A Highly Placed Source
a novel by Michelle Dally
ISBN: 0978945697 19.95
Buy this book from the publisher now
Book Description: It’s a normal day at Rory Middle School until twelve-year-old Peter Banks finds himself caught between his raging hormones, a voyeuristic bully, and God. This smart and always-funny novel explores what happens when a young boy’s earnest prayer turns a nation upside down. When Peter relays God’s message that in just seven days miracles will occur to prove His existence, not one institution can resist jumping on the bandwagon. The orbiting worlds of media, religion, and politics collide, leaving everyone to question what faith really means. Biting social satire and characters to love are just part of Dally’s whirlwind adventure.
Blurbs: “In a world of read-alike books, Michelle Dally manages to find an original subject in her page-turning book. A little boy asks God for advice about the most common of secrets, setting off a series of competing agendas and explosive events. From the office of a school principal to the newsroom, from church pulpits to the halls of government, Dally tips all our sacred cows, while thoughtfully exploring the nature of miracles in the modern world. This is an author to read now, and watch in the future.” —Sparkle Hayter, author of Nice Girls Finish Last, A Robin Hudson Mystery
“Stop the presses! This book is a splendid romp through the equally mysterious worlds of newspapers and faith, with quirky dalliances in politics and masturbation. Michelle Dally’s suspenseful and cynically humorous prose makes this an above-the-fold story.”—Ron Franscell, author of Fall
“A Highly Placed Source takes us behind the delicate curtain of everyday civility to reveal how power breeds ruthlessness. Michelle Dally’s story of venal politicians, bullying religious leaders, and self-aggrandizing media stars vividly portrays how these institutions routinely create larger-than-life heroes out of ordinary people and then destroy them, all in a day’s work.”—Diane Carman, columnist, The Denver Post
Reviews: June 2008: Joan Hinkemeyer, “This is a delicious social satire by a media relations consultant with a law degree from Georgetown University. Daily clearly knows her territory.” Rocky Mountain News, June 12 2008
November 18, 2007 Robin Vidimos interivews Michelle Dally & profiles “A Highly Placed Source.”
January 17 2008 Blog review: carp(e) libris
Novel Excerpt, Copyright A Highly Placed Source, Ghost Road Press, 2007
Chapter Three
In a two-newspaper town, editors pay great attention to headlines. They’re often the reason consumers choose one paper over another. “Scandal Rocks Senate,” for instance, sells. “Committee Passes Budget,” does not. And on the second day of the Peter Banks story, the first day in which the newspapers even had the opportunity to play, the editors at the Denver Sentinel faced one of the biggest challenges of their lives. They had a scoop that was unmentionable.
Lincoln Fraser, the managing editor who had sent Gail out on the story, was well known for his shiny, mostly-bald head in the newsroom, but even he was seen that day pulling at his hair. “The kid asked God about whacking off?” Fraser screamed it across the wide-open space of
the newsroom, ignoring the grimaces and cackles that rose around him. “That’s what this is about?”
Abernathy, who, for the first time in five days, wasn’t thinking about how good it would feel to have a drink, merely nodded. “He asked a question that meant a lot to him,” she said, suppressing the smile, “and he got the answer.”
Fraser looked at her sideways for a moment and then sighed. “I could’ve used that answer when I was his age.”
From what Gail could see, a lot of men in the newsroom felt the same way. It was the first time she had ever seen other editors, on deadline, offer to help come up with a headline for a story off their beat. Five of them, count ‘em, five of the Sentinel’s most feared editors had spent much of the afternoon crowded around the city desk offering support. Buck Olofsson, who knew the difference between a shell and a bullet and was never lax to beat it into a reporter; Joe Random, who once won part of a Pulitzer for reporting on a shady savings and loan deal; Nelson Arb, who made the lifestyle section sing, despite its overabundance of articles on things like aromatherapy; even David Urbach of Business and Mike Carr from Sports crossed the line to the city desk to put in their two cents. The offerings were as varied as they were numerous. Some were straightforward: “God Gives Masturbation Okay.” Some took advantage of the device of alliteration: “Self-Satisfaction not Sin.” Others, which the five editors gathered and chuckled over, were never meant for the innocent public, but made the rounds in the newsroom in record time. “Oh Cum all Ye Faithful” was a particular favorite.
