Wheat That Springeth Green

by J.F. Powers

  In some ways, things were moving too fast. He still hadn’t told Mrs P. that he was getting a curate—hadn’t because he was afraid if he did, she’d ask, as he had, “Who?” Who, indeed? He still didn’t know, and the fact that he didn’t would, if admitted, make him look foolish in Mrs P.’s eyes. It would also put the Church—administrationwise—in a poor light.

  That evening, after Mrs P. had gone home, Joe unloaded the car, which he’d run into the garage because the easy chair was clearly visible, protruding from the trunk. It took him four trips to get all his purchases up to the room. Then, using a kitchen chair, listening to the ball game and drinking beer, he put up the curtain rods. (Steve, if asked to, would wonder why, and if told, would tell Mrs P., who would ask, “Who?”) When Joe had the curtains up, tiebacks and all, he took a much needed bath, changed, and made himself a gin-and-tonic. He carried it into the room, dark now—he had been waiting for this moment—and turned on the lamps he’d bought. O.K. And when the student’s table came, the student’s lamp, now on the little bedside table, would look even better. He had chosen one with a yellow shade, rather than green, so the room would look cheerful, and it certainly did. He tried the easy chair, the matching footstool, the gin-and-tonic. O.K. He sat there for some time, one foot going to sleep on the rose-and-blue hooked rug while he wondered why—why he hadn’t heard anything from the curate.

  The next day, Thursday, Mrs P. had the afternoon off, and so she wasn’t present when the box springs, mattresses, student’s table and revolving bookcase came, at twenty after four—the hottest time of day. Joe had a lot of trouble with the mattresses—really a job for two strong men, one to pull on the mattress, one to hold on to the carton—and had to drink two bottles of beer to restore his body salts. He took a much needed bath, changed, and feeling too tired to go out, made himself some ham sandwiches and a gin-and-tonic. He used a whole lime—it was his salad—and ate in his study while watching the news; Viet Nam, and people starving in Asia and Mississippi. He went without dessert. Suddenly he jumped up and got busy around the place, did the dishes—dish—and locked the church. When darkness came, he was back where he’d been the night before—in the room, in the chair, with a glass, wondering why he hadn’t heard anything from the curate.

  It was customary for the newly ordained men to take a few days off to visit and shake down their friends and relatives. Ordinations, though, had been held on Saturday. It was now Thursday, almost Friday, and still no word. What to do? He had called people at the seminary, hoping to learn the curate’s name and perhaps something of his character, just in the course of conversation. (“Understand you’re getting So-and-So, Joe.”) But it hadn’t happened—everybody he asked to speak to (the entire faculty, it seemed) had left for vacationland. He had then called the diocesan paper and, with pencil ready, asked for a complete rundown on new appointments, but the list hadn’t come over from the Chancery yet. (“They can be pretty slow over there, Father.” “Toohey, you mean?” “Monsignor’s pretty busy, Father, we don’t push him on a thing like this—it’s not what we call hard news.”)

  So, really, there was nothing to do, short of calling the Chancery. Early in the week, it might have been done—that was when Joe made his mistake—but it was out of the question now. He didn’t want to expose the curate to censure and run the risk of turning him against his pastor, and he also didn’t want the Chancery to know what the situation was at SS Francis and Clare’s (one of the best-run parishes in the diocese), though it certainly wasn’t his fault. It was the curate’s fault, it was Toohey’s fault. “Letter follows.” If called on that, Toohey would say, “Didn’t say when. Busy here,” and hang up. That was how Toohey played the game. Once, when Joe had called for help, saying he’d die if he didn’t get away for a couple of weeks, Toohey had said, “Die,” and hung up. Rough. If the Church ever got straightened out administrationwise, Toohey and his kind would have to go, but that was one of those long-term objectives. In the meantime, Joe and his kind would have to soldier on, and Joe would. It was hard, though, after years of waiting for a curate, after finally getting one, not to be able to mention it. While shopping, Joe had run into two pastors who would have been interested to hear of his good fortune, and one had even raised the subject of curates, had said that he was getting a change, “Thank God!” Joe hadn’t thought much about it then—the “Thank God!” part—but now he did, and, swallowing the weak last inch of his drink, came face to face with the ice.

