DOING GOD'S WORK

A Romance

By

Leigh Travis

l325 Kuehnle

Ann Arbor, Michigan 48103

(313) 994-7883

(C) November 17, 1991

To my friend, Leon Ofchus, Ph.D.

Be fruitful and multiply,

and replenish the earth . . .

-- Genesis I, 27

Doing God's Work

A Romance

I

The Crisis

The emergency meeting of the program directors in the year 2020 turned into a debacle, with various factions blaming other factions for the ruinous conditions in the country:

"The matter of the poor showing of our students," said Senator Bernie MacFatter, "is not officially my department: I believe this issue is more properly the jurisdiction of our Juvenile Betterment Program director, Senator Sam Sourges."

"Not so!" Senator Sourges exclaimed, "the juvenile subcommittee has its focus on job training, not public education. We really should look, I believe, to the Secretary of Urban Renewal, my colleague, Senator Howie Symthe of the great state of Oklahoma."

The decay of the country, the Senators knew, had happened slowly, almost imperceptibly, over some 60 or so years, the way soil erosion silently saps the land, leaving it dry and lifeless. But they had no idea of what, exactly, was the primary cause of the decay of the country, or how to correct the problems that were besieging the land.

Of course they had been aware of some of the symptoms of the sociological blight--cities crumbling--massive nationwide abuse of drugs--rampant white collar crime and open warfare in the cities--a public school system in shambles--an epidemic divorce rate--the immense economic plight of single-parent homes--and juvenile delinquency starting as soon as the first grade. In 1998 the city, state, and federal governments had united and created a myriad of programs to address the seeming multitude of ills. However, twelve years later successes had been at best minimal, and the deterioration of the county seemed certain to continue, unabated, into the foreseeable future.

Under enormous pressure from his party, President Randall Adams had covertly summoned to Washington, D.C. the heads of the multiple programs he, and his predecessors, had created to attack and hopefully cure the societal afflictions of the country. The highly confidential 11th hour emergency meeting in the Roosevelt Room at the Capital had been attended by all, and there had been high hopes that solutions would be found. The President had solemnly informed each attendee on the telephone that there was "a national problem of the gravest proportions, thank you!" and the various program heads, thus alerted, had made room in their busy schedules and headed towards the Capital from all around the county.

The President, a successful businessman and lawyer before he became the President some 20 years earlier, was a man who preferred his breakfast, lunch and dinner gin martinis, and talk of college and professional skyball, to the business of the nation. "When you reach age 80, thank you," he often said in his thin, rasping voice, "politics is hardly as alluring as skyball, don't you agree, thank you?" He was not, therefore, a man to be easily alarmed: but, like it or not, he had more than ample reason to be distraught. "In my opinion, there is a problem: I am worried, thank you," he said repeatedly to Jonas Welsh, his secretary, a man some 40 years his junior.

The President's call for the emergency meeting had been occasioned not only by the reports of a host of disturbing statistics showing no downward change in the rates of crime, delinquency, drug abuse, and economic depression, but, in particular, and most distressingly, the theretofore unreported findings of the Population Bureau that purportedly showed the population growth of the county had not only gradually diminished over the preceding 60 years, year by year, but had, in fact, totally stopped. While artificial insemination births and immigration had remained constant, no new natural births had been recorded by either the hospitals around the country, or by the Population Bureau, for the previous year.

Someone in the Population Bureau leaked the terrifying story to the President: Harold McCallister, the Head of the Population Bureau, was quietly fired and replaced. "Mental illness," was the official explanation given to the press when McCallister later apparently committed suicide by drowning in the Potomac River. And the matters of his sudden departure and death were thus forever laid to rest.

No one at the emergency meeting accepted responsibility or in the slightest admitted a failure in their respective programs. After two weeks of intense and wholly unproductive charges and counter charges, the meeting came to a whimpering conclusion with speakers exhorting one another to "save our beloved country from itself." At no time was the terrifying question of an apparent cessation in the birth rate discussed; rather, it was immediately, and discretely, referred to a committee for further study. President Adams was, at best, frustrated.

"You should immediately consult Fawl and Flowers," advised Jonas Welsh, the President’s secretary of the last 20 years.

President Adams did what his Jonas told him to do, and had long, confidential, and confusing discussions with Madelaine Fawl, Ph. D., the matronly Head of the Department of Demographics, and with Mary Flowers, M. D., the renown geneticist.

"There is no known medical evidence that men or women have become sterile over the years, as genders," said Dr. Flowers, "and there is therefore no medical reason to explain the apparently fizzled, and now arrested, birth rate."

The President scowled, and squinted through his thick, mirror-lensed, glasses at Dr. Flowers: "If you medical people don't know, then who does, thank you?" he wheezed. Thus unfairly remonstrated, Dr. Flowers stomped out in tears and slammed the door behind her. Dr. Fawl held her pince-nez glasses up to her mouth with both her tiny hands, blew lightly on the glasses, and daintily wiped them dry with her floral handkerchief. "I would guess either Ms. Amy Rose or Dr. Harold Canon might have an idea, Mr. President," she murmured, smiled politely with pursed lips, abruptly stood, and waddled out.

The President called his secretary and Jonas brought him the files on Rose and Canon. "These papers were prepared by our National Historian, Andrew Marnes," Jonas, said, and handed the President two, heavy, bound volumes of paper. Jonas lit a long, thin cigar, sat across the desk from the President, and busied himself with organizing the piles of official papers on the President's desk.

"Ms. Amy Rose," the President read outloud, running his hand through his thinning, brown hair, "was the Head of Women for Equality, and Harold Canon, Ph.D., was the President of the National Council for Fathers. They were hand picked some 30 years earlier by then President Edwin Marshall to manage the governmental agency designed to address the then immense nationwide difficulties in family relations. There had been an 85% first-marriage divorce rate, parental kidnappings, a landslide of marital rape and sexual harassment suits, riots and deaths at abortion clinics, and scandalous cases of serial killings of wives, single women and children by brutal, and insane, men, that had reached epidemic proportions in the late 1980's. President Marshall had then called on Rose and Canon, the two leaders of the nation's two most powerful reformist organizations, to assist him with the matter."

