False Gods

by W. Glenn Duncan Jr.

  “What now?”

  “I think you should finish your wine and we head back to your place for Round Two.”

  “You’re not too tired, poor boy? You sure you don’t want to just cuddle? Save your strength for tomorrow.”

  “Me, tired? Hah.” I stifled a yawn. “Damn. Bad timing. Maybe I’ll tell you what I’m planning for the case before I fall asleep, instead.”

  Hilda tilted her head and smiled.

  “It shouldn’t be too hard to track down this Darius guy. Brian gave me the names of all the kids from his school who went to Christ Alive! and if that doesn’t bring any joy I’ll talk to the organizers. They should have a complete list of attendees, with contact details. A couple hours on the phone on Monday and I should have Darius all tied up.”

  “Tied up? Hmm, I like the sound of that. You sure you’re too tired?” Hilda must have slipped a shoe off because her stockinged foot was soft and warm when it probed my crotch.

  “Waiter? We’ll have the check now.”

  Chapter 6

  They say that weekends are for resting between the physical strain of working weeks.

  Monday morning, I dragged my sorry ass into the office more drained than I’d been three days before. An hour earlier, Hilda had kissed me good-bye and bounced out of her door with a spring in her step and a swing in her hips. The weaker sex? No goddamned way.

  Not that I would ever tell her that.

  I didn’t need to; she knew the truth.

  I pounded a couple of aspirin, poured the first of several cups of coffee and fired up the pipe. With the window cracked, the sounds and smells of a downtown Dallas morning leaking into the office and the first flush of caffeine and nicotine sloshing through my system, the old body turned over and engaged first gear. It was time to hit the phones.

  The first kid I spoke to from Brian’s school was no help at all.

  Not that she didn’t try. Like Brian, she seemed genuinely sorry that she couldn’t tell me more, but in the end her story matched with the one I’d already heard. An older guy, with a group following him, had been around during the first night’s after-Mass drinks. Non-alcoholic, you understand.

  Of course.

  She hadn’t caught his name. She had seen him during the rest of the week, always with a group of people around him. She hadn’t been invited to any special prayer meetings. She had seen Kimberly with the group later in the week.

  The other nine calls, not counting the ones I had to leave messages for, were similar.

  A couple of the kids told me they had caught his name though they differed on whether it was Darius or Darrell. No-one had spoken to him after that first night. In fact, they all said that the mysterious Darius ignored them for the rest of the week. As did all the people with him, including Kimberly. Nothing new, but I was reassured that my assessment of Brian not being a liar seemed to be holding up.

  Honest questioning was getting me nowhere.

  Time for subterfuge.

  “Good morning. Christian Ministry Events. Rebecca speaking.”

  “Well, hey there Rebecca, you sweet thang. This here’s Stew Bayless from Rising Day Church down here in Dallas.”

  The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it. I’m sure someone said that once. Right then, I couldn’t think of who.

  “Hello, Mr Bayless. How can I help you today?”

  “Well, down here at Rising Day, we’ve been watching what y’all are doin’ up there. Watching very closely, I can tell you. And we’re impressed with your recent Christ Alive! event. Mighty impressed. Every day we see signs that people, especially our vulnerable young people, are being led from the path of righteousness and tempted towards wickedness. We want to, we need to, help them before the Devil gets hold of them and we lose them forever.

  “That’s why the congregation here at Rising Day has agreed—agreed unanimously, I should say—to support your next event. We’ve formed a Crusade Committee (did I really just say that?) to get busy working on raising money to help you spread the love of our Lord Jesus Christ and bring light to this wicked world.”

  I had to stop at that point. Rebecca told Stew Bayless that he should speak to the head of their Organizing Committee, who would be better placed to help him. Uh, me.

  That, and I was about to start laughing at my own pulpit caricature.

