Wheat That Springeth Green

by J.F. Powers

  “I don’t. I just assume you’re an adult and I treat you like one.”

  “You do, huh?”

  “Until I have reason not to.”

  “Until, huh? And then what—slam on the brakes?”

  “If necessary.”

  “No good, Father. It’s punitive then. This way, no. It’s just one of the house rules—like black socks and no overalls. There’s nothing personal about it. And look. Don’t take it so hard. You want to go somewhere—a movie, a ball game—we’ll work it out so you can. Maybe so we both can. So put your little car away, Father, and I’ll make us a drink.”

  14. REVELATIONS

  ON THURSDAY MORNING, as usual, Joe knocked out the church bulletin and, though it lacked something again, he was about to put it to bed when, inspired, he phoned the state highway department, was switched to the license division, and spoke to a voice that seemed to be coming out of a can.

  “O.K.,” it said. “Color and make?”

  “VW Beetle. Light brown, or dark yellow—sort of a caramel color.”

  “Brown VW Beetle. O.K., who’s calling?”

  “I’d rather not say.”

  “Is this an accident case?”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Sometimes people leave the scene of an accident. Then they get to thinking they might’ve been seen and reported. So they try and fix it up with the damaged car’s owner before he or she goes to the police.”

  “Oh, no. Nothing like that. It’s a long story, and I won’t go into it, but I can tell you it’s not an accident case. No damage of any kind. The car’s right here.”

  “Where?”

  “I’d rather not say.”

  “How long’s the car been there?”

  “Since Saturday, but that doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “You have reason to believe the car’s been abandoned or stolen?”

  “No, no. I just thought you could tell me the owner’s name if I gave you the license number. That’s all.”

  “It’s not the policy of this division of the department to give out information unless we know why we’re doing it and who we’re dealing with. We get a lot of calls—all kinds, mister. Some stud sees a broad, takes down her license number, and calls us. For all I know, you’re one of those.”

  “This is Father Hackett, SS Francis and Clare’s, Inglenook?”

  “Oh, hello, Father. Captain O’Connell here. Sorry I didn’t know it was you, Father. You see, we have to be pretty careful. I don’t have to tell you why.”

  “No.”

  “Father, you say the car’s there?”

  “Yes.”

  “In your parking lot?”

  “In my driveway.”

  “And you want it moved?”

  “No, no, Captain.”

  “You don’t want it moved, Father, or you don’t want it moved by the police?”

  “I don’t want it moved, Captain. Believe me, I don’t want it moved.”

  “Father, you know what I think?”

  “What?”

  “You want this information so you can ask the owner in a nice way to move his or her car.”

  “No, no. I don’t want him to move it.”

  “Father, would you mind telling us why you want this information?”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “Father, it’s not the policy of this division of the department to give out information unless we know why we’re doing it.”

  “I see.”

  “I know you wouldn’t want us to make an exception in your case.”

  “If it’s not the policy, no.”

  “Father, if you could give us some idea why you want this information.”

  “I’d rather not, Captain.”

  “Then all I can say, Father, is get in touch with your local police. They have access to this information. They’ll ask why you want it, but maybe you wouldn’t mind telling them.”

  “Thanks, but I think I’ll just forget the whole thing.”

  “Nice talking to you, Father.”

  “And to you, Captain.”

  So Joe gathered up the bulletin copy, put on his hat, opened the door between the offices (had closed it before making the last phone call), and said to the curate (who was typing, so to speak), “Stepping out. Won’t be long.”

  On the memo pad in his car he jotted down the purpose of his trip (BULL, BEER). But when he arrived at the Universe, where the bulletin was printed, he drove on. Thought he might, in the next hour or so, find out what he hadn’t in more than a week? No, the odds were against it, about a hundred to one. But he still had an option or two—or three. Could go with the information he had, simply, chummily billing the curate as “Father Bill.” Could call the VW people in Whipple, ask if they still had that light brown or dark yellow beetle, and take it from there. Could sneak into the curate’s room and go through his books for one, probably a text, with his name in it.

