Assault with Intent

by William X. Kienzle

  “Don’t they have a psychiatrist with them?” asked O’Dowd. “Perhaps he can shed some light on the matter.”

  “A forensic psychiatrist? And Dr. Fritz Heinsohn to boot!” Gennardo snorted. “All he will derive from this is more publicity for himself and, perhaps some more pocket money.”

  “Now, don’t be too harsh on him, Tony.” O’Dowd slid a morsel of tuna salad onto his fork. “He’s a man, has to earn his living. And he is skilled in what he does.”

  “The best thing you can say for psychotherapy is that it is an infant science,” pronounced Budreau.

  Gennardo snorted and laughed.

  “Has it occurred to you gentlemen,” said O’Dowd, “that we have discussed this series of crimes, which the filmmakers chose to call ‘Assault with Intent,’ many, many times and have come up with no constructive ideas that could lead to a solution? We have fine, trained minds. On top of which—and this we can overlook only at our own peril—each of us is a possible target of this madman.

  “Thus, in addition to the Christian charity of trying to help solve these crimes for the benefit of the community, we have a personal stake in their solution. Can we arrive at nothing more positive than the ridicule of a professional man trained in the field of psychotherapy?”

  “We don’t have the answer,” Budreau observed. “The police don’t have the answer. What more can we do?”

  Father Dye stirred his coffee. “We can be very, very careful.”

  It was an accident. It could have happened to anyone.

  The First Man, while walking by the goldfish pool, accidentally kicked the film containers. The top container fell into the pool. By now, he was more than familiar with the summary justice meted out by the honchos of this film company. He looked about. No one appeared to have seen what he had done. Casually, he scooped the container out of the pool, brushed the water off against his trousers, and placed the container back atop the pile. He then went about his business.

  Father Koesler entered the inner courtyard. He had hastened here after teaching his class in communications at Sacred Heart. He never ceased to be amazed at how many people were apparently required just to make a movie. Men and women, technicians and staff were crawling about the set like an army of ants. He located Mary Murphy. Ah, he thought, the sane one. He moved to her side.

  “What’s going on today?”

  “Oh, Father,” she smiled, “we’re doing a spot where Dr. Heinsohn makes a plea for the assailant to give himself up.”

  Koesler massaged his ear. “Does that make sense? What if the police have caught him in real life before this film is released?”

  “Then we don’t use this spot. It was the only way Bruce could get the doctor to collaborate on the film. You and I, as Detroiters, know this will not be the first time the good doctor has made a melodramatic appeal for a criminal to surrender to him. This will just be the first time he has done it in a movie.”

  “Do you think any disturbed person will ever take the doctor up on his offer?”

  Both laughed.

  It was an accident. It could have happened to anyone.

  The Second Man was dusting the props to be used in the upcoming scene. The props consisted merely of a chair and a desk, on which was a pitcher of water and an empty glass. After he finished dusting the chair, he wondered, not for the first time, what it might be like to be in a movie, facing a camera, waiting for the director’s signal to begin action. Impulsively, he sat in the chair. Hard. There was a sharp cracking noise that was lost in the hubbub on the set. The velocity with which he had dropped into the chair, together with his persistent weight problem, had broken it. He did not know what part, but he knew it was broken. Well, at least it had not collapsed. He looked about quickly. No one appeared to have seen him. He carefully rose and placed the chair exactly where the prop man had placed it, and went on about his business.

  “How are you feeling, Doctor baby?” Sol Gould addressed Dr. Heinsohn, who was having makeup applied.

  “Fine! Just fine!” Heinsohn looked carefully into the mirror. He was paying close attention to the ministrations of the makeup person. He did not want her to get powder on his crushed velvet jacket. Nor would he allow her to touch his hair, which had been shaped by his hairstylist just this morning.

  “Look, sweetheart, they tell me you’re going to wing it without a script.”

  “That’s right.” The doctor oozed self-confidence.

