Beowulf for Cretins

by Ann McMan

  Activist and outspoken LGBT rights advocate Mary Lawrence was a former member of the Congregation of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, who taught for many years at a parochial high school in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. She left the Catholic Church in 2007 to become a . . .

  Grace lurched forward and set her table rocking, spilling about half of her six-dollar siphon of coffee.

  “Shit!” She leapt to her feet before the spreading sea of liquid could run off the table and stain her only remaining white shirt. The entire tabletop and her newspaper were completely soaked.

  What the hell? Sister Merry Larry? No longer a nun? And she’s appearing in Burlington . . . tomorrow?

  It was impossible.

  One of the skinny baristas rushed over with a wad of towels.

  “I’m sorry,” Grace apologized. “I’m just clumsy.”

  “No sweat.” The young woman proceeded to wipe up Grace’s mess. “Do you want another coffee?” She asked.

  “No. I’m fine. Thanks. I think I’ve done enough damage for one day.”

  “Do you wanna keep this?” The barista indicated Grace’s soggy newspaper.

  “No. I think I’ll give this one a Christian burial.”

  “I’ll take care of it.” The barista carefully folded up the pages, wiped the tabletop beneath them, and walked off toward a big trashcan beside the counter.

  Well shit fire. Grace collected her messenger bag and made her way to the door. On her way out, she stopped by the register and dropped a couple of bucks into the tip jar.

  She’d make sure to snag another copy of the newspaper from a rack on the corner.

  # # #

  Sister Merry Larry was now an outspoken LGBT activist?

  What the fuck? Was there some new world order that conspired to put everything in Grace’s orbit on perpetual tilt?

  She still couldn’t believe it. She had to talk with someone about this—someone who would appreciate what an incredible, completely unlikely turn of events this was.

  She reached for her phone.

  Dean answered on the first ring.

  “What?”

  He sounded pissed.

  “Gee, bro. Nice greeting.”

  “Grace? I thought you were Frank, from the store in Vergennes. He’s trying to assemble a gas grill and he’s called me five times in the last half hour. Stupid fuck couldn’t find his ass with two hands and a GPS.”

  “First-world problems,” she said.

  “What’s up?”

  “Did you happen to read the Burlington paper this morning?”

  “Hell no. I don’t read the paper.”

  That much was true. Dean got all his news from Trump TV.

  “There’s an article I think you’ll find interesting,” she explained. “A profile of three women who are the speakers at a #MeToo rally tomorrow in Burlington.”

  “Why would I give a shit about that? If you ask me, those bitches are all out for a fast buck and fifteen minutes of fame.”

  And CK was hitting this on a regular basis? Seriously?

  Grace sighed. “Well you might want to expand your consciousness a tiny bit. One of the women is Sister Merry Larry.”

  “They let nuns do that shit?”

  “Work with me, Dean. For starters, they don’t ‘let’ any women participate—it’s voluntary. And the point here is that Merry Larry is no longer a nun. She’s left the Church.”

  “No shit?” He sounded surprised. “What happened?”

  “I honestly don’t know. In her case, the article doesn’t cite any particular kind of incident. But get this—she’s now a leading LGBT advocate.”

  “No shit? She’s a dyke?”

  Grace no longer bothered to try and raise her brother’s level of consciousness. It was a lost cause.

  “Maybe. She could just be a sympathizer.”

  He laughed. “I doubt it.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Come on, Grace. Why do you think she was always hanging around the girls’ locker room?”

  “Because she was the gym teacher?”

  “Exactly. And she probably got her rocks off watching you all shake your wet booties in the shower.”

  “You’re really a pig, Dean.”

  “Hey, ask her if I’m wrong.”

  “What do you mean, ask her?”

  “What do you think I mean? You’re going to see her tomorrow, right?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it.”

  “Bullshit,” he scoffed. “You’ll be there—in the front row, wearing your Argents t-shirt.”

