Righteous Obsession (10 page)

Debbie sat slouched in her desk, waiting for religion
class to start and watched as the other kids filed in one or two at a time. 
She yawned and wished for the umpteenth time that she didn’t have this class
immediately after lunch.  With her stomach full, Father Michaels’ boring
lectures, and his monotonous voice; she had to fight to stay awake.  The only
thing making it bearable was the fact that it was her last class of the day
and, since she had a seventh period study hall, she was able to leave early.

Father Michaels was not present in the classroom and
still had not appeared when the bell rang.  Diana, who sat behind Debbie,
tapped her on the shoulder and when Debbie leaned back, Diana whispered, “Where
do you suppose Father Chuckles is?  Maybe we lucked out and he got sick.”

“We couldn’t be that lucky, Din,” Debbie replied in a
gloomy tone.  “He’s probably jerking off in his office and isn’t watching the
clock!”

Just as she finished speaking, the classroom door
opened and Father Michaels hurried into the room.  He laid his textbooks on the
desk and said, “I apologize for being late, but something very important needed
my attention.”  He motioned for the students to stand and he led them in a
short prayer.  After they had sat down again, he took up his usual position
that placed him directly across from Debbie’s desk.  “I’ve decided since we’re
so close to the end of the school year, we should take a break from our studies
and do something different.”

‘Big deal!’  Debbie thought.  ‘Somebody give the dork
a medal!’

“It’s been brought to my attention recently how many
teenagers are unhealthily obsessed with anyone or anything to do with what’s
commonly called heavy metal music.”

Debbie felt Diana jab her in her back and knew she was
going to say her mother had brought it to his attention.  She smiled to herself
and thought, ‘If he only knew how wet I get even thinking about Colin!’

“This concerns me greatly,” Father Michaels
continued.  “That’s why I’ve decided to have a panel discussion on Friday to
debate the pros and cons of heavy metal music.”

“All heavy metal music?”  A student asked.

“No, I’ve narrowed it down to three bands whose
influence I consider the most dangerous and destructive:  Megadeth, Danzig, and
the Unforgiven.”

Debbie’s hand shot up.  “Why the Unforgiven, Father? 
In the first place they’re hard rock not heavy metal and secondly, there’s
absolutely no solid proof that heavy metal music is dangerous.”

“I don’t see any of them as being dangerous or
destructive,” Another student spoke up.

Before Father Michaels could answer, a student in the
front row turned around and said, “Colin Matthews supports the killing of
babies and thinks its okay for little kids to have access to pornography!”

“He’s pro-choice, dweeb there’s a difference!” Debbie
snapped.  “And he doesn’t want to expose little kids to pornography, but he
does think the government shouldn’t tell people what they can read, watch, or
listen to!”

“All right,” Father Michaels held up his hands. 
“Let’s save these arguments for our panel discussion.  Debbie, since you seem
to be such an ardent supporter of Colin Matthews, you can take the pro side of
the Unforgiven debate.”  He nodded at the student with whom Debbie had been
arguing.  “Jonathan, you take the con side.”  He assigned other students to
take the pro and con sides of Megadeth and Danzig.

“I agree with Debbie,” One of the students
volunteered.  “I don’t think any of these bands are a bad influence, but
especially not the Unforgiven.”

“I think Colin Matthews is a very wicked and misguided
person.  Everything he supports is in direct violation of the teachings of the
Catholic Church.  We can only pray that he’ll eventually see the error of his
ways or else he’s in grave danger of spending eternity burning in hell!  Enough
about Colin Matthews’s evil lifestyle!  If today’s discussion is any
indication, we’re going to have a very lively debate on Friday!”

Jonathan raised his hand.  “Father, are we going to
spend any time reviewing for our final?”

“Ass-kisser!”  Debbie muttered.

“Yes, we’ll be doing that this whole week.  Please
open your textbooks to chapter ten.”

It seemed like an eternity to Debbie, but at last the
bell rang.  She and Diana hurried down the hall to their lockers and tossed
their books inside.

“Do you want to come over to my house before we go to
work?”  Diana asked.

“Definitely!  I have to show you what I bought to wear
to Unforgiven!  I look so hot in it Colin will have a major hard-on instantly!”

“You can model it for me before we go to work.”

They left the building and walked to the student
parking lot, located behind the Catholic Youth Center building.  Debbie got in
her car and unlocked the passenger side for Diana.

