by J.F. Powers
“Father, I’ve got a thing about building funds. If it’s not too late to specify, I’d like the balance to be used as you think best—to be yours.”
“Oh?” Joe showed more surprise and less concern than he felt. “Well, in that case, thanks again, Mr Lane.” But Joe, more than before, didn’t want the man to think he’d bought him. “Actually, it doesn’t make much difference. I’m plowing my salary, if you can call it that, back into the parish, not to mention what little money I have of my own. A matter of bookkeeping, actually.”
“What I was thinking, Father.”
“This typewriter and the one in the other office, they’re not what I’d have to buy if I were spending parish funds. This is a very nice machine.” Joe turned to admire it.
“We have that model in our office, Father.” But obviously Mr Lane wasn’t interested in typewriters and chose that moment, though he’d been told over the phone that it wouldn’t do him any good, to try again. “Father, you’d think now would be soon enough to enroll kids for school in fall.”
“You would, yes, but you’d be wrong, Mr Lane. The boy, as I said, we can take—as of now. Tomorrow, or the next day, maybe not.”
“I can’t see putting the girl in a public school, Father.”
“Oh, I don’t know, Mr Lane.” Joe wasn’t a fanatic about education. All he’d wanted was a school where the emphasis was on studies and sports (mens sana, you might say, in corpore sano), where those who failed were not passed, where the boys wore dark green blazers and the girls dark green jumpers (“Down with the daily style show!”). But such a school stood out nowadays. Even Protestants and Jews tried to get their kids into Joe’s school.
“Father, how about moving in another desk?”
“No, no. It wouldn’t be fair to the other children in that grade, or to the Sister.”
“What if I talked to the Sister?”
Joe didn’t care for this at all. “No dice.”
“You can’t do anything?”
“What can I do, Mr Lane? Short of enlarging the school.”
“Can I do anything, Father? Would it help if I gave you another check?”
So. But Joe wasn’t certain he’d been insulted, and didn’t want to be—he gave the man a possible out. “Toward enlarging the school? I’m afraid there are no such plans, if that’s what you mean.”
“No, it’d be yours.”
So. “I’ll put you down for a year, Mr Lane. You won’t have to see me in January.” Joe rose from his desk, moved swiftly to the door, opened it, and stood by it, waiting for the couple to go. When they passed him, he ignored the man (and was himself ignored) but nodded to the woman, feeling sorry for her—probably she’d been afraid all along that something like this would happen, and hence her silence, he thought. He went back to his desk and sat down to think.
People, he was thinking, have a right to be judged by their own standards until these can be raised, when he noticed that there were two calendars on his desk and no check.
Well, he wanted no part of it. Yes, the Lanes might attend Mass elsewhere. But they would discover when the time came, say, to have a baby baptized, that it couldn’t be done elsewhere. The Church, to that extent anyway, was still the Church.
A bad situation, though—one of those situations from which the wise pastor ostensibly retires but handles in due course through his assistant.
Later that evening, after Father Felix had retired to the new bed in the guest room, Joe and the curate (whose name Joe still didn’t know) sat on in the pastor’s study. Joe, doing most of the talking, had had less than usual, the curate more, it seemed—he was yawning. “Used to be,” Joe was saying, “we all drove black cars. I still do.” Joe couldn’t understand why a priest, even a young priest today, if able to afford a new car, would choose one the color of the curate’s. “I guess it’s not important. St Francis,” Joe said, answering the phone.
“If you’re St Francis, I’m Lyndon B. Johnson.”
“Hold on, Lyndon. Don’t hang up.”
But Lyndon did.
“About phone calls, Father. Be sure you get the name and address before you give out any information, even Mass times. And don’t settle bets. And don’t discuss theology. Or you’ll have drunks and worse calling at all hours. I’ve got a few more things to tell you, but they’ll keep.”
“In that case . . .” The curate swallowed a yawn. “Think I’ll go to bed, Father.”
Joe—he hated to go to bed—changed the subject. “How’s the room? O.K.?”
“O.K.”
Joe had been expecting a bit more and wondered if he had hurt the curate’s feelings. “It’s not important, what I was saying about cars.”
The curate smiled at Joe. “My uncle’s the dealer in Whipple. He gave me a deal on the car, but that was part of it—the color.”
