by Jim Stark
"She's too serious, that one,” her Uncle Fred would always say. “Cut her some slack,” he used to tell her dad. “Get her involved in outside activities,” he used to say to her mom over coffee. “Race you to the elevator,” dared Becky.
When they got to the cabin, an impromptu tickle-fest turned into a full snuggle, and eventually became lovemaking. Then they ran into a hassle when Michael called from the lodge to make sure the public portion of their outing was covered by Patriot—he should have told them before the trip to the cabin, not on the way back in. What with one thing and another, they didn't get to Ray's until almost 5:00 p.m.
Many of the locals knew Michael from before, of course. He had tried to hang out at Ray's on rare occasions in his younger teens, over the strenuous objections of his parents. To the regulars, it appeared that “the Whiteside lad” might be some kind of a rebel, or “a few kernels short of a cob.” From their point of view, it was unexplainable why a rich kid would go around like that, looking like he just got off shift at the mill. But he seemed to be “all there” when he talked, not a lot different from anyone else, save for his soft hands and his fancy jeep.
"How's doin'?” Michael said to the twenty-six-year-old proprietor.
"Where the hell you been hiding?” asked Ray. “Haven't seen your ugly face around here in a...” He did a search, internally, but the right clincher just wouldn't come.
"Oh, you know ... school ... working for my dad,” said Michael as he pulled out a chair at Joe Farley's old table, Jesse McCain's table now. “So, what's new?"
"Well, this buddy o’ mine tol’ me the Sûreté arrested Jake, the cop from up in Bristol. Do you remember him?"
"You're kidding!” said Tirone Lucas, who was one table down from the corner table, with his Tammy. “I can't believe that."
"Busted him this morning,” said Ray. “I thought everybody knew.” He tossed a look at Tirone that amounted to: “Where've you been that you didn't hear?"
"Yeah, I remember Jake,” said Michael. “So ... how come they arrested him?"
"Well, it seems Buck told the Sûreté that Fatty Crosbie was paying Jake hush money to not say anything about him growing wacky-backy up near Shawville. You remember. Jake shot him back in twenty twelve, when he tried to run away. But now they're saying maybe Fatty wasn't running away, that maybe he was going to spill the beans about that hush money on account of he got born again, and that's really why Jake shot him. That's the way I heard it, anyways,” explained Ray.
"Holy shit!” said Tirone. “I can't believe it, Jake in jail."
Notably, no one at Ray's thought to say, “Holy shit, I can't believe it, Fatty was murdered."
"You missed the big shindig down at the Beach Barn,” said Claire as she cleared off Jesse's table. “Social event of the year, and not a Whiteside to be seen. O’ course we all heard about that terrible business you had out there at the lodge the next day after the dance. This place was crawling with reporters and cops and army guys for a couple of days. They catch those guys yet?"
"Can't say,” said Michael pointedly, which was technically correct if not one hundred percent honest. “You make any pies fresh today?” he asked.
"You don't get pie until you finish your first course, young fella,” announced Grant Doherty, father-like, from the corner table, Merrick McFee's table. “Didn't your mom teach you nothin'?"
"Oh, leave the kid alone,” said Claire over her shoulder to Grant. “I got apple pie and coconut cream I baked up just this morning. What'll it be?"
"Actually, I'd like to see the menu,” said Becky.
"Here you go, sweetheart,” said Claire as she plucked a menu from under her arm.
"Chicken fingers,” said Michael insistently as Becky perused. “I told you we gotta have chicken fingers. We're talking three different sauces here! You got your sweet-'n'-sour, your honey-garlic, and your barbecue, and the—"
"On reflection, I think I'll have the chicken fingers,” announced Becky with a bent smile as she refolded the menu and handed it back to Claire.
"Boy, you can sure tell they haven't been married too long,” said Merrick McFee, too loudly. “You see the way she goes along with her man there? You see that, Tirone? Now my Francine, she don't know that particular trick. Maybe she could have a little talk with my—"
"We're not married,” said Becky forcefully to the neighboring table.
