Coffee Maker
Some days, when work allowed it, he would make the walk to St. Agnes during the week. If the school day was done the sound of children laughing made the hallways seem happier than his memories. But he didn’t go there for the children in the hallways - and the way they would come to a sudden respectful halt at the sight of his cane tapping the way to the kitchen - he went to meet a nun. At first, when he’d felt the need to discuss matters of … what should he call it? … morality he’d been drawn to Father Lantom. The old man that had chided him about fighting as a child had become something of a guide when, as an adult, he felt he had no one to talk with.
He'd taken the loss of Father Lantom hard. The priest had been in his life longer than his own father. He had been a sounding board for things that neither could quite say; a man not quick to condemn but who had tried to understand the demon inside Matt Murdock. And of all the pointless ways to go – run down by a drunk driver so guilt ridden she’d later taken her own life. Into the priest shaped void in his life had stepped the small figure of Sister Maggie. Like Lantom, she’d been a part of Matt’s life since being placed at the orphanage. Then, at a time when he felt he might become unmoored in his faith, Sister Margaret Grace had become more than an acquaintance and, in time, someone he began to actively seek out.
Sister Maggie had been the one that instilled respect into all her charges, present or past. The click of her ever so sensible shoes still made him straighten up and worry about being presentable, always – somewhere subconscious – a tickle of guilt that he might have done something wrong. Well, obviously he’d done many things that weren’t quite … entirely … not wrong, but she was a nun and everyone knew that nuns just knew.
She surprised him. This woman, ageless and unsexed by the habit she wore. As an adult she spoke to him without the judgement he remembered from his youth. Attending mass was his choice. If he skipped mass on weekday mornings and just about made it to 12pm mass on a Sunday – in Spanish – then that was between him and the Lord. Matt quite liked the mass in Spanish, he could take his brain offline and practice his translation. It wasn’t as if the new priests made that much of an impression on him. They seemed to come and go.
Sister Maggie and her devotion to Father Lantom’s coffee machine, her interest in how ‘Nelson and Murdock’ were progressing, and her hints (sometimes not so subtle) that maybe it was time he thought about settling down became part of the rhythm of his days. Included in the things she never mentioned were bruises, swollen knuckles, the stiff way he held himself some days when he was pretending nothing hurt. If it was really bad he kept away. Then, one day, she’d just turned up at his office bearing whiskey laced long blacks and asked – point blank – if there was a reason he was avoiding her. With Foggy out of earshot she’d then gently suggested that maybe Matt might think twice about whatever boyfriend he had if beating up a blind man was how he expressed his feelings.
And Matt had blushed and stammered. It wasn’t like that at all. Take care, she’d said. There are people who love you, she’d said. You can always come to me, she’d said. And Matt, who’d never let himself listen to her body, took the measure of her heartbeat and the tension in the way she stood. What he saw he didn’t quite recognise. But it was sincere, whatever it was. And he’d said don’t worry about me as he’d pushed her back towards the door.
She’d thought Hell’s Kitchen was some abusive boyfriend. The boyfriend part didn’t seem to give her pause, the ‘abusive’ thing though … not for the first time Matt Murdock wondered what superpower came with celibacy and the wimple. She didn’t mention it again. But it was there now, between them.
Another new priest was due. Whatever. Matt just hoped his Spanish was better than the last guy. Honestly. He’d considered going over to St. Raphael on West 41st Street for the services in Croatian. It didn’t really matter what language was spoken; God knew what was in his heart. And it wasn’t like he took communion. Communion required confession – maybe one of his many sins was that he didn’t fully trust any of the replacement priests with their inevitable judgements.
He did the tappy-tap with his cane as he entered the kitchen and walked to the coffee machine set in pride of place on the long countertop. Matt had been more relaxed with the nun after that day in his office, masked his pains less around her. And it had been … easier with her. Similar to Father Lantom, she didn’t really ask and he didn’t really say anything, but he knew that she worried about him.
