By Robert R. Schwarz
"My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness "
Jesus speaking to the apostle Paul ( 2 Corinthians: 12:9 )
The physically strongest man I ever knew was Casey "Bull" Callahan, whom I encountered in a darkened hallway one afternoon in a Hell's Kitchen rent-control building a few blocks from New York’s Hudson River. That was in 1961, and Judith and I had been married a few months and were about to visit a friend there on West 59th Street. The hallway air was dank and musty, and the center floorboard buckled as we walked. "Thank God it’s not midnight,” Judith nervously quipped.
We suddenly saw Bull Callahan emerge from the darkness. Judith grabbed my arm. The man coming at us was at least six-foot-four and fleshed out at a likely three-hundred-pound. His forearms reminded me of ham hocks.
Now only a few feet from us, I saw he was mulatto, perhaps 30 years old, and had a well-proportioned , massive head and neck. I nudged Judith to the right so he could pass without any fuss and , as he did , I glanced up; this man's eyes locked on ours and instinctively scanned us for friend or foe. And then, reading us as innocents abroad—which we were Hell's Kitchen--Bull flashed a convivial smile and politely waved us around him. In passing, I had a silly impulse to pay some small tribute, a toll. "How's it going, big guy?” I asked. Judith's foot immediately came down on mine. The brief encounter was enough for all of us to vaguely sense something promising about our mutual chemistry.
A week later we again encountered Bull in the same hallway as he was opening his triple-locked door. We casually exchanged profiles, and I got the impression that Bull seldom got this close to suburbanites like Judith and me. Nevertheless, Bull insisted we come to his party that weekend. It was the sort of adventure we had been waiting for.
Saturday night we were knocking on Bull’s door, uneasy about the kind of company we'd be interacting with. Even with Judith's colorful over- worn dress and my gabardine slacks aged with shinny spots and my drip-dry shirt with a frayed collar, we were concerned about being overdressed.
No one came to the door. We finally opened it ourselves and took baby steps into a party crowd of at least 30 people of all ages. Half of them--those dressed more stylishly than Judith and I — were sitting somewhat rigidly as they sipped drinks in a small living room with a hideaway bed. The other half—those in clownish shirts, motorcycle boots, Army surplus shirts, and so forth—sat in the kitchen pouring gin and bourbon for each other. A latticed wood screen separated these two rooms. Judith and I took our positions with the sippers. Bull's cell of friends had so distinctively divided themselves into these two rooms that Judith and I later labeled Bull's party as a gathering of " The "Goodies and The Badies." Bull, of course, was humorously aware of this irony. Nothing about raw human nature escaped him.
Judith and I shook a few hands, but introductions were drowned out by Johnny Mathis—whom Bull adored—singing at top volume from a concealed cassette player. At the kitchen table with a half-empty Rock and Rye bottle in front of him, sat Bull, holding court. He was bare-chested and mugging a glass of straight rye. For the first time I saw his face fully lit. Bull had short, black curly hair and a boulder of a face with a nose sans septum (a casualty from his days as a strike-breaker on New Jersey docks) and several concave scars on his right forearm (a casualty from an arrest during an armed robbery, for which he served hard time in a Massachusetts penitentiary—and later again there for the same offense). Depending on the crowd he wanted to schmooze, Bull would tell you he was half Afro-American or half Brazilian or half Irish (Black Irish, that is) or half something else, which I can't remember. (Yet I would later see Bull’s little finger deftly bring a cup of tea to his mouth and, with perfect decorum, nibble on Judith’s scones during one of her artist soirees in our apartment. And, with precise diction and an animated Bostonian voice, I more than once heard him philosophize about his past felonies — never to be committed again, of course. About this he was gravely serious, not contritely so, rather it was a confession of youthful stupidity. )
Bull rose from the table, exposing a huge Buddha-like belly. That night he was in true Rabelaisian form, giving street-savvy advice to his coterie on easy sex, easy money, and easy living. Bull obviously did not like hard work and usually found someone to do it for him in exchange for a gift of unknown source. Bull kept these "gifts” deep in the kitchen closet, which he opened once that night just for me.
"Go in. Take what you want," he said.
My hesitation exasperated him. “Mother of Pearl, it's free!" he scolded. Seeing my disinterest, Bull shut the door quietly and returned to his chair and the fawning company of a few street urchins, a red haired sociopath parolee from Riker's Island, and a gay here and a lesbian there. No one in the kitchen, I observed, could manage remaining in place more than a few seconds. Three or four times, all the fluttering and yakking froze in midair when Bull erupted with his signature giggle that ascended to a crescendo of raucous laughter. Then someone a few minutes later would whisper a tidbit into Bull's ear and another rollercoaster of laughter began. The vocabulary was rich, an "unstaunchable flow of imagination and invective," as an author once described a gathering of passionate friends he observed.