“So what’s your plan for getting Colin where you want
him?”  Diana giggled.  “And we both know where that is!”

“I plan to give him a preview of my assets when he’s
at the Mall.”

Sam
Goody
©
already announced that
Unforgiven would be doing an in-store at the Rosedale Mall.

“What are you going to do?  Crawl under the table and
jerk him off?”  Diana joked.

“I haven’t decided yet, but whatever I do, he won’t be
able to resist me!”

“Is your mother still going to go ahead with her
stupid picket?”

“Yeah, she’s been on the phone constantly with Father
Dork’s mother.”

Diana frowned suddenly.  “Speaking of Father Chuckles,
I think he’s like got a hard-on for you, Deb.”

Debbie stuck her finger down her throat and made a
loud gagging sound.

“You must’ve noticed he always stands in the same
place – as close to your desk as he can get!”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed,” Debbie admitted uneasily.  “And
he gives me the creeps the way he’s always trying to see up my skirt or
something!”

“Don’t ever be alone with him,” Diana advised.

“So, what’s he going to do, Din?  I mean he
is
a priest.”

“God!  Deb, you’re so naive sometimes!  They don’t
castrate them when they ordain them; they can still fuck you like any other
man!”

“Well, we just have a few days of school left and
hopefully we won’t get that butt chunk next year!”

Debbie parked her car in front of Diana’s apartment
building and they went inside after Debbie had retrieved a bag with “Victoria’s
Secret” printed on it from the trunk.  Diana unlocked the door to her
apartment.  The girls immediately adjourned to Diana’s bedroom where Debbie
took an emerald green silk camisole with a scalloped neckline out of the bag
and held it in front of her.  “What do you think, Din?”

“Put it on so I can see what it looks like on you,”
Diana urged

“Okay.”  Debbie took off her navy blue blazer,
unbuttoned her blouse and slipped it off then unfastened her gray and blue
plaid skirt and let it fall to the floor. She followed with her slip and bra
then slipped into the camisole, letting it slide down over her full breasts. 
She turned back to Diana.  “So?”

“You look mega-sexy in that, Deb!  It makes your eyes
look dark green.  What are you going to wear with it?”

“My black jeans.”

“You need something else and I’ve got just the
thing!”  Diana dived into her closet, rummaged around then reappeared holding a
short black velvet jacket.  “Here, put on your jeans and this jacket too.”

Debbie did as Diana suggested then turned back to
her.  “Well, how do I look?”

“Yeah!  Yeah!”  Diana exclaimed circling around
Debbie.

Debbie stared into the mirror.  Din was right – she
did look mega-sexy!  She wished she could get a job where Din worked.  With her
employee’s discount she was able to buy really foxy clothes!

“I’ll do your eyes with green eye shadow so they look
really exotic,” Diana was saying.  “And I guarantee when Colin sees you he’ll
get such a hard-on you’ll be lucky if he doesn’t do you right then and there!”

Debbie smiled as she pictured herself the way Diana
described her.  She glanced at her watch then exclaimed, “Shit!  I suppose we’d
better get going so we have enough time to eat our supper without gobbling
it.”  She was sorry to have to cut short her fantasy and reluctantly shed her
concert outfit for her theater uniform.  She reached into the closet for a
hanger for her school uniform and called, “Hey, Din, can I borrow your black
T-straps, too?  They’ll go perfect with my outfit.”

“Sure,” Diana answered from her bathroom where she
freshening her make-up.

“Great!”

They left the apartment and went outside, got into
Debbie’s car. She hung her uniform on a hook in the backseat, got in, and
pulled away from the curb.

“How are you going to get out of the house the day of
the concert?”  Diana suddenly asked.  “Won’t your mother give you her usual
third degree?”

“No.  I figure she’ll be so busy with that stupid
picket she won’t have time to wonder about me.”

“What if she sees you going into the concert?”

Debbie frowned.  “I hadn’t thought about that.”

“You could wear a wig,” Diana suggested.

Debbie brightened.  “Great idea, Din!  I’ll buy a
cheapo wig and toss it once I’m inside.”

Father Michaels heard his phone ringing halfway up the
stairs.  He hurried up the rest of the stairs, opened his door, set his books
on his desk and picked up the receiver.  “Hello?”

“Hello, Dave.”

“Mother! Is everything all right?”

“Yes, of course.  I called to see if you can come home
this weekend.  We haven’t seen you since Easter and we’ve missed you.  You can
come Friday afternoon and leave Sunday after dinner.”

