by Michael Nava
After her father’s death, Metzger had cultivated her, counseled her and supported her as she tried to stake her small claim in the church’s leadership. In this, ironically, he was aided by Daniel who in all other respects was Metzger’s nemesis on the Board of Overseers. Both had their reasons to help her, and she was well aware that few of those reasons involved her ability. Metzger wanted her as an ally against her husband, a marital spy, although he was excruciatingly careful to conceal his motives beneath his professed concern for her well-being. And Daniel? She had always suspected his support for her was motivated by guilt, and now, investigator’s report in hand, she knew the source of that guilt.
Metzger was indirectly responsible for the revelation. She had told him about her suspicions Daniel was concealing something— perhaps an affair— and it was he who had encouraged her to hire a private investigator. When she demurred, he had pressed the point, fueling her insecurities until she finally agreed to hire a man he found for her. Now, Uncle Bob raised his eyes to hers, a glint of disapproval in them as if she were responsible for Daniel’s secret life.
“I had no idea,” she said.
“Come now, Jessica,” he replied, as if to a child. “You had to have had some idea. Those mysterious trips to San Francisco. Retreats at a Catholic monastery? I never believed that for a minute. You must have suspected he was doing something up there he didn’t want you to know about.”
“I never imagined it was something like this,” she said. “Not a family.”
“A Negro mistress and a half-breed son with AIDS,” he said dismissively. “I wouldn’t call that a family. I’d call it a potential scandal, especially now. If our enemies discover this, it could destroy our campaign to pass Proposition 54. You must know that.”
“Yes,” she murmured, again feeling the sting of his implied judgment on her failings as a wife. “What should I do?”
“You? You should do nothing. Keep this to yourself. I’ll take care of it.”
She looked at him anxiously. “What will you do?”
“I,” he repeated, “will take care of it.”
••••
I must pray, she told herself, as she drove home slowly, blinded by tears, but even as the words formed in her head, they were ritualistic and empty. God was her father’s business, not hers. Her faith had leaked out as she sat at her mother’s bedside year after year and watched her drink herself to death. Not only was God missing in action, so was her father. He had surrendered his life to bringing Jesus to everyone trapped by sin in the web of the world. Nothing took precedence over his ministry, certainly not wife or daughter. Her father had been faithful to a fault to Jesus’s command, “You must love me more than your father, mother, wife, children, brothers, and sisters— even more than your own life.”
She had loved him anyway; he was powerful, charismatic and on those rare occasions when he turned his attention to her, it was like basking in the sun. At the same time he had made clear to her the pettiness of her demands for his attention. Not cruelly, for he was never cruel, but briskly and firmly. She learned early on that, while she mattered to him, she would always matter less than his work because who could compete with God?
After life with her father, Daniel’s consideration caught her off guard. In the close quarters of early marriage, she was seen and heard but, instead of bringing her happiness, she felt exposed. Daniel was intelligent, educated, articulate, dynamic, and kind. She was the girl who had watered her mother’s vodka, had been homeschooled by a series of tutors chosen by her father more for their discretion than their ability, and was isolated from other kids by her status as the founder’s child. She had brought nothing to the marriage but her father’s name. She couldn’t even give him children.
Daniel had to know this, which ultimately made his attentiveness seem like a taunt. She withdrew, creating in her marriage the same deep, unbridgeable silences that had defined her father’s home. Courteous silences, resentful silences, painful silences, convenient silences— their marriage was like a house filled with shadows that, over time, had become more solid than the objects that cast them. Now and then he would throw a line across a chasm. Once he even said he loved her and that was the most shameful thing of all, not because she didn’t believe him, but because she did.
Or so she had believed until the investigator had brought her the folder filled with photographs of her husband’s family.
••••
Tommy Jones blinked back tears from already reddened eyes and in a rough whisper pleaded, “Tell me what to do, Pastor?”
“You’ve prayed to be relieved of the temptation since we last talked?”
“So hard,” he said. “I prayed so hard.”
They were in his office, chairs pulled close, the building silent and only a single, small lamp burning. Tommy was a big man, owned a landscaping business, was married to Lois, and was father to two preteen boys and a sixteen-year-old girl, Mindy, for whom he had developed a frightening lust. Daniel had been counseling him for the past two months. Tonight he’d revealed that three nights earlier, after everyone was asleep, he had slipped out of bed, gone to his daughter’s room, stood over her sleeping form, and touched himself.
This was the kind of confession that nothing in Daniel’s training had prepared him for. Far from it. His training had turned a condemnatory eye toward all things sexual that took place outside the marital bed, raining down on them the ancient proscriptions from Leviticus and Deuteronomy. But proscribing conduct was useless when the conduct had already occurred or seemed likely to occur. To say to Tommy Jones that the Bible says incest is an abomination punishable by death, so don’t do it, might fulfill Daniel’s pastoral obligations but it was hardly an answer to Tommy’s anguish or solved the issue of his daughter’s safety.