  What, he thought—what if the curate, the unknown curate, wasn’t one of the newly ordained men? What if he was one of those bad-news guys? A young man with five or six parishes behind him? Or a man as old as Joe, or older, a retread, a problem priest? Or a goldbrick who figured, since he was paid by the month, he wouldn’t report until the first, Sunday? Or a slob who wouldn’t give a damn about, or take care of, the room? These were sobering thoughts to Joe. He got up and made another drink.

  The next morning, when he returned from a trip to the dump, Mrs P. met him at the door. “Somebody who says he’s your assistant—”

  “Yes, yes. Where is he?”

  “Phoned. Said he’d be here tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” But he didn’t want Mrs P. to get the idea that he was disappointed, or that he didn’t know what was going on. “Good. Did he say what time?”

  “He just asked about confession.”

  “So he’ll be here in time for confessions. Good.”

  “Said he was calling from Whipple.”

  “Whipple?”

  “Said he was down there buying a car.”

  Joe nodded, as though he regarded Whipple, which he’d driven through once or twice, as an excellent place to buy a car. He was waiting for Mrs P. to tell him more—and must have shown it.

  “That’s all I know,” she said, and shot off to the kitchen. Hurt. Not his fault. Toohey’s fault. Curate’s fault. Not telling her about the curate was bad, but doing it as he would have had to would have been worse. Better she think less of him than know the truth—and think less of the Church. He took the sins of curates and administrators upon him.

  That afternoon, he waited until four o’clock before he got on the phone to Earl. “Say, what is this? I thought you said Friday at the outside.”

  “Oh, oh,” said Earl, and didn’t have to be told who was calling, or about what. He said he’d put a tracer on the order, and promised to call back right away, which he did. “Hey, Father, guess what? The order’s at our warehouse. North Carolina goofed.”

  “That so?” said Joe, but he wasn’t interested in Earl’s analysis of North Carolina’s failure to ship to customer’s own address, and cut in on it. He described his bed situation, as he hadn’t before for Earl, in depth. He was going to be short a bed—no, not that night but the next, when his assistant would be there, and also a monk of advanced age who helped out on weekends and slept in the guest room. No, the bed in the guest room, to answer Earl’s question, was a single—actually, a cot. Yes, Joe could put his assistant on the box spring and mattress, but wouldn’t like to do it, and didn’t see why he should. He’d been promised delivery by Friday at the outside. He didn’t care if Inglenook was in Monday and Thursday territory. In the end, he was promised delivery the next day, Saturday.

  “O.K., Father?”

  “O.K., Earl.”

  11. SATURDAY

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON, a panel truck, scarred and bearing no name, pulled up in front of the rectory at seven minutes after four. Joe didn’t know what to make of it. He stayed inside the rectory until the driver and his helper unloaded a carton, then rushed out, and was about to ask them to unload at the back door and save themselves a few steps when a word on the carton stopped him. “Hold everything!” And it wasn’t, as he’d hoped, simply a matter of a word on a carton. Oh, no. On investigation, the beds proved to be as described on their cartons —cannonballs. “Hold everything. I have to call the store.”

  On the way to the telephone, passing Father Felix,
the monk who helped out on weekends and was another who hadn’t been told about the curate, and now appeared curious to know what was happening in the street, Joe wished that monks were forbidden to wear their habits away from the monastery. Flowing robes, Joe felt, had a bad effect on his parishioners, made him, even in his cassock, look second best in their eyes, and also reminded non-Catholics of the so-called Reformation.

  “Say, what is this?” Joe said, on the phone.

  “Oh, oh,” said Earl when he learned what had happened. “North Carolina goofed.”

