by J.F. Powers
Sylvia’s companion, who must have seen many such nights, said, “He’s a very busy man, I’m told.”
“Just about the busiest priest in the diocese,” said Father Urban. He returned to the rectory that night still in a quandary. He had hoped to probe the Bishop about the future of the parish, but gently, gently. The refreshment period would have been the time for it, the two of them going on with a subject scarcely raised, or not going on with it, as the case might be. A word from Father Urban, a word from the Bishop, and they would have known where they were—Order and Diocese—and neither would have suffered any embarrassment. It would have been so much better that way, better than asking for an appointment, and having to state one’s business.
“Dear James asked me today how you liked parish work,” Monsignor Renton said one night in the upper room, about a week later. Monsignor Renton still called at the rectory, though not so often as when Phil was there.
“What’d you tell him?”
“I said I thought you liked it. Say, what’d you do to Cox and Box? They’re really down on you.”
“I don’t know why they should be, unless . . .” Father Urban described the attempt made by the curates to spike the all-cartoon programs.
“That sounds like ’em all right. You’d never know it was that, though, to hear ’em talk. They say you’ve got your eye on St Monica’s.”
“What will happen here—in your opinion, Monsignor?”
“Oh, some hot shot’ll get it. I’d put in for it myself, if it weren’t for Orchard Park.”
“Somebody who’ll build?”
Monsignor Renton looked bleak at the thought. “At least Phil was spared that. That would’ve been the death of him.”
“And then you would’ve blamed me.”
“Yes, if I hadn’t found out what was behind it all.”
“What was behind it all?” Father Urban, who had fought squarely and fairly in the battle to influence Phil, and had emerged the winner, was wary of alibis from the loser. If Father Urban wasn’t the one most responsible (after God, of course) for Phil’s decision to build, then who was?
“Dear James,” said Monsignor Renton. “He met Phil on the street a few days before we left. ‘Build or else,’ he said. Phil told me that in Florida.”
Johnny Chumley, who was present when Monsignor Renton revealed this, said, “Yes, that’s true. The Pastor told me that before he left.”
“So there’s your villain,” said Monsignor Renton.
The Bishop’s ultimatum to Phil, and his asking how Father Urban liked parish work, and what Cox and Box, and possibly others, were saying—all these were considerations that led Father Urban to seek an appointment with the Bishop. Time was another. If the Bishop was in a hurry to build, wouldn’t Father Urban be the man to do the job for him? In this connection, it had occurred to Father Urban that Phil could be more useful to the parish dead than alive—the old coach gone but the big game still to be played, and won, for him. And if Father Urban did the job, the Bishop needn’t feel that he had to turn the parish over to the Clementines. There would be other ways in which they could be repaid. In time, the Bishop might come to think of the Clementines as his Praetorian Guard, standing between him and his own clergy, always ready to assume the risks and privileges of their special position. In any case, Father Urban would see the Bishop and find out whether there was any point in keeping the parishioners in a state of preparedness. As it was, more and more of them were getting after him to build.
The interview, held in the Bishop’s office at the Chancery, got off on the wrong foot—with the Bishop patting a copy of the brochure that lay on his desk and saying, with a smile, “For some reason, I hadn’t pictured you as a gardener, Father Urban.”
“It came as something of a shock to me, too, Your Excellency, but you know how it is with these things.” Somebody at the Novitiate had gone over the brochure with a fine-toothed comb, removing some of Wilf’s copy (“Known for its shade and water,” for instance, which was to have appeared on the cover, was missing, and the title itself, which had begun as “Oh, Come All Ye Faithful!” become “Welcome to St Clement’s Hill,” become “You and St Clement’s Hill,” had ended up as “St Clement’s Hill”), but the photographs had survived, including, unfortunately, the one that had caught the Bishop’s eye. That one had already drawn a gleeful notice from Father Louis. “Strongly advise you read ‘The Man with the Hoe,’” he’d written, and this Father Urban had done late one night in the upper room—a recreation he hoped wouldn’t become popular at the Novitiate in connection with the photograph of him in the garden, though he could see how it might.
