“The Cross-Eyed Bear” by John Dufresne
Father Tom Mulcahy has a past that just won’t leave him alone. Now the people from that past won’t leave him alone either. Tom is certain he is being framed, but when new stresses bring about childhood memories, even he starts to doubt his own character. The Cross-Eyed Bear is a dark story about the fate of a priest whose only saving grace is his own diminishing hope.
About the Author
John Dufresne is the author of two story collections, The Way That Water Enters Stone and Johnny Too Bad; the novels Louisiana Power & Light, Love Warps the Mind a Little, both New York Times Notable Books of the Year, Deep in the Shade of Paradise, Requiem, Mass., No Regrets, Coyote, and I Don’t Like Where This Is Going. His short stories have twice been named Best American Mystery Stories, in 2007 and 2010.
Synopsis
We’re immediately introduced to Father Tom Mulcahy who “can’t seem to get warm” despite his layers, the radiator, and drinking whiskey. He hasn’t slept for a long time, which is making him delirious. He watches the snow outside and thinks about his brother, Gerard, whose death could have been prevented, “maybe then, Tom’s dad would not have lost his heart and found the highway.”
The previous morning he awoke to an intruder, Hanratty from The Globe, who asks him about a Lional Ferry. Thirty-some years ago he’d been accused of molesting an altar boy, and assumes he’s a troubled adult now looking for problems. Tom tells The Globe nothing.
This next morning he goes back to sleep and dreams he’s a little boy sitting with Jesus on a hill over Jerusalem under a purple sky. Jesus weeps because he knows he’ll be betrayed. Tom wakes up and reads the note he’s been using as a bookmark, which says I’ll slice off your junk and stuff it down your throat, you worthless piece of shit. I’ll drench you with gasoline and strike the match that sends you to hell.
Tom lives in the church, and a Mary Walsh makes him coffee and tells him other men have come forward with accusations. Then he’s visited by Mr. Markey from the Cardinal’s office. He works sort of as Father Tom’s lawyer. A very brash man, and brutally honest, vulgar mouth, telling Tom all the terrible things that would happen to him in prison, but Father Tom knows he’s the only one who can help. “I make problems go away,” he says.
There is dialogue between the two of them, Tom is very straight-laced while Mr. Markey has a dry sense of humor, and the mood of the story is near darkly comedic (things you don’t want to laugh at but the delivery is so good). What do you do when you can’t have sex or masturbate? “Pray.” “You can pray away a boner?” At the same time, the dialogue is suspenseful, as if Hanratty is trying to get him to confess, putting words in his mouth and such, possibly prepping him for a trial, but its tense.
Alone now, Tom thinks about his childhood, a competition between he and his brother for his parents’ love, which Gerard won. “Why the beautiful one?” the mother says when he dies. Then Tom is confronted by a man with a balaclava over his face, hit in the head with a club, and knocked out. He later goes to see Lionel and learns it wasn’t him but Hanratty that knocked him out. Hanratty and Mr. Markey show up and it seems they are a team trying to out Father Tom. Mr. Markey injures Tom’s arm and with evidence he’s found of a list of boys’ names and a class photo, he’s able to get a confession from Tom. Tom is beat up a little and when he’s taken away by the men he hears everything a little off, so when Mr. Markey says we all have a burden to carry, he turns to Tom and says “And this is the cross-eyed bear” (or how Tom hears it).
He thinks they’re taking him back to the rectory, but then he wakes up beneath snow, unable to move, and there is a straight razor near his groin, but his legs are buried. He sees Gerard and Jesus standing over him and thinks he’s in heaven, but then Jesus says “So long, small fry” and they walk away together. Jesus whispers something in Gerard’s ear and they turn back on last time to look at Tom.
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