I Am the Messenger

Ritchie and Marv do the barbecue. Audrey and I do the beer. Father O'Reilly looks after the kids' food and drinks, and no one misses out on anything.

When the food and drink are all gone, we bring out the karaoke, and there are many people singing all kinds of things. I stay a long time with Milla, who also finds some girls, as she put it, that she went to school with. They all sit on a bench, and one of them doesn't have legs long enough to touch the ground. With her legs crossed at the ankles, she swings them back and forth, and it's the most beautiful thing I see all day.

I even get Audrey to sing with me. "Eight Days a Week" by the Beatles. Of course, Ritchie and Marv bring the house down when they do a rendition of "You Give Love a Bad Name" by Bon Jovi. I swear, this whole town lives in the past.

I dance.

I dance with Audrey, Milla, and Sophie. I especially love twirling them and hearing laughter in their voices.

When it's over, and I've taken Milla home and returned again, we clean up.

The last thing I see that day is Thomas and Tony O'Reilly sitting on the steps of the church, smoking together. The odds are that they won't see each other for another few years, but I can ask for nothing more than this.

I didn't know the father smoked.

That night I get some visitors--first Father O'Reilly and later the police.

The father knocks on my door and stands there, saying nothing.

"What?" I ask him.

But the father doesn't speak. He merely stands there and watches me. He searches me for an answer for what happened today. In the end, I think he gives up on words. He only steps forward, places his hands on my shoulders, and looks very seriously into my eyes. I can see the feeling shifting the skin on his face. He contorts in a very peaceful, very holy way.

I think it's the first chance in a long time the father's had to say thank you. Usually it's people thanking him. I think that's why his expression is so stranded and why the recognition on his face stumbles in its attempt to reach me.

"No worries," I say. A quiet happiness stretches out between us. We hold it awhile.

When he turns and leaves, I watch him walk up the road till he disappears.

The police show up at about ten-thirty. In their hands, they hold scrubbing brushes and some kind of liquid solution.

"For washing that paint off the road," they say.

"Thanks a lot," I answer.

"The least we could do."

Again at 3 a.m. I'm on the main street of town, this time scrubbing the paint off the road.

"Why me?" I ask God.

God says nothing.

I laugh and the stars watch.

It's good to be alive.

My arms and shoulders are sore as all hell the next few days, but I still think it was worth it.

In that time, I find Angie Carusso. There are only a few Carussos in the phone book, and I eliminate them one by one till I find her.

She has three kids and looks to have been one of those typical teenage mothers in this town. It's two boys and a girl, and she works in the chemist part-time. Her hair is short and dark brown and she looks nice in her work dress. It's one of those white, knee-length clinical sort of garments that all chemist assistants seem to wear. I like them.

Every morning, she gets her kids ready for school and walks there with them. Three days a week she goes

to work. The other two she walks back home.

I watch her from afar and notice she gets paid on the Thursday. On those afternoons, she picks up her kids and takes them to the same park I sat in with the Doorman when Sophie came and talked to me.