"Your mother is wrong, dead wrong."

"She doesn't think she is."

"She never thinks she's wrong. It's what makes her so much fun to be around."

"n.o.body on the bus would talk to me."

"n.o.body on that bus has anything worthwhile to say, Sammy. They're crazy people."

"Mom's not crazy!" I all but cried, wanting to believe my own words.

"Shut up!" my father hissed. "Whaddaya want to do, wake her?"

"She's not not crazy! Don't say she's crazy!" crazy! Don't say she's crazy!"

"No, no, of course she isn't! Point is, you shouldn't have been on that trip in the first place. You should have gone to the dance."

He reached across the table and rubbed my hair, awkwardly, as if he'd read in a magazine that this was a good thing to do when your child is upset.

"This is gonna pa.s.s, Sammy. Not for a few days, maybe, but it'll pa.s.s, and remember-you didn't do anything wrong. If I'd been there and seen somethin' funny about the crucifix, I'd have done the same thing." If I'd been there and seen somethin' funny about the crucifix, I'd have done the same thing."

Bulls.h.i.t, I thought, and then I excused myself to go to bed.

"Don't tell your mother about the beer!" he chuckled as I headed for the stairs. It was a moot point, as far as I was concerned. What were the chances that my mother and I would ever again be on speaking terms?

I stripped down and got into bed without bothering to brush my teeth. I was exhausted. I fell asleep as if I'd been drugged, and I thought I was dreaming when I opened my eyes and saw a woman in a flowing, breeze-puffed nightgown approach my bedside. An angel? The Blessed Mother?

No. It was my my mother, smiling at me as if nothing terrible had happened. She knelt at the head of the bed, stroked my hair. mother, smiling at me as if nothing terrible had happened. She knelt at the head of the bed, stroked my hair.

"Samuel? Samuel, I forgive you."

I should have been angry, but I couldn't even think that way. I was grateful to be on her good side, no matter what kind of lunacy it involved. So instead of telling her to get out of my room, I did the only thing I thought I could do. I thanked her.

She kissed my forehead, and then her brow knotted in alarm. "What's that smell on your breath? Beer?"

I lacked the strength to make up a tale. "Dad shared his beer with me."

Her back arched with a jolt, St. Sebastian absorbing yet another arrow. But she didn't have the strength for a fight. She rose to her feet and left my room as mysteriously as she'd entered it. The whole thing felt like a dream, but it wasn't.

A cawing, shrieking blue jay woke me in the morning. It was Sunday. In a few hours we'd be getting ready for church. Church! It didn't seem fair to have to go again, after having spent Friday and Sat.u.r.day in church, but routine was routine, and we did what we had to do.

My father urged us not to go. "Haven't you had enough for a while? And besides, you ought to let this thing die down."

He might as well have been standing on the edge of the ocean, begging the tide not to come in. My mother smiled at him as falsely as she could.

"Would you rather he stayed here and got drunk with you?"

My father looked at me, his betrayer.

"I didn't say anything!" I cried. "She smelled it!"

He shook his head, rolled his eyes, and headed out to Charlie's Bar for the first cold frosty one of the day. My mother and I set off walking to the eleven o'clock Ma.s.s at ten minutes to the hour, as we had for as many Sundays as I could remember.

But of course everything was different. There were murmurs and whispers as we pa.s.sed people..."That's the boy...he's the one..."

My mother didn't say anything. She kept her head as high and proud as a show pony's, but her jaw was clenched as we took our usual seats.

A hard poke to my rib cage-I turned and saw Alonzo Fishetti, the toughest kid from my cla.s.s, the crazy one who'd fallen from the second-story ledge and broken his ankle while trying to spy on the half-dressed girls. His ankle was still in a cast, and he dragged it like a peg-leg pirate when he walked. Even his jet-black hair looked dangerous, soaked with lotion and combed straight back to reveal a dazzling widow's peak. His eyes were a little too close together, separated by a beaky nose. He was the crow, and I was the worm.

"Hey, Sullivan. Did you really pull that statue's leg off?"

This was the first time he'd ever spoken to me. I was honored and intimidated. I shrugged, cleared my throat. "Just a piece of it."

He smiled, patted my shoulder. "Cool!" he said. "Most definitely a cool thing to do."

I couldn't believe it. n.o.body had ever accused me of being cool before, and this was coming from the toughest, coolest person I knew! He winked at me.

"Great s.h.i.t, Sullivan. I didn't think ya had it in ya."

This was the ultimate-approval from Alonzo Fishetti! For the first time ever, I felt like one of the guys! I had to say something to him, but what? I thought about it and cleared my throat before speaking.

"How was the dance, Alonzo?"

"Ah, I didn't go. How'm I supposed to dance with this f.u.c.kin' ankle?"

With that he dragged himself out of church, probably to go outside for a smoke. I'd never felt so honored, never heard anyone dare to say "s.h.i.t" and "f.u.c.k" in church, and beyond all that I was elated to know that at least one boy, Alonzo Fishetti, did not get to dance with Margaret Thompson while I'd been away.