Gail, for the most part, was too busy to even pretend to join in the overwhelmingly male antics that were taking place around her. She had a story to write, and a tricky one at that. Not only did she have to write a story for a “family paper” about masturbation, but she also was fairly certain no other reporter had the story she did, and she didn’t want to press her sources so hard that they panicked and ran to the networks or the Herald, the competing paper, to clarify themselves. In short, Gail had figured out that Edward Banks had no idea what he was doing.
It didn’t start out that way. Even Chris Paulo, in all of his thirteen-year-old angst, had no idea that he and Overlay were the only people to whom Peter had revealed the message. Unaware of his status as one of the chosen two, Paulo didn’t feel particularly blessed or special or enlightened. What he felt was pissed.
Vindictiveness was the order of the day for Chris Paulo when he called the harried-looking woman over to him in the hallway of Rory Middle School. The face of Peter Banks staring out at him from the television screen the night before had galled him. Paulo had spent the afternoon in the emergency room, getting his nose x-rayed (hairline fracture) and trying to explain to his mom that he had nothing to do with the fight Overlay had called her about. Madge Paulo-who knew her son’s acid tongue all too well-had not been convinced, and so proceeded to ground him for the next two weeks. Seething and sore, with ropey white cotton still stuffed up his nostrils, Chris had turned on the television set hoping to watch music videos to dull the pain, and instead found himself face-to-face with Peter Banks.
He watched the twerp talk about getting suspended for saying he had a message from God, and it had been too much for the injured boy. “Tell him what your goddamned message was about, you dickhead,” Paulo shouted to the oblivious screen, whereupon his mother extended his grounding to three weeks for the outburst.
But Peter hadn’t told. There was no mention of beating off whatsoever on the evening news. Nothing. Zip. Chris Paulo had gone to bed that night muttering to himself about the injustice in the world and hoping to God-without really thinking about the entity he was praying to-that revenge would be taken, and taken soon.
He wasn’t about to wait for it.
As best as Chris Paulo could figure, Peter Banks had convinced his father that he truly had heard from God about masturbation and his dad wasn’t daunted by the subject matter at all. Now Peter’s dad was suing the school (something Chris Paulo had always wanted to do) and Peter was a hero on the nightly news while Chris had to sit at home grounded with a slightly fractured nose.
If there was justice to be had, Chris Paulo figured, he would have to find it himself. So when he saw fat old Overlay talking to the woman with the notebook, Chris started forming his plans right away. If Peter’s dad thought he could fool the world, sue the school without mentioning that his son beat off, then Chris had news for him.
Gail Abernathy would later think about her discussion with the boy with the swollen nose and wonder how she’d gotten through it without laughing. It wasn’t her fault she didn’t know what “washing the bird” meant. It certainly hadn’t been a euphemism that was bandied about in her childhood. After she had taunted the lanky boy in front of her with the tried and true so says you-he ranted about Peter Banks and washing the bird.
“What bird?” she had asked, hazily wondering if she wouldn’t be better off if Fraser fired her. It would be better than standing in dim stairwells in smelly schools trying to get straight answers from pimply teenagers.
“Washing the bird, you know,” Paulo said, trying not to look at the woman’s face. “Peter Banks said God told him washing the bird was all right.” But she didn’t get it. He knew she didn’t get it. He stole a look up at her face and could see in her eyes not shock or amusement or any of the expressions he usually saw when a grown-up talked about sex. Instead, she was just staring down at him, looking irritable and impatient, like she hadn’t gotten enough sleep, or her stomach hurt. “You know, beating off, jacking it, polishing the pewter,” Paulo tried to think of all the ways he knew to describe it. In frustration, he thought maybe a visual example would help her, so he grabbed his balls. That did it.
“Oh my.” Gail’s eyes flew open as soon as the boy in front of her made a move for his crotch. He was talking about masturbation. Peter Banks and masturbation. “Masturbation,” she said more loudly than she had meant to, and both of them were trapped for a moment, listening to the word echo up the metal stairs.
