Thomas M. Disch

by The Priest

  He finished Alison’s sentence for her. “They didn’t come. We figure they must’ve got scared off.”

  “Sometimes,” Father Cogling observed, taking the joke in earnest, “our second thoughts are wiser than our first impulses.” He remembered now that this one, with the Clark Gable mustache and the Spanish-sounding surname (which he’d forgotten), was the smart aleck. Not an arguer, like the Jew who hadn’t come back, but a scoffer, a smiler, a know-it-all.

  “I mean to say,” the priest went on, “that you may decide as a result of these talks that marriage is not the right path to take at this point in your life. You may decide that it would be wiser to achieve more financial security before you take on the responsibility of raising a family. You may find that you haven’t prepared yourself spiritually for what will be the most important day in your life. These talks aren’t like modern high schools that have to graduate every student who manages to sit through four years of classes whether they’ve learned anything in those classes or not.”

  The other couple nodded their heads in unison, assuming an expression of submissive attentiveness. The man’s name was Robert Howell, he’d been brought up Catholic, and he was a rookie fireman in the suburb of Eden Prairie. The woman’s name was Denise, and she’d had no religious upbringing. “Though,”

  she’d said at the last meeting, “I do believe in a Higher Power.” She’d said it in that confiding, sugary tone of voice that implied she was doing God and Father Cogling a favor. Father Cogling didn’t like her, but he thought she could eventually be converted and would make a suitable wife for Robert Howell.

  “Before we begin,” said Father Cogling, folding his hands and lowering his eyes, “let us prepare our hearts with prayer.” He waited until the four of them had also assumed an attitude of prayer and then prompted: “Our Father. .

  .”

  Of the lot of them, only Alison Sanders articulated the phrases of the prayer in a crisp and audible manner. She also, to her credit, dressed in a manner both modest and becomingly feminine, in a flowery dress that showed her figure to advantage without being in any way too bold.

  The same could not be said of Denise, who had dressed for the occasion in blue jeans, a Twins sweatshirt, and tennis shoes. Her fiancé, with his long hair and the gold chain around his neck and an earring in his left earlobe, was actually the more feminine of the two. Father Cogling had been reproved by his pastor on more than one occasion for making disparaging remarks about the fashions adopted by what Father Pat called “the youth culture.” As though young people lived in a separate world with its own norms and customs. As though they were Ubangis or Hottentots! But it was true, as Father Pat had many times pointed out, that there was nothing inherently immoral or indecent in hair that touched one’s collar or, for that matter, in an earring. Such things were not declarations of degeneracy, at least not necessarily. So, as reluctant as Father Cogling was to tolerate such fads and foibles, he held his peace. If firemen wanted to look like fairies, so be it. His lips were sealed.

  The prayer concluded, Father Cogling smiled a wise, priestly smile and made eye contact with each of the four young people in turn. Then, his eyes still focused on Alison, he said, “We all must be so grateful for our mothers.

  I know I am. Not only for my earthly mother, who passed to her reward some time ago, God bless her, but even more the mother I share with all of you here, and with”—he dipped his head reverently—”Jesus. Our mother who is the Queen of Heaven—the Virgin Mary.”

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Alison’s fiancé making a characteristic grimace, italicized by the thin line of his mustache. “That presents you with some difficulty, Mr.… ? I’m sorry, my memory isn’t what it was.”

  “No problem,” the boy said. “You can just call me Son.”

  “Son?”

  “Yeah. I got to call you Father, right? So you can call me Son. Who needs last names?”

  “Well, Son,” Father Cogling resumed imperturbably, “you seem to have some difficulty with the idea of the Virgin Mary. Many Protestants do, including some theologians. It is one of what they like to call the scandals of our Faith.”

  “I’m happy to hear I’m not alone.”

  Alison whispered, “Greg, please.”

