Page 10 of Midnight Mass (Priest 1.50)
But Poppy was busy (with Stupid Fucking Anton), and so I called the next best thing.
Father Jordan.
Jordan Brady was maybe my best friend, although I wasn’t sure if I was his. His best friend was most likely a dead saint that probably visited him in his dreams or some shit, and it was hard to compete with a dead saint. Still, though, we were close, and he’d seen me through some of the worst parts of my life. He had the most genuine faith of anyone I’d ever met, and if anyone had a direct line to God, it was him. And if anyone could help steer me through this, he could.
The phone rang a few times before he picked up, and when he did, I recognized the slightly dazed voice he sometimes had after performing Mass, as if the ancient rite had unmoored him from our time and space, and sent him drifting into another realm.
“Tyler,” he said, a little dreamily. “I thought you’d call soon.”
“You are so weird,” I told him. (Lovingly.)
“Is this about Poppy?” he asked, ignoring me.
“No, it’s about my dissertation.” I explained to him what Professor Morales wanted, and how I thought she was right, but also how daunting the rewrite felt. “Especially because I feel like I’m also criticizing people like you and Bishop Bove,” I finished. “When I have nothing but the greatest respect for both of you. But it doesn’t matter, right? I mean, no one reads these things except for board members. I could write anything, and it won’t affect a soul outside of Princeton.”
Jordan took a long time to answer, and when he did, he sounded as if he were relaying a message rather than speaking his own mind. “It’s your task to write this, no matter how frightening it may seem. You should not be afraid to be critical, so long as you’re seeking authentic spiritual practice. And I think many people outside of Princeton are going to read this. This will have an impact crater, Tyler.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled. “That’s very helpful.”
“Take a break,” Jordan suggested. “Sleep tonight and pray, and when you wake up, things will be clearer.”
I stared at my laptop for another thirty minutes after I ended my call with Jordan. And then I finally took his advice and gave up, slamming my laptop closed and shoving the piles of paper into my bag. I left the books on my desk sin
ce I could lock up my stall for the night, and then, after one last look around, I went home.
It was after eleven, and the miserable drizzle had morphed into a miserable sleet. I walked the four blocks home, shivering and despondent, trying not to think about how shitty the next ten days would be as I attempted to construct something coherent and thoughtful in a third of the time that it had taken me to write the first version.
Shit.
All I wanted to do was go home and kick off my shoes and crawl into my warm soft bed, with my warm soft lamb. The thought of her—of her smell and her petite frame and of the red lipstick that she maybe hadn’t wiped off yet—hastened my steps. I’d get home, find my wife, and get warm again. Forget about this shitty dissertation and this massive, unexpected complication.
But when I unlocked the door to the townhouse, I was greeted by silent darkness. No faint reading light from the bedroom, no running water in the shower. The kitchen and living room were exactly as I’d left them before I went to teach. Poppy hadn’t been home yet.
This shouldn’t have bothered me. She said she was working late; hell, even I knew that she needed to work late. I knew how important this gala was to her. And yet a selfish, terrible part of me wanted her here, now, because I needed her. I was upset and frustrated, and she was my anchor. She was my harbor. She was every metaphor, nautical or otherwise, that made life worth living.
And she wasn’t here for me tonight.
But as soon as I thought that, I hated myself, thinking about all the nights she’d waited up for me. She’d been here for me every other night. No, I needed to realize that her work was as high a priority for her as my dissertation was for me, and it would be good for me to get a taste of my own medicine, so to speak. I’d earned this loneliness, this sense of abandonment. It was my penance.
I graded a few papers, took a long shower and then crawled into my empty bed, closing my eyes against the silent darkness. I was sure I wouldn’t be able to sleep like this, with my impending revision pounding against the inside of my skull and my skin prickling with the unpleasant awareness of the vacant space next to me.
Poppy had traveled before, yes. And there had been a few times when I’d flown home without her, sleeping alone in my twin bed from high school. But for some reason, it felt different tonight. It felt deliberate or hurtful or maybe neither of those two, but something like those. And the end result was me growing less and less tired, and more and more frustrated, until finally I got out of bed, tearing off the covers in one violent motion.
I made myself an Irish coffee—adding a bit more than the traditional splash of whiskey—and sat at our high-top kitchen table while I slowly set out my dissertation papers on my laptop.
The window by the table looked out onto the cemetery, the stones sedate and stately and ancient in the cold moonlight. The sleet had ended and the occasional snowflake spitted by, coming from the hazy, thin clouds stretched across the moon. I could see the faint glaze of ice on the blades of grass and along the tops of the grave markers. Somewhere out there, Aaron Burr and Grover Cleveland slept, famous men who were now no more than bones and ice and fragments of ragged clothing.
They didn’t have dissertation conclusions to rewrite, lucky bastards.
I turned back to my laptop, flexing my fingers and started typing.
One way the Catholic Church could transform within this framework…
Backspace backspace backspace.
The Church already has many kernels of these seemingly modern conceptions…
Delete delete delete.
