The Trinity

by David LaBounty

  “Sure did.”

  “Would you say you or any of the people that you grew up with were wealthy? Wasn’t your mother a waitress?”

  “We were poor, but not starving. Blue-collar, I guess you would call it.”

  “Right, no shame in that, no shame in that. Now tell me, were there any Jewish people in your neighborhood, or in your school or anywhere in your community?”

  “No, can’t say that there was. In fact, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a Jew anywhere before.”

  “Exactly!” The priest slams his hand on the dashboard in triumph. “While you and your family were scraping by, making ends meet and working hard living in what I guess to be small houses or trailers or apartments, the Jews of America were living in mansions and comfort, probably owning the banks where your mother cashed her check, or the drug company where your grandfather gets his medication, or his doctor may even be Jewish, making sure he never gets well. They are in control—and the blacks do their dirty work. The Jews use the blacks to keep the whites agitated. If the good white people of America are worried about being robbed by a black man while walking down the street, they won’t worry about being robbed by a Jew the next time they go to the store, or buy property, or take out a loan. The Jew robs much more stealthily; he robs and you don’t even notice. It is time for men like you and me to lead the way, to light the path to the gods of our ancestors, and stir the Viking soul of all white people in North America and Europe, before it is too late.”

  Brad understands most of that last statement, except for the references to the Norse religion, but he does understand that he is among the despised and the downtrodden. There is something about being on the underdog team that stirs up his emotions, and he suddenly understands what the priest says. The same anger that he was able to summon up in attacking blacks can now be pointed towards the Jews, especially if they were responsible for his meager upbringing.

  Edinburgh approaches. The empty fields and lonely hills make way for a series of smaller towns that run together. Finally, they find themselves in traffic stuck at stoplights and fending their way through a series of roundabouts.

  Crowley is not used to the traffic. He has not driven in so much congestion since Houston. Even Dundee, though it hosts over a hundred thousand souls, has very little traffic, and it doesn’t last long. Here in Edinburgh, it seems to snake for miles, leading all the way to the city center, where they eventually find themselves.

  Crowley is seldom taken in by objects of beauty, but the heart of Edinburgh is indeed striking. The ancient downtown, a collection of castles and other medieval buildings, the narrow cobblestone streets all accented with a large civic park and a vast collection of people walking back and forth. They park the car in a garage and wander briefly, stopping in a pub that is obviously more cosmopolitan than any they’ve visited in Dundee or in the vicinity of the base. They sit quietly in the pub, where they are taken for father and son American tourists. They don’t offer the fact that they’re American servicemen.

  However, they are not here on holiday. Crowley finishes his second glass of red wine, and as Brad finishes his pint, Crowley whispers that they must be off.

  Crowley is in search of a neighborhood that hosts a small Jewish community clustered along Salisbury Road. He learned of its location during a visit to the base library. The Scottish librarian employed by the Navy recognized him, though he didn’t know her. The library was empty save a sailor’s wife and her two small children, who were behaving badly. The mother tried to read them a story in the corner of a library with a rocking chair and a small collection of toys and stuffed animals, ostensibly the children’s section of the library, a very small and drab establishment containing mostly westerns and science fiction novels, with a small reference section. Crowley found what he was looking for in a travel guide. The librarian watched him the entire time and tried to engage him in conversation, asking if the Church of Scotland was really different than the Catholic Church. He said no, not really. She inquired about the practice of exorcism and if Catholic priests really perform such feats, and if he had done one himself. He said yes they do and no he hasn’t, and he asked her to kindly leave him alone. Shocked, she sauntered off behind her desk and pretended to rifle through papers. He smiled. Seldom has he ever had the heart to annoy a middle-aged woman. He used to feign respect for those who were older than him, but these days, he doesn’t really care.

