Cat In A Crimson Haze

Chapter 19

Phone Alone

Matt sat by the telephone, home alone.

The phrase 'days off' meant more to him now. Working nights made every day an ''off'' day, in a sense. It freed normal business hours for his abnormal pursuit of the truth--the truth about Father Rafael Hernandez and perhaps about himself.

He had been derelict. His personal life and the crazy way his past and present was intersecting--Temple and the Gridiron hi-jinks at the Crystal Phoenix, his stepfather's shockingly odd death in the Phoenix casino, so bizarrely reminiscent of the Mystifying Max's dramatic exit--had distracted him from this unpleasant mission. No more.

Now the phone receiver was pressed to his left ear again, while his right hand--hardly knowing what it was doing-- scribed circles within circles on his note pad.

"Who did you say was assistant pastor when Father Hernandez was at Holy Rosary? Frank Bucek. How could I reach him? I know it's been a long time. ... St. Vincent Seminary. Indiana.''

Matt dutifully repeated the information. Pretend, Pretend that he was writing it down, dealing with unfamiliar syllables.

He wasn't. He most decidedly wasn't, which was why his insides cramped in a cold, iron grip.

Father Frank Bucek. Once upon a time, long ago, assistant pastor at Holy Rosary in Tempe, Arizona. And many years after that. . . Matt's spiritual advisor at the Indiana seminary.

An image of the man floated on the pale blank wall of Matt's bedroom. A spare man in a black cassock with knife-keen gray eyes and a receding hairline. Devoted, energetic, another apparently perfect priest. And, long before the seminary, he had been Father Hernandez's assistant pastor in Tempe. The trail from Our Lady of Guadalupe had led right back to Matt's own ecclesiastical roots.

Father Furter, the older guys in seminary had called Bucek. Matt didn't know why until later; the nickname came from Frank N. Furter, the cross-dressing protagonist of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, These days. Matt knew what that film was about, sort of, from popular repute. He suspected that the Legion of Decency would have condemned it back in the fifties. Now, it was a cult film precisely because it was naughty, not nice.

The nickname had no significance but to display the seminarians' rebellion and harmless irreverence. Lives steeped in study and prayer need a healthy dose of mischief. Father Frank had been a straight arrow, Matt remembered; he would swear to that. He recalled the man's other nickname: Father Furtive. Matt smiled at that one, which did mean something. Father Bucek seemed to have as many eyes as an Idaho potato. He always knew when mischief or a seminarian's defenses were up. A hard man to fool, Father Furtive.

Matt didn't relish trying to smooth-talk him into revelations about Father Hernandez. He didn't like the idea of contacting him at all. If there was anybody in the world harder than parents to tell you were leaving the priesthood, it was your spiritual advisor, the one person who knew you inside out--or at least knew you as well as you had to know yourself then.

Calling Father Bucek, confessing his present status, would be the hardest thing Matt had done yet to disengage from the priesthood. It would be worse than disappointing a parent. It would be like disappointing a good father, which Matt had never had in a family sense. The good father, who was, after all, only a few steps removed from the Heavenly Father Himself.

Cliff Effinger was dead. Matt told himself, his hand still clenched on the plastic receiver long after he had hung up.

That didn't mean that Matt had run out of father figures to worry about hurting, one way or another.

**************

Twenty-four hours later. Matt sat in the same place, his worn address book open to the long-distance number of St. Vincent Seminary. That was just a formality, a crutch. He knew the phone number by heart.

In twenty-four hours, he'd had endless opportunities to practice his presentation. The process reminded him of agonizing mental rehearsals for childhood confessions. No one is as scrupulous as a terrified ten-year-old, toting up selfishness and lies and assorted 'unkindnesses to others."

Those confessions had been a variety of well-intended lies in themselves; nothing of Matt's true home life had come out. Nothing resembling it was covered in the catechisms the children pored over to prepare for each new sacrament.

Matt picked up the receiver and dialed the number, once more familiar than his home phone number in Chicago.

A man answered. "St. Vincent Seminary."

'I'm calling for Father Frank Bucek."

"Father who?"

Matt smiled. The voice was deep but young. Some raw recruit was stuck with switchboard duty.

"Father Bucek," Matt repeated. "He's an instructor and spiritual advisor."

"There's no Father Bucek here."

Was that a slim warm filament of relief coiling in the clammy pit of Matt's stomach? Relief tightened into disbelief, and almost exploded into anger.

