In the Details

by H. Claire Taylor

  Right.

  Even still, there was no way she could go off into the desert over Thanksgiving and miss that matchup. Then again, Rex might literally have a brain aneurysm trying to decide if he should root for the Cowboys or his boy Riley. She didn’t need to be there for that stress.

  She did a search on the page for her name and came up with no results. Leaning back in her chair, she stared at the search bar for a moment. Chris had done it. He’d finally made an independent name for himself. She was happy for him.

  Wasn’t she?

  Yes. Of course. This is what he’s always wanted.

  Before she could think too hard about it, she browsed the rest of the article to the last sentence: “If he pulls it off, his rookie season could be one for the books.”

  Goddamn, that was lame. Chris deserved a better closing line.

  A related article on the sidebar caught her attention. Or rather, the picture on it did. She shoved a croissant into her mouth to keep from screaming. Her name might not be on the page, but calling this a “related article” meant she still loomed over Chris as a keyword specter. How else would an article about Jimmy Dean’s ongoing scandal be related to the Philadelphia Eagles?

  She positioned her cursor right between Jimmy Dean’s eyes and clicked as hard as she could on the touchpad, hoping that somehow, somewhere, Jimmy felt like he was getting flicked hard on the forehead.

  She followed the link to the article headline: Reverend Dean: Latest Accuser “Looks Extra Sinnery.”

  After the latest woman has come forward, alleging that the Reverend Jimmy Dean lured her into a doomsday cult, the founder of the White Light Church network has released a statement. His defense is more of the same we’ve seen since this scandal first broke. Responding the the victim’s claim that the language he used to describe transcending into heaven was sexually charged, the reverend refused to address the issue directly, saying, “I’ve never seen that woman before in my life. But I’ve been presented with pictures by my legal counsel, and she just looks extra sinnery, you know? That can happen when you spend your life lying and rolling in the muck. It starts to show. Despite the false claims, I would welcome her into the White Light community along with all the other pigs of the congregation, and together we could work to scrub her soul clean. Sumus omnes porcos, sed Deus est Aper.”

  Hours after the statement was issued via a screenshot of a handwritten note on Twitter, Reverend Dean’s lawyers filed a lawsuit against the female accuser.

  Aside from being the founder of the rapidly growing and high profile White Light Church, Jimmy Dean was elected to the Texas Railroad Commission in this recent election.

  Dean’s rise to notoriety has always been intertwined with that of Jessica McCloud, who he has claimed, at various times, to be the Daughter of God and the embodiment of Original Sin. Knowing where his church stands at any given moment can be difficult, as last month’s interview with some of his parishioners unveiled. No two seemed to hold the same understanding. One even went so far as to say that Jessica was whoever Jimmy needed her to be every Sunday, and he was okay with that changing frequently. Those who speak out about White Light point to this dehumanization of a woman as an indicator of a deep-seated misogyny on Dean’s part. The same sort of misogyny, they say, that makes the story of his doomsday cult especially believable. Many don’t require that level of psychoanalysis and simply hold the belief that identical claims of over a dozen women should be evidence enough to indict him, though on what charges many do not know.

  Regardless, it might be in the best interest of the State of Texas to reconsider granting power to someone who once prepared for the end of the world by gathering underage girls to a repurposed barn in a remote part of the state without the smallest shred of parental consent. Such an act might not be illegal, but it’s nothing short of morally and ethically questionable. After all, if our behavior when we believe the end of the world is near isn’t an indicator of our true character, what is?

  Jessica almost couldn’t believe it. She scrolled up to the top to find the name of the writer and considered sending this Linton Davenport fellow a thank-you email.

  Were there more smart, articulate people on her side? Was ole Linny an angel? Well, she supposed just because this man clearly had little love for Jimmy didn’t mean he was pro-Jessica all the way. But she realized at once that she didn’t need that to appreciate a person like him. So long as he felt the same way about Jimmy as she did, she could respect him, even if he didn’t respect her.

