*

St. Michael the Archangel is an old church, and everything about it is old. The walls are uneven plaster, and the altar and Cruxifix are antiques. An old marble altar rail surrounds the front of the church, and right before that are worn cushions. Father Tim held a place on the cushions just to the left of the main altar. An incredible statue of the Blessed Mother rose up high above him. She was surrounded by lit candles in red containers. He prayed before her, one fist to his head and one clutching a rosary. And almost as if this statue was real, was ready to receive his prayers and his praise, the glaze over her eyes seemed to soften. I found a pew behind him, and knelt. I had my own prayers that needed to be said.

To the right of the main altar is a statue of an angel with a sword in hand. I’m told that’s St. Michael the Archangel, and that he’s striking out at Luci­fer and exiling him to hell.

When Father Tim finished, he joined me, and greeted me with a kiss on the cheek. Lisa was right. He looked like crap. The dark bags beneath his eyes sagged half the way down his cheeks.

“Father Tim,” I said, “I’m sorry.”

“About what?”

“About Joe. You don’t know how upset he is. Like it’s all his fault.”

Father Tim rolled his eyes. “You’re expecting what now? That the likes of Joseph Spyres will change overnight?”

“I’m sorry.”

“He’s a good man.”

“About what he said yesterday.”

“Isn’t any different than a lot of people are saying right now. Human na­ture. We need to find explanations for the injustices we deal with. Place blame if you will.” He sighed. “I thought I’d call in some fa­vors. How many funeral homes in this town? Three, is it? There are six right up Miami Avenue in Chicago, no less. I called everyone I could think of, even as far away as Palos. When I told them who the funeral was for, some of them hung up on me. Others weren’t that kind. I bought a casket from a store in Oak Forest, and I was able to get someone from the cemetery to come for him tonight. They’ll cremate him in the morning.” He patted my hands and took off.

The funny thing about my relationship with Tim is that I sometimes find it hard to look at him as anyone but the boy that grew up next store to us. On the other hand, there are times when he seems distant from us because of his calling.

The priests wheeled a gurney and casket up the center aisle. Lose fall flowers were gathered and tied with a red bow. I wondered about the efforts the florist made putting that together. It was embarrassing. Then I thought about the wonderful garden that grows about the Rectory, and I was embar­rassed by my attitude.

Mass began at two. Father Paul served and Father Tim helped. When the blessings came, Father Paul blessed the mourners, but not the casket. He prayed and read from the Gospels, and then he offered Rose his friendship and his prayers. Rose nodded, and sobbed quietly. Then she, Brenna and Lisa took communion.

I followed the others to the Rectory immediately following Mass. Brian paused at the entrance to a sitting room where a painting rests on an easel. Lisa painted it and it depicts three black crosses erected on a black hill. Be­hind them are darkening skies and lightning. The painting is not very good. It just that she had painted it for Tim and he valued it for that reason. Brian’s eyes traveled from top to bottom very quickly. He frowned and grunted, possibly resenting the fact that Lisa hadn’t offered him anything. 

As soon as we entered the dining room, Brenna asked Brian about his family. “At home,” he barked. “I should expose them to this?”

“Shame on you,” Father Tim admonished. “This is family, too.”

“Family, my ass. I don’t see Rob Boyle. Where is he at?” Brian glared at Rose.

“I don’t know,” she whispered as she studied her hands.

“And I say leave him there,” Brenna broke in. She turned on me, latching onto my arm. “We have to talk to you,” she said, pulling me across the room and into a small of­fice.

Rose followed. “Tell me,” Brenna insisted, picking a copy of the Sub­urban Daily News from a large cubbyhole in an open roll top desk. “It wasn’t you that wrote this trash.”

I glanced at the headlines. ‘Reporter caught in the heat of fire fight at T.R’ Two pictures, one of me and one of T.R’s stadium, were surrounded by text. I read through the first two paragraphs. ‘Principal Joseph Spyres and Investigative Reporter Mary Anne Moriarty were held at gun point by lone maniac, Robert Boyle, Jr.’ It went on to de­scribe how once ‘the bodies had been stacked and counted, it was noted that one was missing. Terry speculated that one gun toting maniac had disappeared, and could likely show up anywhere at any time. “Terry O’Malley,” I said handing it back. I shrugged. “He spelled the names right anyway.”

“You didn’t write this?” Brenna insisted.

“No, I didn’t. I told them I couldn’t put myself through that. They had Terry interview me.”

“If you couldn’t write it yourself, you shouldn’t of interviewed with some­one.” Brenna pressed the paper back into my hands.

“Excuse me?”

