Brutal Youth (50 page)

Father Mercedes wanted certainty. If a majority of the council dissented in favor of keeping the school open, it might raise uncomfortable questions if he reversed such a controversial decision all by himself. Resistance from a few influential council members might draw the unwanted attention of the diocese. He hadn’t worked this hard to shield himself only to be undone by a few rebellious …
volunteers.
And their resistance would drag out the potential shuttering of the school, which increased the chance that holes in the parish finances would be revealed in the meantime.

He had to make sure that as many of the ten members as possible would go along with his plan. So as they pored over the stacks of notes from the Monitor program and debated the finances involved in maintaining the high school, Father Mercedes had taken action to tilt the odds in his favor.

The priest hadn’t wanted to do this. It was a risk. But the Hazing Picnic had been worthless. It was definitely a strange affair, and there seemed to be some rambunctious behavior he didn’t understand, but it hadn’t been the catastrophe he hoped the Parish Monitors would witness. Hannah Kraut’s infamous notebook failed to produce any noticeable stir, which was a shame; he had hoped she would reveal that nasty little rumor about her and Mr. Zimmer—so the priest could act as surprised as everybody else, sparing himself the responsibility of you-should-have-known. But the suspicion Seven-Eighths had shared with him remained Father Mercedes’s fail-safe, a weapon of last resort. On the morning of the vote, hoping to push one last panic button with the council, he finally used it.

Mercedes had spent the day visiting five of the council members he knew to be undecided. (Three others were already leaning in his favor.) He explained that he had a greivous piece of new information for them. Something he had just learned. Something that distressed him deeply. But still—it was something they needed to know.

“I learned of this troubling news from a student during the holy Sacrament of Reconcilation, so I cannot divulge her name…,” he said repeatedly throughout the day, knocking on doors and settling himself in living rooms, putting on a performance of deep anguish.

“This student … she has confessed to a sexual relationship with one of our most treasured teachers.” It was difficult to say that part with a straight face. Mr. Zimmer had provoked nothing but resistance against him. He was the worst of a disobedient faculty. And yet, he would be Father Mercedes’s salvation.

Who?
they had demanded.

So Father Mercedes told them, feigning extreme reluctance.

“This revelation will not reflect well on the church…,” the priest had said. “We must consider this yet another reason to cut our parish off from the corrupt and damaging relationship with that school.”

There were many questions:
How far did the relationship go?
Father Mercedes wasn’t certain.
Was anyone else involved?
The priest said only that he prayed not.
Will the girl come forward?
Unlikely, for we can imagine the damage this could cause her and her family.
What has the teacher said in his defense?
Before we confront him, we must think of protecting ourselves.

The priest knew their imaginations would fill in the vacancies. And they would crave protection, too, from the same things he feared: the long investigation, a media frenzy, potential lawsuits, public hostility toward the church leaders, not to mention the humiliation of the diocese.

Fortunately, the priest pointed out, they had an easy solution at their disposal. Close the school, and the problem of a rogue teacher would evaporate entirely.

Satisfied with the shock and bewilderment he created, Father Mercedes stood in the library and looked at the large oak table at the head of the room, full of empty chairs, where the council would soon deliver their decision publicly.

He had no doubt. These were the last moments of St. Mike’s existence.

Sister Maria came in soon afterwards and sat alone in the back of the room. Father Mercedes had pledged the parish council members to secrecy about Mr. Zimmer. Sister Maria had no idea what was coming.

Even Father Mercedes didn’t expect a unanimous decision, yet that’s exactly what Mr. LeRose, the council’s secretary and president, announced as he called the meeting to order. LeRose was one of the two council members the priest had
not
approached, since they were steadfastly in favor of keeping the high school open. It seemed even those two had been won over.

“It is rare that we all come to the same agreement,” said the man known by Davidek as The Big Texan. “We pray that this is the right decision, and it was undertaken with heavy hearts and great concern for the future of the parish. There were disagreements on both sides, but ultimately the vote was unanimous.”

Mr. LeRose said, “St. Michael the Archangel High School will remain open.”

