Thomas M. Disch (14 page)

Massey made the most of his opportunity. He was all love and concern and prurient interest. He did not pry directly into the sexual details, but delegated that task to his vicar-general Alexis Clareson. Father Clareson was the most openly gay member of the Chancery staff, but was probably true to his vow of celibacy, being quite obese and confined to a wheelchair. Though Father Clareson displayed an avid curiosity about everything Father Bryce had done with Donny, he never tried to ferret out the names of other boys who might have led the priest into the same temptations, for had he done so, the diocese would have been obliged to seek out the victims and offer, at the very least, to pay for their therapy.

Once Father Bryce had returned to the diocese from his mandatory term of treatment at a Church-run clinic in Arizona that specialized in the rehabilitation of pedophile priests, Bishop Massey astonished him with his new assignment: He was to become the pastor of St. Bernardine’s Church in suburban Willowville. St. Bernardine’s had been Massey’s last pastoral appointment before assuming the episcopal throne. It was one of the most prosperous and active of the diocese’s parishes, a plum among parishes. There had to be a catch.

“Yes,” Bishop Massey had admitted, with a playful smile, “there is. You must be prepared for martyrdom.”

“Believe me, Your Eminence, I have been.”

“Of another, and more honorable, sort than would have been the case if the Petrosky matter had become public. The Church has a problem with abortion.

Perhaps you’re aware of it.”

Father Bryce replied with an ironic smile.

“The Church,” the Bishop qualified, with his own ironic smile, “in the sense of its hierarchy. In the sense, really, of the Vatican. I believe that even many of my fellow bishops here in America are not much troubled by the issue. It is an evil that must be deplored ritually at regular intervals, but it is of as little personal concern to them as the propriety of clitorectomy.

The failure of the American clergy to form the conscience of their parishioners and to stir them to effective action is a matter of much concern in Rome. We all know this, but what do we, the clergy,
do?
”

The Bishop waved his hand to forestall an answer. “A rhetorical question, Patrick. No need to dredge up one of our usual pieties, for the answer is, we do nothing.”

“I take it, Bishop, that where you are leading is that I am to do something.”

“Yes, Patrick, you are to take a bold new initiative. You are to venture where none has ventured before.”

Then he’d explained his plan for adapting the derelict Shrine of Blessed Konrad of Paderborn into a detention facility where reluctant teenage mothers could be forced to come to term. According to the diocese’s lawyers, the plan’s legality was questionable, not to mention its practicability. That is why the Bishop wanted Father Bryce to operate the facility for a time in a quiet and not quite official way—testing the water, so to speak. He could use his own experience of the therapeutic environment of the facility in Arizona where he’d just been as a kind of model, though in the initial stages of the home for girls it would not be possible to supply a professional psychologist for the staff. There was, however, a qualified midwife, Hedwig Ober, who could be trusted implicitly. She was a fervent pro-Life crusader, as was her brother, Gerhardt Ober, a professional contractor who had already almost completed the adaptation of the Shrine’s physical plant to its new purpose. In fact, the idea for putting the Shrine to this new benevolent use had to be credited to Gerhardt and Hedwig, and to their old pastor, Father Wilfrid Cogling, whom they’d approached with the idea when the Shrine was put into mothballs some years ago. Father Cogling had been skeptical at first, but the Obers’ enthusiasm proved contagious.

What was wanted now, the Bishop had explained, was a cooler head—someone of an executive temperament, who could be counted on to exercise prudence and discretion. In a way, Father Bryce’s very sins had schooled him for such a task. Providence was always playing little tricks like that. The Bishop could understand and sympathize with Father Bryce’s lack of enthusiasm for the project, but it would not have done to have some firebrand or zealot in charge. Father Cogling was a devout priest who’d done much good service, but the truth of the matter was that he sometimes lacked discretion. He could
assist
Father Bryce quite ably, but the responsibility ought not to be his.

The Bishop did not need to spell out the quid pro quo being proposed.

