The Fanciers & Realizers MEGAPACK

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  He set out walking without paying much conscious attention to where he was going, and found himself back at Our Lady a few hours later, just in time to see the choir members leaving church after their rehearsal. He lurked well back out of sight until they were all gone except M. Robertson. Then he slipped in and found her alone, getting ready to close up. He began helping her straighten the music and put it away.

  “You don’t have to do that,” she protested.

  “Second and last time,” he replied.

  By the time they had everything cleared up, the lights and organ turned off, and the climate control readjusted for the night, he had talked his enemy’s name out of her. Mr. Chad Olson.

  New as Clement was to the town and parish, that was one of the names he could already put a face to. Mr. Chad O. Olson—seventy-some years old, he belonged to the cultural generation that still refused the simple “M.” and insisted on the oldstyle titles. Two stained glass windows and three Stations of the Cross had Mr. Chad Olson’s name on the memorial plates, in honor of some other Olson. Not only one of the parish’s moneybags, Mr. Chad Olson also served as one of the regular lectors.

  According to M. Robertson, Mr. Olson claimed he had a big enough backing to make the bishop a formal petition about this choir business, but neither the pastor nor the music minister knew any other names. They thought he was blustering about the petition in case his threat to refuse the money for a new organ failed.

  That was all M. Robertson would tell her ex-most promising baritone, and pretty often over the next two nights he wondered if Mother Lizzie had been right, and he’d have been better off not knowing. From Thursday evening to Saturday afternoon seemed like a month, and he spent so long in Reconciliation talking it through before Mass Saturday afternoon that when he came out of the Reconciliation Room, he actually found a line of two people waiting their turn to go in. He didn’t mention either Mr. Olson or M. Robertson to the madre by name, of course, just said that somebody had told him who it was that led the drive to get him out of the church choir.

  He felt better after Reconciliation, but only for about half an hour. As the people came in for Mass, he caught himself wondering, more and more, Was this one in on it? Would that one have signed Mr. Olson’s petition? Were they glancing at Clement, or was he just imagining it? How many of them would have polarized around Mr. Chad O. Olson, and why? Because they really felt the way he did about it, or because he was rich enough to swing plenty of influence?

  Knowing Mr. Chad Olson’s name hadn’t prevented the doubts about almost everybody else, after all. Maybe if Clement hadn’t been new in town ... Or maybe if he’d been an old, established parishioner, he’d have known exactly which ones they were.

  Then Mr. Chad O. Olson himself came in and knelt in the pew just ahead of Clement’s.

  Clement hastily pulled his own arms in from over the back of the pew and sat, quivering slightly. He didn’t know whether his enemy had noticed him—though how could he have missed the cape with its high collar?—but he certainly didn’t want Mr. Chad Olson hitting his folded hands whenever the old man raised his kneeler and sat back.

  The bell chimed at the back of the church, M. Robertson touched the first chords of the opening hymn, and Mother Lizzie came up the aisle with her acolyte.

  Tonight the opening hymn was “The King of Glory.” Clement knew it by heart. He didn’t touch the hymnal in front of him. He tried to join in singing, and went into a spasm of hard coughs. He wasn’t sure whether they were involuntary, or a semiconscious ruse to get out of singing; but he cut them off as soon as he could. The last thing he wanted was to draw attention, and it was some relief that Mr. Chad Olson never turned around.

  Already the physical discomfort was making itself felt through the waves of mental struggle. Clement Czarny was a vampire at Mass, in Our Lady of Peace Catholic Church, in the presence of the holiest things, in the Presence Itself, participating in the holiest ceremony…and filled with angry, uncharitable thoughts. He had even automatically taken a place near the Eucharistic Chapel, his usual area when not in the choir of any church. A force field that was, to him, almost visible had begun engulfing him like a heavy weight from the Presence in the veiled alcove. Another ray was hitting him from the big crucifix above the altar, more bearable but still sharp.