*   *   *

The priest’s lungs felt like two squeezing fists in his chest. He had been standing, and now his back found the wall, the coolness of the stone bleeding through his black coat.

But then the relief in Sister Maria’s face was soon extinguished as LeRose revealed the rest of the decision: The council remained alarmed by grave behavioral problems at the school. As such, they would revisit the issue of closure in one year. Until then, there would only be limited funds allocated to repair the roofing problems, the dissolving brick in the hallways, and the school’s other infrastructure woes.

One ancient board member spoke up to say, “Above all, we want to rebuild our
church,
and remove our worship of the Lord from the ridiculous venue of a basketball court.” Her remarks received applause from the other mummies in the audience.

Mr. LeRose read from his notes unhappily: “There will be other constraints as well, including a sharp drop in the school’s operating budget next year. We’ll detail those matters in the coming months as we assemble our next fiscal-year budget in July.”

Mr. LeRose looked up, finding Sister Maria’s stricken face. The school was still alive—but that life was about to get even more difficult.

*   *   *

In the parking lot, Mr. LeRose opened the shimmering door to his sporty silver convertible, the one Davidek had first spotted outside his house nearly a year earlier. Streetlights began to flicker on in the warm night air as the sun set in a blue pool beyond the hills.

Father Mercedes charged at him from across the lot, and the priest’s large hand, stinking of nicotine, yanked at The Big Texan’s gray suit. “After all you’ve
seen,
after all you’ve
read
from the Parish Monitors, after all the things I have
personally told you
concerning one of the teachers at this school—you vote to keep this place alive?”

Mr. LeRose removed Father Mercedes’s hand from his collar. “Funny how a convenient little rumor crept up on the day of the vote. Did you really think that would fool us? Do you really think
you
fool us?” Mr. LeRose was shorter than Father Mercedes, but he was backing up the older man. “Thanks to your rumormongering today, even the people who wanted to vote
against
the school changed their minds. They finally saw how desperate you were. Even if they believe the school is troubled, they’re not taking only your word alone anymore—”

The priest swayed in front of him. “What if I’m telling the truth?”

“About what? The teacher?” LeRose scanned the parking lot briefly, watching as the last of the meeting attendees waddled to their cars. He said softly, “We’ve provided for that.”

Father Mercedes waited for more, but got none. “You’ll get the blame,” the priest said, waving a finger in LeRose’s face. “I’ll tell the bishop you did
nothing.
That you protected a man accused of—”

“But we
have
done something, Father. The teacher won’t be a problem anymore.”

“What? Are you going to ‘investigate’?” The priest sneered. “Drag this parish through that
filth
on the front page of every—?”

“Weren’t you listening?” Mr. LeRose told him. “Money is tight. The school is getting a new streamlined budget. St. Mike’s will, unfortunately, need to shrink the size of its faculty by exactly one. He’s not fired. He simply fell off the edge of a shrinking bottom line. This way, there are no questions. No accusations … And if he’s innocent, we’ve done him a favor. He doesn’t have to defend himself against the indefensible.”

The priest shot back: “There are worse problems at St. Mike’s than just him.”

“And you’re
one
of them—aren’t you, Father?” Mr. LeRose’s face was cold but smiling. “I know a few contractors who say you’ve inquired about transforming the school into a nursing home for the elderly. You’ve been pretty cheap with the initial bids, Father.… But then, that would leave more for you, wouldn’t it?”

Mercedes slapped the trunk of LeRose’s Porsche and stabbed his finger in the man’s face again. “Who the
hell
do you think you’re talking to?”

“Definitely not an heir to the Mercedes-Benz family, that’s for sure,” LeRose said, looking at the palm print the priest had made on his car. “I looked into that, too. The family name was originally Marcedi, right? But your father changed that, and played it up to his advantage—as have you. So where does all your money come from, Father?… All that cash I hear you drop on the Steelers, and down at the Meadows, picking long shots. Not a parson’s wage, I’m sure.”

Father Mercedes didn’t say anything. Couldn’t.

