Cross Dressing (20 page)

Dan pulled into his parking spot. Across the street he
saw Razor Boy and Charlie Freak and their ominous black S-10 pickup. They were posturing against the truck, all tattoos, malt liquor, and menace. They laughed when Dan looked their way and the one with the gold teeth lifted his shirt to show the chrome handle of the gun in his waistband.

Dan didn’t care. He simply locked the van and walked around the corner of the building. He heard his phone ringing again, but he still wasn’t ready to answer it, especially now. He was in a bad place and he could feel it getting worse. The moment he got to the door, his emotions started to get the better of him. And when he walked into the apartment—the apartment that used to be Michael’s—he was unable to contain himself any longer. Dan began to cry again.
Why me?
he thought. The anguish overwhelmed him and he fell to his knees, but it had nothing to do with Michael. He’d been robbed. No more Fujioka, no more nothing. The place was stripped bone-clean.

I
t was one thing, Sister Peg thought, for the head of a multinational corporation to be paid millions of dollars each year, but ever since the United Way scandal, Sister Peg had kept a jaundiced eye on the salaries of those who ran the nation’s largest charity organizations and foundations. It seemed fundamentally wrong to her that someone sweating in a soup kitchen sixty hours a week would earn twenty thousand dollars while someone putting in twenty-hour weeks running a charitable foundation would make as much as $600,000 in salary and benefits, which many of them did. It struck Sister Peg as, somehow, hypocritical. She was funny that way.

When Sister Peg read the newspaper article about the heads of the nation’s largest charitable foundations gathering
in Los Angeles for an awards banquet of a self-congratulatory nature, she decided to call in a favor.

T
he Beverly Eldorado was a five-star hotel on Rodeo Drive in the heart of the city of conspicuous consumption. Elegant architecture and spacious interiors reflected the enormous sums of money that went into the creation of this luxurious attraction frequented by celebrities and royalty alike. It was resplendence manifest at six hundred bucks a night—for the cheap rooms.

Outside, the valet had just returned from parking a Lamborghini Diablo VT, a jewel of automotive design. Even in Beverly Hills, one didn’t see these frequently. The valet was still basking in the afterglow when the old Suburban lurched to a stop. He assumed the suspension was shot as it was riding so low to the ground. When the nun opened the doors and more than a dozen people piled out of the creaky beast, however, he understood why it had been hugging the ground so. What he didn’t understand was what these bedraggled people were doing at his fine hotel. However, since he’d been trained not to pass judgment on guests based on their vehicles, he simply handed the nun her ticket and pointed her toward the door.

Inside, everything was cool and rich and golden and quiet. The beautiful people in the lobby and the bar seemed to whisper their words while the tasteful percussion of silverware on china issuing from the Golden Calf Restaurant was softened by heavy drapes and thick carpeting. This costly calm was violated when Sister Peg led the charge into the marbled main hall. She was accompanied by a television camera crew and the timid, and hungry, residents of the Care Center. The large blue-and-white sticker prominently displayed on the side of the camera spoke to the seriousness of Sister Peg’s mission. It said, “CNN.” With the
media at her side, Sister Peg guided her platoon of have-nots down a sumptuous hallway graced by a priceless collection of handmade tapestries and carpets and replicas of eighteenth-century furniture.

Peg’s posse was headed for the opulent and classically designed five-thousand-square-foot ballroom, which was the ideal venue for large, lavish gala social events. The elegantly dressed crowd was inside the ballroom swilling cocktails to the strains of a tasteful piano, bass, and drum trio. A man in a tuxedo was stationed at the door to welcome late-arriving guests and to keep out the rabble. The moment he saw Sister Peg and the camera crew round the corner, he feared he was in over his head.

Sister Peg walked directly up to the man and put a stopwatch in his face. “Think fast,” she said. “The camera is on.” The man panicked and reached for the phone. Ruben, silent as ever, put his strong hand on the receiver, shook his head, and frowned. “See, the thing is,” Sister Peg said, “we’ve been eating cheese for damn near forty days and forty nights and we’re tired of it. So you’ve got two choices. The first and the best choice, I might add, is to find the event coordinator and tell her there’s a nun out here with a CNN camera crew and fifteen hungry people. Advise this person to allow us in to be warmly received and fed in exchange for being featured in a very favorable human interest story to be broadcast on national television.”

