Tremont Street, out across Mass. Ave., in the Berry. You've heard of the Berry?"
Doyle did not react.
"Roxbury, Terence. St Cyp's is the Turkish parish."
"Turkish?"
"West Indian. My dad is the rector."
"He's a minister?"
"A priest Just like the priests at BC. Mass every morning. Chasuble, alb, transubstantiation."
"But he's got a kid, so we're talking Protestant, right?"
"Christ, if my father ever heard you say that As if he were Baptist, as if he were fucking Methodist! St Cyprian's Episcopal Church. Not AME! C of E!"
"Okay, all right." Terry put his hands up, surrendering the point. But only because it had been made: Episcopal was Protestant. "Now I see why you're excused from theology class at school. Because you're Episcopal."
"Episcopalian, actually. And yes, that's why I draw a bye. But"—McKay raised his hands now too, calling this game off, this one on one, this keep away—"the truth is, unlike my father, I am not a Christian, period." He leaned in, and Doyle could smell his cologne, spicy and sweet. "Don't tell my old man when you come home with me for Sunday dinner—you
will
come home with me, won't you?"
"Yes."
"Don't tell him or Mom either, but I'm an atheist."
The stark expression on McKay's face hit Terry, the dead earnestness at last He understood that there was more integrity in that statement, more virtue, than in all the easy, countless credos he himself had made. He answered quietly, "I'm not an atheist, Bright. But I have my version of the same thing. I am supposed to be a priest And I mean
priest!
I am the elder son. It's the landless Irish version of primogeniture. They still expect it of me."
"Shit, man, and you want no part of it."
"Right."
"Don't blame you. Who in hell could blame you? Tell you what." He slugged Terry's shoulder. "Stick with me. I'll teach you a thing or two."
McKay turned and strode back toward the Young Dems' corner. He glanced back and said, "Come on."
But Doyle did not move. For a moment he just stood there watching McKay and thinking, You already have, you bastard. You already have.
***
On another afternoon he stood inside the front door for a moment, just in from Tremont Street, having come down from BC alone. The room had been enlarged by the removal of walls and false ceilings, and it sprawled from the front of the building to the back. Light bulbs hanging in factorylike tin cones made a checkerboard of light and shadow. There were dozens of card tables, metal desks, folding chairs, and wooden benches, most piled high with cartons to be opened, sheets of paper to be folded into flyers, envelopes to be stuffed and addressed. Doyle watched the workers checking off names, moistening wads of envelope flaps on sponges, dialing telephones—all brimming with the edgy happiness of former athletes. In Boston politics, volunteers could be pros too.
Not only the lift of the campaign lightened Doyle's step as he crossed the spirited room. One of the things that had heightened his interest in the far back corner where the college kids worked was the fact that, as the weeks had passed and the momentum picked up, more and more of the Young Dems were girls. "Young Debs" was what McKay called them. They came from local women's colleges, Regis, Emmanuel, Radcliffe, Wellesley, and Wheaton. They were suburban extroverts, flirtatious and surprisingly sexy in their blazers and pleated skirts. They seemed completely free of the feeling of displacement that he took for granted in himself and had sensed in the girls he'd known in Charlestown. In their double-your-pleasure levity, in their twin-sweater sets and penny loafers and pageboy hairdos, it was easy to picture the neatly trimmed lawns in front of their family houses—barbecues and patios out back—in white-collar Forest Hills, Roslindale, and even Wellesley and Winchester. What an anti-Xanadu the pinched, tavern-ridden milieu to which he returned at night would be to them. Much was made in the Town of Kennedy's having
Doyle did not react.
"Roxbury, Terence. St Cyp's is the Turkish parish."
"Turkish?"
"West Indian. My dad is the rector."
"He's a minister?"
"A priest Just like the priests at BC. Mass every morning. Chasuble, alb, transubstantiation."
"But he's got a kid, so we're talking Protestant, right?"
"Christ, if my father ever heard you say that As if he were Baptist, as if he were fucking Methodist! St Cyprian's Episcopal Church. Not AME! C of E!"
"Okay, all right." Terry put his hands up, surrendering the point. But only because it had been made: Episcopal was Protestant. "Now I see why you're excused from theology class at school. Because you're Episcopal."
"Episcopalian, actually. And yes, that's why I draw a bye. But"—McKay raised his hands now too, calling this game off, this one on one, this keep away—"the truth is, unlike my father, I am not a Christian, period." He leaned in, and Doyle could smell his cologne, spicy and sweet. "Don't tell my old man when you come home with me for Sunday dinner—you
will
come home with me, won't you?"
"Yes."
"Don't tell him or Mom either, but I'm an atheist."
The stark expression on McKay's face hit Terry, the dead earnestness at last He understood that there was more integrity in that statement, more virtue, than in all the easy, countless credos he himself had made. He answered quietly, "I'm not an atheist, Bright. But I have my version of the same thing. I am supposed to be a priest And I mean
priest!
I am the elder son. It's the landless Irish version of primogeniture. They still expect it of me."
"Shit, man, and you want no part of it."
"Right."
"Don't blame you. Who in hell could blame you? Tell you what." He slugged Terry's shoulder. "Stick with me. I'll teach you a thing or two."
McKay turned and strode back toward the Young Dems' corner. He glanced back and said, "Come on."
But Doyle did not move. For a moment he just stood there watching McKay and thinking, You already have, you bastard. You already have.
***
On another afternoon he stood inside the front door for a moment, just in from Tremont Street, having come down from BC alone. The room had been enlarged by the removal of walls and false ceilings, and it sprawled from the front of the building to the back. Light bulbs hanging in factorylike tin cones made a checkerboard of light and shadow. There were dozens of card tables, metal desks, folding chairs, and wooden benches, most piled high with cartons to be opened, sheets of paper to be folded into flyers, envelopes to be stuffed and addressed. Doyle watched the workers checking off names, moistening wads of envelope flaps on sponges, dialing telephones—all brimming with the edgy happiness of former athletes. In Boston politics, volunteers could be pros too.
Not only the lift of the campaign lightened Doyle's step as he crossed the spirited room. One of the things that had heightened his interest in the far back corner where the college kids worked was the fact that, as the weeks had passed and the momentum picked up, more and more of the Young Dems were girls. "Young Debs" was what McKay called them. They came from local women's colleges, Regis, Emmanuel, Radcliffe, Wellesley, and Wheaton. They were suburban extroverts, flirtatious and surprisingly sexy in their blazers and pleated skirts. They seemed completely free of the feeling of displacement that he took for granted in himself and had sensed in the girls he'd known in Charlestown. In their double-your-pleasure levity, in their twin-sweater sets and penny loafers and pageboy hairdos, it was easy to picture the neatly trimmed lawns in front of their family houses—barbecues and patios out back—in white-collar Forest Hills, Roslindale, and even Wellesley and Winchester. What an anti-Xanadu the pinched, tavern-ridden milieu to which he returned at night would be to them. Much was made in the Town of Kennedy's having
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