Gospel, page 99
O’Hanrahan came to.
He looked at the bedside clock, saw it was night again, and determined that it was ten hours since he had last come to. The days and nights are burning away in fever, he thought. The last days of my life and I am sleeping through them. He looked at the water glass on the table: tepid, milky water, direct from the Mississippi. There was the limp flower Lucy had brought in a simple dimestore vase. And next to that lay a Bible. We bring our years to an end as it were as a tale that is told. The days of our years are threescore years and ten, and I may not even make seventy, thought O’Hanrahan as an addendum.
So be it. We fear and dread the throes of the end, we grumble at God for the pain and awfulness of final hours, and yet it perhaps takes a bit of agony to convince us that we would do well to move along to the next world, whether that world be unfeeling sleep or the bourn of angels, this one no longer can please us. In which case there is a dark wisdom in these agonies. They are really but a moment in the whole span, a last exaction before surcease, a small price for having lived at all. And then the thing itself—will there be an instant where my dwindling consciousness shall glimpse the millennia of nonexistence upon which I embark? Will there be a pure emanation of light, as some have glimpsed near death, or will that light slowly turn cold and dim as the darkness rushes in ineffable, supreme. The womb shall forget him. The worm shall feed sweetly upon him. He shall be no more remembered.
He thought back to Korea, how the men would revive, the terminal cases, often, to say a final word or utter a mother’s name. And perhaps this is what is happening now, this returned consciousness. O’Hanrahan’s eyes in his immobile head looked around the room and fluorescent light of the cork ceiling and the vinyl chair in the corner, my own little death-chamber. Be with us, O Lord, now and unto the hour of our death. Is this the hour of my death?
(It’s looking that way.)
Well, O’Hanrahan thought, how to spend it? A little TV? I thought at this point I would feel defeated and broken. The scroll outlived me, after all. The Great O’Hanrahan goes to an ignominious grave, slightly better than the gutter his father went to. But you gotta hand it to me, Lord: I got one last, irresponsible adventure out of the world, didn’t I? One last fling with my true romance, the rubble of the past, the wisdom of the ancients, the aged, bearded companions shielded by cross and Torah and crescent, the supernal mysteries—all 4000 years of them put upon this earth by God for me to dabble in and amuse myself. O Holy Spirit …
(You remember Me after all.)
Do You know how much I have loved this life? Have any of Your children had such fun as I? All right, all right, I’m an apostate and blasphemer, I’m aware, but it was to amuse You as well as me! I have always thought God was in on my jokes—surely You’re as cynical as I am at this point.
(True, One has to have a sense of humor in this job.)
Forgive me, but even at this late date, I could never believe You were perfect. That you were God and greater than I, indubitably. But perfect? You’re doing well to keep your head above water lots of times—Auschwitz, Hiroshima, World War I, and all that—and am I mistaken or do You need us lowly humans too? We’re the best creation You could muster and, face it, there’s a lot of hackwork. I objected to the pious infallible papal God, the God of omnipotence and omniscience … You’re none of those things. Beatrice and my Rudy dying in a plane crash show there are cracks in this creation of Yours.
But I, Patrick Virgil O’Hanrahan, accepted your terms!
Of course I know my failures. My wife should have known how much I loved her. My son should have gotten bored with the constancy of his father’s love. And there I failed. Failed, failed, screwed up, crapped out—no argument from me on this. But for the last twenty years I have lived in a hell of my own making, and perhaps that will check any more of hell off my list. I’m feeling faint now. This must be delirium, because here I am talking to the Holy Spirit and She’s right in the room with her beautiful face of light with shining hair of stars … if I could only focus and look right at Her, but I feel sleep coming on again … My eyes grow heavy. A last thought, then: if I could keep on with this preposterous life I would, and I would find a way to make amends for my selfishness and lack of love to my wife and son. I know You must get tired of bargains but there it is. I would continue with a better heart.
(But We love bargains. We make them all the time.)
AUGUST 31ST
Lucy was the first one to find the chapel this morning at Bullins Medical Center.
Inside the foyer was a variety of pamphlets, all produced by Bullins, many with his wide face and outstretched hands beaming from the cover. “When Death Comes to Call.” Here was one called “Prayer and Miracles,” which peddled miracles that happened to good Pentecostal Christians every single day, yes they did!
