something I still can’t quite believe.
The Sunday before last, Bernard showed up in the city, unannounced. I was sitting in church before five o’clock Mass started— there were only about ten of us—and while sitting there, I felt a hand clap on my shoulder. It was Bernard. It was barely fifty degrees that day but he was not wearing a coat. He was wearing a blue seersucker jacket and a button-down shirt, with his tan corduroys held up by his braided leather belt. He was clearly enduring something beyond his usual dishevelment. There was a hole the size of a quarter in the knee of his right pant leg. His hair was standing up a half inch higher than usual, and his eyes were looking at me as if I were one tree of many in a forest. Scratches on his bare ankles—he had not put on socks with his oxfords. His fingernails were laced with grime.
He pushed himself into the pew, shoving me to the right with his hip. “Frances,” he said. “Your landlord said you would be here.”
I couldn’t speak. I just stared at him. I knew something awful was going to happen but I didn’t know what. I could not push my mind past a repetition of the phrase
Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy, Lord, have mercy, Lord, have mercy.
My mind resting in that one thought like a bike chain gone slack. He put his hand on my knee. I didn’t know what to say, so I put my hand over his. “It’s your birthday,” he said, and he held my hand tighter.
Somehow I got some presence of mind. “Why don’t we go outside and walk around for a bit?” I said. Then he said a very strange thing: “It’s your birthday, your feast day, and this is why I have come. Today is the day of Frances Reardon, orphaned child of Brigid’s isle, patron saint of frigid knees. Of unmet wishes, of idées fixes, of withering eyes, of docile guise.” He had continued staring at me as if I were one tree in a forest of many, but after he delivered this speech his look sharpened into something cruel. I’d felt what he was saying to me was cruel, and the look confirmed it.
Then he stood and started walking up the outer aisle. He began to shout, and said even stranger things. He said that this place—meaning the church—was no better than a bar room. “This place is a place where the people come to drink,” he shouted. “They drink to forget, to die to what is real, they slump over in prayer, drinking and drinking in remembrance of me.” I sorely wished for the gift of fainting from shock. He went down the center aisle. “I am turning you out!” he said. Two women got up and hurried out of the church, and at this point I found the courage to get up and walk as fast as I could to find the priest. I walked back to the door that leads from the sanctuary to the church office, and there stood the priest, white head bowed, shrugging on his robe. It’s always like seeing them in their underwear when you see them in their belted slacks and dress shoes. He looked up. I saw eyes that were younger than his hair, and I felt relief. I told him what was happening and he went out with me, and this small white-haired Irish man managed to wrestle Bernard to the ground. The organist, who is a statuesque, almost stout, redhead, helped the priest keep Bernard there. At least they did for as long as it took for me to run out and find a cop, who then called an ambulance. When I came back in, Bernard had of course escaped the bonds of the priest and the organist and was throwing missals everywhere. It took four ambulance attendants to get him on a stretcher. He bit one of them. And now Bernard is in a hospital outside of Boston. He has been there for nine days.
John Percy, who has been to see him, tells me the doctors say he suffered a manic episode. When I think about all I have known of Bernard, and what I have now read of his disease, I see how his illness has been lying in wait for him. It will come for him again, and again.
As far as John can tell, Bernard came down on the train
The Sunday before last, Bernard showed up in the city, unannounced. I was sitting in church before five o’clock Mass started— there were only about ten of us—and while sitting there, I felt a hand clap on my shoulder. It was Bernard. It was barely fifty degrees that day but he was not wearing a coat. He was wearing a blue seersucker jacket and a button-down shirt, with his tan corduroys held up by his braided leather belt. He was clearly enduring something beyond his usual dishevelment. There was a hole the size of a quarter in the knee of his right pant leg. His hair was standing up a half inch higher than usual, and his eyes were looking at me as if I were one tree of many in a forest. Scratches on his bare ankles—he had not put on socks with his oxfords. His fingernails were laced with grime.
He pushed himself into the pew, shoving me to the right with his hip. “Frances,” he said. “Your landlord said you would be here.”
I couldn’t speak. I just stared at him. I knew something awful was going to happen but I didn’t know what. I could not push my mind past a repetition of the phrase
Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy, Lord, have mercy, Lord, have mercy.
My mind resting in that one thought like a bike chain gone slack. He put his hand on my knee. I didn’t know what to say, so I put my hand over his. “It’s your birthday,” he said, and he held my hand tighter.
Somehow I got some presence of mind. “Why don’t we go outside and walk around for a bit?” I said. Then he said a very strange thing: “It’s your birthday, your feast day, and this is why I have come. Today is the day of Frances Reardon, orphaned child of Brigid’s isle, patron saint of frigid knees. Of unmet wishes, of idées fixes, of withering eyes, of docile guise.” He had continued staring at me as if I were one tree in a forest of many, but after he delivered this speech his look sharpened into something cruel. I’d felt what he was saying to me was cruel, and the look confirmed it.
Then he stood and started walking up the outer aisle. He began to shout, and said even stranger things. He said that this place—meaning the church—was no better than a bar room. “This place is a place where the people come to drink,” he shouted. “They drink to forget, to die to what is real, they slump over in prayer, drinking and drinking in remembrance of me.” I sorely wished for the gift of fainting from shock. He went down the center aisle. “I am turning you out!” he said. Two women got up and hurried out of the church, and at this point I found the courage to get up and walk as fast as I could to find the priest. I walked back to the door that leads from the sanctuary to the church office, and there stood the priest, white head bowed, shrugging on his robe. It’s always like seeing them in their underwear when you see them in their belted slacks and dress shoes. He looked up. I saw eyes that were younger than his hair, and I felt relief. I told him what was happening and he went out with me, and this small white-haired Irish man managed to wrestle Bernard to the ground. The organist, who is a statuesque, almost stout, redhead, helped the priest keep Bernard there. At least they did for as long as it took for me to run out and find a cop, who then called an ambulance. When I came back in, Bernard had of course escaped the bonds of the priest and the organist and was throwing missals everywhere. It took four ambulance attendants to get him on a stretcher. He bit one of them. And now Bernard is in a hospital outside of Boston. He has been there for nine days.
John Percy, who has been to see him, tells me the doctors say he suffered a manic episode. When I think about all I have known of Bernard, and what I have now read of his disease, I see how his illness has been lying in wait for him. It will come for him again, and again.
As far as John can tell, Bernard came down on the train
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