  “Look, sweetheart, it will be no sweat to have my people work up a set of cue cards for you.”

  “No, no.” Heinsohn laughed self-confidently. “You don’t understand. I have been on radio and television hundreds of times. I assure you, I am not camera-shy. I don’t need any artificial support.”

  “Whatever you say, sweetheart.” Gould shook his head. He had a premonition there would be a lot of wasted time this day.

  It was an accident. It could have happened to anyone.

  The Third Man happened to be passing by the large bank of lights. Not only did he accidentally kick the plug out of the wall socket, he stepped on the plug and crushed it. He looked around. As far as he could tell, no one had seen him do it. With his toe, he nudged the crushed plug close to the wall. He hoped no one would notice the plug was no longer in its socket. At least until he was out of range. He went on about his business.

  The only person who seemed to have nothing to do was Herman Deutsch. Father Koesler noticed Deutsch seated in his canvas director’s chair. He seemed even smaller than he had the previous time Koesler had seen him. His arms tightly hugged his chest; his head hung down. He appeared ready to roll up in a little ball and blow away.

  “What is it with Mr. Deutsch?” Koesler asked. “He doesn’t seem to be taking a very active interest in what’s going on.”

  “Oh,” Mary replied, “he spends most of the evenings writing. But while he writes he drinks. Then Bruce shows the script to Dr. Heinsohn, who always seems to have objections and suggestions. So, Herm has to rewrite. And when Herm rewrites, he drinks even more. It doesn’t leave much of him for the daylight hours. But Sol has been stepping in pretty well.”

  “All right, quiet on the set!” Sol Gould’s megaphone broke through the hubbub.

  Deutsch seemed to shrivel even more.

  Cameramen and lighting crew readied their gear; others settled back against the wall out of camera line.

  “All right!” Gould yelled, “Doc, baby! You all set?”

  Heinsohn, seated on the desk, one foot touching the floor, the other leg hanging over the front of the desk, nodded self-confidently.

  “All right, let’s have the lights!”

  Nothing happened.

  “All right, I said. Lights!”

  “I can’t, Mr. Gould,” said a tremulous voice. “The plug is crushed.”

  “Fire that man!”

  “But—”

  “Fire that man and get the electrician to fix that plug!”

  The hubbub resumed though no one moved but the freshly dismissed technician and the electrician. Koesler glanced at Bruce Lauther. He seemed to be mentally computing the cost of this delay.

  The electrician completed his repairs and moved away from the wall. He was replaced by a grinning technician from the local contingent.

  “All right, you ready, Doc baby?”

  “Quiet on the set! Let’s have the lights!”

  The set was bathed in powerful light, which did not appear to bother Heinsohn, who gazed into the camera with an expression of self-confident concern.

  A man with a flipboard appeared in front of Heinsohn. “‘Assault with Intent’ Epilogue. Take One.” The sticks clacked.

  “And action!”

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” said Heinsohn, “you have just viewed a drama of violence. To the layman, this violence would appear to be senseless, but to the forensic psychiatrist, no violence is senseless. There is meaning, sometimes subtle meaning, behind all human actions. Now, I am going to address myself to this
man—”

  “Wait a minute!”

  “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” Gould shouted.

  “Something’s wrong with this film,” said the cameraman. “Something’s wrong!” He opened the camera and began feeling inside. “It’s wet! The film is soaking wet!”

  “Fire the loader!”

  “But it wasn’t—“

  “Fire the loader and get another can of film in here!

  “And this time, check and make sure it’s not goddamn wet!”

  There was a babble of subdued conversation while the freshly fired loader retreated in disgrace. Lauther tallied the loss with a mounting sense of panic.

  “Quiet on the set! Lights!”

  “‘Assault with Intent’ Epilogue. Take Two!”

  “And action!”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, you have just viewed a drama of violence. To the layman, this violence would appear to be senseless, but to the forensic psychiatrist, no violence is senseless. There is meaning, sometimes subtle meaning, behind all human actions. Now, I am going to address myself to the man who is responsible for all this violence ….”