The legal and medical costs that had been incurred in securing the Petroskys’

silence exceeded $200,000, which the diocese had had to bear itself, since it was no longer possible, after the debacle of the Gauthe case in Louisiana, to obtain liability insurance that would pay for legal claims brought against pedophile priests. (“As well try to get flood insurance in Bangladesh,” the Bishop had quipped.) But that $200,000 was just the tip of the iceberg of Father Bryce’s debt. The Bishop’s greatest kindness had been his lack of curiosity with regard to other possible transgressions. He was surely not so naive as to suppose there were none to be discovered. And if other such misdeeds were to be brought to light, eventually one would encounter (as had happened in the Gauthe case) a set of parents who would not agree to settle out of court and who would insist on the prosecution of the offending priest on criminal charges. Father Gauthe was now serving a term of twenty years at hard labor with no possibility of parole. This was the Damoclean sword suspended over Father Bryce’s head that the Bishop never had to mention. There was never any doubt that he would cooperate.

Father Bryce had learned in Arizona that it was not quite accurate to think of himself as a pedophile. Pedophiles love prepubescent children. He was an ephebophile, from the Greek ephebos, which meant “young man.” Arizona had not changed him in that respect. Like convicts who learn in prison to refine their skills at safecracking, Father Bryce had learned many things during his group therapy sessions that he was now able to apply in his day-to-day life as the pastor of St. Bernardine’s. He took to heart the advice of Father William Laroche of St. John de Matha Church in Opelousas, Louisiana, who testified to the effectiveness of foot massage and shiatsu in overcoming a boy’s initial shyness. He bought a video recorder that used a peculiar kind of tape that could not be played back on ordinary equipment, thus insuring against his private videos becoming mixed up with ordinary VCR tapes in the rectory—a confusion that had got more than one of his fellow priests in hot water. He even learned of two pickup places in the Twin Cities area that he’d never heard of before. One of them was Papa Bear’s, the bar near Stiliwater where he would later meet Clay.

The other was the Fun Fun Fun video arcade, where he discovered Lance Kramer, the boy for whom Donny Petrosky had been merely a warm-up session, the boy he knew, almost from the moment he got into the car, would be his undoing.

Father Bryce had never patronized male prostitutes before. He thought it demeaning to pay money to someone in order to have sex with him. Wasn’t it the same as admitting (he’d asked those priests in therapy who favored sex that could be bought and sold) that one was simply too old, or too fat, or too homely to be desired for one’s own sake? Those who favored “fast food” as against “home cooking” had protested that paying for sex was part of the excitement. Of course, its primary advantage was the safety and convenience.

The boy got in the car, he blew you, he got out, you drove away. Whereas, when you seduced children from your own parish, there was always the possibility that you might wind up repenting your sins and biding your time in a rehab in Arizona’s 105-degree heat. Such counsels had made sense, and so Father Bryce, without completely abandoning the children of Willowville, had tried out the Fun Fun Fun arcade.

At first Fun Fun Fun had fulfilled the promise of the advocates of fast food. For a modest twenty dollars a pop, Father Bryce was able to get his rocks off a couple of nights a week without the risk of exposure (if also without the excitement that came with the risk). Then he met Lance. With his corn-silk, summer-blond hair; his newly minted swimmer’s physique, plumped with steroids. The smoothness of him. The coltish ungainliness. The intensity of his need to please—and his facility in doing so. The fast-food advocates had certainly got that part right. Young as he was, the boy knew his business.

Father Bryce could not get enough. When he returned to Fun Fun Fun it was only for Lance’s sake. If Lance was not there, he would wait in his parked car, fuming. Lance claimed to have no phone number he could be reached at. He would not give Father Bryce his address. He refused to go to motels. “If you want to do it in a bed,” he told Father Bryce, “we can do it in your bed, at your own home. Otherwise, the car’s okay.” Neither liquor nor pot could change the boy’s mind in that respect. At last, one night when Father Bryce knew that Father Cogling had driven to the Shrine and would be staying there overnight, he brought Lance to the St. Bernardine’s rectory. Lance already knew he was a priest, but that fact had not impressed him. “You’re not the first priest I’ve had,” the boy declared, with his air of being the world’s weariest sinner.

“There was three before you. That I know of.” Even so, Lance got off on it.

