The Stories of J.F. Powers (New York Review Books Classics) (58 page)

“Tried to get
me
to do it, but I
wouldn’t
,” said Ms Burke.

“Why
should
you?” said Aunt Edith. “You’ve got
enough
to do.”

Simpson stood up, and moved toward the door.

Mother asked, “You didn’t know about the envelopes, dear?”

“Didn’t, no.”

“
He
thought they were
laundry
!” said Ms Burke, and smilingly explained how Simpson had made that mistake. “That’s how much
he
knew!”

Simpson—who had been suspicious of the brown canvas suitcase from the start and had since seen it too often in transit for it to be going to and from the bank—shut the door, and while this did not have the desired effect, there is some justice in the world and Aunt Edith, overstimulated, spilled her coffee.

Simpson smilingly scrubbed it into the carpet with his feet, making nothing of it, the good host.

Ms Burke, concerned about a few drops on Aunt Edith’s dress, scurried off to her room for her spot remover.

The visitors went down the hallway to the bathroom for plain cold water.

When Ms Burke returned from her room, which was adjacent to Simpson’s but accessible only by the stairway off the kitchen, she was panting and, not seeing the visitors, gasped: “Gone!”

“No, no,” said Simpson.

They regrouped in his room, and after some talk of stains (what it came down to was, no stain should be allowed to
set
, which Simpson planned to use as an argument for frequent confession), the entire company—Ms Burke saying, “Pooh, I’ll clean up in here later”—moved out, and went down the hallway three abreast, one behind, that one thinking, Some other time, as he passed the door of the room at the head of the stairs. But when he opened the front door to let the visitors out, there, about to use his key, was the pastor.

“Uh,” he said.

“Uh,” said Simpson, and made the introductions.

The visitors were happy to see the pastor, and so was Simpson—to see him there, to think he’d been out, probably at the hospital (one of his few outside interests), while Ms Burke was assassinating his character with the door open. The pastor was doing as well as could be expected, responding with little nods, and noises like “Umm,” to the compliments on his church, rectory, housekeeper, until—suddenly, if you didn’t know the man—he made for the stairs.

“Oh,
good-bye
!” cried Aunt Edith.

“Why,
yes
,” said Mother.

The pastor, on the stairs, stopped and turned. “’M takin’ a trip next week.”

This was news to Simpson.

“Oh,
where
?” said Aunt Edith.

“Winnipeg.”

“Oh,
why
?” said Aunt Edith.

“Catholic Wildlife Conference.”

“Oh,” said Aunt Edith.

“While you’re away,” said Mother, “will . . . will
Father
, here, be in charge?”

The pastor, before turning and continuing up the stairs, nodded, just perceptibly.

Simpson was glad to see his authority confirmed, but wished the signal had been a little stronger, for the sake of the visitors, who then left.

Ms Burke said, “Think they’ll come again?”

“It’s possible,” said Simpson.

“When?”

“Oh, I couldn’t say when.”

“Soon?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say soon.”

“You ask ’em this time?”

“Why, yes, of course.”

“Ask ’em again.”

“Uh. See about it.”

The next evening, while brushing his teeth, Simpson noticed that there had been a blessed event among the towels in the bathroom, twins, two little pink ones.

“Father,” said Simpson, coming to dessert, and remembering how he’d phrased the question before (“Father, how long will you be gone?”) rephrased it, “will you be gone long?”

“Not long,” said the pastor, as before.

“Father,” said Simpson when he’d eaten his peaches, “while you’re away, if I have to go out at night—hospital or something—and the church is locked, I can knock or ring, I know, but I’d hate to disturb Ms Burke, if you know what I mean, Father?”

The pastor nodded, as if he did know, but bowed his head in silent grace.

So did Simpson then, and, when they rose from the table, did not forget the pamphlet by his plate. “So I should knock or ring, Father?”

“Ring,” said the pastor.