“Yeah, masturbation,” Paulo said, nodding. He had her now. “Peter Banks told me, right before he gave me this,” and here, he pointed at his nose, “that God had told him it was okay to masturbate.”
“That’s what the message was? That masturbation was okay? Was that all the message was?” Gail asked the boy, suddenly eager to know what else was all right with the Universe. Could it be that having an affair with an almost sixty-year-old, selectively impotent, married legislator was something God thought was okay, too? It couldn’t be that easy.
“That’s what Peter told me,” Paulo said defiantly, satisfied he had passed the message on, that Peter Banks wouldn’t get away with his stardom, or with Paulo’s broken nose.
Gail stood for a moment in front of Chris Paulo and took a breath. “Does Overlay know about this?” she asked the boy, then watched him shrug inside his oversized T-shirt.
“I don’t know what Overlay knows,” he told her. “Maybe. He usually knows things.”
Gail grimaced. Overlay would never be able to discuss that with her, at least not until it had been become public. She wondered distractedly just how long it would be until Edward Banks filed his suit in court. And even then, would the complaint be detailed enough to list what exactly the religious message in question concerned.
Probably not, she thought.
Abernathy hadn’t stopped to think just why a father would alert the media to the fact that his son was discussing private sex acts with God. If she had thought about it, she probably would’ve assumed that Peter Banks’ father was a model of rationality, tolerant of common-if embarrassing-acts by young boys. After all, she hadn’t yet met Edward Banks. But after meeting the man, she’d think again. By that time, she’d also understand that he knew nothing about it. He was fighting to make an impression on someone. But not God.
Before Gail left Chris Paulo, she asked him his name and told him that what he had said to her would be in the paper. “Do you understand that I’m planning to write about this?” she asked the boy, again, trying not to look like she needed his input, that she was desperate for the information.
“Yeah, I know. I don’t care. No one I know even reads the damn papers. I just want people to know that Peter Banks isn’t some sort of hero, that’s all. You tell them that. You tell them that he’s just a jerk off who jerks off. You tell them.”
Gail nodded. “Oh, I’ll let them know what you say,” she said carefully, wondering just how she was going to get Fraser to let her write the story without confirmation. Just on the word of a thirteen-year-old boy. No parental release. It would never happen, she figured. It was going to take Edward Banks openly discussing it with her. And that was what she was after when she left the school.
It was fairly easy to find Edward Banks. He was listed in the Denver directory under lawyers, and he belonged to the rather large and staid firm of Holsby & Ashford. She wasn’t about to give him the chance to tell her “No comment” over the phone. Gail was in the waiting room of Holsby & Ashford not twenty minutes after she had finished with Chris Paulo.
But as soon as she opened the heavy gilded door to the offices of Holsby & Ashford, Gail knew she was in trouble. Three television cameras, their attendant cameramen, and their attendant television reporters, all busily checking their makeup and holding up white scraps of paper to help the cameramen adjust for the light, were crowded into the usually ample space. And, there, next to the receptionist’s desk, stood Jeff Ronald, a reporter for the Herald, the Sentinel’s rival paper.
Gail smiled sadly. How silly to think she’d have a scoop, just because a thirteen-year-old boy deigned to talk to her in the stairwell. She was surrounded by a roomful of reporters, all of whom would ask the question that had struck her the first instant: Just what was the message from God?
Soon the room would be filled with the laughter of television cameramen (generally bored, silent types) and the smirks of their reporters who would try to sum up their stories in twenty seconds or less about the boy who got the go ahead from God to beat off.
But that wasn’t the way it happened.
Edward Banks did, of course, allow the interview.
He had been waiting, in fact, for the crowd to assemble, instructing his receptionist to let him know when representatives of all three of local stations had arrived, as well as each of the major newspapers. It was Gail who had kept them all waiting. Not her specifically, of course, but Edward Banks was not going to make an appearance until someone from the Sentinel had shown up.