“That sounds fine.  My final exams are done and
nothing else needs my immediate attention.”

“Good.  What time should we look for you?”

“Somewhere between four-thirty and five, probably.”

“We’ll see you on Friday then, dear.  Goodbye, Dave.”

“Goodbye, Mother.”  Father Michaels hung up and
reflected on what had occurred in class this afternoon.  As he’d expected,
Debbie had launched into an impassioned defense of Colin.  Her arguments on
Friday would probably be just as passionate, but he was confident that by the
end of the class Debbie would see Colin Matthews in a new light.  He speculated
briefly about informing Debbie’s parents about her post-concert plans, but
decided to wait.   After all, her talk could be just to impress her lewd
girlfriend whom with Colin’s help was trying to lead Debbie off the path of
righteousness.

The weeks were going fast for the
Unforgiven/Armageddon tour.  Unforgiven’s set was stretching as they added the
newer songs in addition to older favorites.  Jake was developing into a decent
vocalist and although Colin still did the majority of the vocals; he was happy
letting Jake handle as much of the singing as he felt comfortable doing.  The
tour was working into a routine where the band did five days on and had two
off.  Since it was going to be a long tour, Colin was happy to have another
band member who could sing.  It would take some of the stress off his vocal
chords that a long tour inevitably put on them.  Liam was also showing signs of
becoming a strong vocalist, but for now he was content doing background vocals.

Colin enjoyed doing the huge coliseums and arenas, but
even more he enjoyed doing the smaller four to six thousand seat venues.  With
these, they could use less amplification and he didn’t need to project his
voice as much.  They were able to do their acoustic numbers that tended to lose
their intimacy in twenty thousand seat arenas.

Colin and Jake were walking across the tarmac to their
rented Lear jet one morning when Jake suddenly turned to Colin and said,
“Something’s really been bugging me, Colin.”

“What?”

“We’ve been on the road for almost a month now and in
our travels we’ve encountered a veritable banquet of luscious ladies, but …”

“I haven’t slept with any of them,” Colin finished for
him.

“Yeah.  I mean, what gives?  On our last tour I
thought you were trying to establish a world’s record so what’s different now?”

Colin shook his head.  “It’s because of this woman I’m
seeing.  She’s the only one I want.  All these women, while they’re attractive
and very sexy, they aren’t her so it just wouldn’t be the same.”

“Christ!  You’ve really got it bad, Colin!”  Jake
declared.  “I want to meet this woman!  Anybody who can cause Colin Matthews to
take a voluntary vow of celibacy has to be really something!”

“She is.”

He was counting the days until the band would be in
Los Angeles to play at the Whiskey A Go Go.  It had been several years since he
had played a club date and he was looking forward to doing it again.  More than
anything else, Colin could barely wait to see Alethea.  They talked for so long
on his nights off that his cell bill was going to look like the national debt
by the end of the tour.  It was agonizing not to be able to touch her, hold her,
or make love to her.

Colin frowned suddenly.  He continued finding
threatening messages on his voicemail.  They were always a variation on the
same theme:  he would die very soon and would burn in hell for all of eternity. 
He toyed with the idea changing his number, but after further thought he
decided against it.  If this nutcase was using his number as a safety outlet
for some imagined grievance, canceling his outlet might anger him and cause him
to do something drastic that he might not do otherwise.  Colin didn’t want to
be responsible for that.

Debbie threw her books into her locker then slammed it
shut with a loud bang that echoed up and down the hall.  She stomped her foot
and spat, “What a fucking rip, Din!”

“I don’t know why you’re so pissed off, Deb!”  Diana
answered.  “You didn’t really expect the butt-nugget to give heavy metal a fair
rap after his hard-on for your mother’s picket, did you?”

“He didn’t even try to pretend he was interested in
anybody’s viewpoint, but his own!”

“And the kids whose reports aped his viewpoint,” Diana
added.

“Like that ass-kisser, Jonathan McDonald!”

“Well, he’s going to be a priest and Father Chuckles
is probably his hero so anything he says is Jonathan’s gospel.”

As she got into the car Diana suddenly asked, “Did you
notice anything funny about this panel discussion?”

Debbie frowned.  “I did notice that he really hates
Unforgiven.  No! Not the whole band even – just Colin.”

“Exactly!  He doesn’t know Colin, but he hates his
guts!”