  “Now, look,” said Joe, and really opened up on Earl and the store. “I don’t like the way you people do business,” he said, pausing to breathe.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, Father, but didn’t you say you liked cannonballs?”

  “Better than Jenny Lind, I said. But that’s not the point. I prefer the other, and that’s what I said. You know what ‘prefer’ means, don’t you?”

  “Pineapples.”

  “You’ve got me over a barrel, Earl.”

  In the end, despite what he’d indicated earlier, Joe said he’d take delivery. “But we’re through,” he told Earl, and hung up.

  He returned to the street where, parked behind the panel truck, there was now a new VW Beetle, and there, it seemed, standing by the opened cartons with Father Felix, the driver, and his helper, was Joe’s curate—big and young, obviously one of the newly ordained men. Seeing Joe, he left the others and came smiling toward him.

  “Where the hell you been?” Joe said—like an old pastor, he thought.

  The curate stopped smiling. “Whipple.”

  Joe put it another way. “Why didn’t you give me a call?”

  “I did. Don’t know how many times I called. You were never in.”

  “Didn’t know what to think,” Joe said, ignoring the curate’s point like an old pastor, and, looking away, wished that the Beetle—light brown, or dark yellow, sort of a caramel—was another color, and also that it wasn’t parked where it was, adding to the confusion. (The driver’s helper was showing Father Felix how his dolly worked.) “Could’ve left your name with the housekeeper.”

  “I kept thinking I’d get you if I called again. You were never in.”

  Joe moved toward the street, saying, “Yes, well, I’ve been out a lot lately. Could’ve left your name, Father.”

  “I did, Father. Yesterday.”

  “Yes, well.” Standing by the little car, viewing the books and luggage inside, Joe wished that he could start over, that he hadn’t started off as he had. He had meant to welcome the curate. It wasn’t his fault that he hadn’t—look at the days and nights of needless anxiety, and look what time it was now—but still he wanted to make up for it. “Better drive your little car around to the back, Father, and unload,” he said. “The housekeeper’ll show you the room. Won’t ask you to hear confessions this afternoon.” And, having opened the door of the little car for the curate, he closed it for him, saying, through the window, “See you later, Father.”

  When Joe straightened up, he saw that Big Mouth, a neighbor and a parishioner, and Patton, his old bulldog, had arrived to inspect the cartons, heard Father Felix being questioned by Big Mouth saw too that Mrs P. had decided to sweep the front walk and was working that way.

  “I’ve bought a few things—besides the bed and chest here—for the curate’s room,” Joe told her, so she wouldn’t be too surprised when she saw them. Then he gave her the key to the room, saying, perhaps needlessly, that she’d find it locked, and that the box springs, mattresses, and bedspreads would be found within. The other bed—the one that should and would have been his but for the interest shown in it by Father Felix and Big Mouth—the other bed and chest, he told Mrs P., should go into the guest room. “Fold up the cot and put it somewhere. Get the curate to help you—he’s not hearing this afternoon.”

  Turning then to the little group around the cartons, he saw that his instructions to Mrs P. had been overheard and understood. The little group—held together by the question “Would he take delivery?”—was breaking up. He thanked the driver and his helper for waiting, nodded to Big Mouth, said “Coming?” to Father Felix, since it was now time for confessions, and turned toward the church slowly shaking his head. He took the sins of curates and administrators and North Carolina upon him. He gave another his bed.

  That evening, while the curate and Father Felix were over in the church hearing confessions, Joe was in his office telling a thirtyish couple, the Lanes, about the fiscal system at SS Francis and Clare’s, a system used in only two other parishes in the diocese and known among the clergy, variously, as the American plan, the California, the country club, the table d’hôte, the game sanctuary. “So I did away with Sunday envelopes and special collections except Christmas and Easter. No more yackety-yack about money from the pulpit. The Annual Offering covers everything. Tuition, pew rent, Missions, Peter’s Pence, Bishops’ Relief, Catholic University, and so on. Were you at Mass last Sunday? Here, I mean.”

