Thomas M. Disch (24 page)

Sepulcher
: The word was like a bell tolling him back to the sorry, un-Brigadoonish reason he’d come to Minneapolis. He’d frittered enough time away with Gene Stratton Porter, so he settled his tab and left a three-dollar tip for Eileen, out of consideration for the time he’d occupied the table, and lugged his suitcase out to the taxi stand, where a taxi was waiting. Father Mabbley gave the driver the address of McCarron’s Funeral Home in St. Paul, and then settled back to enjoy the serenity of the freeways. He liked to think that limbo was full of freeways, all going nowhere, safely and peacefully.

Instead, he fell asleep and had a nightmare that had something to do with an AIDS hospice. “Huh!” he said when the driver woke him. He tried to hang on to the details (he entertained an idolatrous faith in the significance of dreams and fortune cookies), but they’d already vanished.

He felt odd toting his suitcase into the foyer of the funeral home, as though he’d come there to live. It was a modest establishment, nothing like the funeral homes of Las Vegas, which were built on the scale of the casinos, with the same glitz. This was more like a cocktail lounge in an upscale hotel, decorated in lingerie colors with tastefully muted lighting and paintings chosen to be unnoticeable: flower prints, a calm sea, a lobotomized Christ. As though to say: Death? Never heard of him. Were there, he wondered, funeral homes that took the opposite tack and mucked around in the horror of the occasion? Would even bikers and heavy-metal fans want to be buried from such an establishment? No, even they, in the end, would probably opt for Brigadoon.

“I’m sorry, sir, but none of the rooms are open yet for viewing.”

Father Mabbley turned around to see who’d spoken.

“Excuse me, Father,” said a gray-haired man in a dark suit. “I didn’t realize.”

“That I’m a priest? I’m not here in that capacity, actually. I’m here to pay my last respects to Mr. Anker. Also, I’ve been asked to be his executor, and I think there are papers I must sign. Is Mr. McCarron here?”

The man blushed. “There is no Mr. McCarron any longer, I’m afraid.

You’re Father Mabbley?”

He nodded.

“I’m the director. Lloyd Wells.”

They shook hands.

“Mr. Anker isn’t… with us as yet, I’m afraid. Apparently, the coroner hasn’t finished his work.”

Twice the man had said he was afraid. It seemed an odd verbal tic for someone in his profession.

“And I’m afraid a problem has arisen concerning the funeral service itself.” Mr. Wells fell silent, unwilling to impart the bad news unless pressed to do so.

“Yes?” Father Mabbley pressed.

“It seems that the deceased left a request with his lawyer, Mr. Wiley, that he wished his funeral Mass to be said at St. Bernardine’s, in Willowville, where he is, indeed, a parishioner. At least, some part of the time. And he specifically asked that the pastor of St. Bernardine’s conduct the service.”

“Father Bryce, that would be?”

Mr. Wells nodded.

“And Bryce has declined to do so?”

Mr. Wells shook his head. “No. Not directly, at least. There seems to be some question as to whether Father Bryce can be reached at all. Mr. Wiley has only been able to speak with his assistant, a retired priest living at the rectory, Father Cogling. It seems that Father Cogling has categorically refused to allow the deceased to be buried from St. Bernardine’s. First, he intimated that Mr. Anker might have committed suicide, but Wiley assured him that the coroner had firmly discounted that possibility. There’s no doubt that Mr. Anker was murdered. Then Father Cogling declared that Mr. Anker had led an openly sinful life and had appeared in public protests outside of various churches in the Twin Cities. Mr. Wiley naturally refused to be led into an argument on such matters and kept trying to contact Father Bryce. Wiley even went to the eleven o’clock service on Sunday, when Bryce usually conducts the Mass, but it had been taken over by another priest, and there was no explanation for Bryce’s absence. Mr. Wiley is certain that Cogling doesn’t have the authority to deny the deceased burial from St. Bernardine’s—he doesn’t even have the standing of assistant pastor—but he doesn’t wish to make unnecessary trouble. And since we’ve had to postpone the date of the funeral in any case, and since Mr. Wiley knew you would soon be here, he hoped you’d be able to straighten the matter out, seeing that you’re a priest yourself.”