Making history required scribes: eyewitnesses who would record what they saw, what they heard, and why it mattered. He wondered if Darcy took the Sentinel or Herald.
Gail stood in the corner behind one of the cameras, not wanting to exchange pleasantries with Ronald (she was in no danger of conversation with the television reporters; they didn’t usually make it a habit to talk to their print colleagues). But the receptionist spotted her anyway and waved her over. “Are you from the Sentinel?” the well-dressed woman asked Gail. The receptionist was slightly out of breath, as if all the activity in the usually serene office had thrown her off. Maybe I should be a receptionist instead of a reporter, Gail thought. It looked like a terribly safe line of work. The large mahogany desk and bank of phones were protection against any element she could think of.
“That’s me,” Gail answered. The receptionist seemed to be almost gulping air as she punched a button on one of her phones and spoke into the headset that graced her coiffed head.
“Mr. Banks, they’re ready for you,” she said.
It would take Edward Banks but a few seconds to burst in from the glass door at the far end of the room, striding confidently into the bevy of media. “Now, now, how do you want to do this?” he asked, his voice friendly and accommodating, completely comfortable in front of the cameras. There was some confusion for a few minutes while lighting was adjusted and a chair moved so that Edward Banks would have a well-lit space from which to address the crowd. He was sweating slightly, Gail noticed, and he seemed unusually interested in his pant cuffs. He didn’t look at all to her like the type that would be terribly understanding of his son’s proclivity to masturbate.
Out of the corner of her eye, Gail saw Jeff Ronald sinking into a seat near the far end, near Edward Banks, but out of the line of the cameras. She could tell he had some questions and wanted to be in a place where Banks could easily recognize him.
I’m toast, Gail thought again.
“I have prepared the preliminaries of a federal case against the Denver Public School system,” the elder Banks announced to the room. Gail watched the pens scratch across the surface of reporter notebooks, wondering when she would start to do the same.
“I have done so because I believe a very important Constitutional principle has been violated. And that principle is one I hold very dear. It is what sets us apart from the rest of the world, one that led to the very development of this country, and if allowed to be run roughshod over, will indeed lead to this country’s downfall.”
Gail rolled her eyes from the safety of her position at the other end of the room. She was sure the Union would continue to exist whether or not Peter Banks had been given the okay from God to beat off.
“That principle, of course, is our long-held and revered belief in the separation of church and state,” Edward Banks said, pointing his little finger to make sure the emphasis of the statement got across. Years before, Vivienne had tried to break him of the habit of pointing while he was making what he considered were his most salient points. But the best Vivienne had been able to manage was getting the man to switch from his index finger to his pinky, which now made Edward Banks look even more bizarre than he sounded.
“My son Peter is twelve-years-old,” Edward continued.
“Yesterday, he informed the principal of his middle school that he had talked with God. An innocent remark from an innocent boy, before an authoritarian figure who is granted his power-and this is most important-from us, the taxpayers in this state.”
Gail felt as if she were in a dream. She watched pens scribble hastily, then managed to pull out her notebook and start writing down some of Banks’ speech.
“For that, and nothing more than that,” Banks continued, his barrel chest puffing out, “my son was suspended from school for lying. For lying, ladies and gentlemen.” Repetition, Edward Banks had learned in court-after years in front of drowsy judges-was very important. “It’s an injustice I intend to right.”
Gail held her breath as pens scratched a second longer, and then voices started up from Banks’ audience.
“When will the suit be filed?”
“Has your son ever been in trouble before?”
“Is the ACLU joining in?”
The questions bounced off the wall to Edward Banks’ right, and he waved at them, as if trying to return them with a squash racquet. “Now, now-” Edward Banks cautioned. “Mr. Doos, the city attorney, has been good enough to agree to discuss the complaint tomorrow in his office. Until then, I can’t give you much more detail than I already have.” He paused for a moment and added,
“For now, let it suffice that my son is a model student. Straight A’s, I believe, last semester.” Peter Banks would’ve cringed at this. To be precise, he had received a C in gym and a B in French. But Edward Banks had registered neither grade at the time. He was slightly more accurate on his next response. “As far as the ACLU goes, I have traded voicemail with their local director for the past couple of hours, so I cannot answer for them. But I assume that once they take a good look at the case, they’ll want to file a brief in support of my complaint.”
