had to participate in all team games. Softball gloves were given to those boys without them, and for forty minutes a day, Argo became a ballplayer.
Team captains were the best two players who got to choose on an alternate basis those players who would be on their respective teams. Argo was always the last chosen, and if there happened to be an uneven number of boys in the pool, the captains would choose odds or evens to determine who would get Argo. The loser got him.
As most of the boys were right-handed and hit naturally to the left side of the diamond, Argo was always assigned to play on the right side and as far from home plate as possible. As every boy had to play, and as there were more than twenty 4th grade boys, outfields usually had six or seven players. The lesser outfielders would play behind the better ones thereby virtually guaranteeing that players like Argo could not hurt the team by a misplay in the field. Their making out at bat was a foregone conclusion, but the sides generally managed to divide evenly the sure outs, and their piddling grounders gave a chance for the star infielders to show their stuff.
Joseph was the second best player in the grade; by far the best player, and opposing captain unless he was absent that day, was Rocco Bandello. Rocco was significantly larger than the other boys, and he batted left-handed, which meant he almost always hit to the right side of the field, and most of those hits were long flies to right field. The typical strategy when “Lefty” got up was to move the lesser players, who were put in right field because left handed batters hardly there. That move suited Argo just fine though the other right fielders complained. It was a good idea in principle, but Lefty usually hit the ball so hard that even the best outfielders could not catch it.
On this day, Argo was on Joseph’s team, and on the two occasions Lefty batted, Joseph switched outfields. Recess was almost over, and Lefty was up with two out and a runner on first base. Joseph, who played shortstop, did not call for the switch. Instead, he left the right side vulnerable to a Lefty blast. Argo thought that since the score was tied, Joseph did not want to waste time by making the switch. He reasoned that the time saved would give his team enough time to bat, at which time Joseph would be up with a good chance to score the winning run.
Argo positioned himself as far as possible from home plate as the fence would allow, and Lefty lofted a towering drive as if on purpose. The ball flew off the bat as if propelled by a rocket launcher, and when it reached its apogee it looked no larger than a marble. Argo froze to the spot and held his glove up more in self-preservation than in an attempt to catch the fly. He closed his eyes only for moment, but that was enough to lose sight of it. His arms straight up as if he were under arrest, Argo for some reason looked at Joseph. Joseph’s eyes were wide and pleading. And then Argo felt the ball hit his glove with a thud. And then he felt it roll down his rigid arm to the ground.
“Here,” called the outfielder closer to the infield, exhorting Argo to pick up the ball quickly and relay it to keep Lefty from rounding the bases. But by the time Argo could retrieve the ball and throw it for the relay, Lefty was around second base. The relay was sufficient only in keeping him at third, but the run scored. The recess whistle ended the game before Joseph could get his “last licks.”
Peter Gold, the frustrated pitcher, second-guessed Joseph about why he didn’t make the switch. Why would anyone leave Argo in right field with Lefty up and the game on the line? Argo heard Joseph tell him that he wanted to give Argo a chance. Argo, despite the embarrassing horror, had his first friend.

l

During the summer vacation that year, Argo was invited to spend part of it at the Machiarolla’s summer cottage in the Poconos. It was a faux log cabin with all of the modern conveniences except for a television as there was no reception in that area. There was a deep pond nearby which was called the swimming hole, and the boys used tire inner tubes to float and have naval wars. Argo had to learn to swim to keep from drowning. In the early summer, the adults seldom went in beyond getting their feet wet because of the cold, but the boys enjoyed it and came out when they began to shiver and Gloria Machiarolla called them in.
Gloria was tall and fine-boned with leonine bleached hair. As in the other families, the women stayed home with the children and spent a large part of their time keeping themselves as attractive as they could for their husbands. At this, Gloria excelled and Tommy M. swelled. They had met at New Utrecht High School, and while her parents, the Rispoli's, were successful in keeping her from getting involved with him during high school, when she was eighteen and began to work in the City, which Brooklynites called Manhattan, there was not much they could do. It was a huge wedding, and Tommy’s best man was Joe Bonanno’s nephew, Vito.
