The Bighead (22 page)

“
What?” The priest frowned.
“To the abbey?”

“
Of course. The abbey’s as
much a part of this place as anything: the sewing shops and the
whorehouse and the moonshiners. If it’s part of the truth of this
town, I’ve got to write about it.”

“
I wish I could tell you
more, but I don’t know that much. All the diocese gave me to go on
were those blueprints, and the notarized closure
statement.”

“
But you do know about the
nuns themselves, and that’d make a great addition to my article.”
Jerrica felt on a professional roll now, she felt inspired. Perhaps
her forbidden attraction to the priest gave fuel to her creativity.
She knew she could be as attracted as she wanted—she still couldn’t
have him, and
that
seemed more exciting than anything else.

“
I can’t believe how much
time passed while we were out there,” Alexander cited. “Sorry for
taking up your whole day, but, hell, you were the one who asked to
come.”

“
I had a great time,
Father,” she allayed him. “It was invigorating. And I can’t wait
for you to tell me about the nuns.”

Alexander laughed. “Not much to tell
unless you want a lesson in austerity.” When they passed the old,
closed church again, he crossed himself. More dedication, more
faith. Christ, she admired that, without even knowing why. In all
her life, Jerrica Parks had never been to church, had never even
believed in God as anything more than the Easter Bunny. She
blinked, then, shook her head. What had he said?

“
What were you saying?
Something about austerity?”

At once, the priest seemed anxious, on
edge. “I’ll tell you all about them, but— Earlier, didn’t you point
out a tavern in town?”

“
Yeah. The Crossroads.
Charity and I went there last night, as a matter of fact. Just turn
here,” she guided, pointing to the veer-off to Main Street, “and
you’re there.”

“
Outstanding,” he said.
“How about you let this busted, over-the-hill priest buy you a
drink?”

Jerrica felt lit up. “Sounds fine by
me.”

(III)

Hail, Dicky,” Tritt Balls Conner
elucidated, rubbin’ his crotch ta boot. “That fuckin’ job we did on
the fat gal’s still got my dog a’hoppin.”

Aw, man,
Dicky groaned to himself.
This guy’s a psy-ker-path.
“What say
we just cool it fer now, huh, Balls? We done enough today, ain’t
we? Tells ya what. I could use me’s a cold beer.”

Tritt Balls, stroked that devil
goatee’a his, lookin’ speculatively out the winder-shield. “Ya
knows somethin’, Dicky? Hail. I’se thinks yer right. A tall, cold
one’d do the job a might nice right now. Let’s git us a
few.”

Thank God. Balls could be some mean
trouble, yes sir! Ands that fat chick they’d busted up today?
Boppin’ her in the belly an’ makin’ her puke? That had got Balls’
dander up a right fierce—afters, he’d jacked hiself off in the
’Mino ta boot! Dicky didn’t wanna be part’a no more ruckin’, no he
didn’t, an’ he were glad as glad could be whens Balls agreet ta
havin’ a beer.

So’s Dicky, what he did just then was
he pulled that El Camino’a his right inta the parkin’ lot’a The
Crossroads. But ’fore he could do so fully, he glanced over an’
complained, “Aw, shee-it, Balls! Cain’t ya ever git
enough?”

Balls Conner grinnned back like a
tomcat, his jeans pulled down his ankles. Whuppin’ his willy fierce
he was, an’ not even mindin’ that gal’s shit still on his dick, an’
just then he spooged hisself bigtime. Looked like a load’a Elmer’s
Glue, it did, sittin’ there on his belly.

“
Told ya, Dicky, cornholin’
an’ killin’ that fat beaver back there got my dog’a barkin’. But
now that I’se hadda good come, I’se
really
ready fer a beer, I is! So’s
let’s go!

(IV)

A few heads turned, naturally, when
Jerrica entered The Crossroads with Father Alexander; the moment
seemed to freeze, faces locking up, the clack of billiards balls
halting, hands cocked back at the dart boards. “And my broker isn’t
even E.F. Hutton,” the priest joked. But in less than another
moment, the tavern’s conventions returned. Jerrica and the priest
took a far booth.

“
Howdy, Father, miss,”
greeted the floor waitress, a cherubic brunette in cutoffs and a
pink tubetop. Her bellybutton peeked over the snap of her shorts.
“What can I git yawl?”

“
A pitcher of beer,
please,” Alexander said. “Don’t care what kind as long as it’s
cold.”

“
Comin’ right
up.”

