VISIONS
By Robert B. Gentry
"Would you look at 'im! A lot of good Mother Superior did talkin' to 'im! Web-footin' again to Dooley's!" Sister Patrick had just spotted Father Daniel Muldooney.
"He's starting so early in the day. Gracious, I don't know what's to come of it," Sister Grenadine said.
"The droonk tank at the county jail! That's where he's goin' if he doesn't go on the wagon. Mother Superior should report 'im to the bishop."
"It's a shame, a stain on his good character," Sister Grenadine said.
Father Dan's "good character" manifested itself in a number of ways. He administered the sacraments with great piety. He said his office with uncanny regularity even when Old Crow pecked him. He gave to the poor, visited the sick, eased the distressed, tended the dying, buried the dead, forgave sinners, and kept his hands off ladies and blond boys. And he was quick to counsel Bud Dooley to build his pub as close to St. Margaret's as the law would allow.
Later, the two nuns were working feverishly in the convent laundry. It was almost high noon. A beastly hot July 4! Hadn't rained in a month. A noisy fan dipped up and down but didn't cool the hotly garbed nuns. Like two army grunts stuck on a holiday "shit list," they had hit Mother Superior's duty roster: Sister Grenadine for nodding off during Vespers; Sister Patrick for condemning her stubbed toe with a "damn ye."
"Mother of Jesus, if this place is a fraction as hot as the infarnel region, 'tis hell enough," moaned Sister Patrick.
"Oh, we've already gone above and beyond the call of mortification today," Sister Grenadine said as the church bell tolled noon.
The nuns fell to their knees on the hard floor and began in unison, "The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary, and she was conceived by the Holy Ghost." Water trickled into Sister Grenadine's mouth and seasoned the prayer with the salt of her sweat. The Angelus over, Sister Patrick jumped up and kicked off a shoe.
"I have a wonderful idea," she said. "Let's divest ourselves."
"Divest? We're keeping our vow of poverty."
"No, our attachments!"
"Well, I suppose it won't hurt to remove this holy crucifix. Perspiration may tarnish the silver."
"Oh, dear Sister, do I have to spell it out to ye?" Plucky Sister Patrick shucked the other shoe and began loosening her belt.
"Maybe a beltless waist would be cooler. My rosary can do without me for a little while."
"Still don't get it, Grenadine! Yer, shoes, veil, blouse, skirt, hose, bloomers! Take 'em all off! Want to martyr yerself to a heat stroke?"
"Oh, St. Ursula, we'll be seen!"
"On the Fourth of July? Surely not. Mother Superior's at bingo. Father's still at the pub, no doubt." Sister Patrick bolted the door, started drawing the curtains.
"Those curtains are old, frayed. Someone could peep at-"
"This'll do fine." Sister Patrick was tearing off long strips from a roll of masking tape and sticking them on the raggedy curtains.
Meanwhile, Hunger and Thirst struggled for possession of Father Dan's body, if not his soul.
"Out of my way!" Hunger barked at Thirst. "I've got corn beef to conquer and cabbage to attack."
"Not yet ye don't. I had first dibs on him today. Need to hone his enzymes, fuel his belly for digestive assault. I demand another round of Coke and Crow."
It looked as if Thirst would prevail when Bud Dooley, in his usual role of bar counselor, said, "Father, you've had a nice stay, but it's now the heat of the day. 'Tis a dry time for John Barleycorn. Ah, but a fine time for your tasty lunch at the rectory!" ?Bud helped the priest out the door; Father Dan started back to St. Margaret's, chewing a mouth full of mints, stepping slow and high above what seemed to him a rising sidewalk, but his caution didn't prevent a weave
here, a stagger there.
It took more urging, but Sister Patrick soon convinced Sister Grenadine to divest completely.
"Now only God sees us," Sister Patrick said.? "He may be a man, but He's King of the gentlemen, He is. He looks on the ladies properly, even the likes of us naked noons."
"Well, I must say this is a relief." Sister Grenadine stroked her shoulders, sides, and hips. The fan dipped up and down, more slowly than a praying head at the Wailing Wall, creaking and squeaking as it blew up and down the nuns' backsides.
They looked at themselves and each other with considerable surprise. Mother Superior had forbidden her chaste charges to disrobe in the presence of each other or even in front of a mirror.
"I must say we look pretty good for our age, even if we are, uh, on the young side of forty plus."
"Pretty good, just pretty good! Why, blessed Grenadine, were we laity, we'd be calendar girls, we would. How nicely formed we are! Our rosy ripe skins! Our pristine breasts! No kids to suck us dry and wear us down. No men to bully and sully us. Perish the thought if the divil ever sent a man to try to seduce us away from Hawly Mother Church! I'd give 'im a corker of a pounding, I would, and Father Dan'd give 'im a fistful of penance.