  Was this an anomaly, or were other news outlets speaking unfavorably about Jimmy Fucking Dean as well?

  She did a quick news search for “Jimmy Dean, Scandal” and glowered at the first result that showed up.

  The little she understood about SEO told her that either Eugene Thornton had a team dedicated to hitting just the right keywords to get impulse clicks or more people read the Thornton News than she wanted to admit. Or both.

  She clicked on the top result, her stomach already turning to a fist at the insulting headline: New Victim Actor Joins Reverend Dean Money Grab.

  Rebecca Holtz Johann, 41, a resident of Fox Hole, Texas, has joined the team of women hellbent on destroying the squeaky-clean record of the venerated Texas Railroad Commissioner Reverend Jimmy Dean. Known for his generous charitable donations and humility in the light of attempts to praise him, he has recently fallen into the crosshairs of the militant feminist movement. This week, Rebecca Holtz Johann of Cherry Grove Avenue has decided to throw her pointy hat into the ring for her fifteen minutes of fame and a shot at some of the Reverend’s hard-earned wealth.

  Her story is unoriginal, clearly lifted from those of the dishonest women who’ve come before her. While women-run publications claim the similarities between the victims’ stories is proof that the ludicrous allegations bear truth, every publication worth its weight in ink is saying it’s a clear example of copycatting. Maybe even the clearest in recent history. Thornton News agrees with that assessment.

  You might be wondering who Mrs. Johann is. We wondered the same thing, which is why we’ve performed an exhaustive investigation into her, using anonymous sources as needed, and they were needed frequently, as most of her closest friends remained tight-lipped about her. Are they afraid of what she might do to them if they were identified as our source? Would this vengeful charlatan go after them with the same unfounded, forked-tongue vitriol she sprays at the world-renowned Reverend Dean?

  Make no mistake, the signs of a victim actor are all there. Her junior year of high school, the same year she claims to have been “lured” into Reverend Dean’s “doomsday cult” of “young women,” Rebecca was cast in the role of Mrs. Higgins in the Elbow High School production of My Fair Lady. An anonymous former classmate of hers described Rebecca’s performance as “realistic” and “convincing.” When asked if she had all her lines memorized on opening night, the source said, “Yes, Becky was always on top of that. She studied her lines constantly.” Was she already planning to use those memorization skills to learn her lines for destroying the reputation of a revered and indisputably trustworthy religious leader? If not, when did she set out upon this nefarious mission?

  The anonymous interview also raised a big, fat question regarding Rebecca’s former alias of “Becky.” It’s been known for ages that changing one’s name can be a sign of dissociation, a mental illness common in women who engage in sexual acts too freely prior to marriage. While we were unable to confirm the exact point when Rebecca began going by Becky, we can conclude it happened prior to her junior year of high school.

  Let’s entertain, for a moment, that Rebecca’s completely false claims are true, that the honorable Reverend Jimmy Dean did assemble a group of willing young women to him for a doomsday cult. Like the other girls publicly hurling these falsities, Rebecca Holtz Johann doesn’t claim that there was ever any inappropriate touching. But even if there were, we can safely assume, based on the dissociative behavior, that this would
not have been her first time to engage in that level of sin—not even close. Would it even matter, then, if he’d crossed a line she’d already crossed dozens of times before?

  Furthermore, according to records, she was already seventeen on the sixth of July, the date when she claims the end of the world was supposed to take place. And she had been seventeen since before she claims to have met Jimmy. That means anything that happened between them would have been legal and consensual in the state of Texas, and according to her own story and how little resistance she put up in joining his “cult,” you can bet she would have been a willing participant in those adult relations.

  And so, even if all of her claims were true, this would be little more than yet another case of a morally loose woman luring a man of faith into temptation only to claim much later that she had not “consented.”

  That is, of course, the worst case scenario for the reverend if Rebecca “Becky” Holtz Johann’s claims held water, which they clearly do not.

