by J.F. Powers
“Drag?” said the driver, in whose face there was a hint of human intelligence, as there is in a shark’s.
Father Urban made no reply.
The light changed to green and the Mellon came abreast.
“Chicken!”
This time Father Urban, though he said nothing, and gave no sign, accepted the challenge. He was ten lengths behind when he made his decision, but slowly and surely, he gained on the Mellon, drew even with it, and still the little Barracuda was full of run. Then he let it all the way out, and shot ahead. Something was happening to the Mellon. Coughing and sneezing and emitting blue smoke, it was pulling over to the side of the road. Father Urban had been winning before this, however, and would’ve won had the race continued, and, in fact, he had won. The Mellon, though, was about the only thing he’d been able to handle in that diocese. The Mellon, and the guest book at the Zimmermans’, which, finally, when nobody would listen to him, he’d signed with a flourish, “Pope John XXIII.”
11. WRENS AND STARLINGS
WHEN THE HISTORY of the Order in the United States came to be written, and Father Urban must have been about the only Clementine who was looking that far ahead and thinking along those lines, would what was now St Clement’s Hill go down as one more spot where the good seed of its zeal had fallen and flourished, or as another where the Order had lost out? That was the question in Father Urban’s mind, in August, when the Bishop returned from Rome. According to Monsignor Renton, the Bishop was thinking of taking over the Hill for a diocesan seminary. “You guys were all right until you went and built this course,” said Monsignor Renton—brown as a berry from playing it.
Over hill and dale, on tee and green, Father Urban pumped the trusty consultor, but although Monsignor Renton talked freely, he couldn’t tell Father Urban when or how the Bishop would move against the Clementines—only why. “He’s always wanting something.” Dear James had wanted one man’s choir director, another man’s sanctuary lamp, and so on, and what he wanted he got. It had been going on for years. He had seen some wormy statues in London, fingers and whole arms missing, and Monsignor Renton, traveling with him, had done his best to talk him out of these costly purchases, but they were now standing in the Cathedral.
But could the Bishop do such a thing? He could. The Clementines had had it done to them before, most recently at Bolivar Springs, Missouri, where they’d run a minor seminary and boys’ boarding school, an indifferent enterprise economically and scholastically, and where the local bishop had wanted first one of his men on the faculty, then two, to which demands the Clementines had gracefully acceded, and thus passed the point of no return. As soon as the Bishop had educated enough men (elsewhere) to operate the institution, the Clementines had been eased out altogether and paid off. To an outsider it might have appeared that this was all to the good—and thus, had the Clementines complained, it would have been made to appear to Rome. Nuns could coo their way out of such difficulties, or, that failing, would often fight, and sometimes cardinals would ride forth in their behalf. But it was almost impossible for a small, unentrenched order of men (whose record might have been better) to defend itself against a bishop and his hordes. What could wrens do against starlings?
“You have to have strong grounds for effecting a transfer of ownership such as the Bishop is contemplating,” said Father Urban. He had been making the best of the poor library at the Hill, reading up on the subject of contracts between bishops and religious. “Canon law is quite clear about such things.”
“Indeed it is—about any number of things,” said Monsignor Renton, in a way that made Father Urban think.
Next year—if there was one—there would have to be a well-defined, enforceable policy on who was entitled to play the course. Who? Any man who’d made a retreat at the Hill? His wife? His wife’s brother? And his wife? What about teenagers with, just possibly, vocations to the priesthood? What about women in shorts? What about ministers of rival faiths? Where did you draw the line? Father Urban didn’t know. But sooner or later there would be a scandal of some kind—there were indications that lovers were coming to the course after dark—and voices would be raised against the Clementines.
That wasn’t all. A woman in shorts had tittered when the Bishop, teeing off on his first visit to the course, had swung and missed the ball completely. And this after the Bishop had noticed that the new black-and-white sign painted by Brother Harold had been desecrated. The sign had to do with rules of play and was addressed “TO THE FRIENDS AND MEMBERS OF THE ORDER OF SAINT CLEMENT.” The “R” had been scratched out of “FRIENDS.” That was the public for you.