“Well, Father?” said the Bishop, after asking that Wilf be thanked for the brochure.
“This more or less begins as a progress report, Your Excellency, but it ends in a question. That’s why I’ve come to you,” said Father Urban, wondering, though, if Bishop Conor might not be repelled by flattery of the usual sort. He was a medium-sized man, about twelve pounds overweight, with iron gray hair clipped too short and high at the sides, revealing that he’d had a bad case of scalp acne at one time. He hadn’t distinguished himself as an athlete or scholar in the seminary, nor even as a scourge of indecency since rising to the hierarchy. He was another one of those good boys who had known, from about the third grade on, that his day would come, and indeed it had, though in a smaller way than he’d once hoped. Disappointment and acne had marked him. He was restless, and he wasn’t doing quite enough about the conceit that is the occupational hazard of his office. “Since I’ve been filling in at St Monica’s, we’ve been trying, Father Chumley and I, just to hold the line. We thought we’d have our hands full doing just that, until Father Smith returned—but that, unfortunately . . .”
“Unfortunately,” said the Bishop.
“Busy as we were, Father Chumley and I, we did manage to take the parish census. (Father Chumley worked like a dog, Your Excellency.) Now, along with taking the census, we ran a little survey to find out how people felt about the present church. As you know, we have a standing-room-only situation every Sunday at the late Masses. Well, we found that the great majority of parishioners would favor or strongly favor a new church. They understand what this would mean, too—to them and from them. Now, although we didn’t question them along any such lines, I think I can say that our parishioners, by and large, are ready and willing to accept the responsibility of building and paying for a new church. They have that responsibility, of course, but the point is that they want it. In fact,” said Father Urban, talking and smiling at the same time, a thing he’d noticed Protestants did better than Catholics—some of those ministers on TV got in their best licks while smiling—“there’s been agitation along that line that I haven’t known quite how to handle. So the question is, Your Excellency.”
The Bishop put up his hand in a mild sort of way, and Father Urban was rather glad that he did, for the atmosphere wasn’t right for the question. “I was asking somebody the other day how you liked parish work, Father.”
“Well,” said Father Urban, talking and smiling at the same time, “I hope whoever it was told you the truth. I must say I like it.” Was it possible that he wouldn’t have to ask the question?
“A little out of your line, isn’t it?”
“As you know, Your Excellency, we’re primarily a teaching and preaching order. Me, I’ve always been in the preaching end—for many years traveling out of Chicago, which I guess I still think of as home.” Didn’t the Bishop feel the same way? There was no indication that he did. “But the truth is we have parishes here and there throughout the country. One in Chicago. So parish work really isn’t out of our line—or even out of my line.”
The Bishop smiled. “Oh, I’ve heard good things about you, Father, since you’ve been at St Monica’s. I understand you’ve done more than hold the line.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean that.” Father Urban didn’t doubt that the Bishop had heard of his work at St Monica’s. “I
only meant I go where I’m sent—and do the best I can.”
There was a knock at the door. Father Udovic, the Chancellor, looked in on them. Father Udovic, who was short and blond, wore what were almost cowboy heels. He said something about a long-distance call and withdrew.
“Father Udovic’s from Chicago,” said the Bishop.
And aren’t you? Father Urban wished to say, but didn’t dare, since the Bishop’s idea seemed to be that Father Urban could be from Chicago with Father Udovic but not with him. That was the impression that Father Urban got anyway, and he didn’t like it.
The Bishop rose from his desk. “The reason I asked”—asked what?—“and I know it’s not for you to say, Father.” The Bishop was walking over to the wall where there was a large map of the diocese.
Father Urban got up and followed him.
“We have these parishes up here, three of them. Actually, they’re only missions—Indian missions.”
Father Urban looked at the spot where the Bishop’s finger had touched the map, at the blue water and hen tracks, these indicating bogs. This, then, was the answer to Father Urban’s unasked question, and doubtless the Bishop was congratulating himself on his handling of it.
