The Bighead by Edward Lee Read Free Book Online Page A

what you want, tough guy? You want to be the cellblock
bitch? You got any idea what cons do to pedophiles in the joint?
They’ll make you boy-pussy, chief. They’ll turn you to a punk in
less time than it takes you to say three Hail Marys, and they’ll be
trading you back and forth every night for cigarettes. But that’ll
be the least of your worries, hoss, because if you do it again, I’m
gonna kick your ass so bad your own mama won’t recognize
you.”
    He put them on Depo-Prevera
and left them to wonder. Needless to say, there were many
complaints about Alexander’s methodologies. But the diocese never
stepped on his tail because his success rate was so high. Any
priest gone bad was an embarrassment, and the Church didn’t like
embarrassments. Here’s the problem. Fix
it. They didn’t care how.
    But what of Alexander’s own
problems? Celibate since twenty-eight, not once had he even
considered breaking his vows. Hell, I
don’t even jerk off. He smoked and drank in
moderation, and—well—he had a propensity for foul language, not a
priestly trait. Once he’d called Monsignor Tipton an asshole at an
ordination reception, during an argument over whether or not girls
should be allowed to acolyte. Halford had nearly shit his cassock.
“Damn it, Tom! That man’s going to be a cardinal someday, and you
just called him an asshole!”
    Alexander shrugged.
“He is an
asshole.”
    “ That’s beside the point!
He could request a reprimand! You want that on your Church record?
He could have you reassigned to a mission in Africa, for God’s
sake.”
    “ Let him,” Alexander said.
“I’ll kick his bootie with my tooty fruity.”
    “ He deserves
respect!”
    “ He deserves my foot up his
ass.”
    “ You’re impossible, Tom!”
Halford continued with his tirade. “You’re so indecorous,
so…profane. You cuss worse than a longshoreman. There’s absolutely
no excuse for a priest to use that kind of language.”
    “ What language would you
prefer? French? German? How about Lower Latin or Sanskrit? Anyway
you look at it, Tipton’s an antediluvian asshole with medieval
ideas that are contrary to the needs of the worshippers. It’s guys
like him that keep the Church in a constant state of regression,
and I told him so. I call them like I see them. Tipton’s a shmuck.
A shit-head. A pantywaist Church-bureaucratic dick-lick who’s in
the bizz only for his own self-aggrandizement, and if the Pope ever
makes him a cardinal, I’ll bend over and blow chunky on his
raiments.”
    “ God Almighty, Tom,”
Halford groaned.
    Such, then, was Alexander’s
clerical plight. If he couldn’t be a priest in any real way, he
wouldn’t want to be one at all. And if the diocese wanted to keep
him swept under a benefice rug because he had a foul mouth, then so
be it. At least they couldn’t fire him. Though art a priest forever, they’d
promised at his own ordination. They’re
stuck with me, and I like that. Besides, I’m probably the best
diocesan psychologist in the country, and they know it.
    It was almost, in fact, amusing. Any
priest wanted his own parish, and Alexander knew he’d never—ever in
a million years—get his. And why?
    He laughed out loud behind
the wheel. Because I cuss!
    So let the cards fall where they may.
It was fate, wasn’t it? It was Calvian predestination, which
Alexander didn’t even believe in.
    If God doesn’t want me to
have my own parish, he reckoned, then I guess He’s got a good reason, and I ain’t
gonna argue with Him.
    And in the meantime:
    There was always Wroxeter Abbey. He’d
be up there at least a month, to assess the cost of reopening, to
recalculate maintenance expenditures, and to supervise preliminary
refurbishments. Well, it would be good to get away for awhile.
Richmond was beautiful in the fall, winter, and spring, but,
conversely, a drab, hot, ugly city in the summer.
    Yeah, it’ll be nice to get
out into the great outdoors.
    Deep in Virginia hill country