  At the Licensed Vintner’s he exchanged his nice clean case for an unclean one (Mr Barnes not there).

  Approaching Smiley’s Shell he saw the lessee out by the pumps, and drove in. “New customer for you, Jack, but a poor one, drives a Beetle—my assistant. I’ll pick up the tab.”

  “I know, Father. He came in yesterday.”

  At a hundred to one! “Have him sign for it?”

  “Naw. I just put it down.”

  Joe sniffed. “That how we do?”

  “How we do with you, Father.”

  Joe played out his losing hand. “Better have him sign for it in future.”

  “Wish you’d told me this before, Father.”

  “So do I.”

  Joe drove away, thinking O.K., that’s it—he’d do the bedroom job that afternoon, Mrs P.’s afternoon off, as soon as she was gone.

  He ran his car into the garage, out of the sun—another thing he’d have to tell the curate about, how hard it was on a car’s finish, the sun. He left the unclean case in the trunk for the same reason he’d put the nice clean one there the evening before, after Mrs P. had gone, lest she think he had nothing to do but deliver beer to himself. He took the bulletin copy with him. He found the door between the offices closed now, and on his desk a typewritten note:

  “INformation you re quested: William Alois Schmidt.”

  Only minutes later, while Joe was getting down to the job of thinking how the requested information could best be explained to the subject of it, a moving van from the St Vincent de Paul Society arrived (for his old bed, box spring, and mattress) prematurely—to put it mildly, which Joe didn’t to the driver (no helper)—not, as promised, “sometime in the afternoon,” when the whole operation (out with the old, in with the new) was to have taken place in Mrs P.’s absence. Yes, had this phase of the operation gone as planned, Mrs P. might have had a shock or two in the morning when she didn’t see the old bed and did see the new one, a double, but better that than this. “I don’t know what’s going on around here!” It was Joe’s impression that the bed or beds operation was being associated, in Mrs P.’s mind, with the curate’s appointment, perhaps because furniture had figured in it and because of the element of mystery in both matters. In any case, Mrs P. was upset, and with good reason, since nothing had been said to her about beds, new or old, and she probably thought she’d made the old one to no purpose that morning, not realizing that here was a case where ignorance was bliss and that Joe would’ve been happy to make the bed himself if the novelty of that small act wouldn’t have upset her even more. “What’ll happen next!” “Well, the store’s bringing the new bed this afternoon.” “But I won’t be here!” “That’s true.”

  After Mrs P. stripped the old bed, Joe and the driver (who said he had a bad back) tried to take it apart, Mrs P. standing by with the vacuum cleaner, impatient to do that part of the carpet (wall-to-wall) under the bed, which, ideally, couldn’t be done until the bed was removed, which couldn’t be done until it was taken apart, which couldn’t be done. Joe was sweating prof
usely. “Hammer!” he gasped. Mrs P. brought the hammer, and Joe, wanting her elsewhere, told her to go ahead with making lunch, which she did, but kept making cameo appearances in the doorway. And when the bed came apart, she was there, on the scene, with the vacuum cleaner, and moved in like gangbusters.

  Joe and the driver loaded the bed, mattress, and box spring into the van, after which Joe served the driver (and himself) a cold beer on the back steps, tipped the man a fin for his trouble, and took a much needed bath, prolonging it, so that he had lunch alone, by design, not wishing perhaps to be questioned along certain lines by the curate at table, in Mrs P.’s hearing, in fact, not wishing to be so questioned period.

  After lunch, he went down to his office—the door still closed —and wrote the story, entitling it “New Man/New Priest.” He then put on his hat, said nothing to the curate, and delivered the copy. On his return (Mrs P.’s car gone), he brought in the beer, washed his hands, and went down to his office—the door still closed—to think. Explain. How could he? Not explain. How could he?

  Presently he rose from his desk and opened the closed door, saying, “Stuffy,” to which there was no response, and returned to his desk.

  Presently from his desk: “Like to see you about something, Father.”

