But since Koesler was not one to needlessly chance betraying a confidence, Harison’s curiosity would have to remain unsatisfied.
The priest’s musings were terminated when Harison returned and resumed his adjacent chair. “So, Father, what will you talk about in your eulogy tomorrow?”
Koesler rubbed his chin, “To be frank, I don’t know yet. There are so many things . . .”
“But to be specific . . . ?”
“I truly don’t know, Peter. I even thought of asking someone else to give the homily. I’m afraid I’m a little too close to be as objective as I’d want to be.”
“Oh, no, Father! Believe me, Rid would want you to speak over him. You’ve got to do it!”
Koesler smiled. “Peter, I only said I’d thought about asking someone else. I wouldn’t, really. It’s my place to do it. It’s just that I’m not sure what tack I’ll take. But don’t worry: I’ve had enough experience so that something will come to mind.”
Harison seemed apprehensive. He placed his hand on Koesler’s arm. “Father, there’s something you may not know. It may have a bearing on the whole funeral. It’ll probably be in the paper tomorrow anyway. But you should know beforehand. It’s only fair.”
“Peter, what are you getting at?”
“Father, Rid had AIDS.”
“He did!” Koesler shook his head. “I guess that explains that weight loss. I’ll be darned.”
“But he didn’t get it from me.”
“He didn’t?” Koesler did not succeed in keeping the surprise out of his voice.
“No. It was the only time he was ever unfaithful. He had to go back to New York—something about settling details of his pension. There was a lot of pressure . . . stress. It was a weak moment. Can you imagine that, Father? One unfaithful moment and then . . . that!”
Koesler thought for a minute. “Peter, why are you telling me this?”
“Because once they publish the results of the autopsy, everyone will know. You might get in trouble with the Church . . . having his funeral.”
“Peter, do you think the Church would deny Christian burial just because someone contracted AIDS?”
“One never knows what the Church might do these days.”
“Well, at least that one is not on the books. There won’t be any difficulty in having Rid’s funeral.”
“Thank God!” Harison’s great relief was evident. “I’ve been wrestling with my conscience for days wondering whether to tell you. Rid told me he confessed his unfaithfulness—oh, not here . . . not to you. In another parish.”
That must have been some confession; Koesler wondered which priest got that one.
“Rid just wasn’t himself lately, since it happened—the thing in New York, I mean.” Now that he had broken the ice, Harison seemed intent on unburdening himself. “Have you dined with him lately?”
Koesler shook his head.
“He’s been killing himself. Deliberately. Eating all the wrong things. Drinking all the wrong things. It was remorse. I’m sure of it. I think he was just never able to forgive himself for what happened. And then with AIDS . . . well, it was just a matter of time. Watching him punish himself was killing me too. It was such a tragedy, Father. One time . . . one time! It’s so unfair!”
Harison began to sob. Bystanders shuffled and moved away. Most found it awkward to stand helpless in the face of such grief, let alone seeing a grown man cry.
Koesler placed an arm across Harison’s quivering shoulders.
How very odd, thought the priest. Two men whose very lifestyle has been roundly and consistently condemned by the Church—the Church that they fervently believe in. Yet they simply deny the condemnation and go on acting as—so far as they are concerned—devout and practicing Catholics. Then, when one of them contracts a disease associated with the lifestyle, they’re sure all hell is about to break loose. None of it made any sense.
Harison’s sobbing had caused a hush to fall over the large room.
Koesler wished someone would turn off that damn music.
Greeting the Body
5
“Happy New Year.”
“Yeah. Same to you.” Koesler returned the greeting even though there was still a full day before New Year’s Eve. “How’s the new job?”
Raising his eyes as if in supplication, Father Jerry Marvin breathed a sigh of anxiety. “Jeez, I don’t know, Bob. It was a straight player trade but I think there should have been some cash involved.”
Marvin, one of Koesler’s priest-classmates, had just assumed his new assignment as rector of Sacred Heart Seminary. The former rector had become pastor of Marvin’s former parish, SL Rene Goupil. The switch was the choicest bit of clerical gossip making the rounds. In obedience to his bishop’s will, Marvin had left a thriving suburban parish to take a post that was a mere shadow of its former self. In the early to mid-sixties, Sacred Heart had bulged with seminarians. Now there were so few students that every movable archdiocesan department had been pushed into the seminary building just to keep as much of the edifice as possible open and operating.
“Look at it this way,” Koesler kidded, “you are no longer merely Father Marvin. You’re a rector. You are the Very Reverend F. Gerald Marvin.”
“A consoling thought,” Marvin replied. “I’ll have that stitched on my underwear. That way I’ll be sure to get it back from the laundry.”
“You moved in yet?”
“Uh-huh. Just in time for the second semester. It’s like Sklarski said when he got old St. Vincent’s: ‘Yeah, boys, a plum . . . a little wrinkled, but a plum.’ I had Mass a few times with the kids. I can’t quite decide whether to tell them about the Good Old Days or not”
“Tell them. By all means, tell them. There was nothing like it. But try not to sound too much like Inspector Frank Luger, NYPD.”
Marvin, a fellow devotee of the old “Barney Miller” TV series, laughed. “I’d better get out of here and let you get ready for the funeral. Talk to you after.” Marvin, already vested in cassock and surplice, left the sacristy to take his place in one of the pews reserved for the visiting clergy.
Koesler had guessed correctly that Ridley C. Groendal would be recognized as a Very Important Catholic and would thus draw quite a few priests to his funeral. It had been wise to reserve several of the front pews on the “Gospel side” of the church. It was 9:45 A.M., fifteen minutes before the cortege was expected, and already the reserved pews were almost filled.
Looking out the door of the sacristy into the body of the church, Koesler was engrossed by the difference in demeanor between the laity and the priests.
Lay people, arriving singly, in couples, and groups in advance of the cortege, entered the church, generally awkwardly. Non-Catholics usually gave themselves away immediately. They were out of their element and showed it. Ill at ease, they glanced about awkwardly, trying to pick up some acceptable liturgical action from those who might be Catholic. Even then, few attempted a genuflection before entering a pew. And though most Catholics knelt for at least a few moments before seating themselves, Protestants regarded kneelers as, perhaps, the instrument that caused the Reformation.
Catholics, on the other hand, entered with assurance and familiarity. But also with a reverence that was more habit than conviction. Genuflections were abortive. Signs of the Cross were truncated. And the hands: What to do with the hands? For some reason, Catholics in church could not let hands dangle at the side as was natural in any other sphere of life. So, usually, hands were carried folded over the pubic area for no other reason than that Catholics were accustomed to joining their hands in prayer with elbows propped on the pew ahead. Since this was a place of prayer, and while walking there was no place to prop one’s elbows, hands joined in front fulfilled the happy medium of hands both dangling and folded.