They had sex in the confessional, and in front of the altar. Lance loved to see himself on videotape wearing one of his silly heavy-metal Tshirts while Father Bryce, in full clerical rig, gave him a blow job.

Lance considered himself a Satanist, and was surprised when Father Bryce professed to have no interest in the occult and its mysteries. “I mean, you dig us fiicking right there in front of the big crucifix. And you did that thing with the wafers—that was your own idea.”

“Well, yes. But I thought it was something that would turn you on. It did, didn’t it?”

“You know what your problem is, Father—your problem is you don’t have faith. And I got the solution to your problem.”

“Yes, I know you do,” Father Bryce said, ruffling his hair.

“No, seriously,” the boy said, pulling back from his caress. “Acid.

That’s what’s going to do it for you. You’ve never tripped, have you?”

Father Bryce shook his head. The idea of using hallucinogens did not appeal to him. But Lance had persisted, assuring him that the sex that you had when taking acid was like no other sex in the world.

A week later they had their trip, and it was a disaster. Father Bryce’s misgivings had not been without foundation. Usually, even when sex wasn’t the top priority, Father Bryce was able to turn in a creditable performance. But the acid seemed to short-circuit his sexual capabilities. He couldn’t get an erection, and couldn’t get interested in making the effort. Everything started to turn sinister, including Lance, whose acne suddenly became not just noticeable but increasingly a source of dismay and then of alarm. It had not occurred to Father Bryce until just this moment that the boy, with all his sexual contacts, probably was HIVpositive. He had to get Lance out of the rectory, but Father Bryce was in no condition to drive the car, and he couldn’t phone for a taxi to come and take Lance away, and Willowville was a good thirty miles from the video arcade, so Lance couldn’t simply be turned out onto the street.

They reached a compromise. Lance was mollified with a sundae of vanilla ice cream swimming in crème de menthe and was given the use of the VCR and Father Bryce’s library of tapes while the priest went into the bathroom, poured himself a tubful of hot water to calm down, got into it, and promptly blacked out. When he came to five hours later, Lance was gone, along with the VCR, four of the tapes, and an expensive ivory crucifix from the vestibule.

Lance had also drawn a pentagram in crème de menthe on the felt of the billiard table in the rec room.

Father Bryce waited for the blackmail note that he was certain would be the next penalty to be exacted for his sins, but there was only silence. He considered returning to Fun Fun Fun and demanding that Lance give back the things he had stolen. But his was not a confrontational nature. He preferred to let sleeping dogs lie.

He vowed to reform. In the future he would satisfy his sexual needs without taking the risks inherent in pursuing minors. He’d been assured that Papa Bear’s, the bar in Stiliwater, was a virtual harem of hunky, available collegiate types. Not hustlers, necessarily, but young men who had a sense that there could be some long-term advantage to be gained by associating with those more mature. Networking, it was called nowadays.

Papa Bear’s was not quite as agreeable as its admirers in Arizona had claimed for it. If one was not known to its regulars, one could spend a great deal of time drinking alone. The collegiate hunks seemed mostly to prefer the company of other collegiate hunks. There was also a large population of types Father Bryce found distasteful—the fat, the fruity, and those with bad skin or bad teeth or shabby clothes. He had just about given up on Papa Bear’s—indeed, he’d exited to the parking lot late on a slow Wednesday night—when he met Clay.

He was sitting propped against the fender of Father Bryce’s car, smoking a cigarette. Even at that first glance the priest thought: It’s Lance, ten years older. Lance, aged twenty-four, with his acne cured, and the blond hair already thinner, and the body-builder muscles gone a little soft, like August tomatoes. In terms of the charms peculiar to youth, he might as well have been forty-eight as twenty-four, but he was there, leaning on the car, and there was something in the way he looked at Father Bryce—the long, cool, Clint Eastwood gaze—that signaled a different kind of danger, risk, excitement. Not until he thought about it later on did it seem strange that Clay, a stranger, should have been waiting for him there. That was somehow the assumption everyone made when they came to Papa Bear’s, that there would be someone there who would consider you his destiny, if only for that one night.