“One man, with a good car, could take care of all three of ’em,” the Bishop said, going back to his desk but not sitting down—a needless precaution.
Father Urban had no desire to continue the interview. “Well, of course, it’s not for me to say,” he said, moving over to the table where he’d left his hat.
“I realize that, Father.”
“If you’d like me to mention it to Father Wilfrid, I will. Of course, he’d have to refer the matter to Chicago.”
“Do what you think best, Father. Now—to answer your question about this agitation for a new church at St Monica’s—the new man, whoever he is, will be the one to deal with that. And, by the way, I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to your talk the other night. Maybe next time.”
The Bishop had said no, but the word must have gone out, “Buy Clementine,” for suddenly, in the middle of Lent, retreatants descended upon the Hill like manna from heaven. Tools were put away and paint-can lids were tapped down hard. Wilf and Jack preached and preached, and Brother Harold performed greater miracles in the kitchen. Father Urban tightened his schedule at St Monica’s and drove over to the Hill oftener, since it was Wilf’s desire to give each group of retreatants at least one taste of the best wine the Clementines could serve. Wilf didn’t say that, of course, and Father Urban, who had long since stopped looking to his superiors for gratitude, would have been very much surprised if he had.
Wilf attributed the great change in their fortunes primarily to the brochure. It was doing the job he’d always known it would do. Next in importance, in his estimation, was the clever covering letter he’d written to pastors, a letter in which he thanked them for their “continued support.” And after that came the warmer weather and the fact that he’d had the furnace and ducts vacuum-cleaned. (“Found an old overshoe in your duct, Urban—no wonder you were cold.”) Thus Wilf accounted for the great change—and began negotiations with his discount house to procure “government surplus” beds and mattresses for Minor. “We’re on the move, boys.”
If so, why—why now?
They had come into the diocese cold, with no fifth column to soften up the population (no old grads around to say, “I went to school with the Clems”), with nothing but the Bishop’s permission to sustain them. The lower clergy, after welcoming them with all the lukewarmness at their command, had closed ranks and hardened at the prospect of being regarded by their own flocks as less traveled, less learned, and less spiritual than the newcomers. This is almost inevitable if the newcomers have a country place and wear a striking habit (which, unfortunately, the Clementines didn’t), and the secular clergy know it. They know that among them there are too many men whom too many people remember as something else, as, in Johnny Chumley’s case, a hockey player. In short, they know that they suffer from a deficiency of mystery and romance, as the Protestant clergy do, compared with them. But what they’d feared hadn’t happened in this instance. Wilf had made nothing of the one advantage he’d had. The Clementines, competitors not so much for the alms and stipends of the faithful as for their hearts, had got nowhere until Father Urban entered the lists. He, unlike Wilf, had taken good care to conquer the profane world before tackling the other one, and, for that reason, was able to deal with the clergy from a sitting, rather than a kneeling, position. They loved a winner. It was as simple as that. That was what was really behind the great change.
Father Urban, however, still wouldn’t call it success. They were getting the retreatants, yes, but they weren’t getting the revenue. The common practice—the retreatant to leave behind an offering to cover his board and room, and, if he wished, a bit more—just wasn’t working out at the Hill.
One afternoon, after a group of retreatants had departed, Father Urban walked into the office and found Wilf holding his head. “The take’s still off, eh?”
“It’s not quite what it should be,” Wilf said.
Father Urban scrutinized the roster of departed retreatants, sighed, and said what he’d refrained from saying before. “Too many Teutonic and Central European strains, I’m afraid, and these not the best of their kind.”
“Aw, now,” said Wilf. He was inclined to be touchy on this point. He held that it was only an historical accident that the American hierarchy was so Irish in its make-up. Father Urban, on the other hand, held that the Irish, ecclesiastically speaking, were the master race, and had had the saints, and still had the bishops, to prove it.
“No,” said Father Urban. “Let’s face it. We’re getting the ham-and-sausage-supper types now. The horseshoe pitchers. That’s all there is to it. They’re the ones who’re setting the tone, and it’s all wrong.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t look at it that way,” Wilf said. “So materially, I mean.”