For hours Judith and I maneuvered back and forth from the living room to the kitchen , from eavesdropping on Beatnik radicalism and jokes about petty thieves, to participating in "clever talk" among the actors, artists, and wannabe novelists. We finally settled in the “Goodies” room. There we noticed how differently the "F" word was articulated in conversation. Whereas the "F" word we often heard among the "Baddies” in the kitchen was always spontaneous and said with perfect diction, our "F" words in this room sounded robotically programmed. .
When the booze vanished so did the party and Bull grew maudlin. Judith and I left wanting Bull to be our friend, our interpreter in Hell's Kitchen, and, if need be, a bodyguard.
Our friendship formed naturally in the weeks ahead. Walking with us along Ninth Avenue, Bull, wearing undersized slacks with the front button often missing and feeling equally constricted by his red ( sometimes blue ) checked shirt, Bull could charm the meanest looking vendor into giving us a bargain price. His mind worked with lightning speed and his colorful, brassy vulgate introduced Judith and I to a sub-culture which, in years ahead, was to widen our perspective of humanity. After reading a few of his letters and random notes, I encouraged Bull to take up writing fiction. I'm sure he could have written droll tales as entertaining as those of the great French novelist Balzac.
But Bull could easily intimidate people, especially pedestrians. Sometimes, while "escorting" Judith and me to the cheapy meat markets on the lower West Side, Bull would squint his eyes and give his best scowl at people, who then quickly ceded us the right-of-way. When outside his habitat, I think Bull was uncomfortably aware of an appearance that could easily intimidate and therefore distracted people from it with a buffoonish scowl. Bull did his best to live outside the dimension of time (quite a feat when living in Manhattan), even if it meant forgetting to show for an elaborate dinner Judith occasionally prepared for him. He ignored this oversight of protocol and any other with a simple, "Yeah, I know it was important." He said this so tenderly that to wait for further explanation was unthinkable. Trying to understand Bull’s motives for doing or not doing anything was often futile.
***
It was a hot September day and Judith and I were helping the Salvation Army resident carry boxes down from our third floor apartment and load them into our recently purchased , used Plymouth station wagon . Impatiently waiting inside the vehicle were a panting German Shepherd and two Siamese cats. We were hoping our vintage Plymouth would survive the drive to my parent’s Arkansas ranch. (After after two years of Hell's Kitchen, we were pining for country living.) The night before we had had exchanged farewells with Bull, who spent at least 20 minutes mocking country living and another five minutes questioning our sanity. The thought of ticks and noiseless nights spooked him. Then he wrapped his big arms around us , kissed both of us on the cheek, and with solemnity, said softly: " I like you , just for who you are. " (Empty words, I thought then. Yet, his simple, cliché-sounding compliment—I never would fathom it-- was to strangely prop up my integrity whenever I doubted I had one and or felt it slipping. ) As he opened our door, our friend of sharp contrasts, let loose with his characteristic giggle. This time—for shock value he loved to give-- he purposely made it sound demonic . "I'll pray for you ," he said. Then he fiendishly giggled again and left.
We might have stayed , if only long enough to be there when Bull became successful, to then shout at him that he was not as free and mighty as he thought, but never so much a condemned prisoner.
***
Judith and I are sitting in the living room of an apartment in a depressed neighborhood of Chicago's South Side. We have responded to a phone call from a woman who said she was the wife of Casey Callahan , our dear friend from we haven't heard in seven years.
Waiting for Bull to arrive, my wife and I are uneasy. By nature we are middle-class suburbanites and no longer Hells' Kitchen denizens—but have never missed an opportunity to boast about our "survival" there. We notice the unmatched furniture surrounding us and the ceiling incapable of aging any more. I am wondering, without a good reason, if I can still relate to Bull as a friend.
"Bull will be so happy to see you," his wife Lillian, says. "I couldn't say everything over the phone when I called because the children were here. But I will now before they get home from school. "
We learn that soon after Judith and I had left New York, Bull married Lillian, a former fashion model who had fallen on hard times; they now had three children: Gloria, Matthew, and Charles.
Lillian, a tallish, large-framed woman nearing 50, brings us tea—still moving with a model's flair. She impresses us as generous and gentle, and in her voice I detect a humble woman , perhaps capable of "long suffering" (a Protestant phrase I had recently picked up).
"I had to leave Casey there," she continues, and adds that she dislikes the name Bull. "Casey was being abusive to all of us, especially when he took drugs." She meant cocaine. She tells us that after she and the children left Bull and went to Chicago, he began managing a porno movie house off Times Square and, for the first time, was legitimately making a lot of money and presumably feeling like King Tut.
