by J.F. Powers
He got on with the job, but not in unseemly haste, and when he finished, he’d leave the church, but not in unseemly haste, not breaking into a run, though headed for the kitchen, the refrigerator. He’d pick up a tray of ice and carry it through the study (“Well, well”), into the bathroom, his bar, where the hard stuff was kept in the same drawer with the shoe polish (and thus kept in its place). He’d make a couple of drinks—not undoing all he’d done that afternoon to deny himself but striking a balance. (You could laugh at the old via media, but it was still the best way—it had to be watched, though, or you’d end up in a rut.) After another drink or two, after their very tasty seafood dinner, he’d drive the monk to his bus. “See you Saturday, Father.” “Okey-doke, Joe.” And that would be it for another week.
That evening, after a surprise visit—“Just a social call, we live in Silverstream, you know”—from Earl, his wife, and two of their children, Joe washed the glasses in which he’d served them all 7UP, finished the Sunday paper, read the Catholic Worker (and wrote it a check), switched the TV on and off at intervals, had a drink, two, touched it up once, twice—and all the time the likelihood that the curate would soon return got likelier and likelier.
Joe still hadn’t written off the evening when, at eighteen after eleven, the curate returned. The door to the study was open, and the pastor was clearly visible within, in his BarcaLounger, but the curate passed by without a word of greeting or explanation and could soon be heard taking a shower. When the drumming stopped, the pastor tried to get up, only to find his left foot asleep. While waiting for service to be resumed, he changed his mind about inviting the curate in for a nightcap. It was the curate’s move. The hour, though late, was not too late, and the pastor’s door was open.
To judge by the silence, though, the curate had gone to bed.
The pastor got up, shut his door, made himself a nightcap, switched on the TV, returned to his BarcaLounger.
In some respects, with the pastor sitting alone, watching an old movie, it was like all those nights he’d known before he had a curate.
In one respect, though, it would be different: the pastor, not wishing to be heard foraging in the kitchen, would go to bed hungry.
13. MONDAY
JOE HAD THE eight o’clock Mass, the curate the nine, and so they had breakfast at different times, Joe then going down to his office, the curate where?
Joe gave him a call. “Good morning. The time is ten past ten, the temperature is seventy-one, and the sun is shining.”
“That you, Father?”
“That’s right. Hope I didn’t disturb you.”
“No, I was just reading my office.”
“Read it in your office, Father, or in church. That’s what I do.”
“Where you calling from, Father?”
“I’m calling from my office. You should be in yours.”
“What’s up?”—no immediate response—“I’ll be right down.”
Joe got a nasty shock, but concealed it, when the curate appeared before him in overalls and T-shirt, saying, “What’s up?”
“What d’ya mean ‘What’s up?’? We open at nine-thirty.”
“We do?”
“As a rule. There’ll be days when you have a wedding or funeral, but as a rule you should be in your office by ten when you have the nine o’clock Mass, by nine-thirty when you have the eight. I was down here at nine today, but we open at nine- thirty.”
“For what?” said the curate.
Joe looked at him hard. “You thought your office was just a place to see people in?”
“More or less.”
“Well, it’s not, Father. That’ll become clear to you as time goes on. Meanwhile, I don’t want to see you got up like that.”
“Around the house, I thought . . .”
“No good, Father. No overalls.”
“Overalls? You mean jeans.”
Joe did, but wouldn’t use the word, hating the phony-cozy sound of it. “Look, Father. You may not be able to brighten the corner where you are, but why crumb it up? Why go out of your way to look bad? Everybody’s doing it, sure, but you’re not everybody, Father. You’re not an old cowhand and you’re not the boy next door. You’re a priest, and that means, among other things, you dress like one. If you’re traveling, say, and don’t want to be bothered by people, that’s different. But otherwise people have a right to know what you are. Don’t be a snake in the grass, Father. Your feet sweat, or what?”
The curate, looking down at his feet, shook his head.