  “Good morning, Mr Bayless, and may the blessing of our Lord be on you.” The flowery voice syruped down the line. “I’m Pamela Lovegood, and I’m the chair of the CME Organizing Committee. Rebecca said you wanted to speak to me?”

  I wound up good ol’ Stew Bayless and rolled him out. As it turned out, Pamela was exactly the one he should speak to.

  “Oh, Mr Bayless. What a generous offer. Though I don’t know your church well, I’ve heard of the simply amazing work you’re doing down there. I can’t tell you what a difference your support of Christ Alive! will make to the young people we try to help. Of course, CME would be more than happy, and blessed, to work with Rising Day.”

  Four minutes and several more promises from the Crusade Committee later Pamela had agreed to send Stew copies of the Austin event program, profiles on the speakers, a list of all the churches represented and the names of all the community service programs that the event had supported.

  Oh, and would it be too much trouble to include a copy of the attendee list from the latest event?

  No, it wouldn’t be any trouble at all.

  All this goodness would be delivered by registered mail to Rising Day’s Dallas office in two to three days. Imagine my own surprise to find out that Rising Day Church shared an office address with yours truly.

  Who’d’a thunk it?

  I was getting somewhere, but with two to three days to kill, depending on whether US Mail lived up to its promises, a gap in the work-flow now presented itself. I almost panicked, but another coffee, pipe and the chance for an afternoon nap settled me right down.

  Chapter 7

  A couple of mornings later I opened the office door to a small mountain of manila envelopes on the floor below the mail slot. They made a healthy slap landing on my desk after I’d scooped them off the floor.

  Morning routine of coffee and pipe underway, I sliced the envelopes open with an old hunting knife from the bottom drawer. Pamela Lovegood had sent Stew Bayless everything he’d asked for, and then some. A handwritten note conferring all sorts of divine and otherworldly blessings upon the generous Mr Bayless accompanied the photocopied pages. I pitched everything except the lists of churches and attendees from the Austin event.

  I poured another cup of coffee, threw my feet up on the desk and dove into the Christ Alive! Documents, soon realizing that choosing the name Rising Day for my fictitious religious enterprise hadn’t been as hokey as I’d thought. There were honest-to-god churches with similar monikers. The Church for Everybody, Abundant Life, The Fields and New Horizons. And that was only the first page.

  I needed to lift my game; these people were outdoing me with their outrageous name play.

  I turned back to the list of attendees, sure that there would be an answer within. I stood, or sat, undaunted in the face of eight thousand names.

  Two hours later I stood up, mostly daunted.

  I felt the blood drain back to my feet, cracked my back and popped my shoulders. I hadn’t expected to find a name highlighted—here he is!—but not a single Darius popped up in the roll. There were twelve Darrells with various spellings, seven Darnells, and two Darians. And more than a few attendees with D as a first initial. One hundred and eighty-two to be exact. That gave me upward of two hundred possibles to run down. If the kids had his name right. If it was his first name, not a middle initial. If he’d used his real name when he registered. That sounded like a lot of ifs.

  I don’t like ifs.

  I could figure every male at the event, except for Brian and his classmates, could be my guy and I’d have to weed them out one by one.

  No way I could get through that
volume.

  Also, I needed an approach to eliminate people. I couldn’t get on the phone with each of these guys. “So, hey, I was wondering … fucked any virgin cheerleaders recently at a christian youth rally? No shit? Her Mom wants her home, so if you could put her on the phone, that’d be great.”

  Plus, they’d come from everywhere to congregate in Austin. Within the twenty-two D-names I had on the list, home addresses included Montana, New York, Texas, Nebraska, Washington State, Oregon, and Iowa. And Hawaii. Include the “D as first initial” group and I’d need manpower rivaling the FBI to check on them all.

  So, I couldn’t track them and I couldn’t call them.

  I needed another plan.

  I went and had lunch.

  As I climbed the stairs to the office, I knew I needed to take a new slant on this case. I needed a way in to the church world if I had any chance of tracking down Darius. Normally, there was a call I could make to someone who knew someone who knew someone, but none of the someones I knew spent any of their time near a confessional.