  “No, we weren’t,” said Mr. Lane, a beefy type in a gray silk suit. “Not here.”

  “Well, we still have a flower collection—flowers for the altar—and if you toss in a quarter, that’s plenty. That way it’s still possible, technically, for parishioners to make an offering at the Offertory. And for visitors, children, and others to contribute.” (Unfortunately, there were others—parishioners —who were against Joe’s system.) “Some say the Annual Offering’s too high—it’s five hundred—but look what other goods and services run you today—a new car, country club membership, major, or even minor, surgery. St Francis,” Joe said, answering the phone, and hearing the question dreaded in every rectory on Saturday night (“What time are Masses tomorrow?”), coldly replied, “Consult the church bulletin.”

  “Sorry—we’re new here.”

  “Where’s ‘here’?”

  The caller gave an address that put him in the parish—not always the case with Saturday night callers—and Joe’s manner changed.

  “Welcome aboard. This is your pastor, Father Hackett.”

  “Mike Gumball, Father.”

  Joe wrote it down and looked at it. “How do you spell your last name, Mike?”

  “G-U-M-B-L-E.”

  “Got it. Any children, Mike? School-age tots?”

  “No, Father. Just Nancy, and she’s preschool.”

  “Good. Reason I say that, Mike—we’re full up in some of the grades.” (Joe had also said it for the benefit of the couple in his office.) “Mike, what we have to do now is get you and the family registered as members of the parish. You or your wife’ll have to come in for that. It can’t be done over the phone.”

  “I’ll come in, Father.”

  “Don’t put it off, Mike. You never know when somebody in the family might need a priest. It could be you. Right?”

  “I guess so.”

  “That’s the spirit.”

  “Father, I don’t know if I can get over there tonight.” (Mike sounded, though young, like a good old-fashioned parishioner to Joe.) “Would tomorrow be all right?”

  “Tomorrow’s Sunday, Mike. How about Monday at eight? P.M., that is.”

  “Fine, Father.”

  “Now, Mike, if you have the suburban directory there, you’ll find the Mass times listed in the Yellow Pages.”

  “O.K., Father. I’ll look ’em up.”

  “I can give ’em to you, Mike.”

  “No, no, Father.”

  “That’s the spirit. G’night, Mike.” Joe hung up, and saw that Mr Lane had his checkbook out.

  “You said five hundred, Father?”

  “Our fiscal year begins in January, Mr Lane. You can pay for the rest of the year, or you can pay for a year, or monthly, as many people prefer. It’s entirely up to you.”

  “How do I make it out, Father?”

  Joe gave Mr Lane the little calendar off the desk. “Every family gets one of these at Christmastime. No charge”—this to Mrs Lane, to no visibl
e effect. She was about seven months pregnant and hadn’t spoken to Joe yet. But he stayed with her. “Gives you,” he said, producing another calendar from the bottom drawer of his desk, “the usual days and months, Mass times, confessions, rules for fasting (what’s left of ’em), fire and police numbers, baseball, football, and hockey schedules—everything you need to know, ma’am.”

  Mrs Lane regarded Joe solemnly—she was hard to figure.

  “Thanks, Father.” Mr Lane handed the calendar to his wife. “She’s French, Father. I was in the Company’s international division when we met.”

  “Comment allez-vous?” Joe said to Mrs Lane, to no visible effect.

  Mr Lane handed the check to Joe (who saw it was for five hundred dollars). “Just consider that for this year, Father. I’m sure you can find good use for the balance. I’ll see you again in January.”

  “Very good of you, Mr Lane.” But Joe didn’t want the man to think he’d bought a piece of him. “You realize the balance goes to the parish, not to me personally?”

  “Is that how it works?”

  “Unless you specify otherwise, yes. The priest has to assume that whatever’s given to him is given to him in his official capacity.”

  “Pretty strict.”

  “Yes, but a good thing, in a way. So I’ll just put the balance in the building fund”—Joe checked the chart on his desk—“$291.62. Thanks, Mr Lane.”