When The Bough Breaks

We'd come full circle, back to the cumulus covered administration building. Kruger escorted me in, shook my hand, told me he hoped to hear from me again and that he'd be dropping off the screening materials while I talked to the Reverend. Then he handed me over to the good graces of Grandma, the receptionist, who tore herself away from her Olivetti and bade me sweetly to wait just a few moments for The Great Man.

I picked up a copy of Fortune and worked hard at building an interest in a feature on the future of microprocessors in the tool - and - die industry, but the words blurred and turned into gelatinous gray blobs. Futurespeak did that to me.

I'd barely had a chance to uncross my legs when the door opened. They were big on punctuality here. I'd started to feel like a hunk of raw material - what kind didn't really matter - being whisked along on an assembly line trough, melted, molded, tinkered with, tightened, and inspected.

"Reverend Gus will see you now," said Grandma.

The time had come, I supposed, for the final polishing.

16

If we'd been standing outdoors he would have blocked the sun.

He was six - and - a - half feet tall and weighed well over three hundred pounds, a pear - shaped mountain of pale flesh in a fawn - colored suit, white shirt, and black silk tie the breadth of a hotel hand towel. His tan oxfords were the size of small sailboats, his hands, twin sandbags. He filled the doorway. Black horn - rimmed glasses perched atop a meaty nose that bisected a face as lumpy as tapioca pudding. Wens, moles and enlarged pores trekked their way across the sagging cheeks. There was a hint of Africa in the flatness of his nose, the full lips as dark and moist as raw liver, and the tightly kinked hair the color of rusty pipes. His eyes were pale, almost without color. I'd seen eyes like that before. On mullet, packed in ice.

"Dr. Delaware, I'm Augustus McCaffrey."

His hand devoured mine then released it. His voice was strangely gentle. From the size of him I'd expected something along the lines of a tug horn. What came out was surprisingly lyrical, barely baritone, softened by the lazy cadence of the Deep South - Louisiana, I guessed.

"Come in, won't you?"

I followed him, a Hindu trailing an elephant, into his office. It was large and well - windowed but no more elegantly turned out than the waiting room. The walls were sheathed with the same false oak and were devoid of decoration save for a large wooden crucifix above the desk, a Formica - and - steel rectangle that looked like government surplus. The ceiling was low, perforated white squares suspended in a grid of aluminum. There was a door behind the desk.

I sat in one of a trio of vinyl upholstered chairs. He settled himself in a swivel chair that groaned in protest, laced his fingers together and leaned forward across the desk, which now looked like a child's miniature.

"I trust Tim has given you a comprehensive tour and has answered all of your questions."

"He was very helpful."

"Good," he drawled, giving the word three syllables. "He's a very capable young man. I handpick our staff." He squinted. "Just as I handpick all volunteers. We want only the best for our children."

He sat back and rested his hands on his belly.

"I'm extremely pleased that a man of your stature would consider joining us, Doctor. We've never had a child psychologist in the Gentleman's Brigade. Tim tells me you're retired."

He gazed at me jovially. It was clear I was expected to explain myself.

"Yes. That's true."

"Hmm." He scratched behind one ear, still smiling. Waiting. I smiled back.

"You know," he finally said, "when Tim mentioned your visit I thought your name was familiar. But I couldn't place it. Then it came to me, just a few moments ago. You ran that program for those children who were the victims of that day - care scandal, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"Wonderful work. How are they doing, the children?"

"Quite well."

"You - retired soon after the program was over, did you?"

"Yes."

The enormous head shook sadly.

"Tragic affair. The man killed himself, if I recall."

"He did."

"Doubly tragic. The little ones abused like that and a man's life wasted with no chance of salvation. Or," he smiled, "to use a more secular term, with no chance of rehabilitation. They're one and the same, salvation and rehabilitation, don't you think, Doctor?"

"I can see similarity in the two concepts."

"Certainly. It depends upon one's perspective. I confess," he sighed, "that I find it difficult, at times, to divorce myself from my religious training when dealing with issues of human relations. I must struggle to do so, of course, in view of our society's abhorrence of even a minimal liaison between church and state."

He wasn't protesting. The broad face was suffused with calm, nourished by the sweet fruit of martyrdom. He looked at peace with himself, as content as a hippo sunning in a mudhole.

"Do you think the man - the one who killed himself - could have been rehabilitated?" he asked me.