Thomas M. Disch (17 page)

“Or hire a hit man, though I don’t know if they have hit men in Minneapolis.”

“It sounds, Bing, like Minneapolis has a good supply of
all
the latest vices. I’d be careful.”

“I will be extremely careful. If I see any hit men, I will immediately cross to the other side of the street. Now, you still haven’t told me what happened in your dream. They were just about to burn you at the stake.”

Father Mabbley finished his dream, but his heart was no longer in it, and when it came time at last to ring off, he repeated what he’d said earlier,

“Be careful, Bing.” But he might as well have offered his advice to a roulette wheel or a slot machine. The machinery was already in motion, and the laws of physics were in charge of the result.

“There may be photographers there from the newspapers,” her escort explained as they waited for the traffic light to change, “but they’re not there to photograph
you
. They have a commitment to respect your privacy.

They’re there to shoot the protesters. And I’ll tell you, sometimes I’d like to shoot the protesters myself.”

Alison knew it would be polite to laugh at the woman’s joke, or to say something bright and sarcastic herself, but she just didn’t have it in her. If someone had asked her what her name was, she’d have had to think.

If she’d said what she was actually thinking, she would have asked the woman, whose name was Ms. Stern, to please stop talking every minute. She regretted now having agreed to have an escort bring her to the abortion clinic. She could have taken the Lake Street bus by herself and avoided all of Ms. Stern’s worries and opinions, such as whether the protesters would be spraying people with red paint symbolic of blood as they’d done in the past, in which case Alison should have worn something easily washable, like the blue jeans Ms. Stern was wearing. She also made several rude remarks about President Bush. Not that Alison cared anything at all about the President.

She’d never been able to get interested in events on news programs, and she’d hated it in civics class when she had to come up with her own opinion about some controversy or other. We should not be exporting U.S. jobs to Mexico: Discuss. Mr. Bard had made her look like such a fool during that discussion, asking her if she didn’t think this, and then if she didn’t think that, and then pointing out that she couldn’t think both things, because you couldn’t have your cake and eat it too.

And here she was on her way to becoming part of the news. Having to wear a scarf, on a hot summer day, so she wouldn’t be recognized in case they did, after all, show her on TV.

“Nervous?” Ms. Stern asked.

Alison shook her head. “No. I just wish it were over.”

Ms. Stern patted her thigh and said, “That’s the spirit,” and then they were turning left on Cedar, and there were the protesters, a great crowd of them with posters mounted on sticks, and every one of the slogans was familiar to Alison. There were even
faces
she recognized from when she’d been recruited to come here on weekends last summer. Till this moment it hadn’t occurred to her that there might be people among the protesters who knew her.

People she’d had coffee with at The Embers. She wanted to tell Ms. Stern to drive on past, she wanted to rethink things, but it was too late. Ms. Stern rolled to a halt at the entrance to the clinic’s driveway and waited for two policemen to push back the protesters who’d stepped forward to try to keep the car from entering the parking lot. They were chanting, “Let your child live!

Let your child live!” A girl who seemed no more than twelve managed to slip past the policemen and throw herself across the hood of Ms. Stern’s Toyota on Alison’s side.

Ms. Stern honked vigorously, and the girl screamed, “Stop the murders!

Stop the murders!” Her face was just on the other side of the windshield from Alison. She could see the tears in the girl’s blue eyes.

A photographer came around to the driver’s side of the Toyota and began snapping pictures of the police as they lifted the girl from the hood of the car. The girl struggled until one policeman put handcuffs on her, and then she smiled a smile of beatific martyrdom, holding her cuffed hands above her head like a boxer proclaiming his victory.

When the driveway had been cleared, Ms. Stern drove into the parking lot and took a space between a van and a police patrol car. “I hope that little bitch didn’t dent my hood,” she grumbled as she removed the keys from the ignition and tucked them into the pocket of her Levis.

At just that moment, Alison had been thinking: That could have been me.

Throwing herself on the hood of the car. Screaming. Tears in her eyes. And being called a little bitch by Ms. Stern.

Probably Ms. Stern felt the same way about Alison, though she wouldn’t have said it out loud. The little bitch couldn’t keep her pants on. The little bitch doesn’t have enough sense to take the pill.

“Well, how about it?” Ms. Stern asked, already out of the car and bending down to peer at Alison.

“Right,” said Alison, reaching for the door handle. “Let’s get it over with.”

All she had to do was get from here to the door of the clinic, and after that it would all be out of her hands. She’d be like a car going through a car wash. It was just a matter of walking past the protesters, keeping her head down, and not listening to what they were screaming at her.

But then, just as she took the hand Ms. Stern held out to her, one of the protesters recognized her and called her name aloud: “Alison! Alison, don’t go inside! Don’t kill your baby!”

The other protesters took it up at once: “Alison, don’t go inside!

Alison, don’t go inside!”

As she passed by them, she tried to keep her eyes on the cement slabs of the sidewalk, only looking, as Ms. Stern had advised, at the next step she must take. But then a voice deeper than the others pronounced her name, and even before she looked up, from seeing the hem of his cassock swaying over his black shoes, she knew who it was.

The priest raised his right hand, and the protesters fell silent.

“Alison,” said Father Cogling earnestly. “My dear child. Can’t we talk together for just a moment before it’s too late?”

“Just step out of the way and leave her alone,” Ms. Stern said, tightening her grip on Alison’s hand. “She doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“Then why not let her tell me so herself?” Father Cogling said softly.

He turned to Alison and took her free hand in both of his. “Five minutes, my dear. That’s all I ask. A chance to speak away from the crowd and the cameras.

