Fear Nothing

words of Pinn's conversation with the unknown man, I moved among the figures, some of which were taller than I am. The scene was disorienting because none of the elements was staged for display; none was in its proper relationship to the others. One of the wise men stood with his face in the bell of an angel's raised trumpet, and Joseph appeared to be engaged in a conversation with a camel. Baby Jesus lay unattended in His cradle, which stood on a bale of hay to one side. Mary sat with a beatific smile and an adoring gaze, but the object of her attention, rather than being her holy child, was a galvanized bucket. Another wise man seemed to be looking up a camel's butt.
        I wended through this disorganized creche, and near the end of it, I used a lute-playing angel for cover. I was in shadows, but peering past the curve of a half-furled wing, I saw Jesse Pinn in the light about twenty feet away, hectoring another man near the stairs that led up to the main floor of the church.
        “You've been warned,” Pinn said, raising his voice until it was almost a snarl. “How many times have you been warned?”
        At first I could not see the other man, who was blocked by Pinn. He spoke quietly, evenly, and I could not hear what he said.
        The undertaker reacted in disgust and began to pace agitatedly, combing one hand through his disarranged hair.
        Now I saw that the second man was Father Tom Eliot, rector of St. Bernadette's.
        “You fool, you stupid shit,” Pinn said furiously, bitterly. “You prattling, God-gushing moron .”
        Father Tom was five feet eight, plump, with the expressive and rubbery face of a natural-born comedian. Although I wasn't a member of his - or any - church, I'd spoken with him on several occasions, and he seemed to be a singularly good-natured man with a self-deprecating sense of humor and an almost childlike enthusiasm for life. I had no trouble understanding why his parishioners adored him.
        Pinn did not adore him. He raised one skeletal hand and pointed a bony finger at the priest: “You make me sick, you self righteous son of a bitch.”
        Evidently Father Tom had decided to weather this outrageous verbal assault without response.
        As he paced, Pinn chopped at the air with the sharp edge of one hand, as though struggling - with considerable frustration - to sculpt his words into a truth that the priest could understand. “We're not taking any more of your crap, no more of your interference. I'm not going to threaten to kick your teeth out myself, though I'd sure as hell enjoy doing it. Never liked to dance, you know, but I'd sure like to dance on your stupid face. But no threats like before, no, not this time, not ever again. I'm not even going to threaten to send them after you, because I think that would actually appeal to you. Father Eliot the martyr, suffering for God. Oh, you'd like that - wouldn't you? - being a martyr, suffering such a rotten death without complaint.”
        Father Tom stood with his head bowed, his eyes downcast, his arms straight at his sides, as though waiting patiently for this storm to pass.
        The priest's passivity inflamed Pinn. The mortician made a sharp-knuckled fist of his right hand and pounded it into the palm of his left, as if he needed to hear the hard snap of flesh on flesh, and now his voice was as rich with scorn as with fury. “You'd wake up some night, and they'd be all over you, or maybe they'd take you by surprise in the bell tower or in the sacristy when you're kneeling at the prie-dieu , and you'd surrender yourself to them in ecstasy, in a sick ecstasy, reveling in the pain, suffering for your God - that's the way you'd see it - suffering for your dead God, suffering your way straight into Heaven. You dumb bastard. You hopeless retard. You'd even pray for them, pray your heart out for them as they tore you to pieces. Wouldn't you, priest?”
        To all of this, the chubby priest responded with lowered eyes and mute endurance.
        Keeping my own silence required effort. I had questions for Jesse Pinn. Lots of questions.
        Here, however, there was no crematory fire to which I could hold his feet to force answers out of him.
        Pinn stopped pacing and loomed over Father Tom. “No more threats against you, priest. No point to it. Just gives you a thrill to think of suffering for the Lord. So this is what'll happen if you don't stay out of our way -