The Trinity (45 page)

He takes a few notes, mainly for show, and tells Chief Lassiter that yes, this is probably too bizarre to be true, but he will look into it.

Wilson lets out a big sigh as Chief Lassiter leaves. He can taste his upcoming retirement and doesn’t want to be bothered by anything cumbersome; he wants his remaining days in the Navy to be as placid as a frozen lake.

He does feel that the story is a bit far-flung, too far-flung to be true. He recalls being puzzled at the priest’s involvement in the suicide of Lee Rodgers, and his forehead scrunches as he sits at his desk, recalling those days, those turbulent days interrupting the idyllic life of RAF Lutherkirk.

He dons his camouflage hat and hops into a blue Chevrolet, not unlike a police car found in the States, the car even possessing a left-sided steering wheel. He drives the quarter mile to the chapel and walks into the office of Chaplain Crowley.

The priest is sitting calmly at his desk, apparently doing nothing. Chief Wilson sees no papers on his desk or any other sign of activity.

Just Father Crowley sitting there in an unkempt khaki uniform underneath the navy blue cardigan that only officers are allowed to wear. The shoulders of the sweater are covered in dandruff and renegade hair. Chief Wilson surveys the uniform crossly, but he doesn’t confront an officer and he doesn’t confront a man of the cloth.

Crowley smiles upon seeing Chief Wilson. He instantly recognizes and recalls the face and the uniform.

On the outside, Crowley appears calm and carefree. On the inside, he is cringing, his heart beating so fast that he can feel its tremors in his throat. His temples start to pulse.

“Good morning, Chief, good morning. What brings you here to our Father’s house?”

“Nothing, really. I just want to make sure that everything is okay with you. Some things have been mentioned about some extracurricular activities of yours, and, you know, it’s all kind of related to the suicide of that pathetic young seaman a few months back. I was just wonderin’ if anything has come up because of that.”

“No, no,” replies Crowley with an unbroken smile. He is sure that the obese Dundee inspector has contacted the base. He burns with anger at the thought.

“That’s kind of what I thought. I’ll leave you to your prayers.” Chief Wilson assumes that he had interrupted Crowley praying, as there would be no other explanation for him sitting at his desk so calmly.

Crowley hasn’t been praying. He has been inside his current favorite daydream, a daydream full of fire and smoke and the suffocated coughs of Jewish men, women and children. He sees himself standing outside the Aberdeen synagogue, long enough to watch the building collapse as it weakens in flames. He joins hands with Chris and Brad and they raise them in triumph.

“Anytime, anytime,” replies Crowley, angry with the Tayside Police, not suspecting Chris of divulging any of their privileged information.

Chris awakens late in the afternoon. His sleep was deep and dreamless, and he is awake a full minute before he can remember the events of last night and of this morning.

He somehow expects the world to be different as he peers behind a drawn shade and sees only the damp and empty courtyard of the barracks.

Hinckley enters the room a bit earlier than normal and rather abruptly, almost slamming the door open as he comes in.

Chris is nervous. He doesn’t know what the priest has told Brad. He is afraid Brad may antagonize him.

The priest did call Brad, only to tell him to be sure to come over this Friday evening, and that Chris needed a bit more convincing. That was all.

“I hear you talked to Father today,” says Brad, flipping on the light switch.

“Yep.”

“Well, he didn’t tell me much about it. He says we’ll all talk Friday. That’s cool. I’m looking forward to relaxin’ and kickin’ back a few beers and not have to go anywhere. You got a cigarette?”

Chris fishes a fresh pack from a carton in his locker and gives the whole pack to Brad.

Brad opens the pack and lights a cigarette without thanking Chris.

Chris readies himself for work, showering quickly and getting dressed.

He hopes to find Brad gone when he exits the bathroom, but there he is, sitting on his bed, surrounded by a cloud of smoke.

“You wanna eat?” he asks Chris.

Chris shrugs his shoulders and grabs his coat.

They eat. Chris is sullen, and Brad talks incessantly.

“It will be something, you know, when we do it,” says Brad. “We’ll be famous. If you ain’t white, you’ll be afraid to come to Scotland, that’s for shit-sure.”

Chris spins his neck to make sure no one can hear Brad’s boasting. As usual, no one in the half-full galley pays any attention to them. No one is interested in what he or Brad has to say. They are just part of the galley’s landscape, no different than a table or a chair.

“I bet,” Brad continues, “after we do what we’re gonna do, people will hear of it around the world. They’ll know about it everywhere. Nebraska, Detroit, Israel, heck, probably even Russia.”

Chris realizes that Father Crowley has not told Brad everything, that he hasn’t learned of his desire to abstain from the group’s violent activity.

He doesn’t fill him in. Brad thinks Chris is still a part of the fold.

Chris enters his building for the mid-watch, anxious to hear the result of Karen’s conversation with Chief Lassiter.

Chris pictures a snowball rolling from the top of a mountain, turning into an avalanche.

He somehow expects the watch floor to be covered in snow, but it isn’t. He takes his pass-down from the departing seaman. The night promises to be busy, which Chris is excited about. On this night, his mind is elsewhere. Although he was comforted by the priest’s reassuring words this morning, he is still haunted by the specter of a Father Crowley angered by his reluctance to continue their racial and religious war. A man of a sort of god capable of murder with his bare hands.

