The Three Sisters (31 page)

Never content to limit their endeavors, Father Novak and Victor also looked to the movie industry for potential profits. They had what they thought was a smashing idea: they would bring out a movie version of the Book of Revelation. “How can it fail?” Father Novak asked the potential co-producers. “We’ll give the public just what they want. The movie will have drama, special effects, and the supernatural. There will be more death and destruction in this movie than all the disaster epics of the past ten years put together. Just imagine the impact on audiences of seeing valleys covered in blood, violent earthquakes killing millions, one-third of the seas dead, millions starving, millions dying in wars and atomic blasts. The fates of billions will hang in the balance as God, Satan, and two legions of angels are pitted against one another, both on the earth and in heaven, in the greatest battle of all time. It’s everything an audience wants in a good movie. But there’ll be more,” he promised them, “the vision of God’s throne, Christ’s return, and the battle between Gabriel and Satan, all in one movie. And best of all, it’ll have a
happy ending.”

“The Book of Revelation was practically written with Hollywood in mind,” Father Novak told them. “It could make a wonderful trilogy. The first movie could be called
The Revelation
, a nice one-noun title with a definite article in front, then continue with a sequel to be titled
Gabriel Strikes Back
, and finish with
Return of the Son of God
. The series would take about six to eight years to produce and release, and if we took our time distributing the movies through theaters, cable, and video we’d keep audiences coming back for years. But the best part about the series is this: there will be no royalties to be paid and no
copyright problems.”

All these ideas, however, were destined for the distant future when the nation’s preoccupation with the three sisters had died down. In the meantime, Father Novak had to concentrate on making money for the Church by using the three atheists to
God’s advantage.

Father Novak began marketing souvenirs in Washington, D.C., and several other large cities on September
24
. As with most products of a faddish nature, the sales volume for the company’s goods fluctuated dramatically as each week passed, but for the most part, even Victor was surprised by the souvenirs’ success.

In Washington, the company almost had problems keeping its products stocked, there was such a great demand for them during the first week of the trial. Sales in other cities were not as good as in D.C., but they were still better than either had expected. With money coming in hand over fist, Virnovak Enterprises immediately stepped up production. Victor and Father Novak planned to increase their inventories by
50
percent to make sure all potential customers could purchase mementos of the three, but when sales began dipping more sharply than anticipated at the beginning of the Trial’s third week, Victor quickly cancelled his plans for increased production lest Virnovak Enterprises be stuck with worthless inventories of
unwanted products.

Reports of the three’s trial and the events concerning them were given daily coverage by the TV networks and newspapers, making it impossible for the populace to escape the contemptuous Catholics, but one of the greatest contributions to Virnovak Enterprises’ success was Father Novak himself who made full use of the media through his appearances on TV and his
PR activities.

Those in the ecclesiastical hierarchy who were against marrying Capitalism and Catholicism vigorously attacked Father Novak when Virnovak Enterprises released its new product line. They tried to have the Pope remove Father Novak from the Church, or at least restrain him and his activities, since he was no longer behaving as one dedicated to God, but as one dedicated to Mammon. Father Novak had promised that the Church would receive a percentage of Virnovak’s sales, and after taking this into consideration, His Eminence refused to intervene until a report on Father Novak’s activities was made available to the Pope in early
1980
. By then, of course, the trial would be over with, so the Pope’s pronouncement left Father Novak free to do as
he pleased.

Another set of jealous peers accused Father Novak of forsaking his social responsibilities and putting his own ambitions before the needs of his parishioners. To forever silence his accusers, Father Novak wrote a long letter to the Pope, explaining to him that the present sales campaign was merely the prelude to a series of moves which could ultimately provide more financial sustenance to the needy than all the plans his opponents had ever put together. Father Novak told the Pope he had no intention of abandoning his social responsibilities to enrich himself at others’ expense. He planned to meet the socioeconomic needs of Catholics by including them in his plans to provide Catholic consumer goods
to everyone.

A fellow priest, Father Novak explained, had asked him if he could do anything for a cosmetic company in the priest’s parish which was going out of business and putting almost one hundred people out of work. Later that week, he was inspired by God to buy the factory and reorganize its product line to provide a biblical and hagiographic set of cosmetic products to the public.

“Providing welfare to our parishioners should be a thing of the past,” Father Novak wrote to the Pope. “From now on, the Catholic Church will put the unemployed to work. God will succeed where man has failed.” Capitalism and governments had not succeeded in keeping the economic system working at its maximum level of output, so now it was up to the Church to save the
free-market system.

Father Novak told the Pope his mind had been running wild thinking of the products he could start producing by buying up failing businesses (which were quite common in America) and realigning their production patterns to fit his customers’ needs. Slowly but surely, he could move into different areas of production until no part of life was left untouched by
Catholic Capitalism.

True, Father Novak continued to argue, the Catholic Church had never invested in businesses before with the purpose of providing Catholic consumer goods on the scale he envisioned, but now, he felt, was the time to do so. Any other course of action would be against the will of God,
he concluded.

