The Stories of J.F. Powers (New York Review Books Classics) (63 page)

When Joe got back from the guest room, he found that the juice, which he had yet to thicken with 1/2 tsp. of arrowroot dissolved in a little cold water, had already thickened, having been kept at, rather than brought to, a boil. Until then, he had hoped to serve cherries jubilee for dessert and to do the job himself, so Mrs P. wouldn’t have to be present, but now he didn’t know. The juice had definitely lost its liquidity, was hardening or charring at the edges of the top pan, or blazer. To go ahead now, with or without the arrowroot, might be a mistake. So, playing it safe, he blew out the flame, dished up the cherries as they were, room temperature and rather dry without their juice, and served them swiftly, with spoons. He said nothing, and nothing was said.

The conversation died when Joe sat down with his dish and spoon. He had tuned in earlier, though, while serving, and was curious to know why Hennessy thought that Conklin shouldn’t go on teaching at the Institute. “If he’s reasonably competent, and if Beans wants him back—well, why not?” said Joe, feeling broad-minded. (Hennessy, too, had that effect on him.) No response. “O.K. I’ll put it another way. What if he shaved off his mustache?”

Potter and Bill shuffled their feet and protested, but Joe ignored them. “Why not?” he asked, speaking directly to Conklin.

“You talkin’ about the mustache or the Institute?”

“Both.”

Potter and Bill protested again.

“It’s a fair question,” said Conklin. “About the Institute. You better tell him, Bill.”

Joe looked at Bill. “Well?”

“Conk’s lost his faith,” Bill said.

“That so?” said Joe. He was sorry to hear it, of course, and felt that more was expected of him, but he also felt that condolences weren’t in order, since some people regarded the loss of their faith as a step forward, and since he didn’t want to sound like he was rolling in the stuff himself. He now saw why Conklin had been invited, saw why so much was being made of him by Potter and Bill, saw what was really going on. It was an old-fashioned spiritual snipe hunt, such as they’d all read about, with Potter and Bill, if not Hennessy, happy to be participating, and also, it seemed, the snipe. That was the odd part.

“Conk just doesn’t take God for granted—unlike some of us in the Church,” Potter said, apparently to Joe. “That’s been our trouble all along. Atheism and faith—true faith—have that in common. They don’t take God for granted.”

Joe looked cross-eyed at Hennessy.

“But Conk’s not an atheist,” Bill said to Joe. “Are you, Conk?”

Conklin smiled. “No, but I’m working on it.”

Joe wanted to hit him.

“That’s what I like about Conk,” Potter said, grimly. “He’s honest.”

Bill nodded, grimly.

Joe sniffed. “What I don’t get,” he said to Conklin, “is why you want to go on teaching at the Institute if you’ve lost your faith. Just want to keep your hand in, or what?”

“Don’t blame
Conk
,” Potter said

“
Conk
wants to quit,” Bill said.

“He should,” Joe said, and gave him an encouraging nod.

“
No!
” cried Potter, and stood up. “What matters in teaching is a man’s competence, not his private beliefs, or lack of same. And that applies to things like Scripture and theology, if they’re teachable, and
I
say they are. By agnostics, infidels, and apostates, you say?
Yes!
I say. And, thank God, some of our better institutions agree!” Potter sat down.

Bill stood up. “But how many of our
seminaries
, Pot? How can we go on calling theology the Queen of Sciences?” Bill sat down.

“How about Beans?” said Joe, without getting up. Joe was pretty sure that Beans didn’t need Conklin, was just doing an ex-seminarian a favor, letting him keep his hand in, and maybe hoping for a delayed vocation. “
He
know about this? No? Better tell him, then, so he can find somebody else, if necessary.”

Potter and Bill both stood up, both preaching, and Potter, of course, prevailed, but he was repeating himself.

“Look,” said Joe. “The Institute isn’t one of our better institutions.” Even as an adventure in adult education, which was all it claimed to be, it probably didn’t rate too high. “And it wouldn’t be one of our better institutions if you guys pulled this off.”

“It’d be a start,” said Potter, sitting down.