  He swallowed, and stood up straight. He wasn’t in mortal sin yet. The discomfort wasn’t actual pain, wasn’t bad enough to double him over. But ... not even an hour since his last Reconciliation, and already he had a bigger load of venial sin than he usually accumulated in a week.

  It was undoubtedly one of the worst Masses of Clement’s life. The force field from the Eucharistic Chapel was starting to make the air seem jellylike around him, hard to breathe…he guessed it was like being an ameba’s dinner. He could not have said what the Readings were—holding the missalette was like holding a Swiss Army jackknife with all its blades and attachments spread out at once—and he heard only a phrase or two of the Homily, something about intolerance and disrespect of individualities…he made no personal connection with it at all. The words of the Creed were like sticky burrs in his mouth. The Intercessions were better, being only a short liturgy of prayers for help; but he didn’t join in any of the other Responses.

  Over and over he kept wondering, would it have been any better if Mr. Chad Olson had been tonight’s lector? standing up there near the altar instead of right in front of him. On the whole, he thought no, it wouldn’t. The man’s back looked bigoted enough. His face, staring out over the congregation, ready to zero in and disapprove, could have been even worse.

  The Consecration went through Clement like a stake. Glad of being on his knees anyway, he clutched the back of the pew ahead of him and hunched down, never lifting his head to look at the Host and Chalice. It was the first really sharp pain he’d felt this evening, as opposed to mere acute discomfort. When the surge subsided, the image that floated to the top of his mind was of chromosomes tearing apart in the division of a cell.

  It was all he could do to get to his feet and take his neighbor’s hand for the Our Father, grateful that he had nobody on his left and a friendly woman on his right. Pulses of holiness came through her like electricity with the words of the prayer, but he held on in grim silence. She gave him an anxious look. He nodded back, forcing a smile, and grounded himself with his left arm on the pew.

  Then came the part he had been dreading, in some ways, even more than the Consecration: the Handshake of Peace. Whipping around to his neighbor first, he held her hand as long as he could. When he had to let go, he whirled at once to the people in back, who looked like a family group of father, mother, preteenage daughter, and an older woman who could have been grandmother or possibly aunt. None of them hesitated to shake the vampire’s hand. The girl even grinned up at Clement and said, “Great costume!” To which he automatically responded, “And with your spirit.”

  Clement was one of the diehards who tried to stick to the official formula, even though almost everybody else, those who didn’t just say, “Peace,” or “Hi,” or give a simple smile, before quickly sliding on to the next neighbor—always hurried in with the “Peace be to you,” leaving him with the Response.

  When he had reluctantly finished shaking hands with everybody in the pew behind him he turned to the front again—and found himself face to face with his enemy, who must have just turned around looking for more hands.

  Clement swallowed hard, reminded himself of the little girl’s friendliness, and held out his hand.

  Mr. Chad Olson glanced him over, seeming to frown at his cape without quite meeting his eyes, and deliberately turned away to the woman beside him.

  Pointedly ignoring the hand of Mr. Chad Olson, she shook Clement’s hand and right away leaned a little back to tug the sleeve of her neighbor to the right, an old man in a corduroy jacket, who looked like a farmer and who promptly reached around her for his
turn at Clement’s hand.

  The vampire eagerly accepted the old farmer’s handshake, but still felt doubly miserable as Mass moved on and Mr. Chad Olson turned back around. Had he sensed the anger and ill will beneath Clement’s surface gesture? Whether he had or not, the vampire had still drawn everybody around him into a whole little byplay of bad feeling. He suspected that the waves of disapproval coming out of the enemy in the pew ahead would have hit him pretty hard, if the Presence of God and the holiness and sacred symbols all around hadn’t been so much stronger.

  He could hardly believe that the people behind him hadn’t seemed to notice anything wrong.

  Communion was underway by now, but his stomach churned at just the thought of swallowing the Body and Blood of Christ. And that was the worst pain of all.

