by J.F. Powers
He was what St Augustine (who’d asked God to make him chaste but not yet) had been before he straightened out—a vicious youth.
One night Joe promised God that if the uncensored poses came the next day he’d burn them sight unseen and go to confession (to the Italian church downtown), but they hadn’t come, fortunately.
So, early in August, in thought, word, and deed, Joe was still sinning away.
On the evenings he drove out to the ball park (the sign on the left-field fence now said HACKETT’S QUALITY COAL, nothing about hot stuff, or win a ton—Uncle Bobby was selling real estate in California), he sat alone in the family box and appeared to take a lively interest in the flight of foul balls over the grandstand, but was really looking up skirts.
Late at night, wearing only his pajama bottoms because of the heat, he lay in the dark, listening to his radio, to dance music emanating from Frank Dailey’s Meadowbrook, from the beautiful Glen Island Casino, the Aragon, the Trianon (“Lee Bennett steps forward to ask the musical question ‘Who?’”), the Cotton Club (“Duke Ellington and his famous orchestra continue the program with a number captioned ‘Caravan’”), but when the lights went on across the way, in Dora’s living quarters over the garage, he got up to use Mama’s opera glasses.
In the afternoon, leaning on the stone wall, he was still the friendly young neighbor with an erection, now waiting, however, for a chance to speak to one of the sunbathers alone, a chance that finally came.
“Dora.”
“Whut?”
“You know what you said.”
“Whut?”
“‘Anytime,’ you said.”
Silence.
“Dora.”
“Whut?”
“You know.”
Silence.
“Dora.”
“Cost ya, kid.”
“O.K.”
“Ten dollars.”
“O.K.”
“I mean twenty.”
“O.K.”
Silence.
“Dora.”
“Whut?”
“When?”
Silence.
“Tonight, Dora?”
“I don’t get off till nine-thirty.”
“That’s not late.”
“I might be real late if somebody gives me a ride.”
“I’ll give you a ride. I’ll pick you up in the Reo.”
“No, the big one.”
“O.K., the Pierce. Orpheum?”
“Palace.”
Blasé but sweating in a white linen suit, parked—no parking—in front of the Palace with the motor running, he sat smoking, the big vertical sign going off then, the street a shade darker then, and she came clicking out of the air-cooled lobby in her black high-heel pumps and would have opened the back door if he hadn’t reached over and opened the front one. She got in beside him, saying “Hot,” and he pulled away from the curb, smelling her perfume and thinking they weren’t a couple of kids off to a sock hop in a gym, they were a vicious youth and a hot babe off to an assignation (French), but the problem was the same—what to say?
“Have to turn off the sign when you leave?”
“I don’t have to do nothin’.” She was feeling around in her handbag. “Gimme one of them things.”
He produced his English Ovals, pushed in the dashboard lighter, pulled it out, but not too soon, and held it away from her mouth, making her come for it—all while driving in traffic. Randy couldn’t have done better.
“Phew! You like these lopsided stinkers?”
Not what Diane would say, he thought, and was silent.
Cheerfully: “Know why I like this boat, kid?”
“No.”
“Looks like a hearse.” She laughed at the idea.
“Uh-huh.”
“Smells like one too.”
“Uh-huh.” He produced his (really Mama’s) little silver flask. “Scotch, babe?”
She turned on him. “You crazy kid! You shouldn’t drink when you drive! You shouldn’t drink! You wanna get us both arrested?” She was panting, arousing him.
He took a nip from the flask and put it away.
“And don’t call me babe,” she said.
“Don’t call me kid,” he said.
“Call you what I like.”
“Call you what I like.”
She shut up then, so he did, and they rode in silence. He’d meant to stop at the drugstore, but stopped instead at the station, which he wouldn’t have done if he hadn’t seen Dale out in front, hosing down the pavement. “Carton o’ Luckies,” Joe called to him—knew her brand from his afternoons in the sun with her and Frances, from being so observant then—and Dale hurried into the station.
“I got some in my apartment.”
