Cross Dressing (30 page)

Every day after work Scott did the same thing. He got into his car and opened his hollowed-out Bible. Inside, folded up next to his gun, was the yellow page he had torn from the phone book. Scott had been to most of the churches listed under “Catholic.” There were only nine left in the Valley. St. Richard’s was next. Scott knew this one from growing up. It was right down the street from his old school.

Scott hopped onto the 101 and headed west. After about a hundred yards, traffic came to a complete standstill. “Dammit!” Scott pounded on the steering wheel. He dialed in a radio traffic report. “Well, westbound lanes of the Ventura
Freeway are backed up about a mile because of a headless torso in the fast lane,” the traffic reporter said with a chuckle. “Sure got a lot of lookee-loos on this one …”

Scott’s anxiety surged as he crept down the freeway at half a mile an hour. Assuming he ever got to St. Richard’s, Scott thought about what he would say to the priest, assuming the priest wasn’t Dan. He was looking forward to dealing with his tangled issues in the comfort of the dark Catholic cubicle. He wanted to get some more of this stuff off his chest before it crushed him. He really just needed someone to talk to.

Scott punched in one of his motivational tapes and listened. He wondered how long he’d have to wait for traffic to start moving. Suddenly a hideous noise erupted from the speakers as the cassette player began eating the cheaply made tape. Scott punched hysterically at the eject button, but too late. The tape was already crumpled around the capstan and pinch roller, ruined. Scott wrenched the thing from the tape deck and hurled it out the window. “Aagghhhhh!”

Scott suddenly felt very small. He was surrounded on all sides by an army of huge vehicles, spewing fumes and wasting nonrenewable resources. A red Lincoln Navigator loomed behind him. A white Chevy Silverado raised crew-cab dually was pushing in on his right while a blue Ford Excursion crowded him from the left. Blocking Scott’s frontal view was a black GMC Yukon. As the sense of claustrophobia tightened its noose, Scott craned his neck to look around the unnecessarily roomy vehicle in front of him. He hoped to see some light at the end of the tunnel, but other than a mile of brake lights, the only thing Scott could see was a billboard with the Fujioka Zen master smirking down at him, shouting, “More Is More!”

S
ince at least as far back as the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith in 1622, Christians have been systematically
seeking converts around the world. Africa, with its so-called primitive religions, has long been a popular continent for these conversions, and the Christians seem to have done well spreading their beliefs here. Of course, it’s hard to tell, just by looking, whether the natives have embraced all of the Church’s tenets, but it does appear that they have taken strongly to the one about not using contraception.

As far as the eye can see in this particular stretch of Africa, there are new believers. They’re all starving to death, but God bless ‘em, they have faith. And somewhere in this mass of converts, there is the well-fed, rude-looking Third World Man who has come to take care of some business. He’s in a bad mood, having to run errands in stinking hundred-degree heat, so he’s taking it out on whoever gets in his way. Presently he is kicking and shoving his way through this sea of sick and starving refugees, a handkerchief held fast to his nose and mouth. He is wearing his filthy fatigues and he is well armed. In addition to several jaggededged knives and some hand grenades, he carries an expensive Italian-made Spectre 9mm machine gun, capable of firing fifteen rounds a second—or, if sold, capable of feeding hundreds, at least for a little while.

This refugee camp redefines squalor. Disease-carrying flies lick at the salty lacrimal ducts of the eyes of starving Christian children who are too weak to blink them away. Diarrhea is killing hundreds of converts each day, leaving behind more than the stench of rotting bodies. The air is cluttered with the din of screeching vultures, crying babies, and the buzz of a million gnawing insects. Sand and dust blow relentlessly into the hollowed faces, leaving a crust of mud in the corners of otherwise empty mouths. It’s worse than any plague conjured in the Bible and it makes a Sally Struthers charity infomercial look like home movies of a church picnic. This is hell on earth.

And again, though it’s hard to tell just by looking, one feels certain these refugees are all of joyous spirit, knowing that since
they have been baptized and cleansed of original sin, they will be in heaven just as soon as they starve to death.