“O.K.,” Joe said. “Sandals around the house, with a cassock, or with trousers and a shirt (either white or black), but not with a suit. I see somebody in a suit wearing sandals—and I don’t only mean a priest—I mean anybody—I want to throw up. Black socks, Father.”
“Black?”
“Black. I hate these piddling little departures from the rule. I can understand a man leaving the priesthood, but wearing colored socks, including gray, no. No good.”
“Breaks the monotony.”
To show what he thought of that, Joe shut his eyes and hung his head, simulating death, then snapped out of it. “You wouldn’t say that, Father, if you knew anything about monotony. It’s not that easy. But that’s not the point. The point is, Why ruin a perfect color combination? Yes, perfect. Any man looks better in black and white. I don’t say good; I say better. That’s why evening dress is, or was, black and white. Actually, we’re lucky that way, as priests. Look at the Buddhists.”
The curate shook his head in, as seen on television, dismay.
Joe reread the message on the curate’s chest (THOU SHALT NOT KILL, BEND, FOLD, OR MUTILATE), and said, “I’ve never worn T-shirts, even plain ones, but I have nothing against them as underwear. That’s all they were ever meant to be, you know. Now, for Christ’s sake—I mean that literally, Father—go up and change and come down again.”
The curate came down in a cassock, but was still wearing the heavy gray socks with red toes and heels, which Joe said nothing about, however, hoping thus to give the young man pause, time to see where taking a stand against his pastor, if that was what he thought he was doing, had got him—out on a limb.
“Let’s go over to your house,” Joe said.
In the curate’s office, about which the curate had said nothing on his first visit, on Saturday, and still said nothing, Joe went over to a cabinet and threw open its doors. “We’re all right at the moment, Father, but it’ll be one of your jobs to order supplies.” Joe showed him the check writer. “Have to introduce you to the people at the bank”—assuming I ever find out your name—“and you can leave a specimen of your signature.” Joe moved away from the cabinet, leaving the doors open, saying, “Oh, close those doors, Father,” to involve him, and went over to the bank of files. He opened and closed a drawer, another, another, enjoying the smooth, gliding action, the bright colored tabs (new) on the folders. “Every family or household has a file. Parishioner comes in, you don’t have to start from scratch—you know the wife’s first name, how many kids, their names, and so on.” Joe opened another drawer and, unable to control himself, enjoying the action so much, closed it, having meant to leave it open for the curate to close. “Parish correspondence. Strictly chronological”—Joe decided not to mention the stuff that came from Toohey undated, or dated, say, “Thursday.” Joe went over to the bookcase, reached down to the bottom shelf, and slapped a big canvas-bound volume. “Parish register. Really something when I came here. Vital statistics on scraps of paper stuck inside, never entered.” Joe handed a loose-leaf binder to the curate, involving him. “Index to the parish register. My idea. You don’t have to hunt through the parish register every time somebody wants a baptismal certificate. Have to keep the index up to date, though, or it’s useless. Be one of your jobs.” The curate—involved?—put the index back in the bookcase. Joe, going over to the desk, caught himself before he sat down at it from force of habit, and went to one of the lemon chairs formerly in h
is office. “Sit down, Father. No, at the desk.” After the curate had done this, Joe said, “You don’t say much, Father.”
“About what?”
“Anything. The office area. Weren’t you surprised when you saw it?”
“No. I mean I’d heard about it.”