A year ago, Lillian had decided she'd take another chance with Bull; he had since written that he was off cocaine and missed the kids and was sorry for his past behavior, especially his ogre-like shouting fits that had for years rattled his family's bones. But it had taken until now to budge our Shrek buddy out of his Gehenna ( a hellish Old Testament name for a dumping place for unclean matter continuously in fire ) near Times Square . I don't think anyone ever knew what truly motivated Bull to surrender his Pleasure Island to the dictates of caring for a family, especially in a land so alien from his Hell's Kitchen. Yet I was positive that within the invisible world of his procrastination must have occurred a battle of life or death proportions. Then Bull suddenly appeared one morning on Lillian's doorstep, grossly overweight with Type One diabetes. He soon was at hard labor as a school janitor , mopping up classroom floors and cleaning toilets.
Lillian now says Bull is committed to both job and family. Something in her voice, however, hints that warfare for her husband is still being waged.
The kids come home. We meet the youngest, Charles, and the oldest, Matthew, and Gloria, who has become our godchild without our knowledge—a typical Bull breech of protocol. They have inherited their father's effusive behavior , and they warmly hug Judith and me . Within an hour we are deep in companionship.
I walk to the toilet, crossing the living room's hardwood floor with a sag here and there and indissoluble spots from remnants of old varnish. Cracked linoleum is spread over the kitchen floor and the sink is full of mismatched dishes. I hear water dripping defiantly from the sink faucet . I am smugly aware of the fact that my wife and I have a passport back to our tidy suburban home .
We hear Bull opening the front door. Judith and I go to him, exchange bear hugs and cheers that instantly transport us back for a moment to the Goodies and Badies party in Bull's New York pad. Bull is more Shrek than ever, still a gentle giant, just as commandingly loud and bullish. I joke about his streaks of white hair. "What the f… do you expect for a guy 59," he says, and moves abruptly to an armchair and crashes down , all 300 now- plus pounds. I notice he limps. Though I see a man living out his epilogue of a riotous life, I also see a trench-fatigue soldier not yet emptied of unruly passion. Oddly, I feel boastful of the fact that I have a friend who, despite all, can still take down any man on the street.
Charles leaps unto his father's lap of heavily stained coveralls and Bull, with face spotted by the grime of his occupation, plants a wet smacking kiss on both of his son's cheeks. We are anxious to see more of the Bull we knew in Hell's Kitchen but Bull has not yet collected himself. And so we wait while he forgets his workday and reconnects to his home; he rubs a big , calloused hand up and down Charles' face. Judith will remark later how she then looked at Bull's bone-deep weariness and saw sadness mixed with anger in his eyes.
Lillian brings in glasses of water. I try for rapport with Bull but say the wrong thing: "How'd it go today, big guy?"
He frowns and retorts bitterly: "Cleaned l8 shit bowls. You wanna know more?"
Lillian calls to the children: "Matthew, Gloria, and Charles, show Aunt Judith and Uncle Robert how well you play your instruments."
Gloria comes with a banjo, Matthew with a flute, and Charles an oboe more than half the boy's height. . They play a piece from Mozart. Lillian and Bull beam. Judith and I surmise that no little sacrifice was made for the instruments and music lessons. Charles hits a sour note. Bull shouts disappointment: "Mother of Pearl!” His father's outburst freezes Charles' face for a moment.
After the music stops, Bull once again is making our brains dance with laughter as he , with psychological insights and metaphors embellished with vulgarities, describes the silliness of people he daily encounters on public transportation. He, too, laughs from the depths of his now considerably expanded Buddha belly. It is an egalitarian moment for us ; all socio-economic boundaries are erased. Bull is still sweet Shrek, and once again I see the Bull from whom I can learn more about the universal—albeit rough edged-- fullness of being human.
Lillian brings out a two-pound box of Fannie May "second day “candy . "None for you, Casey, and you know why." Bull takes four pieces anyway. Lillian tells us how much the family loves fresh asparagus and strawberries .
“Yes, we do, too, " replies Judith. "But I won't pay their prices out-of-season. "
A memory of Bull as our bodyguard when Judith and I walked the Hell's Kitchen streets at night for fresh air, stirs me to say: "Bull, I want to hear why you really left New York."
Bull frowns, and I have learned that this frown means he will be at his sincerest.
"I had a dream one night in Times Square," he begins. "I was hanging nude, upside down from a hook in a slaughter house and someone was flaying me. The next day—and I swear to sweet Mary (he was raised Catholic) this is the truth—my apartment building burned down." He pauses and roars with laughter salted with profanity-- intended, of course-- to delight Judith and me. "You should have seen the rats run out—thousands of them!"
From our Hell's Kitchen days, I also learned that whenever Bull thinks his listening audience might suspect him of fabricating a tale, he runs an index finger under his eye and invokes the name of Jesus. So now, with that finger under his eye , he adds: " I was sitting on the toilet when one of them came up the pipe and bit me. Sweet Jesus!"