“He didn’t say anything bad about Dave Mustaine or
Glenn Danzig, but he made Colin sound like he’s Satan’s right-hand man!” Debbie
remarked.

“It’s like the whole point of his having this debate
wasn’t really to discuss the pros and cons of heavy metal.  It was to give
Father Chuckles a convenient soapbox to air his personal hatred of Colin,”
Diana concluded.

Debbie shivered suddenly.  “He really gave me the
creeps today!  I’m glad there are only a few days of school left.”

Father Michaels gathered up his textbooks and placed
them in his book bag, picked up his umbrella and left his office, locking the
door.  As he walked through the now deserted halls of the school he reflected
on the success of his panel discussion on heavy metal.  He recalled with satisfaction
Debbie’s expression as she listened to what he’d had to say about Colin.  She
appeared shocked to find out her chosen hero had more than a few fleas!  He was
certain that the information he’d revealed today about Colin’s perverse
lifestyle would cause her to rethink her intentions.  He stopped just outside
the entrance and opened his umbrella as it had started to rain an hour ago.  He
walked carefully down the front steps of the high school, crossed the street,
walking quickly and entered Aloysius Hall.

“Hey, Dave!”  One of the other priests called as he
came in the door.  “The big B’s assistant, Father Deveraux called and wants you
to call him as soon as you came in.”

Father Michaels vigorously shook the water out of his
umbrella before placing it in the stand.  He grabbed the note from Father
Covington, annoyed at his disrespectful reference to Bishop Houlihan. 
Covington had been two years ahead of him at the seminary and had always been a
mouthy smart-aleck.  “Excuse me,” He said coolly and left the room.  He went
upstairs to his room and shut the door, dropped his book bag beside his desk
and picked up the receiver and dialed the number on the slip of paper.  “Hello,
may I speak with Monsignor Deveraux, please?  This is Father David Michaels
returning his call.  Yes, I’ll hold.  Thank you.”

An authoritative voice with a slight Southern accent
suddenly filled the line.  “Father Michaels, thank you for returning my call so
quickly.  His Grace, Bishop Houlihan, would like to speak with you as soon as
possible.  Are you free this afternoon?”

“As a matter of fact, Father, I’m leaving very shortly
to spend the weekend with my family in Minneapolis so I could see His Grace
whenever it’s convenient for him.”

“It’s about a half-hour drive from Brunsville to Minneapolis,
I believe?”

“More or less, Father, depending on the traffic.”

“Shall we say five o’clock then?”

“That would give me more than enough time, Father.”

“Very good, Father Michaels.  We look forward to
seeing you.”

“Thank you, Father Deveraux, Goodbye.”  He hung up
then picked up the phone again and dialed another number.  “Hello, Mother.”

“Dave, are you leaving now?”

“Yes, but I’m going to be later than I’d planned. 
Bishop Houlihan’s assistant called and said the Bishop wanted to see me as soon
as possible so I have an appointment with him at five o’clock.”

“Oh dear, Dave, I hope this doesn’t mean you’re going
to be transferred.”

“I don’t think it’s that, Mother, but if it is I’ll go
without complaint because I know I’m doing God’s will.”

“I know, dear.”  She sighed.  “It’s just that it’s
been so nice having you so close by.”

“I don’t know how long I’ll be so you may not want to
hold supper.”

“Well, your father called a few minutes ago to say
he’s going to be late too so I’ll hold supper until you’re both home.”

“Fine, Mother.  I’ll see you later this evening.”

“Good luck with your interview, Dave.”

“Thank you.  Goodbye.”  After hanging up, he quickly
packed a suitcase with things he’d need for the weekend, closed the door to his
room and went back downstairs.

“So, what’s the word, Dave?”  Father Covington called
from the living room where he and two other priests were playing poker.

“I don’t believe that’s any of your business, Father,”
he replied icily and went outside.

“Maybe, we’ll luck out and he’s being transferred,” one
of the priests offered.

“I doubt it’s that, but it’d sure be nice to be rid of
that dickhead!”  Father Covington replied sourly.

Father Michaels placed his suitcase in the back seat
of his car, a metallic blue Chevy Impala.  As he pulled away from the curb he
noticed how heavy and dark the clouds had gotten and realized he’d forgotten
his umbrella.  Well, he wasn’t going back inside to retrieve it. He’d rather
get wet!  He smiled broadly with the pleasure at telling that nosy Father Covington
to mind his own business!