To prove his point, Father Novak began marketing some of his Catholic consumer goods late in
1979
. One profit-packing product which was released to the public was a unique line of designer’s clothes created especially for sinners. (“Capitalism is no respecter of persons,” Father Novak had declared in his textbook many years before). The way the line of clothes worked was simple. Distinguishing cloth designs which in former times had been put on the clothes of heretics found guilty of forbidden sins were sewn onto each article of clothing the company manufactured. After selecting his or her shirts, blouses, skirts, pants, or underclothes (each had a different sin associated with each style of clothing), the person could wear their new clothes and show their friends how harsh and utterly grievous were the sins they had committed before the Lord. Instead of doing penance and saying a Hail Mary, Our Father or Glory be, sinners could buy Catholic clothing instead, and these profits would help fund the church. Two red tongues were chosen by someone who had borne false witness, and a cloth faggot signified that the wearer would have been burned at the stake had he or she lived in less liberal times. Some wore
paenae confusibiles
(yellow crosses) which signified heresy, and letters were used for other sins, i.e. A for adultery, B for blasphemy, C for cunnilingus, and
so forth.

After the clothes line caught on, people begged to buy the sinful designs themselves so they could add them to their clothes or put several insignias on a single article of clothing. Like Generals displaying decorations for distinguished service on their chest, consumers could proudly advertise their sins where all
could see.

Not wanting to disappoint their customers, Father Novak and Victor Virga acceded to these demands as quickly as they became known. After some people had bought a dozen or so designs by themselves, they placed them all together on the upper left-hand side of their shirts or blouses to proudly display their transgressions. Someone who had not heard of the newest fad in clothing would have thought they were in a city full of military heroes and heroines who had just returned from war and proudly displayed their decorations for all to see. The clothes line even changed people’s social habits. Those who had once found it difficult to start a conversation at a party now could walk up to an unknown person and say, “Wow, I committed adultery last week too, see?” and the rest
was easy.

Although Virnovak Enterprises was able to begin releasing a number of products by the end of
1979
, most of the company’s products were developed and distributed in
1980
. Nevertheless, business boomed as Virnovak Enterprises targeted its goods for Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Father Novak had finally found the success he had prayed for, and on
The Tonight Show
he predicted that by
1985
the Catholic Church would no longer have to worry about its finances.

At
10
:
00
A.M. on October
29
, four weeks to the day after the Trial of the Millennium had begun, the Supreme Court rendered its judgment in the case of the three sisters. After calling the three to stand before them, the Justices announced that they had found each of the three sisters guilty of all the charges brought against them by the Justice Department (it must be remembered that the Justice Department had dropped the charges which could not be easily proven). Among other charges, the three were found guilty of trespassing, assaulting an officer of the law, escaping from jail, fleeing in a stolen vehicle, trespassing on government property, destroying public property and committing acts of terrorism. There were also numerous citations for contempt of court, mostly because of Coito. The Justices concluded the day by announcing they would sentence the three sisters on the
following Monday.

As Susan Kaplin observed, finding the three guilty had been easy. No other verdict was possible, but deciding how the three convicted criminals should pay their debt to society might not be so simple. Though there were preordained sentences which related to each crime, merely giving each of the three a couple years in prison would be too anticlimactic to satisfy a public which had followed the case for months. To provide the nation with a satisfactory denouement, the Justices would have to devise a punishment that fit
the crimes.

The three showed little reaction when the decision was announced. Theodora and Regina accepted the judgment stoically. Though they had hoped against hope that they might be found innocent of their crimes, they knew it was beyond the realm of the possible for them to be let off scot free with the whole nation
looking on.

Coito’s immediate reaction was one of suppressed anger (more towards Victor than the Justices), but by the end of the day her attitude had changed to one of defiance, as if she had the choice to refuse or obey the Justices’ decision. Even so, K’s contempt was not the cocky chutzpah she had exhibited at the Confessions, but a muted attempt at being uncooperative obligated by her
own self-respect.

In general, public reaction to the decision was noticeably absent, mainly because the decision was of no surprise to anyone. Even liberals realized the three were guilty and knew that protesting against the Supreme Court’s decision would find no favor in the public eye. Nevertheless, some leftists made it known that the trial had been unconstitutional from the beginning, and therefore any decision of the Supreme Court was invalid, not that they could do anything to change it. Furthermore, they maintained, a guilty verdict had been planned since early July, so the trial had not been impartial. Few would have noticed these unsubstantiated accusations had not the media given these groups unduly excessive coverage since they could find no one else to dispute
the verdict.

The rest of the nation spent its time trying to guess what the Court’s sentence would be, as did bookmakers across the country who made a cool fortune off people who bet on what they felt would be the most likely sentences. Though only a handful thought the three might get probated sentences (
33
-
1
odds), some expected light sentences (
3
-
1
odds for five years or less) from the Supreme Court, since the convicted Catholic criminals had not caused bodily harm to anyone, but many expected the three to effectively get life in prison by forcing them to serve all sentences consecutively rather than concurrently
(
2
-
1
odds).