Joe Burke's Last Stand Part 26

Joe sipped coffee. "She was always leaving me places. Once, when I was six, she left me with an old couple in New York. They were very old.

They made me stay in a playpen for a week."

"A week?"

"Yeah. It was torture. I was used to having the run of the block. It was summer. The playpen was by a window where I could see the street; that was good, anyway. I remember the dust floating in the room."

"How awful," Brendan said. Memories rushed into Joe's mind as though a lock had been picked.

"I used to listen to radio shows every day at five o'clock. Sergeant Preston of the Yukon and his Great Dog, King. On KING! AroofRoofRoof .

. . " Joe looked around the dining room and lowered his voice. "I found a dime on the couch one afternoon and showed it to my mother.

"'Where did you get that?' she wanted to know.

"Found it on the couch.

"'Don't lie to me!' she said. 'You stole it, didn't you? Maggie told me the kids were taking money from little Sean. Tell me the truth.'

"I found it on the couch.

"'You're lying.'

"It's five o'clock--Sergeant Preston . . .

"'You're not listening to the radio until you tell me the truth."'

Joe made a face. "I was so desperate to hear Sergeant Preston that I told her I stole the dime." Brendan was silent. "She wouldn't believe me," Joe said. "That was the worst. She wouldn't believe me." Brendan looked at the napkin Joe had crumpled in one hand, and he shook his head.

"I guess," Joe said, putting the napkin ball on the table, "if I wanted to be adult about it, I'd say she was too high strung--one of these people with major league talent but without the courage to use it."

"Too bad," Brendan said. "We know people like that in San Francisco."

He was genuinely sympathetic.

"I'm glad we had a chance to talk," Joe said, on their way out.

"Right on."

Joe made Ann and Brendan promise to visit him in Hawaii. Ann told them that she had decided to stay on in the house, at least for a while; she needed time to adjust. She had friends on the island and money enough to cope with the coming winter. Joe said that he would be leaving first thing in the morning and that they shouldn't bother getting up to say goodbye.

He slept restlessly and dressed at first light. Ann was already up.

"You must have coffee, at least," she said.

"It smells great. Thanks." He poured milk from a little pitcher into a mug decorated with a Maine Public Radio logo.

"Just like your father," Ann said, "ready to go in the morning."

"Mmm--delicious. Goodbye, Jeremy," he said to the cat who was rubbing against his ankle, anxious to be let out.

"Well, get going then. Take the mug. Keep it. Maybe it will remind you of Maine and help bring you back."

"Thanks, Ann. It was very good to see you and Brendan. Take care of yourself." He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. She followed him outside and picked up Jeremy, holding him, tawny and orange, against her white bathrobe as Joe drove away.

He bought a doughnut in Bucksport and took the coastal route for old time's sake. He stopped for breakfast at Moody's, in Waldoboro. Moody's hadn't changed much in twenty years; they'd extended the dining room; the non-smoking area had gotten larger. Waitresses ran chattering back and forth to the kitchen, unimpressed as ever with anyone who did not live in Lincoln County. He ate bacon, eggs, toast, and homefries, taking his time.

The whirlwind visit to Deer Isle was still sinking in. He was having trouble accepting that his father was dead. It was good of him to have left the money, and Joe was very glad to have the painting and the drawing of his mother. First choice. That had been a message of some kind. He, like Brendan, felt that his father had been disappointed in him for not living a more artistic life. Too late to talk about it now.

Overboard and gone by, as they said on Deer Isle. "He was a hard man,"

Brendan had said in the barn. Brendan was right, although you had to know his father well to realize it, what with the big smile, the blarney and all.

Montpelier, Joe decided. The creative writing program. That was the thing to do. It would be carrying on something of his father in him, and the inheritance would take care of his immediate money problems.

When he left Moody's, he was still sad, but at least he had a plan.

He stopped in Portland for the night, thinking that there was no telling when he'd be back. He decided not to look up Ingrid; she was off and into her new life. He got a room at the Holiday Inn and walked around the West End, his old neighborhood.

Houses were being restored. Coffee shops had opened all over the place.

Popeye's, the bar with the tail of a light plane sticking out from its roof, was just the same. As he walked up Gray Street, Joe saw the small man who used to collect his returnable bottles. He was on his knees in front of St. Dominic's, a large church that had been closed and put up for sale by the Catholic bureaucracy. His shopping cart was beside him, half full of cans and bottles. The day had turned sharply cold. Joe felt a rush of complicated emotion. How could this man with nothing, kneeling on the sidewalk before an empty church, be so complete? Or so--realized. Joe wanted to salute him as he used to in the old days after he handed over the bottles, but he did not disturb him. He went instead to a coffee shop and tried to describe the scene.

Later, the sun was setting as he pa.s.sed St. Dominic's. Joe stood for a few minutes and watched a glowing veil withdraw inexorably up the red brick tower of the church. It was as though the bottle saint had gone and the service was over. Joe felt like crying, but he was too cold and alone.

He ate dinner in Giobbi's, a local bar and restaurant with dark booths along two walls. A messy meeting was in progress at tables that had been pushed together in the center of the room. Joe held pizza in one hand and wrote in his notebook with the other while men in late middle age joked and argued. A man at one end of the tables clinked his gla.s.s.

"One thing we gotta take care of," he said. Clink, clink. "One piece of business . . . " Clink. The group fell quiet. "Now." He cleared his throat. "Now, you all know Agnes."

"Sure."

"She's been good to us all, right?"

"Yes, yes."

"Agnes."

"Now, some of you may not know the story about her . . . " There were several questioning sounds and the group fell silent. "This is what happened. About seventy years ago, there was a knock at the door of the church. It was a wild rainy morning, and the Father asked one of the nuns to see who it was. She opened the door. No one was there--only a basket. She brought the basket in out of the rain and said 'it's a baby, Father! All wrapped in a sheet.'

"The Father thought. 'We must take care of it,' he said. 'Is it--a boy or a girl?'

"The nun bent over, unwrapped the baby, and said, 'A girl, Father, bless her.'

"'She must have a name,' Father said. 'She is a child of G.o.d. That we know. Agnes will be her name.' He looked at the window and said, 'It's not much of a day out. We will call her, Agnes Grayborn.' So the nuns took her and raised her, and Agnes has worked all her life for the church.

"And now, boys, we've had to sell the building where Agnes lives. She has no place to go." Voices raised and mumbled. A hand came up, halfway down the group.

"I gotta small place in one of mine. I'll take care of it. Least we can do."

"Thanks, Tony."

"Yes!" Clapping.

"Agnes!" Gla.s.ses were held up.