Thomas M. Disch

by The Priest

  12

  He felt as though he were being buried alive. As though he were in a pit dug deep in loose, sandy soil, and when he would try to shore up one side of the pit, the opposite side would cave in on him. At the first crisis, two years ago, when Bishop Massey had called him on the carpet about the lawsuit being threatened by the parents of the Petrosky boy, he had marveled at his own coolness and composure in the face of what had then seemed certain disgrace and a possible criminal prosecution. Eventually, the boy’s father had come around—or, more accurately, the diocesan attorneys had come up with enough money for the outof-court settlement—and Father Bryce was let off the hook. But that had really been a transfer from frying pan to fire, for though the Petroskys’ silence had been secured, Father Bryce found himself at the mercy of a much shrewder and more ruthless adversary, Bishop Massey himself.

  As teenagers they had attended minor seminary together, vying for the same honors and the same teachers’ favors. They had played on the same basketball and baseball teams. They had completed their theological studies at the North American College in Rome in the heady aftermath of the Vatican Council. Upon ordination, they had been considered among the likeliest candidates for advancement to high office within the diocese. In the way of such rivals, Father Bryce and Father Massey had maintained a fiction of being the best of friends while doing all they could to avoid each other’s company.

  Their first assignments made that easy, for Father Bryce was appointed assistant pastor to the rural parish of Leech Lake, with teaching duties at nearby Etoile du Nord Seminary, while Father Massey had been appointed to a post in the Chancery with the duty of developing a new, post-Conciliar liturgy for the entire diocese.

  It was clear to Father Bryce, even then, which of them was slated for rapid advancement. Was it uncharitable of him, or merely realistic, to think that Massey owed his greater success to the fact that he was black? That he was personable, a good politician, and black after the café-au-lait manner of Harry Belafonte rather than in the Sidney Poitier style—these were also advantages. To be fair, Massey did all he could to emphasize his ethnicity. He wore his hair in an Afro long before Afros became respectable. He favored civilian clothes, and even vestments, with an “African” flavor, wearing long-flowing dashikis even as other priests were abandoning cassocks. He cultivated a style in his sermons that called to mind the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., though he’d grown up in Shakopee, Minnesota, and had no direct experience of charismatic black religion until he went to Rome and became friends with African-American seminarians studying there.

  During the seventies Father Massey had moved up the ladder of promotions at a rapid clip, alternating service at the Chancery with increasingly prestigious pastoral appointments. Father Bryce, in the same period, was involved in the decline of the Etoile du Nord Seminary, as vocations diminished and a new breed of seminarians began to set a new tone. That tone was gay, and Father Bryce did not like it. He did not like the word itself, which was just then becoming the accepted euphemism for homosexual, as black was replacing Negro. And he did not like what the word stood for—a tolerant, smiling acceptance of sodomy as an accepted “lifestyle.” Of course, the new breed of seminarians did not come right out and declare themselves

  gay. They used other code words for their own transgressions. They spoke of a need for intimacy, of the joy to be realized by becoming “available” to others. Father Bryce himself was not beyond the reach of temptation, and sometimes, when he had exceeded his three-cocktail limit, he would succumb to one of the seminarians who’d made himself too readily “available.” But he’d always repented afterward, and he’d never allowed such falls from grace to become “relationships.” Indeed, he did all he could to avoid the young men who had led him into sin, though this could prove difficult when they were students he had to encounter on a weekly basis.

  At last, at his own request, he’d been transferred from Leech Lake and his seminary duties and become an assistant pastor at one of the largest parishes in St. Paul, Our Lady of Mercy. It was there that his desire for young men had become his scourge. Indeed, the objects of his lust were no longer, properly speaking, young men but, rather, youths, generally between ages eleven and fourteen. Usually, they were altar boys who attended the OLM

  parochial school, but there were also a few who attended public schools, whom he came to know through the confessional. There was nothing that so transfixed him as hearing the voice of a boy who had never come to him before for confession haltingly explaining that he had been guilty of sins of the flesh.