"Mr. McFee, this is my girlfriend, Rebecca Donovan,” said Michael. “Becky, this is the guy that owns the garage out back, Merrick McFee. Remember I mentioned him before? He's the guy that once told me his family motto was ‘why give anybody an easy time when you can give them a hard time?’ Isn't that right, Mr. McFee?"
"Two chicken fingers,” hollered Claire in the general direction of the kitchen. “So, I guess that awful business out at the lodge was pretty rough on your whole family, eh?"
"Actually, I'd rather not discuss that,” said Michael, politely but firmly.
"Whoa, good put-down,” whispered Tirone to Tammy as all six customers and the staff exchanged meaningful glances.
"It wasn't a for-real put-down,” Tammy whispered back, “at least not deliberate-like, anyways."
"But everybody could see Claire got too pushy,” said Tirone.
"She didn't mean no harm,” said Tammy softly. “Everybody could see that, but still, I guess she could've left well enough alone, I mean, after he showed he didn't want to talk about it the first time she brought it up."
"Claire's like that,” whispered Tirone. “I don't mean like all the time, of course, but a lot more often than her husband would like, that's for sure."
It wasn't the way at Ray's to give somebody a harder time than was right. Claire was crowding at the edges of that regulation, and with the Whiteside lad, no less!
Chicken fingers were the daily special, so it didn't take a minute to get the youngsters served. Lucille brought the plates out herself, to say hi to Michael and because Claire was fuming around in the kitchen, trying to figure out why it was supposed to be such a God damned crime to ask a simple question of the Whiteside boy. The general conversation died off a while because of Claire's faux pas, but then it picked up again on how Prime Minister St. Aubin just “up ‘n’ quit” like he did.
"There's got to be more to it than what they're saying on the TeeVee,” said Tirone over to the corner table, where Merrick McFee and Grant Doherty were nursing beers. “What does that mean anyway, ‘personal reasons'? First the Minister of Foreign Affairs or whatever you call it disappears clear off the face of the Earth, then the prime minister resigns—'for personal reasons,’ he says. I don't get it."
"It's gotta have something to do with that lie detector your father is putting out,” said Merrick McFee. “That how you figure it, son?"
Michael pretended not to hear.
"You need me to come over there and ream out your ears?” asked McFee in a voice that indicated he wouldn't mind actually doing it.
"My hearing's just fine, thank you,” said Michael deliberately.
"Whoa, the kid's good,” whispered Tirone. “Another bull's-eye."
Several regulars noticed Jesse McCain pulling into the parking lot, and of course that led to some minor adjusting of chairs, for better viewing, because old Jesse likely didn't know it was the Whiteside kid sitting at his personal-private-property-type reserved table. He teetered in and hung his puffy nylon jacket on the first hook, just like he always did. Then he sauntered over to the table where the two youngsters were enjoying their chicken fingers, and each other.
"You go to high school?” he demanded to know.
"Umm—yeah,” said Michael as he looked up sideways at the bristly gray face of the challenger.
"You got a particular seat you sit in for every different class, like we did when I was a kid?"
"Yeah,” said Michael. “Why?"
"Well I don't go to school no more myself,” explained Jesse, “but I do come in to Ray's five or six times a week, and that's my
seat. I'm whatcha call a preferred customer, you might say, and they wouldn't want to lose my business. Nosirree, I can sure tell you that. So, what say we—"
"We'll move,” said Becky. “No problem. By the way, my name is Rebecca Donovan, and you are...?"
Ray was already over at the disputed table, picking up plates and silently thanking the Catholic God that the young people weren't going to get in a tussle with old Jesse. But Becky had her hand out, waiting. Jesse wasn't sure what to make of that, so he shook it and introduced himself. Then he turned on Ray.
"Leave the damned dishes,” he said. “Son, you just push yourself around to the other side and finish your hen-hocks there,” he ordered. “You don't mind if an old fogey sets hisself down an’ teaches you a thing or two. You don't mind that, eh?"
"Please,” said Becky, holding out an upturned hand. “Join us."