  So we at Thornton News ask: When will this stop? When will the growing cabal of feminitpickers simply address the bitter loss of their domestic roles and return to their place of comfort rather than lashing out at those in power, destroying the hard-earned reputations of innocent men who have steadfastly remained in their rightful dominant roles throughout the mass displacement of men from breadwinners to castrated, voiceless caretakers?

  While Mrs. Johann is the most recent of the plaintiffs in this scenario, you can bet that she will not be the last.

  When Jessica’s eyes reached the end of the article, they crossed involuntarily, and she felt like someone had slapped her in the back of the skull.

  Was it possible to permanently lose IQ points from reading a few hundred of the most illogical and infuriatingly dumb words she’d ever laid eyes on?

  The recommended articles for continued reading were all about Jimmy. The first few looked like more of the same: profiles discrediting the accusers. She’d known about these for a while, thanks to Wendy. Or rather, she’d known about them in theory, that they existed and they were probably pretty horrible, but this was the first time she’d really plumbed the depths of one. And, amazingly, it was even worse than she had imagined.

  A particularly scathing headline, Victim Actor’s Dark Sexual History Revealed, caught her eye, mostly because the thumbnail picture above it was so eye-catching. It showed a woman with a youthful round face, sandy hair and mocha eyes with hellfire Photoshopped all around her. Devil horns had also been added to her head.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  Jessica’s curiosity and late-night moral outrage cravings got the best of her, but the moment she clicked the link, the back door of the bakery shook behind her, creating a brief moment of confusion, as her tired brain assumed the actions were somehow tied together.

  She looked back over her shoulder at the door. The knob jiggled again and the deadbolts, which she’d thankfully remembered to lock, withstood the following attempt to open the door by force.

  While she desperately hoped the thwarted attempt to enter would be followed by a voice she recognized requesting she unlock the door and providing an explanation as to why he or she was showing up at midnight and trying to enter without knocking, she already knew in her gut that wouldn’t happen.

  Without putting her back to the door again, she reached behind her, grabbing the laptop and pulling up the security camera app to see who was there.

  An icy jolt ran through her, starting between her shoulder blades and exploding out like a supernova the moment she saw who was trying to force his was in. It was the Houston Texans cap that gave it away.

  Ooo, she could just smite him!

  Who was this asshole, and why wouldn’t he leave her alone?

  Shit. Had she locked the front door? As soon as he gave up on the back door, she worried he would try the second best way in.

  She sprinted out of the kitchen, saw that the front door was locked, and then hurried back into kitchen, where hiding spots were more plentiful if it came to it. Then she called the cops.

  However, she found she wasn’t in the mood to hide like last time. She was in the mood to fight. And maybe that was what worried her the most as she spoke with the 911 call taker and explained what was happening.

  The call taker asked her to stay on the line, and Jessica did, though she remained at the small table, her back toward the wall, in plain view if anyone were to enter through the back or from the cafe.

  I’ll be damned if I let this asswipe terrorize me in my own business. I’m sick of this shit!

  The same unfortunate bond she shared with the new generation of NAOs began to form between her and Rebecca Holtz Johann and all of Jimmy’s other accusers.

  Except for Emily, his fiancée.

  Or, maybe even Emily.

  By the time Officer McBride arrived with a new male officer, Jessica was ready to suit up and hunt down the stalker herself. “I’m gonna kill him if I see him again,” she confided in McBride.

  “I’m legally supposed to advise you against that, but, well, we can’t stop or solve every murder, ya know?”

  “I’m so sick and tired of men making women feel like we’re losing our goddamn mind. If we’re overly emotional, it’s their fault!” Her memory conjured up her lousy training sessions with Sampson, Kumal, and Dwayne because she could always use a little more fuel for the fire.

  Rather than responding, Officer McBride hollered to the other on scene, “Hey, Woodley, would you make one more circle around the perimeter?” Once he was gone, she said, “You know what I do for a living, right?”

