Jesus Candles

Jesus Candles

By Mick Hale


Within routine there was salvation. Father McGinty thought of it that way. Prayers lost in the urban maze, angels tossed into alleyways, saints for sale on every street corner, Father McGinty's faith was a distant echo after twenty-six years as parish priest at Saint Agnes.

He accommodated his doubts by following routines. Seven-thirty mass, parish council meetings, birth, death, vows, heartache ringing the front door bell at all hours of the night and day. The priest knew the words, he knew the terms of the deal, he just didn't believe anymore.

Sometimes he put on his cloth cap, pulled his windbreaker tight around his neck and left the rectory, went down to the park on twenty-third, sat on a bench, not a priest, not a holy man, not some magical being with a pocketful of answers and a hotline to the desk of the Almighty. He sat there as a man. A man lost like a million others in the city.

There was this window in a little shop over on Tenth filled with Jesus candles. Yellow candles, red candles, blue candles, each set in a glass with pictures of Jesus etched into the side. Father McGinty stood there one day and thought, take all the Jesus candles, light every one, put them all on a mountain, an entire mountain of flickering Jesus candles, and they would not make one drop of difference in an indifferent world.

One Wednesday morning he was locking up the church after mass when he noticed a Metrocard on the floor. He picked it up, put it in his pocket and didn't give it much thought until a couple of hours later when he passed an entrance to the subway. There was nothing much to his day. He was wandering. In the evening he'd visit patients at Saint Vincent's Hospital. Until then he was free. He rarely left the neighborhood. He turned and descended the subway stairs.

The Metrocard had twenty bucks on it. Twinge of guilt. He should put a notice on the bulletin board at the back of the church. Some parishioner might claim the fare card. He stood there a moment, then swiped the magnetic strip through the slot and moved through the turnstile.

The city's not built on rock. It's built on I-beams that run to the center of the earth. It's slung from a cradle of cooper cables. It sits above fiber optic fields, hissing veins of steam, and below all, layers and layers of bones buried by tides of immigrants piling their city one on the other.

The priest rode the subway with no destination in mind. At Times Square he got off, took the shuttle to Grand Central, boarded the number six and rode downtown again. At Chambers Street he stood on the platform as the subway pulled away from the station. The other passengers made their way to the exit. He sat down on a bench. There didn't seem to be any other place to go.

"How you doing?"

Father McGinty looked up. A young man stood there.

"I'm fine. How are you?"

"I got some work to do down here. I got to fix the tracks."

The man told Father McGinty he worked for the city, used to work for the sanitation department, but then got an electrician's license and started a job with the MTA.

"Better money and all."

"Do you have a family?" the priest asked.

"You're thinking a man looking to make more cash has got responsibilities, right? No, I'm on my own. The right woman comes along, that's something different. So, you okay?"

Father McGinty smiled.

"It's good of you to ask."

"You work down here all day, you see folks. People just ride around. I've just gotten into the habit, you know, asking them if they're okay. Maybe give them directions, move them along. My name is Jose."

Father McGinty stood.

"Father McGinty. I'm the parish priest at Saint Agnes."

"On 18th street? Sure, I know that place. My mother, she went to church everyday. I never got what it was about myself. You take care, okay?"

He picked up his bag of tools, went to the end of the platform, jumped down to the tracks and disappeared down the tunnel.

The next day Father McGinty went back to his routine. On Thursdays he always visited the Little Sisters of the Poor's mission on 12th. He saw God dancing in their eyes as they went about their work. It made him feel an interloper, a cardboard soul hidden behind his priestly garb.

When he returned to Saint Agnes he found Jose sitting in the pews.

"Father McGinty. I was hoping you'd show up."

Father McGinty was almost disappointed. The conversation in the tunnels with Jose had lifted his heart in some way. Now the man was here, perhaps looking for something a priest might provide. Father McGinty wasn't sure he was the man for the job anymore.

"Is there something you need, my son?"

"Not for me. I mean, I don't think a man like me can just turn on a prayer switch. Never been a God guy exactly. No, I just need like a holy person to come and look at something."

A holy person? Father McGinty had never felt like less like a holy person his whole life.

"What do you mean?" the priest asked.

"Just meet me down at the Chambers Street station, maybe tomorrow around ten?"

"I can do that, but why?"

"It's not something I can tell you about. I got to show you."

Friday morning Father McGinty sat in the Chambers Street station waiting for Jose.

Trains came and trains went. Between trains the station grew still. Quiet issues of rumbles and screeches floated through the tunnels. The priest felt he wasn't under the city, but inside the city, wandering through the body of the city, surrounded by the blood and guts of a great beast.

Jose came walking down the platform, a bright smile on his face.

"I wasn't sure you'd be here."

"Why not?" Father McGinty asked.

"What do I know about priests? Come on."

Jose led Father McGinty to the end of the platform and inserted a key in a steel door.

"I could lose my job for this, but there's something I want you to see."

They went down a flight of steel stairs, then walked along a tunnel streaked with cables, lit only by a work light every thirty feet or so.

"It's a different world down here," Jose said. "You know, there's people that live down here, maybe whole families. We call them moles. You see them sometimes, but if they hear you coming they have a way of disappearing into the shadows."

Down another flight of stairs, the lower they walked the staler the air, a rising vapor of ancient dust, a thick heat wrapping itself around Father McGinty's skull.

"Other guys don't like the tunnels," Jose said. "They want to get the job done and go back topside."

"And you like it down here?"

"People run around the streets up there all day. Everybody in the city has to be someplace else. You live your life like that you forget just to sit and be where you are. Down here, well, it's like the root of things, you know? Where this whole mess started. There was a time when I used to think what the hell is going on? Maybe we should all just stop and figure things out for a while. Down here I get a sense of -- I don't know. Being down here makes it a little easier to understand up there."