For some the perfect solution would be to close the course to everybody except the clergy. But Father Urban felt about the course as “a certain eccentric pastor” was said (in one of Father Urban’s amusing yet hard-hitting talks to priests) to feel about the Church—that it should exist for the people’s benefit, too.
Monsignor Renton held that the Bishop was no different from anyone else in wanting his own seminary—“Half the fun for the big frog is having the little ones around him”—but Father Urban wondered if a thing like a woman’s laugh might not be at the bottom of the man’s desire to seize St Clement’s Hill.
In his discussions with Monsignor Renton, Father Urban sometimes clutched at straws. “As I understand it, a bishop needs the consent of his consultors, where this much is at stake. If things get rough, a thousand lire won’t even pay for the aspirins,” he said, remembering this key figure from his reading. Anything over a thousand lire was considered a big deal.
“I can’t recall when we’ve withheld our consent,” said Monsignor Renton. “I don’t say we wouldn’t, mind you, if our consciences so dictated.”
“That’s sort of what I had in mind.”
“Yes, but suppose one consultor’s against something a bishop wants to do, but he knows the other consultors aren’t—he knows he’s going to be outvoted. In the circumstances, it might not be wise for this consultor to expose himself, nor should he be expected to do so.”
“I suppose it would be asking a lot—of this consultor.”
“I’m sorry to hear you take that tone,” Monsignor Renton said. “I’m doing all I can, within reason, and I’m prepared to go on doing so. In my opinion, you guys have done a pretty fair job here, on the whole.”
“Nice of you to say so,” said Father Urban, thinking that the course was a godsend to Monsignor Renton, who had let his membership in the Great Plains Country Club expire.
“I can’t say better than that, everything considered.”
“I know,” said Father Urban. The last months didn’t quite make up for the time before he arrived at the Hill.
“Here’s something that occurred to me,” Monsignor Renton said. “I don’t know why I haven’t mentioned it before. Let’s say this place does become a diocesan seminary—well, why shouldn’t you guys be the ones to run it, or at least staff it? On a thing like that, I’d go down the line for you, and I don’t think I’d be alone.”
“Whose side are you on, anyway?” asked Father Urban, and then described what had happened to the Clementines at Bolivar Springs.
“Circumstances alter cases,” Monsignor Renton said. “It doesn’t necessarily follow that you’d get the heave-ho in a few years, or that you couldn’t go on giving retreats here.”
“Nothing doing—if I have my way.” There were moments, though, when Father Urban wished he weren’t fighting alone, but no good, he knew, would come from alerting Wilf to the danger—Wilf would just go to pieces. As long as the Bishop didn’t declare his intention, Father Urban saw no reason to turn the matter over to less capable hands.
“I advise you to think it over,” Monsignor Renton said. “Sometimes, you know, you can’t win. Or so I have found.”
“Thank God, there’s always Rome.”
“Rome!” cried Monsignor Renton. “Let’s keep Rome out of it. While you’re appealing to Rome, how many retreatants do you suppose y
ou’ll get from this diocese? And what’ll happen to all this?” The course was lovely in August.
All other remedies should have failed before one resorted to Rome, where, said Monsignor Renton, a judgment might not be rendered until all the principals were safely on the wrong side of the grass. Of such was the wisdom, the terrible wisdom, of the Church. Therefore, one’s thoughts inclined not to litigation but to peaceful persuasion. Or should. “It’s the only thing,” said Monsignor Renton.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Father Urban.
But they had entirely different ideas as to who should be persuaded, and Monsignor Renton was fearful lest Father Urban jump the gun or otherwise betray him to the Bishop. “Watch it,” he said, “if you don’t want me to lose my job. As it is now, I may be the best club in your bag.”
“Let’s hope not,” said Father Urban. He had little faith in peaceful persuasion as a weapon against the Bishop. Nevertheless, it was one that appealed to him, as it would to anyone with his special gifts.
Father Urban was frankly proud of the little improvements he’d made in the clubhouse since the Bishop’s other visit—candy counter, pop machine, pro shop—proud, yes, but far from satisfied. The clubhouse—Mr Hanson’s old house—was badly in need of paint. “Green,” Father Urban said as he walked to the first tee with the Bishop and Father Feld, the Bishop’s young friend. “I think it should be dark green, with white trim—unless we get some shutters for the windows, and then it would be the other way around.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if you just stuck to white?” said Father Feld. “Easier and cheaper?”