  What sins exactly, he would have to know, and how many times, and where, and what acts had the boy imagined as he’d masturbated? Had he ever thought of doing such things with other boys, or with men? Had he thought of touching them? If he were to touch his own private parts, at that moment, in the darkness of the confessional, would sinful thoughts take hold of him? He would lead his young penitents along the path to where he lay in wait for them, in his own little darkness so close by, and it was rare that one completely escaped him. Some might not be given to feel the actual pressure of his flesh on theirs but, really, the most exciting part was stimulating their imaginations. He had read that an exhibitionist achieves orgasm at the moment he makes eye contact with the person to whom he’s exposed himself. For Father Bryce the moment of release was the moment he could feel a boy’s will yielding to his. It was not necessarily a carnal moment, though carnality might well be the end result.

  It was, however, always a priestly moment, for a priest is also a bender and shaper of wills. He is someone called on to exercise authority and to lead souls toward the condition Saint Paul speaks of in First Corinthians, when he tells of the two kinds of bodies, the corrupt and the incorruptible, and how we are able through Christ’s love to change the one kind of body to the other. The nature of the incorruptible body was a mystery of the Faith, but there were moments when Father Bryce had felt as though he stood before the very Tabernacle of that mystery and saw the veil begin to be parted, and then—.

  And then the veil would close and he would discover himself to be a sinful beast, guilty of acts that even the lavender priests of Etoile du Nord and Bishop Massey’s Chancery considered shameful and regarded with contempt and even horror. It galled him that such men— effeminate, epicurean, hypocritical—could think of themselves as pillars of the Church and of Father Bryce and those who shared his fleshly needs as diseased members fit only for amputation. They were the sheep, and he was a goat. Their love was holy and redeeming, and his stank of shit. And there was a part of him that agreed with them, that shared their contempt for and horror of the acts he was compelled to perform.

  With the Petrosky boy he began to feel the madness of love. Before Donny his sexual feelings had been like the weather, with longer and shorter stretches of calm and of stormy weather. Once he had initiated a boy into the rudiments of sexuality, Father Bryce tended to lose interest. Their innocence was the wine for which he thirsted; once he’d slaked his thirst, the boys were like empty bottles, an embarrassment to be tidied away. He would insist on hearing their confessions and then, under the seal of the sacrament, swear them to a secrecy they were usually all too eager to agree to.

  But Donny Petrosky had been different. Donny would not be coerced into postcoital shame. He declared himself to be in love with Father Bryce, and called him on the phone at all hours, and appeared as a communicant each morning at Mass, even after Father Bryce had told him he could no longer serve as an altar boy. At first Father Bryce had been alarmed and angered, but then the boy’s obsession began to kindle similar feelings in himself. He invented reasons why Donny had to spend the night at the rectory. He took him on fishing trips to Rush Lake. He bought clothes for him and helped fabricate lies that would account for his frequent absences from the Petrosky dinner table. He interceded with Sister Fidelis, Donny’s seventh-grade teacher, so that Donny would not be required to take a summer course in remedial math as a condition
of advancing to eighth grade. Donny began to speak of the possibility that he might have a calling to the priesthood, inspired by his mentor’s example. Father Bryce felt a strange joy at the thought of Donny’s vocation, a feeling that was at once priestly and paternal.

  And then Donny Petrosky exploded. Father Bryce never knew what triggered the outburst, for there had been nothing amiss between them. The boy had had an argument with his parents, who’d told him he would not be allowed out of the house after dinner for the rest of the summer. Donny set the Petrosky house on fire the same night. Fortunately, the fire department prevented any serious damage, but Donny was sent by a family court judge for psychiatric evaluation, and the cat was Out of the bag. Donny told the psychiatrist about Father Bryce, the psychiatrist told Donny’s parents, they hired a lawyer, and the lawyer went not to the OLM rectory but directly to the diocese of Minneapolis. Only a month earlier Father Bryce’s erstwhile friend and longtime nemesis, Father Massey, had been appointed Bishop of Minneapolis.

  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.