The Heretics of St. Possenti Page 12

  “An exi-what-sis?”

  Cranberry looked across the table at John and sighed. “I pray I am up to it. You have a long way to go as well.”

  Return Visitor

  In this country we have no place for hyphenated Americans.

  —Theodore Roosevelt

  Thomas Cranberry sat at his Gripe Table reviewing and organizing notes he’d been taking on one of his many recent forays to a homeless shelter when a previous visitor stopped by again. The tired stress lines were even deeper on the man’s face. The priest looked up and greeted him with a smile. “Desmond.”

  “You remember me,” Desmond said with mild surprise, his tone even more subdued than in his last visit.

  “We talked a fair time.”

  “Most people don’t. Remember me, that is.”

  “I’m not most people. What can I listen to today?”

  “Know of any job offers?”

  “Oh, I’m very sorry to hear that. No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

  Desmond sat and slowly slumped in the chair. “Didn’t think so.”

  “When?”

  “This afternoon. Just found out.”

  “I don’t believe that drinking will help you, but commiseration might. Let me buy you the ‘laid-off special.’”

  “The what?”

  “Your choice of Mexican or Indian food. They bill it as ‘half the price, a third the calories, and paid for by someone else.’ A real menu option even if it’s not listed. What passes for humor here at the Howling Puffin. It’s actually more like two-thirds the calories at half the price, so it’s a decent deal for someone watching his budget, but you can only get it once per layoff.”

  Desmond chuckled in spite of his situation. “Not much to say. Wouldn’t last more than a shot glass or two.”

  “Oh?”

  “She was offended…. I said it, she was offended, and I’m out. End of story.”

  “Ouch. May I ask what you said?”

  “That men and women were different.”

  “True enough. So what was the offensive part?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Really? Sounds unlikely.”

  Desmond smiled a faint, ironic smile. “Three days ago I’d have thought so, too…. A bulletin board had a poster advertising a women’s-only self-defense class. There have been a couple of assaults and a robbery in the parking lot recently. I bit my tongue and didn’t point out the sexism of not offering a male-only class, too. One of the lab techs thought it was sexist, saying that she should be able to take any class a man did. I pointed out that she could take other classes with men, but this one was advertised as specializing in techniques that would be most useful to women.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “She insisted that men and women were the same. There didn’t need to be any difference in techniques. I pointed out men were on average bigger, stronger, and faster and had more muscle mass and a higher metabolic rate. I even pointed out the obvious differences in Olympic sports times. She thought that was sexist and reported me to HR.”

  “But all those things are true.”

  “Makes no difference. Truth is no defense. The ‘human dignity’ policy makes no exception at all for truth or accuracy. Nor context, intent, relevance, or misunderstanding what was said. I said it. She was offended. I’m an offender. End of story. No appeal. I had the choice of resigning and walking away quietly with a modest severance package and a usable reference or being formally disciplined, PIPed, and walking away protesting in a month with nothing but a black mark on my record that would follow me everywhere.”

  “Did you apologize?”

  “Yes. Abjectly. Made no difference. The damage was done, they said.”

  “How is that in any way fair? Or legal?”

  Desmond shrugged. “It’s legal because they assert that it is. The union rep sided with them, saying that I didn’t need to say such appalling and sexist things. Couldn’t I see how it might be seen as offensive, she asked? Because they think nothing is worse than being an -ist. Sexist, racist, religionist.”

  “Tolerance cannot be gained by zero-tolerance policies, nor diversity encouraged by strict enforcement of conformity, nor equality gained by denying differences,” objected the bishop.

  “Tell them that. Offending is worse than assaulting. While they ignore the real things said and done by people who are not straight, white, Christian males like myself. Because they are the oppressed and powerless, they told me.

  “I’m just a man, so I’m disposable. My brother told me he was expendable when he was in the army, but at least he was considered valuable, to be expended only in exchange for something else worthwhile. But at that company? I’m not expendable, just disposable when no longer convenient.”