* * *
"Jeeze, Jesse was in his glory,” explained Merrick to all comers after the two youngsters and Jesse had left the restaurant. “He sorta knew these young folks were partly pulling his leg and looking on him like some sort of a curiosity, but he didn't seem to mind one bit. He worked up a full head of steam and got to storytelling so dead earnest that poor Claire had to stand beside him a full minute, just waiting for him to order. It was a glorious sight to behold, what with her wanting so bad to get on with other things and yet knowing full well that the first step she took away from the table would land her in a peck of trouble. She got around behind Jesse and used her eyes to tell everybody that she'd like to pour some nice hot tea down the back of his shirt. It was that girl, Rebecca, stepped in again. She excuses herself and asks Jesse if he'd like to order, polite-like, and she calls him Mr. McCain. Smart girl, that one. The Whiteside lad could have done lots worse, that's for sure."
Chapter 43
SAY THE CREDO FOR ME
Steve Sutherland decided to use his free afternoon to pay a visit to a former colleague, Bishop William P. Doyle. He had discussed it over the phone with Annette, and this visit was something he simply had to do. He had also examined his motives carefully, looked into his heart. He had used Victor's unusual technique of talking out loud with a LieDeck in hand to double-check his reasons, even to triple-check them on the key issues. He was astonished at how much he had learned about himself that way. Not all of it was pleasing, of course, but at least it was 100% real, and that was a huge improvement on the largely fictional self-perception he'd been living with for the last several decades. In fact, Steve had come to the carefully considered and verified view that the LieDeck, properly used, was a godsend. “Perhaps an unfortunate choice of words,” he had said to himself out loud during a recent session.
He had originally identified three reasons why he wanted to visit Bill Doyle. As he rested in the back of the taxi that was taking him from the headquarters of Whiteside Technologies to the offices of the Canadian Association of Catholic Bishops, he cut the list to two.
He had wanted to talk to somebody about the joy, and the confusion, of his new ... friendship, he supposed he might call it ... no, his new “relationship” with Annette Blais. He had gone over that part many times in his mind, and several times out loud. During his contemplations, he had been struck by the fact that his career as a priest had effectively alienated him from humanity. That wasn't the way it was supposed to be, but after more than half a century on the planet, he found it was a struggle to identify more than two candidates for a totally honest heart-to-heart. It had to be either Randall Whiteside or Bill Doyle.
Whiteside was his first choice, but Randall had never been a Christian, had never understood the Church, and couldn't even begin to understand the powerful hold it had over those who devoted their lives to it. The two former school buddies had managed to stay in touch over the years, had even remained close, but their active friendship never included any discussion of the most intimate parts of life, the core of life itself.
That wasn't the case with Bill Doyle. Bill had been his friend, or at least the colleague Steve had felt closest to since he had become a bishop. There had been a few times in the past when the two of them had talked from the heart, or dangerously close to there. For several summers, in the early years of the new century, they had taken walks together, after midnight, under the stars, at Catholic Youth Camp, long after all the kids were in bed, and they had tried to relate on a level other than bishop-to-bishop.
However, their closeness had effectively ended five years ago. Back in July of 2009, they had prayed together on a rocky point at the water's edge, prayed out loud under a trillion stars and a brilliant moon, and the emotion of it ended up embarrassing them both so much that they had walked back to camp in total silence and dared not walk together again for the rest of that summer, or ever again.
During that troubled prayer, Steve had alluded vaguely to his “needs,” he had called them, the urges that sometimes led him to the very brink of madness. He told Bill that once, back in 2006, he had stepped out of the shower, screamed at his naked body in a mirror and slapped his own face, repeatedly, hard, until the image of Sister Beth had been banished from his mind's eye.
Bill Doyle, for his part, had knelt and squirmed on the bare rock until his knees bled. He had wailed aloud to God about a time he'd stood in the bush, out of sight, watching a dozen eleven-year-old boys go for a skinny dip, watching them through binoculars, for twenty agonizing minutes, while perspiring insanely. “I just wanted to make sure they were playing safe,” he had sobbed, “but..."