  Was she going? Maybe she would like to see Merry Larry—and hear her story about whatever happened.

  “I might go,” she said.

  “Take CK. She gets off on that feminist crap.” He chuckled. “She gets off on just about everything.”

  “I’m hanging up now, Dean. Thanks for fixing the yard.”

  “Later alligator. Lemme know how it goes.” He disconnected.

  # # #

  Grace decided not to ask CK to go with her to the rally. For one thing, if she did get the chance to meet with Merry Larry, she wanted to do it in private—without being subject to CK’s discriminating eye and penchant for sardonic observation.

  Besides, nothing said she’d be able to summon enough gumption to approach Merry Larry after the event, and she wanted to have the latitude to lay a patch getting out of there if she chickened out.

  The crowd at City Hall Park was impressive. Grace hadn’t seen so many women in one place since some renegade student health advocates at the Vandy wellness center celebrated the anniversary of Roe v. Wade by passing out free condoms. The wide array of women crowding into the park had to number several hundred. She hadn’t gotten there early enough to nail a seat in front of the stage, but she managed to stake out a spot on the fountain, which gave her a slightly better vantage point.

  She recognized Merry Larry right away—even without her habit. There was just something so familiar about her bearing and her gait as she took the stage—nobody else walked with that much authority. She was as tall as Grace remembered, too—topping the other women on the platform by several inches. She looked older, of course—but, then, so did Grace.

  She wondered if Merry Larry would remember her—and would recognize her if she did. Maybe Dean was right and she should’ve worn an Argents jersey. God knew, she had enough of them stuffed into a box on the floor of her closet.

  The speeches were about to begin. Grace made herself as comfortable as possible and strained to see over the sea of pink pussy hats. She checked her watch. It was nearly two. The rally was only scheduled to last for ninety minutes, so she should be comfortably back in St. Albans by five-thirty or six . . .

  Two earsplitting hours later, she found herself pushing her way through the dispersing crowd to head toward the stage. She had no idea if any of the speakers were hanging around, or whether they’d already departed for the buses headed to the next rally, which she heard was taking place at Middlebury College later that evening. She didn’t see Merry Larry or either of the other speakers when she finally made it to the platform, which organizers were already starting to tear down.

  “Hi there,” she addressed a buxom young woman in a tie-dyed tank top who was busy wrapping audio cable. “Do you know if any of the keynote speakers are still around?”

  The woman cast about before answering. “If they are, they’d be over there.” She pointed to an area full of vehicles. “Where they hold the farmer’s market. That’s where the buses are.”

  “Thanks.” Grace started walking in that direction and was startled to realize that Merry Larry was walking just ahead of her. She hurried to catch up with her.

  “Excuse me,” she said when she drew abreast of her. “I hate to bother you, but I knew you back in Pennsylvania.”

  Merry Larry stopped and eyed Grace with curiosity. Her eyes crinkled. “Well, I’ll be damned. Grace Warner. How the hell are you?”


  Merry Larry wrapped Grace up in a bear hug. Grace was surprised, but gratified by the response.

  “I’m okay,” Grace said when Merry Larry finally released her. “I saw your name in the newspaper yesterday and I was intrigued—so I came out today to see you. You gave a stirring speech,” she added.

  “Intrigued?” Merry Larry smiled. “I just bet you were intrigued. Did you think I got kicked out?”

  “Well, no . . . not really. Although I called my brother Dean to tell him about you and that was his first thought.”

  “I just bet it was.” Merry Larry laughed. “Tell me, did that boy end up in prison?”

  It was Grace’s turn to smile. “Not yet.”

  “Damn. Well it looks like I took that one in the shorts. Sister Monica gave me four to one odds.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t tell her?” Grace suggested.

  “Maybe I won’t.” Merry Larry was giving Grace a good once-over. “How are you Grace? Has life turned out the way you hoped it would?”