“I’m willing to wait for my answer,” LeRose said. “The diocese’s lawyers and accountants will find it—eventually.” He ran his hand along the curved doorframe of his silver sports car, making a razor line of dust on his forefinger. “For now, you can be happy, because you’ve lost an enemy. I know Mr. Zimmer was a thorn in your side. But don’t be too happy—”

The Big Texan’s thick, dry hand patted roughly against Father Mercedes’s face, leaving a smear of dust on the priest’s jowls.

“—you’ve just made a
new
enemy,” he said.

*   *   *

In Sister Maria Hest’s office, nothing moved. Not the stacks of manila files threatening to tilt over onto the cushions of the green leather couch, not the statue of the Virgin Mary gazing dolefully from the shelf across the room, teetering among assorted glass and brass award plaques, most of them decades old.

The twisted black phone cord spilling from the edge of the nun’s tank-sized steel desk did not sway, nor did the weeping arms of her spider fern, or the slats of the wooden window blinds, casting the white morning sunlight into neat bars on the floor.

Sister Maria slumped in her swivel chair, hands folded on the empty desk blotter. Father Mercedes stood over in the corner, his elbow resting on a battered filing cabinet, a cigarette perched between his fingers, smoke wreathing his face. They were alone, but not for long.

He had enjoyed telling her about Zimmer.

Sister Maria asked softly, “Is there another way?…”

The priest exhaled twin columns of smoke from his nose. “Yes,” he said. “There is.”

He had been considering that question himself. Despite his overall defeat, there was an opportunity here, even better than removing Mr. Zimmer. Father Mercedes would spare the teacher, tell the parish council that the girl had lied, that the accusations proved to be baseless. Zimmer would be allowed to stay, and perhaps never even know the allegations against him. The priest would be willing to agree to that bargain, but only if it meant eliminating a far worse obstacle.

The priest told Sister Maria, “You could step down instead.”

*   *   *

The date on Mr. Zimmer’s
Simpsons
calendar showed it was Wednesday. Friday was graduation, and the seniors weren’t required to show up this week for regular class, so he had the period to himself. Teaching for the year was finished anyway. Now was the time for the remaining students to clean up and prepare for the next year.

Zimmer had surrounded himself with trash bins as he strip-mined the necessary from the not amid the mountains of paper on his desk.

“Mr. Zimmer…”

He looked up at Sister Maria, standing in his classroom doorway. “Yes?” he asked.

*   *   *

Zimmer sat down on the principal’s green couch, his hands clasped between his tall knees, being careful not to topple two tall stacks of files on the cushions beside him. By the time Sister Maria finished talking, he felt like his gut had been slit open.

Sister Maria looked down at her desk. Father Mercedes hovered over Zimmer’s shoulder in the back corner, silhouetted against the window.

Zimmer couldn’t breathe—not since they had mentioned Hannah Kraut’s name. The air felt like hardening concrete in his throat. “What do you want me to say?” he asked finally, his voice breaking, though he had tried to sound strong. “It’s
not
true.” Zimmer could only repeat those words. It was not true. It wasn’t. There was nothing else to say.

“It doesn’t matter,” Mercedes said. “That’s not why you’re being let go.”

Zimmer said,
“Then why?”

The pastor nudged at the papers stacked on the couch beside the teacher, careful not to let the tower fall—just testing. “We simply need to cut the school’s expenses—that’s the public reason for your departure. The
official
reason. Consider that a kindness. We’d like to spare you the humiliation of these accusations. If we can.”

Zimmer looked back to Sister Maria, his eyes wide and frightened, waiting for her to step in and stop this. “However—if you were to challenge us…,” the priest went on. “If you were to
fight
this decision…”

“Sister Maria…,” Zimmer said, pleading. “Sister…”

“You’ll find the severance package to be—adequate,” the priest said. “Before you get emotional, I’d suggest you think of the school. Think of yourself, even … Think of the
girl.
”

“The girl?” Zimmer said. “Are you serious? If Hannah’s saying these things, it’s a lie. Sister … She’s delusional … She’s obsessed!”