Chameleon (19 page)

Koesler decided. “You’re right, of course.” He then related what had happened at the staff meeting, leaving out no detail that Irene Casey had narrated, and including his own insights on the outspoken players in that scene.

“So,” Koesler concluded, “you can see that tension is running pretty high, even—I might say especially—at the top level of administration in the archdiocese. It is strange that the crisis in that meeting was triggered by what Larry Hoffer proposed. Now, I think it farfetched to suggest that Larry’s proposal to, in effect, end parochial education in the archdiocese was the cause of his being murdered. Unless it might have been the straw that did it.

“My reason for telling you of the meeting was only to fill you in on the level of tension and crisis going on in the Church. If you’re looking for reasons and suspects for the murder of Larry Hoffer and the apparently mistaken murder of Helen Donovan, there are lots of reasons and lots of potential suspects.”

“Amen,” Tully added uncharacteristically.

Tully now had many more leads, ideas, and questions than when he had walked into St. Joseph’s rectory just a short time ago. Expressing gratitude and reserving the option of more questions as they arose in the investigation, he left Koesler to his ringing of doorbells and—what was it?—evangelizing.

Father Koesler donned hat, coat, and boots. On the surface, it seemed odd that one would go out recruiting on a Saturday—particularly on New Year’s Eve. But it was St. Paul who said the, work of the Lord must be done “in season and out of season.”

Arnold Carson stood at his “window” behind the long counter. He was among the few not bleary-eyed this Tuesday morning after the New Year’s holiday. His postal uniform reflected the care he gave it—cleaned, pressed, even a touch of starch. Carson was inordinately proud of his employment: the United States Postal Service, the best of its kind in the world. If it were not for Cadioli-cism—die genuine, pre-Vatican II version—the postal service might qualify as his religion. At least the post office was faithful to its origins, unlike what had happened to his faith.

But that wasn’t the fault of Catholicism. An enemy had done diis. Everything had gone along swimmingly until that old sick Pope John XXIII got elected and convoked the council. Arnold Carson shrank from indicting any Pope—even John, who’d started this downhill slide. After all, Popes were infallible. Even when they weren’t using the extraordinary cushion, they had the ordinary magisterium, which meant they were right.

The rationalization that Carson found for Pope John was that he had not lived much beyond the opening of the council. Had he survived just a few years longer, he surely would have seen where all this was leading and he would have called a halt.

As it was, those rotten theologians and liturgists got hold of the reins during that confused period when a successor to John was being elected. Those wolves calling themselves “experts,” those thieves stole the council, led the bishops—even poor mixed-up Pope Paul VI—astray. As much as Carson disliked John XXIII, it wasn’t his fault.

This was Carson’s logic. He was comfortable with his rationalizing and conclusion.

It also gave him the impetus, courage, and mostly perseverance to do what he could to get the Church back on track. No easy job. He was only one person, one of the faithful. But by damn, he was part and parcel of the Church Militant—not to be confused with the Church Suffering (purgatory) or the Church Triumphant (heaven).

As he stood at his station (it was still called a “window” in memory of what it once had been), he could have served another customer. Instead, he busied himself by taking inventory of the stamps and cash in his drawer, for which he was accountable. Several times, the next-in-line made a move toward him, but on noticing it, he discouraged the person with a brisk shake of his head. It gave him a feeling of power. He liked that.

Three-and-a-half more years. Three-and-a-half years till retirement. He already had his thirty years of service in. And he would soon be fifty-five years of age. The magic formula.

He remembered well the late fifties, America’s last decade of innocence, as some put it, when he first became a postal employee. It was rugged at first, deliberately so. As a PTF (part-time flexible employee), he worked at the whim of his supervisor, who could call him in or not with no regard for him whatsoever. His task more often than not was coolie labor such as unloading trucks filled with heavy sacks of mail. Gradually he learned the scheme of sorting routes, to which there was a science. Then he joined the National Association of Letter Carriers, From that time it was mostly a matter of seniority. That and careful planning served to fit a shrewd man into just the position he desired.

