A Density of Souls (24 page)

Part Three

The Army

of God

“Give your soul to God and pick up your gun, It’s time to deal in lead.

We are the legions of the damned,

The Army of the already dead.”

—Robert Jay Matthews

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A
t the end of the firstweekofJuly,Jordanclippedanarticlefrom The New York Times and slid it under his mother’s bedroom door.

WHO IS THE ARMY OF GOD?

New Orleans Mourns Seventy Dead in Gay Bar Bombing
Investigators Left with Rubble and Bodies
Its name was layered with meaning, a place where gay men were free to dance, drink, and express desires deemed unacceptable in your local bar. Now Sanctuary stares out at investigators from the debris sprawling over three blocks of the New Orleans French Quarter. Its brightly painted sign with a neon-pink planet encircled by rainbow rings that sig-nify diversity is one if the few intact pieces remaining after a homemade bomb exploded in its rear liquor closet last Saturday, the eve of Independence Day. FBI Investigators now believe semtex, dynamite, and a crudely made timer reduced an entire block to ruins.

But even before the last bodies were pulled from the wreckage and the rumors of a gas leak were disproved, many Americans reacted to the previously unknown terrorist organization believed responsible, the Army of God. On the Sunday after the bombing, seventeen people were injured in Los Angeles when a riot broke out between angry motorists and protestors barricading Santa Monica Boulevard, in the city of West Hollywood, home to a large gay and lesbian population. Several demonstrators were iniured during a similar altercation in the Chelsea neighborhood of New 176

A Density of Souls

York City, when counter-protestors arrived at a candlelight vigil for the seventy dead, carrying signs depicting the shell of the Sanctuary bar beneath the proclamation, “The Work of God”.

Even before the ATF released a report citing a bomb as the source of the blast, news spread of threats to Sanctuary over the previous month by fax and phone. Phone calls and a fax traced to a Kinko’s copy store in suburban Metairie made vague promises to Sanctuary’s manager.

“Sodomites Beware” read one; “Revelation Approaches” an anonymous male caller promised. After a month of threats that both police and managers believed to be hollow, New Orleans is now coping with the fact that they were, in fact, warnings.

It appears that the threats from the Army of God had become so commonplace throughout the month of June that neither the bar’s managers nor the New Orleans Police Department were taking them very seriously. A trace of the only threat received by fax yielded only twenty-four hours of security tape from a Kinko’s on which the FBI had found

“nothing and no one to point them in any direction”, according to a spokeswoman.

“Everything that can be done will be done,” New Orleans Mayor Anthony Morrison promised residents in a local televised address broadcast early Friday morning. “This tragedy is not a local one. The entire country mourns those we have lost. Now is the time for contemplation and patience.”

Mayor Morrison’s words might be more than an attempt to comfort a grieving city. They might be sad reality. According to the National Anti-Defamation League, “The self-proclaimed Army of God is a previously inactive hate group, implicated in no other acts of hate or terror,” which makes investigators’ jobs harder. Despite the discovery of semtex traces amid Sanctuary’s wreckage, the FBI has been honest about the lack of progress in their investigation. Any possible links to a threat received the night of the blast were incinerated in the explosion.

This Saturday, a candlelight vigil will be held in Jackson Square, several blocks from the blast site. Beneath the spire The Army of God

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of St. Louis Cathedral, New Orleans will mourn the seventy slain with a half hour of silence. Police Chief Ronald Fon-tenot told reporters that crowd control will rival that used during the Mardi Gras season.

But for now, there is much wreckage to be cleared before traffic through the French Quarter returns to normal. July has arrived in New Orleans with its typical, oppressive hu-midity, somehow more stifling than ever this year given the ghostly silence that holds the city in thrall. For some, the silence still resonates with the sound of an explosion that tourist Sara Miller described as “God cracking a stick across His knee”. It is a sound that will force many to question whose God, or whose army.

Jeff Haugh’s parents showed up at the Conlin residence the day of the candlelight vigil, a week after identifying their son’s broken body.

The Haughs had phoned several days earlier and asked Monica if they could see Stephen. Monica did not tell them Stephen had refused to come out of his room. Instead, she suggested that they drop by any time they liked.