But none of this matters to General Garang. He just wants his money, or some answers, so he has sent the Third World Man to bully his way through the fetid mass of desperate refugees to get what he can. About a hundred yards off to his left, the Third World Man sees some adults moving suddenly, as if clamoring for food. He turns and heads in that direction. At the center of this insanity the Third World Man finds who he is looking for. He is a haggard, half-mad priest, Father John, who is doling out cups of pasty gruel and some hydration packs. The Third World Man steps up to the priest and jabs him with the stubby barrel of the machine gun. “Where is Father Michael?” he demands.

Staring, as he does, into death’s skull every day, Father John is well past being intimidated by a gun-toting yahoo. He wipes his sweaty face with his sleeve and yells over the din. “Put down your gun and help me feed these people!”

The Third World Man doesn’t hesitate. He smacks the priest across the face with the frame of his gun. “I said, where is Father Michael?” Father John spits a tooth into his hand and looks like he might collapse. The Third World Man, impatient for an answer, hits the priest again, this time in the stomach. “Where is he?”

Father John falls to his knees with one hand on the ground, gasping for air. “I don’t know. He’s been gone awhile. He may have been killed by the SPLA. Who knows?”

The Third World Man grabs Father John by his hair and pulls his head up. He forces the barrel of his gun into the priest’s mouth. “I will count to three.” The Third World Man leans down into Father John’s face. “One.” Father John closes his eyes and begins to pray “Two.”

Still spitting blood, Father John reaches out and grabs his tormentor’s leg. The Third World Man pulls the gun from the priest’s mouth. “I swear to you, I don’t know where he is.”

The Third World Man squints down at the terrified priest who holds his gaze. After a long pause, the Third World Man smirks and lowers his gun. “I’ll be back,” he says in a dead-on Schwarzenegger imitation. He then turns around and disappears into the swarm of refugees.

Father John closes his eyes in a moment of doubt. He finds it disquieting that while he is unable to get food to the poor in this part of the world, others are getting satellite TV.

S
ister Peg got in line behind Mr. Saltzman, who was grumbling something about not even being Catholic. Sister Peg was still unsure about the nature of her own confession, though she was leaning toward admitting her feelings and asking for guidance.

A second later she was startled by the sound of the front door slamming, followed by what sounded like a troubled sea lion. It was Ruben uttering loud, excited noises. Since he had gone to check his lottery numbers, Sister Peg hoped against the odds that he had actually won something. A moment later Ruben raced into the room, breathless and agitated, not the face of a lottery winner. He pulled Sister Peg’s sleeve with one hand while trying to sign with the other. His gestures were so fast and exaggerated that she couldn’t tell what he was trying to say. She calmed him down so he could explain what the hell was wrong.

“Razor Boy and Charlie Freak,” he signed. He tugged again on the sleeves of Sister Peg’s habit, then signed something else that she couldn’t understand.

“The children stole what?” she signed back to him. “I don’t understand. Slow down.” Sister Peg had heard enough about Razor Boy and Charlie Freak to know they were capable of anything. Both had done time for violent crimes and had come out harder than they had gone in. They were soulless bastards, malicious and indifferent to suffering.

Ruben collected himself and signed more slowly. He said he had run into an ex—gang banger he knew. He told Ruben what Razor Boy and Charlie Freak were up to. Sister Peg listened, increasingly amazed at mankind’s capacity for brutality. When Ruben finished, Sister Peg just stood there, numb. She thought of Sonia, the little girl who had died at the age of five, killed by her own mother after the state—and Sister Peg—had failed to protect her.

Ruben waited as long as he could. He finally shook Sister Peg to get her attention. “Come on,” he signed. “We have to do something!”

She looked at him. “Stay here,” she signed. “I’ll be right back.”

J
osie glanced at the envelope and poured some more vodka. The letter had arrived several days ago and Josie still hadn’t screwed up the courage to open it. She expected the worst and she was scared. The vodka usually helped her be brave. It had certainly helped the first time she sold herself, though since then it had been helping less and less.

The letter contained the results of Josie’s blood test. She might be fine. She might be dying. All she had to do was open the envelope.