  When the curate came in, Joe had his head down and averted, in the confessorial position (though he was the penitent), and was fingering the typewritten note. “Father, when you got this . . . information . . . what’d you . . . say?”

  “I said thanks.”

  Joe looked at the curate—no, he wasn’t being funny (no, that wouldn’t be like him). “Didn’t say who you were?”

  “No.”

  “He say who he was?”

  “No. Who was he?”

  Joe, for something to do in the ensuing lull, turned his hat (left upside down on his desk to cool) right side up, over the typewritten note. “Afraid I can’t tell you that,” he said, hearing the doorbell chime and:

  “You order a bed?”

  Joe and the curate went upstairs, and Joe, in view of his experience with Earl and the store, was glad that the bed—the right one, the double with pineapples—had come when promised, and the mattress and box spring too.

  Joe and the curate and the two men from the store (who offered to help) assembled the bed, Joe supervising and otherwise doing more than his share, calling the men from the store by their first names (stitched on their shirts) and also, as he never had before, the curate by his. “Easy, Bill.” Sam and George extricated the mattress and box spring from their cartons—these they offered to take with them, a load off Joe’s mind. It was then, though, that Joe noticed—evidently the only one who had—that the mattress and box spring didn’t match.

  “Hold it,” he said, and got on the phone.

  “Oh, oh,” Earl said. “Too bad you didn’t catch it in time, Father.”

  “Too bad I didn’t?”

  “If you’d told the boys on the truck . . .”

  “Earl.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “They’re still here.”

  “In that case, put one of ’em on, Father.”

  Joe gave the phone to Sam, who said, “Yup,” “Nup,” “Yup,” and gave the phone to Joe.

  “What’s the deal, Earl?”

  “All you have to do, Father, is specify the color of your choice. Choice of three—blue, pink, or silver gray. That’s what I would’ve recommended in your case, Father. Silver gray.”

  “I don’t care what color I get. Just so the mattress and box spring match.”

  “In that case, let’s forget silver gray, Father. Blue or pink?”

  “I don’t care. All right. Blue.”

  “Blue. Now the mattress, or the box spring, is pink?”

  “The mattress.”

  “That means the boys’ll bring you a blue mattress on Monday.”

  “Wait a minute. Does that mean they’ll take back the pink one today?”

  “That’s right.”

  “No good, Earl. I disposed of my old bed this morning.”

  “Oh, oh. M and B too?”

  “What?”

  “Mattress and box spring too, Father?”

  “Yes, but they were for a single, Earl. My old bed was a single, remember?”

  “Now I do. Father, how about using the new bed—the cannonballs—in the guest room? Just till Monday?”

  “No good. I’ve got the monk coming on Saturday.”

  “Oh, oh. Forgot about him. Hey, how about the cot—or did you dispose of that?”

  “No, it’s still here somewhere.”

  “You couldn’t use it—just till Monday?”

  “You couldn’t leave the pink mattress here till then?”

  “Not very well, Father. No.”

  “Because of what it says on the label?”

  “That’s right. Public health measure. If you slept on it, we couldn’t take it back and sell it. That’s the law.”

  “You know what, Earl?”

  “What, Father?”

  “You can take ’em both back — the pink M and the blue B.”

  “And send out the silver gray?”

  “And not send out the silver gray. I’ve had it with you people. I don’t see how you stay in business.”

  “Father, just because somebody goofed . . .”

  “‘Somebody,’ huh?”

  “Have her call me back. I’m talking to Father now. Sorry, Father. How’s that again?”

  “I have nothing to say.”

  “I don’t care if she’s the Queen of Siam. I’m talking to Father now. Sorry, Father. Now here’s the way I look at it. Who’s to know these units don’t match? If you were a woman, it’d be different.”

  “What would?”

  “Father, you don’t care. You’re a man.”

  “Yes, but what if I want to dispose of these units some-day—to a woman?” (Joe was only thinking of what Mrs P. would say.)

  “Father, you won’t. These units’ll last you a lifetime—and then some. All right, Foxie! I’ll talk to her personally! Look, Father, you don’t have to decide now, on the phone. Just let the boys know your decision.”