"Who was was that horrible boy?" my mother demanded. For a moment there, I'd forgotten that she was sitting beside me. that horrible boy?" my mother demanded. For a moment there, I'd forgotten that she was sitting beside me.

"Just a kid from my cla.s.s."

"What's his name?"

I told her. She made a knowing sound in her throat, a clucking sound. "Ahhh yes, the Fishettis. His father ran off when he was two years old. His mother has had quite a few...boyfriends over the years." over the years."

I was shocked to be hearing something like this from my mother, but of course it made sense. In any act of charity, a person learns all about the weaknesses of those being helped. I guess the Fishettis rated a ca.s.serole or two over the years, to take the sting out of whatever misery Alonzo's mother's chaotic love life created. In her own inimitable way, my mother had just called Alonzo Fishetti's mother a wh.o.r.e.

The Ma.s.s began, and there was a low communal moan as Father Peter Vallone made his way to the pulpit. He was a big, fat, dumb priest whose sermons seemed to last for months and never made any kind of point. He probably had attention deficit disorder back in those days before it was diagnosed, and for this reason he was the best priest to confess your sins to. You could tell him you'd murdered five people and by the time he gave you your penance, he'd have forgotten this sin and given you two Our Fathers and two Hail Marys to wipe your soul clean.

But there was a new determination to Father Vallone on this day. He seemed both focused and angry as he stood before us, his chubby hands gripping the sides of the pulpit.

"We all know about this terrible thing that happened in Scranton, Pennsylvania," he began, and a movielike murmur ran through the crowd. Hundreds of eyes were upon me. My mother gripped my wrist. If Father Vallone singled me out, I knew I would die of mortification.

"Yes, yes, a terrible thing. A priest cut open a Jesus figure, much like this one"-he gestured at the plaster-cast crucifix behind him-"and stuck a balloon filled with blood inside the leg, to make it bleed from the nail holes in the foot. Well, maybe it wasn't exactly a balloon. balloon. It was probably something thicker than a balloon. Maybe it was a rubber pouch, like a hot water bottle. Maybe it was made of plastic. Maybe..." It was probably something thicker than a balloon. Maybe it was a rubber pouch, like a hot water bottle. Maybe it was made of plastic. Maybe..."

Father Vallone's tangents could take his flock to the ends of the universe. Usually they put us to sleep, but not today. Today we were all listening as this man exhausted the physical possibilities of the reservoir that held the fake blood. He was just explaining how the pouch could have been made out of an old bicycle inner tube when an unbelievably loud voice interrupted him: "Get to the point!"

It was as sudden and shocking as a clap of thunder. People literally cowered at the sound of it, no one more than me as I looked to my right and saw that the words had come from my mother, who now stood on her feet, glowering at Father Vallone. The priest stared at her in wonder. "Are you all right, Mary?"

He knew her well. Much of his girth had been put there by meals my mother had cooked for him.

She ignored his question. "Will you please just say what you mean to say?"

Father Vallone had never been in a jam like this. He'd been spouting lazy, unchallenged sermons for so long that he'd probably forgotten that some people were actually listening. And he'd sooner have expected the Jesus figure behind him to leap off the cross and perform a tap dance on the altar than hear words like these from St. Aloysius's number-one parishoner.

The priest looked around helplessly, then back at my mother, his jaw slack with embarra.s.sment. "Uhhh...well, jeez...all I mean to say is that this terrible thing-"

"What terrible thing?" terrible thing?"

A murmur ran through the crowd. People were looking at each other and at my mother, who was still on her feet. She seemed to be growing taller as she awaited her answer.

Father Vallone cleared his throat, brought a handkerchief to his mouth, wiped something off his tongue. "The terrible trick Father Bielinski played on his flock."

"Why was it so terrible?"

"Come now, Mary-"

"He was trying to bring a little bit of faith back to the people! I don't think that's such a terrible thing! Who did he hurt by what he did?"

"Mary, your own son is the one who-"

My mother made erasing motions in midair to shut him up. "I've spoken with my son about it. That's my business. So let me ask you again-who did the priest hurt by what he tried to do? Everybody was happy. Everyone believed. believed. He didn't do it for money, or for fame. He did it to help people!" He didn't do it for money, or for fame. He did it to help people!"

The murmurs rose to a pep-rally level. A woman yelled, "Sit down, Mary!" but she was quickly shouted down. Father Vallone seemed paralyzed at the pulpit. He literally did not know what to do.

But my mother did. She squeezed past me and made her way straight to the altar. n.o.body stopped her as she climbed the steps to the pulpit and gestured dismissingly for the priest to step aside, which he did, almost gratefully. My mother adjusted the pulpit microphone to her height as Father Vallone stood behind her, busted down in rank to altar boy. It was my mother's show now, and there was no stopping her.

"The Bleeding Jesus of Scranton is is a bona fide miracle," she announced. "If we judge what people do by their intentions, then Father Bielinski is not a sinner. He brought us all together. He reinforced our faith in a G.o.dless time." a bona fide miracle," she announced. "If we judge what people do by their intentions, then Father Bielinski is not a sinner. He brought us all together. He reinforced our faith in a G.o.dless time."