“Get you some more.”
When Dale came out of the station, Rock did too, and while Dale collected for the carton and cleaned the windshield, especially the passenger’s side, and talked about the weather, failing, though, to bring the passenger into it, Rock did the pavement, holding the hose between his legs, about a foot from the nozzle, all the time looking over at the car solemnly, which was embarrassing. When Joe drove away, he could—fortunately, she couldn’t—see the attendants standing together in the rearview mirror, Rock laughing, Dale shaking his head.
“Them jerks know you?”
“They know the car.”
He drove down the alley so she’d be on the right side to go into her place when she got out of the car, and then he reached across and opened the door, his arm resting for a moment on her legs above the knees but not much.
“Thanks for the ride and ceegrettes, Joe.” Joe, not kid.
Yes, but he was afraid she was saying good night to him, had changed her mind about doing business with him, and the laugh was going to be on him—there wouldn’t be anything, as there might have been, to keep her from telling Frances what had happened that night.
“Gimme a few minutes ’fore ya come up, Joe.”
“O.K.” Blasé.
He put the car in the garage, went into the house, washed his hands and face, his armpits and crotch (into which he shook talcum powder), combed his hair, urinated, and retired to his room to top up his flask from a bottle of White Horse on loan from the pantry, then returned to the garage, to the car for—it was on the floor in back—the bouquet of roses.
The door at the top of the stairs was wide open—on account of the heat or him?—and he could hear the shower running, but he politely knocked—no response—before entering. Her apartment (what she called it) was just one big room with kitchen facilities and a bathroom, the door of which was wide open—on account of the heat or him or both? A small oscillating fan was playing on the opened-out couch, her bed, a pillow and sheet on it. He didn’t want to sit there, naturally, or in the overstuffed chair, on account of the heat, and chose a straight-back chair from which he could see straight into the bath-room. It then occurred to him, sitting there with the bouquet wrapped in green wax paper, how he might look to her—like an old-fashioned beau, Harold Lloyd or somebody, in the movies—and so he put the bouquet on the floor. Then he got up to draw the shade of the window into which it was possible for a Peeping Tom to see, but not very well, from the house across the way. He returned to the straight-back chair, took a nip from his flask, and was reaching for his cigarettes, but forgot all about them when she stepped out of the shower wearing, it seemed, because of her tan, a white bathing suit.
“Oh, hi,” she said.
He nodded. Blasé.
She held up a towel. “Do my back.”
He went, not hurrying, into the bathroom and did her back—she was softer than he would have thought. Down below, where he wanted to do her, but did not, she was whiter, bigger than he would have thought, and was probably softer.
“Do my bottom too.”
So he did, and she was.
“Do it good.” She spread her legs and reached around to feel him down below. “My.”
He—it
was strange—enjoyed his embarrassment and reached around to cup one of her creamy cherry-tipped orbs.
“You nasty man!” She snatched the towel away from him and held it crushed to her body, above the waist, and spoke to him, but down below. “Should be ashamed of ya’self! Go stand in the corner!”
He knew she was kidding, but he left the bathroom, blasé, stiffly though, somewhat hobbled by his erection, and stiffly stooped down for the bouquet, in it a little envelope—this was something he’d worried about and wanted to get over with.
She came bouncing and jiggling out of the bathroom in her black pumps only. “For me! Oh, hon, ya shouldn’a!”
“It’s in the envelope.”
“Whut?”
“You know.”
After she counted it—he’d made it thirty—and she gave him a hug, a loose quick one because she had the bouquet in one hand and the envelope in the other, she stood back and stared at him down below. “My, my.”
Enjoying his embarrassment, but blasé, he offered her his flask. “Drink?”
“Now?”
“Not now?”
“Later, hon.”
He had one anyway.
“You’re bad as Rex. I gotta put these in water.” She went bouncing and jiggling over to the sink with the roses. “Take off your clothes, hon.”
This was something else he’d worried about and wanted to get over with and was why, because there was something funny about a man in underwear, he wasn’t wearing any. There was something funny too about an otherwise naked man in shoes and socks but he kept his on, not liking the look of the floor.