  “Not yet,” Grace repeated. “But hope springs eternal.” She quoted one of Merry Larry’s favorite aphorisms.

  “Hope schmope.” Merry Larry waved a hand. “I gave all that bullshit up for Lent. You want a certain outcome?” She bent closer to Grace. “You get off your ass and make it happen. There’s no higher power that’s going to step in at the eleventh hour and arrange everything for you. The universe just doesn’t work that way, kiddo.”

  “You don’t believe in God anymore?”

  “I still believe in god, Grace—but god with a little g.”

  Grace was nonplussed. “But all the things you taught us . . .”

  “I thought of it as a calling, but it was a job, Grace. Pure and simple. Something I signed on to do before I was even old enough to understand what it all meant. And I did it well—at least, as well as I could as a know-nothing recruit in The Lord’s Army. And all of us who went through that novitiate together? We were like lambs being led to the slaughter. Night after night, I’d lie on my hard, little cot in that big, cold room at the convent—shivering with fear and shaking with longing for the girl on the cot beside me. When I dreamed, I didn’t dream about glorifying the blessed Virgin who became the mother of Christ—I dreamed about all the carnal ways I could glorify the blessed virgin who lay awake next to me, keeping her own silent vigil. Finally, I met someone who could no longer be consigned to the realm of dreams. And everything about my life changed—beginning with my vocation.”

  “So, you fell in love?” Grace asked.

  “I did. With myself.” Merry Larry chuckled. “Of course, getting my first bit of snatch was a fast second.”

  Grace’s head was reeling. Merry Larry thought everything she’d done—everything she’d said—was a lie? None of it was true? None of it had meaning for her? All of it was a ruse—a mistake? A long trip down a spiritual rabbit hole that led to nothing?

  “I don’t know what to say.” Grace looked at her with wonder. “I’m speechless.”

  Merry Larry placed a bony hand on Grace’s shoulder. It was dotted with age spots. “You’ve always had a good voice, Grace. You were just never brave enough to trust it. Don’t listen to the ones that keep you pinned down or lead you astray.”

  Grace didn’t know how to tell Merry Larry that the voice she heard most often was hers.

  “I’m confused.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that. Hell. Anyone who isn’t confused isn’t paying attention.”

  “I guess so.” Grace wasn’t sure what she had expected from this conversation, but this wasn’t it.

  “Tell me something, Grace.” Merry Larry was still holding onto her shoulder. “What have you done with your one life? What profession have you landed in?”

  “I teach English literature. Here in Vermont, at St. Albans College.”

  “Nicely done.” Merry Larry looked pleased. “And are you in love?”

  “Well . . .” Grace blushed.

  “So, that’s a yes.”

  “It’s a yes,” Grace agreed. “But it’s complicated.”

  “So?”

  “So?” Grace repeated.

  “Sooooo,” Merry Larry drew the word out. “Go and un-complicate it. Neither of us is getting any younger.”

  Grace looked at her with confusion. “It’s not that easy.”

  “Oh, horse hockey. The act of un-complicating things is very easy. And once you get the hang of it, you’ll know the truth. And remember,” she laid her warm palm against Grace’s face, “the truth shall make you free.” She smiled. “Go and teach all nations.”

  The woman who was and wasn’t Merry Larry walked off to join her fellow advocates at the bus that would carry them on to their next rally.

  Grace watched her go in silence. She felt like a volley of cannons had just discharged inside her head—initiating a sequence of aftershocks that threatened to lay waste to their phalanx of scriptural counterparts.

  “Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold . . .”

  Grace shook her head with wonder.

  Yeats must’ve been writing about Sister Merry Larry . . .

  # # #

  Grace made sure that she’d never again get caught without decent booze in the house—especially since she was cycling through so many occasions lately that called for it.

  Like tonight.

  So, she’d made a trip to the Beverage Mart on Saturday to load up on what she considered to be her staples: Smuggler’s Notch vodka, Rémy Martin cognac, Jameson Irish whisky, and wine. Lots of wine.

