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I don’t think I ever heard a longer silence in my life.
* * *
FATHER JULIAN WOKE almost every morning before dawn and jogged three miles along Ole Jeanerette Road, which paralleled Bayou Teche and traversed the emerald-green pastures of the LSU experimental farm. He had been an only child, and solitude had been a natural way of life for him long before his ordination. But rather than simplifying his life, ordination brought him complexities he had never envisioned. Early on he realized he would always be addressed by others as a condition, a cutout, an asexual waxwork standing at the church entrance, hands folded in piety as he welcomed his parishioners to morning Mass.
He also learned that offending the hierarchy could get him buried in western Kansas. Among his superiors, compliance and sycophancy were often lauded, and mediocrity was rewarded. Father Julian Hebert was known as a “Vatican Two priest,” a liberal left over from the tenure of Pope John XXIII, which for many in his culture was like being known as Martin Luther.
But he couldn’t blame all his problems on the authoritarian nature of the institution he served. In his private hours or in the middle of the night, he had to concede that many of the passions burning in him were not those of a spiritual man: the flashes of anger that left his face mottled; the bitterness he felt when he accepted injury or insult; the twitch in his right hand when he saw a child abused or heard a racist remark or watched a chain-saw crew mow down an oak grove in order to build another Walmart. Sometimes his efforts at self-control were not successful. Two years ago he had lost it.
A large, sweaty off-duty policeman at a Lafayette health club was punching the heavy bag while he told a story to two other cops. Julian was hitting the speed bag and at first paid no attention to the story, then realized what he was hearing. “He took his dick out and rubbed it all over her,” the man said, steadying the bag, laughing so hard he was wheezing. “From top to bottom, I mean it, in her hair, everywhere.”
Julian let his hands hang at his sides and stared at the floor. Finally, in the silence, the teller of the story looked at him and smiled crookedly. “Hey,” he said.
“You’re a police officer?” Julian said.
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“I’m Father Hebert. I’m okay at the speed bag. But I don’t have the moves for the ring. You look like you do.”
“You’re a padre?”
“I was when I woke up this morning.”
“Sorry about the language.”
“Can you show me?”
“The moves?”
“Yes,” Julian said. He opened his mouth to clear his eardrums; they were creaking, as though he were sinking to the bottom of a deep pool.
“Rotate in a circle, see,” the man said. “Never lead with your right except in a body attack, then hook your opponent under the heart. Catch him with your left, then chop him with a right cross. It’s easy. Where’d you learn the speed bag?”
Julian didn’t answer.
“You hearing me?” the policeman said.
“Yes,” Julian said.
The policeman’s forearms were thick and wrapped with black hair, a fog of body odor wafting off his skin. “You really want me to show you?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t deck me, now, Father,” the man said, grinning.
Julian slipped on a pair of padded ring gloves, his eyes veiled.
“Good. Let’s dance,” the man said.
Julian had to breathe through his nose to slow down his heart. His skull felt as though it were in a vise. “Who was the woman?”
“Woman?” the man said. “What woman?”
“The one who was sexually abused.”
“I was talking about something that happened in a case.”
“You said circle to the left? Or lead with the left?”