Driving home that day, I say to Judith: " Bull's dream, according to Carl Jung, is what the primitive people would call the Big Dream. "
"I still have goose pimples," Judith says.
"I think he was losing his soul in that dream."
"He's still fighting for it, isn't he, Robert ?"
***
We continued to visit the Callahan family during the next six months. In our home , Judith made sumptuous dinners for them , serving her favorite meals on a table decorated with fresh cut flowers and napkins she had stitched. Bull came close to swooning. An evening in our home was a reprieve from the common stress of daily living faced by the Callahans and other disadvantaged families Judith and I knew. As one crisis was about to be resolved, another popped up without warning. We saw that much of this stress could be avoided with foresight and planning, but there never seemed to be time for something as abstract as that. Frustration for Bull and Lillian intensified when Gloria, not yet out of high school , told them she was in love with a neighborhood teen, a gang member, and when they observed Charles buddying around with "bad dudes." Then there was a constant threat of a utility being turned off or the weekly food budget going bust and Bull's diabetes and the abdominal insulin shots being skipped . His left eye had recently lost most of its sight when pierced by a nail he was yanking out from a classroom ceiling. It would have been difficult for me to fault Bull had he sought relief in drugs. He didn't.
On a Saturday afternoon when I knew Bull would be alone, I drove to his apartment and invited him for a walk around the block. I had no agenda; I just wanted to hang with him for awhile.
"Not today, Robert," he said. "Gotta save fuel for Monday."
I teased him until he grabbed me by the nape of my neck steered me down the stairs.
We walked for perhaps 30 minutes. I was suddenly spirited by a thought, stopped walking, and turned to him. " Bull, I want to ask you something. "
He also stopped and was strangely silent, his street instincts warning him of a confrontation.
"You ever been baptized?" I asked. My words echoed in my head, making me nervous. I had never put this question to anyone, let alone Bull , and I had no idea where I was going with it.
"I don't think so," Bull said. His tone was surprisingly casual. My next words just blurted out.
"Look, would you mind if we prayed together?"
Recalling in the next second, how Bull's religious sentiments through the years had been expressed with mocking humor, I felt my throat go dry.
My good friend, however, simply nodded his consent. Nothing more was said; it was as if the scene had been scripted by God's grace before I had left home that day. As we turned back to Bull's apartment, I became aware of how precious this evolving event could be for both of us and that nothing or no one could stop it from playing out.
Still in mutual silence, we went to a darkened bedroom in Bull's apartment. I kneeled down at the bed , then Bull did. I first asked God for a good prayer, then asked Bull to open his heart to Jesus and just talk to Him—about anything . "Silently if you want," I said. In a whisper Bull was sure to hear, I asked God for His love and mercy for Bull and his family. I felt that at stake for Bull, now and forever, was an eternity with or without God , in heaven or in hell.
For a long moment we remained motionless, silent. In that silence, I am certain that, unheard and unseen, a violent, winner-take-all war was being waged in and around Bull . The Flesh, World, and Devil would give no quarter , no armistice. My friend could win only if he, in a paradoxical sense, would now surrender his entire self to a Power beyond all his senses and allowed It to fight for him. Bull was free to say yes or no , one death or another.
***
Afterwards and for the next three months, Bull remained strangely silent about that afternoon. I believe that God loved him unconditionally and that Bull was moved by that grace-filled love to say yes to God. My assurance of that, of course, is beyond my senses.
Three months later, Bull ate a half box of candy after dinner , went to bed and never woke up.
***
Judith had a red Irish rose delivered to the funeral . When I went to the casket and saw
my Shrek friend lying in an ill-fitted suit and drab tie, hands clasped around the rose, I wept. An appropriate eulogy never came to my mind. Perhaps the most fitting words any memorial for Bull's were written 2,000 years ago by a man who had delivered scores of Christians to execution and who, in subsequent years, experienced much personal strength and yet profound weakness. To the Romans, the apostle Paul wrote what would later aid in turning the ancient world upside down: For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want….Miserable one that I am ! Who will deliver me ….? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. "
***
I saw Lillian and the three children only twice after Bull died, and that was ten years later. All were still living in Chicago; Lillian was coaching models part time and sharing an apartment with her younger son. Gloria had married and then apparently divorced her husband, who moved to Viet Nam. She owned and operated a small tavern. And Matthew was a bookkeeper for a supermarket.
Though I never considered Bull a role model, he left me a legacy that often spurred me to small but significant achievements as a journalist and, later, as a leadership development manager for a large international volunteer service organization. Thanks to the memory of Bull's twilight years, I came to believe, contrary to modern thought, that people can and do change. It's not a revolutionary thought but it does provide hope for us "weak" people.