He had never finished that sentence. Steve knew the rest intuitively, and Bill knew that Steve knew. That moment of truth, as it were, had led to a chill in the air whenever the two men met, a hellish awkwardness that had never really gone away in the years since the incident.
No, Steve said to himself in the back of the cab. That issue will have to wait. I'll tell Bill about Annette and me soon enough, but not right off the top. He would think I was flaunting my sinfulness in his face, for spite. No ... he wouldn't think that, with his brain, Steve corrected himself, but he would feel it, emotionally, deeply. In any event, he would conclude that my feelings for Annette were out of character—wildly out of character—and there's no way he would be able to understand that it was my being a priest that was out of character. He could never understand that I've only recently gotten in touch with who I am, with my real character, thanks to the LieDeck, and I wouldn't be doing him any favors by getting into that difficult arena before he gets a handle on who he really is.
Bishop Doyle had no desire to see Steve Sutherland, but as the newly elected head of the Canadian Association of Catholic Bishops, it was his clear duty to make peace with his predecessor. Six days earlier, Steve Sutherland had threatened to bring shame on the Church with his idea of hooking priests and Catholic Brothers up to lie detectors, for the holy act of confession. His goal was laudable enough, thought Doyle. Everyone wants to bring an end to the sex scandal in the Church, no one more than myself, but the approach he proposed was ... outrageous, to put it mildly.
Since Sutherland's departure from the Church, the world had changed radically, and Bill Doyle knew it. Now that the LieDeck Revolution had begun, no one would be able to hide any crime or misdemeanor. Like everyone else, the new head of the CACB was very seriously worried about the implications of the device.
He worried about the Church. And for reasons that he wasn't sure of, and decidedly did not want to explore, he worried about Steve Sutherland. By a quirk of fate, Steve had ended up in the middle of the LieDeck Revolution, smack-dab on his secular feet, deeply involved with Randall Whiteside and that damnable little gadget.
For Doyle, the most frightening part of this meeting was the not knowing. True to his word, Sutherland had said nothing to the media about his reasons for leaving the CACB and the Church—yet. But his promise was for a two-week grace period. Was he now intending to reveal the reluctance of the CACB to find all the abusers and turn them over to the authorities? Was he going to reveal
that he had been forced out of the Association because of his zeal to see that all of the criminals among the clergy were arrested and punished? Was he going to mobilize the grass roots of the Church to achieve his goal? Would he encourage Catholics to use their LieDecks to ask priests and Brothers if they were abusers? Did he plan to tell the media folks that it was the man who replaced him as CACB chairman who had suggested the vote of non-confidence? And what should I call him, wondered Doyle, now that he isn't a bishop any more?
"God be with you,” he said as he opened the door and executed a slow, solemn head-bob. “Please come in—uh..."
"Steve,” said Steve. “Just call me Steve, Bill. Everybody calls me that now, and I ... I kind of like it. How are you?"
Still spoiling for a fight, thought the new chairman of the CACB.
Still floundering around the cosmos without a paddle, judged the former bishop.
"Shall we go into the study—uh—Steve?” asked the Bishop.
"Let's see what we can scare up in the kitchen,” said Steve. “I'm absolutely starving."
Of course Steve knew the headquarters of the CACB well. For years, when he had lived there off and on, he had always made a point of befriending the nuns and laypersons whose job it was to keep the brass fed and watered.
"Sister Beth,” he exclaimed. “How have you been, you rascal?"
"Father Steve!” she beamed as she gave him a big hug. “I'm fine. And look at you! How's it going? Staying out of trouble, I trust?"
"You don't watch enough TV,” he said.
"I watch. I heard about you getting involved with that LieDeck Assessment Program at Whiteside's. It sounds ... interesting."
"It's fascinating,” said Steve. “What's new with you?"
"Hey, you forget—I'm a nun!” she protested. “Nothing's ever new with me, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Now look, I'm sure you two want to talk, so I'll make myself scarce. There's some fabulous turkey breast in the fridge, and lettuce, and some of my wonderful homemade bread. Make yourself a nice big sandwich, with mayonnaise and lots of pepper, the way you like it. The pepper-grinder is up over the stove. See you later."