“Dark green,” said the Bishop.
“You don’t know how glad I am to hear you say that,” said Father Urban, glad that the Bishop agreed with him, glad also that Father Feld had been cut down. “The farmers around here seem to have a fixation on the color white. Sometimes when I look at this old place now, I think I can see dirty white chickens moving around in the yard. Hard to believe they’re not there.”
Father Feld, who had a square head, wore a puzzled look, and the Bishop was not appreciative. Great Plains, after all, was a rural diocese, and so the Bishop made a point of being for everything rural—hence the public prayers all summer long for whatever it was he was told that the farmers wanted in the way of weather.
“And I’d like to move the front porch away from that dusty road, around to this side,” Father Urban went on, “so our guests could enjoy a view of the fairways.”
“Could you see the lake then?” the Bishop asked.
“You’d catch a glimpse of it, Your Excellency, through the trees.”
The Bishop nodded.
“And, of course, we’ll have to put in toilet facilities downstairs,” Father Urban said.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said the Bishop.
“No?”
“Worried about mixed company, aren’t you, Father?”
“There’s more to it than that.” Father Urban was suddenly at a loss to define his position. To him there was something oddly disquieting about people—strangers—traipsing upstairs to the bathroom in the clubhouse. “I guess I was just thinking it would be a great improvement. That’s all. Of course, there’s no harm in the way it is now.”
“Oh, I understand that, Father, but I was just wondering if maybe you aren’t making things too easy here for everybody.”
“There’ll be some changes here next year, Your Excellency,” said Father Urban. Himself he had already given up playing for money, even though what he’d won (always from laymen well able to lose), every dollar of it, had gone toward the upkeep of the course.
“Everybody except yourself, that is,” said the Bishop.
Father Urban hadn’t realized that the Bishop could throw such a punch. It may have been a little low, too. The Bishop had made it sound as though Father Urban were advocating lay investiture. In the ensuing void, Father Urban endeavored to calm himself. Now he knew what he was up against—puritanism and black clericalism.
He hadn’t wanted to see the Bishop anywhere near the course again—not after the last time. But the Bishop had wanted to come, calling the night before to say that he’d be driving over with a young friend, and that he might want to snoop around a bit, too, after playing nine. Father Urban, alarmed, had phoned the Cathedral. “It figures,” Monsignor Renton had said. “His young friend will be Herman Feld, I imagine. They’ve been playing together over here.” According to Monsignor Renton, Father Feld would be just the man to head a seminary. “He’s been over in Europe for three or four years. Louvain. He’s fit for nothing else, now.”
If there was to be an ultimatum that day, Father Urban prayed that it would not be delivered on the golf course, for peaceful persuasion would be all but impossible there, in the heat of play. Probably the Bishop would want Wilf, as rector, to be present for anything like that, and Wilf would be in his office, where he liked to be discovered hard at work. Somewhere along the line, though, as they were beating their way around the course, Father Urban expected to be able to tell whether the ultimatum was to come.
On the first tee, waiting with the clubs, were three novices who had been instructed in the niceties of caddying for a prelate. For one thing, the Bishop would shoot first off the tee unless he insisted that low man go first—as he certainly hadn’t the last time. The other players would follow always in the same order, and thus the Bishop would be shown respect in which there would be no connotation of ineptitude on his part, or undue hoggishness. It was the Bishop’s ball, therefore, that was already teed up.
Father Urban was surprised to see that the Bishop, taking a few practice cuts, was no longer trying to kill the ball. Evidently Father Feld had been working on the Bishop’s swing, tailoring it to his manifest deficiencies as an athlete. The Bishop had invested in new clubs, but he obviously hadn’t made up his mind about dressing for the game. He was wearing black oxfords to which crepe soles had been applied, black summer-weight serge trousers, a white dress shirt with its sleeves rolled up almost to his elbows and with its collar folded down under—you didn’t see that much any more—and an old straw katy.
“Nice one,” said Father Urban. The Bishop’s drive had gone up like a balloon and had come down not more than a hundred and thirty yards out, but it had gone right down the middle—practically an episcopal pronouncement.
