“I don’t know trust most members of the clergy. Not because they’re clergy. Because they’re people.”
“We’re on the same page there.” Cyrus exhaled. “You got any other ideas?”
“I’m intrigued by the Rumi poem you found in his Bible.”
“The butterfly poem? Why is that?” Cyrus had wondered about that himself.
“I keep very personal notes in my Bible. Old notes from my high school love. Letters Eleanor sent me while I was in Rome working on my Ph.D. Photographs of my son. The sort of irreplaceable things I would save first in a fire. If Father Isaac and I have anything in common, the poem might be meaningful. You can pick up a copy of Rumi’s poetry in any used bookstore. Why write the poem out by hand on fine paper and slip it in your Bible like some sort of billet-doux?”
“A what?”
“A love letter.”
Cyrus wasn’t too sure about that, but he filed it away as a “maybe.”
“Well, you know priests and their shit better than I do.”
“True. And we have a lot of shit,” Søren said. Cyrus laughed to himself.
“You do. Seriously. You sure you want to be a priest? Don’t take this the wrong way,” Cyrus said, glancing around to make sure they were alone. “But you got Nora. Now she’s not my type, but she’s your type. Why don’t you marry that girl? Hit it for the rest of your life without having to look over your shoulder to see if the archbishop’s watching.”
“The girl in question has little to no interest in marrying me. I ordered her to marry me once and didn’t see her again for a full year.”
“Damn. Most girls just say ‘No, thank you, let’s be friends.’”
Søren laughed, though Cyrus had a feeling the man had not been laughing at the time.
“So you going back?” he asked. “Nora says you got until Friday to decide.”
“I have to decide by Friday if I want to go back to teach when the new school year starts. There are hoops galore I have to jump through before they’ll put me back in a classroom.”
“That long stride will help you jump those hoops.”
Now Søren glared at him. Cyrus cackled to himself.
“You could be a professor without being a priest,” Cyrus said. “Right?”
“I wouldn’t be teaching pastoral studies at Loyola.”
“Then teach running at LSU. They got profs for that. Don’t know why, but they do.”
“I’m trying to picture myself as a Track & Field coach. It’s not working.”
“Just saying, you got options. It’s not ‘marry Nora’ or ‘be a Jesuit priest.’ There’s a range…” Cyrus held out both hands three feet apart. “Right hand, marry Nora. Left hand, be a priest. You see all that space in-between? That’s other shit you could be doing.”
“I’m well-aware of my options,” he said. “I just don’t like any of them. Professors, piano teachers, and track & field coaches don’t get to perform weddings and baptize babies, celebrate Mass, and perform Last Rites on the dying and bring a sense of comfort and peace to the family.”
“I get that. I do. I was a cop, then I was shot, now I’m a private detective. Even when I’m not a cop…I’m still a damn cop.”
“We are called to what we are called to,” he said, sounding just like a priest when he said it.
“I’m going to tell you something,” Cyrus said, “and it might come off as me getting back at you for running me ragged back there, but it’s not, okay?”
“Go on.”
“It’s what I tell the married men I talk to when I catch them cheating. You can’t keep your vows, you don’t get to keep your wife. It’s just that simple.”
“Simple,” he agreed. “Not easy.”
“Nobody’s saying it’s easy. I won’t even say it’s fair. I think you priests should be allowed to get married. Not easy. Not fair. But it is what it is and you knew that when you signed up for it. And that’s exactly what you’re allowed to tell me if I ever cheat on Paulina, God help me.”
“You are a wise man,” he said. “And I don’t like you very much right now.”
Cyrus had to laugh at that. “Truth hurts.”
A middle-aged woman jogged toward and then past them, giving him and Søren a knowing look. Cyrus could guess what she was thinking—definitely a weird gay hook-up.
“Here’s a thing you don’t know about me,” Cyrus said. “I’m in therapy. Paulina’s idea, but now I’m a convert. My therapist, she’s a Jungian. Now Jung was a little woo-woo but he’s helped me solve a lot of cases.”
“Very impressive for a man who’s been dead over fifty years.”
“Right. Anyway, he had this idea that people needed to have secrets. A secret is the thing that separates you from the masses. That secret is what makes you an individual.”
“And your point?”
“Dunno. Just seems kind of interesting that your whole life is a secret—by choice. Why do you think that is? You think maybe you like being separated from other people? Other priests, maybe?”
The Viking laughed a little—a very little—at that. “Worth considering.”
“Why would you want to be a priest if you don’t, you know, like them? Or want to be like them?”
“I promise you, Cyrus, you do not want to go anywhere near my psyche. You’d be better off walking blindfolded through an active minefield.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Worse.”
“Good. I don’t feel bad now about asking you a creepy question.”
“You have me intrigued. If you can creep me out, I’ll be very impressed.”
Priest. Sadist. Sleeping with a dominatrix. Yeah, probably took a lot to creep this old boy out.
“Speaking of priests and death—what makes a priest want to kill himself? It’s not just a sin. It’s the sin. The biggest sin. The sin that gets you kicked out of the cemetery. You can shoot up a 7-11 and still get in the cemetery. But you shoot yourself? That’s it. You’re evicted. Even the dead don’t want you in their neighborhood.”
“The usual, I imagine. Depression. Mental illness. Traumatic event. All those can be exacerbated by the loneliness of being a Catholic priest. No spouse to confide in, very few intimate friends. Also, there’s the fishbowl effect. We’re watched. We’re seen. We’re put on pedestals we don’t belong on. Most men feel the pressure to bottle up their emotions and priests experience that as well. But whereas other men are at least allowed to express anger, priests are expected to be godly and perfect at all times. We’re denied even the outlets other men are allowed.”
Cyrus nodded. He couldn’t imagine how hard it would be to go through life without Paulina in it. “What about you? Can you think of anything that would make you want to do it?”
“Ah, now that is a creepy question, isn’t it?”
“Creepy as hell,” Cyrus said. “Don’t answer it if you don’t want to.”