Outside their cottage was a strawberry patch enclosed by a thin wire fence to keep the deer from decimating the crop, but that didn’t stop the crows and robins from getting at them. Tommy M. gave both boys slingshots to drive the birds away, and the boys spent a great deal of time shooting at the birds that fearlessly swooped down and stole the highly prized berries. The ammunition was any stone near where the boys stood, and after a time, gravel from the driveway. Over time their aim improved, but they really had little chance of hitting a bird, and the damage to the strawberries from being pelted by the stones seemed to Tommy M. to outweigh any advantage of deterring birds. Of course, it did keep the kids occupied.
Joseph’s patience waned before Argo’s, and Joseph suggested they see who could shoot a stone farther. Joseph was the usual winner until Argo decided to add to the length of the rubber bands on his slingshot. When Joseph saw Argo’s stones fly so much farther, he went inside the house to get more rubber bands.
That was when Argo decided to try his luck at hitting a robin, eyeing its next catch from a low branch over the strawberry patch. Argo took aim between the slingshot’s vee and let the stone fly. It was a direct hit, knocking the bird far off the branch and to the ground outside the patch. He ran to the bird which he could see twitching in pain as he approached. It went motionless just as Argo got to it.
It was the first time Argo had seen anything die, and while he wanted to pick it up, he was afraid to touch it. He saw its gray, lifeless eyes, and he knew it was because of what he had done that the helpless and beautiful bird lay dead. It took a long while before he could begin to cry, and when he did, slingshot in hand and tears rolling down his face, Argo ran to the house.
“Mommy, Argo’s crying,” called Joseph to his mother who came running down the stairs.
“What happened?” she yelled. Tommy M. followed her.
“I don’t know; he’s just crying,” answered Joseph looking at his friend standing head down in the kitchen.
Gloria held Argo’s heaving little body close to her and kissed the tears from his eyes.
“It’s good what you did,” said Tommy M. suppressing laughter at the tenderhearted boy. “That’s what men do; we protect ourselves and what’s ours. Come on, let’s see it,” he said walking to the door. “We’ll leave it right in the garden; that’ll keep the others out.” Gloria directed the reluctant Argo to follow the other two to the scene of the crime.
“I’m gonna get me one,” said Joseph as he raced ahead of his father to see the kill.
“You hit it from there?” asked Tommy M. standing over the bird and looking back at Argo who had stopped at the spot from which the boys shot. “That was some shot, kid.” Tommy M. picked up the bird and threw it in the middle of the strawberry patch. “This way the other birds get to see what happens when they go for our strawberries.”
Argo let the slingshot fall from his hand and started back to the house.
“No, no,” called Tommy M., “You guys gotta keep watch. Other birds might not notice the dead one. You gotta protect that patch.” Argo picked up his slingshot. “That’s it,” he said encouragingly, “you gotta be tough.” Tommy M. knew then that Argo was not the boy his son was, and the difference pleased him.
Back on watch, the boys shot stones at various targets waiting for any sign of a bird. The boys soon tired of waiting, and went swimming, but after dark, Argo went back, flashlight in hand, to the strawberry patch while Joseph was getting his bath. He picked up the dead bird by the tail as if touching the body would transfer its death. Holding it at arm’s length, Argo walked to the gravel driveway where he carved out a small hole, dropped the bird in, and covered it with the surrounding gravel. No one noticed it was missing from the patch, even when it was time to pick the ripe fruit where the bird had lain.

l


The New York Diocese offered catechism lessons to Catholic public school students. After the nine o’clock Sunday mass and on Wednesdays at two o’clock, these children studied for their first Communion and Confirmation. It was necessary for Catholic schools to release their pupils early on Wednesday afternoon to provide classroom space and teachers for public school pupils. Regina Pacis provided catechisms and the nuns to educate the faithful in their religion. Jewish children attended Hebrew school, shule, after school in preparation for their bar mitzvahs.
At Regina Pacis it was decided that the same teacher would provide instruction to the same children as they advanced through the grades, and Argo and Joseph were taught by Sister Mary Esther, a young nun trained in Indiana by the Sisters of Mercy. Unlike her strict colleagues, Sister Mary Esther showed more affection to the children than was expected, and as a result was more popular among her students than she was among her peers. She also stood a head taller than the other nuns, was thin, had blond hair, blue eyes, and a snow-white complexion.