Looking back, Josie knew she’d had a lot of opportunities to take her life in different directions. She wondered why she had always taken the wrong fork in the road. How had she ended up in this dumping ground for marginalized women? She’d been given lots of advice that might have led her down better paths. How come she never took it? Teachers, cops, fellow flat-backs—everybody told her she was going in the wrong direction. It’s easy to point out the problem. It was something else to suggest a solution.

Only one person had actually offered to take her down a
better road. From the first night they met on Ventura Boulevard, Sister Peg had tried to save her. Josie knew she was the one person who really cared. She hated herself for letting Sister Peg down so many times. Peg deserved better than that.

Josie tore open the envelope and pulled out the letter, but she didn’t look at it. Instead she interlaced her fingers and looked out the window at the sunset. She tried not to cry. “God,” she said, “I’ve never done this before, but I figure it’s worth a shot. I’m going to make a promise, but You’ve gotta help me. Okay, so here’s the deal. I swear, if it’s negative I’ll quit and I’ll go out there and spend the rest of my life helping Peg. But if it’s positive …” Josie didn’t know how that sentence ended, so she just gulped the last ounce of her courage and opened the letter.

“T
HAT’S IT? THE SIGN OF THE CROSS?” MR. SALTZMAN
sounded miffed. “What sort of penance is that?” He felt Dan had undervalued his sins.

“Trust me,” Dan said.

Sister Peg barged in and grabbed Mr. Saltzman by his thick forearm. “Hey!” the sinner protested. “I’m—”

“You’re done,” she said, tossing the old man out. “Say your prayers, you’ll be fine.”

Dan cleared his throat. “Uh, you must have done something really bad,” he said.

“You any good with a gun?” Sister Peg asked.

“Come again?” Dan pulled back the curtain separating the two sides. He saw Sister Peg slipping rounds into the cylinder of a blue-steel .38. “Judas H. Priest! What are you doing?”

“Ruben just told me something that, as a good Christian, I simply can’t ignore.”

“And, as a good Christian, you think the solution involves a thirty-eight?”

Sister Peg spun the cylinder and closed it. “Are you familiar with the San Fers?”

Dan thought for a second. “As in the gang?”

“As in,” she said. “Two of their looser cannons have apparently graduated from crack dealing to kidnapping and slave trading. Ruben tells me that one of Razor Boy’s crackhead
customers traded his eight-year-old son for a fifty-dollar rock. Now, instead of being in second grade, the kid is on a street corner selling crack.”

“Jesus,” Dan said.

“Oh, it gets better,” Sister Peg said. “His homey, an idiot named Charlie Freak, thought that was such a great idea that he went and found a crack whore willing to trade her seven-year-old daughter for some rock. When the girl didn’t work out as a crack dealer, he sold her to a child pornographer.”

“My God.” Dan couldn’t believe it; even by gang standards this was outrageous.

“Since then, they’ve traded a quarter ounce of crack for three more children, and I don’t want to wait around to find out where those kids end up.” Sister Peg held the gun up. “So I ask you again, are you any good with a gun?”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Dan said, after more of a hesitation than seemed manly, “I’m behind you all the way on this, but don’t you think the cops might do a better job against these guys than a priest and a nun?”

“LAPD can’t do anything without investigating first or the ACLU would have a federal lawsuit filed before the cops could get those animals in a cage. Personally, I’m not concerned about violating Razor Boy’s civil rights.” Sister Peg stood. “If anyone asks, we’re on a mission from God.”

I
f Stephen Leacock was right when he described advertising as the science of arresting human intelligence long enough to get money from it, then the Fujioka account was Oren Prescott’s Nobel Prize. Oren Prescott’s problem, however, was that he had begun a personal spending spree based on the assumption that his shop would win the award for years to come.

However, with the tragic death of Dan Steele, the assumed architect of the “More Is More” campaign, Oren Prescott’s
long-term ability to sustain his extravagant lifestyle was coming under heavy fire. TBWA/Chiat/Day Cliff Freeman, Wieden & Kennedy, and two dozen other agencies had begun circling within days of Dan’s funeral. One by one they’d trekked to Fujioka headquarters to express their condolences about the loss of the man who had put the Fujioka brand on top of the heap. And, as long as they were there, they pitched their ideas of how best to follow up on the “More Is More” campaign.