“You have to send her away.”
Tommy looked at him uncomprehendingly. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” he said, “Mindy can’t be in your house while you’re trying to get these feelings under control. It’s not safe for either one of you.”
“Where would I send her? What would I tell Lois?”
“There’s a private Christian boarding school for girls up in Washington state where I have some contacts,” Daniel said. “I can arrange for them to admit Mindy. I’ll explain to Lois what a great opportunity it is for her. Lois trusts me. I think I can convince her.”
“You won’t tell her . . . about me?”
Daniel shook his head. “No.”
“Will I have to tell her? I mean, you can’t keep that kind of secret from your wife, can you? Isn’t that lying?”
“Sometimes in a marriage God requires us to carry our guilt alone instead of inflicting it on our spouse when it would only cause them greater sorrow.” He patted Tommy’s hand. “This is one of those times.”
“Thank you, Pastor Dan.”
“We’re not done, Tommy. After Mindy leaves, I want you to see a therapist to help you get to the bottom of these feelings.”
“A shrink? But— Pastor Taggert said those people are ungodly. He said they make excuses for our evil by blaming it on our parents and the way we were raised.”
“Pastor Taggert was a man of his time,” Dan said, choosing his words carefully so as not to contradict the still-revered founder. “Back then it may have been true that psychiatry and psychology didn’t take account of religious beliefs. Times change. There are many, many Christian therapists who no longer believe faith and psychology are incompatible. I have a couple in mind I think could help you. Of course we’ll continue our counseling sessions. Sound good?”
Tommy nodded. “Yeah, if you say so, Pastor Dan. Thank you.”
He walked Tommy to the door. “I’ll call that school tomorrow. In the meantime, if you feel the urge to enter your daughter’s bedroom again, I want you to call me. Any time, you understand, no matter how late it is. You call me.”
The man nodded.
“I’ll see you next Thursday.
”
Daniel closed the door behind the man and slumped in the big chair behind his desk. He could feel the disapproving stare from the portrait of his father-in-law that hung on the far side of the room, directly in his line of vision. He was intimately familiar with Max Taggert’s views on psychotherapy. Any suggestion that human nature might be more complicated than sin and repentance was met first with derision and then fury. “Man is evil because he has a sinful nature, not because his daddy hit him when he was a little boy, or his mommy stopped breast-feeding him too soon.” And that was that.
Daniel had learned to keep to himself any opinion that might inspire his father-in-law’s ire. Was evolution only a theory? Maybe so, but it was a pretty convincing one. Did God condemn all unbelievers to hell regardless of their individual merit? Possibly, though a God who couldn’t distinguish between a Hitler and a Gandhi wasn’t the God Daniel had embraced upon his conversion. Doubts about theology were not doubts about God, but this was a distinction he didn’t dare propose to Max Taggert. And over time, his doubts had been submerged beneath his day-to-day responsibilities. He was grateful for that and for the advice one of the Jesuits had given him. “God is action, not belief.” Besides, doubt might be natural— even Jesus on the cross had his moment— but as Jesus also showed, it wasn’t necessarily a door to deeper and greater truths. Most of the time doubt was a dead end where the mind, cornered and frantic, simply lost itself in fear. Daniel had his work and he had his doubts but, of the two, only the work truly mattered.
He thought about the advice he’d given Tommy about whether he should tell his wife about his feelings for their daughter. Some secrets you keep to yourself because to disclose them will only cause greater, irreparable injury. Of course, keeping the secret required building a house of evasions where you lived alone with your guilt. He glanced at his watch. Nine o’clock.
It was time for his weekly call. He picked up the phone, dialed the familiar number, and on the first ring Wyatt picked up and greeted him with a cheerful, “Hi, Dad!”
••••
The two-story half-timbered faux Tudor country house was dark except for the porch light and lights that burned in the library where the Bible study convened. Outside, gracious old oaks spread their canopies over the dark lawns and flower beds of the other mansions that lined the quiet Hancock Park street. The men had rolled up in luxury late-model cars, had been welcomed into the house by a uniformed Mexican maid and ushered into the library where their host waited for them amid the scent of leather bindings and percolating coffee. They arranged themselves on comfortable couches and armchairs upholstered in leather and brocade. Though it was early summer and the weather was warm, the host had had a fire set in the massive fireplace and turned down the thermostat to a chilly sixty degrees.
The text for their study had been chosen by their host, who called himself Zenas, after the lawyer mentioned in Paul’s letter to Titus. Romans 1:18-32: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. So they are without excuse; for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up unnatural passions and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error.”
“I chose this,” Zenas said, “not for the obvious reason, the strong affirmation of God’s condemnation of the homosexual but, if you will pardon me, to discuss its legal implications.”
One of the others, a judge who called himself Thomas because he had converted late in life warned playfully, “Careful, Zenas. I can’t correct your theology, but I’ll be listening for misstatements of law.”