The man in the tux listened intently. He wasn’t sure what to make of the terrorist-nun.

“The second option,” Sister Peg said, “is to call Security and have us thrown out, which I think you would agree would also make for some very good television. Do you understand?”

The man looked past Sister Peg and, over her shoulder, saw the frightened faces of old people and a few small children. They were huddled behind their protector. The
man could see how they trusted this woman and he took this to mean she had earned this trust and was not to be trifled with.

Sister Peg snapped her fingers in front of the man’s face. “I said, do you understand?”

“Yes, Sister,” the man said.

“Excellent.” Sister Peg started the stopwatch. “You’ve got sixty seconds. If you’re not back by then, we’ll just let ourselves in. Go.” Tick, tick, tick …

The man disappeared. Ruben sniffed the air. It smelled like filets and lobster and melted butter. He smiled at Sister Peg, crossing his arms across his chest, his hands in soft fists. Then he made funny snapping claws with his hands. He loved lobster.

Sister Peg winked and gave a quick nod. The man in the tux came back with twelve seconds to spare, a svelte socialite in tow. The woman extended her hand. “Hello,” she said. “My name is Eleanor Colvin, and you are?”

“Sister Peg. I run a place called—”

Eleanor gently held up one hand, dismissing the explanation. “Why don’t you tell me about it over dinner?”

Sister Peg was momentarily at a loss for words. She had expected some resistance, certainly some disdainful looks, snide remarks. Finally she said, “That’s very generous of you.”

“Don’t be silly,” the woman replied. “I’m seated at the most pathetic table in the history of social galas. I’ve been listening to the most tiresome screenwriter droning on about his lack of adequate representation. I can’t thank you enough for rescuing me.” And with that, Eleanor ushered the Care Center residents into the ballroom.

Although some in the crowd were dismayed that they would have to share their opulence with “these people,” the majority were liquored up enough to let it slide. The wait staff quickly set up a table for the Care Center residents. Alissa
was absolutely captivated by the splendor of the ballroom. She told Ruth she felt like Cinderella. Ruth, who was savoring the cabernet, told Alissa to keep her eye out for Prince Charming. Ruben paused between bites of lobster to cut the meat for some of the older residents. During the soup course, the CNN camera crew covered the event and got comments from some of the attending celebrities.

Eleanor Colvin was across the room, speaking with a gentleman who was a heavy hitter on the charity circuit. When she saw Sister Peg looking her way, Eleanor smiled and gave her a gracious nod. Then she turned back to the gentleman and finished what she was saying. “The woman had a news crew with her, for God’s sake. I didn’t think we needed the bad publicity.”

As Sister Peg enjoyed the best meal of her life, her friend the cameraman leaned over and thanked her for calling him. “This is a great steak,” he said.

Sister Peg reached over and patted his hand. “I appreciate your help. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

The cameraman winked. “I think the CNN sticker was the key,” he said. “I got into the Emmys using that last year.”

Sister Peg had to laugh. Her friend was a gofer at a cable-access station in Van Nuys. When Peg called with her idea, he simply checked out the Betacam unit with the CNN sticker and got his roommate to be the phony sound man in exchange for a free dinner. For the moment Sister Peg was quite pleased with herself. Pulling off these scams had always given her a bit of a thrill, and she wasn’t worried about the ethics. She was willing to take the moral bullet if it meant feeding her charges. But she knew this was only a short-term solution. Her long-term solutions, primarily grant applications and requests for public-sector funding, were constantly being shot down. As the eviction noose tightened around her neck, Sister Peg was starting to consider more extreme
approaches, but she hoped to find funding without actually having to use her gun.

F
ather Michael looks to the sky but not to pray. He wishes it weren’t so hot. His faith wanes with each hour. He has seen the money and relief supplies diverted by whichever rebel group controls a given area. Frustrated, he has written letters to his supe-riors in hopes of effecting change in that regard. He is told that someone from the Church will come to investigate the matter. Three months pass and nothing changes.

