The Natural Order of Things by Kevin P. Keating Page A

no.”
    A German shepherd, teeth bared, bounds toward the cab, a long rope of saliva swinging in a wide arc from its snapping jaws. Another patrol car arrives. Radio scannersscreech and croak and erupt with high, thin whistles. The officer turns his flashlight on de Vere, who is so overcome with dread that he can only sit there like a bewildered toddler, pants around his ankles, a look of drooling incomprehension on his face.
    “Whatcha doing in this neighborhood, pal? You like coming to this part of town? You a regular?” Impatient with de Vere’s infantile sputtering, the officer yanks him from the cab and pushes him against the trunk. “Christ almighty, pull up your pants, you animal! Now, put your hands behind your back.” He slaps on the cuffs, reaches into de Vere’s camelhair coat, confiscates his flask, his wallet, the bottle of perfume.
    “Wait a minute,” says de Vere, “this isn’t the road to Damascus …”
    “Damascus? No, buddy, we’re taking you downtown.”
    “You’re making a grave mistake. I know people, important people. They’ll tell you. I’m a reputable businessman, a loving husband and father.”
    De Vere’s voice is shrill, manic. He struggles, thrashes his legs, but the officer slings an arm around his neck and squeezes tight until de Vere begins to gasp for air.
    “Just cooperate, okay, bud? You don’t want an assault charge tacked on, do ya?”
    As chapel bells begin to chime the witching hour, a raucous crowd spills from the gaping double doors of the Zanzibar Towers & Gardens. Apparently the cab has been going in circles, and now de Vere must endure the laughter of priests and pregnant nuns and a bloated Lazarus wrapped in rags. They drink and smoke and dance, some of them grinding violently against each other, feigning copulation. On the sidewalk a man whirls round and round, his dreadlocks rising above his head like the tentacles of some fabled sea creature. Last to emerge from the building is a tall figure in the blood-red robes of a grand inquisitor, a sagacious and unreasonably cruel arbiter of the laws of God and man. With a subtle flick of his wrist he silences the discordant howls and jeers of his grotesque entourage.
    De Vere lurches heavily, falls to his knees, and humbly pleads his case before his fellow darkness worshippers. “Listen to me. Would you please
listen
? Tomorrow morning I’ll go straight to the chapel. I’ll light a candle before a statue of the Virgin. I’ll make a vow before the Lord to live a life of celibacy …”
    His head starts to spin. The absinthe percolates in the pit of his stomach and suddenly surges up his throat, a hot green sludge that splatters the officer’s polished black shoes and the cuffs of his pants.
    “Mother
fucker
!”
    The other cops laugh. “Hey, Caddigan, have fun cleaning that shit.”
    “Fuck you. I ain’t touching it.”
    De Vere gasps and sputters, “I’m sorry, so sorry …”
    Then he feels a sharp crack against his spine, a quick spasm of pain that shoots down to the tips of his toes, and things go dark for a little while.
IV
    Mumbling piteous oaths, fighting against the cuffs that dig into his wrists, de Vere drifts in and out of consciousness, and for one incredible moment, he feels himself turn to vapor and slip through a small crack at the top of the back window. With a covey of fractious grackles, he flies high above the church spires and spins around the gothic tower of the Jesuit school. Out over the lake a storm rages, and the gathering clouds drape himin the bruised colors of high autumn—cadmium reds and yellows. A strong gust of wind transports him over the great steel bridge that spans the crooked river and hurtles him along the city streets. He slides down a sparkling glass atrium and lands in a bustling emporium of fashionable restaurants and nightclubs where stunted boys, wearing sandwich boards, blunder among a group of portly men in pinstriped suits and emaciated women in skimpy