“My.” She had put the roses in a papier-mâché vase such as undertakers use and had set it on the end table by the couch. At the other end of the couch, the open end, she spread a towel. “Bring any safeties?”
“Oh, yeah.” He hadn’t forgotten them, he just hadn’t known exactly when he’d need one, and went over to the straight-back chair, to his coat. She helped him on with one, kneeling down to do it. “My.” She stood up and bumped her bottom into him.
“I better shut the door,” he said.
“No. That’s part of it.”
“How d’ya mean, Dora?”
She laughed at him. “Oh, nobody’ll come—’cept you, I bet.” And plopping down on the couch where the towel was, she raised and cocked her legs back so he could see her bottom very well, also the soles and heels of her pumps, and then, using both hands, her fingers pressing down and fanned out, she parted the hair at her crotch and the lips there. “See?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Move the light closer.”
He moved the floor lamp closer.
“See more now?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What ya see?”
“You know.”
“Like it?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Like it a lot?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Kiss it.”
He hesitated.
She laughed at him. “You don’t have to.” She put her legs down and cupped one of her creamy cherry-tipped orbs.
“Kiss it.”
He did.
“Suck it.”
He did.
“Now this one.”
He did.
“Double feature, huh?”
He raised his head—“Uh-huh”—and put it down.
“Betcha’d like another girl.”
He shook his head, not raising it.
“You’re sweet. I mean another girl and me.”
Silence.
“Two at one go, I mean.”
Silence.
“Wouldja?”
He nodded, not raising his head.
“Cost ya.”
He nodded, nuzzling.
“See whut I can do. That’s enougha that. Put it in.”
He and she did.
Silence.
“Grunt,” she said.
He did.
“Growl,” she said.
He did.
Silence.
“Dora, I don’t know how long . . .”
“That’s all right, hon. You’ll last longer next time.”
“Tonight?”
“Sure. Go ahead.”
“O.K.” O.K.!
“Not yet!”
He looked where she was looking, behind him, and seeing her—she’d been hiding behind the curtains in the closet thing and was naked except for brassiere and pumps—he panicked and pulled out of Dora and out of the condom too!
“Oh, shit!” Dora said, fishing for it.
Frances laughed at her and said to him, “Do me.”
He’d done her a little later, with Dora watching, and then, a little later, Dora again, but from behind, with Frances watching, and then, a little later, Frances from behind, but standing up, with Dora watching and making coffee. Before he left that night, remembering “Cost ya,” he asked, “What’s the damage?” And Frances said, “We’ll send you a bill at the end of the month.” A joke? No, and of course it was all Frances’s idea, he had received a bill at the end of August, in the mail, an itemized bill for services rendered, for Frances’s on the first night, for hers and Dora’s on the following nights. During that three-week period, at the start of it, he’d dropped in at the station only once in the evening, briefly, for condoms—a gross. To meet his expenses, he’d had to resign from the Christmas Club at the First National and dip—no, dig—into his regular account. The night he paid up (before Frances arrived), Dora, who was sitting on his lap, said, “I hate to set ya back so much, but it wouldn’t be fair to charge less for her.” “My pleasure, and I expect to pay for it. I enjoy doing business with you both,” said the tipsy, vicious youth with the wisdom of Solomon, improving on it by copping a feel. He was getting all he’d bargained for and more from both babes, as they were from him—they called him “Arm and Hammer.” There wasn’t anything the three of them could think of doing they hadn’t done, though at first he’d hesitated, but only at first, and now he really was blasé.
Then it all ended.
