Cross Dressing (15 page)

All things considered, Sister Peg had what it took to pray. From a presupposed faith in God and hope in His goodness, right down to her posture and focused attention. She meant every word she said. “Holy Father, please bless all those whose paths lead to the door of this humble dwelling and forgive all those who impede the work I do in Your name, especially the lost souls of Mr. Sturholm and Mr. Churchill.” Sister Peg looked up at her Savior suffering on the cross. She hesitated before asking, wanting not to sound selfish. “Lastly, dear Lord, please find Father Michael and return him to our doorstep. We could really use his help. I ask this humbly in the name of Your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.”

I
t occurred to Dan that his desire to spend forty thousand dollars to put his dead brother in a hole in the ground was not
dictated by love but rather because he was a well-trained consumer. Hell, he’d spent the last fifteen years training others to be consumers. “When you care enough to send the very best.” What could that mean other than failing to buy the most expensive item means you don’t care enough? Implied was that if you didn’t buy the very best for your loved one, he or she was going to go out and find someone who would. Fear sold a lot of goods.

The American brand of consumerism had rendered the act of giving a simple gift inadequate. Dan lived in an age when the it’s-the-thought-that-counts philosophy was scoffed at; it was the ideology of losers. Winners bought diamonds.

Like the rest of America, Dan had seen nearly a million ads over the course of his life, and despite the fact that he understood the behavioral-science aspect of the business, he still wasn’t immune to the effects. Advertising was like the Chinese water torture—one ad wouldn’t make you go out and buy an unnecessary product, but after you’ve been hit in the head a million times with the idea of buying, the message starts to compel.

So, while he wanted to go Promethean Bronze, Dan knew he didn’t have enough money for it. Michael would have to take his dirt nap in something simpler than the powder blue ultravelvet interior. He settled on a less-is-more cremation plan. That Dan didn’t have the money for the Pomp and Circumstance ceremony made him feel like a tightwad, a jerk, a Judas. He owed Michael more than a cheap funeral and a headstone with the wrong name on it; unfortunately he couldn’t afford better.

As Dan sulked out of Smyth’s Funeral Home and over to his leased Mercedes, he wondered where all his money had gone. He knew a lot of it went to his mom, and even though he had pissed and moaned about that, he knew he owed her as well. She’d done her best, after all. She could have abandoned
them just as easily as their father had—but she hadn’t. She did right when she could have done wrong, and that counted for something.

Dan was heading south on the 405, toward the L.A. Basin. As he crept over the Sepulveda pass he tried to figure out what the hell he was going to do next. Tell Mom? Tell her what? The truth? That seemed injudicious. Did she even need to know? He owed her a lot, but this didn’t seem to be part of the debt. He’d deal with her later. Right now Dan had more important problems. Like employment. One thought was to move to the East Coast and send out his reel under an assumed name. But in such a small industry, where names were tied to campaigns, that was too risky. Besides, he couldn’t just leave Ruth.

On the other hand, if he stayed here, he’d have to keep up the religious ruse and … and what? Find a job? As what? Freelance priest? What would he do, rent a space in a strip mall and perform sacraments? Maybe do something on the Internet? He paused.
Not such a bad idea.
An on-line confessional had real possibilities in a hurried age when spirituality was making a minor comeback.
WWW.Indulgences.com! It’s the All Saints Day Sale! 50% off venial sins!
Of course, the whole thing would require some seed money, and where the hell was he going to get that? There had to be a good answer somewhere. Dan would mull it over with a drink.

He arrived at his building and parked. He slipped up to his apartment without running into any neighbors or Mr. Moore, the building manager. Dan grabbed a beer and sat on the balcony, grateful for the view overlooking the bay. He sat there a minute before he thought he heard voices. He leaned back in his chair to listen. Yes, definitely voices. Dan jerked to his feet and moved toward the door. Sounded like two people—and they were coming in. Dan began to panic. The only other way out of the apartment was to jump off the balcony to the concrete
fifty feet below. Bad option. Dan heard a key in the lock. Jesus Christ! He had to hide. Dan dove into the foyer closet just as the door opened.

“Trust me,” Mr. Moore said, “this is the only ocean view you’ll find for less than four thousand a month.”

