She dropped her ballpoint in a drawer. “This story doesn’t just sound crazy, it scares the shit out of me,” she said. “I have to be honest, Streak. I think you’re having a nervous breakdown.”
“Is Clete having one? Is Leslie Rosenberg having one?”
“Ever hear of mass hysteria? How about Salem, 1692?”
“I told you what I saw and heard,” I said. “Do with it as you wish. I’ll see you later.”
“This morning I heard from Baton Rouge PD,” she said. “The sugar cubes from Father Julian’s refrigerator contained LSD. Second item: A friend of mine who works in the diocesan office says two anonymous callers have accused Father Julian of child molestation. A third caller said he tried to rape her.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said.
“They have to deal with it. Father Julian has pissed off a lot of people, particularly these right-to-life fanatics.”
“I think this is Mark Shondell at work,” I said.
“Let Father Julian fight his own battles, bwana.”
“Great attitude,” I said.
“Have you ever considered the possibility Julian may not be innocent?”
“He killed Eddy Firpo? Stop it.”
“How did his stamps end up on Firpo’s shoe?” she said.
“They were planted.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Glad I’m on the side of the good guys,” I said.
I walked out of the office. She wadded up a piece of paper and threw it at my back. I walked back inside and picked it up and placed it on her desk. “Shame on you, Helen,” I said.
* * *
THAT NIGHT I ate by myself at Clementine’s. Outside, dust was swirling out of the streets, paper boxes and pieces of newspaper bouncing down the asphalt and the sidewalks. The light was strange, too, as though it were draining from the western sky into the earth, not to be seen again, robbing us of not only the day but the morrow as well. Of course, these feelings and perceptions are not uncommon in people my age. This was different. As I mentioned earlier, I have long believed that my generation is a transitional one and will be the last to remember what we refer to as traditional America. But somehow the fading of this particular evening seemed a harbinger of a sea change, perhaps a tectonic shift in the plates on which our civilization stood.
Vanity? That could be. But how do you just say fuck you to the culture and the people who kept Hitler and Tojo from shaking hands across the Mississippi?
The front door opened, and with a gust of rain-peppered wind at his back, Johnny Shondell walked past the bar and sat down across from me in the dining room, the candle on my table flickering on his white sport coat. “What’s happenin’, Mr. Dave?” he said.
“No
haps, Johnny,” I said.
He looked his old youthful self, his system free of skag and tobacco and booze. His dark blue silk shirt was unbuttoned at the top, exposing his tan chest.
“Where’s Isolde?” I said. I didn’t know whether they were still on the run from Mark Shondell. I assumed they were not, since the uncle had been at the nightclub in Baton Rouge to hear Johnny and Isolde play when Eddy Firpo was slashed to death.
Johnny’s gaze roamed around the room. “She’s at the motel. We’re flying out to Nashville in the morning for a session at Martina and John McBride’s Blackbird Studios. It’s an album tribute to Hank Williams. Did you know he was the crossover guy to rock and roll, not Elvis? Listen to ‘My Bucket’s Got a Hole in It.’ Your neighbor told me you were probably here.”
“Can I help you with something?”
He looked over his shoulder and back at me. “Mr. Dave, you’re the only person who came to see me in rehab. I won’t ever forget that. So I thought maybe I could tell you about something that’s tearing me up, that I don’t understand, and that I can’t talk to other people about.”
“Does this have to do with your uncle Mark?”
“He wants me and Isolde to get involved with some of these college kids who want to take down the Confederate flag and the statues of the generals or some shit like that.” His eyes went away from mine as though he had said something obscene.