Above them, ceiling fans roved lazily,
breaking the hot air, and when the beer arrived, it sluiced right
down their parched throats.Alexander leaned back, sighed. The day’s
labors had finally caught up with him, but Jerrica herself felt
kindled. She knew what it was: it was him. His presence enlivened
her, recharged her.

“
God, that’s good,” he
remarked, taking another big sip of beer.

“
Yeah. After all that hot
work all day?” Jerrica sipped her own; her concentration, however,
remained fixed on Father Alexander. He didn’t look like a priest at
all; he looked more like a refined tough guy, wearing the Roman
collar for kicks. She’d seen his body from the waist up—his face
seemed the same. Lean, even incised. Intense.

Her fascination wouldn’t let
go.

“
So how far along are you
with your article?” he asked.

“
Just notes—I brought my
laptop, so I can work on the road; I’ve only been here two days.
But it’s coming along well. This piece is going to kick
butt.”

“
Don’t forget to mention
me,” he joked.

“
Oh, don’t worry.” She
smiled bright. “I will… But you promised to tell me about the
nuns.”

The comment seemed amusing. Alexander
lit a cigarette, sighing smoke. “The Sisters of the Heavenly
Spring,” he recalled. “They’re an order of cloistered nuns that
make lye soap look like Ivory. Very hardcore, so to speak. They
even wear habits.”

“
But I thought all nuns
wore habits,” Jerrica ventured.

“
No. Misconception. The
Second Vatican Council lightened up on all the rules, cut a lot of
slack. But the Sisters of the Heavenly Spring? They didn’t care,
they didn’t want to hear it. They’re Epiphanists, kind of like the
French Foreign Legion of nuns. The hardest, grubbiest, crappiest
work that the Church has to offer—they volunteer. They believe in
the
severity
of
faith.”

“
Well, what about you?”
Jerrica dared to ask. “Aren’t all priests severe?”

Alexander chuckled. “Depends on how
you define the word.”

“
Well, I mean—” She knew
she shouldn’t ask this, but her curiosity wouldn’t release its
grip. “Priests are celibate. Isn’t celibacy severe?”

“
Oh, no, that’s the easy
part,” he answered. “That’s cake.”

“
But…” More hesitation. She
couldn’t help it. “Isn’t sex something God created, for people to
enjoy?”

“
For those in Christian
wedlock to enjoy within the realms of procreative love. But God
didn’t create it to be exploited, which is what’s going on now.
Just because it feels good doesn’t mean one has carte blanche.
Heroin feels good too, but it’s still evil. The devil’s everywhere,
twisting the minds of the faithful, and those who would be
faithful. It’s a card game.”

Jerrica stared at the man’s
words. They sounded so antiquated—
Those
who would be faithful
—but the conviction
behind the words seemed to make them real. “Do you really
believe…in the devil?”

“
Of course,” Alexander
replied without reluctance. “Some priests will duck that question,
with metaphors. They’ll tell you that the devil is just a symbol of
the failings of humanity, but they know it’s more than that. There
really is a devil, sitting on some abyssal throne in the blackest
guts of the earth. And he’s smiling bigtime. He’s kicking serious
ass, and he loves it.”

This was getting too deep.
She didn’t want to challenge him, because she sensed that if she
did, he would bury her with thesis she could not argue. She didn’t
want to argue. She just wanted
to
know.
“Okay, back to celibacy. Why go
through all that hardship?”

“
It’s not hardship, it’s a
gift.”

“
Why go through all that
abstention and frustration when you don’t have to?”

“
I
don’t
have to, that’s the point. I do
it because it’s my call. It’s my call to not have sex. I’ve had
plenty of sex, in my younger years, if you want to know the truth.
When I was a teenager, when I was in the army. But for all that
time I knew there was something else more important waiting for me,
and it excluded sex. So I stopped. Simple.”

“
But
why?
” she nearly whined in
confusion.

The priest leaned back in
the booth, one arm up, his beer in his other hand. The cigarette
jiggled in his mouth as he answered: “I’m celibate because it’s a
sign of the Kingdom where no one will be given or taken in marriage
and our love will be universal as God is universal. I’m celibate
because it makes me more available to the people of God, who
themselves constitute the Church, which is the Body of Christ.” He
shrugged lackadaisically, dragged his cigarette, spewed smoke. “I’m
celibate in the imitation of Jesus, who elected to be bound to no
one in
particular,
so that he might be embraced by
all
, in an eternal covenant of living
sacrifice.”

Jerrica stared.

“
See?” he said. “It’s that
simple.” Then he laughed. “Shit. It ain’t for everyone, and it
ain’t supposed to be. It’s another mystery of faith.”

