Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Crimson Haze

Matt set his teeth. He hated his full name enough in the correct form. Having a more common form constantly hurled at him was like being whipped with a dead snake. Maybe Bums wasn't so crazy to represent himself; he would be terrific in the courtroom.

"You're creating an extreme to rebel against." Matt suddenly unleashed his own weapon, psychobabble. "Some people demonize the people and institutions in their past. You've sanctified them. I'm not this paragon you need to create just to tear down."

"You're here, aren't you? Doing your good deed of the day for someone else? You have nothing to do with this, Devine. Why bother?"

Matt decided to try candor. "Look. I was reared Catholic. Like you, I didn't have a perfect life, or perfect parents. I've had my own problems with the past. I just want to know the truth about your accusations."

Burns was watching him with brittle, clever eyes. "You heard my whole sad story in that lady lieutenant's office."

"I can sympathize," Matt said. "You had a rough upbringing: born out of wedlock, handed to a foster family who never stopped reminding you of your 'unworthy' origins. I'm not saying it was right. We're both products of a less enlightened time."

"Listen to yourself! 'Products.' 'Less enlightened.' You're intellectualizing, Mr. Phone Shrink.

You're dodging the bullet I caught in my teeth and spit back at the world. I bet you envy me.

Matt barely stopped himself from pushing away his chair as if avoiding a spitball. ''You know what you hate," he conceded.

Burns nodded, pleased. ''Most people, they get so confused by the idiocy they're taught when they're kids they don't even know that. I even looked like what they said I was: a bastard. I never grew much; maybe I wanted to stay small so no one would notice me and call me names.

And it was worse when they didn't call me names. 'You! Come here,' my foster-grandwitch would yell, pointing her cane like the damning finger of God. And, God, it hurt when she poked me with it, hit me with it. Hit me with religion, over and over, with bad words. Yeah, it made me ugly." He looked up, eyes as corrosive as dry ice. "Nobody made you feel ugly."

"Don't be so sure."

"You sound like you mean that."

Matt said nothing.

"You still go to mass?"

"Not . . . often."

"Fallen away but unable to cut the apron strings to Mother Church, eh? Then why do you care if my charges against Father Hernandez are true or not?"

"If they're true, they should be pursued."

"Truth is the last thing anyone ever pursues, especially about themselves." Burns pouted his lips again. His forefinger traced an invisible pattern on the drab Formica tabletop. "Why wouldn't they be true? Why not ?''

"You were harassing the entire parish structure. You weren't a genuine obscene caller, you just mimicked one to upset the nuns. A lot of your tricks were diversions, so no one would guess your real target was Blandina Tyler. So, yeah, your blackmail of Father Hernandez could have been another smokescreen. It had the proper effect; it kept him away from the Tyler house."

"He didn't run to the diocese with it, though, did he? Makes you wonder. Makes you in particular wonder, Matthew."

Matt shrugged. "If it's true, and if you're as bitter toward Our Lady of Guadalupe and the church as you say, I wonder why you haven't produced any evidence yet.''

"I got a few other things on my mind."

"Or, you were just play-acting again, playing the blackmailer as you enacted an obscene phone caller, and as you aped a Satanist when you crucified the cat."

"You think I was just play-acting that, huh?"

"You tell me."

''I don't have to, Matthew. I'm free. You're not my prosecutor, or my parole officer or my shrink or my confessor. I don't have to even give you a hint. Besides, what would you do if you had any evidence?"

"I'd make sure it was investigated."

"By whom? The church? You know how they kicked everything under the cassock all those years. Years and years of innocent kids being abused, and all they did was send Father to some monastery to mumble penance."

"They're cleaning house now."

''Because they have to! It's prime-time news. Hard copy. A current affair that happens to have a very long history. I know why you're here, not to uncover anything, but to hush it up. You make me sick. Whether it's an inconvenient kid on the way or an inconvenient kiddie diddler, you all conspire to sweep it under the rug. You hypocritical goodie two-shoes can't keep your noses out of telling everybody else what to do, but you never wake up and smell the shit you forgot to bury in your own back yards. And the women are the worst."

''Maybe that's because women have no power but the aura of superiority the church confers on them."

"An aura's the same as a halo, isn't it? Blessed Virgin Mary-Blue-Gown with her eyes cast down, as blind as Old Lady Justice. The Law is just as crooked, and wouldn't you know it hides behind some woman's skirts for its symbol of integrity. Yeah. The church is a man's game, and the church knows power, but the church is over a barrel now, just like you are, not knowing what nasty scandal in their precious priesthood is gonna hit next. So watch and wait, Devine."

His sneering paraphrase of Christ's instructions to his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane--like Eden, another garden of betrayal--made Matt wince. Burns smiled and executed a lawyerly lunge for the verbal kill.

"As for Father Raf-a-el Hernandez and whether my threats of exposure have any basis in evidence or act . . . guess!" he finished triumphantly.

''You're bitter, and have reason to be."

''Don't turn the other cheek. When I tried that I got my cheeks pounded. That's what they all did, used religion as a club, a cane. Baby Jesus this and the Advent windows opening every week before Christmas and endless stories of the Blessed Birth from the point of view of the Magi and the shepherds and even the damn donkey. Who was the child who was born on the outskirts of everything? I was the Baby Jesus, and there was no room in the inn."

Matt once might have shuddered at such angry blasphemy. Now he had to admit that Burns had a point.

"You loyalists with your plaster saint patience," the prisoner muttered, calming somewhat.

"Don't underestimate me. I'm a product of Catholic schools, I've been . . . involved with the church all of my life."

"Tell me about it, only I never fit in; I was always a walking, talking sign of sin. Hypocrisy is the hallmark of the church. Look at these aberrant priests, saying mass and seducing altar boys on the same Sunday morning."

"That's just it; they are aberrant. You must remember many good priests and dedicated nuns from your school days."

Burns snorted. "Is nothing bad enough to turn your stomach and vomit up the past? What does it take to make you angry, golden boy?"

Matt answered without hesitation. "You don't want to find out."

Burns looked into his eyes and finally shut up.

************

But Peter Burns had made Matt angry. The interview had been like spending a long, dark night of the soul, not alone, but in dialogue with his own dark side.

Once, young and impressionable. Matt the child had dreaded the church's bogeyman: he wondered if he could hear the Devil taunting him in his mind to do the wrong thing. Peter Burns had resurrected that primitive fear, for he was everything Matt had tried not to be: bitter, unforgiving, vengeful, exuding the pus of murderous rage until he threatened to infect everyone around him.

Within half an hour of that jailhouse encounter, Matt was in his favorite place for psychic rest and recuperation, for meditation, if not prayer. He wasn't sure that he prayed any more, but at least he thought in peace.