"What do you know about Ms. Amy Rose and Dr. Harry Canon, thank you?" the President asked Jonas, who was puffing on his cigar and thumbing through the pile of papers on the desk. He looked up, took off his mirror glasses, and focused his brown eyes on the President:

"Both Rose and Canon are highly respected professionals. As leaders of their respective organizations they overcame the earlier excesses of the militant National Union for Victimized Women and various radical 'men's rights' organizations, such as SLAM--'Society's Legion of Angry Men'--of the 1980's. Rose and Canon somehow managed to lead the governmental department President Marshall had appointed them to manage in a successful campaign that seemed to stem the tide of divorce that had characterized the l960's, 1970's, 1980's, and, most particularly, the 1990's."

"I'm impressed, thank you," the President wheezed, and turned back to the volumes before him.

The work of Rose, over the years, the President read, was credited with not only reducing the divorce rate, but with revisionist Federal legislation outlawing all pornography; legislation outlawing private men's organizations; legislation outlawing men's-only professional sports; legislation outlawing the wearing of bikinis by women; legislation outlawing the men-only draft, and legislation outlawing the private ownership of handguns. Laws were passed requiring men to wear mirror-lensed glasses treated on their outsides with silver nitrate, to protect women from the men's lurid, gawking, eyes and, at the same time, provide women a way of constantly looking at and admiring themselves.

A slew of other attendant legislation, the President read, was also passed that was designed to render men as acutely self-conscious of their sexual and aggressive impulses as was sociologically and scientifically possible. There was a consequent drastic reduction of rape and sexual harassment charges because, as Ms. Amy Rose had concluded in one of her press releases, "we have created a more evolved, a more civilized, and a more perfect, world."

Ms. Amy Rose's hypothesis to explain the chaos in the family, the President read, and the hypothesis behind her various legislative reforms, was simple and unbending: "Men are savage animals who have caused all the ills in the world and have to be tamed, period. Once the country gets control of men's primitive sexuality and aggression, and civilizes them, the problems will vanish."

"How'd they get their programs passed?" the President asked Jonas, who had put out his cigar and was headed towards the door. He stopped walking, turned around, and shrugged:

"How? Oh, effective, often belligerent, advertising campaigns were waged throughout the country in all the major media; conscious-raising rallies flourished; major universities established Departments of Male Impulse Control; and gradually men came to realize, from childhood on, that they were indeed a biologically dangerous and despicable lot. Thus laws were changed, and the divorce rate, finally, did indeed seem to come under control. It was quite a coup."

"A coup?" the President said and returned to reading as Jonas walked out. The reviews of the work of Rose, however, the President read, had been mixed. Some people regarded Rose's work and, to a lesser extent, that of Canon, as "epochal"; others--including Canon himself, and other traditionalist men--were far less enthusiastic about the work of Ms. Amy Rose. Canon, in particular, had written several tracts decrying Rose's hypothesis on the grounds that it was "psychotically un-biological," as were her proposed legislative reforms. But his work was not favorably reviewed by the press or the public at large, whereas Rose's ideas had gained a kind of hysterically unanimous public acceptance.

The apparent philosophical rift between Dr. Canon and Ms. Amy Rose aside, President Adams was nonetheless sufficiently impressed with the results of their respective and combined work. On the heels of the meeting debacle of the program heads, President Adams was desperate enough to try anything: so the next day he requested that his secretary contact him with both Rose and Cannon.

When the President talked on the telephone with Ms. Amy Rose and Dr. Harold Canon, he succinctly informed them of the dire situation and pleaded with them "to prepare papers outlining solutions to the problems in the country and, more specifically, analyses of, and answers to, the problem of a population that for reasons unknown is failing to reproduce itself, thank you?" The President was anxious to hear their thoughts, he said, on what had been slowly materializing in his mind as a "nightmare of dissolution and infertility destroying my beloved land--a catastrophe unknown in human history, thank you?" Needless to say, both agreed to respond to their President's plea.

Ms. Amy Rose arrived in Washington two weekends later dressed in a navy-colored dress, a little heavy for the warm June weather. She was a short, full-breasted woman with a pink complexion, kelly-green eyes and long, black hair. some 50 years of age,

Jonas promptly appeared in the oval office.

"She's here, my sources tell me."

"What's the grapevine on Ms. Amy Rose, thank you?"

"Well," Jonas said, first checking to see if they were alone, "she has been a devoted career woman who had been once married to a man who later turned out to be homosexual, and on the rebound, had an affair with a man who later turned out to be married. She then lived for several years with a lesbian woman, and, for the last few years, has apparently lived alone."

"Independent type, thank you?"

Jason nodded:

"Ms. Amy Rose, as expertly arranged for the abortions of some 20,000 foetuses during her 20 some-odd-years tenure in office as the President of Woman for Equality, and often publicly expressed her utter disdain for any man who would do 'that' to a woman, although it was never made clear exactly what she meant by the sinister 'that.'"

"What's the grapevine on Dr. Canon, thank you?".

"Like Ms. Amy Rose," Jonas replied, "Harold Canon is now single, and has been married and divorced. Unlike Rose, he has been divorced three times, and is the Father of seven children, one of whom--his middle daughter, Anne--just tragically died of breast cancer a month ago. Her emaciated condition, and her subsequent death, stunned and devastated him, for it is said that she had been his favorite child. The day of her funeral it was reported that he had consumed prodigious amounts of scotch with her grieving husband, Arnold, and that Canon cried, sobbing uncontrollably, for hours afterwards at his son-in-law's home."

"A man who has suffered tragedy, thank you?" the President observed, "what else is there about him, thank you?"

"Canon," Jonas continued, looking through a thick pile of papers, "was raised by the brother and sister-in-law of his mother. His parents were both good Catholic kids who had been forced to marry because of their unwanted pregnancy. Soon, they separated, but never divorced. Although Canon's father lived only a couple of miles from him, Canon only saw him once or twice before the father's death from heart failure. The mother pursued her career as a fashion model in San Francisco, and rarely saw her only son. An outstanding student in a Catholic high school, Canon went on to get his Ph. D. in clinical psychology at Notre Dame and taught in several major Universities as well as managing a large, corporate, therapy practice for years."

"Good manager, eh, thank you?" the President rasped, bobbing his head up and down, "go on, thank you?"