She pointed at me, and I stopped breathing.

"My son is sorry he ever touched the Bleeding Jesus, but really, what did he reveal? A fraud? No! He revealed the work of a good man in desperate times, a man who wished to bring attention back to the things that matter. Hear what I tell you, people! Father Bielinski is not not a scoundrel!" a scoundrel!"

She smiled, raised her hands toward the heavens.

"He is a hero!"

I was growing faint, and had to tell myself to start breathing again. This was my mother, someone I'd once known as the gentlest, quietest person in the world. But she'd shed that skin, molted into something else...a woman on a mission.

And then the most remarkable thing that ever happened in a Catholic church happened, more remarkable than statues that bleed or weep or tap dance. Everybody at the standing-room-only eleven o'clock Ma.s.s at St. Aloysius got to their feet and gave my mother a standing ovation.

I didn't know what to feel, where to look, what to do. Father Vallone cut bait on the rest of his sermon and went straight to the distribution of communion wafers.

Everybody came up to receive. It was incredible. My mother had infused that crowd with a jolt of faith no clergyman could have mustered. I half expected people to ask for her autograph as we left the church, and as we stepped outside the flash of a camera bulb went off right in my face, not hers.

"Thanks, kid!" said the photographer, a skinny man with a Lucky Strike cigarette dangling from his lip and a press card jammed in his hat band. This was my introduction to the publication that would later play a major role in my life, the New York Star.

"Now gimme one wit ya muddah!" the photographer said, and before either of us could object he took a step back to widen his shot, flashed away, saluted us with a grin and not another word before trotting away, leaving us to face a slim, serious, balding man who looked more like a priest than what he actually was-a true-blue reporter for the New York Star New York Star named George O'Malley. At forty years of age he was a father of six, a rhythm-method Catholic with the dubious t.i.tle of Religion Editor. named George O'Malley. At forty years of age he was a father of six, a rhythm-method Catholic with the dubious t.i.tle of Religion Editor.

He introduced himself to us and apologized for the photographer's crude behavior. He wanted to talk to me about the Bleeding Jesus, but my mother forbade it. He wanted to talk to my mother about it, but she told him to go away. He didn't seem particularly disappointed by her refusal, and I understood why the next day. He'd already gotten what he needed, having been inside to hear all of my mother's rant, which he quoted extensively in his story.

But I was the big news of the day. My startled face was on the front page of Monday's New York Star, New York Star, under a headline reading: under a headline reading: EXCLUSIVE PHOTO!.

THE BOY WHO UNCOVERED THE CRUCI-"FIX!"

Now everybody who didn't already know about what I'd done knew about it. The kids in the schoolyard waved the front page in my face, jeering and laughing with a glee the nuns could do nothing to stop. Luckily for me Alonzo Fishetti told them to knock it off, and that ended the teasing more abruptly than gunfire would have. At one point in the school day Margaret Thompson came over to me while I was using the cla.s.sroom pencil sharpener. I'd never been this close to her. She smelled wonderfully sweet, like a rose grown in a pot of sugar.

"Sammy?"

"Oh, hi, Margaret." Trying to act casual, though my hand trembled so much that I could barely turn the handle on the pencil sharpener.

"Are you all right?"

"Sure."

She smiled, shrugged. "Sorry you missed the dance," she said, and then she was gone, leaving me to turn that sentence over in my head a million times to try and figure if she was just being polite, or if she meant it.

And then a funny thing happened, a thing that kept this story going when it otherwise might have died a swift and quiet death. My mother had actually enjoyed being quoted in George O'Malley's story, and telephoned him the day after it ran to arrange for an interview. She had something big to tell him, and she wasn't kidding.

She was establishing the Father Joseph Bielinski Defense Fund, the proceeds of which would go toward keeping him from being excommunicated from the Catholic Church.

This was it, then, the ultimate showdown-Mary DiFrancesco Sullivan versus the Vatican.

Our phone never stopped ringing. Letters came to the house, some containing checks, many containing cash. Cash! How pure, how simple were the people who stuffed cash into envelopes and dropped them in the mail, with full faith that they would go to the right place!

Their faith was justified when it came to my mother. Every cent of the money went into an account for the disgraced priest at our local bank.

Father Bielinski phoned our house every night for a week after the story broke, a soft-spoken man we technically had never even met. The strength with which he had grabbed me to try and pull me away from the Bleeding Jesus didn't match the soft, defeated voice I heard over the phone.

"Is Mary Sullivan there, please?"

He didn't have to identify himself. I knew who was calling. Before I could even say anything my mother was there, taking the phone from my hand and gesturing for me to go up to my room, out of earshot.

At supper a few nights later she dropped the bombsh.e.l.l while my father was cutting into his steak. "He's going to stay with us for a few days."

My father looked at her, poked a slab of meat into his mouth. "Who?"

"Father Bielinski."

My father set his knife and fork down. "Mary. Have you lost your mind?"