The Fancy Dancer

the middle of the night.”
    She managed a little smile. “I won’t be doing that, Father. But it’s nice to know you mean it.”
    She held on to her cup and didn’t drink much.
    “I’ve thought about your suggestion, Father, and I’ve made some plans. Missy said you were right. She said, Now I don’t want to hear about you living on alone here and being found dead by the milkman some fine day.” She chuckled a little. “Missy got so confused. We don’t have a milkman anymore.”
    “Are you going to sell this place and move to a smaller place?”
    The creaky old farm would bring only pennies on the Cottonwood real estate market.
    “Goodness, no,” she said. “I’m going to stay here, and I’m going to be very busy. You’ll see.”
    She took my hand and patted it gently, very much the way Missy did on her deathbed.
    “You’re a good priest, Father,” she said. “And you’re a very manly young man.”
    She smiled slyly. “And you’re humble too. Goodness, I shouldn’t say that. You can’t tell a humble person that he’s humble, can you?”
    a a a
    That night, Father Vance looked at me sharply as we sat at the rectory table. I was picking at my baked
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    beans, and Father knew they were one of my favorite dishes.
    “I’ve had a call from your confessor,” he said. “He’s concerned about your health.”
    I nodded dully.
    “You look like we buried the wrong corpse today,” said Father Vance.
    I shrugged and nodded, and pushed my plate away.
    “You’ve taken Mrs. Oldenberg’s death much too hard,” said Father Vance. “We have to set an example. Remind people that death is where we start, not where we end up.”
    Father Vance scraped the last bean off his own plate and rolled one of his powerful cigarettes.
    “Your confessor said you were interested in this conference at Regis College in Denver. So I’m giving you permission to go.”
    This should have been happy news. But I was so wrung out that the idea of traveling to Denver suddenly seemed impossible.
    “But I can’t give you much money for traveling,” said Father.
    My eyes were falling shut. “Oh, I’ll manage by myself,” I said.
    But in bed that night, I tossed and turned. The stage had come where I was too tired for rest.
    The late movie that night was Born Yesterday with Judy Holliday. But I didn’t even watch it
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    The next week was spent in figuring out how I was going to go to Denver on the cheap, without getting found out.
    The first thing I did was write to the Dignity/ Denver chapter, using Vidal’s name and return address. I explained that a priest wanted badly to talk to someone there, and what did they suggest.
    A few days later, the answer came to Vidal’s mailbox in a plain white envelope. He gave it to me when we had supper at his house that night.
    The letter said, “We would be very glad to meet with your friend. Tell him to call 745-7891 when he gets to Denver. That is the number of our chaplain, Fr. Doric, who will help him in any way he can.” The letter was signed, “Love and peace,” and the name of the chapter president.
    Shakily I folded up the letter and hid it in my wallet. It didn’t seem possible that this might be Doric Wilton, my old friend at the seminary. But I had always known Doric had wound up counseling in Colorado somewhere, not doing regular parish work. And Doric wasn’t a common name. I wondered if this chaplain was gay. Many Dignity chaplains, I had read, were not gay, just concerned straights.
    That phone number shone in my pocket like the pillar of fire that led the Israelites out of bondage. But a pillar of fire can be a very scary thing.
    The next problem was transportation.
    “Why don’t you go with me?” I asked Vidal. “Visit your sister as a cover ...”
    He thought a minute. “Somehow,” he said, “you and me going off in your car to the conference is too obvious. It’s not the kind of thing I’d do, and Father Vance would know it.”
    “That means I drive down alone,” I said. “I was hoping you’d help with the driving. It’s a ways, and I’m too goddam tired to drive.”
    “I think it would be better if I went down alone on my bike. Why don’t you bum a ride down on a plane?” Vidal said. “All these little planes flying out of here ... Somebody’d give a priest a ride.”
    Vidal thought some more, musingly. “Denver,” he said. “That’s always been a big gay town. Some good night life there. Almost as good as California. You