Read Online Bells Above Greens by David Xavier - Free Book Online

he said.  He pointed off toward the bells on campus.  He pulled a fold of hot paper from his inside pocket and unrolled it.  Breaded fish fillets steaming in the cold.  He held it to both of us.
    “It’s not Lent,” I said.
    “It’s Friday,” Mr Callahan said.
    I ate in gratitude.  “Thank you, sir.”
    He settled in on the roof, a large man finding the softest way to drop himself, rolling back just enough to take the fall out of it.  Sitting Indian style he went to work on his fish fillet.
    “Tell him, dad.”
    Mr Callahan rolled a bite around in his mouth to make room for his tongue.  “When I was your age I would not even date a girl who wasn’t Catholic.  Bless your mother, Emery.  She was a handful, God rest her kind soul.  You’ll not have that problem if you stick to the girls here.”
    “What difference does it make, sir?” I said.  I caught a glance of Emery’s face behind him.
    “A whole hell of a lot of difference.”  Mr Callahan looked to the sky and crossed himself.  “You’ll be fighting an uphill battle the rest of your life.”
    “Love conquers all, right?  Sometimes you can’t help it what the other person believes in.”
    “I left a girl in the middle of a date once,” Mr Callahan said.  “Found out she was a Protestant.”
    Emery was laughing with a mouthful of cocoa behind him.
    “That’s close enough, isn’t it?” I said, trying to keep my face straight.
    The old man shrugged.  “To each his own, Sam.  I’m just laying out the groundwork for you.  This girl of yours, did you find out she was a Protestant?”
    “She goes to St Mary’s College.  She’s a Catholic.”
    “There are wolves in sheep’s clothing.”
    “She goes to church.  Christmas and Easter.”  I looked away to hide my face.  I heard Mr Callahan almost choke.
    “Jesus,” he crossed himself with a half-fillet.
    “Emery’s seeing a girl.  A cheerleader.”
    Mr Callahan shifted and spoke over his shoulder.  “She a Catholic?”
    “Yes sir.”
    “She nice?”
    “Yes sir.”
    “Marry her quick.  Only half of a successful marriage is falling in love.  The first half is finding a Catholic.”  Mr Callahan nudged me with his foot.  “You know what I had to do with Emery?”
    I turned to face him.  “What’s that, sir?”
    “My wife, beautiful rose that she was, she wanted Emery to be brought up in a Pentecostal church.  A sing along service.  People are whooping and yelling, dancing like idiots right there in church.  You seen it?”
    “No sir.”
    “I took him out for a run in a stroller one day.  Told my wife we’d be back in a flash.  Had him baptized at Holy Cross instead.  Father O’Hara was there waiting with the oil and water, and me in my jogging shorts at the altar.  Not the first shotgun baptism he’s performed.”
    “You baptized him without her consent?”
    “Sure.  She named him without mine.”
    “Did she find out?”
    “Sure she did.  I told her.  Said I was sorry she missed the ceremony.”
    “And then?”
    He shrugged.  “And then she gave up on religion entirely.”
    We sat there for a while, finishing our fish and cocoa.  A blackbird landed on the far side of the roof and ambled toward us before stopping sidelong and watching us.  It moved over the peak of the roof, big shouldered like a buzzard. 
    I turned back to Mr Callahan.  “You don’t regret marrying her, do you?”
    He looked at me with eyes that still burned with delight.  “Not a Goddamn bit.”  His chin swept from one side to the other.  I waited for him to cross himself but he did not.  His hands stayed by his sides.
    He crumbled the paper in a ball, then stood and shuffled to the ladder, bending and twisting to find the best way to climb aboard it.  “Well, this roof won’t fix itself.”  He turned back.  “Will it?”
    “We’d be out of a job if it did, sir.”
    Stepping down, he disappeared a foot at a time over the edge.  He paused a moment when