A little later that evening, after the pastor and John departed for the airport, John to drive the car back, Simpson stepped out to do some shopping. When he returned, the front door, which he’d left unlocked, was locked (Ms Burke), and so, rather than ring, he went through the church. He was carrying a brown paper bag and a six-pack of beer for which he’d spurned a bag because his generation, he understood from the media, was perhaps most admired for its lack of hypocrisy. He reached his room (unseen by Ms Burke, he believed), opened the potato chips, some of which he shook into a dish after first removing the paper clips and dusting it with his elbow, and then opened the cheese dip, this marked down but still not cheap, probably because it came in an attractive wooden bowl suitable for entertaining. Simpson was entertaining two of his classmates, Potter and Schmidt, that evening. He had brought up his rubber-tire ashtray earlier.

When Schmidt arrived with a surprise guest, a Father Philippe, an older man who belonged to a small order recently expelled from one of the developing countries, Simpson hoped to hear something of the Foreign Missions (little discussed these days), but Father Philippe’s English was poor, and Potter made the usual remarks about Rice Christians and Spiritual Colonialism, and dominated the conversation.

So Simpson heard more about the developments taking place in the Church, notably in Holland, which he’d heard so much about from Potter and other activists in the seminary, and then more about the developments taking place at Holy Sepulchre, Potter’s parish, “exciting” being Potter’s word for these developments, “depressing” being Simpson’s.

“Look, Simp,” Potter said, “we have to do all we can to extend our outreach—to use a term widely used in the Protestant churches.” Women were now allowed to take up the collection at Holy Sepulchre, and strobe lights had been ordered for the sanctuary (“We have to think of the kids”), and Potter and his pastor, who was under Potter’s influence, were hoping to get Holy Sepulchre changed to Holy Resting Place as less off-putting to the churchless. Potter and his pastor were also hoping that it would soon be possible for people to fulfill their obligation to attend Sunday Mass not only, as now, on Saturday but also on Friday or
Thursday
, a better day, since so many people took off for the lake, or started drinking, right after work on Friday. Potter and his pastor were making an effort to keep the confessional doors—the doors to the priest’s compartment—open when the confessionals were not in use, to show the people, to bring home to them the idea, that God (“Jahweh” to Potter) was not within but on the altar.

“Wow,” said Schmidt, who was under Potter’s influence.

“No, no,” said Simpson. He assured Father Philippe that keeping the confessional doors open was not a local custom, nor was it a growing one, as Potter would have allowed a stranger to believe (all in the day’s work for the enthusiast), and for this Simpson was frowned on by his classmates.

Potter produced a copy of the Holy Sepulchre parish bulletin, the entire contents being just one word spread over four pages, a letter to a page, LOVE.

“Wow,” said Schmidt.

“To think we’ve come to this,” said Simpson, shaking his head, but, thinking the “we” might be resented by his classmates, cradle Catholics, he said to Father Philippe, “I’m a convert, Father.”

“Simp, you should do something about your triumphalism,” said Schmidt.

“Simp and Lefty,” said Potter, and likened Simpson to Father Beeman:
he
had called the LOVE issue a waste of recycled paper but a step in the right direction (
he
wanted no bulletin at all), and
he
was almost certainly the one who kept shutting the confessional doors. “A real cross, that guy, and I’m afraid he knows your pastor’s away.”

“So?” said Simpson.

“He said he might drop by tonight.”

“Oh?” said Simpson—he’d been worried enough before, about the beer running out.

“He might not come,” said Schmidt, but he was a Teilhardian optimist.

Father Beeman came, appeared at Simpson’s door with John, who was carrying a bag of ice cubes, and was himself carrying a brown paper bag that obviously concealed a bottle. “Surprise,” he said.

“No, you’re expected, Father. In fact, I was just going out for beer.”

“Beer?” said Father Beeman. “Missionary?” he said, when introduced to Father Philippe. “Why aren’t you in Holland?” He held up a hand for silence, cupped an ear to hear what Potter, who was ignoring him, was saying to Schmidt, commented “I got your old outreach,” and handed Simpson the bottle.

Simpson had to go down to the kitchen for glasses (he had invited John to stay), and while down there heard the light in the back stairway snap on from above (Ms Burke), but he did not have to go out for beer. No, as Simpson saw it, those so inclined could simply switch to the bottle when the beer was gone.

And that was what happened, the evening then turning into more of a party, without, however, coalescing—there were still two conversations.

