Plain Heathen Mischief

by Martin Clark

  “And during this session you knew she was a minor?”

  “She was seventeen, almost eighteen.”

  “That would make her a minor, yes?” Hanes was clutching the pen, but only the tip was visible, sticking out from the bottom of his fist.

  “She was a minor.”

  “My math suggests you were forty-one when this happened.”

  “Is that a question? Do I need to answer that?” Joel allowed the first trace of irritation to appear in his voice.

  “Please.”

  “Your math is correct. I was forty-one. Maybe you should try logarithms and quadratic equations—you’d probably be more challenged.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. And it was during this counseling session at the church, inside your office, that you first had sexual intercourse with Miss Darden, sometime on or about May the third?”

  “I don’t remember the exact date.” Joel was short with Hanes. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “Thank you. And did you have sexual intercourse with Miss Darden on that date at your church as I’ve described?”

  Joel smoothed his gaudy purple tie, ran his hand from the knot to the end of the faux-silk cloth. He gave Hanes a full view of his features and displayed the embryonic stage of the brazen smile he’d practiced in the hotel mirror. “Yes, I did.”

  “I see. And did she consent?”

  “She was nervous, but other than that she was willing. She consented, yes.”

  “How long did the intercourse last, Reverend King?”

  Joel shifted his eyes in Roland’s direction. “Do I have to answer? What does this have to do with anything?”

  “Answer the question,” Roland commanded.

  “How long did it last? I don’t know. Ten minutes, maybe? Fifteen?”

  “Did you ejaculate, Reverend King?”

  “Why are you asking me these questions? Are you some kind of voyeur or something?” Joel grimaced and closed his Bible, dropped the cover so there was a thud when the pages hit.

  “You need to answer. It’s a permissible question,” Allan White said. He and Brian Roland were both seething, their disdain for their client poorly concealed, their curt language an unmistakable sign of their disgust.

  Joel ratcheted up the smile, left it a whisker short of a sneer. “You guys are enjoying this, aren’t you? Living vicariously? Am I right?”

  Roland addressed Joel as if he were a child or simpleton, spoke to him with slow, exaggerated patience. “You see, Reverend King, as part of Mr. Hanes’s case—their claim for damages—they are entitled to know if you put the plaintiff at risk for a pregnancy or a venereal disease. Also, it would be important to know if you stopped the act—perhaps felt bad about it— or concluded only when you were sexually gratified. They need to know how long Miss Darden was subjected to the encounter. Was it a minute or an hour? These are all relevant issues.”

  “Why don’t you draw him a map?” Henry Clay Hanes complained. “Maybe write him a script.”

  “He asked a question, and I answered him, Mr. Hanes.” Roland bore down on Joel. “You understand now?”

  “Sure,” Joel snarled. “Whatever you say.”

  “So did you ejaculate?” Hanes continued.

  “The first time, yeah. I believe I did.”

  Brian Roland cringed. His forehead wrinkled into three parallel ridges, and the skin at the corners of his eyes shot full of webs.

  “Did you use a condom or any other type of protection?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t there. Did you use a condom or any other protection?”

  “No, but she didn’t turn up pregnant, now did she? And she didn’t contract any disease. So what does it matter?”

  “Could we take a break for about ten minutes?” Roland asked, a pitiful effort to interrupt Hanes’s progress and to buy a few moments to talk some sense into his client.

  “No, I’m sorry. I can’t possibly fathom why we should stop.” Hanes kept his focus on Joel and didn’t even look at Roland when he spoke.

  “We’ve been at this for over an hour,” Roland said, “and I need a break.”

  “Why? Other than to impede my questioning of your client, why do you need a break?” Hanes was collected as always.

  “I need to use the restroom, Mr. Hanes. Too much java, okay?” Roland stood. “And we will stop while I’m gone.”

  “I’m guessing your client’s bladder needs relief also. You want him to be excused too? So you can woodshed him? Coach him?”

  “Are you questioning my integrity?”

  “Goodness no.” Hanes practically drawled.

