Assault with Intent

by William X. Kienzle

  “For the nations of the Third World: that they may climb a notch or two and not be so dependent, let us pray to the Lord.”

  Someone snorted with barely controlled laughter.

  “For the Church hierarchy in this country: that the bishops will have a successful meeting in Chicago and all find their way back home, let us pray to the Lord.”

  Somebody laughed aloud. This seemed to disconcert the reader slightly. But he plowed bravely on.

  “For our Archbishop, Mark Boyle: that he will enjoy good health and not have to move from his mansion in Palmer Park, let us pray to the Lord.”

  Several of his classmates were snickering. Father Dye, leaning back in his chair behind his desk, contemplated the ceiling.

  “For the young people of our parish: that they may make out all right at the Youth Club dance, let us pray to the Lord.”

  His classmates whooped at the double entendre.

  “Young man,” Father Dye interrupted, “just what was your purpose when you composed these ‘prayers of the faithful?”

  “To have a happy congregation.”

  Father Dye pushed his small, round body erect and observed his students, who were in varying states of helpless laughter. “It would appear you have achieved your goal.

  “Class! Class!” Dye slapped his pudgy hand against the desk. “Class! Come to order!”

  Gradually, they settled down.

  “You know, young man,” Dye knew no one’s name, “it is not necessary to attach all those clauses onto the prayer of the faithful. In the earliest forms of this prayer, the leader, the president of the assembly—the priest, if you will—would simply announce the intention, ‘for world peace,’ for example, and let the congregation form its own prayer. And I would strongly suggest, young man, that you adopt that form. It will be better for all concerned: those who are praying and those who are being prayed for.

  “Now,” Dye addressed the class, “I believe your assignment was to pick a topic and, following the liturgical formula, compose a suitable prayer for it.”

  Papers shuffled as the students located their assignment sheets.

  “Supposing we start with you, young man.” Dye nodded at the first student in the first row to the left. “And then we will continue with you, young lady,” he nodded at the second student in the row, “and so on.”

  “This is a prayer in time of war.”

  Dye shifted his mind into neutral.

  “Almighty and eternal God, our Father, give strength to the forces of good—us—and turn away from the forces of evil—them. Give us the quick victory that nuclear power deserves. This we ask through our gentle Jesus. Amen.”

  This August, thought Dye, I’ll be ninety. My God, that’s a ripe old age. If I’d known I was going to last this long, I’d have taken better care of myself. Who am I kidding? I have taken pretty good care of myself. An occasional cigar, a little wine with the meal, maybe a cocktail before dinner; regular medical checkups, and most of all, a father and mother who lived into their eighties and nineties respectively.

  “This is a prayer in time of great stress. O dear God, please hurry to help us. Take away all stressful things from our lives. Crush those who would inflict stress against us. Cover us with your protection and make everything come out all right. This we ask through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

  The thing you have to remember when you get to my age is not to give anyone a chance to put you on the shelf. Because if anyone gets a chance, he’ll do it. And then you are out of sight and definitely out of mind. No family. Few friends. Chaplain in some nursing home until you drop. And judging from what’s happened to my cronies, it isn’t very long between being put on the shelf and being main attraction at a Mass of Resurrection. Something must go out of a man after he’s shunted aside. I hope I never have to experience that.

  “This is a prayer in time of drought. O almighty and eternal God, who maketh the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike, why are you not making it rain on anybody? Shake down thy heavens and make it pour down so that we may have water for swimming, washing, sprinkling, bathing, and drinking. We ask you this through Christ, our Lord, and through our parched lips. Amen.”

  I wonder if these young people are trying to pull my leg or if they are serious about these silly prayers? It doesn’t much matter. They won’t have been the first to pull the old man’s leg. If they are serious, the saving grace is that they are young and have a lot of maturing to do. I’ve never understood why my confreres could get so upset over ineffective students. Efficacy may lie just over the hill for them in the maturation that a developing adulthood can bring. Besides, I agree with Charlie O’Dowd: look what Christ started with. In the beginning, the Apostles probably couldn’t pray any better than these youngsters.

  “I have a prayer in time of flood. Almighty and merciful Lord, please overlook the previous prayer and shut up thy heavens before we all drown. Thou knowest we needed rain. But this is enough already. If you will but hear our prayer today, we solemnly promise we won’t ask you to muck about with the weather again. This we ask through Christ, our Lord. Amen.”

  The bell rang, mercifully ending class.

  “Remember,” Dye called out as the students prepared to leave his class, “to listen to your NCR cassettes of Father Benedict Groeschel. Next class we will try to integrate pastoral psychology with liturgical prayer.”

  We might as well, thought Dye, try to flap our arms and fly.

  As he did every day but Sunday, he headed down to the crypt chapel for private prayer. The crypts were no longer used. When there had been many more priests on the faculty and before private Masses were set aside in favor of concelebrated community Masses, the crypts had been busy with priests whispering the ancient Latin liturgy. Now, scarcely anyone else visited them.

  That was precisely why George Dye favored the crypts. He could pray uninterruptedly. He could be alone with his God.