  Heinsohn rose from the desk, walked nonchalantly behind it and sat down.

  “To that man, I want to say—”

  With a drawn-out crunching sound, the chair collapsed. Heinsohn’s feet shot up and he sprawled backward and downward.

  “Cut! Oh, shit! Cut, goddammit, cut!”

  The overhead lights went on.

  “Someone see if the Doc is alive! Fire the prop man!”

  Gould hurried onto the set as a couple of men picked up Heinsohn and began brushing off his clothing.

  “You all right, Doc?”

  Heinsohn looked decidedly shaken, but nodded nonetheless. Much of his self-confidence clearly was dissipated.

  Gould started to return to his position.

  “Oh, Mr. Gould,” said Heinsohn, “if it’s not too much trouble ... if it’s not too late, could we have those cue cards made up?”

  “Sure thing, sweetheart.”

  As Father Koesler prepared to leave the scene, he wondered absently whether this filming might set a record for takes. He wondered if anyone kept statistics on such matters.

  “Now, you see, at the beginning of this school year, I told you ascetical theology wouldn’t bite you if you gave it a try. And I think our experience last weekend was a good indication that we’ve learned that ascetics can be both good and useful.”

  Father O’Dowd addressed his ascetical theology class in the smallest classroom in St. Joseph’s Seminary. Perennially, only a handful of students elected to study ascetics. If it were not for O’Dowd’s reputation for erudition, kindness, and genuine interest in his students, there probably would be so few signing up that the course would have to be dropped.

  They had studied the spirituality of the Church, especially in its Western tradition, with heavy emphasis on its contemplative tradition.

  It was O’Dowd’s aim to demonstrate to his class that a contemplative approach to life was possible and desirable even in this day and age. Pursuant to that aim, the class had been encouraged to progressively write its own version of the ancient rule of life of St. Benedict. The previous weekend all had lived this rule at a nearby collaborating monastery. Now, each student was attempting to evaluate and put in perspective what he or she had learned from that experience.

  “Let’s begin,” said O’Dowd, “with work. After all, that’s 50 percent of Benedict’s initial maxim, Ora et Labora: Prayer and Work. Did any of you experience any new attitudes toward work over the weekend?”

  “Yes?” He acknowledged a volunteer. “Eileen.”

  “Well, I surprised myself with how my attitude toward work changed in so short a time.”

  “Tell us about it.”

  “Well, when I got kitchen duty when we were dividing up the chores, I must confess, I was more than a little ticked off. You know, the stereotype of ‘women’s work.’”

  “Hey, wait a minute,” another student interrupted, “we didn’t assign jobs. We chose lots.”

  “I know. But it seemed as if fate were arranging things in a sexist way. Anyway, I started with the all-American kind of resolve to see how efficiently I could organize the kitchen. You know, build a better assembly line....

  “But gradually, a funny thing happened. I guess the slower pace of the weekend reached me. There was no hurry. No rush to get things done. So why hurry and try to find the fastest way to prepare food or clean dishes?

  “And then I found that I enjoyed seeing the colors and feeling the texture of the raw vegetables and smelling the aromas and odors of the food.

  “Now, since we’ve returned to the real world, I haven’t wanted to use any of the automatic gadgets we have in our kitchen. Mother can’t get over it.”

  The students were smiling. All had had similar experiences.

  Father O’Dowd thought once again what a waste it was that the Church refused to ordain women. Eileen Schaaf wanted very much to be a priest. But she was not likely to become one. Not in the few years left in his life. Nor even in her lifetime.

  “Would anyone else care to share an experience regarding work on the weekend?”

  No other volunteers.

  “Very well. How about prayer? The other half of Ora et Labora. Yes, Richard?”

  “It was kind of funny. All my life, I just—prayed.” The young man seemed embarrassed in this testimony. “But by Sunday, something happened. Maybe it was like what Eileen was saying: There was no hurry, no rush. There was no reason to speed through Hail Marys or Our Fathers or Acts of Contrition or anything.