"Canon is now in his early 60’s," Jonas continued, "and had a reputation for being something of a two-fisted-drinker and a womanizer in his youth. In his middle years he became a widely-published, brilliant psychologist and masterful manager of his corporation."

"Drinker, eh? A man after my own heart, thank you?" the President grinned happily: "Go on, if you would, please, thank you?"

"Canon," Jonas replied, "is about six feet in height, weighs about 180 pounds, has shiny, blondish-gray, wavy hair, a rubicund complexion, and startling blue eyes the color of robins' eggs. He walks with a limp from an old shrapnel wound received during an artillery drill in army boot camp, and always blushes brightly when he smiles, particularly when in the presence of virtually any comely woman."

"Good work, Jonas! Sounds like a rather, er, unusual man, thank you," the President rasped: "Hope, er, he won't cause any PR problems, Jonas, if you know what I mean, thank you?"

Jonas smiled, but said nothing. He was a confirmed bachelor in his 40’s, a man of medium build with a salt-and-pepper mustache and straight brown hair, and was secretly one of the few admirers of Canon's acidic criticisms of Ms. Amy Rose's work. Unbeknownst to the President or anyone else in government, Jonas had been Canon's closest friend and ally for some 20 years, and was looking forward to reuniting with his old friend.

The day following the President's briefing on him, Canon's jet landed at Washington International Jetport. He told the driver of the governmental limousine that he wanted to go to "Legends" restaurant, one of his old haunts from his days in Washington when he had worked with Ms. Amy Rose on the Family Relations project years ago, and where that day he was to meet with Ms. Amy Rose and the President.

He had spent the previous two weeks thinking about the crisis in the country, about Ms. Amy Rose, about his daughter's death, and about the fact that although he wasn't getting any younger, he was still quite a man. "Thought it went away when you got old," he said, grinning wryly, when Jonas called him the preceding week to talk about the meeting, "but, by God, it doesn't!"

"That's good news," Jonas laughed.

"But I am not, however, particularly looking forward to seeing Ms. Amy Rose again, I'm sorry to say."

"Why not?"

"Well, during the ten or so years we worked together, from around 1991 to 2001, I confess that I was consumed with a peculiarly ravenous desire for her full breasts and voluptuous body, but utterly failed to get even a coffee date with her, much less a roll in the hay."

"Hm: doesn't sound like you at all, Harry, not like you at all."

Canon hung up, sat down, and reflected on his feelings for Ms. Amy Rose. He didn't care that much for her intellectually: he had found her rather doctrinaire and biting, almost acerbic, and certainly woefully mistaken in her rigid and wrong-headed beliefs about the nature of men. Why, then, did he so want her?

She was certainly a lovely woman, physically, just a bit afraid of men and relationships, and he had been enamored of her clear green eyes, soft and gentle, the color of country grass, the innocent eyes of a becoming, untouched young girl.

Was his desire for her, then, he had asked himself, merely a matter of sexual conquest? No. It was, he had convinced himself--although he didn't really buy the sophistic argument--a matter of psychotherapeutic noblesse oblige. What she needed, he remembered he had concluded years ago, after overhearing her speak to a colleague of her failed marriage and her other subsequent, and miserable, relationships--what she needed was a good lay to straighten her around, and he was just the man to provide her with that therapy. "Once she's had the best," he boasted to thr bathroom mirror before him, "she'll be a changed woman, forever."

But 20 years ago, he reminded himself, as shrewd and handsome as he was, never, never, had he failed so miserably to seduce a woman. "Enough to drive a man to drink," he laughed to himself, as he got out of the limousine and walked into and took a seat at the oval bar in the famous "Legends" restaurant in the Dupont Circle.

"Howdy," smiled the bartender, a  buxom, brown-haired woman in her early 30’s, "what can I do ya for, honey?"

Canon grinned cherubically and looked her over:

"A modest libation--an Old Grand Dad on the rocks, with a twist, if you'd be so kind," he grinned, and dropped his heavy leather suitcase down on the floor next to him with a "thud."

Canon's voice was breathy, his words crisply pronounced, his smile seemed to irradiate his entire face, and he knew the effect the combination usually had on women. There was, as well, something pure, almost priestly, about that warm smile that was beguiling and, at the same time, seductive.

"'Ere ya go, m'dear" the bartender said, handing the cocktail to the strange man dressed in black with the silver cross hanging from his neck: "Ma name's Suzie an' I dun't think I's seen ya 'ere afore. Jus' get it in?"

Canon smiled at her: "Ah, yes. Name's Canon. Spent the early morning at the Vatican visiting with some old--very old--Cardinals. Taking confessions, you know. Hard work: they can't really hear that well any more. I used to be a priest, celibate, you see," he said softly, and looked straight into the unblinking chocolate-brown eyes staring at him.

Suzie smiled back, astonished that he was without the mandatory silver-coated mirror glasses, and sure had a weird tale to tell that she was somehow strangely willing to believe--no doubt a lie of some sort, but somehow a charming one. Or was it a line? She was curious about him, and felt strangely enchanted by his warm smile and laughing, blue eyes.

"Dis mornin'?" she asked, leaning towards him.

"Took the Solar Jet."

"Da new 'un?"

"Yes. A veritable miracle," Canon smiled, and looked skyward with his hands clasped: "Rome to Washington D. C. in two hours, flat. Barely had time to eat lunch."

"Wowsie."

Canon grinned at her, swung slowly around in his bar stool, and looked around: same anachronistic 'ole place, he thought, looking around the dark, cavernous restaurant at the roomful of smartly dressed politicians and their companions eating lunch; the polished, dark wood walls; the flock of blinking silver-coated eye glasses, like fireflies, reflecting the flickering gas lights; the glistening suits of medieval armor standing here and there; the translations of innocuous lines from Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales on the walls; and the intimate booths in the back. "Same 'ole place," he chuckled, and grinned, when he turned back to Suzie, "hasn't really changed much in, oh, some 20 years."

Suzie smiled back at the strange customer who was making no sense at all and who, contrary to the law, not only wore no silver-coated glasses but kept staring at her breasts. She was wearing a see-through, sheer, pale blue blouse, as did most women in the spring and summer, and the law said that men had to wear the mirror lenses and could not look anywhere except at the floor or in a woman's eyes. A man who looked anywhere else clearly had no control of his sexual and aggressive impulses and could be arrested on the spot, and even jailed, for sexual harassment or emotional rape, or both. But he kept staring intently at her breasts and biting his lower lip.