“I see.” Joe tried not to appear as interested as he was. “What’s your uncle call his place—Whipple Volkswagen? I know a lot of ’em do. That’s what they call it here—Inglenook Volkswagen.”
“He calls it by his own name.”
“I see.” Joe tried not to appear as interested as he was. “And this is your father’s brother?”
“My mother’s.”
“I see.”
“Think I’ll turn in now, Father.”
“Maybe we both should. Sunday’s always a tough day.”
12. SUNDAY
THAT MORNING, WITH Joe watching from the sacristy, the curate said his first Mass in the parish. He was slow, of course, but he wasn’t fancy, and he didn’t fall down, though he did stumble once. (This had made Joe think of the old preecumenical, or triumphalist, joke about the curate who’d lost his footing at his first Mass, causing the pastor to whisper from the sacristy, “Get up! Get up! They’ll be doing that down the street,” and had also made Joe think the joke is on us now.) His sermon was standard, marred only by his gestures, and he read the announcements well. In one important respect he had been a disappointment.
“I should’ve told you,” Joe said to him in the sacristy after Mass, “to introduce yourself to the congregation.”
“Sorry. I’ll do it next week. Father, what’d you think of the sermon?”
What have we here, a budding preacher? Let’s hope not. “The sermon? Good enough. One thing I would say, Father. Your words and gestures were a little out of sync at times—looked like a bad job of dubbing.”
The curate nodded. “Somebody said something like that at the sem.”
Joe was pleased to have his criticism confirmed and taken so well. “Gestures—you have to feel ’em, or be a very gifted speaker. I gave ’em up.”
“Maybe I should.”
Joe nodded, pleased at the prospect.
“By the way,” the curate said, “I’ll be eating out today.”
“Oh?” A little sudden, wasn’t it?
“With one of my classmates.”
“I see.” But Joe didn’t.
“Thought I’d better tell you.”
“Good idea, but the word is ask.”
“What I meant, Father.”
“O.K.”
That afternoon the Twins were rained out in Boston. So Joe and Father Felix were stuck with each other—and had at it in the study with the Sunday paper. Joe, by his good example, his tidiness, with the paper, had tried to make Father Felix mindful of the next reader, but had failed. The monk, whose glasses still needed changing, still held the paper open in front of him, as far away from him as he could, so that it was like the prow of a ship, until his arms gave out and the whole thing came crashing down in his lap—this was hard on the paper. Instead of smoothing it out while waiting for the strength to be restored to his arms, he cocked his head back and read what he could of the text in its collapsed and crumpled condition, the salient items or sentences thereof, noisily wrenching up more, shifting and tightening his grip like a dog with a bone—this was hard on the paper. If he’d read the funnies first (the only part of the paper he’d mis
s if it were missing), then Joe could have the other parts while they were fresh and intact. But no, the monk had to mess up the rest of the paper, it seemed, before he read the funnies.
Joe was that way about the sport section, keeping it to the last, sequestering it nowadays from Father Felix—that it wasn’t missed said all there was to say about the monk as a sports fan, a role he worked at when there was a game on TV. “Struck ’im out!” he’d say in antiphon to the announcer, or, in the event of a home run, chant along with him, “Going, going, gone!” Or with the crowd, if it was football, “Dee-fense! Dee-fense!” All show. At crucial moments he’d get up and go to the bathroom.
Joe had hoped for some inside info when he learned that one of Father Felix’s maternal uncles, now dead, whose name Joe remembered, had played tackle in pre-platoon days with the Packers and the Cardinals. “The Chicago Cardinals, Joe. You see, the team was later moved to St Louis or Kansas City.” Or! That was the inside info. And: “Stan had a very nice wife, three very nice children—one a Sister of St Joseph—and a very nice business, a bowling alley in Kenosha.” “Listen, Father. Stan lined up with the great Johnny Blood, with the great Ernie Nevers, and against the great Bronco Nagurski.” “Joe, how old are you?” “Forty-four, why?” “Joe, you’re going through a dangerous period for a man, especially for a priest. I’ve heard it called second puberty.” “You have, huh? And was this by any chance at the monastery?” “It could’ve been.” “I thought so. Luther was right about you guys.” (Joe had been pleased to get that in, now that Luther was being fitted out with wings by ecumenists, some of them monks, and it sounded no worse to Joe in retrospect than what Father Felix had said to him.)