One might become a clerk or a carrier; there was no difference in pay. In any case, one had to wait in the seniority line to be offered either position. If offered the unwanted job, one could refuse up to three times.

Most chose one or the other job, depending on whether one preferred outdoor or indoor work. Some avoided clerking for the sole reason of not wanting to be held accountable for the stock. If either stamps or cash were missing or unaccounted for, the deficit was taken out of the clerk’s pocket. Which was a considerable responsibility, especially for those weak in math or completely lost without a hand computer, into which one could inadvertently press the wrong number and end up with a financial headache.

Yet it was this very responsibility that attracted Arnold Carson into becoming a clerk. First, he was quite competent in math. Then, he enjoyed the absolute assurance of numbers that led to an inevitable and dependable answer. Finally, he gloried in the veneer of power the clerk could exercise over customers. At first blush, it appeared the clerk served the customer. But if one were as hungry for power as was Carson, little things could effect a slight reversal of roles. The customer wanted commemorative stamps? Carson had an assortment of five different issues, but offered the customer a choice of only three. The customer was uncertain which class to use in mailing books, say? Carson could mentally set a brief time limit for the customer to make that decision, without offering any help or recommendation. There were various opportunities for petty power to be plucked from service, and Carson was dedicated to finding as many as possible.

Carson noticed that the waiting line was lengthening markedly and turning customers into a surly mob. He liked that. But reveries have their place. One must be careful not to attract unduly the attention of a supervisor. There was a knack to appearing occupied while daydreaming. And Carson had mastered it.

“Next!” Carson intoned.

An insignificant little man, diminutive and apologetic in every way, stepped up to Carson’s window. Slowly, the man extracted a handwritten list from his coat pocket. With some sheep-ishness, he carefully smoothed the paper flat and hesitantly pushed it over the counter toward Carson.

Carson took it all in impassively. The man was a Jew, obviously. One of the Christ-killers. As far as Carson was concerned, Hitler had to be defeated, otherwise the world would no longer have been safe for democracy—not to mention Hitler’s antagonism toward the Church. But, give the devil his due, he’d had the right approach to the “Jewish Question.”

As he picked up the offered list, Carson reflected that if he were a bank teller instead of a postal clerk, this might be a holdup. At least that’s the way it always happened in fiction. But this was not a bank and this probably was not a holdup. If it were, Carson’s only regret would be that his gun was at home.

It was very neat script. Probably written by the Jew’s wife. Carson’s imagination took over. They probably lived in Southfield. Many Jews, after more or less abandoning the city of Detroit, had moved north into the well-landscaped suburb that now boasted several synagogues. In a moment he would know for sure, because the little man had begun to write a personal check. That would necessarily reveal his address.

Carson began to punch into the computer the individual charges for the stamps requested by the customer as he was making out his check. Ten 30¢ stamps, five 20¢, ten 5¢ ten 3¢, and ten ¢. Carson totaled the order, looked at the bottom line, and smiled. God was good. “That will be,” he announced, “four dollars and ninety cents.”

The man began to fill in the amount on his check.

“You can’t use a check,” Carson said.

The little man looked up from his writing with a bewildered expression. “Can’t use a check?” he repeated, “Can’t use a check? Why not, please?”

“The amount has to be at least five dollars or you can’t use a check.”

“What’s the amount again, please.”

“Four dollars ninety.”

“Four dollars ninety. Five dollars. Ten cents?” The tone was incredulous.

“A rule is a rule.” Carson well knew that when the amount of difference was so minuscule, he had the discretion to waive the rule. But that was not his style. You keep the rule and the rule will keep you. Lower the standard for one and it becomes worthless for all. The Catholic Church he knew and loved, briefly, used to be like that. Then, among other evils, the Church got into situationism, and the whole thing fell apart.

Besides, it was especially savory to insist on the letter of the law from this member of a race that carried the curse of being responsible for the blood of Christ. That’s what Pontius Pilate said when the Jews persisted on calling out for the crucifixion of Christ: “His blood be upon you and upon your children.”