  “I don’t need to take a break,” Joel offered, and both White and Roland attacked him with incensed glares. “I don’t,” he said in response to their incendiary looks. “Let’s keep going.”

  “Ah, well. I guess that settles it,” Hanes crowed. “The Reverend wants to continue. If he wants to stay here with us, why don’t you go ahead on down the hall and take care of your restroom needs, Mr. Roland? We’ll wait right here for you. ’Course you won’t be able to meet with your client, but you can visit the toilet.”

  Roland’s neck had covered over with saw-toothed splotches and his coat was crooked, pulled too close to his collar on one side.

  “So you didn’t use any sexual protection?” Hanes asked, simply began again with Roland hovering there, stewing and apoplectic.

  “No.”

  “How about the second time you had sex?”

  “How about it?” Joel remarked.

  Roland was still on his feet. Allan White tugged his sleeve and spoke so everyone could hear. “Go ahead and leave if you need to. I’ll cover this until you get back. Don’t worry about it.” Given the chance to save face, Roland squeezed his partner’s shoulder and left the room, lifted a glass of water and held it at arm’s length before departing, gave the impression he was considering whether he should empty it on Henry Clay Hanes, soak his sorry ass to the bone.

  “Did you use protection the second time you had intercourse?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ejaculate?”

  “No,” Joel said.

  “Why?”

  “I just didn’t. She began complaining, and I stopped.”

  Hanes thought about the answer. “So she was—strike that,” he said. “Forget it.”

  “What?”

  “Let’s move on.” Hanes said, but was quiet for so long that Joel thought he might be through. “Tell me, Reverend,” he finally said, “what your thoughts were each time you engaged in sex with this girl. What you were thinking?”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  Brian Roland came back into the room and leaned against the wall, next to a print of horses and hounds and men in red jodhpurs. The picture was matted in green, and there was a similar piece across the room, both of them in ornate gold frames.

  “Well, what were your intentions? You were married at the time, correct?”

  “I was married.”

  “Did you see this as a romance, a relationship with a future?”

  “Hardly.” Joel finger-sculpted the plastered, goopy sides of his hair.

  “Well, what was it then? Simply a slip, a bad choice?”

  Joel didn’t answer.

  “Reverend King?” Hanes prodded.

  “Okay, listen. I’m smart enough to know you guys will take umbrage at what I’m going to say. I doubt you’ll understand, but I don’t want you to think I’m some weak, scabby pent-up little man who couldn’t resist the first pretty girl who came his way.” Joel turned loose the full smile. “Not at all. I had sex with Christy because I wanted to. I don’t think it’s a bad thing, don’t think she’s been damaged or scarred in any way. Better me than some drunk, pimply boy after her prom. It’s part of my due, part of the whole spiritual cycle I manage as the Lord’s instrument on earth.”

  “Your due?” For the first time, Hanes seemed surprised.

&
nbsp; “Sure. I’m her pastor. Where she’s concerned, I’m man but not of man.” Joel was making up gibberish, anxious and scared and exhilarated. He opened the gaudy Bible with a flourish, spread his hands over the pages like a game-show host caressing a prize. “I know you will disagree, but the truth is in the Word. She’s a part of my flock, part of me, and mine to draw close to the Father.”

  “Like a job perk? You are entitled to have sex with the women of your congregation?” Hanes had dropped his pen.

  “Scoff and twist my words all you want. Go ahead.”

  Allan White appeared to have stopped breathing; his lips were parted and his nostrils were flared and everything about him seemed as if he’d sucked in a breath and seized up. Roland had gone from angry to resigned, was slumped against the wall with his neck dappled and his hands dangling.

  “Oh, no. I don’t mean to twist your words,” Hanes said. “No sir. And I’m not judging you one way or the other. I just want to make sure I understand your position—no more, no less.”

  “Well, what don’t you understand?” Joel added another vainglorious stroke of his hair, pinned the wings against his head with the heels of his hands.