A knock on the door! The nuns paled.
"Blind man!" shouted the voice, a bit distorted by the sounds of the fan and laundry machines.
"Some blind old beggar wantin' a handout. Let him in! I'll see what I can dig outa me purse."
Sister Grenadine unbolted the door and slowly opened it as Sister Patrick stepped forward with some change. The nuns stood behind the door so as not to be seen by anyone outside. Sweaty head down, the blind man trudged in with a blast of hot air.
"Where you want these blinds?" he said.
Two nunly mouths flew open. Luciano looked up; his mouth flew open widest of all.
What ferocious fears shocked Luciano Cacciatore? What primal urges seized this Grand Knight of Columbus? This toiler in the Lord's holiday vineyard at double-time wage! This deliverer of an overdue load the nuns had forgotten they needed! This "Chicken" so dubbed because he left poker games cash ahead! "Chicken," a name Luciano hated and blamed Father Dan for inventing. What forces rocked the knight now? Demonic? Freudian? A mixture? Whatever they were, they shook the
blinds from his hands and pitched him forward in a mighty faint.
Did these same awesome forces assault Sister Grenadine? Hand stuffed in her gaping mouth, she staggered one step back, wobbled seven steps forward, swooned, and fell crisscross on the hapless Luciano.
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," cried Sister Patrick, "have ye taken these daily communicants already?"
Fear struck, but controlled, she squatted, groping for beats in carotid arteries. Fortunately, nun and knight throbbed in perfect synchrony.
"C'mon, arise and walk! Be nat'ral! Mill around!"
No response from the stricken. Sister Patrick filled a bucket with water and doused them. Sister Grenadine lifted her head a bit, then fell still again. Sister Patrick bent over to shake her cohort.
"Bloomin' begorrah!" howled Father Dan at the sight of Sister Patrick's derriere.
She wheeled around, threw up her hands in horror-the priest stumbled through the doorway-the nun scurried frantically for clothing.
"Saints alive, another naked one!" Father Dan cried, clutching his chest, weaving over the fallen. "Oh, St. Peter, it's the big one! Must ye call me home with this awful apparition?"
Sister Patrick jerked on her bloomers, grabbed a broom, her bare breasts jiggling. "Out, ye sot! Go confess yer drunken sins to the bishop!" Wielding the broom like a shillelagh brawler, she beat the priest out the door, slammed and bolted it.
"Oh, dear Lord, dear, dear Lord, no more Old Crow! I swear to thee on this holy book." Father Dan's prayerful hands clasped the breviary; he dropped to his knock-knees. "The devil was in that whiskey glass. He swelled me eyes with the vision of a holy nun's arse."
Sister Patrick threw more water on the fallen. Sister Grenadine was getting aroused. Soon the two nuns were fully clothed and modest again.
"How will we explain this to him?" Grenadine whispered, pointing a shaky finger at Luciano as he was coming to.
"Give it to 'im straight and to anyone else. Send 'em a message we need air condition in this hot box."
"Mamma mia!" Luciano jumped up, ran over and clawed open the door.
"Mr. Cacciatore, please," Sister Grenadine said, "we can ex-"
"Maria bella, the heat! Seeing visions!" Luciano shouted to the sky as he dashed out the door, waving wildly, crashing into the priest who was rising to his feet with cries of contrition, and both hit the ground.
"Et tu, Chicken!" snarled the priest in a strange burst of Latin.
The hated name, fumes of garlic and Crow-the knight exploded with curses-the priest countered in kind-now a tangle of twisting torsos and flailing arms, rolling in the dust of a parched lawn, spotted by Sergeant Clancy, who jumped out of his car desperate to restore the peace.
The big cop jerked the dusty duo to their feet and got between what looked more like white wraiths than human flesh even when they swung simultaneous fists-cop ducking just in time — one fist slamming into the knight's face — the other whamming the priest's jaw — and down they went again.
"Just look at 'em!" Sister Patrick exclaimed as Clancy loaded the dazed fighters into the patrol car. "Once they were shining examples of Catholic manhood; now they're barbarians bound for the jailhouse. On Independence Day of all days!"
"Oh, what can we do?"
"What noons do best, though I dare say they hardly deserve it." Sister Patrick fell to her knees followed by Sister Grenadine.
"In the name of the Father and the Son and the Hawly Ghost!" Sister Patrick began, fingering her rosary beads. "The First Sorrowful Mystery!"
END
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