Joe had tried hard with Father Felix. In the beginning there had been afternoons at the stadium (spoiled not so much by the monk’s ignorance and indifference as by his rather amused attitude), drives into the countryside to see the autumn foliage (“You should see it at the monastery”), visits to new churches of all denominations, since Joe would have to build a church someday (visits discontinued because the monk wasn’t, as he put it, terribly interested in new churches, or, for that matter, old ones, and—it came out—disliked the bucket seats in Joe’s car). So now, as a rule, they spent Sunday afternoons at home, in the study, sent out for seafood dinners, on which the monk’s verdict was always “Very tasty,” and watched television (which the monk didn’t have in his cell at the monastery). This was all right when there was something on, by which Joe meant major sports, including golf, and also things like “Meet the Press” and “Face the Nation.” But the monk wasn’t so discriminating—he enjoyed quiz programs, bowling, water-skiing, government propaganda. At such times, after a beer or two, Joe would go down to his office and read the sport section in peace and quiet, or retire to his bedroom and drop off, float off, collar in hand.
On hot days, like this one, he might wake up in a sweat and wade through the study in a dazed state, startling the monk (“My!”) but for whom Joe might have had his nap in the air-conditioned comfort of the study. That afternoon Joe kept moving, like a fighter in trouble, and made it to the kitchen, where he opened and reached into the refrigerator for a beer and then resisted it. Orange juice then? No. V-8? No. Tonic (no gin)? No. Ice water? No. Lukewarm chlorinated water from the tap? No, not even that. How about taking a much needed bath? No. A spot of mouthwash? No. How about just going to the toilet? No. Hey, I know—how about a beer?
Hey, what was he doing?
Ninety in the shade, and he was going out into the sun! Why? Hadn’t he done enough? Hadn’t he, though he’d lost points by opening the refrigerator, rallied, fought back, and won by a clear decision? Yes, he had, but the thing is not to let up, the thing is to pour it on, as every champion knows, be he (or she) athlete or saint, and that was what he was doing, pouring it on. Spiritually and physically—let’s face it—he’d dropped too many decisions. He was on the way down. But he still had it at times. Call it guts, call it class. The great ones all had it—Sugar Ray, St John of the Cross, Man o’ War, Stymie, and, not to forget the ladies, Gallorette . . .
From the can of nails in the garage, as from the ump, he took the official American League ball (a dog’s ball of rubber, actually) and strolled out (about thirty feet out into the driveway, actually) to the mound in that hitter’s heaven and pitcher’s hell, Fenway Park, smelling the popcorn, the peanuts, the hot dogs, the cigarette and cigar smoke, the natural grass, hearing the chuckle of beer pouring into paper cups, the partisan but (he being what he was) reverent cries from the Bosox fans. After taking his warm-up tosses, these powdering the inside corners of the strike zone (chalked on the garage door of stadium green), he hitched up his trousers—a few clubs had worn dark uniforms in the past, the Chisox last?—and mopped his brow (one of the ways he doctored the ball) and glared at the hitter. It was the usual bases-loaded-nobody-out situation, or he, having worked and won at home the night before, after hearing confessions, wouldn’t have got the call. Announcers up in the booth going on and on about him. “A picture-book pitcher!” “His delivery as, in the words of the Psalmist, oil being poured out!” “Yeah, and how he fields his position!” “He didn’t learn that in books!” “Wire here signed Arch: ‘MAY THE BETTER THAT IS TO SAY MORE DESERVING TEAM WIN.’ How about that! That’s America, folks!” “Understand Father said the ten o’clock Mass in his parish this morning.” “Understand it was a high one.” “Flown in by United.” “Police escort.” “Wire here signed Lefty: ‘IF FATHER FIGURED IN A TRADE COULD BACKWARD CHURCH AUTHORITIES QUEER DEAL?’” “Well, as I understand it, they could, but probably wouldn’t—in the national interest.” “The Bosox could sure use Father.” “Any club could.” He alone, with his knowledge of batters (encyclopedic), his stuff (world of), his control (phenomenal), had made the Twins a constant threat down the years. Forty-four now, ancient for baseball, he was perhaps best described as a short, fat, white Satchel Paige. Once a starter