Monica opened the door to the couple. Susan Haugh was a short, stocky woman, her husband, Bruce, leaner and taller. Their faces were pinched by grief as Monica led them into the front parlor and offered them a drink, which they both declined. Stephen came down the stairs a minute later.

From the kitchen, Monica listened. Their conversation was quiet and clipped.

“We were clearing out his apartment in Baton Rouge. We found a pair of underwear labeled with your last name,” Susan explained evenly. “I still had a copy of the Cannon directory. There was only one Conlin.”

Monica could tell from Stephen’s silence that he realized Jeff’s parents needed more to witness him than to hear his words.

Bruce Haugh’s deep baritone voice took over to explain it was probably a good thing that Jeff’s ulcers had ended his football career because at LSU he had shown a natural talent for the sciences. Susan commented wryly on Jeff’s potential to become a physician with an ease that implied their son was still alive. The conversation drifted on, in fits and starts.

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As they said obligatory good-byes, Susan Haugh embraced Stephen and then broke down into sobs. Bruce led her out the front door, offering Stephen a simple “Thank you.”

In her room at Bayou Terrace, Angela Darby learned nothing about the bombing because Andrew skipped all articles in The Times Picayune referring to it. Angela had not spoken again. Andrew avoided stories about the bombing because he thought they might upset Angela.

Ronald Ducote called his wife to ask if Meredith was all right. Trish didn’t question his motive; in the week following the bombing, New Orleans residents often phoned to check on each other. Trish and Ronald had a gentle and relaxed conversation. When Ronald mentioned that Debbie had been transferred to another hospital, Magnolia Trace, Trish expressed a wish for her happiness that surprised both of them.

By the afternoon of the candlelight vigil, the number of dead was finally established at seventy-one. Fifteen were labeled as “bystanders” or “nearby residents”, not “patrons” or “workers at the club”. Jordan Charbonnet showed up for work to find Emeril’s darkened and locked, with a typed message taped to the front door: “EMERIL’S IS

CLOSED TONIGHT. WE ENGOURAGE ALL EMPLOYEES TO

ATTEND THE VIGIL IN HONOR OF . . .” Three names followed.

Jordan spent the entire drive back to his house trying to connect faces to his three dead co-workers who had been at or around the bar that night. He couldn’t remember one.

He retrieved a beer from the refrigerator and watched the vigil on television. He could hear Roger upstairs pacing in his office. The Bishop Polk bell tower was a looming shadow through the living room’s window.

Jordan and Elise had not said a word to each other since the bombing. Jordan didn’t know that his mother was now the proud owner of a

.35 caliber revolver.

2

J
ackson Square was bathed in silence. The spire of St. Louis Cathedral rose toward a darkening sky flecked with clouds. As dusk fell, the cathedral was thrown into a flickering silhouette by the candles burning beneath it. The only sound was the low moan of a ship’s horn as it passed down the Mississippi. The gates of the square had been opened and the statue of Andrew Jackson astride his bronze horse rose up out of a sea of shoulders. From the roofs of the Pontabla apartment buildings flanking the square the news cameras recorded a sea of celestial, winking eyes. The Pontabla residents had gathered on wrought-iron balconies overlooking the square. The silence began at seven o’clock and lasted until seven-thirty.

Several rows back from the cathedral’s façade, amid the low and staggered sobs, Stephen clutched a candle that burned to a waxy stub in his hands. The pain was welcome.

At first, the idea of Jeff’s death had been too immense to compre-hend. But with each day of the past week, singular memories had brought the tears back: Jeff’s voice unfurled in a whisper from the drapes around the window, his dimpled smile, his drowsy brown eyes.

Jeff Haugh was now a picture, and while Stephen could recall scraps of conversation he could not remember his touch.

Stephen felt a hand brush his shoulder.

“Fear cannot touch me . . .” a voice whispered, speaking to Stephen across eight years. He felt hot breath racking his ribs as he ducked through alleyways of mausoleums, eluding the pursuit of Greg Darby.

“It can only taunt me . . .” Meredith Ducote continued.

