Wheat That Springeth Green

by J.F. Powers

  Joe treated Lefty with a certain respect, uncommon among their brother clergy, because he felt sorry for the man (a two-time loser as a pastor and now busted to curate again) and because the man was older (ten years older, looking ten more), and also because Lefty, in his youth, had caught the eye of the immortal Connie Mack and had gone to spring training in 1930 with the championship A’s, with all-time greats like Grove, Earnshaw, Cochrane, Foxx, Dykes, and Simmons, about whom Joe had learned little from Lefty. “Earnshaw on his day was harder to hit than Grove, they say.” “They do?” “Ever pitch to old Double X?” “Old Who?” As was true of many players, some of the best, the history and mystique of the national game evidently meant little to Lefty, as the history and mystique of the Church evidently did to many priests, some of the best. Joe wouldn’t be surprised at the Last Judgment, though, if Lefty was sent to the right, with the sheep—another reason for treating the man with a certain respect. In the meantime, however, Joe doubted that their association was good for them, their vices being the same, food and drink. Joe, if expecting to dine alone, flinched when Lefty rose from his table to welcome him to the Robin Hood Room and, later, suggested that they have their coffee in the adjoining bar, the Little John Lounge, where he was chaplain, he said, since he’d been in on the death of a prominent judge there—“Gave him conditional absolution.” Lefty was good company, but he might have been better. Joe sometimes lost patience with him, as he had on New Year’s Eve, when they hadn’t gone on to St Isidore’s for poker, when Joe had begged off, not wanting to hear Lefty’s prediction repeated in the presence of others, and claiming an upset stomach—mind, actually. Joe had seen in the new year alone in his quarters at the Athletic Club with Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians, at one low point seeing himself (if Lefty was right) as the little kid who gets to play with the big kids because it’s his ball.

  In the following days, in the course of his duties—Mass at Trinity early in the morning; court during the forenoon; Charities until quitting time or later—Joe carried on as before, but his life now looked and felt different to him because of Lefty’s prediction. He could believe that he’d been sent to Charities for a reason and that he was still there (held over by the first What’s-his-name’s defection?) for the same reason, but not that this was the reason advanced by Lefty. Even if proved right in his prediction, Lefty could be wrong in his thinking: if Joe did become Director, might this not be for another reason? Such as? Well, somebody had to be Director when Paddy retired. Let’s start over. Lefty, in his thinking and therefore in his prediction, was wrong. Was there any evidence to suggest that Joe would become Director, apart from the circumstantial evidence of his original and continuing appointment? No, none. Was there any evidence, apart from the circumstantial (“anonymous and to the penny”), to suggest that Paddy, whose directorate antedated the Arch’s episcopate, was picking up the tab? No, none. Ask Paddy? No, because, even if he answered the question, the answer, if yes, would diminish the quality of his alms (“Cast thy bread upon the waters”), and if no, would embarrass him, seem to condemn him for not doing more. No, no good.

  In any case, whether or not Paddy was picking up the tab was beside the point, as Joe came to see his own situation—as that of the rich young man in Scripture who, when told by Our Lord to sell what he had and give the proceeds to the poor, had taken a powder. Joe could say that he wasn’t rich now and never would be, would only be fairly well off, and that he couldn’t dispose of what he didn’t have yet, but not that he couldn’t declare himself now by intention, by desire. That was what counted, and counted for just as much, in the eyes of God and the Church, when to act materially was impossible—otherwise, religion, for most people, would be a spectator sport.

  So what, in the matter of his inheritance, was his intention, his desire?

  He didn’t know and didn’t, since his folks would have to die first, like to think about his inheritance, except, maybe, as a possible deterrent to some future archbishop. (“Watch it with old Joe, Your Excellency. He might retire on you. He’s loaded, you know.”) The truth was, he wasn’t interested in money, or even in the things it could buy, apart from food and drink. The truth also was, since hearing Lefty’s prediction he felt closer to the poor capitalists at the Athletic Club, some of them being bled white by greedy ex-wives and greedy radical offspring. He had no plans to cash in his annuity (without which he’d have to move back to Trinity) and give the proceeds to the poor. Was this to say that he couldn’t readily accept the prospect of doing without his inheritance? No, only that he couldn’t readily accept the prospect of becoming Director because “Big Albert just wants somebody that’s not a radical and can pick up the tab.”