The ACLU director for Colorado was home ill with a bad case of food poisoning. While he may have been cursing the bacterial invasion for the thirteen hours he would alternately vomit and shiver and then drift off into exhausted sleep, later, much later, he would thank his lucky stars.
“Mr. Banks, what did your son talk to God about?” The question, posed by Jeff Ronald, who was ignoring the dirty looks from the television reporters who hated being interrupted, stopped Gail’s heart in mid-beat. Here we go, she thought.
But Edward Banks looked struck not with irritation, as if someone had asked him a question he didn’t want to answer. No, Edward Banks, looked startled, the way a person looks when he has been asked a question which he had never thought of himself. She had been in journalism long enough to recognize the blank stare and raised eyebrows. It was then she knew Edward Banks had no idea what God had talked to his son about. “Jesus Christ,” she muttered, loud enough to draw a look of supreme disapproval from the receptionist.
Edward recovered quickly, although the craving for an antacid was overpowering. “I don’t presume to question my son about his private spiritual explorations,” Edward said quickly, converting the look of surprise on his face to one of disdain. “I respect his desire to make a spiritual connection. We should all have more of that desire.”
Gail tried to suppress a smirk. If Edward Banks only knew, she thought, just what sort of desire he were respecting, he might think twice about admonishing others to have more of it. The television reporters were shouting more questions at the attorney, taking the reins back from Jeff Ronald. Gail didn’t wait to hear what they had to say. Only one person had the answer she needed to print the story that was writing itself. That person was Peter Banks.
She left the office just as Banks was giving a recital of his legal background, noting with a certain superiority that he not only practiced law, he taught it to the young minds at Denver University. Gail had only seconds with which to take pity on his students before the elevator doors shut. Then she was on her way down to ground level.
Peter and Vivienne had finished cleaning the utility closet long before Edward had ever started speaking. Convinced her son was going mad or had already arrived there, Vivienne was busy searching the phone book for a decent counselor (she was trying to figure out exactly what would constitute a “decent” counselor and, simultaneously, how that would be evident from a telephone listing, and why she had been the unlucky parent of such a child.) Peter was quietly playing video games in his room, wondering when the shit would hit the fan. He was intent on the game when the doorbell rang, and didn’t raise his head until Vivienne called his name.
Gail found Peter Banks easily-too easily, she thought, when she looked up Edward Banks in the phone directory and found a listing for “Edward Banks, Atty.” on Sultan Lane. She expected to find a mass of cars stationed outside the house, a defense already arranged within, and the complete denial of her entry. But the reporters-both television and print-who had been assigned to the story were all still at Edward Banks’ office, listening to him ramble about the sad state of legal education, the practice of law, and the ridiculousness of allowing judges to be subject to recall.
So she arrived at Peter’s house to find the yard deserted, the lilac bushes still intact. She flicked a cigarette butt into one, then stared after it, realizing that it was something the Professor would do. So she bent over and picked it up. Then she crushed the butt on the bottom of her shoe and tossed it in her purse.
When she pressed the doorbell, Gail had her fingers crossed that Mrs. Banks would let her speak with the boy, but she couldn’t imagine that happening. Gail herself had long ago given instructions to her son, Dillon, never to talk to a reporter unless she had given him written permission. She knew too well how callous some could be with the misstatements and outbursts of the young, and she already felt that Dillon had been through enough because of her.
But Vivienne hadn’t had much practice with the press. And at the time, although she felt her son was in immediate danger from the voices that were stirring inside his head, she couldn’t see that the oncoming onslaught would be external. Peter’s mother thus answered the doorbell more startled than defensive, and when she saw the woman who was just about her age (actually, about five years younger), she felt a twinge of the loneliness she routinely pushed down threaten to surface.
“Can I help you?” Vivienne asked the stranger who reeked of cigarette smoke.
Gail smiled at the polite greeting. “I’m from the Sentinel,” she explained, trying not to sound apologetic.
