HAMMER ATTACK

Three Virgin Marys kept their baleful eyes on the back of Allen’s head. But more powers were needed—of clemency, of healing—so, to accompany the dolorous mothers, somebody had also taped to the wall behind Allen’s hospital bed half a dozen Jesuses (a few were laminated), the famous “Last Supper” painting, and a grave-looking figure who, Alice, one of Allen’s sisters, told Gina, was St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, of last hope.

I said to Gina, The school I went to in Manila was called St. Jude. It was next to the church, also called St. Jude, where hundreds of people went for Mass. St. Jude is a very popular saint with the Filipinos, I added. Although, if Gina hadn’t asked and Alice hadn’t told her, I would not have been hip to this figure’s identity. It had been a long time since I’d given any thought to my boyhood, devoutness, obedience, my family.

Allen was, in some ways, a kindred spirit. His one-word self-description, at our first book-group gathering, was “lapsed.” What did he mean? You name it, I’ve lapsed. To much laughter, he enumerated: lapsed Christian, lapsed Korean, lapsed middle-class person, lapsed heterosexual. He was an unusual gay man, but maybe I was relying on stereotypes: he was young but chubby, unstylish, un prepossessing in appearance and manner. He wasn’t the most talkative of the bunch of us, and he had a fondness for upspeak, like a teenager.