“It sounds like you need a private investigator more than a priest,”

Father Mabbley commented.

Mr. Wells responded with a mirthless laugh and a reproachful glance.

“I should like to have a chance to talk with Mr. Wiley before I take any initiatives myself. I thought he’d be meeting me here.”

“Unfortunately, he’s had to appear at a court hearing concerning the release of Mr. Anker’s corpse. It seems there was an anonymous phone call to the coroner’s office suggesting that Mr. Anker may have had AIDS. If that was the case, some other arrangement will have to be made for his interment.”

“And why is that?” Father Mabbley demanded.

“For one thing, our embalmer can’t be expected to put himself at extraordinary risk.”

“And who is your embalmer?”

Mr. Wells cast down his eyes and made no reply.

“Let me understand you better. If Mr. Anker’s corpse tests HIVpositive, you will not handle his funeral arrangements?”

“That is the policy at McCarron’s. Yes, Father.”

Father Mabbley could match the man’s prissy smile with one of his own, thinking ahead to the moment he would have the satisfaction of telling him what his policy would be with regard to McCarron’s. But he would not do that now, he would wait till the man had heard from the coroner as to Bing’s HIV

status and then, when Mr. Wells had graciously agreed to admit Bing into his funeral parlor, Father Mabbley would be able to tell him to stuff it. Or, in this case, not to.

“Well,” said Father Mabbley, “it sounds like I have some telephoning to do. Do you suppose I could borrow your office?”

Mr. Wells ushered Father Mabbley not to an office but to a small alcove at the far end of the corridor, where there was a love seat, a telephone, and a small gilt-framed reproduction of a Raphael cherub.

His first phone call was to Reese Wiley’s law office, where Wiley’s secretary told him that Mr. Wiley would be on his way to McCarron’s within the hour and asked would he please wait for him there. Then, after getting the number from Information, he called St. Bernardine’s rectory and got an answering machine. “Hello,” said a voice he recognized as Father Bryce’s, “and thank you for calling. I’m sorry I can’t come to the phone right now, but if you’ll leave your name and number and a brief message, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Meanwhile, why not get in touch with God—and say a prayer for me while you’re talking with Him. We all need each other’s prayers. God bless.”

He waited for the beep, and then, as per the machine’s suggestion, said a Hail Mary, adding, when he was done, “That’s for you, Father.” He knew he was being petty, but with an answering machine it’s hard to resist such impulses. One has the illusion, as when one throws darts at a newspaper photo, that one is zapping an inanimate object, not a real person.

He made himself say a string of Hail Marys, both as a penance and as a way of composing himself, and then he dialed Alexis Clareson’s number at the diocese Chancery. Even though it was supposed to be his direct line, there was someone running interference for Alexis, and then even a second gatekeeper.

Alexis was now the vicar-general, so it was not to be wondered at that he should make himself ritually unavailable. At last he did pick up and purred into the receiver: “Mab? Is that
you?
Here, in Minneapolis?”

“
C’est moi
, Alex, yes, indeed. Just off the plane, all bleary-eyed and ill-tempered, so I should probably have waited to call.”

“But you wanted to
use
me. Right?”

“You’re a mind reader, Alex.”

“No, it’s the price I pay for temporal power. I am
here
to be used,
cher ami
. Even by my oldest and dearest friends. I remember so well: We shared the same tubes of Clearasil. Go ahead, use me.”

“I’ve three favors to ask. First, do you know a funeral home that doesn’t discriminate by HIV status? Second, could you find out who’s tending the store at St. Bernardine’s?”

“Father Bryce is the pastor there,” Alexis said.

“But I’m also told he can’t be reached, and the other priest who’s there with him—”

“That would be Wilfrid Cogling.”

