Read Touch (1987) for Free Online Page B

the priest had worn vestments that looked like they'd been made for some kind of an Indian ceremony, with fringe and a beaded stole.
    The priest said, "Well, it was during the ten o'clock mass, right after the offertory. We were singing the Sanctus--"
    "The what?" August Murray said. "You were singing Holy, Holy, Holy."
    "Mr. Murray--" the assistant prosecutor began.
    "I'm asking him a question as the right of counsel," Murray said.
    The judge spoke for the first time, calmly. He said, "If you're representing yourself you can cross-examine. But when your turn comes."
    A quiet putdown. Murray stared at the judge and watched him look away.
    There were other interruptions. People coming up and whispering to the clerk, to the judge, the judge talking to someone and not paying any attention as the priest continued.
    "This man, Mr. Murray," the priest said, "came in with several others and began distributing pamphlets right up the main aisle when I saw them, disturbing the people hearing mass--"
    "Mass?" August Murray said. "That was a mass?"
    "Mr. Murray," the assistant prosecutor said, "you've already been told--"
    "It didn't look like a mass to me," Murray said, staring at the judge. "Guitars, tamborines. I thought maybe it was a square dance." He smiled a little now, testing the judge. "You know what I mean, Your Honor? Some kind of a new-wave Vatican II hoedown."
    The judge didn't smile or respond and the prosecutor, as though in pain, shook his head and told Murray to be quiet during Father Navaroli's testimony. Not please be quiet. Murray kept his hands behind his back, not moving, knowing his people in the audience, scattered through the semicircle of benches, were there waiting.
    The curly-haired priest said he addressed Mr. Murray and his group from the altar, asking them to kindly take a pew or else leave the church, as they had not been authorized to distribute literature. Murray approached him, the priest said, and began yelling, using abusive language.
    "What exactly did he say?" the prosecutor said.
    The clerk looked at the wall clock above the door and then at his watch. The judge seemed deep in thought.
    "Did he place his hands on you?" the prosecutor added.
    The priest cleared his throat. "He said, Mr. Murray said, 'This is not the holy sacrifice of the mass. This is a clown show, a mockery, and a sacrilege.' Then he pushed his pamphlets at me, trying to get me to take them. The pamphlets fell--"
    "He knocked them out of my hands," Murray said.
    "He grabbed my stole and tried to pull it off," the priest said. "I caught the end of the stole and pulled, like a tug-a-war, and that's when he pushed me with both hands, hard, knocking me down."
    "He tripped on his microphone cord," Murray said.
    The judge was looking at him now, finally, about to get into it. He said, "One more interruption, Mr. Murray, and I'm holding you in contempt of court--"
    "Sir?"
    "You're trying for one hundred dollars or ten days in the Wayne County Jail." The judge seemed to pause, finally noticing Murray's armband.
    Murray grinned, giving the judge a sheepish, little-kid look. "You mean just for saying, 'Sir,' Your Honor?"
    "If you interrupt testimony again." Now the judge was studying the file in front of him. He looked up, saying, "Have you been in trouble before this?"
    Murray shook his head. "No, Your Honor."
    The assistant prosecutor said, "He's got two priors. Assault and disorderly conduct."
    The judge was looking at Murray, waiting.
    Murray said, "You asked if I'd been in trouble," trying the little-kid grin again. "I didn't consider those charges much trouble, Your Honor. I was put on probation."
    "For the assault," the clerk said. "He violated his probation with the disorderly and was fined two hundred dollars, November 1976."
    "You don't consider that being in trouble?" the judge asked.
    "Your Honor," Murray said, "are you asking me to testify against myself?"
    The clerk saw it coming. He looked at the clock again and sat back in