Rose removed a tissue from inside the sleeve of her cardigan and dabbed her crimson nose with it. My dear God, had she changed. Brenna’s big sister used to be so pretty. I use to wish my sisters were that pretty. Rose had grown prema­turely old. Her hair was streaky and thin in places, and her facial skin drooped. Her eyes looked to be permanently bruised. Both my sisters are older than Rose, but you’d never know it to see them.

She got between us. “Don’t start getting mad,” she admonished. “I couldn’t deal with that, too.” She picked up a small brown envelope from the desk’s interior and slipped it into my purse. “I can’t deal with anymore lies than I’ve already heard. And I can’t deal with strangers who think they know how my son thinks... Thought.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“It’s a photocopy.”

“Of what?”

“You’ll see when you open it.”

“Am I doing something illegal here?”

“I can’t answer that,” she said, taking up my hand before I could remove the envelope. “I can tell you that I found this on my pillow that night when I got home from work. And that I copied it when I realized what it was. You have one, and Tim has another. The po­lice have the original.”

“Do they know there’s copies?”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

Joe, Kevin Mahoney and Assistant Principal Jack Harnett were allowed back into Roo­sevelt while I attended Mass. Joe the keeper of all things having to do with student ac­tivities, is also the keeper of locker combina­tions. Roosevelt’s lockers, conveniently, have always had built in locks, and if Joe has any say, always will. Joe referred to his computer once he arrived at school, and called up locker numbers and combinations of the five assassins. Then he escorted the officers to the lower level not far from the gym where Warren Devers’ locker was located. He dialed up the combi­nation, showing them how to turn the tumblers so that they could do the same at the next locker.

“Okay, back off,” Ed Sonchek instructed once the combination had been met. Joe al­lowed another officer to ease him back further. Ed moved in and lifted the handle. It wouldn’t give at first.

“Sometimes you have to force them,” Joe commented. He started forward, intending to do it himself.

Ed leaned back, placing all of his weight on his hips and held up his hand. Ed is unique. He’s tidy. Maybe obsessively so. His pants are perfectly creased and he stands if he can avoid sitting. His hat is exact and his gloves are perfect. Or he replaces them. 

Anyway, Ed returned to the latch and forced it upwards. It exploded in his gloved hands.

The group discussed the possibility of other lockers being booby trapped, and decided to evacuate the building, just in case. Joe, Kevin and Jack retired to Pinkies’ Tap. They wanted to make plans for a memorial, and they wanted to discuss bringing students back into an unthreatening at­mosphere.

It’s hard to see inside Pinkies’ which is probably why so many drunks like it. It’s an old house with scuffed up floors. There are tables and chairs in the back, and track lighting focuses on the bars. Strings of Italian Christmas lights are tacked about the wall molding at shoulder level, and I’ve been told there’s posters hanging above the Christmas lights. I’ve never noticed.

My brother, Mark, joined them after a while. He’s tall, six, one, and has blue eyes, and blonde, curly hair like mine. It’s the same length as mine, which is somewhat disconcerting. A firefighter with long hair is someone asking for trouble. His superiors are conscious of that even if he isn’t, and are always on his back about it. His hair might not be what one expects from a firefighter, although his wardrobe is. He owns a dozen or so T-shirts and sweatshirts with the fire department shield on the chest which he wears whether he‘s on duty or off.

He had put in a lot of hours, and on his day off no less. Although Bill put in more hours than Mark did, according to Joe, Mark looked just as haunted. According to Mark, he didn’t sleep well, but then none of us had.

“How’s Ed?” someone asked.

“Why, what happened to Ed? Someone spill something on his shirt?” Mark asked. Joe explained, and Mark nodded. “Ed’s a big boy. He’ll sur­vive a cut on the hand.”

There’s four of us. Maureen is twelve years my senior and Carol is six. Mark has me by two years. My Mom tells a story about when we were little. Mark was instructed at first to call me Mary Anne. Well Mary proved to be too close to Marky. Rather than allowing me his name, he insisted on calling me Annie. It stuck.

In these later years, we’ve grown to be more than brother and sister. He’s my friend as well. He’s likely to show up at my place anytime day or night, to share a beer and have a talk.

He’s married and has three boys and two girls, all of which look like my Dad. I’d love to say that Mark is a terrific father. He is and he isn’t. Sometimes he’s as childish as his kids are. I won’t say he’s a terrific husband either, but then again, his wife, Esparanza, is no better. Somehow, though, they’ve made it work, even if it’s leading their own lives. 

“Bad day,” Joe commented, finishing off his drink. “No, bad couple of days.”

“Amen.”

Asked about our experience in the booth Friday night, Joe ordered another drink. Once he had it in hand, he took off in another direction. “You can’t imagine what it’s like to lose a spouse.” I can see him sitting there, beer in one hand and the other at his mouth as he swallows a time or two. This is a hard subject for him and it usually takes a few mo­ments for him to get his voice under control. “It’s been seven years. Sheri. She had a tu­mor.” He tapped his forehead, indicating what he meant.