The words seemed to disperse, like
glitter in the air.

“
But you’re so much in
opposite,” she said next. “I mean, you’re a priest, but you smoke,
you drink, you even
cuss.
”

“
Smoking and drinking,
hell, we’re allowed to. It’s about the only thing the Pope hasn’t
jacked out from under our feet. And as far as cussing goes—well,
communication is communication. If I say ’Holy Father, I beg thee
to forgive my transgressions and my offenses against thee,’ that
means the same thing as saying, ’Holy shit, God, I fucked up and
I’m really sorry, so how about giving me a break?’ Same thing. God
doesn’t care what words you use. Shit. He only cares what you
mean.”

Fascinating. He was
a
uniqueness.

“
But the Church does,” the
priest rattled on. “And that’s where I have some big problems.
That’s why I ain’t got my own joint.”

“
Your
own…
joint?
”

“
My own parish. ’Joint’ is
priest-jabber for ’parish.’ I cuss too much. I speak my mind too
readily. And I don’t kiss ass. It’s employment harassment, you ask
me. But I don’t give a shit. It’s God’s will, and that’s good
enough for me. If God would rather have me psycho-therapizing
clerical nutcases and reopening abbeys in the boondocks, then
that’s what I’m gonna do. He must have a reason, and I ain’t gonna
get in a pissing contest with God. I’ll do what He fucking tells me
and I’ll like it.”

This continued conviction,
however colloquial, did not cease to invigorate her. It only made
him more fantastic, more out of the mold.
I’ve never met anyone so interesting in my life…

“
But enough of this
religious talk,” he urged. “Tell me more about you.”

The inquest shocked her. “I—I don’t
know,” she stammered. “There’s really not that much to
say.”

“
Well, maybe there
isn’t—not know. But there will come a time when you’ll have a lot
to say. One day you’ll see
your own
call to God.”

She didn’t even believe in God, but
she couldn’t tell him that, could she? Then again, though, she
sensed very strongly that he already knew this, that he could
tell.

So what did he mean?

Her own notice of herself changed the
topic, which was probably a good time to do so. She ran her hand
down her forearm and saw it come away faintly smudged. “I can’t
believe how dirty I got at the abbey.”

“
I told you it was a grubby
place. Hot, dank, dusty. But no one’s fled the bar yet, so I guess
that means we don’t stink too bad.”

Jerrica couldn’t help but
laugh at his remarks, her fingers unconsciously rubbing her own
bodily grit. “It was
so hot
in there.” And then her visions swept away;
suddenly she drifted in the midst of her fantasies again. The
afternoon heat of the abbey, the sweat drenching out of them, and
the priest’s own sweat glistening on his naked chest like veneer as
he swung the sledgehammer time and time again. Yes, the humid heat
smothered her as she watched; it sucked on her skin, and the rising
dust stuck to her like glue. Suddenly she was in the shower—with
the priest. The cool torrent pouring down on them, revitalizing
them. He stood behind her, his hands on her breasts, rubbing the
soap to a thick lather. Then the bar lowered to her pubis, circled
her hair, and brazenly slid across her vaginal lips back through
the cleft of her buttocks. The sensation brought her to her tiptoes
as his strong, callused hand worked the lather more thickly. An
inquisitive finger probed the slit of her sex, then delved further,
and sunk into her anus. Her nipples, suddenly, felt like nails
sticking out of her skin; the brink of her orgasm threatened. So
she turned, to stave it off, not ready to come yet. She likewise
lathered him up with suds, letting the soap and the cascade of cool
water wash away the day’s work of grime. She knelt before him,
sudsing his pubic hair and penis. The penis came alive, a separate
entity, when she sucked the glans into her mouth; at once it
hardened to a good seven inches, nudged her tonsils. She sucked it
very precisely and very hard, at the same time allowing one hand to
slide around his buttocks, sink a finger deep into his ass to
massage his prostate. He shuddered and came almost instantaneously,
launching one string of hot-salt semen into mouth after the next.
And in the suffix of the act, she sucked him down gently, milking
out the last drop, swallowing the warm lump in her throat, and
sighing. But she nearly shrieked at what he did next—he grabbed her
hair, knelt himself, and hauled her roughly to the shower floor.
Her neck jammed against the wall, and he was awkwardly pushing her
knees into her face, extruding her vagina. At once the priest’s
mouth was on her, eating her like a rich meal, his index finger on
her g-spot, his pinky up her ass, and then she came like some sort
of underground demolition, her fluids releasing as he sucked them
all out, sucked her orgasm out of her like fresh juice from a
crushed fruit…