It’s a Friday and Father Michael has gone without food or water for forty-eight hours. He is weak and disoriented as he administers the last rites to a group of recent converts. When he stands to stretch his back, he notices a commotion on the horizon. There is a small convoy coming his way. Even from a distance Father Michael can tell it is neither a military nor an aid convoy. There is too much dust to make things out until they get closer, so he waits, hopeful that it is help of some sort. When they get closer, the drivers begin honking their horns. The refugees—some stumbling, others being dragged out of the way—clear a path. Father Michael watches in confusion as the refugees scramble to their feet and wave at the line of trucks as if it is a parade—which, in a sense, it is.

The last vehicle in the convoy is the strangest truck Father Michael has ever seen. It is a Range Rover, the back of which has been modified into what looks like an oversized phone booth or perhaps a giant terrarium. The truck and the frame of the Plexiglas container have been painted a custom shade of bone. Inside the booth, sitting in a sumptuous cream-colored leather wing-back chair, is Cardinal Cooper. He is wearing an alabaster chasuble trimmed with silk cord. His shoulders are draped with a short cape embroidered with ecclesiastical symbols sewn from glittery golden threads, all festooned with a jewel-encrusted crucifix
dangling on an elegant silver chain. As a topper, Cardinal Cooper sports a Paris white miter with mother-of-pearl brocade which tests the height of his enclosure. He is a feather boa away from looking like a religious Liberace as he waves at the starving refugees like a Sweet Potato Queen in a harvest parade. Father Michael thinks he is hallucinating.

The Cardinal’s conveyance comes to a stop in front of Father Michael. As he stands there, coughing in the dust, Father Michael peers through the tinted Plexiglas. Inside, on a teak-wood end table next to the leather chair, he sees a bowl of pistachios, a golden chalice, and a can of caffeine-free diet soda. There is a cooler filled with more soft drinks against the wall. When the dust finally settles, an electric window rolls down and the Cardinal pokes his jewel-encrusted hand out for the humble priest to kiss. Standing in the absurd heat, Father Michael feels an air-conditioned breeze cool his face. Cardinal Cooper clears his throat as if to say hurry up, you’re letting all the cold air out.

Father Michael stares at the Cardinal’s finery and jewels, then at the mass of skeletal remains that are the refugees, and suddenly, for reasons unknown, something inside of him snaps. He grabs the Cardinal by the hand and yanks hard. “Whoa!” The Cardinal bangs his head on his way through the window. His immaculate white miter lands in the dirt. A struggle ensues as Father Michael attempts to pull the diamond rings from the Cardinal’s fingers. “I can sell this,” he screams. “We can feed these people!”

The bodyguards quickly pull Father Michael off and restrain him. Cardinal Cooper is helped to his feet, where he stands like a king as his attendants brush the dust from his vestments. He doesn’t appear to be thinking about forgiveness.

Father Michael isn’t sure what happened. He tries to clear his head, but he can’t make sense of anything. He doesn’t know if he has gone crazy or if it’s the rest of the world. It doesn’t take him long to realize that such distinctions are moot.

After dusting off his soiled miter, the Cardinal steps onto his
portable speaker’s platform and, with a vague sweep of his hand, he blesses the starving crowd. He then turns to Father Michael, smirks, and exercises his power to excommunicate. A moment later Cardinal Cooper is back in the comfort of the air-conditioned booth. The convoy goes on its way, leaving behind little more than an empty soda can.

L
ike everyone else who had ever been burglarized, Dan felt violated. He also felt a certain helplessness, an impotence stemming from the fact that he couldn’t even report the burglary because the investigation might turn up the fact that the merchandise that had been stolen had been purchased using a dead guy’s credit card in the first place. After reflecting further on his circumstances, Dan felt yet another sensation—hunger. He had gotten himself all worked up for that steak dinner only to find the cupboards laid bare. The thieves had taken everything but a can of tomatoes, some soy sauce, and an ancient rotary phone.

Driving force that it is, hunger drove Dan to a large Lucky Store a few miles away. Dan hoped that he hadn’t lost his feel for the five-finger discount at which he had been rather adept as a boy. He picked up a plastic handbasket as he entered the store. He went directly to the produce section. While browsing there, he casually looked around to find the mirrored windows and the half globes of black glass in the ceiling that concealed the cameras. The fact that Dan was hungrier than he was nervous also helped.