“Good marriage?” Kevin asked.

“Yeah, it was. The thing is, it took me forever to start dating again. I thought about get­ting married again, but after a while, I gave up. And here she is. Annie. She was engaged to my cousin, Adam. Firefighter. If you guys remember a few years back when that gun shop exploded.” He nodded at Kevin and Jack. Mark remembered all too well. He was there that night. “The fire­fighter that died, that was Adam. I’ve known her all my life. Hell, she and Adam both stood up in our wedding. I never realized....” Mark told me Joe needed even more time to compose himself. “And then this asshole says get Spyres and his old lady. Don’t fucking touch my old lady.”

Joe’s sister, Darlene, Brenna and I were inseparable all through gram­mar school. We met Sheri Lombardi and Regina Ochoa our first week at Roosevelt, and what once was three, quickly became five. The only time the five of us weren’t together was when Joe and Sheri were out together. The week after we met, they began dating, and continued to date all through school.

Joe was twenty one and Sheri was nineteen when they got married. And yes, Adam and I were paired in the wedding party. That’s when we began dating.

Back to Sheri, though. As long as I can remember, she suffered from bad migraines. They got worse with time, and eventually unbearable. Six and half years into their mar­riage, she learned she had a brain tumor. That was July. She died in December, which was less than a year after Adam’s acci­dent. That was a very bad year.

“Sounds like someone’s ready to pop the question,” Kevin teased. “Take the big plunge. Say goodbye to freedom again. To sleeping alone. To sex without complaint. To thirty six inch waists.”

Mark shook his head. “My best friend and my sister.” He took a sip from his beer, and continued on. “Has this big, hulking ring in his pocket and not enough guts to give it to her.” Mark smacked Joe across the chest. “Says he’s looking for the right moment. Go ahead, Joe, give it to her. Put it on her fin­ger. Then she’ll start cooking everyday. All that butter, all that sugar. And you’ll both blow up just as soon as she says ‘I do.’” He made noises and used his hands to describe exploding hips and thighs. Joe laughed along with the others.

A free round arrive. Terry O’Malley crawled off a bar stool and pushed up to their table. “That’s some scary shit,” he commented to Joe. “Heard all about you two on the floor in the booth from Annie.”

“Should have been there today,” Jack Harnett commented. “Having fun with exploding lockers.”

“Walk down the hall,” Joe added, “And vaboom!” Joe said the conversa­tion turned silly at that point. Someone cracked a joke about fal­ling support beams and the gym caving in. One comment lead to another, and by the time Art Weber joined them, all of them were gig­gling like a bunch of clucking chickens about the sky falling in. Art sat and studied Terry over crossed arms. “Shuttup,” he said after a few moments. Terry said his good-byes then and left. “The bunch of you are airheads, and you’re talking to an idiot. See if the morning paper doesn’t have something in it about good old T.R blowing up.”

While they were getting wrecked, I was home, with my cats. I made my­self comfortable on the sofa, and small black, Duffy, crawled into my lap. I scratched him behind his ears, and he passed a cloud of gas strong enough to clear out the hallways in T.R without an explosive. Fluffy is white and longhaired. She has a bald spot on her back. When I kicked off my shoes, Fluffy curled up at my feet and nibbled on my big toe.

What Rose gave me was a copy of her daughter’s diary. At once, I felt naughty and sneaky, like I had when I peeked at my sister’s diary. Al­most like I wanted to find out about her crushes and boyfriends she didn’t bring home. But then I felt guilty. These were the private feelings of a young girl who made a conscious choice to end her life. Did I have the right? I almost tossed it, but then decided that I shouldn’t after all.

It started innocently enough. ‘On nights like tonight,’ she wrote in a small, tight script, ‘I like to slip away, and visit that place in my head. Things are beautiful there. People love each other.’ Someone with a heavier hand cir­cled those words. An arrow connected the circle to a commentary. ’Where’s there no dick in my ass.’

Megan wrote about falling in love with Tony LoBianco. She loved how he had dyed the tips of his hair red, and how he looked in his football uniform. She talked about joining cheerlead­ing. She was a sophomore, and he was a junior. It would be a full year before she could cheer at a game he played in.

She made herself learn the game. She wanted to talk about the Chicago Bears, the Green Bay Packers, scoring and rushing percentages. Over time, she convinced herself that if she told Tony how she had learned football for him, he’d develop the same feelings for her. Eventually she did get an op­portunity.

‘I’m in love,’ she wrote. ‘And Tony is, too. I’m so thrilled. I never thought I’d be ‘A’ list before, and now look!’ The commentator drew a sideways A, making it into an ejaculating penis.