  The priest summons a taxi and they are transported from the near magical heart of Edinburgh to a neighborhood that looks as unremarkable and typical as any in Scotland that he’s seen so far. They are deposited on Salisbury Road and Crowley walks with his hands in the pockets of a black leather coat he purchased before he left the States. Never before has he worn leather, and he thinks of the World War II movies he saw as a child. The Gestapo always seemed to wear black leather.

  He spies a small gray building with a Star of David over the front door. He is disappointed by the size of the synagogue. The building appears to be empty. He walks around it, counting the windows and doors. There is one door in the front and one in the back, which leads to an alley that is shared with a bakery, a jeweler’s, and a small fruit market. There are only four windows, all facing the street.

  This will be simple, he thinks.

  He leads Brad to the front door. The priest takes a small penknife from his pocket and pricks the index finger of Brad’s left hand. He squeezes it until blood starts flowing. He takes Brad’s finger and traces the image of a swastika on the front door in blood. And then he signs: THE TRINITY.

  “I suspect that will get the neighborhood talking.” Crowley laughs and Brad thinks what he has just done is very cool. “We’ll be back, my young friend. We’ll be back.” The pair walks down Salisbury Road, waiting for a taxi to come along. They return to Lutherkirk, feeling quite satisfied.

  “How did you know I was going to see Father Crowley tomorrow?” Chris asks Brad on a Thursday evening, realizing that tomorrow he is going to the priest’s house. He had forgotten their nocturnal conversation of a few weeks past. So much has been on his mind, Karen and the world that is being shown to him.

  Hinckley is taking off his uniform and rummaging in the bottom of his locker for his cleanest dirty sweatshirt and jeans. The galley is serving supper, and he and Chris are on their way.

  “Oh, I talk to him from time to time,” Brad says without looking at Chris. “You know, he was there when Lee did what he did, and… I just know him that way.”

  “I was going to say, I’ve never seen you at church, and you’re usually sleeping when I go.”

  “Naw, I don’t have time for that crap. Father Crowley says it don’t matter if you go or not, it don’t make any difference. It’s a crutch, basically, for those who need it. I talk to him now and again, you know, we’re both on the support side of the base, not out at the communications sites. I run into him or I go to his office, and we talk about stuff, life, you’ll find out some of it tomorrow. I used to go to his place. He’ll treat you real good, all you can drink and eat, and you can smoke, if you want. He ain’t like any priest I’ve ever known. He’s basically a regular guy.”

  Chris is confused and maybe a little jealous. He thought the priest had only befriended him, that their relationship might be somewhat exclusive. But nonetheless, it is a new friendship, and he is excited about what the evening might offer.

  They walk to the galley in air that is still cold but less frigid than it has been during the previous weeks and months. The trees are starting to show just the slightest trace of green.

  “So you’ll be there tomorrow?” Chris asks.

  “Yep, I’ll be there. He asked me to go. He figured out that I knew you and thought you might be more comfortable if there was someone there that you knew.”

  The galley is buzzing, and there is much animated conversation, especially among those who have just gotten off their shifts at the communications site. The atmosphere indicates that something significant
just happened. Though Chris and Hinckley are basically ostracized, Chris asks someone a few chairs over, a petty officer third class, what happened.

  “We’re at war, buddy,” he says with glee. Chris is taken aback; the word war instantly makes him think of the Soviets, which would certainly lead to nuclear annihilation, a threat that looms over the free world that he is now so proud to defend.

  “War?” Chris asks while Hinckley works on a mouthful of food, almost disinterested.

  “Hell, yeah. We just bombed Libya. We’re gonna take that damn Qadaffi out. It’s about damn time we did something; we can’t let those A-rabs push us around anymore. We’re the United States and that’s all there is to it, and if you try to push us around, there’ll be hell to pay. I think we got a carrier group right off the Libya coast. Gonna blow Qadaffi right out of his socks.”

  “Wow,” Chris says. He knew that the Navy patrolled many fronts, keeping an ever-watchful eye on the Soviets, the Chinese, the North Koreans, and the Cubans. But there were also constant rumblings about the Middle East, the Palestinians being pursued by the Israelis in Lebanon and the ever-troublesome Colonel Qadaffi in Libya.