Lucy parted the chapel doors and saw it was empty. Considering it was a Bullins production, this chapel, nondenominational and modern, was in pretty good taste. Several short rows of pews led to a raised platform and a communion table of some kind, though no paraphernalia was about. A simple cross in blue stained glass behind the table sufficed. Lucy slipped into the last pew and breathed the still air of the little chapel; the hellish racket of life-support machines, ambulance sirens, and the ever-rasping intercom calling doctors and nurses for various codes and emergencies did not penetrate this peaceful room.
She reached in her pocket for her rosary.
Lucy knelt and bowed her head, weary of spirit, exhausted at the thought of a hundred Our Fathers or whatever assignment she had set for herself when she awoke after yet another wretched night of bad sleep.
(You could ditch the Our Fathers, and just talk to Us.)
Lord, she thought, half-praying, I’ve fallen back to the faith I had as a child, except going through these rituals doesn’t register anymore. But I don’t know what else to do. I feel very distant. Our Father Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come … I’m hoping if I do these things by rote enough times, I can, you know, jump-start myself into the faith I used to have. That rascal Dr. O’Hanrahan! He’s undermined me, or rather, the unshakable confidence I once had. Not in God, I know You’re up there, but in which version of Him … Coptic, Moslem, Orthodox, Pentecostal, an academic faith like the Theology Department back in Chicago, an emotional, blinding, all-pervading faith like Patsy the TPL college student, religion as a sickness like poor Mrs. Bullins … Look, I don’t want to feel this confused. God, complete with instructions, would come in real handy about now. I guess I don’t know what I believe anymore. There you have it.
I’m going to go to the restroom and use the pregnancy kit and if I am knocked up, I am aware it’s my own damn fault, and I will take what’s coming to me but am I crazy here? I also—forgive the arrogance—think that I was destined for something else in this world besides being an unwed mother. I know, I know, what service could I possibly perform that might matter to You …
(Innumerable things. We wish religious people didn’t think this way.)
… but I feel that I am on the threshold of something, just beginning to know myself and what I can do in this world. And here I go and louse this up with a kid. Maybe I’ll keep it and stick it out and be disowned by my family and my friends and retire to some dark corner of Chicago sharing a house with some other single mother and work out some baby-sitting schedule to alternate with my classes. Jesus, Blessed Savior, that sounds like hell on earth what I’ve just said. I don’t feel very forgiven, even after this talk.
(Why don’t you forgive yourself first?)
With the arrival of two talkative white rural women, Lucy rose up and surrendered to a feeling of emptiness. She walked slowly to the Intensive Care Unit, in no hurry to face the lobby of miserable, anxious relatives.
No one can help me now, she figured calmly. Sister Miriam has triumphed!
(No, My child.)
No really, she has. She said sin would lead to ruin and disgrace, and she was right. All her sourness, all her accusing glares and pointed fingers were justified. She sensed I was a loser and now I’ve gone and proven it for her. It didn’t take a lifetime of sin, either. One little lousy slip in twenty-eight years of clean living and whammo—
“Excuse me,” said a nurse at Lucy’s side, as she entered the Intensive Care Unit. “You were with Mr. O’Hanrahan, weren’t you?”
Lucy froze.
Oh, please. Please God. She prepared herself for the worst possible bad news.
“I’ve been looking for you, Lucy—it is Lucy, isn’t it?” The nurse was a small woman, petite and perky, who could turn on enthusiasm and bedside optimism with ease. “Mr. O’Hanrahan has been asking for you.”
Lucy brightened. “He’s out of his delirium?”
“He seems to be. The fever broke in the night and he was awake this morning. We’re changing his sheets right now, but we’ll be moving him to a regular hospital room within the hour. But give us, say, fifteen minutes, and then come visit with him, all right?”
An ammonia-smelling hallway led to the lounge, where a despairing lot was assembled. A small family huddled awaiting news of Dad’s heart attack. An old woman halfway to widowhood reading her Bible and looking up at the TV when someone got a letter on “Wheel of Fortune.” A young wife sliding her wedding ring back and forth on her finger nervously, a variation of wringing one’s hands, trying to concentrate on a National Geographic magazine. Lucy sat in the corner, sinking into the squeaky vinyl overstuffed sofa, insultingly lemon-yellow and cheery.