Every so often she talked about how she’d close her eyes at night and make the world go away. I enjoyed that, thinking that she liked to fantasize. I do. I think every writer does.

At a party, Tony told her how much he loved her. Someone brought E. I’m taking a guess here E might be Ecstasy. Tony took it, and offered her some. She resisted. She referred to her special place again, this time saying that if her father found out, he would hurt her so badly that she’d never find it again.

The story took a terrible turn. Tony insisted that she sleep with him. She insisted no, again, afraid of her father. ‘I told him I was a virgin,’ she wrote. ‘That I never had sex before.’ That person with the heavy handwriting drew a naked butt and an erection. “I know,’ she wrote, ‘If I let Tony do this, he’ll know.’ Thick drops fell from the penis and onto the word ‘know.’

A little while later she wrote. ‘I did it! I gave Tony what he wanted. He says he loves me more than ever now. That we’ll always have that moment.’ Pictures of high powered handguns aimed at football players appeared in the margin. The next entry was dated the same as the last. ‘Dad knows. He says he smells cum. He beat me. I can’t think. I hurt so bad, I can’t find that place in my head. I want to go away.’

I called Brenna. “Did you read this?” I asked her.

“I did.”

“And I should do what with it?”

“How far did your read?”

“I read up to when Rob found out that she slept with Tony.”

“Keep going,” Brenna insisted.

“Then what?”

“Then do what you do best. Write about it.”

“Brenna?” I tried to fight back tears. “That’s Bobby’s handwriting and pictures in the margins, aren’t they?”

“Disturbing you, are they?”

I made myself continue. It was Bobby who first heard the rumors about her and Tony, and how she had oral sex with him and six other football players. When asked, they all in­sisted it was true. Bobby approached her about it, telling her what they said. She argued, saying that Tony would never do anything like that. They were in love.

The next time she and Tony had sex, he finished off, and left her to go off with his buddies. She saw him a few days later, and was surprised then to see Hannah Schreoder at his side. When Megan asked why, Tony called her a liar. That virgins had little things called cherries, and once popped they bleed. And Megan was a whore and probably knocked up at that. Hannah laughed at Megan, telling her that she probably caught AIDS considering how much she slept around. And God help her if she was pregnant. Ba­bies born with AIDS suffer a lot, Hannah said. That Megan was cruel to know­ingly give birth only to see it die. Megan was a freak, her baby would be a freak and Bobby was a freak, too. ‘And don’t say it’s Tony’s baby either, because every­one knows how much you sleep around. Just ask.’

Megan couldn’t understand how Hannah could take pleasure in the hurtful things she said. It wasn’t bad enough that Tony and his friends had made up sto­ries about her, but now Hannah was making it much worse. Megan was sure she hadn‘t contacted AIDS either, unless Tony gave it to her. He was the only guy in school she had relations with.

Hannah was right about one thing, though. Megan wasn’t a virgin. When she missed her period, she grew terrified. What would her father do when he found out? What about Tony? The fact was she didn’t think the baby was Tony’s at all. She knew it belonged to her father. Megan’s writing stopped with that entry.

The person with the heavy hand wrote the next entry. He listed names like Tony and Hannah, and half of the football team. Drawings of bodies wear­ing football helmets sprawled on the ground followed the names. What looked like blood flowing from wounds ran down the page.

There was one last entry.

‘Mom:

        I hate him. And I hate you. Why didn’t you stop that fat bas­tard? I got it in the ass again last night, in case you didn’t hear. He’ll get it in the ass tonight. Just one thing. I’d love to say this is my idea. It isn’t. Ha ha. The old bastard said I’d fuck up a two car fu­neral. How about a lot of funerals? Sorry I didn’t think of this....

                                                                                          B.’

I called Brenna back. “I’m done.”

“Say it,” she instructed.

“What? Why didn’t she protect them?”

“Who would protect her? She got it worse than they did. If she said any­thing, or left, she was afraid he’d track down all three of them.”

It took a moment to swallow away the lump in my throat. “Brenna?”

“What is it, Annie?”

“Jimmy was abusive and you got away from him.”

“Jimmy found a girlfriend. He left me. Rose had no way out. She was afraid.”

“Brian,” I insisted.

“Brian.” Brenna snickered. “I asked Brian for help when Jimmy left. His marriage is a mess. How could he help either one of us if he can’t help himself?”

“She isn’t afraid now?”

“Sure, she is. But what can he do to Megan or Bobby now?”

I wrote and I rewrote. As far as I knew, all of the kids that Bobby had listed in the back of the diary had died with the exception of Linc Weber. I eliminated his name from my story. So much I wanted to get down and so much I wanted to avoid.

My cell phone interrupted my work. “Where are you?” Joe demanded.

“At home.”

“Why?”

“I have to work.”

“Oh, stay there. Wait for me.”

Link to Chapter IV