3
I began to wonder if I would ever see her again. But maybe a clean break was better. Let’s face it: how much of a future could there be in dating a nun – or even an ex-nun? And yet, deep down, I knew I’d never meet another woman anything like her.
I now realized that her attraction was her essential goodness. A few years later, I was not surprised to hear that she was running a soup kitchen on the Bowery.
I decided to drop in on her, so to win brownie points I brought a shopping cart filled with dozens of fresh-baked cannoli. As soon as I rolled the cart through the door, she spotted me, dropped what she was doing and threw her arms around me.
I don’t think I was ever happier. Then she looked at the boxes in the cart and guessed. “Cannoli?”
“You betcha!”
There were fifty or sixty people seated around tables. She asked a couple of assistants to place some cannoli on each table.
“Well, thank you, Harry! It sure beats opening cans of fruit cocktail!”
“The years have been kind to you, Theresa.”
“I don’t know about kind, but as you’ll surmise, they have been quite interesting. Did you know I left the order?”
“I think I did hear something to that effect.”
“Yeah! In fact, you can say that I’ve gotten remarried.”
She saw my jaw drop. Quickly, she placed her hands on my shoulders and looked deep into my eyes.
“Harry, you will always be in my heart!”
“So, who’s the lucky guy?”
She took my hand and walked with me to the back of the room. There was an older guy scraping bits of food from plates into a garbage pail. He was tall, slim, and had curly gray hair and a full beard.”
“Tom, meet Harry.”
“Glad to meet you, Harry. Where’s Dick?”
Only guys named Tom, Dick, and Harry get the allusion instantaneously. He was definitely a kindred spirit.
“Tom, if I can’t have her, then I’m glad it’s you.”
“Yeah, I’m like Allstate.”
“I don’t get it,” said Theresa.
“You know their slogan: ‘You’re in good hands with Allstate.’”
She playfully punched him in the arm.
I really liked him right off. I could see why Theresa did. But, jeez, the guy was old enough to be her father. And indeed, I actually knew her father. They were probably about the same age, although Tom was certainly much more youthful.
After all the guests had left, I helped with the clean-up as Theresa brought me up to date with her life – and Tom’s. The ex-nun and ex-priest had finally found happiness.
Tom had engaged in some activities that Cardinal Spellman had deemed unbecoming a priest. Spellman, an ardent supporter of our deep involvement in the Vietnam War, was particularly upset with reports about the vandalization of a couple of the local draft boards’ records.
Tom never denied the rumors. He enjoyed describing himself as a de-flocked priest, since they did take away his flock. And as far as he was concerned, the Cardinal was a war criminal. Anyway, he had been dead for years.
“And what about you, Harry? Still counting money?”
“Yes, Theresa. As a matter of fact, I’m now a CPA and saving my clients millions in taxes they should be paying the government.”
“Right on!” shouted Tom. “That money would have just fed the voracious war machine.”
“Well, I hate to tell you guys, but I agree with you a hundred percent!”
“That’s great to hear, Harry! I never was that clear on where you stood.”
“Hey, I’m a lover, not a fighter.”
They both laughed.
Then Tom said, “I surmise you were never in the service.”
“Actually, I almost was. You might know that each draft board has a quota.”
I noticed them glance at each other.
“Well, my draft board must have had a lot of guys who volunteered. So they would make up for any shortfall by drafting the youngest guys on their list. Now remember, this was back in the early sixties, just before the war heated up.”
They both nodded.
“So when they finally called me in for a physical, I was just a couple of months short of my twenty-sixth birthday. And that was the cut-off.”
Again, I saw them nodding. They seemed to know more about the draft than I did.
“Anyway, a friendly employee at my draft board explained that the military considered any guy who hit twenty-six ‘untrainable’ – you know, like being unable – or even unwilling — to follow orders, or to withstand the stresses of military training.
“I never did take that physical, and on my twenty-sixth birthday, I was officially untrainable.”
Just then Theresa blurted out, “Did that include toilet training?”
Seconds later she and I were doubled over with laughter. Tom smiled, but he was clueless. Finally, Theresa told him that she would explain everything later.
“So Tom, perhaps in answer to your question as to whether I ever served in the military, the short answer would be ‘No.’ But a few years later, even I managed to engage in a very low level of passive resistance.”
They were waiting to hear more.
“A few years ago, this poor guy from Internal Revenue paid me a visit – at home!”
“Welcome to the war-resisters’ club,” said Tom.
“I don’t think I’m quite worthy of membership. All I had done was to deduct the federal telephone tax each month when I paid my phone bill.”
“Of course!” said Theresa. “That tax was earmarked to help pay for the war!”
“Absolutely! So, this poor man – he must have been in his late fifties — climbed four flights of stairs to my apartment. He was huffing and puffing so much, I was afraid he would collapse. I insisted that he just sit and drink some water.
“While he was catching his breath, I began to feel very sorry for him. Here he was at this stage in his career, and he might just as soon have been working for a collection agency.”
“Anyway, we went back and forth on the subject for about an hour. He kept insisting that I pay the tax, and I kept demanding that the government end the war.
Finally, he summed up the government’s position. I had made my point. The IRS would now simply put a levy on my bank account. End of story.”
“You should have asked him for an IRS official war-resister’s certificate.”
“Thanks, Tom!”
