Parishioners and Other Stories. Joseph Dylan
saw to the house himself, spending most of the time in the living room where they all stood now. On the serving trays laid out on the credenza, only a few of the cold cuts and wedges of cheese remained.
–Not a week goes by that you don’t hear about another case, said Simpson, putting another couple of logs into the fireplace. Not a week goes by that there’s not something in the news.”
–How much did they settle that one case in Los Angeles for last month? asked Tripplehorn.
–I don’t know about the one case, replied Seymour. I know that they named twenty- two priests in the Los Angeles diocese, though.
–Incredible, snorted Harry Williams.
Harry Williams’ family started City Market, the only supermarket in the small community before the larger chains had moved into the towns of the Western Slope. He was a tall, stooped man who wore horn-rimmed glasses.
–They settled the cases in the Los Angeles diocese for six hundred and sixty million, stated Crawford, who always had his legal facts close at hand.
Crawford stood next to the television, which was turned on to CNN, the sound turned off. Its drowned out picture provided the only other illumination in the darkened room. A couple of the men murmured at the mention of the figure. Hendrichs emitted a low whistle of disbelief.
–I can’t believe that they settled for that much, pronounced Carlyle.
–Believe it, said Crawford. There were over five hundred plaintiffs. Like John said, there were twenty-two priests named in the complaints. Twenty-two or twenty-three. It might even bankrupt the Los Angeles Diocese.
–I can’t believe is that they were all molested, said Carlyle. I mean that seems like just such an unbelievable number. It’s outrageous.
–Well, the one priest confessed to a couple dozen cases, replied Simpson.
–I’m not convinced that they are all telling the truth, stated Carlyle. I mean, it’s just not possible. Spreading his arms as if in disbelief, Carlyle then took another sip of his scotch and water. Some of them don’t seem to have the most reliable character, if you know what I mean.
–In the Los Angeles cases, at least most of them, the church finally acknowledged that it happened, responded Crawford.
–I think a lot of them are just losers, said O’Connoll. A lot of them are just degenerates. That’s all they are.
–You saying they are lying, Frank? inquired Crawford.
–I’m just saying that a lot of them are losers and degenerates.
O’Connoll drank the last of his scotch and water. He went over to the credenza where he poured himself another shot of Johnny Walker. Then, he returned to where he was standing, next to the fire, beside the rest of the gathering.
–It seems to me that they have a legitimate complaint, responded Hendrichs after a few moments. They can’t all be degenerates.
–Yeah, said O’Connoll. But I bet most of them are losers.
–Just be grateful that none of them are your kids, said Seymour.
–What’s that supposed to mean? responded O’Connoll.
–Just what I said: Be glad that none of them were your kids.
O’Connoll started to say something, but then held off, and swallowing, took another pull on his drink.
The gathering lapsed into silence, again. Seymour gazed into the fire. He picked up the poker and nosed two of the logs that had largely burned, closer to each other.
–Did they say anything about the kid who accused Dennison? asked Ted Jones.
Jones ran a drilling supply company in the valley. Like the others, he had survived the hard times in the boom-and-bust town in the middle of nowhere, half way between the two state capitals.
–He’s hardly a kid, said Crawford. The man they convicted is in his mid-twenties. He was busted for selling crack. Hell, they busted him on Coulfax Boulevard in broad daylight trying to sell a couple ounces of it to an undercover cop. Not only that, it wasn’t his first bust. He had one five or six years ago. It was at his sentencing hearing that he brought up his encounter with Dennison. I’m sure he brought it up so that he’d get a little more leniency from the judge when he passed sentence.
–Did it? asked Tripplehorn.
–Did it what? replied Seymour.
–Did it persuade the judge to give him any less time? answered Tripplehorn.
–He got five years hard-time, replied Crawford. You tell me?
It was getting later and most of the men had settled into the chairs of the living room. Simpson stoked the fire, embers flaring to life in the fireplace. Seymour lit a pipe and remained standing next to the fire.
–So it’s true that he left a note? asked Tripplehorn.
–I spoke to Terry Simmonds yesterday, said Crawford. Dennison was a good friend of Simmonds when he was in the valley. He said that he left a long note. It was just like the note he sent the reporter at the Rocky Mountain News confirming the man’s accusations. In the end, he admitted it all...The story in the Rocky Mountain News was quite graphic. It left little to the imagination.
–No it didn’t, said Bradford. I spoke to the editor of the Rocky Mountain News. He’s a friend of mine. He confirmed all of it.
–I never figured Dennison to be the type, said Henry Taylor.
Taylor was a quiet man who had hardly spoken all night. He ran the teachers’ credit union in town. Never one given to stating a political opinion, the rest just presumed he was a Republican like most of the rest in the room.
–It makes you wonder, responded Tripplehorn.
–It sure does, added Bradford.
–Simmonds told me that even the man they convicted expressed his regrets, said Carlyle. He never thought it would come to this.
–Nor did anyone else, said Seymour.
–Maybe Dennison did the honorable thing, then, added Seymour.
–Maybe he did, replied Crawford. Maybe, he did.
By now, they were all standing again. John Seymour’s hand lay braced against the fireplace. They all stood about, again, washing down the last of their drinks, slowly getting ready to leave. They stood watching the embers of the burning logs flaring up and dying out, parishioners one and all.
Zhang Heng
Throughout the week, gray clouds gathered and the rain fell. Falling as a mist on Monday, the rain returned as a drizzle the following day. The rain today tore down in sheets, peppering the sodden streets, flooding the shallow depressions in the asphalt, the rainwater only slowly slipping away down the storm drains that were about to overflow. Taking care that they would not get their feet too wet, reluctant pedestrians tentatively leapt across the rain swollen gutters, All that summer, the weather in Shanghai had been the same: a day or two of sunshine, followed by three to four days of rain. Endless humidity; near endless precipitation. No less than anyone in the city, Zhang Heng was weary of it. From the third floor windows of the International Medical Centre, the private clinic where she worked as a registered nurse, she could see the pedestrians below scampering past in the downpour. They made their way up and down the crowded boulevard underneath their umbrellas looking like lilly pads skimming across a pond. For Zhang Heng, it was sea of humanity, a sea of underlying problems and poverty and misfortune. This was the China she was desperate to leave; this was the China she was desperate to put far, far behind her. For many of the Chinese, it was a time of change, a time of hopefulness, a time of bounty; but for her the future only seemed forlorn.
Of the six nurses who worked full time in the International Medical Center in the Pudong District of Shanghai, Zhang Heng was the only one who was not