Dan peeked out through the slats of the louvered door. All he could tell for certain was that Mr. Moore was showing his apartment to a woman wearing beige pumps. “Does it come furnished?” the pumps asked.

Mr. Moore hadn’t thought about that. “Uh, yeah,” he said, “everything but the electronics. The TV, stereo, that stuff.”

“I’ll take it.” The woman handed over a check. “I’ll move in tomorrow,” she said.

Dan expected Mr. Moore to follow the woman out, but when she left, he moved toward the entertainment system. Dan pried the slats in the door a little wider so he could see what the man was doing. He unplugged Dan’s one-hundred-disc CD player. Dan couldn’t believe it; the bastard was looting his place, and what was worse, Dan could only watch.

“Knock, knock.” It was onomatopoeia, a man’s sterile voice.

Dan saw Mr. Moore stiffen momentarily, as if ashamed. He relaxed just as quickly—apparently realizing that no one would know the stereo wasn’t his to take in the first place. He casually resumed his looting.

“I said, knock, knock,” the voice repeated.

“Sorry,” Mr. Moore said over his shoulder. “The place is already rented.”

A pair of cheap but highly polished wing tips came into Dan’s view. “I’m not here about the apartment,” the voice said. “I’m Butch Harnett. I’m an investigator for Mutual of California. I’d like to speak to you about Dan Steele.”

Dan had all the traditional physiological reactions to a moment of extreme fear. His amygdala rioted. His heart rate
and blood pressure soared. His adrenal glands discharged a load of glucocorticoids, his hypothalamus released enough endorphins to swoon a moose. When his body finally caught up with his mind, panic spread across Dan’s face.

“Dan Steele’s dead,” Mr. Moore said.

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Harnett cocked his head and sniffed the air. Dan thought he saw Harnett turn toward the closet as if he could smell him. Dan quickly pulled his fat, pink fingers out from between the louvers and stopped breathing. Harnett sniffed again before turning his attention back to Mr. Moore. “I understand he had a twin brother.”

M
r Moore took Mr. Harnett back to his office to look through Dan’s files for information that might be of help to the insurance company. Dan stayed in the closet for ten minutes before creeping out. He packed a suitcase, then stepped onto the balcony to take in the view one last time. He was sure going to miss the ocean.

Dan had as much reason to be depressed as he did to be angry, but he opted for the latter.
Goddammit! I don’t deserve this. Do. Not. Deserve it. Any of this, all of this.
Ten days ago Dan was on the cusp of being a “name” in L.A. The More Is More / “Commercials on Demand” man. Da man! Dan Steele, demigod in the cult of celebrity. Now he was just a badly lapsed Catholic wearing a priest outfit, standing in a stranger’s apartment. The only thing Dan could take any comfort in was the fact that he had been declared dead.

Dan needed to get out of the apartment pretty quick, since he figured Mr. Moore would be back soon to get the rest of the entertainment system. Dan took one last look around, trying to decide what else he would take to his new life. He could carry one more thing in addition to his suitcase. The decision was easy. He went to the bar and grabbed the
limited-edition collection of vintage-dated single-malt Scotch whiskies produced by the world-renowned Glenlivet Distillery. With his precious cargo tucked under his arm, Dan went back to the balcony.

Looking down at the sidewalk, Dan saw Mr. Moore walking Harnett out to his car. As soon as the insurance investigator drove off, Dan slipped down to the parking garage with his belongings. When he rounded the corner to his parking spot, he saw his beloved Mercedes attached to the business end of a tow truck that was pulling away. Dan dropped his suitcase and raced to the truck driver’s window, still clutching the box of scotch. “Hey!” Dan yelled as he chased the truck out of the garage and onto Colorado Boulevard. “Hey!” He banged on the driver’s window.

Normally the tow-truck driver would have slammed on his brakes and opened his door on the guy’s face. But instead, he rolled his window down and smiled. “What’s the problem, Padre?” Turned out he was a Catholic.

“What the hell are you doing?” Dan demanded.

“I got orders to hook the car, Father,” the grease monkey said. “The guy’s way behind on payments. Plus he’s dead. You know him?”

“Yes. I’m his brother. The car is … in my care.”

“My condolences, Father.” The driver looked at his clipboard. “Ya got twenty-two hundred bucks?”

“Uh … no.”