They came to a ladder. It went straight down.

"You got a thing about heights?" Jose asked.

Father McGinty shook his head.

"I don't suppose I do, though I never thought about it."

"Yeah, well don't look down, and don't step on my hands. I'll be right below you."

The iron rungs of the ladder were covered in light grease. Father McGinty was cautious. His hands could slip. He might tumble off. As they went lower the work lights were fewer. The shadows closed in.

"Some of these light bulbs down here, they've been burning for sixty years or more," said Jose. "How about that, huh? They've torn down and re-built the city like eight times. These lights on, nobody ever down here, untouched, people up top not even knowing about them."

They reached the bottom of the ladder.

"You don't have to worry about rats down here," Jose said. "They don't come down this low. Too far from the garbage."

Jose paused for a moment so Father McGinty could catch his breath.

"We're kind of running out of concrete. Right ahead we'll be walking on dirt. The walls are bedrock. Not far now."

The air became cooler. It was a relief after the heavy heat.

"Right up ahead," said Jose.

He took out a flashlight, shined it on a wall. There was some sort of niche in the stone.

"There's a little ledge you can stand on. Look inside."

Father McGinty peeked into the niche.

"Take this," said Jose, handing the flashlight to the priest.

Inside the niche was a wooden box, a slot in the top, a small cross carved into the side.

"It looks like an old church collection box," Father McGinty said.

"Yeah, and you look at the back of the wall and you see a cross painted on the stone, and there's mounds of wax. I suppose somebody burned candles here once."

"You think it was a grave site?"

"I thought about that. It kind of creeped me out thinking about it. I didn't want to look in the box."

"You looked inside?" asked Father McGinty.

"Here, let me up there a second."

They exchanged places and Jose took the box out of the niche and laid it on the dirt. He opened the lid. Inside were five gold coins.

"They're pretty old," said Jose. "I don't know much about coins, but these ain't the kind you get as change from a candy machine."

Father McGinty picked up one of the coins and held it in the flashlight beam.

"I think this writing is Spanish."

Jose said, "You'd think I'd know that. But it ain't any Spanish I recognize."

Father McGinty put the coin back in the box.

"Why did you bring me here?" he asked

"Yeah, I thought you might be wondering that. You're thinking why don't I just pocket these? They got to be worth something, right?"

"It's the cross and the candles. They're making you hesitate," Father McGinty said.

"That's smart of you. That's what I thought when I met you. You get it. Like I said, Father, I'm not what you call a church guy. But somebody put these here for a reason, and they probably did it a long time ago. If I tell the city about this, or any of the guys I work with, they're going to scoop up these coins -- just another payday for them. But when I found this, I don't know, it just seemed to demand respect. Is that the word? I thought maybe somebody on closer terms with God should be involved. What do I know about crosses and candles and church collection boxes? And maybe . . ."

Jose paused here a moment.

"This is going to sound dumb, but maybe there's a curse or something. Something you don't want to mess with."

"So, we put them back," said Father McGinty.

"No, I want you to take them."

Jose took a plastic bag out of his pocket and slipped the box inside.

"Like I said, these were put here for a reason," he said. "Something that has more to do with your world then mine. You will know what to do with them."

No matter what Father McGinty said, Jose wouldn't change his mind. They climbed back up the ladder and made their way out of the tunnels. When they stepped back out onto the streets the city hummed around them. The cars, the buses, the sidewalks crowded with people rushing home. On the surface nothing had changed.

"Jose," said Father McGinty, "I'm not sure about this."

"Whatever you decide, Father. It will be the right choice."

He smiled, then turned and was quickly lost in the crowd.

The priest returned to Saint Agnes. He went to his room in the rectory, opened the box and spilled the five coins onto his bed. He was reluctant to pick them up. The coins lay there, the edges catching the light.

So many things had changed in the church. Sometimes only three or four people attended the morning mass. Once, three weeks ago, he said the mass in an empty church. When he reached the communion part of the service, he stopped and left the altar.

These coins were worth quite a lot of money. Father McGinty was sure of that. The Archdiocese would be grateful for the gift, but how would they spend it? The Cardinal sent letters instructing priests to solicit parishioners for bigger contributions. There were more letters than ever now.

Father McGinty wanted to pray, but prayers seemed a vacant gesture. They lay hollow in his heart. He thought about the money the coins would bring and what he might do with the cash. Perhaps another place, another life might give him peace. It seemed forever since he'd had a peaceful day. I will keep the money, he thought.

He lay down on his bed, closed his eyes and passed the night without dreams.

In the morning he rose and got dressed. He sat in his room and let the clock pass seven-thirty. There was no reason to open the doors, no reason for the daily ritual. He put on his coat, slipped the five coins into his pocket and walked downstairs through the church.

When he reached the front doors, he paused a moment and looked at the empty pews of Saint Agnes, then walked out the door and locked it behind him. He stood on the steps of the church. The crowds surged passed. No one glanced at the marble facade of the old church.

It's easier to understand up there from down here, Jose had said. Father McGinty smiled and walked down the block.

That afternoon Sister Rosalie from the Little Sisters of the Poor opened the door to the mission house. She picked an envelope off the stoop, opened it and blessed herself. Inside was $11,964 in cash and, inexplicitly, a Metrocard with sixteen dollars of fares still on it.

Later that night Father McGinty took a lighted taper and lit a wick. Then he went and sat in a pew of the church. There was no city outside these thick walls, only a deepening silence. Father McGinty sat there and let the hours pass. The shadows danced in the light of a single candle.