She wasn’t alone. There was a new heartbeat with her, thumping away loud and slow. It had shouted the presence of a new man at St. Agnes all the way down the corridor. Other senses filled in the shape looming behind petite Sister Maggie. Big. Solid, to match the heartbeat. Warm. Very still. A man schooled in patience.
“Matthew …” Oh, full name. This must be the new guy if his Sunday name was being used. He put on his nicest face and aimed his dark glasses towards the sound of her voice. “Let me introduce you to Father Francis Castle. He’s come to look after us here at St. Agnes.” There was no equivocation in her voice. For whatever reason she approved of this imposing slab of a priest.
He swapped the cane to his left and extended his right hand. The gesture of a blind man. “Father Castle, welcome to Saint Agnes.” His smile was to the kitchen in general. “I’m Matt Murdock, an alumnus of this house. Sister Maggie lets me come back for her coffee … and maybe, I suspect, to warn some of the boys where their habits may lead.”
The new priest did a good job of hiding a snigger at Matt’s raised eyebrows and knowing tone, briefly drowning the proffered hand between his own large paws. “Please, just call me Frank. I’ve heard lots about you from the good sister.” The soft voice paused, and Matt thought that he heard something else in the man’s heartbeat. The briefest blip. “Now, I’ve been told I must master this infernal machine to have a chance of gaining your approval. If you have the time, would you indulge me?”
A quiet creak of leather gave away the small bow that accompanied the question. Used to not reacting to things he couldn’t see Matt flicked his cane to confirm the location of a chair and sat down while Sister Maggie began her lesson with the new barista. The man asked the right questions at the right time, he took direction easily and with grace. They started with espresso, then latte. A little too much foam finished the macchiato - Matt paid the price with the tip of his nose whitened from too deep a draught from the large wide mugs that Maggie preferred. Apologies made, Father Castle – Frank – made up for his mistake with a well-constructed mocha and Matt finally declared himself coffeed out for the evening.
And, he was surprised to find, it was evening. The afternoon had gone quickly. Other sisters had stopped off in the kitchen to benefit from the brewing lesson and to help themselves to almond biscotti provided by the instructor. Some of the older children braved Maggie’s ire and came in for snacks – allowed only with the strict proviso that they didn’t ruin their appetites. This indulgence came from Frank rather than Maggie. And, Matt thought, the way he said it was the sound of a man who’d had his own children. Matt smiled, it was also the sound of a man who didn’t know it yet, but who would have to pay an unspecified price at some point in the future.
The time had passed in conversation as the three of them got caffeinated. No pressure from the day job. No thought of the night job. It was … just nice. Even the inevitable reference to Father Lantom’s loss was accompanied with warmer memories rather than the sense of emptiness that seemed to have haunted the church for so long.
“I know, death – even when expected – is somehow always sudden. When my time comes, I hope I would be as missed as Paul Lantom. The chasm he left behind him is still clear to see.” He paused to take a drink. “You’ve had a number of other priests struggle to settle in here …” The voice trailed off.
Question or statement, Matt wasn’t entirely sure. “I’ve heard that Hell’s Kitchen is considered a ‘special’ kind of place to serve. Having the extra burden of the orphanage might not have been the glamour posting that some younger priests thought they were getting when they heard they were going to Manhattan.” He smiled. His answer gave little away, a lawyer’s answer meant to get more from the man he might consider approving of.
“Ah, then I have the advantage in being older and – I hope – a little wiser. Having a life before the church can provide a perspective that younger men, and their interminable certainty, seem to lack.” There was a moment when he seemed to turn inward. Matt heard the man’s heart do the complicated beat again, a tension clamped down as if aware that it could be noted. Frank sighed, his shrug and smile meant only for Sister Maggie. Or perhaps, with that twist of his body it was also for Matt. “I had a wife, children … a whole world when I thought I was a different man. And … now … now it seems I have a flock and more children than I’d ever imagined.”
