It was summer. Celeste Avenue, where we both lived in run down, rat and roach infested row homes, was filled with kids playing curb ball, or dodging and diving in the spray of the nearest fire hydrant.

I was just about to step up to the curb when Sal yelled from across the street for me to come over and talk to him. I looked at him strangely. It was a big deal when someone was interrupted while playing ball. I told him that I’d be there after my turn at the curb. He yelled back, “Get your ass ova hea, now!” He was serious. I dropped the ball and went.

Now, you have to know Sal to appreciate that this had to be BIG, because Sal never talked about how he felt to anyone.

“I’m in some serious shit.” he said, “Marie and I are gonna take Tony to da Virgin of Flatbush, to see if he can be healed.”

Tony is Sal’s brother, a good friend of mine, and he’s been married to Marie for two years. He had some kind of heart disease, and during surgery, about a year ago, he was infected with HIV. He and Marie knew about it right away. She never caught it. Sal’s been in love with Marie from day one, but could never talk to her about it. The Virgin of Flatbush was known throughout the City for her miracles, so that’s where they figured they had to go.

Flatbush Avenue was in Brooklyn, on the other side of the city. It was going to take some serious subway riding to get there, and neither Sal nor Maria had much money. I wasn’t sure why Sal came to me that day. He could have gotten some money from his brother Joey, a well paid, but lowly lieutenant in the local mob family. But he chose to come to me.

Like I said, Sal never talks, but he acted like he really wanted to, so when he gave me the nod, I sat down on the curb next to him and asked why they were going. Sal hesitated and then blurted, “Whadaya mean? Tony’s my brotha. A man’s gotta help his brotha.”

Sal knew that Tony might not make the trip. His immune system was destroyed. He caught every bug that came along. The subway was no place to take him.

“… and besides, da Virgin’s da best,” Sal continued. “She helped my Aunt Seal who had T.B.”

We sat for a while in silence, watching our friends run and push each other into the spray of the hydrant. Sal had more to say, but wouldn’t talk.

Sal and Marie gathered the money. I gave them a fifty, which I had gotten for my birthday. They borrowed the rest from Joey.

They bundled Tony up in blankets and lifted him out of bed. He was weak, when he tried to stand his legs buckled under him. Sal dipped down and put his shoulder under Tony’s arm, held him up and helped him walk.

It was only a few yards to the corner subway stop, but for Tony it was like walking crosscountry.

He sat on the bench of the subway car next to Marie, looking like a mummy stolen from the Museum of Natural History. Sal stood, holding a pole in the center of the car.

Sal chose to stand despite the fact that it was very early morning, before the rush, so there were still lots of empty seats available in the car. He wouldn’t look at Tony, but glanced once in a while into Maria’s brown sullen eyes.

Tony couldn’t even sit up by himself. Maria held him with one arm, so he wouldn’t topple when the car swayed, and let him rest his head on her shoulder. He coughed often, grunting and bending at the waist with each hack. He was hurting.

In the old days, Sal, Tony and I spent the weekdays on the streets, and Sundays at church. Our mothers were friends. They were all members of our parish, the Catholic Women of St. Francis, and on Sunday, it was the Law of Celeste Avenue that you had to be at church. Of course, fathers were exempt from the Law, it was their day of rest.

We tried to listen to Father Donato’s sermons, but seldom understood, or even if we did, could relate to very few of them. We stood when it was time to stand, sang when the organist began to play, and knelt when everyone else began to pray. We never quite understood the meaning of the rituals, and although our youth group reached out from St. Francis into the community, there was an imaginary wall around the church separating it from the unforgiving, unrepentant neighborhood beyond.

We never understood how to scale the wall, despite the fact that Father Donato was constantly trying to provide ladders for our use.

Sal, Marie and Tony switched trains six times during the two-hour trip and on each train Sal stood while Marie and Tony sat arm in arm.

The seats next to Tony were always empty. Everyone who came into the car realized how sick and crippled Tony was, and avoided contact with him.

Sal stood with his head turned away from Tony. He couldn’t look him in the eyes.

Sal and Marie met at a dance at the Fire Hall on the Avenue about two months after Tony began to get sick, and about a year before their trip to Flatbush.

Sal had been infatuated with Marie since they were in grade school together, and was hoping that Marie would come to the dance that night.

Marie went reluctantly, prodded by her mother, who volunteered to stay home with Tony. Marie had been home, caring for him, mourning for him and their relationship for weeks. She needed to get out of the house, her mother told her.

Sal glanced toward the front door of the Hall as Marie walked in. Her beautiful shoulder length brown hair and radiant child-like big brown eyes were masked by a look of concern and uncertainty. She looked over and saw Sal at about the same time that he saw her. They walked toward each other, and without saying a word, embraced, held each other tight and danced all night, each filling a void in the heart of the other.

Sal knew in his heart why he was making this vigil to Flatbush. He told Marie that he needed to try anything he could to save his brother. But knew in his heart that that wasn’t the real reason.

Tony was getting weaker and weaker as they switched trains. On the last train, 20 minutes from Flatbush, Sal, Tony and Marie struggled onto the train in front of two teenage boys, a young girl and a nun. The strangers glanced at Tony as he coughed and moaned. The young girl and teenage boys moved to the opposite end of the car. The nun sat down on one of the center benches.

Sal had a nose for trouble and immediately realized that the two guys looked like gang members. Both had greased back hair, the same earrings in their ear and nose and the same tattoo markings up and down their arms.

Sal watched as the two moved closer to the young girl. The girl backed away from them to the corner of the car. The two guys followed, pinned her in the corner and started rubbing their bodies against her. She screamed and pushed both of them, but one reached in his pocket, put his face next to hers and whispered something in her ear. She continued to struggle, but stopped screaming.

Sal and Marie froze and stared at the three in the corner. The nun, however, slowly got up from her seat and walked toward them. Sal glanced at the nun, but felt helpless. His first thought was to reach out and grab the nun to stop her from getting hurt, but he gave way to the law of the streets, don’t get involved in conflicts that don’t involve you. The nun must have been acting under a different set of commandments, because she kept moving toward the corner.

The two guys stared at the woman, frozen in disbelief as if they were confronted by a cop. The nun was nose to nose with one of the hoods and whispered something. Sal tried to hear, but couldn’t. Then, incredibly, as if the clouds had separated and the voice of God had commanded, the gang members stepped away from the girl and sat down on a side bench of the car.

Sal and Marie stared at the nun as she walked gingerly back to her seat. The woman in black glanced and saw Tony, wrapped in cover, weak and coughing. She stood and walked toward the empty seat next to him, and, without saying a word, held his hand as Marie held him up.

Marie and Sal had their eyes fixed on the nun, then, at the same moment, turned, and stared into each other’s eyes. They seemed to come to the same realization at the same time.

At that moment, the wall separating St. Francis Church from the tough neighborhood around it came tumbling down, and a pathway was made between Sal’s world and the teachings of Father Donato.

Sal’s mind raced as he recalled bits and pieces of the priest’s sermons, the teachings of Christ and his advice to follow in Christ’s footsteps.

He realized that the action taken by this meek, sensitive and caring nun were the same that Christ would have taken.

Sal often thinks back to the subway ride to Flatbush. He wonders about the nun, where she was going, her strength. He never did get an opportunity to talk to her. When the train stopped at Flatbush Ave, she got off, without a word.

Marie, Tony and Sal never made it to the Virgin of Flatbush. They switched trains and headed to Brooklyn General, where Tony is still under the care of doctors in the Hospital’s AIDS unit. Joey’s paying the bill.