  Under his breath, Hinckley says, “Notice how excited everyone is because of fighting?” The chatter and animated faces make that fact seem obvious.

  “Yes.” Chris scans the diners in the galley.

  “They’re happy, ain’t they?”

  “I don’t know if they’re happy, but I’d say they’re excited.”

  “Same difference, but sure enough, they’re happy. And you want to know why?”

  “Because they’re patriotic, and the United States is defending itself, that’s why.”

  “Maybe yes, maybe no, but I think people like to fight. They need to fight. They need to take care of their own. Just remember that, that’s all. They’re happy because the group that they’re a part of, the United States military, is fighting, and it makes their life a little more worthwhile. It gives them peace.”

  Chris is startled by that last sentence. He knows where Brad first heard it.

  An elderly man clutching the Evening News and walking along Salisbury Road in Edinburgh is the first to notice the red and runny swastika. He walks to the synagogue’s door to examine it more closely, and is chilled by its striking appearance. The dark red blood is in stark contrast to the ashen door. “Bloody fucking hell,” he says to himself, barely audible above his breath.

  He quickly walks home to his flat a few blocks away and telephones the police.

  Two PCs arrive, dressed in bright yellow rain gear, as a light early spring rain comes out of a barely sunlit sky. After examining the door, they summon an evidence technician, who arrives very directly to scrape part of the swastika from the door.

  “Blood,” the evidence technician says, a plain looking woman on the cusp of early middle age. Her hair is cut just above the shoulders to stay within police regulations and it is not styled at all; it lies flat and straight. The early evening rain causes mist to form on her thick and dark rimmed spectacles, which she wipes on the sleeve of her yellow slicker. “I imagine we’ll find out this is blood.” Her face indicates her disdain, though her years on the job leave her shocked by precious little.

  The two constables take pictures, as does a reporter from the Edinburgh Evening News who keeps his ear glued to a home model police scanner and chases the reports that may be of human interest. He often arrives at the scene as officers converge, and his face is known by most. His presence is acknowledged with a semi-friendly nod by the evidence technician, who waves and says hello.

  The rabbi of the synagogue comes a short while later, a short and thin man imported from England, who is dressed rather neatly in a simple black suit with a white shirt and black tie, an unremarkable yarmulke perched neatly on top of his head. In his private thoughts, he hates Scotland and longs for the scholarly life he led in London before taking this job in the bitter north. He puts his hands on his hips and stares at heaven but doesn’t interrupt the police as they take their pictures.

  The reporter approaches him. “You must want some sort of explanation, don’t you, Rabbi?”

  The rabbi turns to face him and the reporter snaps his photo, with the door and the swastika in the background. “No,” the rabbi says with irritation. “God will reveal who did this… Whoever did this can’t hide from God.”

  “Very noble of you, Rabbi. Any idea who might have done it?”

  The rabbi shakes his head. “Whoever claims to be the Trinity. A skinhead group, I suspect. Never heard of them before. We get crank calls all the time, so this doesn’t surprise me terribly.”

  One of the constables interrupts and tells the reporter that he’s asked enough. They ask the rabbi the same sort of questions and get the same answers. They write everything down, unlike the reporter, who can commit such details to memory. The police tell the rabbi that he can clean the door and they will be in touch with him. They tell him to please be careful. The rabbi nods and enters the synagogue. The reporter runs away and hops into his rickety Vauxhall and drives away to the office. He knows the picture of the bloody swastika and the grim rabbi will make the front page of the next edition.

  Back at the station, an Inspector Parlabane is given the case. He looks at the Polaroids of the door and studies the name ‘Trinity’. This all seems familiar, and he feeds information into the national crime computer and waits for the printer to laboriously print out a smattering of pages. He glances at the reports and immediately picks up the phone and dials the headquarters of the Tayside Police in Dundee.