“Try that on your grocer.”
“It is sort of discouraging.” Wilf said that he’d thought of putting up small signs such as hotels had in their bedrooms, but not setting a minimum rate, just suggesting one.
“No good.”
“No, I don’t like it much myself.”
Taking leave of Wilf, Father Urban said, “Let’s face it. We have to go after a different breed of retreatant.”
A few days later, Father Urban was out strolling among the children in the school playground, talking to one of the sisters, a Chicago girl, when Cal, of Cal’s Body Shop, brought Phil’s car back. In a way, Father Urban was sorry to see it. For two days, he’d had the use of Sylvia Bean’s little English sports car—a Barracuda S-X 2. He complimented Cal on the fine job he’d done on the back fender of Phil’s Plymouth, and then said he supposed he ought to return the little Barracuda to its rightful owner. Cal caught on and said, sure, he’d follow in the big car.
Sylvia wasn’t home, but Father Urban left the little Barracuda in the driveway and gave the key to the maid. Cal moved over, and Father Urban drove him to his place of business. Cal, who knew the circumstances of the accident, said he’d shaved the bill down as far as he could in case Father Urban had to pay it. “Mighty white of you, Cal.” Father Urban then drove off to see the party responsible for the accident in which, fortunately, only Phil’s car had suffered, and it only forty-eight dollars’ worth.
The other party’s address, given to Father Urban by the cop summoned to the scene of the accident, was simply R.R.2, Duesterhaus, and so Father Urban dropped in at the Duesterhaus post office for more information. He discovered that the other party was a farmer whose property adjoined that of the Order, none other than the owner of the black dog, Rex, of whom Wilf was so fond.
At the time of the accident the farmer, an elderly man, had been about to deliver a load of firewood—white birch logs that really looked too nice to burn—to a big house a few doors away from Ray Bean’s. Running his old truck off the steep driveway on h
is first attempt, he’d backed out into the street to try again, and without watching where he was going, when Father Urban happened by. There was a scum of wet snow. Father Urban’s wheel tracks showed that he’d done all he could. He was completely in the clear. But the farmer had no insurance.
Father Urban found Mr Hanson and the dog at home. The dog seemed to recognize him, but Mr Hanson didn’t, and so Father Urban introduced himself. He mentioned his connection with the Hill (“We’re neighbors”), and then presented the bill, saying that Cal had shaved it down as far as he could.
Mr Hanson said, Yar, he guessed he’d have to pay it. He didn’t have no insurance, he said, because he’d been delivering his last load. He was giving up farming, going to California where his daughter was. His missis had passed away. Some fellers might buy his place, he said. So far, though, they were holding out, wouldn’t give him his price. Father Urban asked what that might be. Mr Hanson had an old frame house, a red barn in very bad shape, and about sixty acres left of what, he said, had once been four hundred. In the distance, Father Urban could see the thin little woods, not many birches left, where the farmer had cut his last load. After finding out what Mr Hanson wanted for his property, which took a bit of doing, Father Urban left. At that point, he really didn’t know why he’d bothered to find out.
The following afternoon, he was back, and Monsignor Renton was with him (“I just want to know what you think, Monsignor, and I may need your help later”). They walked over the still-frozen ground with Mr Hanson and Rex. The property included about three hundred yards of barren shore line on Pickle Lake (as Mr Hanson called it). He said the fellers who might buy his property weren’t interested in farming it but in selling off lots for summer cottages. Father Urban asked who they were, these fellers, and Mr Hanson mentioned a couple of names. One of them was familiar to Father Urban who said, no, he wasn’t thinking of cottages, and, no, he wasn’t thinking of farming—for one thing, as Mr Hanson had pointed out, the barn needed too much work. Father Urban, not saying what he was thinking of (Monsignor Renton made this easier by whooping it up with the dog), asked Mr Hanson to do nothing until he heard from him, and wrote down St Monica’s telephone number (“Just call collect”) in case anything got going with the fellers (“We’re neighbors, after all”). Mr Hanson said, Yar, O.K.
