Alan Russell - Burning Man

“Does it work?”

I didn’t say, but Della already knew the answer. It’s easy to depersonalize a baby Jane Doe, but not as easy to forget a forsaken newborn that you’ve given a name.

“Has anyone called the Saint?” I asked.

I offered up Lisbet Keane’s nickname for what it was, a term of respect. An outsider had earned the begrudging high opinion of the coroner’s office and the LAPD.

“I just finished talking with her,” Della said. “She’ll pick up Rose after the coroner releases her.”

Before Lisbet had come on the scene, newborns had been cremated and placed in a mass grave in East LA. A decade earlier, Lisbet had seen a news spot on an abandoned newborn and felt called upon to attend to the baby’s burial. While she was negotiating for a plot, two other dead newborns turned up. Though only a college student at the time, Lisbet had decided she would somehow find the money to bury all three. In the years since she had gathered up every abandoned newborn and seen to their burials. Lisbet’s caring didn’t stop with the dead-she had been the driving force behind establishing California’s Safely Surrendered Baby Law. In only a few years, most of the country had followed California’s example, and as a result nationwide there are now fewer throwaway newborns.

“I’ll call her later,” I said.

Even saints need to make a living. Lisbet was a freelance graphic artist, a job that allowed flexibility for her unusual calling. As far as I was concerned, she was too young and too attractive to be a saint.

I looked at Rose and said in a voice kinder than my own, “Don’t worry, your adopted mom will soon be picking you up.”

“Amen,” Della said.

My eyes turned to the rail of Angels Flight spanning the heights. The railway didn’t operate in the evening, but I hoped that sometime during the night it had made a special ascent.

From inside the rectory office, I heard a familiar and comforting voice announce loudly enough for me to hear, “Well, we can’t keep one of LA’s finest waiting, can we?”

Father Patrick Garrity, known by everyone as Father Pat, was the pastor at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament on Sunset Boulevard. When people think of the Sunset Strip, they don’t usually envision a church, but for more than a century the church has been a part of a neighborhood better known for its sinners than its saints.

“Get in here, Michael,” Father Pat shouted. “I’d like to embarrass you in front of a few people.”

I have never visited Father Pat without him telling the story of our first meeting to at least one person. As I entered the rectory, he stood up from his chair and opened his arms to the prodigal son. His hair was completely gray now, but the blue eyes behind his thick glasses were still young. There had been a time when I was sure Father Pat was ten feet tall. The physical reality was that he was half of that and resembled in build a well-fed friar. As he squeezed me tight, my holster pressed hard into him; for a moment his face wrinkled in distaste at his recognition of the weapon, but then he patted my shoulder and his smile returned.

He turned and made eye contact with a young Hispanic man wearing vestments who I guessed was the latest fresh-faced pastoral intern. “This is the Michael Gideon,” he said. “You might have heard me mention his name a time or two.”

Barbara, the church secretary, had followed me into Father Pat’s office and stood there beaming and nodding, but the young priest didn’t know me from Adam. Or Eve.

“This is ‘baby Michael,’” Father Pat said, “the gift left on our doorstep.”

“Oh, that Michael,” the intern said.

“Yes,” Father Pat said. He turned his eyes on me and said, “Your reputation precedes you.”

“There’s a reason I’ve never invited you to my workplace.”

“I met Michael more than thirty years ago,” he said, “back when I was svelte, handsome, and quite full of myself.”

“It’s hard to believe the svelte and handsome part.”

Father Pat motioned for Barbara and me to sit down. He never let anything get in the way of his telling a good story, even if everyone had heard it before.

“In my early years at Blessed Sacrament,” he said, “I was the low man on the totem pole. Part of my duties included giving the eight o’clock Monday mass, which always seemed a bit of an anticlimax after the weekend services, at least to this wet-behind-his-ears priest. On Monday I knew that only a small number of regulars attended mass, and it was always a rare Monday when I didn’t think that my talents could be put to better use.

“As I was getting myself ready in the sacristy, I suddenly took notice of a strange sound, but because this has always been a neighborhood of strange sounds I decided to pay it no mind. The plaintive cry only lasted for a few seconds, and I was glad of that. I tried to convince myself that it was a stray cat, but I still couldn’t shake this uneasy feeling.

“I told myself that I had no time for any wild goose chase, what with a mass to prepare for, but the truth of the matter is that I didn’t want to be bothered. Still, I suppose I continued to listen out of one ear, for it was only a minute or two later that I again became aware of some faint crying. The sounds were weaker this time around and were gone so quickly I wondered if I had imagined them.

“Because the homeless and transients have long been a part of this neighborhood, I suspected the cries were human, but that wasn’t enough to make me act. ‘It’s probably a maudlin drunk,’ I told myself, ‘grieving because he’s run out of liquor.’ On that self-righteous note, I tried to convince myself to not be bothered, but there was something oppressive about the silence. I didn’t hear the quiet so much as I sensed this void. When I think back to that time, I am sure I was being given a test, and had I turned my back, I believe I would have failed it to the detriment of my soul. That is why, when I tell this story from the pulpit, I suggest that all of us need to listen to what we don’t hear as well as that which we do, and cocksure priests most of all.”

Father Pat gave a side glance to the intern and winked. “It was a cold January morning, much like the mornings we’ve been having this week, and I remember as I hurried outside my breath produced a vapor trail. I started in the direction I thought the sound had come from, making my way to the back lot, but I was stopped by a metal chain that was strung up to keep cars out. I was wearing my robes, and as I stepped over the chain I tripped on it. My fall was almost deterrent enough to send me back. As I lay sprawled on the ground, I remember bemoaning the state of my vestments and thinking how it wouldn’t do for me to officiate mass with a tear in the left knee of my pants, and how I needed to go back right away so that I would have time enough to hurriedly change into other clothing. I knew full well that the regulars would not like it if the service started late, and that these particular parishioners would be sure to give me an earful if mass did not begin on time. Just as I convinced myself that I had to turn back, I heard a sound. It wasn’t loud enough to be a wail but was more like a fading whistle. I turned my head and scanned the entire back lot but saw nothing.

“With a few very unholy words and an aggrieved limp, I decided that I couldn’t leave without at least a cursory look of the area. It’s probably a bird, I told myself, and I am just a birdbrain on a fool’s errand, but my recriminations didn’t stop me from inspecting the blacktop. I scanned the area and was just about to give up when I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye. The breeze was blowing along some leaves, pushing them to a spot in the corner where other leaves and trash were piled high by the wind. Back then my eyes were sharp, but I did not want to believe what I was seeing. I found myself staring at a small, still hand.