Buckley - Wet Work

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to characters living or dead is coincidental.

Certain works of art and technology appear under their real names; their authors and originators should not, of course, be held to account for my subversions.

He had done only two deathbeds up to now, and both of them coma cases. Father Toomey reserved to himself the conscious; he got the brain-dead, the vegetal and the Do Not Resuscitate. Dues, said Father Toomey one night, tossing back his third vodka martini. It was the same when I was just out of seminary. They think because youre new youll make a mistake and send them to Hell on a technicality.

There wasnt much challenge in ministering to people who just lay there with tubes going in and out. What drama hed experienced had been decidedly unpleasant. Hed just finished with the anointing when the hairdresser showed up. The family had provided for a weekly shampoo, set and rinse. The hairdresser pointed to the smear of holy oil on the old ladys forehead and said, Okay if that gets wet? Six years of seminary to dicker over forehead rights with a hairstylist to the dying?

But now this. Now this had promise.

He was in an Italian sports car with a name like exotic pasta, being catapulted through the dark countryside by a man with a melted face whod shown up on the rectory doorstep at three in the morning asking for Father Toomey. When he saw the face hed gasped, but the man only smiled as if to say, That happens all the time. He was a friendly man, in a gangsterish sort of way, with two heavy gold rings. It was entirely possible, he mused, that he was on the way to the deathbed of a Mafia don. The elements were all there.

Hope we dont hit a deer, huh?

Strange conversational gambit, he thought. The man tapped a black box on the dash. This thing here, it sends out like a kind of Morse code to deerwe cant hear it, but they canthat tells them theres this maniac doing eighty on a road posted forty-five and they should stick to the sidewalk. You like venison? I never had it till I came down here, now I eat it all the time.

Can you tell me something about your employer? the young priest ventured.

Charles Becker.

The priest gathered the name was supposed to ring a bell. Yes? The driver seemed amused. He downshifted and the car screamed up a hill, bare-trunked sugar maples flashing by like fence pickets. Hes a businessman.

I see. There was a long silence. What kind of businessman?

Good businessman. He nodded.

Mafia. The priest felt his heart rate increasing.

Real estate, mining, agricultural fertilizers, aircraft, codyou know Captain Petes fish sticks?

Sure.

Those are his fish sticks.

Is that right? I ate a lot of those fish sticks, growing up.

There you go. You made him rich. What else? Oil, gas, timberhe owns a good deal of Oregon, I believe it is, or Washington State. You remember when Mount St. Helens blew up, that volcano? Well, a lot of that ash landed on his land. He turned around and sold it for agricultural fertilizer. This is a smart man, Padre. Padre? Livestock. Weather satellites. One of the movie companies, he owns a good of piece of that. Defense, his company used to do some defense work for the government.

The priest recoiled. Defense? What ironic grace had brought him to the deathbed of an arms dealer, he whod been arrested for demonstrating outside the El Salvadoran embassy in Washington. He saw napalm lighting up the jungle, cluster bombs free-falling from the bellies of B-52s, tanks crushing human beings, ballistic missiles hurtling toward what the defense industry liked to call population centers, saw the skythe very heavenspolluted with laser weapons. He saw children starving, people dying of AIDS, the homeless shivering on steam grates, battered wives, crack babies abandoned in hospitals, he sawthey were going through a gate, a large gate that seemed to open without human agency. He turned and saw them, two men withof courseholsters. Remember, he told himself through pursed lips, that Christ went to the home of Matthew, the tax collector. But a defense contractor?

Halfway.

What? said the priest, sounding annoyed.

Thats the house up there, those lights.

The priest could barely make them out. They weremiles away anyway. Good lord, how many wars had it taken to acquire a front lawn this size?

This is the golf course here. The buffalo tear the hell out of it. If it was me, Id stick them somewheres else, but he likes looking at them from his window, so they just go on replacing the divots. You ever seen a buffalo divot? Tell you something else about buffalo, he said with a confidential air. Theyre major defecators. We got someone on staff, thats all he does.

They drove over a stone bridge. The priest saw swans and Canada geese in the moonlight.

When I was a kid growing up they called it Extreme Unction. You remember that? I guess that was before your time.

The priest didnt like the allusion to his youth. He said a bit stiffly, Its called the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick now.

Thats nicer. Takes the sting out, doesnt it? Extreme Unction always sounded so severe, you know? Like Unction with Extreme Prejudice. He chuckled.

The young priest thought it was a little funny, but he wasnt in the mood to laugh. Is Mr. Becker a practicing Catholic?

Sure.

Sure? I mean

He pointed. Thats the chapel over there. The priest made out an ecclesiastical silhouette surrounded by poplars on top of a hillock. Thats where everyones buried. Underneath, in the crypts. He pronounced it crips. Theyve got this plumbing system, I guess you could call it that, to get rid of the methane. Apparently you can actually get explosions. You imagine, youre laying a wreath on Aunt Marthas crip and baboom!

The car crunched to a stop in front of the large Georgian mansion covered in ivy, not a moment too soon as far as the priest was concerned. He reached for the door handle. He felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned toward the melted face.

Before you go in, Padre, theres something I should tell you.

What now?

Hes a little doped up.

The priest nodded. Thank God for the drugs.

Yeah, the man chuckled, thank God for the drugs. Look, Padre, hes likely to tell you this story. Dont take it too seriously, if you see what Im saying.