  That wasn’t completely true.

  Apparently, Freddo Lombard had prayed to any god that would listen when he was tracked down by the Chicagoan family he’d been ripping off, but I’m not sure that counts for finding religion.

  Plus, that had been the last time Freddo talked to anyone at all, his voice drowned out shortly thereafter by the splash of the Ford engine block he was chained to hitting the surface of the Gulf of Mexico.

  Not even a priest could have helped him at that point.

  I leaned back in the chair, fired up a pipe and played with that thought.

  A priest.

  The name floated up from the past.

  Father McIlhenny.

  A distant past.

  Normally I’m not much for dredging through the cobwebs of time and memory, but I didn’t have anything else in the diary for the afternoon.

  What the hell.

  “Rafferty!”

  “Sir!”

  “Get those people off the fences or all hell is going to break loose.”

  “Yes, Sarge!”

  I run to the nearest barricade, where a group of white, college-age youths are trying to climb over. I draw my nightstick and look at these kids, a few of them probably older than me. The firelight flickers across their faces and I hope they can’t tell how shit-scared I am.

  I slam my nightstick down on the barricade.

  “Get back,” I yell, with as much force as I can muster. They back up a step as the baton clangs on the metal fence and look at me sideways.

  “It’s not right, man,” they yell. “Black people in a white church. It’s against God’s law.”

  “He doesn’t sign my paychecks, so I’ll stick with the real law.” I’m trying hard to control my voice, but it still sounds all high and squeaky.

  “It’s an abomination.”

  “The Civil Rights Act says everyone can worship wherever they want. So, until LBJ and my sergeant say different, we’re gonna have to disagree on that one.”

  “They’ll have to come out sometime. You can’t protect them forever.”

  I turn from the catcalls and jeers to look up the hill to the church. Silhouetted in the doorway, the torchlight reflecting off his bald head, Father Don McIlhenny raises an arm. I wave back, look over my shoulder to make sure the college kids aren’t trying another run, and walk to the brightest part of the barricade.

  “Crazy times, huh Sarge?”

  “Damn straight, Rafferty. Never thought I’d live to see the niggers get treated equal, but now that it’s here, we got to do our job and keep the law, whether we like it or not.”

  Not more than twenty feet away, on the other side of the fence line, a group of white-hooded figures—gender and age impossible to discern underneath the hoods—stand in silence and look to the church. Most of them hold burning torches while a flaming cross, ten feet high, rises from the centre of their circle.

  I can hardly hear over the crackle of burning wood.

  “Law or not, I’d sure be happier if the padre had been a mite discreet when he invited the niggers to worship with him. An advertisement in the Post Tribune, fur chrissake! What did he think would happen? I jes’ hope he understands how lucky he is. If it weren’t fur us here now, we’d be cuttin’ him down from a tree in the morning.”

  Looking at my fellow police officers—a collection of burnt out old-timers, aspirational future Chiefs and a couple of greenhorns like me—I wondered if anyone else was struggling with the idea of protecting people we didn’t know from being killed by other people we didn’t know, all because of their skin color.

  When I’d joined the police force a year earlier the idea of “protect and serve” had seemed simple. I was no idealist; I knew I wasn’t going to save the world. But it seemed simple enough: those that lived within the law deserved to be protected from those who lived outside it. But …

  What if I disagreed with the law? Could I enforce a law I didn’t agree with?

  I’d have to wait to answer those questions because I can see the college guys, cheered on by their girlfriends, making another assault on the fence. I run back across the wet grass, and smack the fence as hard as I can with my baton. The shock that runs up my arm almost dislodges the nightstick and the boys let go of the fence like they’ve been electrocuted.

  “Fuck man. That hurt.”

  “Stay off the fence then.”

  “Sure. So tough while you’re over there, huh. Come out here and show us how tough you are.”