  He called it his aerie. And it was like an eagle’s nest.

  The suite was located in the center of the seminary atop the central inner courtyard. This towerlike structure was several stories taller than the surrounding seminary wings. By moving from window to window, Father Lyr Feeny, rector of St. Joseph’s, could see into all the windows on the inner side of the wings. He was aided in this sneakpeep enterprise by a pair of very powerful field glasses.

  Periodically, Feeny felt constrained to justify this clandestine surveillance. In the light of some days, the practice of spying on seminarians, other students, faculty, and staff seemed sophomoric. But, after some rationalization, he always arrived at the ultimate justification: It was he, Lyr Feeny, against everyone else.

  With few exceptions, everyone was trying to ease him out of his position as rector of Detroit’s major seminary. And, as his avid interest in professional football taught, the best defense is a good offense. What better defense than to know what was going on behind one’s back?

  Besides, times had changed. And with the times, the mores. Gone was the day when seminarians were open and daily confessed their violations of the rules. Good God, there were hardly any rules remaining! If one wanted—no, change that—if one’s position required an intimate knowledge of the students and their behavior, then, by God, a little covert surveillance was more than called for.

  He could not decide whether George Dye was asleep in his class again or merely daydreaming. He could see Dye leaning back in his chair, eyes closed, hands clasped over round tummy. Miraculously, his class appeared to be functioning normally. Dye’s classes had been known to dismiss themselves halfway through the period while Dye slumbered.

  From time to time, Feeny felt he should begin the process of putting Dye on the shelf. But that kind of move could start a chain reaction that might topple Feeny from his seminary position. No use roiling the water when he himself might end up going down the drain.

  Father Gennardo’s class seemed to be functioning in orderly fashion. Gennardo’s stock with the students ha
d risen markedly since the attack on his life. With all the media coverage, he had become somewhat of a hero to many students. Yet, it had been this attack that had finally attracted the film people. God, Feeny would be happy when they got out of here. Nothing but a disruption, and focusing much too much attention on his precariously held fiefdom.

  Feeny shifted his field glasses quickly from the window immediately above Gennardo’s classroom. He had seen enough to know that a nude woman was standing at that window, and Feeny still believed in the ancient discipline of custody of the eyes.

  Still, he had better be sure there was no seminarian in there with her. He moved the glasses back. No doubt about it, as Oscar Hammerstein had expressed it, there was nothing like a dame! But Feeny had put all this behind him long ago. She seemed to be alone. Probably just out of the shower. He would have to remind the students—and her particularly—to be more careful about window shades.

  He would shock her, he knew. He always did when something like this came up. The students wondered if he had a private pipeline to God. He seemed privy to their most secret thoughts and actions. And why should he destroy a good thing? It did not much matter to Feeny that the students might be more motivated by fear than by love. After all, “the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.”

  There was Raphael Doody flat on his back in bed. Feeny checked the schedule. Just as he suspected: Doody should be in class. In the good old days, a student such as Doody would have been expelled long before he reached his final seminary year.

  In the good old days, come to think of it, a female, clothed or unclothed, in any of the residence rooms, would have been unheard of. And if a seminarian had been with her—the Irish bull galloped unnoticed through Feeny’s ruminations—it would have been anyone’s guess which of them would have been pitched out the front door first.

  Doody, meanwhile, was the straw that snapped Feeny’s already threadbare patience. He would go to Doody’s room and roust him immediately. He knew Doody would, first, be amazed that Feeny knew about his illicit nap, and, second, feel that he was being singled out and picked on.

  But dammit, if Archbishop Boyle was going to ordain this silly young man in a few more months, Feeny would do his utmost to make sure Doody would not be napping his afternoons away while his pastor thought the parish census was being taken.

  And it wouldn’t hurt if Doody was left with the impression that Feeny, in some preternatural way, was able to see every goof-off, no matter how insignificant.

  Feeny checked his watch. After getting Doody back on the track, there would be just time for Feeny to go down for his daily workout. It was the only time during the day he could be sure of being alone in the exercise room.

  The First Man shifted slightly, thereby nudging the half sandwich off the ledge and into the pool.

  “I wonder if peanut butter is harmful to goldfish,” the Second Man said, in all seriousness.

  “What?” The First Man looked over his shoulder and saw the remaining half of his sandwich sink slowly to the bottom of the pool. “Damn! There goes nearly half my lunch.”

  “Here,” said the Second Man, “you can share mine.”

  “Thanks.” The First Man helped himself to a Hostess cupcake from the Second Man’s lunchbox.

  “As I was saying,” said the First Man, “how much longer is it going to be before you’re going to make your move?”

  “Not much longer,” said the Third Man as he removed the string from his lunchbag. He opened the bag and looked in. “Damn! I must’ve dropped my lunchbag in the wastebasket and brought the garbage with me.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have enough for all of us,” the Second Man said.

  “Oh, it’s all right. I think better on an empty stomach. Anyway, we’re getting close now.”