  He sat, shaking, and watched his enemy calmly file out with the rest of the pew ahead to share Communion. Then Clement’s pew filed out, leaving him huddled alone.

  As late as the middle of the twentieth century, he had read somewhere, abstainers outnumbered communicants at almost every Mass. Nobody would have noticed him back then. Nowadays, with almost everyone Communicating, he felt as conspicuous as a beetle in a dish of ice cream. Unbearable envy hit him toward people like Mr. Chad Olson, who could still go up to Communion without any physical discomfort, without even any sign of mental discomfort, no matter what actual state their consciences might be in.

  Of course, feeling envy only made things worse for the vampire. At times like this, he thought he understood how people with his curse might find it easier just to go along with the popular image, be wicked, and steer clear of everything holy.

  As for him, he was going to have to have it out with Mr. Chad Olson. Tonight.

  The way he understood the ancient technicalities, his weekend obligation was fulfilled by now. He didn’t have to wait, writhing inside, until the Recessional Hymn. With one last plea and apology—which he knew theoretically, even if he couldn’t quite believe it emotionally, that God would hear—he rose and slipped out the side door while Mr. Chad Olson and the others were still in the Communion line.

  He breathed much more easily outside. The sun had not yet set, but the sky was heavily clouded, as it had been most of the day. A faint discomfort tingled from the wall of Our Lady when he touched it, but it was too worn out by the constant rub and grind against the air of the sinful, everyday world to bother him much. The interface between sacred and mundane was a little like a sheath of harmless, silent white noise around the church building. Maybe the Polish and Russian vampires who functioned between noon and midnight instead of sunset and sunrise, and the other occasional ones reported as moving around by day, could form similar shells between their sinfulness and the sun’s light. An armor of interface around the thinning out of their bodies or slowing down of their molecules or whatever etherealization made it possible for holiness to slice through them like a sword, and probably accounted for their lack of reflections and shadows.

  That might be all right for them. Clement knew from the experience of other bad-conscience days that all the sun had to do was break out from behind the clouds and, low as it was, it would still stab through him almost as painfully as the ray from the crucifix.

  He was too puny ... or too much disinclined ... or whatever…to make the kind of evil monster who might be powerful enough to grow a shell against sunlight. He really didn’t have any choice except to be good enough to go on moving around by day. Natural night owl though he was, he still found it too painful to think about never seeing the sun in a clear blue sky, or searching the clouds for cartoon figures, or ... Besides, it would be just too inconvenient to try to work a university classload and activity life completely into the night hours.

  That was why he had to have it out with Mr. Chad Olson.

  At last he heard the Recessional Hymn begin. It was, “Let There Be Peace on Earth.”

  Not feeling comfortable squeezed into a niche of the church wall, he found himself a spot behind a nearby tree. From here it was easier to keep watch on both streams of people, those who came out the side door and those who left by the front, many of them pausing to shake the madre’s hand.

  He never saw Mr. Chad Olson in either stream.

  By the time the church seemed to have emptied out, and Mother Lizzie had gone back inside, Clement was fearing he’d missed his target.

  He lurked a few minutes longer before walking back to the building. More aware than he’d been for years of the black cloak flowing behind him, he found himself swishing it theatrically, as if on purpose to bolster his resolution. Remounting the steps, he eased the side door open a decimeter and peered in.

  Mr. Chad Olson was kneeling at the rail of the Eucharistic Chapel, hunched in prayer before the Consecrated Presence.

  Even as Clement spotted him, the old man lifted his head and met his gaze. Mr. Olson deliberately bowed his head again and began to cross himself reverently. Clement let the door close and stood back, not quite against the wall, breathing hard.

  It seemed another age until he finally sensed footsteps approaching the door. It opened outward, swung shut again, and Mr. Chad Olson, one of the moneypillars of the parish, stood facing the young student in the fading daylight.

  Clement said, “I just want to know ... why?”

  His enemy didn’t pretend not to understand. “Son,” he answered, “I guess maybe you weren’t aware that vampires are excommunicates.”

