19 - Everybody Is

In retrospect, Roan realized Stovak being so desperate to contact him was a warning sign.

Eli’s death pretty much split the Church of the Divine Transformation down the middle. Eli didn’t leave a clear successor, so two people ended up duking it out (mostly figuratively) to take over leadership: his current girlfriend, Heather Dow (who Roan hoped wasn’t a psychopathic killer), who wanted to continue Eli’s style of leadership, and a guy named David Harvey, who was some kind of under priest (or whatever the fuck they called them in Divine Transformation, and he really didn’t care), and wanted to be more “aggressive”, whatever that meant. (Were they going to infect people against their will?) This caused a schism between followers already distraught over Eli’s death, and this lead to fist fights and minor acts of vandalism. Eli’s funeral became a riot between conflicted Church members and anti-cat protesters, where twelve people were injured and ten were arrested. It topped the local news for days and days, and a couple of times he was contacted by reporters who wanted him to either comment on Eli, or tell them about how he died in his parking lot. He said “no comment” every time and pointed them towards the lawyer he did work for, Dennis Caldera, who either gave them an official no, or simply had his secretary keep them on hold until they hung up. It turned out to be a good time to sneak out of town with Dylan. Somehow the fucking thing became national news, reviving the debate on whether the church was dangerous (from religious types and public health officials alike).

Because there were people actively seeking his comment on shit he didn’t care about, he and Dylan drove out to the coast and stayed at a hotel there. It wasn’t very expensive, but that was a good thing, as they didn’t leave their room too often. Hell, Roan could count on his hand how many times he got out of bed. They had lots of sex and quite a bit of room service too, so they didn’t have to bother to go out. He didn’t exactly spill his guts to Dylan, but he opened up enough to him that Dylan actually suggested that seeing a therapist about his depression might be a good thing. Roan didn’t mention that he had seen counselors twice in his life, once as a teenager and then once as a cop, and all he’d learned was he could break anyone’s depression scale, and guys who wore sweaters and talked so slowly it sounded like they’d overdosed on valium bugged the shit out of him.

By the time they got back from their lazy weekends, things had gotten worse. The good news was the whole ex-Chief child molester scandal got buried by all the Church trouble, but the bad news was the cops had their hands - and cat cages - full with all the Church drama. Then a cat “activist” named Craig Lombardi was killed in what was dubbed a “cat bashing”, and part of the city seemed to explode. There was rioting and protests for two days, like the WTO spontaneously had a summit, and some asshole called in the National Guard - well, what was left of them; the ones who weren’t humping a pack and getting shot in Iraq and Afghanistan - but they did no good at all, and were called back before they killed someone. Chief Matthews asked him to come back as an “honorary police officer” to try and manage some kind of détente with the cat people (oh, how he cringed at that nickname), but it took Dylan guilting him in his own Buddhist way to make him do it. It was weird, but it was a brief stint, which he could handle. In fact, during one crowd control situation that was rapidly getting out of hand, Roan lost his temper and roared at them. Not yelled at them like a Human, but let out a straight from the diaphragm angry lion roar that ripped the shit out of his throat. It was actually funny how quickly a block full of arguing people suddenly fell silent - totally dead silent - staring at him in varying degrees of shock. Who knew such a sound could come out of a Human? He wasn’t able to speak much above a growl since he’d damaged his throat, but luckily he had all their attention after that, and when he told them to knock this shit off before he got really mad, even his fellow cops seemed to become totally obedient. Nobody wanted him to turn into a lion it seemed. He’d heard a rumor that a cop resigned after the incident because he was so freaked out by it, but Roan chalked that up to either urban legend or some puss looking for an excuse to bail out.

In the meantime, Eli’s will was read, and while he wasn’t there, he was sorry he missed it. Apparently it turned into a minor riot of its own, as Eli left some disparaging comments towards his own family, cutting them out entirely, and Stovak used the occasion to notify his brother Charles and his lawyer Stockport that he had filed a lawsuit against them on behalf of Eli’s estate for all the embezzlement. (Roan had FedExed him the papers Eli had left behind). Things apparently degraded from there.

Roan figured Eli left him something in his will only to keep fucking with him even after he was dead, and that sentiment seemed proven when Stovak told him Eli had left him his computer. Why the fuck would he leave him his computer? To rub in the fact that he had a much newer, better model?