He is dreading Friday. He hopes the evening will be innocent, the way he envisioned his relationship with the priest would transpire, merely a place to go off base, to drink and relax and enjoy semi-intelligent conversation without any sort of social pressure. No need to worry about being without a girlfriend in the company of a priest or to be accepted by the larger social circles. It was okay to be a misfit and still be a friend of the priest. Chris liked that.

Chris asks Karen how her talk with Chief Lassiter went as soon as the outgoing watch leaves the work space.

“Fine,” she says numbly. She slept little during the day. Her adrenaline was raised by her confession to Chris, as if she had just completed a vigorous exercise, causing her to be too wound up to relax.

“Did he say anything?” Chris asks, concerned about his own culpability.

“No. I’m going to wait for him in the morning and see what happened. Otherwise, we’ll have to wait and see.”

Chris tells her about his conversation with Father Crowley. He tells her that it went well, that the priest didn’t seem to mind his reluctance to carry on their relationship.

He omits one important detail. He is too embarrassed to tell her that he has agreed to spend Friday evening in the company of the priest.

The night goes on, and they forget about their situation in the midst of their work. The morning comes and Chris goes to the galley and then the barracks. Karen remains an extra hour or so, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee while waiting for Chief Lassiter.

She confronts him as he walks in, again groggy from a lack of caffeine. She asks what is going to happen next, if the priest should be arrested, or even Chris.

“It’s done,” he says.

“What do you mean?”

“The priest and the situation have been investigated, and there is no reason to examine it further.” Lassiter sips his coffee and avoids eye contact with Karen.

“What do you mean? The man is evil! Look at what he’s done already!”

“Just because the young seaman told you something doesn’t mean it’s true. Did you ever consider that?”

Karen is silent. She gets it. The Navy will not persecute one of its own, especially an officer, unless there is something solid. If the priest is doing something wrong, well, they won’t need to do anything until a corpse lands on their doorstep.

Until another corpse lands on their doorstep.  

Dejected, Karen drives home. She wonders how she will contact Chris, to warn him of the impotence of the chain of command.

She also wonders—driving home with the window of her Austin Mini rolled down to combat the sweat she has developed—if there is anything she can do to confront the priest herself.

She has only seen the priest once before, coming out of the exchange. She knew he was a chaplain by the gold cross pinned on the collar of his khaki uniform. She rubbed up against him accidentally and said, “Pardon me, sir” with a smile.

He didn’t return the smile, and she felt a certain sense of dread, a feeling like so many hot knives shredding her stomach, which reacted in twists and turns. Immediately thereafter, she forgot the very brief encounter, and didn’t recall it until just now, driving home in the approaching sunlight, sunlight filtering through the branches of the grand trees along the narrow road leading from Lutherkirk to the A92.

It is Friday, the Friday of Chris’s unfortunate decision to visit the priest at his cottage.

Chris sleeps until noon and then spends the day kicking around the base, trying to stay out of his room as much as possible. He is trying to avoid the many thoughts that enter his mind while confined to four walls, paperback novels, and the lonely headset of his radio.

He is also trying to avoid contact with his roommate. He is already dreading the evening ahead, an evening where he is bound to feel uncomfortable, having spurned the priest’s request to participate in the firebombing of the Aberdeen synagogue.

The afternoon is also filled with regret. He regrets choosing the friends that he has. It would have been easier and wiser to remain anonymous and alone. He also regrets the crassness of his first feminine encounter—the insidious event at the George Hotel. He had enjoyed a sort of pristine picture of the end of his virginity, envisioning it as some sort of magical event. The night in Montrose shattered all his daydreams and expectations.

He still considers himself a virgin, and is now more resolved than ever to fall in love in the truest sense. There have been no prospects, and in this, too, he is disappointed. He expected the path to companionship to be open to him upon his arrival in Scotland. He expected a smorgasbord of suitable girls. The only candidate he has encountered so far is a widow more than ten years his senior. Still, she is a widow he cares about very much, and he also suspects that she cares about him.

He also regrets, deeply, being secretive about his appointment on this evening with Crowley. He feels as if he is betraying Karen—she has gone out of her way to help him—staying after the mid-watch to talk to the chief and seeming to understand how he got into this predicament, the desperation of his friendlessness, the naïveté of his blind devotion to a man so much older and wiser and kinder than any he has ever known.

Obvious to him, too, is the fact that Karen hasn’t passed any sort of judgment on him, even though he knows his character deserves to be assassinated a thousand times or more. She seems to understand his humanness and he takes her lack of censure as a sort of backhanded forgiveness, forgiving him for taking the path that has led him to where he is on this day.

He knows that if she knew about his plans for the evening she would be angered and even more disappointed. However, he still feels a sort of allegiance to Crowley, and felt obliged to take his invitation. And hope lies in that obligation—the vague promise of Crowley being nothing more than an innocent mentor, a sort of lovable uncle who lets the nephews come over and drink beer and smoke without the parents knowing.