It was not long before she took a particular liking to Argo, her cutest and most remarkable first grader. She was captivated not only by his ability to read, but by his sensitivity to and understanding of the lessons of the bible stories. When he reached the fifth grade, Mary Esther thought her precocious find would make a perfect altar boy even though only Catholic school students had ever been selected. There would be additional training involved since the prayers had to be recited in Latin, and that would require her time which she was unsure the principal would allow. When she finally asked if it would be possible to make an exception in Argo’s case, the Principal, Father Grande, insisted on meeting the boy himself before deciding.
“Sister Mary Esther says you want to be an altar boy; is that so?” asked the old school master from above his reading glasses.
“Yes,” answered Argo.
“Say, yes, Father,” corrected Sister Mary Esther.
“Yes, Father.”
“And why?” pursued the priest.
“Sister thinks I should.”
“And what do you think?”
“I think so, too.”
“And why do you think so?” Father Grande was not smiling.
“I think God wants me to,” said Argo looking at Sister to see if he had given the right answer.
“You are aware, young man, that you will have to study after three o’clock, and once you learn the prayers and responsibilities of an altar boy you will have to serve when you are called, not only on Sunday morning.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Are you prepared to give him the time?” he asked the nun.
“Yes, Father,” she replied stroking Argo’s head lightly.
Father Grande turned to Argo. “Well it seems you are blessed in more ways than one. Say a prayer of thanks to the Blessed Virgin for having Sister Mary Esther as your teacher.”
“Yes, Father,” said Argo looking down at his shoes.
Sister Mary Esther’s alabaster skin flushed with pride.
One other of her students, Benito Musso, was attending altar boy training in the mornings with boys from other classes, and Sister Mary Esther introduced him to Argo. She thought Argo could use a model and a like-minded friend since Joseph Machiarolla, his friend from public school, would do nothing for Argo’s religious life. She was certain that both Benny and Argo could one day be priests, and in this, each would be a good influence on the other.
Three times a week after school Argo met her in her classroom to learn the Latin prayers, the first one being “The Confiteor,” an avowal of the main tenets of the Catholic Church. For fifth graders, the lessons were merely memorizations of the Latin prayer to be recited at Mass at the appropriate time along with the priest. For Argo, it was more. He wanted to know what the words meant in both English and Latin. It was not sufficient to say that he believed in “the communion of saints,” he wanted to know what was that communion. When Sister Mary Esther asked Father Sullivan, who taught the altar boy classes, if Argo’s questions were unusual, she learned that no other boys at any age ever asked for an explanation of the prayers. Even Benny Musso, Father Sullivan’s favorite and brightest, was content to learn the prayers by rote and wait to be told what they meant as they got old enough to understand. Sullivan thought that perhaps Argo’s questions rose from his being given private instruction making it easier for the boy to ask than if he were in a classroom with others. Mary Esther knew different, and after Sullivan met Argo, he did, too.
It was at a communion breakfast that Father Sullivan first saw the little boy with the big head of curly, black hair. Argo was shorter and thinner than the other boys his age, and shier. Except for his eyes which darted everywhere with hummingbird agility, Argo remained mostly motionless. He did not smile even when the other boys laughed, and he spoke only when spoken to. The exception was with Benny. Occasionally, he would lean over to his friend and say something, and Benny would give long answers as if by way of explanation.
Sullivan walked to the two boys who were seated at the far end of the long table in the basement dining room.
“Hello, Argo,” said the priest holding out his hand for a shake. Argo’s little hand felt like a chicken wing.
“Hello, Father,” said Argo easing his fingers from the meaty vise.
“Sister said that you are her best student. You were perfect on your prayers test.”
“I’m her only one.”
“Yes,” said Sullivan with a laugh. “You’re the only public school student here. How come you’re not in Catholic school?”
“My mother said we don’t have the money.”
“Well not everyone pays, you know.”
Argo had not known that. “My friends go to public school.”