  “I think I’m clear. You feel because of your position as Christy’s minister, it’s acceptable to have sexual relations with her?”

  “Exactly. Not everyone would agree—I understand that.” Joel heard the cushioned pecking of the reporter’s keys continue for a second or two after he finished his answer.

  “I’m not here to decide the right or wrong of things, Reverend.” Hanes was accommodating and generous, eager to give Joel as much leeway as he could. “But you feel what you did was good, a positive for Christy Darden?”

  “Sure.” The word hung, was hard for Joel to disgorge. “Absolutely. She’s been especially blessed by having lain with me. I’m her minister, the steward of her faith, the Lord’s conduit here on earth. Her union with me is a union with the Heavenly Father.” Joel flipped his eyes at the ceiling. “How could anyone view it as wrong? A closer relationship with God, achieved through intimacy—what a blessing she’s received. And let’s face it—you gentlemen can sit here all day with your contrived disdain and fake indignation, and there’s not a one of you who wouldn’t sleep with her if you thought you could get away with it.”

  “I see.” Hanes could have asked other questions, kept gouging and prying, but he didn’t seem inclined to dilute the potency of his work by highlighting the obvious or providing Joel an opportunity to qualify a response. His case couldn’t improve much more unless horns began sprouting from Joel’s head or a pointed tail stirred in his britches. “Well, Reverend, thank you. Thank you for your candor. Those are all my inquiries. Your lawyers may have something to ask.”

  “By the way, Mr. Hanes,” Joel added, “you didn’t address this, but it’s an important component of church doctrine and relevant to my relationship with Christy Darden. You need to understand the role of women in our denomination. The wife is subservient to the husband, the woman subservient to the man.” Joel bent his index finger and tapped the Bible. “There’s no disputing that. Of course, it’s a two-way street. We respect women, love them and recognize our duty as men and leaders of the church to nurture them.”

  “I didn’t mean to keep you from fully amplifying your answers, Reverend King. Thank you for the additional insight.”

  Brian Roland looked at Allan White, then at Joel. He studied the print beside him for a moment, most likely wishing he could dive through the glass and mount the big sorrel horse and ride away into the forest with the dogs and hunters, grow woozy on warm ale and go missing for several days. “No questions,” he said.

  The bank box and pawnshop were downtown, both within walking distance of Brian Roland’s office. Joel had hightailed it out of Gentry, Locke, Rakes and Moore, Brian Roland berating him all the way to the elevator, saying over and over that Joel couldn’t have done worse if he’d tried. Christy’s father had jumped to his feet when Joel went scurrying through the lobby and had threatened to kill him with his bare hands, had called Joel a child molester and a fraud. Joel was relieved to be finished with the deposition and away from the discord, felt as if he’d been belly-crawling through land mines and barbed wire and somehow made it through alive. Both wracked and gratified, he’d taken off his jacket and undone his shirt at the top button by the time he reached the bank. He signed his name twice, then he and a redheaded girl in a summer dress simultaneously inserted their keys to open the box. “I’m here to pick up some jewelry,” he told her. “I won’t be long.”

  “There’s no rush,” she said as she was leaving.

  “Thanks.” He took the bag of borrowed goods from his pocket, lingered by his safe-deposit box and waved at the redhead and flashed the bright sack as he exited the vault. The sun and heat ambushed him when he left the frigid marble lobby, caused him to breathe through his mouth and completely remove his tie, the late-summer air trapped on three sides by brick, concrete, glass and pavement, so stale and stagnant it seemed a molecule away from solidifying.

  He’d never noticed the pawnshop before, even though he’d passed by hundreds of times over the years. He hesitated as he walked to the entrance, surveying the huge display windows on each side of him to see what people had left behind, what they could do without if they were desperate, hopeful or in a predicament. There were several guitars and a solitary saxophone, a silver tea set, boom boxes and stereos, a man’s brown leather jacket and a row of wedding bands and engagement rings. One diamond was in the three-carat range, and for a moment Joel wondered about its journey, how something so beautiful had arrived at such an unimpressive fate. An electronic tone sounded when he opened the door, two bleats in different octaves, a shrill, inhospitable greeting that warned the store someone was entering.