  Father Cogling raised his hand as though in benediction. “I prefer to think of these matters as mysteries of the Faith. Mysteries in the sense of puzzles that the rational mind, unassisted by Faith, can never solve. The Virgin Birth, for instance, is in some ways a more mysterious, or challenging, concept than Christ’s conception in the Virgin’s womb.”

  “Excuse me, Father,” Denise interrupted, “but I don’t see the distinction.”

  “The distinction is that Mary remained a Virgin after the birth of the Christ child. In the Latin phrase, she is Mater inviolata.”

  “No shit,” Greg marveled. He had the decency at once to blush.

  Father Cogling smiled benignly. “It is amazing, is it not? It defies common sense. It is … miraculous!”

  “You mean,” Denise asked, “that it was like a cesarean section? He wasn’t delivered normally?”

  “Indeed: He was delivered supernaturally.”

  “You’re saying,” Greg put it as bluntly as possible, “her hymen wasn’t broken. The baby came out through the hymen.”

  Father Cogling nodded.

  “That is weird. That is incredible.”

  “Hey, come on, lay off it, will ya?” Robert Howell counseled. “Give the guy a chance.”

  “Ah, but Robert,” Father Cogling insisted, “he’s quite right. It is

  incredible. Quite literally. Without faith it is something one could not believe.”

  “And you’re saying,” Greg insisted, “that for me and Alison to get married in the Church I got to believe that?”

  “No,” said Father Cogling. “I’m only explaining what most Catholics believe concerning the Virgin Mary. Not even all Catholics. No pope has ever declared Mary’s postnatal virginity an infallible truth. I think Pope John Paul may do so: That has been my prayer these many years. But there are some Catholics who are skeptical in that regard.”

  “So,” Greg said, “it’s like Ripley: Believe it or not.”

  Father Cogling glared at the young man in silent remonstration before answering, “You might say that.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate your generosity.”

  “Greg,” urged Alison, “please.”

  Father Cogling waved away Alison’s distress with a motion of his hand.

  “The reason that I called the matter to your attention was to emphasize the importance that the Church places on the matter of chastity.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Greg.

  “Not only before marriage,” Father Cogling went on, “but throughout marriage.” He paused, inviting an objection. When none was forthcoming, he continued: “Chastity not in the sense that you are to remain virgins after you have been married—that privilege was reserved for Mary and Joseph—but, rather, in the sense that the pursuit of hedonistic or sensual pleasure should never be the object of the conjugal act. Procreation, rather, is the goal of marital love.”

  This time it was not Greg who intruded on the priest’s discourse but Denise, who, from sitting and staring expressionlessly at her clasped hands, suddenly burst out laughing. A single convulsive snort of laughter that she at once did her best to stifle, but then there was a second snort, and then laughter outright. “I’m sorry. I’m reverting to high school or something.

  Excuse me a minute—” She stood up from her chair. “Is there a lady’s room here?”

  Father Cogling smiled primly. “Outside and at the other end of the hall.”

  As soon as Denise had left the room, her fiancé got up and said, “Yeah, excuse me, too.”

  “So,” said Greg brightly, when there was only himself and Alison and the priest left in the room, “you were telling us about the Virgin Mary and the opportunity for chastity in marriage.”

&nb
sp; “I take it that chastity strikes you as somehow ridiculous,” the priest said, abandoning even a pretense of civility. It was clear to him that this young man belonged to the new generation without any sexual compunctions whatever. Father Cogling had encountered others like him in this very room. It distressed the priest to think that such a young man might receive the sacrament of matrimony before the altar of St. Bernardine’s. It distressed him, as well, to think that the boy would involve a decent Catholic girl in his perdition. Indeed, it was likely that the process had already begun.

  Father Cogling knew all too well from his experience in the confessional how rarely these days young women entered into matrimony without having already forfeited their virginity. What had once been the sinful exception was now the damnable rule.

  “Surely. Let us discuss chastity in marriage, as the subject interests you. The patron saint of this parish, Saint Bernardine of Siena, actually had some vivid things to say on just that topic. For instance, Saint Bernardine, following the Decree of Gratian, declared that while it is wicked for a man to have intercourse with his own mother, it is much worse to have unnatural

  intercourse with his own wife. That’s to say, any form of sex that leads to an ejaculation outside the proper vessel.”