“That’s the name. Cogling has refused to let a friend of mine be buried from the church. And as I’ve been appointed to be my friend’s executor. .

“I like to be asked a favor I can so easily grant. Wilfrid is an old toad and has
no
authority to make such decisions, and I would find a deep personal satisfaction in telling him where to get off. As to the matter of embalming someone who’s died of AIDS, one or two of the local funeral homes have made things difficult. Is it McCarron’s?”

“Yes. And my friend
didn’t
have AIDS and wasn’t HIVpositive.”

“But it’s become a point of honor not to give McCarron’s the job? Bravo, I quite agree.
I
would suggest Schinder’s Memorial Gardens. It’ll cost a bit more, but it’s a lot classier, if that matters.”

“My friend certainly would have wanted to exit in style.”

“What was the third favor?” Alexis asked.

“I need to pick your brain. Perhaps even your personnel files.”

“Concerning?”

“The pastor of St. Bernardine’s. Patrick Bryce.”

“Oh dear. What has he done?”

“It’s something you wouldn’t want me to discuss with you, Alex.”

“I hope it’s nothing serious, but I suppose it is. And I won’t ask any more. Hear No Evil is the motto here at the Chancery these days. It’s virtually carved on the lintel. I’ll take Bryce’s file home with me tonight, and you’re welcome to come by and look at it. Come to dinner tomorrow night, if you can combine business with pleasure. It will be a buffet with three or four strange casseroles and a few familiar faces. Familiar to me, anyhow, but I think you’ll recognize one or two of the faces. Not mine, perhaps. I’ve gone on gaining weight. What else is one to do in a wheelchair except eat?”

“No need to apologize, Alex. Some of the greatest men in the Church were Xtra-Large. John the Twenty-third. Alexander the Sixth.”

“The Borgia pope, yes, I know, whom even Raphael couldn’t make look anything but a pig. Will I see you?”

“I hope so.”

“And if you should come upon something that I really ought to know—shred it, will you?”

Father Mabbley laughed, and gave his word.

Silvanus had come to the conclusion, somewhat reluctantly, that he was not in hell, and this for three reasons.
Primus
: The sun rose each morning and cast its light upon a world that was not infernal in a subterranean sense.

True, there were teeming hordes of people here, as one might expect to be the case in hell, but few were conspicuously in torment. Indeed, they lived amid unimaginable luxuries and pomp, not unlike the riches of Babylon, whose fall was foreseen by the apostle John, when he wrote:
Alas, alas, that great city that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls!

Secundus
: Contrary to his first impression, there were no demons here but only men—sinful men, maybe, with great powers of sorcery, but all mortal men of flesh and blood, like the Bishop himself. For a while he had suspected that the illuminated figures that appeared upon the dark glass of Delilah’s Trinitron might be demons, but having pondered them for many hours, he now believed that though they were very often grotesque, indecent, and unnatural, they were not actually alive, but only simulacra, the work of cunning artificers, like the image of the Beast that John writes of, that was given breath and the power of speech, so that all men would worship it. The Trinitron (the very name a mockery of the Triune God) revealed not a single beast but a whole menagerie of unclean spirits: some lustful, like the voluptuous Astrud Gilberto or the preening incubus Marky Mark; some warlike, like Popeye the Sailor Man or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; some wooing evil like a bride, like the two Moors, Geraldo and Oprah; and still others, kindlier, nameless beings, who appeared in intervals as brief as flashes of lightning to promise relief from various forms of suffering—headaches, stomach upset, hemorrhoidal distress. All of these creatures were illusory, all of them. They seemed to live when one manipulated the Trinitron a certain way; with another motion they ceased to exist. Silvanus found it difficult, now that Delilah was dead and no longer a spur to his lust, to do anything but marvel at these shadowy allegories and try to decipher them. His hope was that if he studied the Trinitron closely, it would reveal to him the nature of this new world and, possibly, the means by which he might escape from it.