But Roan realized that Eli was using him again, recalling his taunting of him as the “last honest man”. There were files about each and every member of the Church. Did he expect him to keep an eye on them? Use the information to smack some of them down? No matter what he intended, he now had all the dirt he could ever want on the members of the Church of the Divine Transformation. What was he going to do with it? He still wasn’t sure. Purely for safety reasons, he pulled out the hard drive and put it in a safety deposit box at his credit union, replacing the hard drive in Eli’s stack with a fresh new one. It looked like Eli’s computer, right down to the “Cat Power” sticker on it, but anyone who tries to boot it up was in for a major disappointment. He told no one he’d done this, not even Dylan. Roan figured that once things calmed down and word got around about who had Eli’s computer and what may be on it, it could be a very dangerous thing to own. Eli probably laughed when he put it in his will, knowing the shit that would come down when Roan ended up with it in his lap. Bastard.

The truth was - and it surprised him a bit - was he was concerned about one person at the Church, enough that he looked her up and visited her. Rainbow had moved in with her Aunt temporarily, since she was bothered by all the conflict, and he dropped in one day just to see how she was doing. He didn’t know why he felt kind of bad for her, except she was a very harmless soul. And as misguided as she was to believe in all of this shit, she actually meant well. Maybe that was the hardest thing about all of this. The backbone of this church - of all churches, perhaps - were the well-intentioned yet totally misguided. They didn’t want to hurt you or anybody else, but they were quite sure that their way was the only way.

He talked to her while she knitted, the clack of the needles filling a screened in porch looking over an overgrown backyard that seemed dominated by wild blackberry bushes and towering pines. She’d given him a glass of tea so sweet and minty he wondered if he was drinking sugared mouthwash. The air smelled of dust and housecats, and she talked very kindly of Eli, which seemed like a different person than the one he knew. He still felt bad for her. He actually imagined that she felt bad for him.

Eventually the public arguing and near riots stopped, but things were at a simmer as opposed to a full boil. Things could erupt at any time and everyone knew it. The city council was considering restrictive new rules on public demonstrations, but the ACLU was standing by, ready to smack them back down. Some of the anti-cat hate groups started leaving as soon as the media started filtering out towards the next great freak show, but some had stayed behind to harass the “cat people” whenever possible, promising more disaster in the future. The leadership question wasn’t decided, and Roan actually heard from Rainbow that there was a possibility of the Church fracturing into two different groups. Didn’t the Church of England start that way? Goddamn, this was way more complicated than it had any right to be. It was a stupid cult! Who gave it that much power?

On the Zoë front, he found her, and he didn’t even need to get up from his desk. His DMV friend told him to look at a specific California newspaper section on a certain day, and internet investigation turned up a wedding announcement between Zoë Williams and a James Garcia. Some further searching uncovered that she and James were now separated, and Zoë worked in a department store in Mission Viejo, and lived with her daughter in the area. She was listed in the phone book, so it wasn’t hard to get her number, and he passed it on to Holden.

As for Holden, he was still a little shaken by developments. He told him his mother had been calling on a semi-regular basis to talk to him, but he’d never returned a single one of her phone calls. He had no idea what he’d say to her. Or his dad, but he never expected to hear from his dad again. Holden was tired of being a hustler too, and figured as soon as he got the internet venture launched with Rocky, he’d get out of it. He had no idea what he’d do then, but Roan wasn’t too concerned about him. He was a smart guy, resourceful, charming - he may have been a Fox, but he always seemed to land on his feet.

Roan was getting really used to having Dylan around, to the point where it was weird to wake up in bed without him, and Dylan had a whole dresser drawer all to himself, where he kept spare clothes. You knew it was a serious relationship when they started moving stuff into your place. Roan had also been giving him a crash course on the great Simpsons episodes on his box sets, and Dylan had come to realize he really liked the Simpsons. Which was good, because he didn’t think he could have a relationship with someone who hated or was completely indifferent to them. (Okay, he was a geek, and a grown man with cartoon box sets as the star of his DVD collection. He had accepted this, and if anyone demanded his man card because of it, they’d have to fight him for it.)

But as good as things were, he was preparing for the worst. Not with Dylan, but with life. This cat shit was unsettled, and he knew as much as he tried to avoid it, he would get swept up in it eventually. He knew that the day he went to open his office and found “Your (sic) next, kitty fag!” painted on his door in genuine housecat blood. He supposed the “next” was a reference to Eli’s death, indicating he’d be the next one to die, but Roan wouldn’t bet on that.

Both Gordo and Seb took it as a serious death threat, and wondered why Roan wasn’t all that troubled by it. He couldn’t explain it to them, but he honestly hoped anyone who wanted to take a shot at him took it and made it good, because they’d only get the one. Then his other half would come out to play, and it wouldn’t look good for the stupid dickhead who decided to take him on.

It was a bitch to be infected, and yes, he was a freak amongst the freaks, But he’d be lying if he didn’t admit - at least to himself - that it had a perk or two.

_________

The End