  It is Friday and Chris and Brad share a taxi for the very brief ride to Father Crowley’s house from the base. The taxi drives by the ruins of Inverhaven Castle through the twilight as the castle eclipses the nearly descended sun. Chris can see the tulips of the vast gardens starting to bloom and he recalls his day with Karen. He smiles as broadly as he ever has in his life.

  Crowley—while waiting for the two—is anxious. He left the chapel half an hour earlier than normal, telling the Protestant chaplain that he needed to go the home of a despondent sailor off base. When Chaplain Lambert questioned him about who he was going to see and the nature of the crisis, Crowley replied that it was confidential, between himself, the sailor, and God.

  Chaplain Lambert didn’t respond. Crowley took his silence as approval, but he knows Lambert is suspicious of him, ever since the death of Lee Rodgers. The priest has felt that Lambert doesn’t regard him as a peer, but more of a nuisance, a monstrous nuisance.

  Crowley sped home. He laid the table as garishly as possible with a somewhat dusty linen tablecloth that is part of the furnishings that came with the house, using polished silverware that he purchased from a resale shop and wineglasses that also came with the house, rather offensive wineglasses with frosted impressions of flowers against a glass that is tinted red.

  He has his goblet in his hand, and he has nearly drained a bottle of his favorite South African wine. He constantly checks himself in the bathroom mirror, smoothing out his clothes and his hair, tucking and un-tucking his oxford shirt, which he wears underneath a thin sweater now, as the evenings aren’t quite so chilly. He splashes water on his face and checks his eyebrows and nostrils for renegade hair. Finding several, he plucks them by hand and somewhat enjoys the pain.

  He will start to prepare the food when they arrive, simple dishes: spaghetti, garlic bread, salad. He will lean on a well stocked refrigerator full of tins of varied British beers.

  The cab pulls in front of the house, and as he watches Chris pay the cab driver, Father Crowley removes the swastika from his mantel and hides it in a kitchen cabinet. He doesn’t want to reveal too much too soon. He could tell that Chris is more intelligent than either Hinckley or Rodgers, and knows he will probably be alarmed by the sight of the swastika.

  He watches as the two young men approach his cottage, Brad in front, swaggering with the familiarity of entering this house, and Chris walking timidly behind him,
looking around, studying the elm trees that are starting to show signs of life.

  Crowley swings open the front door as they approach.

  “Welcome, welcome,” he says, and he is quite jovial.

  The sight of Chris without a window or desk between them makes him tremble.

  “You got beer, Father?” asks Hinckley. He pulls off his jacket and places it in a stuffed and disorganized front closet.

  “Of course, of course. Help yourself.” Crowley reaches for Chris’s coat and stores it in the same closet. He hangs it with care, as if it has just come from the dry cleaners.

  Hinckley returns from the kitchen with two tins of beer. Chris is impressed by the size and takes one gladly.

  “Sit down, sit down.” Crowley points at the couch. “You two fine gentlemen sit down and relax, and I will prepare dinner.” He walks into the kitchen, and asks Hinckley to retrieve coal for the fireplace from the bin outside. Hinckley grabs a tin pail next to the fireplace and walks outside. Chris is alarmed with the familiarity that Brad seems to display with the workings of the priest’s house.

  The house isn’t what Chris expected. He thought it would be light and clean and somewhat cheerful based on the conversations he had with the priest. Instead, he finds the house dark, even though the sunlight has just started to wane and is still streaming through very dirty windows. It also seems damp, and Chris feels a chill that is intensified as the beer first hits his throat.

  Brad returns quickly, straining from the weight of the coal-laden pail. He sets it down on the ash-covered hearth and feeds the fire, which shows only embers. Chris feels heat instantly and the chill he felt dissipates. He starts to feel warm inside as the beer starts to affect him.

  “I told ya he was cool.” Hinckley sits down and quickly drains his beer in just over three swallows. He crushes the empty tin with his hand and asks Chris if he is ready for another. Chris hurriedly finishes his and nods, handing Brad the empty tin.