Of course saner souls knew that the Vatican II statement on the Jews refuted all that nonsense. But, as has been observed, Arnold Carson did not validate that Church council.

The customer, his partially completed check now useless due to Carson’s strict judgment, began checking the money in his wallet and searching through his pockets for change. He spread the total amount on the counter. “Three, three-seventy-five, four-twenty-five, four-fifty, four-sixty, four-sixty-five. That’s all I got, Mister.”

“Seems you’re short both ways. You want to write a check? Then you gotta buy more stamps.” From Carson, this represented compassion beyond the call of virtue.

“I don’t know,” the customer said, searching his pockets in vain for just a few more coins. “I don’t know. That’s all the stamps she said to get. Mama says our budget is tight like nothing. I better not.” The man looked intently at Carson. He was confused. He needed a drop of mercy, not strict justice. “Please, mister: ten cents!”

Should he take $4.65 worth of stamps—and hope that the lack of the additional fifteen cents worth wouldn’t upset Mama’s plans? If so, he could always make another trip and come back later—

“Move on. You’re holding up the line. There are people in line who know what they’re doing. You’re keeping them waiting.”

The little man was about to make one more plea but decided against it. He could read the self-satisfied, taunting look, the affected superiority in his antagonist’s smug smile. He concluded that while Carson probably was not German, he would have made a typical Nazi.

The customer turned and left. He had failed the simple mission his wife had given him. He would have to go all the way home to find out what Mama had in mind next.

Carson, exceedingly pleased with himself, fixed his gaze on the slumped shoulders of the departing would-be customer. He, Carson, had won another one for Jesus Christ. And he hadn’t even needed his gun.

Before Carson could call for the next customer, he heard his supervisor’s voice behind him. “Arnie,” he stage-whispered, “take your lunch break now.”

Without a word, Carson placed the “closed” sign at his window and retreated to the inner room. There he found five other postal employees brown-bagging it, one of them Jerry Hessler, a continuing thorn in his side. Carson was not surprised; Hessler often lunched at this time.

Carson preferred to eat in peace—much better for the digestion. So he would just as soon not have had to contend with Hessler. However, if it be God’s holy will that he do battle during lunch, his loins were girded, figuratively, and off to war he would march.

Hessler waited until Carson began to eat his egg salad sandwich. It was Friday and, although Catholics long ago had had the law of abstinence from meat on Fridays lifted, Carson still observed the restriction. So, indeed, did all the members of the Tridentine Society, as well as a few other Catholics, though the latter for far more rational reasons.

“Hey, Harry,” Hessler called across to one of his friends, “did you hear they’re raising the urinals higher on the walls in the Vatican?”

“No.” Harry knew where this was going. “Why’s that?”

“To keep the Cardinals on their toes.”

Everyone laughed, even the neutrals. With the exception of Carson; he felt like smashing the remainder of his sandwich in Hessler’s face. But even Carson could recognize that, on the one hand, the provocation was not yet outrageous enough and, on the other, that Hessler would keep it up until the provocation was sufficient.

The six employees resumed their meal. They had all been through this routine often enough to know that the war was strictly between Hessler and Carson. It did not pay either to intervene or take sides. Eventually the two men would be shouting at each other, and a supervisor, hearing the noise, would come in, restore order, and clear the room.

“Hey, Harry,” Hessler called out again to his straight man, “did you hear that the Pope announced that the Church has just discovered a first-class relic of Jesus Christ?”

“No kidding. I thought he ascended into heaven.”

“He left part of himself on earth.”

“What?”

“His foreskin.”

The laughter was a bit more hearty. Again Carson restrained himself.

He bit into his sandwich and chewed it until the laughter subsided. Then he spoke, almost offhandedly. “I didn’t hear about that, Hessler. But I can understand how they could have found the relic.”

“Why?” Hessler taunted. “Because your Jesus Christ was a Jewboy?”

“No, not really. Because, unlike yours, his was big enough to find.”