“Excuse me,” said an elderly lady who sat down beside Lucy.
“Yes ma’am?”
“The nurse there said you were with Patrick O’Hanrahan?” The woman was orderly and prim, her gray hair pulled back; she was slender, dressed in a conservative navy blue. Lucy assumed she was sent over by the TPL people. She handed Lucy the fifth of bourbon.
“The nurse said for me to give it to you. Patrick is a trial, isn’t he? Always has been. Would you like some orange juice?”
The woman had two Styrofoam cups and she reached into a large bag and produced a small carton, from which she poured Lucy some. “You,” she noted, “must be the graduate student paired with Patrick. My, you must have had some adventures. I thought Gabriel would be a boy, of course—”
“Oh,” corrected Lucy. “Gabriel was a boy. Is a boy. I’m Lucy Dantan, Gabriel’s replacement. And you’re…”
“Catherine O’Hanrahan,” she said, smiling.
Patrick’s sister. The Witch of Wisconsin! “From Wisconsin,” Lucy mumbled.
“Yes, I’m a retired postal worker there, in Madison. He may have told you.”
This woman was no harridan, Lucy surmised in an instant, no grave-robbing, testament-seeking relative. Another deranged characterization from Dr. O’Hanrahan. They walked to his new room, a happier place than before, curtains pulled back and sun streaming in.
O’Hanrahan was awake. He groggily looked at his sister entering the room: “Good heavens, they must think I’m on my deathbed! Calling in you, Cathy!”
His sister became more reserved. “That you almost were, but no such luck.” Lucy noticed her Irish lilt was more pronounced around her brother, the both of them returned to the accents of childhood.
“Lucy,” noted Miss O’Hanrahan, “has been entrusted with your private stock.”
Lucy saluted her mentor by holding up the bottle.
“I expect not a drop to be missing from the precious grail, Miss Dantan. When they spring me from this clip joint, I’ll relieve you of it.”
Miss O’Hanrahan looked at Lucy for sympathy. “He was never like this when he was young, you know. Quiet and shy and never spoke a word—”
“Good God, woman, you’ll ruin my reputation! That what you came down here for?”
They argued good-naturedly over the letter and whether Patrick got it. Patrick denied he got it and accused Lucy of losing it—
“I did not! I gave it to you on that train—”
“Silence!” demanded O’Hanrahan. “I will not be intrigued against.”
Catherine enjoyed his distress: “I hope, since you’ve bankrupted yourself, what it was that you were chasing was worth it.”
O’Hanrahan, looking redder in the face, shifted his pillows behind himself. “Let me sit up and take a look at you. Hate to admit it, but you look good, Cathy—I look like shit, don’t bother informing me.”
“I don’t use that language, but ‘tis how you look all right.”
“Yes, if you must know, we found what we were looking for.” O’Hanrahan talked excitedly as a teenager might: “Get a load of this, Cath. A First-Century gospel, earliest in existence, by an actual disciple.”
Lucy now noticed the small silver cross on the navy blue blouse, no ring on the unmarried Miss O’Hanrahan’s smooth hands. There goes me had I been born in that generation, Lucy reckoned: lucky for me I’m knocked up and a soon-to-be total Catholic outcast. Lucy noticed that Patrick rested his hand on his sister Catherine’s hand, though they continued to battle and willfully misinterpet each other. I suppose in thirty, forty years this will be one of my family in the hospital bed, maybe even me, Lucy thought. Will aged versions of Nicholas, Cecilia, Kevin, and Mary come filing past, send get-well cards, do their duty? Inconceivable, that we should ever be so convenient and close. Maybe it takes an almost-death to unite Irish-American families. How little solidarity we Dantans have …
Catherine O’Hanrahan had to move her car from the thirty-minute zone and her brother cheered her departure provocatively. O’Hanrahan barked out some errands, forays for toiletries and razors and cough drops. “And pick up a fifth of Maker’s Mark, while you’re at it.”
“So you can brush your teeth with it?” she asked without a smile.
“So I can soak my dentures in it.”