  Was this a trick question? Wait, was police work just a hobby for her? “You’re a cop?”

  “Correct. I’ve been doing it for years now, and you want to guess how many times I’ve seen a man shot by a woman he wasn’t abusing?”

  “I don’t. That’s … not a fun game.”

  “You’re right. I’ll just tell you. Once. I’ve only seen it once.”

  “And what happened?”

  “Her aim was shit. She’d meant to shoot the victim’s brother, who had been threatening her and her children for quite a while. My point is I understand where you’re coming from. So do the men I work with, quite frankly.”

  With her anger abating, Jessica sighed, inhaling exhaustion, exhaling the desire to murder another living being.

  “If you could live in a world without men, would you?” she asked the officer.

  McBride didn’t hesitate. “No way. Don’t let the haircut and career choice fool you; I love me some men. I just wish they’d stop killing everyone. Now, if there were an island that was only women, well, I might use my vacation time each year to visit it, sure. Everyone can use a detox. Hell, there are a lot of decent men who could use a detox from men, you know?”

  Jessica didn’t, but mostly because she’d stopped listening closely. An island with nothing but women. She knew of a place like that. Or rather, it was more like an oasis, right in the middle of the dry New Mexican desert.

  Later, while McBride wiped down the back doorknob for fingerprints, Jessica went to the website on the business card Caren had handed her, and she registered for the retreat.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  “I hope you don’t mind,” Jessica said, bagging up some leftover croissants from the display case for Jesus, “but today was kind of crazy, and I haven’t gotten around to miracling some of these things. I can take a minute to do it now if you want. Not sure how many of your customers are gluten intolerant.”

  Jesus held out his hands for the unmiracled bags. “They are intolerant of many things, but I’ve never heard gluten mentioned. And it’s fine if the food lacks your image.”

  “Well,” she shrugged and shot a glanced at Destinee, “it’s not ideal for my branding, but I guess it’s good to give without getting recognized for it sometimes.”

  Jesus nodded. “Indeed. Also, I recently caught a man, who I can only assume is a direct descendant of Onan
, enjoying the sight of your image just a little too much behind a Dumpster.”

  Jessica cringed and allowed herself a moment to imagine a world where an image of her face wasn’t on anything ever again.

  Shutting down the bakery for five straight days while she was staying in a luxury suite seemed like a wholly unwise business decision, but it was too late to go back now; she’d already given Judith and her mother the days off.

  “Gonna be weird not having you at home, baby,” Destinee said as she pulled a blueberry strudel muffin out of one of the bags Jessica had just closed and took a bite. Before Jessica could say anything else, Destinee held up a hand and added, “I know, it’s an important retreat.” She dusted off the countertop where the crumbs from her mouth had landed.

  “I have a feeling it’ll be worth every penny.”

  Every penny I owe to Mrs. Thomas.

  She hadn’t mentioned that bit—or any of Mrs. Thomas’s involvement—to Destinee. It would only earn her a hard look and a warning from her mother, and there was no point in bringing that on herself if she didn’t have to. While Jessica’s high opinion of Mrs. Thomas had been resurrected in the last couple weeks, Destinee wasn’t so quick to forgive.

  “I know, I know,” Destinee said. “But you know I already think you’re a great boss, right?”

  Jess refrained from rolling her eyes. “Yeah, I know.”

  “I mean it. I don’t have a clue how you do half the things you do. If I were running this place, it wouldn’t’ve had a chance to run at a loss because it never would have gotten off the ground in the first place!” She turned to Jesus. “What about you, Joshua? You got plans for Thanksgiving?”

  He nodded, pausing from the loading to lean against the bumper of his truck. “For part of the day, yes. Jeremy and I will be serving lunch to the homeless.”

  “Ah,” said Destinee cheerily, sneaking a peek at Jessica. “Jeremy Archer. Right. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever told you how cute of a couple the two of you make.”