Joe sniffed, assuming the worst. “There’s been a lot of talk. Most of it pro, but some of it con. You know the clergy. Or maybe you don’t. They come out here and sneer at the office area, laugh at my bathroom—it’s orange and black tile, bright orange, an architect’s error.” Joe shook his head. “I’ve taken a lot, and not just from the clergy. ‘Father, when will you build God a nice house?’ One of the nuns—thank God they’re gone for the summer.” (What the nun had actually said was, “Father, when will you build God a nice house like yours?” to which he’d swiftly replied, “And like yours, Sister?”) “But most of the negative comment comes from the clergy—from guys who wish they’d built the rectory first and now are afraid they’ll never get it. It’s not easy to sell people on a rectory after you’ve sold them on a church, especially if they’re still paying for the church, especially if there’s already a rectory of sorts. Fortunately, there wasn’t one here, just the beginnings of one, a basement, where my predecessor lived, and I built the convent there. Fortunately, I say, because the rectory would’ve been like the church—on the small side, wartime construction, nothing like this. These guys”—coming back to his critics, and in case the curate was one—“like to forget I spent a year in a trailer and lived in a room in the school. And God’ll get a new house, God willing. Just waiting until the time is ripe, saving the best wine till last.” (This didn’t, as it had the Arch and his reverend consultors, move the curate visibly.) “What I don’t like about waiting, apart from the overcrowding at the late Masses on Sunday, is the way construction costs keep rising. And as I see it, money’s going to get tighter. Don’t suppose you know much about that—money.”
“No. Not much.”
“Well, you’ll be glad to hear we don’t talk about it here—in church. We just present the bill for services rendered, like doctors and lawyers.” Joe explained his fiscal system. “Actually, it’s just the old pew-rent system updated, with the option of time payments—something people today understand. I had the Sunday-envelope system, but they were killing me with their vacations. Summer and winter. In the history of the world there’s never been a time like this for travel—everybody and his brother. With my overhead, I had to do something.”
“Five hundred seems a lot.”
“In most cases, in a parish like this, it’s not three percent of the family income. The Mormons, I understand, get ten.”
“Still seems a lot.”
“It’s not for every parish. Ideally, it should only be tried in new parishes, so you don’t have the troublesome changeover period.” Joe hadn’t passed through that period yet.
“Still seems a lot.”
Hey, whose side you on? “The old nickel-and-dime days are over, Father, but if it’ll make you feel any better I’ll handle that part for the time being.”
“Thanks.”
Joe got up, went to the desk, on which a light snow of paper had fallen since the curate’s first visit, and dipping into it, selected an unimportant letter. “Answer this one right away, will you? I’ve made a note on the margin so you’ll know what to say. Keep it brief. Sign your name—Assistant Pastor. Better let me have a look at it before you seal it.” So the curate could get on with it, Joe headed back to his office.
“Does it have to be typed?”
Joe pulled up short. “How’s that?”
“Can’t type it.”
“What d’ya mean?”
“Can’t type.”
Joe stood there in a distressed state. “Can’t type,” he said to himself, and then to the curate, “You mean at the sem you did everything in longhand? Term papers and everything?”
The curate, who seemed to think that too much was being made of his disability, nodded.
“Hard to believe,” Joe said. “Why, you must’ve been the only guy in your class not to use a typewriter.”
“There was one other guy.”
Joe was relieved—at least the gambler in him was—to know that he hadn’t been quite as unlucky as he’d supposed. “But you must’ve heard guys all around you using typewriters. Didn’t you ever wonder why?”
“I never owned a typewriter. Never saw the need.” The curate sounded proud, like somebody who brushes his teeth with table salt. “I write a good, clear hand.”
Joe snorted. “I write a good, clear hand. But I don’t do my parish correspondence by hand. And I hope you won’t when you’re a pastor.”
“The hell with it, then.”
Joe, who had been walking around in a distressed state, stopped and looked at the curate, but the curate—pretty clever —wouldn’t look back. He was getting out a cigarette. Joe shook his head, and walked around shaking it. “Father, Father,” he said.
“Father, hell,” said the curate, emitting smoke. “You should’ve put in for a stenographer, not a priest.”