"Ya says y'ar a priest?"

He gave her his best paternal smile: "Former priest, my child. Oh, yes, in St. Jude's monastery, upper New York State, high up on a cold, rock-strewn, forsaken mountain. Prayers, penances, and indulgences, day and night. The whole shot."

She still half believed him, half didn't, but found him strangely convincing and utterly fascinating in his peculiar, childlike, and seductive, way.

"When'd ya get it out?"

"Of the priesthood?"

"Yeah."

He beamed, inwardly, as if remembering the birth of a child: "I had a strange sort of Epiphany last night, and saw my misspent life flash before my eyes, as it were. I spent the night wrestling with the Devil, and made my decision. After matins I paid my respects to the Father Superior, took off that blessed collar, and left late this morning for D.C."

(That's it! Suzie thought: no wonder da poor guy ain't got no glasses an' is starin' at ma boobies--he jus' dun't know da rules! An' --a priest!--he's likely not never seen no boobies afore! He's so sweet!)

Canon's face visibly reddened: "Begging your pardon, my dear young lady," he whispered, "if I may be so bold, and with all due respect, with your permission, I wish to say, that is, I do quite believe you may have forgotten to put on certain of your ah, undergarments?"

(Da poor, sweet, dear man! Suzie thought.)

"Oh no, Fa--do I calls ya 'Father'?--I means, ya said ya left, but--."

"Call me 'Harry'" he flushed: "And may I have one more for the cloister, please, Suzie?"

"Da what?"

"The cloister: an old priest's expression."

"Ok, Harry. No, I dint forgot nothing a'tall: jus' look 'round--all us womens is dressin' up that way: see?"

. He squinted, looked around, and kept looking at her breasts.

"Oh my, the Lord be praised!" said Dr. Harold Canon, with a flourish of upraised hands and a priestly smile, "dear me, my old eyes must be going on me: age and penitent solitude, you know. Please forgive me for any improper words--I meant no offense."

He stood, bowed his head to her, threw down his drink, paid his bill, grabbed his suitcase and moved away.

"Where's ya goin'?" Suzie asked.

Canon grinned radiantly: "Off on a mission, to do what has to be done--you gotta do what you gotta do," he laughed, smiled angelically, and limped off lugging his heavy suitcase towards the private rooms in the back of the restaurant.

II

The Conference

Everyone who was anyone in Washington knew that President Adams, at a doting 80 years of age, had been reelected to office for the fifth time not because of his management skills or his political acumen, or because of his considerable fortune, but because of his utter docility. Both political parties wanted him back in office, so the campaign of the minority party was therefore something of a slapstick joke to Washington people in the know.

Inordinately polite, the President punctuated virtually every one of his sentences with a "thank you," more as a matter of a verbal tic than as a formality. He spent most of his time on the job in taverns drinking straight gin martinis and watching or discussing or betting on college and professional skyball games. He was a redoubtable expert on the teams, and made considerable money betting on them.

Given the amount of gin that he drank, it was astonishing that he could function at all; but he never appeared to be intoxicated, never slurred his words, never swore, and was always extremely pleasant to all those around him.

The President had a good life. He had a chauffeur to take him places; a valet to dress and groom him; the White House chef to prepare his favorite meals of whitefish, perch, and trout; his secretary of some 20 years, Jonas, to answer and write letters for him; and the politicians around him to do the boring jobs of government.

And he also had his best friend and only child, Edgar, who often shared luncheon martinis with him. Edgar was a successful corporate attorney with the firm of Little, Symthe, and Abberschot, in Washington D.C., was unmarried, and lived not far away in Bethesda, Maryland. He acted as an advisor to his father on national and, occasionally, international policies.

The two of them were buddies. They fished together, played poker together, bet on skyball games or went to the games together in the Presidential jetcopter, and had been drinking buddies for years--an activity of which the President's wife, Nancy, thoroughly disapproved.

But Nancy disapproved of just about everything her husband did, and had been that way since about two weeks after their honeymoon ended some 60 years ago. She was forever calling him "Randy boy" and chastising him in a strident, piercing voice, for "not eating enough of his salad; for not eating enough of his fruits; for not eating enough of his spinach" and "good, boiled green vegetables"; for not "getting enough of his sleep" because he was forever watching re-runs of skyball games; for "drinking too many martinis."

"It'll be the death of you yet, Randy boy," she repeatedly admonished him in her shrill, condemnatory, voice, wagging her craggy index finger at him: "drinkin' gin all the time and watchin' them skyball games day and night with them sky jockeys trying to kill one t' other flyin' around the sky chasin' that silly meteorite ball, and not eatin' right and proper food and never gettin' your proper sleep: tisk! A man of your age, Randy boy! Thank the Good Lord you've got me to worry about you and pray each day for your proper deliverance from yourself, Randy boy!"

A heavy-set, white-hair woman in her late 70’s, she had guided his career throughout their marriage, had been a faithful wife to him, and was much admired by all in Washington for her staunch morality--with the exception of her husband, who cringed when she began her tirades. Luckily for him, his office gave him many opportunities, of which he almost always availed himself, to avoid her. Also fortunately for the President, Nancy'd had a stroke a few years back which had somewhat impeded the speed of her speech and thus reduced by good measure the torrent of words condemning him that had been her style.

The President took it all from her as his due. He was a diminutive man, a little over five feet tall, weighed 125 pounds, and had flaccid facial skin and gnarled hands wizened by age. He had a full head of straight brownish hair, gray here and there, hazel eyes, and wore the mandatory thick mirror-lensed glasses. He daily wore plaid suspenders to keep his usually baggy pants from slipping, and walked rather slowly and hesitantly because of an injury to his left ankle that refused to heal, sustained in his high school days falling down a flight of stairs, drunk, at a New Year's Eve party. He'd had a mild stroke many years ago that frightened him momentarily but, despite physicians' warnings to the contrary, the President had not allowed the stroke to interfere with his fondness for gin martinis and the good times they brought with friends.

The presidency, in short, had been pretty much a breeze for Randall Adams. "It was," he often said to himself, "on the whole, a good job, indeed, thank you."