  “Odd you should mention the tax angle,” Joe said to Lefty some nights later, in the Robin Hood Room. “Somebody was telling me about it the other night. [“It was me.”] Whoever it was [“It was me, Joe”] said I should get the folks to make their moola over to me now [“But not all of it”], but not all of it. I don’t want to leave ’em penniless. [“Right. Joe, I was the one talked to you the other night. That was my advice.”] That so? So many give me their advice these days. Guys I haven’t seen for years drop in at the office, or stop me on the street, and give me their advice. The word’s going around—I don’t know why—I’ll be the next Director. [“It figures.”] It figures, they say. They’re all happy for me. [Lefty nodded.] Pleased, you might say, as Punch. [Lefty nodded.] The problem is—how do I tell the folks? I can’t just say, ‘Hey, folks, Guess what? I’m your—correct me if I’m wrong—your only child, and it looks very much like I’ll be the next Director of Archdiocesan Charities, but if so I’ll need your moola—but not all of it.’ Afraid they may not take it so well. [“I see the problem, Joe. By the way, how are the folks?”] Fine. In Florida now. [“Good for them.”] Hate to do it, but think I’d better go to the Arch—ask his advice. [“About what, Joe?”] Come right out and tell him I have a pretty good idea what’s in store for me [“No, no”] and know why—that he just wants somebody that’s not a radical and can pick up the tab. [“Joe.”] But not yet, I’ll have to tell him, not until the folks make their moola over to me—not all of it. [“Joe.”] Afraid the Arch may not take it so well. He may want to talk to the folks himself. [“Joe.”] Or he may want you to do it. [“Come on, Joe.”] Actually, Father”—what Joe called Lefty when they weren’t getting along—“it might be better if you both did, if you went down to Florida together, at my expense, of course.”

  “Father”—what Lefty called Joe when they weren’t getting along—“here’s how I look at it. ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.’ But I can take a hint. You don’t want to talk about it, right?”

  “Right. No dessert for me.”

  “Drink?”

  “No. But you go ahead.”

  “No, thanks.”

  So they rose from the table sooner than they might have, one man saying thanks when the other picked up the tab. And then from one man, “Change your mind?” and from the other, “Well, all right.” So they made for the Little John Lounge, one man smiling and nodding at diners along the way, the other ignoring them, until a woman, apparently sober, barked:

  “Are you two father and son?”

  Lefty stopped to talk, but Joe kept going, feeling sorry for Lefty for looking so old, until the woman howled:

  “I knew it!”

  Joe disappeared into the dimness of the Little John Lounge, feeling slandered as a priest and a person, a short one. Lefty, as he said, saw no harm in agreeing with people as long as nothing’s at stake, and Joe had once heard him agreeing with some people, the kind who might think this, that football should be the national game. But what Lefty had just done was different, Joe thought, and he wasn’t having any when Lefty sat down beside him and tried to interest him in an appeal that had gone out from Charities, producing a copy of it.

  “Joe, when you’re Director, I hope you’ll do something about the letterhead.”<
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  “O.K., Father. What’d you tell that woman?”

  “What woman, Father?”

  “You know what woman. Tell her we’re Protestants?”

  “Why would I tell her a thing like that?”

  “She didn’t ask what we were?”

  “No.”

  “O.K., Father. What if she had asked what we were?”

  “Father, that’s a hypothetical question, Joe.”

  Joe, silent, waited for Lefty to answer the question.

  “Hell, I don’t know. Greek Orthodox maybe, or that I was a late vocation.”

  “I see.” But Joe wasn’t (as Lefty appeared to think) through with him. “O.K., Father. Why’d you say the other?”

  “What other?”

  Joe couldn’t bring himself to say it. “You know what other.”

  “Father and son? Hell, I didn’t say that. She did. I just went along with her. An old broad like that.”

  Marcia (the waitress) came for their orders.

  When she’d gone, Lefty produced the appeal again. “Fat cats and tame clergy,” he said, speaking of the Advisory Council whose names were on the letterhead. “And two of ’em dead. No balance, Joe.”

  “When I’m Director, I’ll have your name on the letterhead—for balance.”

  “You mean that?”

  Joe didn’t, or anyway hadn’t, but Lefty looked so hopeful. “I don’t see why not,” Joe said.

  “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  Marcia brought their orders.

  “Here’s to you, Joe.”

  “And you, Lefty.”

  After that, things gradually got out of hand. At one point, Lefty bought everybody a drink and put it on Joe’s tab for the time being, which Joe didn’t mind. At another point, while having a drink with a couple of college professors and their wives, Joe heard Lefty agreeing with them that “puritanism” might have figured in his vocation and might indeed color his thinking even today, which Joe did mind. “Some people,” he said, “might indeed give up what they think of as thinking.” At a later point, Lefty came back from the men’s room with “Buzz”—somebody he either had or hadn’t met before—who offered to give Joe an estimate on his new letterhead, Lefty producing the old one, now revised (in the men’s room?), his name written in, Paddy’s and those of the deceased crossed out. Paddy, thanks to Joe, was restored to the new letterhead first as a full member of the Advisory Council (not just an honorary one, as proposed by Lefty) and then as Director—in a version for immediate adoption because the old letterhead looked like hell with the names of the deceased on it and lacked balance, this crash version proposed by Lefty and seconded by Buzz and Marcia. That version was amended to show Joe, who’d had no title before, as Assistant Director. That version was amended to show Joe as Director and Paddy as Archdirector. At a later point—the last point that Joe clearly remembered—Buzz said he hoped in time to be doing all the Archdiocese’s printing jobs, including Sunday envelopes, now shipped in from Indiana, to which Lefty had said, “I don’t see why not.”