Simpson was in the one with Father Philippe, John, and Father Beeman, who controlled it, not by doing all the talking as Potter had done earlier, but by changing the subject frequently, giving others a chance to be heard briefly. Father Beeman also kept a tap on the other conversation, and occasionally issued a
monitum
(“It’s always been a hotbed of heresy, Holland”) or posed a question (“What’s so relevant about saying Mass in a barn in Belgium?”). Father Beeman also served as bartender to the entire room, a good thing, since Simpson wouldn’t have known how much to put in. Father Beeman and his bottle added a lot to the evening, and made it go as it hadn’t before. He appeared to be interested in Simpson.

Yes, for when Potter moved down to the floor, into the lotus position, and, at his request, Simpson, who had been sitting on the bed, moved into the vacant chair, which put him with Schmidt in easy range of Potter’s voice, he found that he was still regarded as one of Father Beeman’s claque (by Father Beeman), and had to attend to two monologues that seemed to be on a collision course.

Father Beeman said, “I don’t blame the young clergy for what’s happened to the Church, even the screwballs and phonies.”

Potter said, “Just because the Protestants do it, is
that
what’s wrong with hymn-singing? Next to a married clergy, I’d say
that’s
what we need most.”

Father Beeman said, “I blame the older men, pastors like the one where I am now—no hair on his head, just sideburns, and those industrial glasses that make
any
man look like an insect.”

Potter, wearing such glasses, said, with some difficulty, gulping, “You’re the one . . . Lefty . . . shuts those doors.” And stood up, with some difficulty.

Father Beeman, looking belligerent and (Simpson thought) guilty, said, “
What
doors?” And stood up.

“Uh,” said Simpson, and was wondering what he, as host, should do, and was also recalling what a visiting speaker at the seminary had said, that the greater incidence of fist fights between members of the clergy since Vatican II was yet another sign of the times, and perhaps of the end, when . . .

Father Philippe stood up, and, going over to the wall and standing with his back to everybody, began to disrobe . . . collar, coat, dickey . . . then turned, and displaying his T-shirt, the blue and gold seal of a university thereon, cried, “
Voilà! Souvenir de Notre-Dame!
”

Ms Burke could be heard pounding on the wall!

“She
still
do that?” roared Father Beeman, and went to the wall and pounded back.

“Uh,” said Simpson.

Ms Burke could be heard again.

“
Listen
to her!” whispered Father Beeman, but did not pound back. “Don’t let her push you around, Simpson. See that man there?” (Yes, Simpson saw John.) “She
runs
that man.
And
the pastor. But she didn’t run
me
. So don’t let her run
you
, Simpson. Be like me.”

Simpson sort of nodded.

When Potter, who had left the room when the pounding began, returned, he looked pale and said, “I think it was that cheese dip, Simp.”

“Nothing wrong with that cheese dip,” said Father Beeman.

Simpson saw Potter, Schmidt, and Father Philippe down to the front door, and returned to his room, wondering why Father Beeman and John were staying, and, again, why they had come.

The answers to those questions were not immediately forthcoming, and Simpson soon forgot those questions, for he heard some very interesting things from Father Beeman and (until he fell asleep) John.
That
the insurance company the pastor addressed envelopes for was Catholic owned and oriented, which Simpson was glad to hear, though he still felt uneasy about such employment for a parish priest and could only accept, in principle, Father Beeman’s argument that the pastor was a priest-worker.
That
John had another job, as a night watchman in a warehouse (“Security,” he said), which in a rash moment he’d boasted of to Ms Burke, and now lived in fear that she’d inform the pastor, Father Beeman doubting this (“Suits her better this way”).
That
Ms Burke, who received a prewar salary like John, never cashed her checks, and this, quite apart from its salutary effect on the pastor, Simpson considered a meritorious practice, even after Father Beeman discounted it (“Hell, she owns a four-hundred-acre farm”).
That
Father Beeman believed the pastor’s fine sermons to be the product of reading rather than living, to be thought out, perhaps even written out, before delivery, which struck Simpson as a very Roman view of preaching.
That
the pastor had been active in the so-called streetcar apostolate, this terminated when buses replaced streetcars, buses not having any windowsills to speak of, or the kind of seats on which literature could safely be left—which started Simpson thinking . . .