“It cannot take me,” he answered as he faced her.

“Just tell me where to go,” Meredith finished.

They held each other for the rest of the vigil. The news cameras 180

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craned over them and the surrounding mourners saw them as a girl and a boy grieving for the murdered men. Meredith and Stephen also cried for four kids on bicycles, illuminated in their memory by a slanting sun, and now gone forever.

Elise ordered another screwdriver.

The restaurant was emptying out and the waiter had already brought their check. Both televisions above the bar had been tuned to the vigil. The somber images killed all of the business at the bar, but the bartender’s brother had been among the dead and he watched the televisions defiantly as he polished beer mugs and wineglasses.

Monica cradled her chin in both hands, elbows propped on the table.

“You want another?” Elise asked. Monica shook her head. She was drunk already. She had been drinking for an hour before Elise picked her up for dinner.

The waiter brought Elise her drink. She sipped the screwdriver and finally broke their silence.

“I want to apologize for what my mother-in-law did to you that day,”

she said. “Nanine was the kind of woman I’m glad I didn’t become.”

Monica paused, asked, “She’s dead?”

Both of them erupted into bitter, deep-throated laughter, struggling to contain their guffaws. The waiter shot them an annoyed look.

“Yes, Monica, she’s dead,” Elise choked out.

“Who isn’t these days?”

Elise snorted, thought, This is the New Orleans way of dealing with death: alcohol.

“Ladies,” the waiter said, forcing a smile as he dropped the revised check on the table.

“Calm down, young man,” Monica told him. “There’s a hefty tip in it for you if you keep the screwdrivers coming . . .”

“I’ll have another,” Elise said, lifting the glass she had already drained.

“Whatever,” the waiter muttered as he took the empty glass.

“Oh . . .” Monica gasped, as both hands kneaded her forehead. Elise could tell that the only way she could anchor herself was to speak, as soberly as she could manage.

“I never wanted motherhood to be just one thing. One fear, over The Army of God

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and over again,” Monica said. “I’m not one of those people that thinks life is going to be taken away by some . . . enemy. I’ve always thought life was the real killer. That it just grinds down a person.” She locked eyes with Elise. “Suicide.”

Elise was thinking of the envelope buried at the bottom of her purse, the one she had planned to give Monica earlier that summer, before Jordan had come and scared her into stasis. She was convinced the other woman knew why Elise had first called her, why Elise needed to go to lunch again and again. “Your husband loved you, Monica,” she said in a hushed, loving tone of voice.

Monica’s face grew entirely unfocused. Elise knew she had to get her home and put her to bed.

Stephen and Meredith poured the remaining scotch into plastic Mardi Gras cups and sat cross-legged beneath the Conlin mausoleum.

Meredith had dropped the bottle when she scaled the cemetery wall.

Although the top of the bottle had shattered, the base was still intact, and only half of the Glenlivit had spilled.

Stephen was half-illuminated by moonlight. Meredith listened carefully as Stephen told the story of Jeff Haugh from start to tearless finish. She tried to look him full in the face, but she could not see his blue eyes amid the shadows.

He bowed his head slightly, his eyes fixed on the scotch in his plastic cup.

“I almost died at school,” Meredith said.

“How?”

“Drinking.”

They both laughed. “Have you seen anyone?” Stephen asked.

“One guy . . .” Meredith said, shaking her head indifferently.

“Teddy. He was . . . well, he lasted just a week. Freshman year. The sex was good, though.”

Stephen nodded. The mention of sex disturbed the moment, silencing both of them for a few awkward beats. Long after they had depleted the scotch, their conversation meandered easily, intimately.

Meredith told Stephen about her secret notebook, her vodka-induced writing sessions. Yes, Stephen could read it if he really wanted to.

“So you’re a writer,” Stephen said, and Meredith knew it wasn’t a question.

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She was startled. “I’m too used to being the drunk,” she said, studying the cup.

“Most writers are drunks. Like my father.”

“Let’s not even get into fathers,” she said. They both laughed again.

But her laughter was strained because she knew she had told Stephen a half-truth. She did not feel she could be a writer because she lacked the courage to let anyone read her words.