"Check the roster" Matt suggested, an edge in his voice he couldn't quite control.

"Just a moment.''

The moment became many. Matt hung on, hating the ambiguous silence of an empty phone line. The distasteful task had become imperative. Now that he had committed to contacting Father Bucek again, he intended to get it over with, or know the reason why.

"Can I help you?"

Matt started. This voice sounded older, even venerable. Though the timber faltered, the tone was confident. Matt felt like a green seminarian again, caught behaving less well than he should be.

"I'm trying to reach Father Frank Bucek," he said. This old bird would know the name, Matt was sure.

"I'm sorry, but Father Bucek is no longer at St. Vincent Seminary."

Not there? Of course he was there! He was St. Vincent Seminary, as far as Matt was concerned. Human monuments don't walk away from their chosen environments.

"Where did he go?" Matt blurted, hating his clumsiness.

"I'm not at liberty to say."

Another curve ball straight into the solar plexus. Matt remembered the voice now. Old Father Cartwright, the sacristan. How could this ancient still be there and Father Frank gone?

And why the secrecy?

"Gee, that's too bad." Matt was sounding his ingenuous, bland phone self again. He went into the well practiced song-and-dance about Father Hernandez's 'This Is Your Life" tribute. He was even beginning to believe it himself.

And," he finished with glib flair, ''Father Bucek was Father Rafe's assistant at his first pastorate. It would be so great to have Father Bucek here for the tribute. The parish would pay the transportation . . . unless it's somewhere prohibitive, like Hawaii." Matt laughed engagingly at the improbability of that notion.

''Not quite that far," Father Cartwright conceded . . . gave away ... a dry smile apparent in his voice. ''But--"

Matt frowned. This was very odd. Had the church grown paranoid with all the current charges against priests? The whereabouts of transferred clergy had not always been a state secret.

"Tell you what, young man--" Matt could almost see Father Cartwright's lips pursing in doubt. "I can contact him, and give him your address and phone number, if he wishes to call you."

"Why the rigmarole?" Matt asked bluntly.

An awkward silence. "Sorry. It's just that it might be difficult, and not appropriate for the

'This Is Your Life' program you're putting together. Father ... Frank is no longer with us."

"But where is he assigned now? Surely you can tell me that."

"That's just it. He's left the priesthood."

Now the silence on the line was thunderous: the rush of blood pounding in Matt's ears sounded like a faulty connection.

Matt stumbled automatically through a rote recital of his address and phone number. He wasn't sure he got the still-unfamiliar numerals right, and he didn't care.

The drone of a broken connection was Muzak to his throbbing ears. He hung up with a slam that mattered to no one but himself. A bang, not a whimper.

Not there? How dare he? Now that Matt had mastered himself and was ready to confront the past, a big chunk of it had mysteriously vanished. Father Furtive, all right. The other guys had been righter than they knew. Sneaking off like a truant. Beyond reach, like the Pope in Rome or something. Father Oh-so-high-and-mighty now Father Nothing. Left. He left. Too. Why?

Matt felt his hands itching to seize the phone, hurl it across the room at the wall, at the chintzy crates that served as bookshelves.

Instead he looked inward at the flushed face of his rage.

He saw his own face, only an infantile version of it, round and unshapen, yet empurpled by some toddler tantrum.

Of course. Matt released the breath that had made his chest into a prison and his ribs into iron bars containing the explosion. He rubbed his chin, to assure himself his adult face was in proper place.

What he felt was infantile rage for his natural father's mysterious defection, transferred to Father . . . ex-Father Bucek. Frank, now. Just Frank.

Mattes hands slapped his thighs. He should be pleased. If his spiritual director, his personal role model from seminary, had also left the priesthood, it validated Mattes action. Father Bucek had seemed decades older than he, but young people always divided folks into Us and the Ancients Over Thirty, one undifferentiated decaying clot. Thinking about it, Frank Bucek was probably only in his late forties. Young enough to make a career change.

Would he call? Did it matter? Yes, in terms of testimony about Father Hernandez, who had not yet left the priesthood, and probably never would. In terms of Mattes own peace of mind...?

He shook his head at the phone, as if it were a sentient thing that could hold an opinion.

He didn't know. His falsehood about the tribute certainly hadn't given Bucek a pressing reason to call.

"It's not important,'' he softly told the phone. "I don't need to know his story."

He smiled to recall Temple's recent lecture on the abuse of the "need to know" principle.

"And I doubt that Father Furtive needs to know mine."