The crisis before him, however, did genuinely disturb him, and he had enough a sense of history not to want to leave office with the problems of a crime-ridden and infertile nation left unresolved. He was, therefore, anxious to meet with Ms. Amy Rose and Dr. Canon to hear what ideas they might have to help him--particularly after the fiasco of the first meeting with the program directors. Moreover, the formal procedures used in that meeting, he felt, had caused more confusion and miscommunication than they controlled and because of that experience, the President had decided that a more leisurely, a more informal, setting would optimize communications between Rose, Canon and himself. Therefore, he'd had Jonas arrange for a private room to be secured at "Legends." If nothing got accomplished, as the President of The United States, at least he could make his own martinis there, he reminded himself.

The owner of "Legends," Harlous Townsend, was the son of a Professor of Antique Studies at Wilmington University, and had been brought up on the grandiose tales of Knighthood and chivalric romance of the medieval period of English history, particularly the legends surrounding King Arthur and the Knights of The Round Table.

When Harlous made his fortune in the commodities market he retired and built "Legends"-- originally called "The Round Table"--using various stories from the Arthurian legends as decorative themes. But the restaurant failed miserably because of strident political objections to the treatment of women in the Arthurian legends and Harlous had to modify his dream and instead established his childhood chivalric theme using the tales of Chaucer throughout the restaurant. Women were better treated in The Canterbury Tales he was told, and so he reluctantly remodeled the restaurant--which then had become an almost instant success.

When he began the remodelling, he wanted to create 20-four private rooms, each named after one of the tales in The Canterbury Tales, but space and finances had limited him to only four such rooms. He had decided on The Knight's, the Wife of Bath's, the Miller's, and the Friar's tales as the best of the tales, and had named the four rooms after them, choosing lines from the tales to decorate the heavy, polished wooden doors to, and the partially draped walls of, each room.

Jonas reserved the "Wife of Bath's" room for the meeting of the President, Ms. Amy Rose, and Canon, for several reasons: it was the largest of the private rooms; it was the most sumptuously decorated with artifacts from the late Middle Ages, including swords, crossbows, and a massive bear fur pelt; it had a huge fireplace; it had video equipment and private telephones for the participants; it had lighting that could be easily controlled; it was sound-proof; it had a security system, and was the furthest back of the private rooms, far away from the sometimes raucous noise of the luncheon patrons. Given the theme of the "The Wife of Bath's Tale," and its romantic resolution of the conflict between the Knight and the horrid hag who magically became beautiful at the tale's conclusion, Jonas also thought the room was a rather clever and appropriate choice for the occasion.

He was wrong.

"Good Lord--why in heaven's name are we meeting in this room?" Ms. Amy Rose screeched angrily to the President when they met at the door to the room: "I am terribly offended, Mr. President, terribly offended! Do you know what those words on the door mean?"

Her face was livid with righteous indignation, her voice was nasal, high-pitched, and irritating, and reminded the President of the horrid sound of his wife's squeaky voice during her tirades against him.

"Well, ah, er, a problem, thank you?" stammered the President, "er, well, begging your pardon, let me see, thank you?"

"They mean," said Canon, who had just appeared at the doorway, a vision in black, lugging his suitcase, "that the hag will be beautiful for and faithful to, her husband, the Knight. A rather fairy-tale ending, but, alas, such was the world in those days, it is written."

Canon ushered them into the room, closed the door behind them, located the security lock, reached unobtrusively behind his back, and deftly flicked it "on".

"Harold Canon?" Ms. Amy Rose said, staring at the man in black with the florid face and bright smile, "is that you? You look older!"

"Ms. Amy Rose," Canon replied with a sheepish grin. He dropped his heavy suitcase on the marble floor, and bowed to her: "I must confess that living in a cold, barren monastery, surviving on little food and droplets of water, ages one terribly. And it's a heavy burden trying to fathom what it is that God intended women to want and praying for all of the poor, suffering souls on the planet earth, I daresay."

Ms. Amy Rose did a double-take, and stood, arms akimbo, facing him: "You! In a monastery? No wonder the world has been so pleasant all of these years since I last saw you--."

Canon clasped his hands together in the gesture of prayer: "I prayed often for you, my dear erstwhile colleague--every day, morning, noon, night--everyday. I see it may have done some good?"

Ms. Amy Rose smiled sourly back at him, and folded her arms across her breasts, at which Canon was unabashedly staring.

"Hummph! Monastery, indeed," she growled at Canon, "I don't believe they would have let you in! A jail I'd believe--a monastery, never!"

"Ahem," the President intervened, and pointed to the large, circular wooden table towards the far end of the room, surrounded on either side by a magnificent drapery with the English crest on it and a large bear pelt. The table was situated underneath one of the three huge glass chandeliers: "Perhaps we'd like to have a seat at the conference table over there and, uh, partake in a libation to celebrate your happy reunion and drink a toast to insure our success together in charting the future of our beloved country, thank you?"

"Agreed," said Canon: "after all those years of penitent sobriety and rectitude, a modest libation seems to me entirely appropriate."

Canon walked to the table, sat down under the bear pelt, and smiled his most priestly smile at Ms. Amy Rose.

"I would prefer another room," Ms. Amy Rose pouted, punctuating her sentence with a petulantly tapping foot as she stood at the side of the table opposite Canon.

The President shrugged, and reached towards one of the telephones on the table; but Canon restrained his hand:

"All the other private rooms are being used," Canon lied, "looks like we're stuck here."

He was thoroughly enjoying Ms. Amy Rose's discomfort with him, the room and its theme and, he intuited, needed some of that preliminary discomfort to weaken her, thus to help him accomplish the coup de gras of his mission. Ms. Amy Rose, and others like her, he had concluded long before he arrived in Washington, had gotten their way for far too long and, if the country was going to be saved, they had to be outwitted, and stopped.

"Where are your glasses?" Ms. Amy Rose demanded of Canon, who persisted to unapologetically, stare at her breasts.

"My eyesight is keen: I don't need glasses," Canon laughed, and continued to openly stare.

"Then look in my eyes, or down at my feet.".

"No," Canon replied.

"You refuse to look elsewhere?" Ms. Amy Rose shrieked.

"I refuse."