“Well you have friends here, too.” Sullivan placed his hand on Benny’s shoulder.
Argo remained silent.
“He’s friends with the Machiarolla’s,” said Benny.
“Tommy Machiarolla?” asked the priest taken somewhat by surprise.
“Joseph’s friend. Tommy M.’s son.”
“Yes. They’re a fine family. Well, Argo, I’ll see you at practice next week. And I’ll see you, Benny, right after breakfast.” Sullivan stroked the boy’s neck tenderly and walked on.
Father Sullivan was the youngest priest on the staff and it was thought that he should be assigned the lion’s share of work with the parish youth. He coached basketball, having played in college, moderated the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine for parish teens, and trained the altar boys. In the three years of his tenure at the parish, the big redhead was considered a success, and what he seemed to lack in piety he made up for in dedication. He and Mary Esther were particularly friendly, and Mary Esther attributed it to their youth and particular love of children.
There were the beginnings of rumors that Father Sullivan was perhaps too fond of the boys, often touching them at times when it seemed uncalled for. Mary Esther resented the chatter of some of the other nuns and defended him by pointing out that there had been no complaints and suggesting that his basketball experience at St. Francis College explained the “touchy-feely” approach he took with the boys. Basketball was, after all, a contact sport, and at the games she saw, the boys were constantly patting and hugging each other.
As much as Sullivan liked Benny, he seemed to have an aversion to Argo, and by the time the boys reached the eighth grade, Argo was merely tolerated by the big priest. In truth, the boys had become close friends, and when given the chance, Benny, who had grown head and shoulders over Argo, chose to spend his time with him. Sullivan made Benny a “manager” for the older boys on the basketball team, and that helped separate the two friends. When Benny got to ninth grade he would qualify to play on the team, and coach Sullivan expected him to make the team if for no other reason than his size.
It was in late spring before high school that Argo was to meet Benny to join the 8th grade bus trip to the Metropolitan Museum. There had been a two o’clock basketball practice during Released Time that Wednesday, and after class, Argo went to the locker room to meet Benny. Some of the boys were still showering, but most were getting dressed to go home. Argo sat on the bench by the door to the locker room and waited for Benny who was still showering. Soon all the boys but Benny seemed to have left, so Argo walked toward the shower room to see what was keeping him.
“No, that’s not what I meant,” said the voice of Father Sullivan. Argo stopped. “I meant that you should be proud. You’re only thirteen and look at you.”
Argo called out, “Benny?”
“Yeah.”
Argo passed a few rows of lockers and saw him toweling off. Father Sullivan was sitting on a bench in front of Benny.
“Hi, Argo,” said the priest looking up at him over his shoulder.
“Hi, Father.”
“I’ll be ready in a second,” said Benny.
“Well, I hope we don’t miss the bus,” said Argo looking at his watch.
“You won’t,” said Sullivan getting up. “I’ll tell them you’re on your way.” Without looking back he said to Benny, “See you, kid.” Benny did not answer.
“My question is,” said Argo as he watched Benny dress in double time, “how come you’re always on time for the start of practice and always late after it?”
“If you were a coach you’d know,” answered Benny. Then his round face lit up and he added, “But since you’re a runt you’ll never find out.”
“Ooh, a basketball manager. I wish I knew what it was like to be in charge of four basketballs and a load of sweaty towels,” said Argo in mock awe of his friend.
“Jealousy:” answered Benny, “a cardinal vice.”
“Stupidity: a worse one,” answered Argo, his eyes gleaming.
As bright as Benny was, he did have some trouble in math and science, and Argo was there to help. Being in public school was an advantage in science because they had working labs. Regina Pacis’ science program was largely textbook, and the difference was palpable.
Argo was placed in the Special Progress program for the city’s brightest children. It combined the three junior high school years, grades seven through nine, into two, in effect eliminating eighth grade. Argo, then, was in the ninth grade while Benny was in the eighth, but nothing was made of the difference. Those distinctions seemed more important to the adults than to the boys, and to Argo it meant only that he could escape public school a year earlier. Junior high school and high school were particularly onerous for Argo, but it was not only the institutions that were painful, it was the time in his life that he watched his mother slowly die.