  Joe hung up. He let the boys know his decision, after which they left (with the cartons). Joe and Bill then made the bed. What was true of the bed pad was true, perhaps truer, of the sheets from the linen closet—all rather narrow, being singles, as Bill pointed out. Joe, who knew this but had been hoping that some sheets would be wider than they should be, said, “O.K., we’ll buy some doubles, and also a pad”—so he wouldn’t have to sleep right in the middle of the bed—“when we go out to eat.”

  “’Lo, Ed,” Joe murmured, waving back at Ed Smiley, pastor of St Peter’s, Silverstream, who was at a table across the room with his curate and who, Joe had hoped, wouldn’t see him.

  “He was out at the seminary once, on a panel,” Bill said.

  “Ed was everywhere once, on a panel,” Joe said. “Smiley, of Smiley’s Shell, is Ed’s brother, you know. Smiley runs a good, clean station. He has to. You can’t mess around with Shell. Ed would be all right, or anyway better, if he didn’t think of himself as a charismatic leader in this our time. Hence the black leather jacket and the overalls he wears around the rectory [“Overalls?”—“You know what I mean”], the scooter he rides, the driv he talks [“Driv?”—“Drivel”]. Advised me to sprinkle grass seed in the snow and let nature do the rest. I believed him too, because I wanted to. That’s the trouble in the Church today. Too many clergy like Ed and too many people who want to believe ’em.” Joe watched the waitress bring the check to Ed’s table and give it to the curate. “The curate’s running the parish, Bill. Ed’s financially non compos.” Joe watched Ed follow the curate out of the room. “That’s the story on Ed, Bill. But his parishioners don’t know. So keep it under your hat.”

  “Father, what’s the story on that phone call?”

  Since the matter hadn’t come up when it might have—when they were mak
ing the bed, or when they returned to their offices, or in the car on the way to the restaurant, or during the meal until now—Joe had believed, because he’d wanted to, that Bill had decided not to pursue the matter, wisely and kindly, having perhaps seen the distress it had caused Joe earlier, that distress perhaps to be seen now. “It’s a long story, Bill.”

  “You were hoping I wouldn’t ask you again?”

  “Yes. Sometimes we don’t know what we’re asking, Bill.”

  “I’d still like to know, Father.”

  “Yes, well.” Until then Joe, who’d had two Martinis (Bill only one) and more than his share of the bottle of wine, might have done without a postprandial gin and bitters. The waitress, taking his order, looked unhappy (probably a Catholic or a non-Catholic), and Bill made it worse by abstaining and was obviously waiting to hear Joe’s confession.

  “Yes, well. It’s customary for a pastor to be notified when he gets a curate, or change of curates. That wasn’t done in your case—not properly. Toohey called up and said I was getting a curate, but didn’t say who. ‘Letter follows,’ he said, and I haven’t heard from him since. No letter. Nothing.”

  “That’s funny.”

  “Yes, but that’s how Toohey plays the game, and not just with me, though that may have something to do with it—that it’s me. So I didn’t know who you were when you showed up, and you didn’t say—you didn’t get a chance to, as it happened, which was my fault. For days, though, I’d been under a terrific strain, not knowing who was coming, or when, and that being so I couldn’t tell anybody—Mrs P., Steve, Father Felix, the parishioners (in the bulletin). A hell of a situation.”

  “You should’ve called the Chancery.”

  “In the beginning, yes, but I was expecting the letter from Toohey. I was also expecting you to get in touch with me. All right. I was always out when you called. But if I’d called the Chancery, you might’ve been in trouble there.”

  Did Bill, drawing on his baby cigar, see, as he hadn’t before, that Joe had protected him?

  “A hell of a situation, Bill, and even worse after you came. I figured you’d introduced yourself to Mrs P., and Steve, and Father Felix, because none of ’em asked me your name. I hoped to hear one of ’em mention it, but I didn’t. A hell of a situation, as I say, and it went on and on.”