"I'm being RAPED!" Ms. Amy Rose screeched, "--RAPED!"

The President blanched, and then relaxed when he saw the door was closed, thus rendering the room absolutely sound proof.

Canon began laughing, first a kind of giggling chuckle, then a whoop, and finally a bent-over series of belly laughs that left him wheezing, cramped and sweaty, head-down on the table.

Ms. Amy Rose watched Canon wide-eyed, aghast and unbelieving. Canon is, she thought, well, uncivilized, downright uncouth, that's what he is. As far as I am concerned, this meeting is finished, over, kaput:

"I'm thoroughly disgusted and appalled," she announced: "I'm leaving!"

"You can't," Canon gasped, holding his stomach, "door's locked--time lock."

Ms. Amy Rose's jaw dropped. She glared at Canon:

"Why a time lock? Who's idea was that?"

"I think it's standard operating procedure," Canon said, wiping tears from his eyes with a handkerchief.

"He's right, thank you," added the President, his thumbs hooked in his suspenders: "Security, you know, thank you?"

"Then who turned it on?".

"It's automatic," Canon lied.

"Then I have to go to the bathroom--I can get out for that, can't I?".

"Over there," said Canon, pointing to a heavy brass door at the far end of the room.

"This room has a bathroom of its own?" Ms. Amy Rose shrieked. She was beginning to feel trapped, betrayed, and set-up. She didn't mind being stuck with the President--but with that grinning animal, Canon? A nightmare!

"Yes, thank you," said the President: "Security, you know, thank you? Want a drink?" He was standing by a large, wooden counter with brass handles in the shape of armored horses that, when he opened its doors, displayed rows of glistening liquor bottles and polished goblets. His luncheon martinis were fading on him and he needed a jolt to clear his head, not to mention medication to weather what appeared was going to be the stormy warfare of the conference.

"White wine," said Ms. Amy Rose, as she sat down reluctantly with a "thump" and an audible sigh at the table directly across from Canon.

"Thought you had to go to the bathroom," Canon said.

"I can control my bodily functions." .

"Drink, Dr. Canon?" the President asked again.

"'Old Grand Dad' on the rocks," said Canon, grinned at Ms. Amy Rose and stared at what he could see of her breasts.

The President poured himself a large goblet of straight gin, the other drinks, served them, and sat down at the side of the round table between them. "Ahem," he said, "may we now discuss the problem before us, thank you?"

Ms. Amy Rose reached down beside her, pulled up a thick, black, briefcase, slammed it down on the table, and opened it up:

"I want you both to know that I am offended and hurt by the way this meeting is being handled by Dr. Canon! I do not trust him at all, Mr. President."

The President did not like strife:

"I thought you two knew each other before, and worked well together, thank you?"

"That's why I don't trust him," replied Ms. Amy Rose with a steely smile. "He was a lawbreaker and an animal then, and I see has not reformed in the slightest now, for all his so-called time in a so-called monastery. All he did when we worked together back then was preach, preach, preach at me, and now he brazenly ignores the law: totally uncooperative. It's men like him that have caused all the trouble in this world, Mr. President, including the problems we are here today to discuss! Here's my treatise on the matter, Sir!"

The President accepted a thick packet of papers from Ms. Amy Rose, and looked over at her antagonist.

Canon sipped at his drink, and addressed the President: "I am a Man of God, I do not 'break' laws, Mr. President--I observe them."

"Ha! No man is capable of merely 'observing' our modern laws!" Ms. Amy Rose screeched, her nose raised high.

Canon fought a grimace, and pasted on a smile:

"With all due respect, Ms. Amy Rose, what 'laws' do you feel I am not observing?"

Ms. Amy Rose squirmed visibly in her chair, and bowed her head in a gesture of maidenly embarrassment:

"You're not wearing the prescribed mirror glasses and you keep staring at--at my—ah-- my, front!"

The President threw down his drink, got up, and poured himself another one:

"Don't mind of I do, thank you?" he said, toasted the wall, came back to the table, and sat down between them.

Canon grinned broadly:

"Ms. Amy Rose, that is exactly one of the higher laws I am observing: the law of God."

The President's jaw dropped:

"What 'higher law' of what 'God,' Dr. Canon?"

Canon looked straight into Ms. Amy Rose's green eyes: "The Law of Procreation, Mr. President. It's God's work, a burden for us men to bear, alas, but God's work nonetheless."

The President was curious:

"What an interesting concept, thank you."

"I am being SEXUALLY HARASSED, Mr. President!" Ms. Amy Rose screamed, and slapped the palms of both hands flat on the table.

"With all due respect, Ms. Amy Rose," said Canon, leaning back in his chair and watching her breasts bobble, "I have never had the pleasure of being sexually harassed by a man: how does it feel, pray tell?"

Ms. Amy Rose looked shocked, then dismayed, and then began to cry:

"IT FEELS HORRIBLE!" she wailed.

The President started to move to console her, but Canon reached cross the table, grabbed his wrist, and stopped him.

"With all due respect, Ms. Amy Rose," Canon said when the crocodile tears had subsided, "bullshit."

Ms. Amy Rose jumped to her feet, her eyes wide and wild, and pointed at Canon:

"There, Mr. President," she wailed, "there's your reason why there aren't any new babies being made! Crude, foul, filthy, disrespectful, licentious, MEN! ANIMALS!"

The President stumbled over to the bar, and poured himself another drink. He scowled, and remembered that Canon was the father of seven children:

"Do you mean to imply that Dr. Canon himself has somehow prevented births from happening throughout the nation for 60 years, Ms. Rose? I fancy you may be mistaken on that count there, I believe, thank you?"

Ms. Amy Rose sat herself back down in a huff, and looked over at the President:

"Not himself, personally, but the vile, animal, things he stands for and teaches other men! We woman are clean, sweet, delicate beings, you know, and him and others like him just plain nauseate us! The thought of any of them even thinking about touching us is revolting to us!"

There was moment of shocked silence.

"With all due respect, Ms. Amy Rose," Canon smiled, "Bullshit."

"What?" exclaimed Ms. Amy Rose.

"You heard me: bullshit! You sweet, delicate ladies have come to so believe in your own mad delusions of phony victimization that you have created the worst Fascism known in human history, and are destroying all life in the wake of your psychotic vision of feminine moral superiority and male biological depravity. It's bullshit: and I can prove it."