Hell’s Kitchen was quiet the night that Father Castle arrived. On rooftops and in alley ways Matt had time to consider the new arrival. The church, and the orphanage, needed a steady presence. The children had been left too many times. The sisters would always be there, but many of them seemed like background figures compared to that one constant that Matt remembered from his time at St Agnes. He was certain that Sister Maggie must have attended to the scrapes and bruises of his quarrelsome youth, but he couldn’t remember anything specific. If pushed he could imagine the telling off she would have given him … but that was just a nun thing, he could imagine her telling him off for any and everything. Strange. She’d always been there but never quite in focus somehow.
Maybe this man, who’d had a full life before the church, would be strong enough, flexible enough, for a Hell’s Kitchen parish that had a Devil in its congregation. In showing the workings of the coffee machine Sister Maggie had given him a stamp of approval not bestowed on others before him. Maybe even the Kitchen itself had given its endorsement in a night free from drama. Maybe, Matt thought as he made his way back home, maybe he might do a little research before Sunday mass. He might even make it in time to hear the service in English.
“He’s ex-army.” Karen looked across to her companion in the conference room. Matt’s idea of ‘research’ had been to tempt Karen with a little off-book investigation. While his screen reader was good his laptop was set up more for case studies and legal precedent rather than background on a priest. His fingers hovered over the braille notes he was reading – a musician paused in his performance.
“Army? That could explain him being older I guess. Chaplain?”
“Nah, real shooty army. But not a lot of information, you know, like redacted army.” Matt imagined an eyebrow raise to match the tone. Karen was putting bits together to make a conspiracy. So much for office manager/secretary/printer wrangler, she should have been a journalist.
“Oh come on. He’s a priest!” The tenancy agreement he’d been reading could wait until tomorrow. This was something unexpected. And, however much he scoffed he knew that Karen knew she’d piqued his interest. Sometimes his friends knew him too well.
“I’m telling you. I’d put money on him being special forces or something. There’re too many gaps and too few photos for him to be a standard issue grunt.” A discreet ping from her phone took Karen’s attention for a moment. The moment lengthened and teased Matt with quickly typed searches on her laptop. Just as he was about to demand answers she waved a hand in the air and shouted to get the attention of first named partner in their little company. “Foggy. Foggy! Come see what’s going to mess our lives up in the future.”
Matt’s oldest – and best (despite all he’d put him through) – friend popped his head around the open door. Whatever he’d been working on didn’t sound as much fun as Karen prognosticating on a weekday. She directed his gaze between tabs open on her screen and then showed him the update on the St Agnes web site that had pinged up on her cell. They had a muttered discussion about dates and events and agreed their conclusions.
Franklin Nelson agreed with Karen’s assessment. “What we seem to be looking at is a soldier with no insignia to give away his unit or where he’s been deployed, a sudden horrific something that took out his family and he disappeared. For years. Pops back up a few years ago as a priest in South America round about the time someone started taking out a lot of the cartel infrastructure. This faked up bio has stuff about social justice and action to rebuild local communities. All great stuff, all supported by Rome … I mean like maybe all the way up to the big guy himself.”
“So?” Hmm, maybe Foggy should have done journalism too.
“So … and let the record note I’m just putting it out here as a possibility … so the Pope’s hitman finishes his job in the south, goes back to Rome for a couple of months R and R then gets a posting here. Hey, he’s a priest … Saint Agnes needed a priest so why not? I mean. He might have been a killer in his past. I’m not suggesting anything. And … and one of the things Karen hasn’t told you is that he’s quite good looking. Lovely head of hair, bit of salt and pepper going on … very groomed beard. We’re talking presence. He holds himself well.”
“Get to the point Fogs.”
“A new priest? A possible killer? And - dare I say it - a rather handsome older man?” Foggy shook his head and laughed. “Oh Matthew Michael Murdock you are in so much trouble.”