  “I’m aware that was the opinion several centuries ago. I’m also aware of the old Spanish Inquisition. What does any of that have to do with us today?”

  Mr. Chad Olson shook his head mournfully. “Look, boy, I don’t object to you singing in the choir, but, drat it! Vampires are damned souls. Creatures of the Devil. You can’t just go thumbing your nose at Canon Law.”

  “It isn’t as if I ever bit anybody! I get all the blood I need from animals and—”

  “It’s bad enough they let you into church at all, dressed up in that outfit, without letting you in the choir as well!”

  “Oh,” Clement said bitterly. “I see. It’s like saying you don’t mind if Elora Mandela sings Carmen, you just don’t want to see a Chocolate woman in the role.”

  “Who? Oh, that Afro opera screecher. Look, young man, you’re missing the whole point—”

  “Look, yourself, M. Olson! I can’t help it that I’m a vampire—”

  “Don’t give me that line, young man! All you’ve got to do is leave off the fancy costume and—”

  “And be a hypocrite about it? Pretend to be something I’m not?”

  “Well, what the big ‘H’ are you doing now? Oh, yes, I know all about what you so-called fantasy perceivers claim, and in my opinion it’s all hogwash. Look, son,” Mr. Olson went on with an obvious effort at calming down, “I don’t care so much how you playact around campus, maybe even around town, but in and around church isn’t the time or the place for it!”

  With that, the old moneybags stamped down the steps and strode away.

  “You’re saying you want me to be a hypocrite, is that it?” Clement shouted after him. “It doesn’t matter what kind of dead bones are inside, just so long as the tomb’s whitewashed on the outside, is that what you think?”

  Mr. Olson turned only once, to shout back, “Think about it, young man! Pray about it!” Then he strode on and rounded a curve in the sidewalk.

  Only when Mr. Chad Olson was out of sight could Clement pry his fingers loose from the railing. “How easy!” he heard himself mutter. “Why didn’t I ever think of that? Just say a prayer, and it’ll all go away! The fangs will drop out, and the reflection will come back, and I’ll be just like ... just like you, Mr. Chad Olson! Oh, thank you, thank you so much! And Elora Mandela just happens to be the greatest mezzo of our generation, that’s all!”

  He opened the door and plunged back into church. The holiness hit
him like a shockwave, knocking him flat in the side aisle.

  That was what he’d been looking for. The jolt didn’t blank out the perverse pleasure of replaying the angry thoughts over and over, but at least it made him want to stop replaying them. Or want to want it.

  As he sat up, vision clearing after the initial shock, he found Mother Lizzie bending over him. She must have been giving the church a last check for lights and stuff after changing out of her Mass vestments. Wondering how much she might have heard through the old, imperfectly soundproofed door, he gave her a shaky grin and said, “I’m not sure if I’m being discriminated against as a vampire or a fantasy perceiver.”

  “Probably both. Either way, that man needs a good shaking up.”

  “Yeah. Perception bigotry could be a major social problem. Is it true, Mother, what he said about Canon Law?”

  “Everything Chad Olson knows about Canon Law, he picked up from old Sabatini Danzoni novels. The Church officially stopped believing in vampires along with all the other—along with all the old medieval superstitions, such as women being unfit for the priesthood.”

  Mother Lizzie couldn’t see his fangs or lack of shadow and reflection, either. Very few people could. Otherwise, he might have been able to ditch the costume without feeling hypocritical. “You know what’s really ironic?” he said. “I was thinking about maybe getting some different kinds of clothes. Not now!”

  “I wish you’d change your mind about the choir, Clement.”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mother, I’ve been through this kind of thing a couple of times before now. I’ll keep on coming to church in full costume and participating right along with the rest of the congregation, but I’ll stay out of the choir, and I won’t put in to serve as any kind of liturgical assistant. If Mr. Olson and his party don’t accept that for a compromise, then I’ll give them a fight.”