"Humph!" snorted Ms. Amy Rose.

"Look, Dr. Canon," whispered the President in Canon's ear, "it is against the law to use such language in the presence of a lady, you know, thank you?"

"With all due respect, Mr. President, bullshit!" Canon replied. He got up and went to his leather suitcase lying by the doorway, hauled it over to the table, opened it and removed a bundle of long, legal-sized sheets of paper. "Here," he said, handing the papers to the President, "please read, Sir."

"You're nothing but an ANIMAL!" screamed Ms. Amy Rose. She paced around the room and made tapping sounds with her steel-tipped shoes.

Canon watched her, and caught her eye:

"You betcha I am, with all due respect, Ms. Amy Rose," he grinned, "and, in all modesty, the best you'll ever have, I might add."

"Mr. President!" Ms. Amy Rose yelled, and looked imploringly for help from the Chief Executive.

The President, however, was engrossed in the material Canon had handed him, and didn't hear her. Instead, he looked towards Canon: "Is the stuff in this lawsuit true?" he asked, his voice uncharacteristically tremulous with rage.

"Yessir," Canon grinned back: "A Federal lawsuit based on government documents leaked to me just after your call last weekend, never before published or seen by anyone, including yourself, Sir, I daresay." Canon sat back, folded his hands together, interlocked his fingers, rested his chin on the folded fingers, and grinned at Ms. Amy Rose.

"A plot? 'Learned helplessness'?" the President said: "My God, a plot. That's a problem, thank you? No matter what we men do, we get zapped like dogs, huh? Taught from birth not to be male, huh? Beat up at every turn, thank you? No matter what we do, we lose because we've been taught to lose! That's a problem, I believe, thank you?"

"It's the problem, Sir," Canon grinned.

The President frowned at Canon:

"Sounds like what's happened to me! Sounds like my marriage, thank you? Sounds like what happens all the time to my friends, even my son! What a problem! This is horrible--far more horrible than I ever thought possible, thank you! A plot? Egads, a plot! I need another drink, thank you?"

"Read on, Mr. President," said Canon, "I'll get that drink for you, Sir."

Canon took the President's goblet over to the bar, filled it full of gin, and slipped in a tiny white pill which had vanished by the time he handed the drink to the President.

"Let me see those papers," said Ms. Amy Rose to the President, her pink cheeks visibly blanched, and her eyes wide with anxiety.

"What else you got in that suitcase, Canon, thank you?" the President asked, his jaw set grimly, and handed the sheets of paper to Ms. Amy Rose.

"The rest of the leaked materials, Mr. President--some 60 years worth. Video tapes of the original 'learned helplessness' experiments with dogs; FBI investigations over the years; wire and telephone taps; tape-recorded meetings of the conspirators; top security stuff. Hundreds of so-called 'scientific' documents--forged documents, I might add--purporting to demonstrate that all men were less than human, were craven, vicious, destructive, and sexually outrageous. A massive conspiracy to totally enslave us men, led most recently on a secret telephone network by guess who, Mr. President."

Ms. Amy Rose, whose pink cheeks had turned ashen, looked up from the lawsuit papers at the President, bowed her head, and brushed a tear away:

"There's a reason, an explanation, Mr. President. We women have been and are victims of craven male animal chauvinists, Sir, we were and are desperate to make the world a better, more peaceful, loving place for our poor, dear, sweet, little, innocent children!"

"Bullshit," grinned Canon.

"Can't this stuff be un-learned?" the President asked, and took off his mirror lenses.

"Sure," replied Canon: "It will take virtually no work, merely a set of proclamations from you and the Congress declaring all the old relevant laws null and void, some radio and television coverage; that's it."

"No problem, thank you?" the President replied, and stared at Ms. Amy Rose's breasts.

"Oh no!" Ms. Amy Rose sobbed, and shook her head from side to side, "No, no, NO!"

"Yes, yes, yes," Canon echoed.

"Heavens!--Egads!--thank you," the President mumbled, and stared at the pile of documents before him: "Egads."

The President dropped his head into his hands, massaged his temples, mumbled something about "veen getchatables" to himself, then, like a felled pine tree, tipped slowly forward, face-first, towards the table top, landed softly, and passed out.

III

The Cure

Ms. Amy Rose hadn't been treated with such outrageous disrespect since her teenage years on the Ohio family farm when her brother and a friend of his had swindled her and a female friend into stripping naked for them in the barn while her mother was upstairs with her father "doing her Sunday duty," as she had grimaced and said.

"Show us yours and we'll show you ours," the boys had said, and, after much discussion about the rules--essentially, about who went first, or should they do it simultaneously--she and her friend had agreed to go "ladies first."

She had felt strangely powerful when she saw the looks in her brother's and his friend's eyes as she and her girlfriend disrobed, slowly revealing their young breasts and downy pubic hairs --looks of breathless amazement, wonder, and lascivious hunger. That feeling of power, the sense that her physical beauty could somehow control men, had been even more enhanced when, later, she told her mother of the incident. Her mother then told her father, a Baptist minister, who hauled her brother out to the "scene of the crime" and whipped him mercilessly with a belt, leaving ugly, puffy red welts across his buttocks. He deserved every stroke, she remembered feeling, for he and his friend had welshed on their part of the deal, and had thereby swindled her and her friend. The shame--and anger--had been terrible, and the revenge deliciously sweet.

But her beauty power over men had been sorely tested by Canon, who had flatly refused to obey the laws that gave her that now legal power over men's sexuality--laws she herself had created -- not to mention the political clout. She found herself feeling not only angry and defenseless locked in the room with him and the now unconscious President, but somehow strangely excited by Canon's reckless brashness and bravado. The man was an animal, all right - and a rather handsome one, at that, she had to confess, whose serene audacity was somehow dangerously charming and insanely inviting.

But, then again, she reminded herself, she had always been attracted to him. Their ten years working together in Washington had been a supreme test of her commitment to the cause she headed. It was not easy for her, she recalled, to ignore his rather primitive sexuality cloaked in his considerable intellect and charm. But the mask she put on had worked: never did she recall him making a pass at her then. Now that the cat was out of the bag and they were essentially alone in a locked room together, she wondered how she could subtly let him know that the mask had been just a little female device and not something personal?