  “In a way, I find that sort of sad,” said the Second Man. “I kind of like this job. It’s fun being part of a real movie. I never thought I would ever be able to do anything like this.”

  “Well, don’t get too attached to it,” the Third Man warned. “Once we act, this movie will be finished. They couldn’t possibly continue over the body of a dead man.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” said the First Man. “The more I see of this bunch, the more I’m convinced they would stop at nothing to get something—anything—on network TV.”

  “It doesn’t really matter whether they continue. The important thing is that we are closer to actually completing part of our plan than we have ever been.”

  The First Man concurred. “This has been much better than Phase One.”

  “You mean because you’re not depending on me any longer.” The Second Man almost pouted.

  “It has nothing to do with that,” said the Third Man. “It’s just that since we have been able to get inside the building so easily, we’ve been able to have better surveillance. We’ve got our target now, and we know when he is alone.”

  “Then what are we waiting for?” the First Man complained.

  “The final part of our plan. How you two will best be able to cover for me. Once we fill in these details, we’ll be completely ready and we’ll act. I assure you, the time is near.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake!” The Second Man turned abruptly. During their lunch break, the three had been seated on the edge of the pool in the seminary’s inner courtyard. Unbeknownst to the Second Man, his shirttail had trailed into the pool. The water had saturated the cloth until it reached the small of his back. He was suddenly conscious that half his shirt was bedraggled.

  “Oh, wring it out,” said the Third Man, “it’s not as bad as bringing your garbage to lunch.”

  The set was closed to all but crew members. Sergeants Patrick and Morris were the only exceptions. Everyone else on hand was either a technician or actively involved with the filming.

  The camera and other equipment had been relocated to one of the seminary’s spacious and empty dormitories, where a set, consisting mostly of flats, was being constructed. When it was completed, they would have a facsimile of three walls and part of the ceiling of a poorly furnished room. A single metal bed, a small desk, and a straightback chair composed the entire furnishings. Technicians swarmed around the room, adjusting microphones and testing sound levels, experimenting with lighting, laying a track for the camera, or merely helping to complete construction.

  At one corner of the set, the Second Man was pounding nails into the side flat. His job was to attach the side to the rear flat. Many of the nails he was hammering through the side flat were not entering the rear flat. He didn’t worry about this. He was sure enough nails were entering both flats to hold them together.

  On the other side of the set, the First Man was carrying out the identical job. Identically. He, too, was certain that enough nails were entering both the side and rear flats to hold the set together.

  For a change, Herman Deutsch was out of his director’s chair, although barely. He was walking around the set gingerly, as if each step were bringing him closer to some sort of doom.

  “This is it, Doctor,” said Bruce Lauther. “This is where the money is. Both sex and violence in the same scene. I love it!” He rubbed his hands together.

  “I don’t know.” Dr. Heinsohn shook his head. “I am not at ease with this heterosexuality. It doesn’t fit the profile of the sociopath. Not this sociopath.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Doctor. After the suggestions you made yesterday and the subsequent reworking of the scene that Herm did last night, we’ll have more than enough violence to make up for the broad in his room. It could just as easily be an act of violence against the woman as an act of love. In a word, it will be ambiguous. You can look at it as the hostile act of a homosexual. And if anyone questions it, you can explain it in that light. Meanwhile, we’ll sell it to the network as the act of a heterosexual—albeit a wild man who is violent in all that he does, from attacking innocent priests to having intercourse. Perfect, eh?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”r />
  “Any of you guys ever work on a set where they were filming a big sex scene?” the second assistant cameraman asked the production assistants, who were huddled in back of the camera after finishing their various tasks.

  As one, all shook their heads.

  “Wild! Everybody always says it’s very professional and nobody notices there is usually a naked broad on the set. That’s a laugh! When was the last time any of you guys was in a room with a naked broad and didn’t notice her?”

  The assistants exchanged glances and shrugged.

  “Well, I should say! Look, fellas, I’ll make some stills later on. See me tomorrow and I’ll have them ready. Eight-by-ten glossies. Just a buck apiece and you’ll have some memorabilia to really remember this day. Something you can show your friends. See me tomorrow.”

  The production assistants seemed very interested in the offer. The cameraman was encouraged.

  “I can’t believe that little set will look like a real room when they film it,” said Morris.

  “The magic of television,” Patrick responded with a grin.

  “I suppose it has something to do with the small screen. I mean, if they were making this for the big screen, they’d probably have to film a scene like this in a real room, wouldn’t they? But on the smaller screen, they can get away with a fake set like this … don’t you think? I said, don’t you think? Uh, Dean … Dean Patrick?”

  “What? Oh … sorry, Marge. I was watching Roman Kirkus. He’s wearing that evil smile. I keep wondering what’s going on in that head.”

  “You mean besides thoughts of hate for select individuals?”

  “Uh-huh; besides that.”

  Sol Gould was talking to the actor and actress near a corner of the set. They seemed oblivious of everything and everyone else. He played the assailant. She was his girlfriend.

  “Know your lines?” Gould asked.

  The actress smiled. “There aren’t that many.” The actor merely nodded.