There was little to be done for Irene Malle who had been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease. NYU Medical Center had led the nation in fighting the disease, and a successful chemotherapy program had been developed, but the success was spotty and not everyone responded positively. After Irene had lost her hair, she began losing much of the use of her right arm and leg, and while she was able to continue working as a cleaning lady, her pain was increasing and with it the difficulty of getting to work every day. On some days, after she saw Argo off to school, she lay in bed moaning. She would always try to be up and about when Argo got home at three, but on some days even that was too much. Fortunately, the law firm for which she cleaned was most charitable and allowed her frequent days off without a fuss. Nevertheless, Irene knew it would only be a matter of time that she would be a helpless burden to her son.
Seeing his mother become more frail and knowing that she would soon die despite the hope held out by the doctors was particularly difficult for her sensitive son. Argo worked part time at the bakery cleaning and running errands for Cosmo and Carmela, and his hours increased when Carmela retired because of her own worsening arthritis.
While Argo was intellectually more advanced than others his age, he was not particularly more developed emotionally. His difficult situation forced him to take on more responsibility than his friends, but the responsibility was manifest in what he had to do, not what he felt. He had become sullen and more introverted than he had been before his mother’s affliction, and he withdraw more than usual when frustrated. When his mother fell in the bathroom and he could not lift her up, he cursed his small body, blaming God for not making him stronger.
At confession, Argo told the priest of his intemperance.
“You must never blame God for things,” intoned the confessor. “God has plans for all of us, and it is our job to accept them because it is God’s will. ‘God’s will be done.’ You must thank God from the bottom of your heart for all the good he has given you. You must ask him for the grace to accept His divine will, to be strong for your mother, and to honor the Lord above all else.” The priest paused. “Do you understand?”
“Yes, Father,” Argo whispered.
“In the end, my son, the Lord is all we have,” said the priest as much to himself as to the boy. “Now pray to the Lord to forgive you. Say ten Our Fathers and five Hail Mary’s for your sins and make a good Act of Contrition.”
If, for Argo, the aptly named Shallow Junior High School on 16th Avenue and 65th Street was situated on the first ring of Dante’s inferno, New Utrecht High School sat several levels below. At least at Shallow, he was in the same class as the other S.P. students who stayed together all day. At Utrecht, students moved on their own and were not segregated by ability except in the major subjects. That meant that at lunch, in the gymnasium, in homeroom, and in art, music, and shop; Argo was in with all of the kids. And, because he had skipped the eighth grade, he was a year younger than the other boys and a head shorter. Sadly Joseph Machiarolla, still in the eighth grade at Shallow, could not help him.
Passing between classes was particularly odious to Argo who saw his fellow pupils as cattle running in all directions without the benefit of herding cowboys. Jostling was de rigueur, but having his books pulled from under his arm and then being trampled as he stooped to pick them up was as vexing as it was dangerous. He understood why girls carried their books in both arms in front of the their chests.
Worse than the halls was the lunchroom. Aside from the noise and foul odor, Argo could not tolerate watching his schoolmates eat. Those who purchased lunch seemed to have particular difficulty with soup and spaghetti, which often dripped from their mouths and onto the trays and tables. Few used napkins to clean their faces or the messes they had made. Those who brown bagged it almost always brought a piece of fruit along with a sandwich, and the peels and cores would often find their way on the floor or on occasion in someone’s lap. Fortunately, it was not long before Argo found a way out of the bovine comedy.
Some department chairmen needed help with books and supplies and would give service credit to those who spent a free or study period as aides. Argo’s 10th grade English teacher, Miss Tasman, was the department chair and agreed to let him spend his lunch period in her office. Argo ate his sandwich in the outer office and served as Miss Tasman’s aide for his three years of high school. The Tasmanian Devil, as she was known, was the strictest of the teachers in the school and naturally took a liking to Argo who was most diligent and a prize student. It was she who was most instrumental in getting him accepted to Columbia, her alma mater, and while Argo ultimately chose Rutgers, he appreciated her efforts in guiding his college applications. It was, however, for the rescue from the lunchroom that Argo would be eternally grateful.