  “You mean, like a hand job?” Greg marveled.

  “If by that you mean masturbation, yes, certainly.”

  “You’re telling me, Father, that if I jerk off, that’s worse than if I fuck my mother.”

  “Greg! Please!”

  “Sorry, honey. But I don’t know the theological terms for this sort of stuff. And the Father here doesn’t seem to mind my language. The important thing is we should understand each other, right, Father?”

  Father Cogling nodded. “And to answer your question: Yes, masturbation would be a more heinous offense than incest, so long as that is conducted in a natural manner.”

  “By natural you mean without using birth control?”

  Father Cogling nodded.

  “But if I used birth control while I had incest, that would be a whole lot worse?”

  Father Cogling nodded. He had used the teachings of Saint Bernardine before to similar effect. Bernardine of Siena confounded and scandalized unbelievers. Non-Catholics were unaccustomed to the rigorous exercise of logic in matters of morality. “Well,” Greg drawled, “I’d better be sure my mother knows about this.”

  But Denise had left the room, and with her went the only audience for his obscene humor. Father Cogling lowered his eyes with conspicuous modesty but not before he’d noticed, with satisfaction, that the young man’s fiancée looked stricken. Mixed marriages were almost always a mistake. Perhaps this young woman might come to realize that, even at this late date, two weeks short of the day appointed for her wedding. The gift of grace is unpredictable and sometimes even inconvenient. Caterers must be paid even when a wedding is canceled. But it’s a small price to pay when one’s soul is at stake.

  “The reason I bring up the teachings of Saint Bernardine,” Father Cogling resumed, after a suitable interval, “despite the fact that his message is so… unfashionable, is because I know of no better way to impress on non-Catholics the importance we attach to the matter of birth control. It is not a foible, or a pious fable, or a moral option that might be changed in the course of time, the way Catholics once had to abstain from eating meat on Friday but now are under no such obligation. We are absolutely opposed to artificial methods of birth control, and as the husband of a Catholic woman, you must make a solemn and unconditional commitment to observe that prohibition in the conduct of your own married life.”

  “You got it, Father,” Greg said. “As solemn as you like.” He stared at the priest with naked hostility.

  At that moment there was a providential knock on the door. It was Robert, announcing a phone call for Father Cogling on the pay phone in the main hall. Father Cogling excused himself to Greg and Alison and went to the phone.

  “Hello,” he said into the receiver.

  “Wilfrid, I’m glad you’re there.” It was Father Pat, the pastor of St.

  Bernardine’s.

  “Pat—how is your mother? Did you find her?”

  “She was out at the cemetery, as we thought she might be. She was in fine spirits, considering.”

  “And… mentally?”

  “Alzheimer’s is a one-way street, Wilfrid. Her memory always gets worse, there’s no improvement to be expected in that area.”

  “But we can pray.”

  “And that’s about all we can do. In any case, that’s not why I called.

  Why I called is two separate things. First, I wish you would speak to your friend, Mr. Ober. He’s got hold of a list of the members of Agnus Dei and has been phoning them systematically in a tone that was described to me as menacing. I realize some people think Gerhardt sounds menacing when he says hello. I’ve spoken to him before, but he doesn’t seem to listen to me. He nods his head and says ‘Yes, Father,’ and then he’s right back to the same tricks.

  Maybe he’ll listen to you. I know he’s zealous, but isn’t it enough for him to be involved in setting up the maternity center? He must learn discretion.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” Father Cogling promised. “Though I doubt it will do much good. Gerhardt’s a little like your mother. As you point out, he nods his head and then goes off and does just what he wants to anyhow. What’s the other thing?”

  “I’d like you to be on duty for me tonight. Something came up that I have to tend to.”

  “Tonight is the Rosary Society?” He didn’t wait for an answer. It was Wednesday, which was when the Rosary Society met. “Fine, I’ll be there.”