  “I am so very sorry to hear that. Do you have any plans other than the obvious: filing for unemployment and looking for a job?”

  Desmond shook his head slowly. “The wife will demand a divorce. More benefits as a single mom. I just hope it’s a no-fault quickie, not one that forces her to make up some sort of domestic abuse to make it easier for her.”

  “Oh, no. You can’t be… I take that back. You are not only serious, but you are likely correct.” Thomas bowed his head and said a quick prayer. “We cannot know God’s plans. We can only work with what we have. What’s your favorite food?”

  Desmond shrugged. “Dunno. Indian, I guess.”

  “Ah, excellent choice.” Father Cranberry waved Erika over to his table. “I’d like to buy Desmond here a lay-off special. Indian.”

  “Been a lot of those getting ordered lately. Very sorry to hear. You ordered a Canadian lager last time you were in. The same?”

  Desmond nodded, lips pressed together into a thin line, and then sat still for a long time, eyes looking down at the table between them, while the background music bounced from one genre to another.

  Finally, Cranberry spoke. “So: you file for unemployment and start looking for work. Is there anything else on the horizon?”

  He was rewarded by nothing more than a faint shake of Desmond’s head.

  “Start listing your assets. Mentally run through them all. Let me know when you are done. Clear?”

  Desmond looked up at him, eyes desperate. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and started to speak slowly and quietly. “House. Car–”

  “No. Mentally. Just to yourself for the moment.”

  Desmond looked curiously at Thomas, furrowed his eyebrows, and started over. When his plate of curry arrived, he consumed it silently, expression occasionally changing as different thoughts passed through his mind. He was half-done with the food when he sat back. “Okay. Now what?”

  “Tell me how many people you listed.”

  “What?”

  “How many people did you list in your assets?”

  “Ah… None.” Thomas waited for Desmond to make the connection. It took only a few seconds. “Oh. Yeah, I see what you are getting at. Contacts. Friends. Connections.”

  “And family. Anyone who might be able to help you with anything in any way. A friendly couch. A job. A meal. A shoulder. Someone who can give you another name, who might know of a possible opening. A blog you frequent and comment at that has many readers, where your name might be recognized. Assets are not only physical possessions. They are anything that might help you out. Anything, anyone, any knowledge, any skill, any experience. Think big and wide, Desmond. Think about everything in your life. Any possible lifeline.”

  Over the next few minutes, the expression on Desmond’s face slowly brightened as he finished his free, if skimpy, meal. By the end he was nodding slightly to himself as internal conversations played out across his face.

  He looked into Father Cranberry’s eyes at last. The haunted look was almost completely gone. “I see a few possibilities.”

  “Excellent! You must not forget your assets just because you have encountered new problems. Life may be complicated, but there is always a path thro
ugh its minefields, however hard it may be to see. We may not know God’s plan, but that doesn’t mean He does not have one.”

  “For a preacher, you’re pretty practical.”

  “I try. We live in this world while waiting for the next. We may as well make the most of it.”

  Check-in

  The best way to predict the future is to create it.

  —Peter Drucker

  Bishop Cranberry walked into the archbishop’s office in a buoyant mood. There were always more details cropping up, but the big picture was getting nailed down into place with increasing speed and firmness, the pieces for getting it started were slowly lining up, and the number of people beginning to really buy into the concept as something other than the hair-brained bastard child of a late-night drunken bull session had increased steadily. He was connecting to people who had the skills he needed, and they were slowly but steadily climbing aboard and joining his mission.

  Archbishop Malone waved him to a chair. “You look fit, Thomas. And surprisingly happy considering what you had experienced when we last spoke. I take it your break is agreeable?”

  “Yes, very much so. The Lord has made an incredible world, and spending time in it, rather than merely greeting what walks in the door, was exactly what I needed.”

  “Oh? Do tell.”