  “That’s not gonna happen.” I lower my voice. “Knock it off, okay. Guys? Go home. What’s it to you?”

  “How stupid are you, boy? Niggers don’t belong in our churches.”

  “What about Father Don?”

  “What about him?”

  “Does he belong?”

  “Course he does. He’s God’s voice.”

  “Don’t you think that if god’s voice says it’s okay, then it’s okay?”

  I feel the weight of the nightstick in my hand and slide it back into the holder. I lower my shoulders, put my hands in my pockets and try a smile. Just another country boy trying to get along.

  The stockiest of the college boys unclenches his hand and blinks several times. He takes a long pull at his beer bottle without breaking eye contact. I force myself to do the same, though I think I’d do a better job if I had a beer, too.

  “Sheeiit, boys. I don’t have the foggiest what this lame-ass cop is talking about, but I’m not gonna stand out here all night listening to him. Let’s split.”

  The group stalks back to their cars with girlfriends in tow, pause briefly to throw their empty beer bottles at the fence, and then peel out of the parking lot with defiant wheel spins.

  I watch the tail lights turn the corner and disappear, but I’m still keyed up and when a hand grabs me, I go for my gun.

  Father Don steps into the light and smiles.

  “Shit, Father! You scared the bejesus out of me.” My body shakes with adrenaline. “Oh hey, I’m sorry, Father. I didn’t mean to curse. You just caught me off guard, that’s all.”

  “Son, don’t ever give words more power than they deserve. They’re just words. They can’t hurt us unless we let them.”

  I start breathing again. My hands are jittering.

  “Son, that was mighty impressive.”

  “Just doing my job, Father.”

  “Nonetheless. What’s your name?”

  “Rafferty.”

  “Well, Officer Rafferty, we’re blessed to have a fine young man like you here tonight. The church is thankful for your service. I’m going to check on the others now and I’m sure your sergeant could use your help over at his post. Thank you again.”

  He shakes my hand and turns to walk along a path that winds behind the church. I call after him.

  “Father?”

  He turns back.

  “Why do you do it? Let the colored people in to your church. You mus
t have known it was going to make people mad.”

  “I think the question we all should ask is, how can we stand by and not do it? Everyone one of us is a child in His image. His only Son told us that we should treat each other as we would be treated ourselves.”

  “But Father—”

  “Let me ask you something. Are you a religious man?”

  “No, Father.”

  “Why did you do it, then? You’re protecting the church, and those praying inside, from a group of people who don’t understand why they’re angry.”

  I swallow.

  “You don’t believe in the church and you’re not sure whether all people deserve the same rights.” He shrugs. “Why bother?”

  “It’s my job.”

  “Bullshit,” he says. “It’s not only what you did; it’s how you did it. You could have beaten one of those boys with your nightstick, or worse. This is Texas, and you’re a police officer.” His eyes tear me apart.

  “It seemed like the right thing to do.”

  “Amen,” he said and his smile grows. “If only more people in this world were like you, Officer Rafferty. I hope we’ll see each other again.” He nods twice, turns the corner and disappears behind a large tree.

  We hold the barricades that night, with Klan members eyeballing us until daybreak before marching off, silent still. The Chief of Police and Mayor hold a public press conference the next day calling for calm and reason. At the same time, three hard-bitten detectives from the DPD meet privately with the local Klan chapter and convince them that there’s no future in harassing this particular church.

  An uneasy calm descends on the chapel grounds.

  For the next few months the church is ringed by a perimeter of protestors with nothing more dangerous than loud epithets and badly-spelled signs. The odd paint bomb finds its mark on the wall of the church but the Birmingham tragedy doesn’t have a Dallas sequel.

  Father Don never wavers in his commitment to treat all people equally, nor does he keep a low profile doing it. He comes to the gate every day to meet worshippers and protestors alike, his bald head gleaming as bright as his smile.