No one can be expected to reach a wise decision in this carnival atmosphere.”

“I like that,” Ms. Stern said, addressing the cameraman from WCCO who stood right in front of her. “He brings in his crew of hysterical teenagers ready to riot on command and then
he
complains about the carnival atmosphere. As for reaching a wise decision, my friend has already
made
her decision, thank you very much. And now if you would, please, step out of the way?”

“Alison?” Father Cogling asked, tightening his grip on her right hand.

At the same moment, as though she were in some kind of telepathic linkage, Ms. Stern tightened her own grip and said, “Well, Alison?”

It seemed almost ludicrous, as though they might begin a tug of war. As though her body was the prize in a contest, and the way to win the contest was simply to hold on and not let go.

Father Cogling let go of her hand. “It’s up to you, Alison,” he said.

Ms. Stern kept her grip on Alison’s hand and began to walk forward, but Alison resisted. Ms. Stern looked at her quizzically.

“I will talk with him,” she said. “For just a minute or two.”

“Thank you, my dear,” said the priest.

“Do as you think best, my dear,” said Ms. Stern, letting go of her hand and, in the same instant (Alison knew), writing her off as a lost cause.

Alison couldn’t blame her. She was exactly the kind of person that women like Ms. Stern had no use for. She was weak and passive and couldn’t stick to her guns. That’s why she was in the fix she was in now, because she hadn’t been able to say to Greg, “No, not tonight.”

She followed Father Cogling away from the crowd and in the direction of Lake Street with a feeling that she didn’t have an ounce of willpower of her own. She hated the feeling, but at the same time there was a kind of comfort in letting someone else take charge. The way, when you’re sick and someone tucks you into bed, you’re almost grateful for being sick, because it’s brought you somewhere that’s momentarily so much kinder and warmer and motherly.

She didn’t even have to listen to what Father Cogling was saying to know that she’d agree to have her baby. Wasn’t that what she’d really wanted to do all along? Wasn’t this the reprieve she’d been hoping for?

On Wednesday night, an hour before Father Bryce was expected at Knightriders Kustom Ink, Clay called him at the rectory. “Hey there, Damon, shouldn’t you already be on your way to Little Canada? Wolf can’t do nothing with his needle till he’s got some skin to work on.”

“It’s all off,” Father Bryce said.

“Now what in hell has got into you?” Clay said in just that tone of humorous indulgence that a sitcom husband uses with his wife when she gets whims.

Father Bryce, with only a little prodding, explained about Bing Anker’s visit to St. Bernardine’s and the threats he had made on the phone.

“You say he came to the church dressed like a woman, but then you say you never actually saw him. That doesn’t gibe.”

“He left the confessional suddenly, and I couldn’t immediately go after him. But my assistant, Father Cogling, came into the church just then, and he remembered seeing a middle-aged woman leaving. So that had to have been him.”

“What a perverted thing to do,” Clay said with conviction. “Going into a church in drag! That takes the cake.”

“Don’t pretend you didn’t know about this. Some of the things he said on the phone were exactly the same as things I’ve heard you say.”

“Such as?”

“He said he wasn’t interested in money, that he didn’t want to blackmail me, that he had me on a hook, which was an expression you’ve used, and that I would have to make a list like the list you had me make, with the names of all the kids I’ve ever fooled around with. Then he was going to have me contact everyone on the list and make
amends
.”

“Shit,” said Clay, “he might as well ask you to commit suicide. So, what’s the guy got on you? Are there pictures? Did you write letters to him?”

“He’s only got his word. But he seemed very… determined. And confident. He seems to feel no shame about the idea of a public scandal. He’s probably openly homosexual.”

“If he’s a transvestite, shame is probably a turn-on for him. You said his name was Bing? What’s his full name?”

“Oh, don’t pretend you don’t know. I’m sure this is just your way of turning the screw on me.”

“Quit fucking around—tell me his name.”

“Bing Anker. With a
k
.”

“Where’s he live?”

“In St. Paul. Calumet Avenue.”

“Okay, you leave it with us to deal with Bing Anker, with a
k
, and get your ass out to Knightriders. Now.”

Father Bryce did not at once reply.

“Did you hear?”

“I heard.”

“Because you are on
our
hook, and no one else’s. So you do what
we

say, and you do it like you were getting your orders from Jesus Christ. What we are doing is, we are taking charge of your
soul
. You may not believe we can do that. But you just wait, and do what we say, and the belief will come.

We will own you. Not all of you, all at once. But piece by piece, in increments. And the more of you that we take possession of, the more
you

will enjoy surrendering the properties you’ve still got left. It is a fascinating process.”

“My damnation.”

“You can call it that, if that makes it sound like more fun. Enough chitchat. Go get more ink.”

In some ways Clay figured he knew more about the priest than the priest knew about himself. He knew what Father Bryce was afraid of and what turned him on and the way the two things connected. For instance, his panic attack when Wolf’s latest dragon lady came into the back room of Knightriders just as Wolf had moved into high gear and Father Bryce’s midriff was all slicked with sweat and blood. “Hey there, Delilah,” Wolf said, not even looking up or bothering to perform introductions. “How’s tricks?”

Delilah just nodded in her usual luded-out, lazy way and let her jaw drop preparatory to words that never got spoken. When her mouth was open you could see her dental problems, which were major. She went over to stand beside Wolf and watch the work-in-progress, blocking Clay’s view of Father Bryce. But Clay didn’t need to see the priest to know he’d be freaking. This was probably the first time in his life any woman had seen him with a hard-on, much less handled it. For Delilah’s first slurred words were “You like that?” And then, to Wolf, “I think he likes that.”