“I was wondering if I could have a few words with Peter?”
“The Sentinel? The paper?” Vivienne asked, wondering if the woman had seen the Herald still lying in the front yard, and if she had taken offense.
“I’m doing a story on the suspension. I believe Peter’s already talked to Channel 9 about it?” Gail added quickly. “I wanted to make sure I got it right.”
Vivienne’s brow furrowed, but she couldn’t think of any reason not to let the other woman in. Edward had already exposed the boy to a much slicker looking reporter, that awful man from last night, who had shaken her hand with his cold one and then told them to wait in that despicably dirty green room. “I suppose that would be all right,” she answered, holding the door open. Gail moved inside quickly, in case the woman changed her mind. “I’m Vivienne Banks, Peter’s mother.”
Gail smiled again and took the woman’s hand. “I appreciate it, Mrs. Banks,” she said carefully. “I’m a mother too,” she added. “I won’t scare him.” It had been the exactly right thing to say. Vivienne moved quickly to close the phone book on the kitchen table. Gail accepted the offer of a cup of coffee and sat down at the immaculate table while Vivienne went to call Peter. When he appeared, it took Gail a few moments to begin. She was so surprised at how young he looked, just a few years older than Dillon, her own son, and with the same sort of little boy shyness.
“Hello Peter. My name is Gail Abernathy. I’m a reporter from the Sentinel.”
Peter, unlike Chris Paulo, looked at her as if the last thing he wanted to do was talk to a reporter. “Hello,” he said simply.
“I wanted to ask you a few questions about your suspension. Is that okay?” Gail asked. Vivienne came back into the kitchen and moved toward the coffee maker, starting to make a fresh pot. Gail felt the boy startle at his mother’s entrance. She knew his problem immediately.
“Maybe we should sit in the backyard. Would that make you more comfortable?” she asked, hoping that Vivienne would not object. But Vivienne merely smiled at them weakly, as if it were almost too much for her to navigate a pot of coffee with so much on her mind. Gail followed Peter’s lead out the back door, and they began to pace the manicured lawn together, his head at her shoulder. “I talked to Chris Paulo this morning, Peter,” Gail said softly after they had rounded an orderly garden of kitchen herbs. “Do you want to tell me about it?”
Peter, who had been holding his breath until he heard the name Chris Paulo, expelled a long stream of air.
“Chris said that you talked to God about masturbation,” she said quietly, watching him flinch at the last word.
“I asked Him about masturbation, if it was, you know, okay.” Peter tugged at the bottom of his shirt wondering if the woman were going to laugh at him. But when he looked up, she didn’t look as though she found anything funny about it.
“You asked Him about masturbation,” she repeated, in order to memorize the way he said it. She didn’t want to pull out the notebook now. It would put the boy off.
“Yeah, people keep saying I talked to Him like He was standing in front of me and I said it. That isn’t the way it happened,” Peter told her, desperate to get it right.
“I asked Him, I said a prayer,” and it was almost as embarrassing for Peter to say “prayer” as it was “masturbation.”
“You prayed,” Gail repeated.
“Yeah. And then, when I woke up in the morning, I had the answer,” Peter said. “This voice in my head. And the voice said God had enough things to worry about and as long as I didn’t hurt anyone else, it is fine.
Masturbation is fine. He doesn’t care.” Peter had stopped by an oak and was picking at the bark of the mammoth tree.
Gail nodded. “I see.” Her heart sank at the sight of his face. This was one boy who had no desire to be anyone’s hero, despite what Chris Paulo had said. What his father had stirred up around him, Gail thought, was a tempest Peter had never dreamed of walking through. “So how did that get you suspended?”
Peter let out another extraordinary sigh, and the words tumbled out. He told her the whole story, even the part about being caught in the stall by Chris Paulo and Billy Frye.
“So Mr. Overlay knows what God said to you?” Gail asked.
“Yes,” Peter said solemnly, looking at the ground. “Mr. Overlay knows.”
Gail bent down so she could look at his face. “But your dad doesn’t know, does he?”
“No,” Peter answered, batting his tears with his long eyelashes.