“It’d be a stunt,” said Joe, getting up. Going to the door, he took the tray from Mrs P., but on his return, with his mind on the trouble there could be over Conklin at the Institute—factions, resolutions, resignations, and so on—he overran the coffee table, jarring it and cracking his shin. In some pain, he backed up and put down the tray, saying, “I worry about you guys.” Pouring and handing around coffee, sloshing it, he spoke to them as he sometimes did to Bill alone, late at night.

HOME TRUTHS

He said that he, at their age, had dearly wanted to be a saint, had trained for it—plenty of prayer and fasting, no smoking, no booze (“Actually, I didn’t drink anything but beer then”), and had worn a hair shirt for a short period. At their age,
he
had worked out on himself, not on other people, and that was the difference between the men of his generation and theirs. One of the differences. “You guys even
want
to be saints? I doubt it. You’re too busy with your public relations.”

CHANGING STANDARDS

There might be worlds to be won, souls to be harvested, and so on, but not with stunts and gimmicks. He had been rather pessimistic about the various attempts to improve the Church’s image, and he had been right. Vocations, conversions, communions, confessions, contributions, general attendance, all down. And why not? “We used to stand out in the crowd. We had quality control. We were the higher-priced spread. No more. Now if somebody drops the ball somebody else throws it into the stands, and that’s how we clear the bases. Tell the man in the next parish that you fornicated a hundred and thirty-six times since your last confession, which was one month ago, and he says, ‘Did you think ill of your fellow-man?’ It’s a crazy world.”

STRANDED

There had always been a shortage of goodness in the world, and evil and ignorance were still facts of life, but where was the old intelligence? He had begun to wonder, as he never had before, about the doctrine of free will. People, he feared, might not be able to exercise free will anymore, owing to the decline in human intelligence. How else explain the state of the country, and the world, today? “We don’t, maybe we
can’t
, make the right moves—like those poor whales you read about. We’re stranded.”

HUMAN NATURE

The Church was irrelevant today, not concerned enough with the everyday problems of war, poverty, segregation, and so on, people said, but such talk was itself irrelevant, was really a criticism of human nature. Sell what you have and follow me, Our Lord had told the rich young man—who had then gone away sad. That was human nature for you, and it hadn’t changed. Let him take it who can, Our Lord had said of celibacy—and few could take it, then or now. “And that applies to heroic sacrifice of all kinds. Let’s face it.”

BRUEGEL THE ELDER

People, most people, lay
and
clerical, just weren’t up to much. Liturgists, of course, were trying to capitalize on that fact, introducing new forms of worship, reviving old ones, and so on, but an easy way would never be found to make gold out of lead. Otherwise the saints and martyrs would have lived as they had, and died, in vain. All this talk of community, communicating, and so on—it was just whistling in the dark. “Life’s not a cookout by Bruegel the Elder and people know it.”

TOO FAR?

Sure it was a time of crisis, upheaval, and so on, but a man could still do his job. The greatest job in the world, divinely instituted and so on, was that of the priest, and yet it was still a job—a marrying, burying, sacrificing job, plus whatever good could be done on the side. It was
not
a crusade. Turn it into one, as some guys were trying to do, and you asked too much of it, of yourself, and of ordinary people, invited nervous breakdowns all around. Trying to do too much was something the Church had always avoided, at least until recently. At the Council, the so-called conservatives—a persecuted minority group if ever there was one—had only been afraid of going too far too soon, of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. “And rightly so.”

FLYING SAUCERS

The Church couldn’t respond to all the demands of the moment or she’d go the way of those numerous sects that owed their brief existence to such demands. People had to realize that what they wanted might not be what they needed, and if they couldn’t—well, they couldn’t. Religion was a weak force today, owing to the decline of human intelligence. It was now easy to see how the Church, though she’d endure to the end, as promised by Our Lord, would become a mere remnant of herself. In the meantime, though, the priest had to get on with his job,
such as it was
. As for feeling thwarted and useless, he knew that feeling, but he also knew what it meant. It meant that he was in touch with reality, and that was something these days. Frequently reported, of course, like flying saucers, were parishes where priests and people were doing great things together. “But I’ve never seen one myself, if it’s any consolation to you guys,” Joe said, and paused.