  She made it home from the #MeToo rally by shortly after six. She had no plans for the evening other than grading papers and trying, with any gray matter she had to spare, to process the collateral damage from every hand grenade Merry Larry had summarily lobbed into the middle of her wounded psyche.

  She fed Grendel and fixed herself a big fruit salad topped with toasted almonds and goat cheese.

  Tomorrow was going to be a long day—and a tough one. Abbie’s inauguration was slated to begin at 10 a.m. That meant Grace and the rest of the faculty had to be robed up and on-site no later than nine-fifteen, so they could process in and be seated behind the board of trustees before the president-elect entered, accompanied by the roster of luminaries who would make up the platform party.

  The board had assembled quite a list. Joining Abbie on the stage would be the Lieutenant Governor of Vermont, the Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Vermont, the Chairman of the St. Albans Board of Trustees, and the President of the St. Albans Alumni Association. There would also be remarks by the President of the Student Government Association. When it was all said and done, Abbie would be sworn in as the fifteenth president of the college, and a new era would begin for St. Albans, for her, and for Grace.

  It was a lot to take in—and even though she felt as though she’d been preparing for it for weeks, she still didn’t feel equal to the task.

  She tried to read papers from her four sections of English 101, but it became clear in short order that she didn’t have the stamina or focus to do them justice. She decided that she’d set them aside and pick up her GAN. A lack of focus had never presented too much of an obstacle to working on that. Besides, it wasn’t as if anyone else would ever get the chance to actually read it.

  Grace was anal retentive when it came to writing. One of her idiosyncrasies was a determination to fully review whatever she’d written last before she moved forward with any new content. She believed it made her a cleaner and more careful writer, and however much it slowed the overall process down, she was convinced it would result in a better final product. That being the case, she started this evening by poring over the handwritten pages she’d crafted on Sunday at Butler Island. She hadn’t yet made time to type them into her MS Word file. Since she was reading handwritten copy, she didn’t bother to boot up her computer—she simply carried the loose-leaf pages, along with a printout of the entire manuscript, to her screened porch. She was going ov
er her newest addition with a toothcomb, questioning every word choice and nuance and thinking seriously about carrying the pages outside and burying them in one of the remaining holes of Grendel’s that Dean’s men hadn’t filled yet.

  Something in the new copy caught her eye. It didn’t seem quite right, and she wasn’t exactly certain why. She thought it had something to do with how the saga began—before Ochre was stolen from the museum in Arizona. Normally, she would simply type a keyword into the search window in her Word document. But since she was sitting on the porch, with Grendel asleep on her feet, she decided to ferret out the inconsistency the old-fashioned way, and search the hardcopy manuscript.

  Grace actually liked thumbing through the book this way. Handling the printed sheets of paper was almost cathartic for her. It made the book feel real in a way that scrolling through the pages on a computer screen didn’t. She knew it was the worst kind of brazen arrogance to be impressed by how heavy the full document was—by how tidy and regular the prose looked when the pages were all stacked up together in their perfectly sized box.

  She wondered if Abbie had ever felt this way when she was working on either of her two published works.

  Scratch that. Thinking about Abbie was a sure way to guarantee that she wouldn’t make progress on this enterprise, either.

  She dug out the first quarter of her printout to begin looking for clues to determine whether her newest prose conformed well enough to the original story. It didn’t take her long to realize that something was wrong with the manuscript. Badly wrong. Grace checked the box multiple times. It didn’t make any sense. There were pages missing. The first fifty were MIA—and another twenty-seven were missing from chapter four.

  She sat back in her chair and tried to puzzle it out. Had she lent the printout to anyone?

  No. No one was reading Ochre besides her. Well . . . and CK. And, of course, Abbie had read a lot of it on Sunday morning before Grace got up and joined her outside. There’d be no reason or opportunity for either of them to take sections of the book.