  The next morning Joe got up at the usual early hour, took a hot bath, and after Mass and a light breakfast (three orange juices), he got back in bed. But he couldn’t sleep, or even rest—he had to find out, if possible without asking, whether he’d committed himself and Charities to Buzz and his firm. So he got up, took a hot bath, and went to his office, where he headed straight for the phone, but made himself sit down, thus disciplining himself, before using it.

  “What’s the name of Buzz’s firm? In fact, what’s Buzz’s name?”

  “Just a minute. His card’s here somewhere.” After a bit—“Here we are”—Joe was given the information, including the firm’s phone number.

  “Thanks, Father.”

  “Father, is something wrong, Joe?”

  Joe hung up and called the firm. “Like to speak to Buzz.”

  “He’s at a meeting.”

  “When’ll it be over?”

  “God knows.”

  “That’s true. I’ll call back.”

  Joe did this later that morning from Juvenile Court, between cases, but Buzz was still at the meeting. A little before noon, Joe tried again, but Buzz had gone to lunch.

  Joe had his lunch in the Sawdust Grill of the Hotel Garrison, a roast beef on rye with two steins of Würzburger, which he took standing at one of the high tables with the idea of keeping his weight down, and was back at the office before one.

  Mrs Hope, dressed to go out, looked in. “Father, would it be all right if I visited Monsignor?” (Paddy was in the hospital again.)

  “Trouble, Mrs Hope?”

  Mrs Hope gave Joe the latest bad news about her daughter’s family, and he made her another loan. An hour or so later, he tried again, but Buzz hadn’t come back from lunch yet. Before leaving for the bank, which closed at three, Joe tried again and was told by an unfamiliar voice, “Buzz didn’t come in today.”

  While Joe was at the bank it occurred to him that the vibrator might help his head, and so he went downstairs for a trim.

  “Ah, Father. Aren’t you about ready for a parish?”

  Joe just looked at the man under the sheet.

  “Nothing to say, Father?”

  “Tell you the truth, I thought you’d lost my file. I mean—thanks, Your Excellency.”

  That evening Joe went to the hospital to see Paddy about updating the letterhead, which also lacked balance.

  “It’d mean a great deal to the man, Monsignor.”

  “In that case, Joe, let’s do it.”

  Joe then told Paddy his good news.

  “Oh, yes. Albert was asking about you, Joe.”

  “Thanks, Monsignor.”

  “No, no. I had nothing to do with it. You’ve had it coming, Joe—too long. I’m sorry about that.”

  Later that evening Joe called his folks in Florida and told them his good news (theirs too, conceivably, not that they would’ve been left penniless), and then he called Father Butler.

  “I’ll write a check in the morning. It’ll be made out to you.”

  “To me?” said Father Butler.

  “For reasons I won’t go into. I don’t want the pastor to know it’s from me. Bread on the waters, Father.”

  “O.K., Father. Thanks a lot. Nothing’s come in since I talked to you.”

  Joe wrote the check before he retired, in case he died in the night, and then went downstairs to mail it, in case he changed his mind in the morning.

  PART TWO

  8. THE RECTORY AND THEREABOUT

  AT THIS TIME (1968) there were a half-dozen more or less new churches to be seen in the archdiocese, even a couple of new schools and convents if you were still thinking along those lines, but the prime movers, the clergy, were the forgotten men in building programs at this time, and you had to drive out to Joe’s (Church of SS Francis and Clare, Inglenook) if you wanted to see a new rectory.

  Architecturally it was tame stuff, in the same frosty orange brick as the school and convent, and did not interest the clergy, a rather advanced group architecturally. What did interest the clergy—since many a man had gone to the Arch and his reverend consultors with a more heartwarming project than putting up a house for himself and come away thinking himself a fool and a dangerous one at that—was why this roomy low-rise structure had risen at all in a parish where a glorified Quonset hut still did for a church.

  Why?

  Well, few men—none still active and building—could say with Joe: “I’ve always held the contractors to the original estimate and got everything called for in the plans, including copper plumbing.” Or: “When those guys walk in here, they figure it’s going to be like working for the U.S. government without inspectors—until I walk in.” Once, after he’d walked in on some electricians and told them off for playing hell with his insulation and walked out, he’d been pleased to hear Steve, his janitor, respond to the question “What’s wrong with that mother?” in kind, “Father, he don’t take no shit.” True. A
nd Joe’s school and convent were being paid for on schedule. As for a new church: “With more and more people moving out to the suburbs”—a big point in Joe’s presentation to the Arch and his reverend consultors—“why not, I say, wait until everybody arrives?” “Bingo!” the Arch had said, his reverend consultors nodding away. So Joe, then living in a room in the school and quite prepared to go on living under such conditions if advised to build a new church but dearly wishing, as he’d told the Arch and his reverend consultors, to keep the best wine till last (“Wine, Archbishop? Did he say wine?”—“Means a new church, you dummy!”), had got his rectory.