"Is he going to be all right?" she asked Canon, looking at the snoring President, who had slipped off the table easily, like poured water, and was now sleeping peacefully, face-down, on the floor.

"Yes. He'll be out for a least a couple more hours, poor guy. When he wakes he'll feel miserable and no doubt pour himself another martini."

"How do you know that?"

"Divine inspiration," Canon answered, and looked serenely confidant that his words would come true.

Ms. Amy Rose stepped over the snoring President, walked around the table, and sat down next to Canon: "Tell me the truth, please, Harry."

"Harry?" Canon replied, and looked surprised and pleased.

"Tell me the truth, pretty please, Harry." .

"Divine inspiration: believe me, he'll be out for some time. Hated to do it that way."

"Do what what way?"

"Get you alone in a locked, sound-proof room."

She cocked her head at him:

"Huh?"

"You heard me."

She was genuinely perplexed and equally intrigued:

"But--I thought that you, I mean, we have different philosophies, incompatible philosophies--this huge gulf between us--."

Canon beamed:

"Not any more."

"And fought horribly during those years working together! Didn't we?"

"Then yes, but not any more. It's all over: the war is finished once the President and the Congress, not to mention the press, get to work on the materials I gave him."

"This is horrible," she cried, and clenched her hands together.

Canon sat back, and looked at a place somewhere off in the distance:

"No, it's damned wonderful!"

Ms. Amy Rose breathed a sigh of relief: the jig was up. She looked dreamily over at the big bear pelt swung across the wall:

"It was a brilliant political ploy: would you give me that much?"

Canon smiled

"As you wish, my dear, as you wish."

She turned to him, and looked suddenly girlish and pretty:

"You'll give me that much?"

"As you wish."

She frowned:

"But you'll want me to recant my philosophy-- to publicly confess, and to humiliate myself, won't you?"

Canon paused, and bit his lip:

"I don't think that will be necessary."

She reached over and caressed his hand:

"Ok, you've won, finally. Never thought you could do it, or be so, ah, generous! You're one wonderful man!"

Canon said nothing, and just looked deep, deep, into her soft green eyes, their pupils now dilated and inviting.

"So--what do you want from me?" she said, returning his gaze. Her eyes were wide, and there was a trace of a blush on her cheeks. Her voice was soft, utterly changed from the piercing tones of the preceding hour. Her eyes were poised, focused, and her pupils were still dilated.

Canon saw the look of her eyes, heard the change in the tone of her voice, and knew instantly what the changes meant. He burst into a winning grin, and reached slowly for her and caressed her shoulders. "What do I want? What I've always wanted, Amy Rose, what I've always wanted," he said as he reached up, pulled down the bear pelt and dropped it on the floor behind them, "what I've always wanted."

"You're an ANIMAL!" Ms. Amy Rose laughed giddily, and let Canon gently pull her down on the bear pelt with him.

Epilogue

A year later Jonas and Canon met secretly in the wine cellar of the abandoned New York State monastery where they had done their work together. They shook hands, warmly hugged each other, and then sat down at the wine-stained oak table.

"Sure you weren't followed?" asked Canon, who had grown a white beard in the interim and looked quite distinguished.

"Positive," replied Jonas. He looked around the barren room: "Everything's gone?"

Canon winked at his friend:

"Gone. Vanished. Not a shred of evidence left, burned to a cinder, all of it."

Jonas nodded smugly: "Good work, Harry."

"Thanks. How's things doing in Washington?" Canon asked, and poured Jonas a glass of red wine.

Jonas clasped his hands around the cool glass, and sat back:

"Well, let's see: the President has stopped all that boozing, shocked Washington society by unceremoniously divorcing his shrewish wife, and has cleaned shop up and down the ranks. The scandal of the conspiracy did a lot of people in, you know: major press, television coverage, and endless congressional investigations. But, strangely, no bad depressions or suicides: whole thing is like a massive sigh of relief, like a cool, cleansing summer rain after a long drought."

Canon shook his head "yes," and first squinted his eyes as if in pain, then smiled: "Yeah, well, we sorta knew that was going to happen. Too bad: but you gotta do what you gotta do--there was no other way to turn the country around, really. Tell me--in those Ethics hearings do you think anyone suspected -- ."

"That most of the documents showing the conspiracy were forged?"

Canon grinned: "Beautifully forged. Twenty years of immaculate work on an immaculate conception."

Jonas grinned at him and laughed:

"Oh, no doubt, but I suspect they weren't going to say a damn thing to jeopardize the rewards of the turnabout--they were having too much fun reviving themselves and the old ways to risk that. No. Nothing was said. Long way around, but we sure did good work."

"You gotta do what you gotta do," Canon said, and stroked his beard.

"Yup" Jonas nodded, and handed his glass to Canon for a refill.

Canon poured the wine:

"How's the crime rate doing?"

"Creeping downward, according to the last sets of FBI statistics. Juvenile delinquency is way down from last year."

"And the marriage and birth rates?"

Jonas blushed happily:

"Skyrocketing!"

Canon sipped his wine, and looked wistful:

"And, how's, ah, Amy doing?"

"Ms. Amy Rose?"

"Yeah, that's what I said, Amy. I heard she sure took a horrible beating from the press those first few weeks."

Jonas looked at his friend's ordinarily bright, pleasant face: Canon was actually serious, and looked strangely melancholy.

"She's fine now. The President actually pardoned her after she met privately with him and, the grapevine has it, gave him the good advice to dump his wife."

Canon did a double-take, and laughed:

"Ha! How's she feeling?"

"Well, I heard it was a rough labor for her, but, good Lord, it was a medical miracle that she had a child at her age and, at that, her first child!"

Canon's mouth fell open:

"Labor? A child?"

"You didn't hear?"

"Been in the monastery here doing penance for my transgressions."

"You mean 'successes.'"

"Doing God's work is not without its costs, you know. A baby?"

Jonas stared at his friend:

"A boy. She named him 'Harry' after her father, the famous Baptist preacher, Harold Rose."

Canon slapped his thighs, and jumped up and gimped around the small room laughing uproariously: "The Lord be praised!" he shouted, and grinned the strangest, most outrageously lecherous, and blissfully lurid grin, that Jonas had ever seen.