and consistent twenty- (make that thirty-) game winner, now used principally in relief. Iron Fireman. Little Engine That Could. His ERA still infinitesimal. Like Walter Johnson (the Big Train) and Ty Cobb and Rogers Hornsby, he was more respected than loved by players and fans, to say nothing, in his case, of his flock and fellow clergy. “Struck ’im out!” “Blew it past ’im!” “Father can really bring it!” “Wire here signed LBJ: ‘HATE THIS METHODOLOGY BUT WILL SAY THIS FOR THE MOTHER HE DON’T TAKE NO CENSORED.’” “Wire here signed Backward Church Authorities, per Catfish: ‘BOSOX CAN HAVE HIM GOOD RIDDANCE HIT ME WITH CROSS.’” Tough product of bygone era, up the hard way, sandlots, maximum-security seminary, buses, daytime ball. Boozer? A secret if so, but no secret —vide bios and centerfolds in Playboy and Homiletic and Pastoral Review—once wore no underwear on heavy dates and now chews Mail Pouch exclusively. Said to employ spitter (true), beanball (false)—Look out! Miraculously, his old sweat shirt, never laundered, dry-cleaned, or pressed (why not paper money?), gave off a pleasing odor, and his flapping right sleeve, denounced by batters and pruned by umpires, always grew back. The truth, known only to his confessor and the North American hierarchy, was that the garment in question, once without sleeves but no longer so, having grown them, was his old hair shirt. It would hang, when his playing days were over if they ever were, in Cooperstown, by the wish of the late Chaplain General U.S.A. and Cardinal Archbishop of New York (a recusant Bosox fan) in the pious and patriotic hope that it would settle for all time (sæcula sæculorum) the hash of un-American nativist hillbilly, and un-American pinko knee-jerk liberal, enemies of the Church.
“Struck ’im out!”
To a standing ovation from the all-too-loyal but ever-fair Bosox fans, he left the mound, returned the ball to its can of nails, and red of hand and face, dripping sweat, he passed through the kitchen, by the refrigerator (still pouring it on), through the study (“My!”), into the bathroom. Here he, now the aging champ surrounded by handlers, press, police, and other well-wishers (“Had the little wife make a novena for you, Fathe
r”), stripped down to nothing (“Sorry, boys, no pix”), urinated—anything to make the weight—and stepped on the scale. Something wrong with it? He turned on the bathwater full blast and sat down in it to save time (people spent what otherwise might have been the best part of their lives waiting for bathtubs to fill) and to get the benefits, if any, of hydrotherapy. He turned off the water with his toes to exercise the muscles and joints he might need to climb trees if civilization broke down completely, if there were any trees then and he was still around—the last man on earth a priest, Apostle to the Insects, if any, or business as usual. He used Dial soap, wishing everybody did, and emerged from the tub pink. He dried himself thoroughly—it was the weight of water that had kept the oceans, thank God, a mystery to man—and stepped on the scale. Something wrong with it? No, a man had a chance spiritually—it was more or less up to him—but physically, after a point, no. Still, he did feel better after he’d pitched an inning or two, enough to give him that old afterglow that only athletes know.
And so, deodorized, pink, immaculate in black and white, carrying his breviary, he passed through the study again (“Well!”), through the kitchen, and went over to the church. He chose a pew at random, knelt, and prayed. First for his parishioners, his first concern as pastor, then for his friends and relations living and dead, his enemies, if any, and then for, well, peace. The trouble was he believed that light would have to come first, that light even more than love was what was needed in the world today—light and the guts to act from it, the grace to gamble on it. Before people in general, including himself, and not just the assholes in high places (who know what people are like and profit by that sad knowledge) could lift up their minds and hearts there would have to be light. “Let there be light.” So it was simple-minded, and not just simple-hearted, to pray for peace. But since that was the form—God knew he knew better—he prayed for peace. Then he sat back in the pew and read his office. If the text suggested a line of thought, he went along with it for a bit, not counting the time entirely lost. But he no longer hoped for a breakthrough, no longer forced himself to meditate, lest God and he both be bored.