  “Well, I can’t, really.” The archbishop raised his eyebrows and steepled his fingers. “I’m working on a project. A surprise, of sorts. I was inspired, and I may have found a solution in the last place I ever would have expected. But I think… I think you will find it worth pursuing.”

  “Indeed? That sounds exciting, Thomas. You certainly sound excited about it, in any case. You will not give me even a hint?”

  Cranberry smiled and shook his head. “Not at this time. It’s going to take a couple of more months of work before I can unveil the plan and put a price tag on it for you to consider. But I’m sure you’ll be impressed by the scope and potential of it.”

  “Now you really do have me intrigued! I wish I could report anything a tenth as exciting as what you appear to be sitting on, but it’s much the same story here as it’s been for years.”

  Cranberry nodded knowingly. A nearly two-thousand-year-old institution didn’t change much in a month or even most years. A few more people here, slightly fewer there, a birth, a death, a peccadillo, a surprise donation: the trend-lines and averages moved with glacial slowness. And usually, that was okay. Comfortable even. But soon, though the foundations might not change, the look might alter rather more noticeably in places.

  “So where have you been? I’ve not seen you walking around the neighborhood much, nor at Mass the last two weeks.”

  “Ah, yes, well. I’ve been here and there. I have not yet entirely become an itinerant street-preacher, but I am keeping quite busy meeting a lot of new people and hearing many interesting ideas. I offered to perform a service for some of my new acquaintances and wound up doing several small, personalized ones. Last Sunday I filled in at a VA hospital when the normal chaplain was out with a cold. And I attended an unexpected funeral.”

  “I see. Well, as long as you are not hanging out in taverns and getting into fights, I suppose it will all work out on God’s calendar.”

  Thomas chuckled. “Oh, I expect it would work out even then. The Lord has a sublime sense of humor, He does. More than I had ever imagined.”

  Shifts

  Idleness is the enemy of the soul; and therefore the brethren ought to be employed in manual labor at certain times, at others, in devout reading.

  The Holy Rule of Saint Benedict, Ch. XLVIII

  Thomas was looking over a schedule with Bill and Luke, one of the vets who he’d connected with at the VA hospital while getting PT for a missing leg. Formerly a logistics sergeant, Luke was in his thirties. He was a pleasant, cheerful man when he wasn’t having flashbacks.

  “Your best bet here, trying to do all these things, is to have rotating shifts.”

  “Shifts?” Cranberry said skeptically. “Traditionally, monks all rise together, eat together, pray together, and confess and hear Mass together. They split up only for chores.”

  “Tradition will be difficult when doing this on a budget. You’ll have serious problems trying to get everyone doing the same things all at once.”

  “What kind of problems?”

  “Once you get to your planned enrollment—that’s a good battalion-sized element, by the way—you’ll need to either get a whole lot more room or stagger shifts and rotate who’s doing what when. Three or four shifts for meals will require a much smaller dining hall–”

  “Refectory,” corrected Thomas.

  “–and somewhat less cooking space. Your workout yard, classrooms, and everything can be a bit smaller.”

  “Yes, I suppose that makes sense.” Thomas thought the concept over, slowly warming to it. “One group can rise early to prepare breakfast, while other shifts pray, exercise, or do early work-party activities. The group that prepares breakfast goes to pray or confession or classes after they eat, while another group cleans up. They all rotate through all the shifts.”

  “Exactly,” Bill said. “Biggest problem with most services is that they are one size fits all, which usually means it doesn’t fit anyone very well. You get to be flexible as you start a new tradition. Schedules don’t have to be fixed. Get people where they are needed and where they will gain the most. The musically talented can help write and teach traditional and any new songs we come up with and spend more time there. A lot of the rest grew up rural; if you go with either of those westward locations, we can talk to the Mennonite colonies nearby to see about local low-tech farming methods.”

  “And animal husbandry,” Luke added and nodded agreement.