“How about your mom?” Gail asked, in barely a whisper.
Peter shook his head, his mouth clamped shut, suppressing a sob. Gail put her hand on the boy’s shoulder. Good Christ, she thought, I don’t want to write this story. There was enough guilt in her life. The old stuff-like divorcing her husband when Dillon was four, the problem with drinking she was trying so hard to deal with-and now the damn Professor. She didn’t need anything else.
“You know this is going to come out, don’t you?” Gail said, as evenly as she could. Peter nodded again, his hands now covering his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Peter,” It was like apologizing before you slapped someone. Later at the office, she would have a long discussion with Fraser about whether it was fair to the boy to run the story, but the bald editor would laugh-literally-in her face. “As soon as Doos and Banks file their papers tomorrow, the world will know, sweetheart,” Fraser said. “We’ll just have the story a day earlier. That’s what this game’s all about.”
Gail didn’t tell Fraser that it wasn’t at all a game to her, and that he hadn’t looked at the expression on Peter’s face and wouldn’t have to live with it. It wouldn’t have made any difference anyway to Lincoln Fraser. She had the story, and he would run with it. Despite her attempts at discouraging the story, Gail never believed for a second it wouldn’t run, or that she wouldn’t write it. Even when she was looking at Peter Banks’ face as they stood in the expansive backyard and discussed the terrible fate that lay ahead. It would be embarrassing, she knew, and would probably scar the boy, but the story was the result of his father’s actions, not hers. Still, she tried to think of some way to soften the blow.
“I think it would be better if you told your mom, Peter,” Gail said finally. It was her turn to sigh with relief. That would help, if the family was prepared. Maybe they could stop this thing now.
Of course, every journalism professor in the country would’ve slapped her hand for that one. You didn’t insert yourself into stories, provide advice to people you were interviewing. It was a supreme no-no. If anything, she should’ve told him not to tell anyone, to preserve the exclusive nature of her story. But she didn’t. It had something to do with Dillon and the divorce and all the booze and to some extent, the Professor. Gail felt the urgent need to be on the right side of something. So she told him. “I have a son, Peter, and he’s not that much younger than you are. I would want to know, and I would think it was okay. Your mom’s going to think so, too.”
Peter thought about his mother for a moment. Yes, she would be shocked, but maybe she could figure a way out, a way to avoid embarrassment. She was good at that. Like kicking dropped food under the table, or hiding a stain by rolling up a sleeve. He made up his mind, not with a forceful resolve but like a drop kick in soccer. The ball was there, his foot was swinging, and he might as well aim it.
“Okay,” he said. “I will.”
“Good boy,” Gail said, stroking his hair absentmindedly, forgetting that he wasn’t Dillon.
Afterward, when Gail had retreated to her car to drag on a cigarette, Peter would sit down with his mother at the immaculate kitchen table and come clean about the dirty deed. He had been right. After her initial shock, his mother would be an important ally, at least for a while. Vivienne would never tell him that she was actually relieved to hear about the masturbation, relieved that he wasn’t hearing voices and losing his mind as she’d thought he was, but simply rationalizing the biological necessity of masturbation. After all, she knew about the biological necessity of masturbation, although she never allowed herself to think about it. For an afternoon at least, she would be relieved that she was the mother of a normal boy, with normal needs and responses, one whose father had gone a step too far. Her relief gave her the courage to call her husband’s office immediately, to cut off the spectacle as soon as it was feasible. “Edward, come home now,” she had said into the phone in a tone Edward couldn’t remember hearing before.
The Banks’ gave no more interviews that day, nor the next morning. Edward Banks promised his wife that he would end his assault on the Denver Public School system as soon as he met with Doos the following afternoon at three-thirty. He swore he would make the announcement, the case would be dropped, and they would wait for the fury to die down.
“Not many people read the Sentinel,” Vivienne said as encouragingly as she could to Edward, unaware that at the least, the media are intimately familiar with the media, and that as soon as Gail’s story hit the streets, the television cameras would bombard Rory Middle School and get enough quotes from Chris Paulo to make a documentary.
