The Fancy Dancer

It always seemed like the cases I got were the messy ones, where people either obeyed the Church’s teachings and the result was disaster, or they obeyed those teachings out of purely selfish reasons. But here was one of those rare cases where disaster loomed no matter whether the teachings were obeyed or not.
    “Your boyfriend is being smart,” I said. “He knows that when your folks find out, they’ll have him busted for statutory rape.”
    Meg started to cry.
    I patted her pudgy hand. “Listen, honey, there’s no point in giving you a big moral lecture right now. The Church says that abortion is murder. But in your case, we’ve got to be practical. You haven’t got any money, and it’d be dangerous for you to have one now. I can get you into a house in Helena where they help girls like you to have their babies.”
    Meg was still crying when she’d been absolved and left. I wasn’t sure she was going to do what I said. She said she’d let me know in a few days. It made me very depressed.
    Peering into the sitting room, I managed to smile at Vidal.
    “Okay, you come in now,” I said.
    “Does everybody leave your office crying their eyes out?” he said.
    He came in looking around shyly. His face was a little swollen and bruised from last night.
    My “office” was an afterthought that hadn’t been in Father Vance’s original living plan for the rectory. When I came, and when I finally convinced him that I couldn’t do counseling in my bedroom, he grudgingly had the storeroom off the pantry converted into a working space for me.
    The room wasn’t much bigger than the confessional. One wall still had the curlicued old wire hooks for hanging aprons and dustpans.' The ancient furniture was salvaged from an empty classroom in St. Mary’s Academy—a desk, a bookcase with a few scratched Walt Disney decals on it, and two chairs with schoolboys’ initials carved in them. On the wall, the cheap crucified Jesus (also a relic from the academy) wore a peculiar agonized expression, as if He had just opened the envelope containing the Montana Power Company’s electricity bill for the month.
    The tall window had a gruesome green shade, so cracked that it let in quite a bit of light. When it was raised, I could see the dense jungle of lilac bushes outside. The old gas fixture was still on the wall. I had tried to give the room some comfort by putting cushions on the chairs, and hanging up a couple of old prints my parents had given me from their attic.
    As I closed the door, Vidal sat down a little gingerly in the initial-scarred chair on his side of the desk. I sat down in mine. We looked at each other.
    The first important thing in counseling is to make the counselee feel that he is truly cared for and loved, not just another name in the appointment book. These rules I had always followed, but they were easy with Vidal.
    Vidal cleared his throat. He had combed his hair, and wore clean Levi’s and a white Yucatan wedding shirt embroidered with pastel flowers. A Cottonwood redneck wouldn’t dare to call him a pinko hippy fag if he wore that shirt into a bar, because he would know that Vidal would exact a terrible revenge.
    Vidal seemed to be having a fatal attack of shyness. “How was Helena?” he said.
    “Same as always.” I couldn’t help teasing him for this lame opener. “It’s still the capital.”
    Vidal looked down at his silver-conchoed hat and laughed softly. ‘Tow, you got me. Your family live there?”
    “They settled there in 1887 and they never moved.” “Oh, pioneers,” said Vidal wryly.
    ‘Your family are the pioneers,” I said. “You’re from up at Browning, aren’t you?”
    Vidal leaned back in his chair. From the flush on his face, he’d had a few drinks. From his half-shut eyes, he’d probably smoked a little pot too. All to get himself loose enough to talk to me again.
    ‘Yep,” he said. “I’m only one quarter Indian, but it’s enough to put me on the tribal roll.”
    “What part of the reservation were you bom on?” “Oh, hell, I was bom right in Browning there. My folks are town Indians. The fullbloods up in the hills over at Heart Butte kinda look down on us. I went to high school right there in Browning.”
    “You have brothers and sisters?”
    “Two married sisters. Mary lives in L.A., and Jean moved to Denver with her husband and her kid. And I’ve got a brother, John, he’s married too, and working in the oil refinery at Billings. We’re kinda