  “Regular husbandry, too,” joked Thomas.

  “Yes, maybe that, too,” said Bill. “I’m sure they don’t all want to stay on the farm. But you know sects like that are rather on the pacifist side of the faith and might get a little bent at monk-hunks with guns breaking the ladies hearts.”

  “Hmmm… yes, that could put a dent in our relations. We shall have to be careful about that. See how the alliances pan out,” Thomas agreed.

  “Might rub a lot of people the wrong way though,” said Bill. “We won’t quite fit in well with any established camp. The Amish, Mennonites, and Hutterites, and the other monastic orders, will probably call us violent heretics. Most of the more libertarian gunnies will call us wide-eyed Jesus-Freaks.”

  “Better wide eyed than closed eyed, I would think,” said Thomas placidly. Then he grinned suddenly and looked acutely at Bill. “You said we, there. Not you. Are you planning on being one of the first initiates?”

  “Giving it serious thought, you know. I’ve certainly been thinking a lot more recently with all y’all than normal. About everything. It’s good to have a sense of purpose. That people understand me. You are making a lot more sense than most people I know, and this plan certainly is sounding better than most of the crap I see day in and day out.”

  Thomas Cranberry smiled but said nothing. As the audacious plan took shape, more and more people had moved from the “crazy speculation” stage they wanted to learn a bit more about to the “you know, this thing might actually work” sort of cautious optimism. It wasn’t always who he expected either. His own opinion had moved steadily from “could work, just need to figure out a massive raft of details and how to sell it to others” toward “absolutely will work, foundational and structural elements designed, just awaiting funding and details that can make it happen.”

  Mickey Finnegan walked in and pulled up a chair, looking over the building design sketch that Thomas was holding.

  “Yes, indeed. Looks good. Classic mix of design features. Glad to see that detail’s coming along.”

  “Not totally. Only the basic design,” Luke said. “Still have to line up construction and modifications, but we might have an angle on that.”

  “Construction isn’t cheap, n
o matter how many connections you have. The city inspector will just laugh at your schedule until you grease his palm enough. Any more angles in this thing, and you’ll need a tesseract to hold them all.”

  “Hmm. Doubter,” said Thomas.

  “Still not as expensive as ongoing ammo costs though.”

  “Oh?”

  “Once things are going steady, you are looking at four hundred guys shooting every other day, fifty rounds each at a minimum. Ten thousand rounds a day. Three and a half million rounds a year at least. Even the cheapest .22 ammo will be costing you a quarter-mill, and budget bulk com-block mil-surp 7.62x39 bought by the container will be at least three times that, more likely four or five.”

  “That much shooting? Really?”

  “If you want to teach guys to be Zen-good at long-range focus, yeah. Something like that anyway. If you want match-grade ammo, you are looking at buck a round or more. Only way to go cheaper would be to reload your own.” He got a gleam in his eye. “Or maybe start your own ammo company, make our own and use the profits to pay for the monastery shooting habit. Sell fifty million quality rounds a year, profit of ten percent, get five million rounds a year for free. Maybe even get the ammo tax free, call them quality-control test-samples.”

  “Could you really sell that much?” Bishop Cranberry arched his eyebrows uncertainly.

  “Tom, Americans buy more than ten billion rounds of ammo a year. Closer to twenty. Dedicated shooters mostly load their own to save money, so those numbers are not included in the finished ammo sales. Shortages are cyclical, and another one is due soon. Because of changes in demand, prices for something that costs only five cents a round to produce can vary from six cents to sixty cents a round. Heck of a profit margin for decent-quality stuff ready for immediate delivery, especially if you can advertise that it’s totally domestic manufacture or sell it with a fish logo to indicate a Christian-affiliated business. So while I don’t know the exact numbers, I’m pretty sure it would be possible to at least cut costs significantly, and possibly turn a profit, on the business. Fifty million rounds in a twenty-billion round market won’t be a blip. Less than a half percent.”