Father Feld went next. He was wearing army-surplus clothing and golf shoes, and he was black from the sun, like Father Urban. His body was short and bullish, and he was younger than Father Urban by twenty years. Oh, twenty-five. His clubs had been used a lot, and they were good ones. He took no practice swing, so there was no telling about him until he laid into the ball. His drive stopped rolling about two hundred and fifty yards out.
“Good enough,” said Father Urban. He teed up his ball, thinking that he’d somehow have to outplay Father Feld. He removed his stained and floppy panama and waved away some gnats that had suddenly appeared over his ball. He cautioned himself not to try to outdrive the Bishop’s young friend. Then he threw his body—medium tall and willowy except for a slight pot—into his foreswing and hit a good long ball that dropped about where he’d hoped it would and kicked, accordingly, to the left. He was short of Father Feld, but in a better position to see the green.
Neither the Bishop nor Father Feld commented on the shot.
The threesome moved off down the fairway, followed by their caddies, nobody talking, until Father Urban said, “Get any golf over there?”
“Some,” said Father Feld.
Coming to the Bishop’s ball, and seeing that the lie was only fair, Father Urban said, “Winter rules, if you like, Your Excellency. I’m not happy about these fairways yet.”
The Bishop shrugged off the suggestion, and, presumably, although he had two hundred yards ahead of him, didn’t want to use a wood, anyway. Father Feld was handing the Bishop not a two but a five iron. The Bishop hit the ball cleanly for a distance of about ninety yards and appeared t
o be well satisfied.
Father Feld went over the green on his second shot, though not into a trap. Father Urban put his second one on the green—only just, but he wanted to putt uphill. The Bishop hit another five iron and was still short. Using the same club, he was finally on. The Feld system seemed to call for the Bishop to use only a spoon, mashie, and putter. Father Urban would have been reluctant to suggest such measures to such a man, but he had to admit that the Bishop’s game had improved through simplification, unless he was playing over his head.
Father Feld ran his third shot past the cup. The Bishop moaned. Father Urban and the Bishop both missed long putts. Then Father Feld, who had left himself a twenty-footer, got lucky. “That’s more like it, Herman,” said the Bishop.
After he’d holed out, the Bishop said, “In the circumstances, I think I’d better be scorekeeper.” He was given custody of the pencil and card. “Father Urban?” he asked, after jotting down his own score.
“Four, Your Excellency.”
“And four for Herman. Well!”
It was now clear to Father Urban that this was not to be just another round of golf, that the Bishop wished to see done what he could not do himself, and that he had chosen young Father Feld to be the weapon of his will, his champion. Father Urban’s defeat was not a necessary part of the Bishop’s larger plan of conquest, but Father Urban could understand its appeal—to create an omen, as it were, and then to act in accord with it. In Father Urban’s mind, informed as it was by a good deal of solid reading, the match between him and Father Feld took on the appearance of a judicial duel. Victory for Father Urban in the field, however, would not mean victory for his cause. That was the hell of it. Father Urban had read of many ordeals by combat (in the dim past even religious men, unfortunately, had sometimes appealed to the God of Battles for justice), but he doubted that history would reveal a parallel case. He pushed on, with his driver drawn, to the second tee.
Here, if he had come upon a crone crying, “Woe! Woe!,” he would not have been more taken aback than he was to see the Reverend Doctor Percy, Hillsop Memorial Presbyterian Church, Minneapolis, who, with his wife, had been staying for some time with friends at a near-by lake. At the request of a mutual acquaintance, a benefactor in a small way, the minister and his wife had been invited out to the course by Father Urban. That was how these things happened. For two weeks now, the Percys had been coming out regularly—she, large, soft, playing with clubs out of his bag, which he pulled on a cart, and he, small but limber for his years, going over fences to retrieve their balls. Doctor Percy seemed to regard it as a test of faith to go on searching for lost balls. Father Urban had told him what he could about golf-course management, before he discovered what the minister had in mind. Doctor Percy assumed that another course, run under Christian auspices, would make the world a better place, and that Father Urban would be all for it. Father Urban had been under the impression that he’d said good-bye to Doctor Percy.