  “And the quiet—God, it was quiet!”

  Appreciative laughter.

  “In the beginning, on Friday, I thought the quiet would drive me bananas. But then I got used to it. Then it happened: on Sunday, I was out early, walking by myself in the woods, and all of a sudden, I can’t quite explain it, but I felt as if I were part of the forest. As if there were some common bond between me and the forest and all living things—all of creation.”

  Silence as others recalled similar epiphanies.

  “Yes,” O’Dowd acknowledged another volunteer, “Raphael?”

  Ordinarily, Doody volunteered for nothing. He philosophized that sufficient unto the day was the evil of being called on, which, when it happened, regularly was disaster. If he ever felt any dram of self-confidence, it was in O’Dowd’s class. The elderly priest always treated Doody kindly and with a measure of respect that the young man received from no one else. At least from no one who knew him well.

  “While we were out there,” Doody began haltingly, “I felt …” he searched for a word, “as if we were together.”

  “You felt a sense of community.” O’Dowd supplied the term that had eluded Doody. “But you said it better, Raphael. Just tell us about your feeling in your own words.”

  “Well, when we’re in school, say somebody is absent because they are sick.” O’Dowd nodded encouragingly; he did not correct Doody’s grammar. “And you just take it for granted that they are not well. You don’t think about them after you are aware that they are absent.

  “But when we were out there, if someone was absent or late, I felt a real loss. Like part of me was missing. I never felt that way before we went out to the monastery.”

  “Very good, Raphael,” O’Dowd commended. “You have discovered one of the essentials of the contemplative life: the sense of mutual dependence. Now you can better understand and appreciate that familiar quotation from John Donne: ‘Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.’”

  O’Dowd was particularly pleased that Doody had survived any number of attempts to dismiss him from die seminary. The law of supply and demand was in his favor, of course, to a degree no one could have anticipated. And to a degree no one could remember. The religious vocation shortage was reaching epic proportions and
there was no solution in sight.

  But quite apart from the dearth of priests, which contributed mightily to the survival of seminarians such as Doody, with O’Dowd the situation was a matter of principle. Having been intimately involved in the education of seminarians for what was now the majority of his life, he was most lastingly impressed with the caliber of man Jesus Himself chose as His first priests. Very ordinary people: one outcast, one traitor, one prone to doubt; all prone to error, misunderstanding, and failure. Hardly the cream of the crop. Yet somehow this ragtag group had, against overwhelming odds, gotten the Christian religion off the ground and firmly established.

  O’Dowd had always believed there was a productive place in the priesthood for people such as Raphael Doody. Only very recently had circumstances offered an opportunity to prove his thesis that the Doodys of this life could be of fruitful service to mankind.

  O’Dowd’s thoughts flowed to his dear friend, Father George Dye, presently teaching a course in liturgical prayer planning in a neighboring classroom. From time to time, laughter could be heard from Dye’s class.

  At one time Dye had been a brilliant anthropologist. But with advancing age came the stirrings of senility. And with that, Dye had become the butt of many a barb. Nevertheless, O’Dowd recognized and respected Dye’s deep spiritual life as well as his steady humility. Dye was not so senile that he was unaware that some people—especially younger ones—tried to make him play the fool. But he accepted all biting remarks and insults in a seemingly unlimited spirit of humility. To O’Dowd, Dye, in his present state, was a further argument that those whom the world tended to discard could be effective servants of God and man.

  Besides, every once in a while, old George could fool you.

  The bell rang. O’Dowd departed immediately for the refectory where the kitchen staff had prepared his afternoon snack. He would sip his tea and munch his biscuits alone, as was his custom.

  “For God’s holy Church: that the holy Pope of God may continue to be infallible, let us pray to the Lord.” The student looked up from his paper and glanced at his classmates, who returned his gaze with a combination of mild bemusement and disbelief.