Paul Theroux - The Stranger at the Palazzo D'Oro

Homo, I thought.

Corny Kelliher said, “That’s a good idea, Father.”

“Or we could practice some knots,” Chicky said. “I’m trying to learn the bowline. Maybe go out for the Knot Tying merit badge.”

“I might be able to help you with that,” Father Staley said. “You know, I served in the navy?”

“I want to go into the navy, Father.” Chicky was smiling at him, and I knew he was deliberately choosing things to say to Father Staley, even trying to please him in a way, like a small boy dealing with a big dog.

Picking up a short length of rope and extending his scaly fingers so that we could see his movements, Father Staley slowly tied a bowline knot. With a little flourish, which seemed to me a sin of pride, he presented it, dangling it in our faces. I hated his fingers now.

“Now you do it,” he said. He picked the knot apart with his fingertips, then handed the rope to me.

My hands went numb because as soon as I started to tie the bowline, Father Staley lowered his head to peer at my fingers for the way I was tying the knot. His head was sweet from cologne, and I could still smell the Sen-Sen. I made several false starts, then tied the bowline.

“DePalma?” Father Staley handed the rope to Chicky.

Chicky started the knot slowly, his tongue clamped between his teeth. But then he bobbled the rope and tugged on the ends and the knot became a twisted knob.

“That’s a granny knot,” Father Staley said.

He got up and crouched behind Chicky and put his arms around him, and taking Chicky’s hands, which held each end of the rope, he guided Chicky, pressing on his fingers, tying the knot using Chicky's hands.

“See?” His head was in back of Chicky's head, his breath on Chicky's neck.

Squirming free of the priest and looking rattled, Chicky said, “I think I get it, Father.”

In the navy you learned many different knots, Father Staley said. He had been stationed in Japan. He tied a knot on Vinny Grasso’s wrists and said, “Japanese handcuffs. Go ahead, try taking them off.” When Vinny yanked on them, he grunted and his hands went white. Instead of untying Vinny, Father Staley used more pieces of rope to tie Chicky’s wrists and mine. I left the rope slack, because I thought from Vinny’s reaction that the knot would tighten if I put pressure on it. Instead, I made my right hand small and it was so sweaty I managed to slip it out of one side, and untied the knot.

Father Staley saw I had freed myself, and he smiled and put his scaly fingers out for the rope and said, “Want to try again?”

His friendliness made me so nervous I couldn’t speak. I watched him untying Vinny’s wrists. Afterward, Arthur Mutch told us to line up and stand at attention. Father Staley made the sign of the cross and said, “Let us pray,” and my pressed-together hands got hot, for when he prayed I was more afraid than ever.

“Dear Lord, make us worthy of your love…”

On the way home, I thought Chicky would talk about Father Staley hugging him and holding his hands to tie the bowline, but instead he said in a trembly voice, “Scaly thinks I’m dragging you down.”

“He’s full of shit,” I said.

“We should kill him,” Chicky said.

“What will we tell Walter?”

“That we’ll get the bastard.” Kicking the pavement, scuffing his shoe soles, he was thinking hard. “Know what we should do? Wreck his stupid car.”

“Like how?”

“There’s billions of ways,” Chicky said.

I remembered how he got angry because there was no car maintenance merit badge, and he knew everything about cars.

Before we parted that night, he said, “I think you drag me down, because you’re such a fucking banana man.”

We went to Walter’s house after school the next day and hid behind a tree, waiting for him to come home. After a while, a car stopped in front of his house and Walter got out — a car full of kids, more Seventh-day Adventists, more bean eaters, who never danced, who went to church on Saturday. So many of them made the religion seem stranger.

Seeing us lurking near the tree, Walter looked around and then sidled over and whispered, “What’re we going to do?”

“Kill his car,” Chicky said. He loved the expression. He licked his lips and made his yellow monkey face. “Kill his car.”

Chicky put himself in charge, because cars were the one thing he knew about. He said, ‘Andy's the head tracker. And you’re the head lookout, Herkis. But you’ve got to do what I say.”

“No guns,” I said.

“Why not?” Walter said.

“Because if we get caught they’ll take them away.” But my worst fear was that if they had them they would use them and would kill Father Staley.

“How are we going to kill his car, then? I thought we were going to shoot bullets into it.”

“That'll just make holes and dents. We’re really going to wreck it wicked bad, inside and out.”

The next Saturday we spent in the woods, lying on our stomachs in the foxhole on the wooded bluff above Doleful Pond, watching for Father Staley’s blue Studebaker. He didn’t show up, though others did — fishermen, lovers, dog walkers. We watched them closely but stayed where we were, and we were well hidden by the leafy branches, for spring had advanced. Twice during the week we made a visit: no Scaly. Maybe he had given up?

When we did not see him at Mass, we asked Arthur Mutch, Chicky saying, “Father Staley was supposed to teach us some knots.”

“Father Staley is on a retreat.”

“What’s a retreat?”

“It’s what you should do sometime, DePalma,” Arthur Mutch said sternly, because he didn’t like Chicky. “Go to New Hampshire, to pray. Lenten devotion.”

Whispering to me at the Beaver Patrol, Chicky said, “I bet he’s not praying. Five bucks says he’s whacking off.”

We did not see Father Staley until just before Easter, saying the Mass on Holy Thursday. We reported this to Walter, who sort of blamed us for Father Staley.

“We’ll look for him tomorrow,” I said.

“You going to church again tomorrow?”

“Good Friday. Holy day of obligation.”

“I don’t care what you say — that’s worse than us.”

The Good Friday service lasted almost three hours, and the priests wore elaborate robes and faced the altar, but midway through the incense ceremony, one of the priests turned and swung the thurible at the congregation, waving a cloud of incense at us, and Chicky nudged me, whispering, “Scaly.”

Attendance at church was not required on Holy Saturday. We didn’t expect to see Father Staley by the pond, but we had the whole day for tracking, and it was a cold sunny day, with some flowers in bloom, and so we were glad to head into the woods. Even if Father Staley didn’t show up, we would have more chances, for the following day was Easter, the start of a week’s vacation.

Walter was early. He said, “I was in this Bible class. I put up my hand and said, ‘Excuse me.’ The teacher says, ‘Okay.’ So I just left. He thought I was going to the john.”

Chicky wasn’t listening. He said, “If we kill his car, we’ll put him out of commission.”

We stopped and had a snack at Panther’s Cave, sitting out of the wind, in the warm sunlight.

“What have you got?”

“Bottle of tonic. Some Twinkies. You?”

“Cheese in a bulkie. Bireley’s Orange.”

“I ain’t eating, I’m smoking,” Chicky said, and lit a cigarette, and with smoke trickling out of his nose, he looked more than ever in charge.

The day was lovely, the woods so much greener than on that first day, when Walter had told us his story. We had been cold then, and the goose bumps of fear in our bodies too. Afterward, frightened by the thought of the man chasing Walter, we had stumbled through the woods, not knowing where to go or what to do. Now we knew. The weather was warm, the ground was dry, the woods smelled sweet.