“Like a runny nose, that’s right, Dick, only it’s his penis,” said Father Zahn and, putting his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone, asked Joe, “How long?” “How d’ya mean, Father?” “How long’s it been acting up?” “What? Oh. About a week.” Father Zahn repeated this over the phone. “Well, what’s the usual, Dick? I see. So football’s out. Can’t say I’m sorry, but On Wisconski will be. He’s been after the boy, which is why the boy had the nerve to come and see me. I’ll tell On something—pernicious anemia, maybe—anything but the truth. You know how he is. He had to get rid of another pup. ‘They’re never the same, once they get a taste of it.’ I wouldn’t exactly know. But the boy should definitely be fit in the spring? Good. Dash man—my best. Afraid so.” Father Zahn put his hand over the mouthpiece. “He asked if it was you, Joe. He’ll treat you right and this’ll all be strictly confidential.” Father Zahn repeated that part over the phone. “His folks mustn’t know, Dick. No, no, I understand the other party’s being seen to—parties, actually. No, he won’t give you their names, Dick—would you? Thanks, Dick. I know you will. And send me the bill. He’ll be right over.” Father Zahn hung up. “Well, you heard that, Joe. Dr Leonard’s expecting you. Physicians and Accountants Building. Better run. Oh, by the way, how long since your last confession?”
“Madre di Dio! You married man?” “No, Father.” “You work —got job?” “No, Father.” “What you do?” “Nothing, Father.” “You student?” “Yes, Father.” “How old you?” “Fifteen, Father.” “Madre di Dio! You sick?” “No, Father.” “In a good health?” “Yes, Father.” “For a your penance you pray rosary every day till next confession.” “Yes, Father.” “That a not all. You run mile morning, mile night. Make good act contrition. God bless.”
4. AT THE SEM
JOE KNEW FROM his reading that some of the best saints had worn hair shirts. Catherine of Siena. Bernard of Clairvaux. And that Thomas à
Becket, when murdered in the cathedral, had been wearing one that was crawling with vermin. (That, though, was pushing the penitential idea too far, Joe thought.) He had heard that hair shirts were still being worn, even in this country, by the tough contemplative orders—the Carthusians, the Trappists. But he had never seen one until he and a few of his fellow seminarians were invited to “take tea or beer” in the Rector’s study one evening, it being the policy of the Rector, a stylish gray man, new at the job, to have everybody in at least once during the academic year.
The hair shirt—actually, this one was sleeveless, not a shirt but a vest of a coarse black-and-brown fabric that Joe later learned was goat’s hair, woven like chain mail or a Brillo pad—was on a coat hanger hooked to an arm of the floor lamp by the Rector’s chair, and not a pleasant sight. It was there to be asked about, Joe thought, and for that reason he wouldn’t ask about it. But Cooney, his best friend, did.
“My cilicium—my hair shirt,” said the Rector. “Back from the cleaner’s.” Seeing that Hrdlicka (a simple soul) believed him, the Rector said to Joe, “No, I’m afraid an old friend sent it to me as a joke”—as if Joe (pretty sophisticated), and not Hrdlicka, needed help, and for this Joe had to admire the Rector.
The next time Joe saw the hair shirt, three months later, he didn’t see it as a joke at all. Joe in those months, during and after the annual retreat—six days when the seminarians, lectured by an outside expert in the field, considered the state of their souls—had taken a big step up, spiritually. Oh, he still had a long way to go, but could now look back and down, like a man climbing a mountain, and see where he’d been. He could see himself as he’d been when he entered the seminary, down there in the foothills of sentimentality, sound asleep and dreaming that he would someday do great things for God, the Church, and his parishioners, and would thus, incidentally, make the world a better place. He could see himself as he’d been later on, on the lower slopes of reality, waking up and fearing that he too would poop out when put to the test, as others had, to judge by what was happening and not happening in parishes he knew about, to say nothing of the world. And now he’d changed again—this time for good, he believed. He had grown up. Now he knew what he was doing, or, anyway, what he was trying to do—simply the hardest job in the world: getting to know God, growing more like God, growing in holiness. Holiness, as the retreatmaster had said, was the only ambition worthy of the priest and therefore of candidates for the priesthood. Holiness was the point of all the lives of the saints, the point where all those glorious lives converged, and what the whole world was crying for. “And,” the retreatmaster had said, “you can’t give what you haven’t got, lads.”