  “You don’t need to be at the whole meeting. Just show your face and eat a cookie or two.”

  “Anything else? I should be getting back to my couples before they start the Reformation all over again.”

  “They’re being difficult?”

  “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  “I’m sure of that, Wilfrid. Well, thank you.” He hung up.

  “You’re welcome,” Father Cogling replied dryly. “And enjoy your night out.”

  3

  After he’d exited 694, Father Bryce drove to the far corner of the first large parking lot he came to. The lot served a mini-mall that housed a liquor store, a gun shop, a Chinese takeout, a carpet factory outlet, and two bankrupt businesses, one that still featured a sign in its window: WATERBEDS

  50% OFF

  LAST DAYS!

  It was already dark at seven-thirty, and only the liquor store and the Chinese takeout were still open.

  He’d left the rectory in mufti—tan dress slacks, a plaid sport shirt, sneakers—but even so he felt exposed and identifiable. If not as a priest, then as someone belonging to that part of the world where priests and what they stand for are a consideration. He found himself wishing the basic wish of his adolescence: that he could inhabit another body entirely, one that was larger and stronger and hairier, a body in which he could feel authentically masculine. The kind of body he had all through his life lusted to possess—not as a lover would possess his beloved in his embrace, but as a demon possesses, inhabiting another body, taking it over and evicting the prior tenant. Could there be a more hopeless desire? a more misguided paraphilia, or any sillier?

  And yet how many others there were stuck in the same daydream, flies in honey.

  It seemed at times the essence of homosexuality. Please, sir, would you be my mirror?

  But no, that side of his character was more likely the result of having grown up as a twin, rather than of his being queer. Petey and Paddy, they make our hearts go pitty-patty. Karen Olsen had made up that jingle in the third grade, and it had followed the Bryce twins all the way through sophomore year at Ramsay High, at which point Patrick and Peter had escaped the daily psychic torsion of twindom by taking diverging paths to their disparate futures—Patrick to Etoile du Nord Seminary, Petey to a juvenile correction facility in Anoka. If
they couldn’t be identical, then they’d be opposites.

  Still the same symmetry.

  Out of the Adidas bag on the seat beside him, Father Bryce took a small jewelry case covered with synthetic velvet, which had contained, some Christmases ago, a silver crucifix and chain. Now it held his mustache and a bottle of gum arabic. Twisting the rearview mirror aside to help, he dabbed the stickum onto his upper lip and deftly positioned the false mustache. Then he waited for the gum arabic to dry. In the mirror the mustache looked full and fierce and not quite his own, a mustache someone else had grown (Petey perhaps?) and he’d adopted, without making allowance for the contours of his upper lip (smiles were dangerous, grins impossible) or the more meager character of his other visible hair. Yet that was often the way with real mustaches, he’d been assured by the barber in Chicago from whom he’d bought the thing. And it was only natural that he would think it looked bogus, since he knew it was. But strangers who didn’t know him wouldn’t think to question the authenticity of his mustache. They would only think, what a show-offy mustache, and, with the addition of sunglasses and a baseball cap, the mustache would be all they would notice. He would be invisible behind it.

  At least that was the theory, and his hope.

  He debated whether he should allow himself a drink. Not now, certainly, with the further drive ahead of him. Alcohol had begun to affect him erratically. Twice he’d escaped DWT citations by virtue of his Roman collar.

  Tonight of all nights he dare not take that risk.

  So, with a sense of steely resolution, he ignored the delectable orange neon of LIQUORS and returned to 694, then followed it east through Fridley and New Brighton until it swung south proper and metamorphosed into 35E. Just before the highway crossed into St. Paul proper, he exited again onto Little Canada Road. And there in another bankrupt-looking mini-mall, as per his directions, was the tattoo parlor—Knightriders Kustom Ink—the only business with its windows still lighted. A single large Harley stood heraldically on the asphalt before the window. The lot was otherwise empty.