Did the impressive silence mean that they were now seeing themselves and their situations in a new light, in the clear north light of reality? Bill,
finally
? Potter? Even Conklin? Joe hoped so, in all cases. On the whole, he was satisfied with the response. The bathwater bit hadn’t gone down very well (groans from Potter, “Oh,
no
!” from Conklin), and there had been other interruptions, but Joe had kept going, had boxed on, opening cuts, closing eyes, and everybody, including Conklin, looked better to him now.

He wanted Hennessy and Potter to come out again, and not just to visit Bill, and not just to discuss their problems with him (Joe), though that would be all right. He wanted them to come out whenever they felt like it, whenever they needed a lift, a little priestly fellowship. Actually, there might be more for them with him, and more for him with them, than with Bill—who, to tell the truth, wasn’t much fun. It could happen, first Hennessy and Potter coming, then coming with others, and these in turn with others. There would be nights, perhaps, when Bill wouldn’t leave his room. “Where’s Bill?” “Oh, he’s listening to FM.” Joe’s rectory could become a hangout for the younger clergy, a place where they’d always be sure of a drink, a cigar, and if he put a table in the living room, never used now, a cue. Pastors at first critical (“Stay the hell away from there!”) would sing his praises (“He sure straightened out that kid of mine”). Time marching on, Hennessy seldom seen, a bishop somewhere, first of the old crowd to make it, but the others still around, pastors now with curates of their own—tired, wiser men, the age gap narrowing between them and their old mentor, not so old, really, and in excellent health, eating and drinking less. A few missing, yes, the others, though, still coming out to Joe’s—in a crazy world, an asylum of sanity—for priestly fellowship, among them, perhaps, Father Conklin, old Conk, a pretty lonely guy for a while there, until he started coming out, shaved off his mustache, found his lost faith, the road back, second spring, and so on.

“So what’s the answer?” said Potter. “Watch the Twins?”

“Those bores,” said Conklin.

Hennessy reproved them with a look, and spoke with his future authority. “What’s the answer, Father?”

Eying Father Otto’s glass on the coffee table, Joe said, “A few monks saved civilization once. Could be the answer again. Principle’s sound. You’d have to work out the details. Wouldn’t have to be monks. Could happen right here.” Joe reached for Father Otto’s glass, the last of the wine, and swirled it clockwise, counterclockwise, clockwise, denying himself before downing it. “Wanna see how Father is,” he said then. “Be right back.” At the door, as he was about to leave them, he turned and said, “How can we make sanctity as attractive as sex? Answer I got was ‘Just have to keep trying.’ Not much of an answer. Nobody remembers it—just the question. Guess it’s the answer to all these questions. Be right back.”

Father Otto’s eyes opened when Joe approached the bed. “Get you anything, Father?” Joe asked.

“All right.”

“Aspirin?”

“All right.”

Joe administered aspirin and water to Father Otto, flipped his pillow, eased him down. “Want your shoes off?”

“Is the party over?”

“Not yet.”

“Then why is everybody leaving?” said Father Otto, his eyes closing.

“Not yet,” Joe said patiently, but when he returned to the study he saw that he was wrong.

Hennessy—he was the only one there—said, “How is he?”

“All right,” Joe said.

Led by voices to a window on the street side, gazing down, he saw Bill, Potter, and Conklin talking to a young woman—older than they were, though—in a convertible.

“Conklin had to leave,” Hennessy said.

Joe came away from the window. “So I see.”

“Want to thank you, Father.”

“It was Bill’s party.”

“All the same.” Hennessy seemed to know what it was like to be a pastor. “Oh, and I should thank the housekeeper.”

“Good idea.” Joe saw Hennessy, who’d go far, off to the kitchen, and returned to the window. Below, the young woman moved over on the seat and the mustache took the wheel. Potter and Bill then fell all over themselves saying good-bye, making it look hard to do. And the convertible drove away. Then, to Joe’s surprise—he had meant to say something about coming out again, soon—Hennessy appeared below, having, it seemed, left the rectory by the back door. Without a word or sign to Potter and Bill, who stood together, Hennessy got into the driver’s seat of the black sedan at the curb. Potter and Bill then parted, rather solemnly, Joe thought, and Potter got into the
back
seat of the black sedan. It drove away. And a few moments later Bill entered the study.