“Sorry, Father. It’s not up to me. God may forgive, but the bank don’t.” He gassed the engine. Dan stood there watching as his bumper sticker faded from sight: He who dies with the most toys wins. As the truck turned south on Fourth Street, Dan’s eyes followed and ended up on a billboard that screamed at him, “More Is More!”

“Son of a bitch!” Dan was standing in the middle of the street feeling forsaken when he heard the sound of tires
screeching on asphalt. He turned just in time to see a gleaming BMW 750
il
heading right for him. Dan dove into the gutter and heard the BMW owner yell something about getting his Catholic ass out of the damn road. El Niño notwithstanding, the gutters in Los Angeles are dry ten months out of the year, and today was no exception, until now. Dan had landed on top of the limited edition collection of vintage-dated single-malt Scotch whiskies produced by the world-renowned Glenlivet Distillery. All the bottles had shattered and the rare, elegant spirits seeped into the gutter on their way to Santa Monica Bay. Dan mourned the loss for a moment before he stood and brushed the gravel from his pants. He headed back to the garage to get his suitcase. What else could he do?

He crossed Ocean to the public park on the bluff overlooking Santa Monica Bay. This was, understandably, a park popular with the homeless—a terrific view, an ocean breeze, and easy access to good panhandling. Dan sat on a bench and took stock. He’d lost everything—his job, his car, his home, his identity, his brother. Then something occurred to him. He realized Michael had left him something. He opened the suitcase and rooted around until he found it. A set of keys—one of which opened the door to an apartment in Pacoima, another which would start Michael’s ancient VW bus, assuming he could find it.

Dan wandered the streets of Santa Monica, stopping at every VW bus that looked more than ten years old. Twenty minutes later, he found it. It was covered with bumper stickers of the “Practice Acts of Random Kindness” variety. There were two parking tickets tucked under the cracked wiper blades. The old microbus wasn’t Dan’s idea of the ultimate driving machine, but it beat the shit out of walking. He drove down to Ocean Boulevard for a last look at the bay; then he hopped on the Santa Monica Freeway heading for the 405,
which he would take north into the valley of the shadow of Universal City.

F
ather Michael coughs and covers his eyes. The truck that brought him to this troubled place rattles off in a smutty cloud of dust and diesel fumes, the driver hell-bent on reaching the Didinga Hills before day’s end. The man standing in the bed of the truck holding the rifle is a Toposa tribesman hired to ward off hijackers. He knows a dozen of the four hundred languages spoken in this part of Africa. Father Michael speaks only English, so the two of them have exchanged nothing more than glances during the entire seven-hour ride. Still, after so much time in such close proximity, Father Michael feels some camaraderie, so he waves good-bye. The Toposa tribesman stares blankly at the white man dressed in black who has come to peddle his God.

Father Michael sets his small suitcase on the ground and tries to get his bearings. He turns toward the sunrise. He had studied the updated maps before coming here, but he’s not sure how much he remembers. Ethiopia is to the east; that much he is sure of. He used the
e
as a mnemonic device. Zaire, Uganda, and Kenya are to the south, he thinks. Chad, Libya, and Egypt are north and/or west of where he is. The Red Sea and the Nubian Desert are far to the northeast.

The word
desolate
occurs to Father Michael. The truck is long gone. He looks around and takes in the measureless space. This is Africa. It’s exotic, certainly, but that’s not the same as romantic. But Father Michael knew this. He was told this was a severe, relentless place. It was the sort of place that could test one’s faith, someone had said. Father Michael had to laugh at that. He had never doubted his faith. He believed in God the Father; His Son, Jesus Christ; and the Holy Spirit. He believed in the Church, and most of all, he believed that God had
brought him to this place to help the poor and to spread the word.

In the vast expanse Father Michael sees what he thinks are giraffes. It seems odd to him that none of them is moving. It’s dawn. Perhaps they sleep standing? He hasn’t studied anything about the native wildlife. He approaches them and discovers they are anthills. Huge, red, and churning.

Father Michael is not sure what to expect. He was simply told that when he arrived at the place near Babanusa, he should wait. Someone would pick him up to take him to the refugee camp when it was safe. There is no way to know how long it will be. Things in Africa happen whenever they happen; time and schedules don’t apply, not here.