  The man behind the counter was in his fifties, neatly dressed, wearing several rings and a chunky gold bracelet. He was short and compact, had on a knit shirt and smelled like cologne and strong soap when Joel got close to him.

  “Can I help you?” he said pleasantly.

  “I hope so. How are you today?”

  “Fine, thanks. Just fine.”

  “Seems like a lot of musical folks wind up pawning things,” Joel said.

  “It’s a tough way to make a living, even if you’re good at it. Lot of drinking and drugs, too.” The man glanced at the window. “You interested in an instrument? I got plenty more.”

  “No. My name’s Joel King. Nice to meet you.” They shook hands, and Joel felt the underside of the man’s gold ring. “I’m actually looking to raise a little cash myself.”

  “Okay. I’m Rodger Adams, but people call me Doc.”

  “I have some jewelry I need to, uh, get a loan on. To pledge.”

  “I’ll be glad to consider it, but I ain’t moving much jewelry these days. I’ll tell you what I can pay, and if we can do business, great. If not, I don’t mean to offend you by what I offer. You might do better to try advertising in the newspaper.”

  “Sure. I understand.” Joel was reaching into his pocket as he spoke. The store was cool; he could hear an air conditioner running, and the chilled air dried the moisture on his face and hands, left his skin feeling dirty and salted. He removed the bag of jewelry and handed it to the man without opening it. “Take a look and tell me what you think.”

  Doc set the bag on the counter, produced a black velvet pad and a jeweler’s loupe, switched on a small lamp, emptied the contents into a pile and began inspecting the pieces one by one, occasionally picking up a bracelet or ring and holding it in front of his face. He squinted with his uncovered eye and spent a long time studying two of the pieces, moved them closer and turned them over and then held them between himself and the store-front windows to get a different light. “Where’d you come by all this?” He kept working on the jewelry, made a point of not looking at Joel when he spoke.

  “My mother. It belonged to her, and she gave it to me.”

  “You
r mother, huh?” His voice was a studied blend of interest and suspicion. “You from around here?”

  “Used to be. We lived here for years.”

  “Where’d you live at?” He was touching some of the stones with the thin wire tip of a device he’d taken from a drawer and connected to an electrical outlet. Every time the tip made contact with a jewel, a green light came on and a buzzing vibration went up the gizmo’s black handle.

  “I was the pastor at Roanoke First Baptist. I’m living in Montana now. What’re you doing to the jewelry? That won’t scratch something, will it?”

  “It’s a diamond tester. Perfectly safe.” Doc folded his loupe inside itself, quit his tests and inspections. “You the fellow they run off about a year ago?”

  “Yep. I’m the guy.” Joel flickered a grin and fingered his collar, even though he’d already unbuttoned it.

  “My sister goes to church there. You know Shelly Ayers?”

  “Why sure. Certainly. She was in charge of our missionary offerings and coordinated our Wednesday night church suppers. A fine lady. I thought the world of her. Phillip is her husband, right? He occasionally came to our services and seemed like a solid fellow as well.”

  “He’s a bastard and a scumbag, but that’s another story.”

  “Oh.”

  “My sister says you got a bum deal,” Doc remarked.

  “She was very kind to me, very supportive.”

  “Read in the paper where you’d been found guilty, though. Sexing some teenager, as I recall.”

  “I pled guilty to contributing to the delinquency of a minor. It seemed the wisest choice at the time, and saved the church a lot of grief and anguish.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s one way to look at it. If it ain’t dope or liquor, it’s a man or a woman chasing after relations behind nearly every pawn I got in the shop.”

  “Huh.”

  “Yep,” Doc said.

  Two kids with sideburns and skateboards came through the door, the two-tone signal sounding for each boy.

  “How much for the black Les Paul?” one of them asked.

  “Gotta get six hundred,” Doc said.

  “You didn’t pay no six hundred,” the boy answered.