“I’m forewarned, Your Honor,” Zenas replied. The other men around the room chuckled at the exchange.
“Continue, brother,” said the police chief who called himself Eleazer, after one of King David’s generals.
“Criminal law distinguishes between crimes committed on impulse and crimes that are planned and intentional; those crimes we punish much more harshly. Killing, for instance. Not all killing is murder. A killing committed unintentionally is manslaughter. Even an intentional killing is punished less harshly than a killing both intentional and planned.”
“You’re speaking of a premeditated murder,” Thomas said.
“Yes, Thomas. Premeditated murder is a crime we punish with the death penalty.” He paused. “When Paul speaks of wickedness in this passage in Romans, he is speaking of premeditated wickedness. What does he say? ‘For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.’ Shown it to them, brothers. They know God’s way and yet Paul tells us ‘they are without excuse; for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him.’ So I submit, brothers, these homosexuals, these ‘men committing shameless acts with men’ are like the killer who acts with premeditation. They deserve the harshest punishment, for their rebellion against God is nothing less than demonic.”
Eleazer said, “That’s why God has sent AIDS as a judgment upon them and an example of his anger toward sinners like them.”
Zenas nodded. “Yes, but unfortunately, they have powerful friends who want the world to see homosexuals as pitiable victims, and I’m afraid they are succeeding. That brings me to my other legal analogy. These people who are helping the homosexuals advance their agenda would in legal terms be called aiders and abettors. Am I correct, Your Honor?”
“You are,” Thomas replied.
“And in the law,” Zenas continued, “one who knows that a crime is planned and intentional and who aids and abets in its commission is as guilty of the crime itself as the one who actually carries it out. So, the punishment for one who aids and abets a premeditated murder must be the same as it is for the one who carries it out.”
“That would seem to indict the American Medical Association,” said the chief of staff of a county supervisor, who called himself Titus, after Paul’s disciple. “They’ve just come out against Proposition 54.”
“Yes,” Zenas said, “excellent example. Our effort to quarantine the homosexuals who are spreading this vile disease is being opposed by the AMA, the American Bar Association, the ACLU—”
“Speaking of demonic,” said the millionaire industrialist who called himself Zacchaeus, the small man who climbed a tree to get a glimpse of Jesus. The other men laughed again.
“The state Democratic party,” Zenas continued, to groans, “and even, I am sorry to say, some prominent Republican officeholders.”
“Not mine!” Titus exclaimed, to more laughter.
“No, not yours,” Zenas said, “and we are grateful for the supervisor’s continuing support. The homosexuals have even enlisted as aiders and abettors the Episcopal bishop of California and others who call themselves Christian.”
“Pharisees!” someone exclaimed.
“Indeed,” Zenas said. “We know them for what they are— those tombs Jesus spoke of that appear outwardly white and beautiful but inwardly are filled with all manner of uncleanness. The public, however, does not know them as we do. The effect of the opposition to Prop 54 of the bishops and the doctors and the politicians is that we are once again being portrayed as bigots. I have here,” he continued, reaching into his suit coat, “the results of our latest internal polling. Two months ago the yes vote was ahead by twelve points. As of yesterday we’re only six points ahead. Our lead has been cut in half.”
“Tell me the amount you need,” Zacchaeus said, “and I’ll write the check here and now.”
“Thank you, brother,” Zenas said, “but money alone will not win this campaign. We need something to unmask the homosexuals for the
violent and wicked men they are. The public needs to know the truth.” He leveled his eyes at Eleazer. “An action.”
••••
Later, when the study group had adjourned and the men had helped themselves to coffee and cake, Eleazer approached Zenas.
“The chief sends his regards,” he said.
“How is Chief Gates?”
“Holding the line. You saw how the press went after him for his defense of choke holds.”
Zenas nodded. Earlier that month, Gates had defended the use of choke holds after a Black suspect died when he was placed in one, saying, “We may be finding that in some Blacks, when the choke hold is applied, the veins or arteries do not open up like in normal people.”
Eleazar continued. “One dirtbag dies and now we’re supposed to stop using choke holds completely. What are we supposed to do? Start shooting Black suspects instead? We’d never hear the end of that.”
“He’s a good man in a tight spot,” Zenas agreed. ‘This city . . . sometimes I feel it’s America’s cesspool for every kind of filth and depravity.” He sighed. “Still, we do what we can. You and me and people like the chief. We’re all trying to hold the line.”
“Your lead in our discussion was inspirational. What you said about the homosexuals being guilty of premeditated evil. Maybe we need to get back to Leviticus.”
Zenas quoted, “‘If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death, their blood is upon them.’”
“Yeah, the old Jews got some things right.”
“They did indeed,” Zenas said. “Brother, can you stay after the others leave?”
Eleazer smiled. “Of course.”
••••
With a shit-eating grin on his face, the one that deepened the dimples in his cheeks, Freddy stood in the middle of the living room like he owned the place. “So where’s your pussy roommate?”