Joe stopped, stood still, and sniffed. “Great,” he said, nodding. “Sounds great, Father. But what does it mean? Does it mean you expect me to do the lion’s share of the donkey work around here? While you’re out saving souls? Or sitting in your room, waiting for something to turn up? Does it mean when you’re a pastor you’ll expect your curate to do what you never had to do? I hope not, Father. Because, you know, Father, when you’re a pastor it may be years before you have a curate. You may never have one, Father. You may end up in a one-horse parish. Lots of guys do. You won’t be able to afford a secretary, or public stenographers, and you won’t care to trust your correspondence to nuns, to parishioners. You’ll never be your own man. You’ll always be an embarrassment to yourself and others. Let’s face it, Father. Today, a man who can’t use a typewriter is as ill-equipped for parish life as a man who can’t drive a car. Go ahead. Laugh. Sneer. But it’s true. You don’t want to be like Toohey, do you? He can’t type, and he’s set this diocese back a hundred years. He writes ‘No can do’ on everything and returns it to the sender. For official business he uses scratch paper compliments of the Universal Portland Cement Company.”
Depressed by the thought of Toohey and annoyed by the curate’s cool, if that was what it was, Joe retired to his office. He sat down at his desk and made a list. Presently, he appeared in the doorway between the offices, wearing his hat. “And, Father,” he continued, “when you’re a pastor, what if you get a curate like yourself? Think it over. I have to go out now. Mind the store.”
Joe drove to the city and bought a typing course consisting of a manual and phonograph records, and he also bought the bed—it was still there—the double, with pineapples. He was told that if he ever wished to order a matching chest or dresser there would be no trouble at all, and that the bed, along with box spring and mattress, would be on the Thursday delivery to Inglenook.
“O.K., Father?”
“O.K., Earl.”
And that afternoon Joe, in his office, had a phone call from Mrs Fox. She just wondered if everything was O.K., she said—as if she didn’t know. She was still dying to see the room. “What’s it like!” Joe said he thought the room had turned out pretty well, thanked Mrs Fox for helping him, and also for calling, and hung up.
Immediately, the phone rang again. “St Francis,” Joe said.
“Bill there?”
“Bill?”
“For me?” said the curate, who had been typing away, or, anyway, typing.
Joe tried to look right through the wall. (The door between the offices was open, but the angle was wrong.) “Take it over there,” he said, and switched the call.
There were no further developments that day with respect to the curate’s identity, but Joe was pleased to see the young man wearing black and white—black shoes, socks, trousers, and white shirt—at dinner, and afterward, with a few more th
ings to say to him, things best said in private (out of Mrs P.’s hearing), Joe took him into the study.
“Try one of these,” Joe said, producing a box of baby cigars when the curate got out his cigarettes. “They’re better for you. I don’t say good; I say better.”
“O.K. Thanks.”
“Don’t forget to put your little car in the garage tonight, Father.”
“I’m not worried about it.”
“I’m not worried about it, but we don’t want the place looking like a trailer camp. Lots of miles per gallon, huh?”
“I can’t say yet.”
“Well, when you can, don’t. Most small-car owners, that’s all they talk about. I don’t suppose you’ll use any, but your gas and oil are on the house. Go to Smiley’s Shell, here in town, and tell ’em who you are.” Tell me! “Your dry cleaning’s on the house. Also laundry. Hard on it, sending it out, but don’t try to economize. You’ll have a liberal clothing allowance.” Did the curate realize how lucky he was to have Joe for his pastor? Joe doubted it. “By the way, and I should’ve told you this before last night, the curfew blows at nine.”
“You’re kiddin’!”
“Afraid not.”
The curate shook his head in, as seen on television, dismay.
“O.K., Father. Let’s see if I can make myself understood. Let’s say you’re me, and I’m you, and this is my third day on the job. On the first day, I show up at the last possible minute. On the second day, I go out for dinner and come in eleven hours later. The next morning you have to call me down to the office. And now you sound like you want to stay out all night. I do, I mean. Remember, I’m you. I guess I expect to come and go as I please. I guess I think I’m old enough to look after myself—and maybe I am. Let’s say I am, Father. But, Father—remember now you’re me—how do you know?”