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

by J.F. Powers

“You don’t have to,” Baby said.

  Chief, freezing outside in his long, fancy maroon coat, opened the door for them. “You all through, Baby?”

  “Yeah, Chief. You told that right.”

  They walked down the street toward the car line. Baby, going first, plowed a path for Libby and Dodo in the snow. Window sills, parked cars, and trees were padded with it. The wind was dead and buried. Baby bore the big drum on his shoulder and felt the sticks pressing tight and upright in his vest pockets, two on each side. Libby had her purse and street clothes rolled up under her arm. Dodo carried the snare drum.

  Softly as snow, Libby laughed, “That’s all I can do in the circumstances,” she said.

  “I got your old circumstances,” Baby said.

  Then they were silent, tramping in the snow.

  At the corner they waited in a store entrance for a south-bound streetcar. Libby raised a foot now and then, shuddering with cold. Dead still, Dodo breathed down inside the collar of his overcoat, retarding his breath, frowning at the little smoke trickling out, as though it were the only thing left in the world to remind him he was alive. Baby talked of taking a cab and finally did go out into the street to hail one approaching. It slowed up, pulled over to the curb, hesitated . . . and lurched away, with Baby’s hand reaching for the door. Baby watched the cab speed down the snowy street, following it for a few steps, speechless. There was nothing to do. Without looking, he saw Libby and Dodo shivering in the store entrance. They had seen the cab come and go. They had not moved an inch. They waited unfooled, as before, for the Big Red.

  “What’s wrong with you, Baby?” Libby called out. A tiny moment of silence, and she was laughing, gradually louder, mellow octaves of it, mounting, pluming . . .

  Like her piano, it seemed to Baby—that fine, young-woman laughter.

  “Why you laugh so much, woman?” he inquired plaintively from the street. Then he moved to join them, a few steps only, dallying at the curb to temper the abruptness of his retreat. Like her piano on “Little Rock”—that fine, young-woman laughter.

  THE FORKS

  THAT SUMMER WHEN Father Eudex got back from saying Mass at the orphanage in the morning, he would park Monsignor’s car, which was long and black and new like a politician’s, and sit down in the cool of the porch to read his office. If Monsignor was not already standing in the door, he would immediately appear there, seeing that his car had safely returned, and inquire:

  “Did you have any trouble with her?”

  Father Eudex knew too well the question meant, Did you mistreat my car?

  “No trouble, Monsignor.”

  “Good,” Monsignor said, with imperfect faith in his curate, who was not a car owner. For a moment Monsignor stood framed in the screen door, fumbling his watch fob as for a full-length portrait, and then he was suddenly not there.

  “Monsignor,” Father Eudex said, rising nervously, “I’ve got a chance to pick up a car.”

  At the door Monsignor slid into his frame again. His face expressed what was for him intense interest.

  “Yes? Go on.”

  “I don’t want to have to use yours every morning.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “And there are other times.” Father Eudex decided not to be maudlin and mention sick calls, nor be entirely honest and admit he was tired of busses and bumming rides from parishioners. “And now I’ve got a chance to get one—cheap.”

  Monsignor, smiling, came alert at cheap.

  “New?”

  “No, I wouldn’t say it’s new.”

  Monsignor was openly suspicious now. “What kind?”

  “It’s a Ford.”

  “And not new?”

  “Not new, Monsignor—but in good condition. It was owned by a retired farmer and had good care.”

  Monsignor sniffed. He knew cars. “V-Eight, Father?”

  “No,” Father Eudex confessed. “It’s a Model A.”

  Monsignor chuckled as though this were indeed the damnedest thing he had ever heard.

  “But in very good condition, Monsignor.”

  “You said that.”

  “Yes. And I could take it apart if anything went wrong. My uncle had one.”

  “No doubt.” Monsignor uttered a laugh at Father Eudex’s rural origins. Then he delivered the final word, long delayed out of amusement. “It wouldn’t be prudent, Father. After all, this isn’t a country parish. You know the class of people we get here.”

  Monsignor put on his Panama hat. Then, apparently mistaking the obstinacy in his curate’s face for plain ignorance, he shed a little more light. “People watch a priest, Father. Damnant quod non intelligunt. It would never do. You’ll have to watch your tendencies.”

  Monsignor’s eyes tripped and fell hard on the morning paper lying on the swing where he had finished it.

  “Another flattering piece about that crazy fellow . . . There’s a man who might have gone places if it weren’t for his mouth! A bishop doesn’t have to get mixed up in all that stuff!”

  Monsignor, as Father Eudex knew, meant unions, strikes, race riots—all that stuff.

  “A parishioner was saying to me only yesterday it’s getting so you can’t tell the Catholics from the Communists, with the priests as bad as any. Yes, and this fellow is the worst. He reminds me of that bishop a few years back—at least he called himself a bishop, a Protestant—that was advocating companionate marriages. It’s not that bad, maybe, but if you listened to some of them you’d think that Catholicity and capitalism were incompatible!”

  “The Holy Father—”

  “The Holy Father’s in Europe, Father. Mr Memmers lives in this parish. I’m his priest. What can I tell him?”

  “Is it Mr Memmers of the First National, Monsignor?”

  “It is, Father. And there’s damned little cheer I can give a man like Memmers. Catholics, priests, and laity alike—yes, and princes of the Church, all talking atheistic communism!”

  This was the substance of their conversation, always, the deadly routine in which Father Eudex played straight man. Each time it happened he seemed to participate, and though he should have known better he justified his participation by hoping that it would not happen again, or in quite the same way. But it did, it always did, the same way, and Monsignor, for all his alarms, had nothing to say really and meant one thing only, the thing he never said—that he dearly wanted to be, and was not, a bishop.

  Father Eudex could imagine just what kind of bishop Monsignor would be. His reign would be a wise one, excessively so. His mind was made up on everything, excessively so. He would know how to avoid the snares set in the path of the just man, avoid them, too, in good taste and good conscience. He would not be trapped as so many good shepherds before him had been trapped, poor souls—caught in fair-seeming dilemmas of justice that were best left alone, like the first apple. It grieved him, he said, to think of those great hearts broken in silence and solitude. It was the worst kind of exile, alas! But just give him the chance and he would know what to do, what to say, and, more important, what not to do, not to say—neither yea nor nay for him. He had not gone to Rome for nothing. For him the dark forest of decisions would not exist; for him, thanks to hours spent in prayer and meditation, the forest would vanish as dry grass before fire, his fire. He knew the mask of evil already—birth control, indecent movies, salacious books—and would call these things by their right names and dare to deal with them for what they were, these new occasions for the old sins of the cities of the plains.

  But in the meantime—oh, to have a particle of the faith that God had in humanity! Dear, trusting God forever trying them beyond their feeble powers, ordering terrible tests, fatal trials by nonsense (the crazy bishop). And keeping Monsignor steadily warming up on the sidelines, ready to rush in, primed for the day that would perhaps never dawn.

  At one time, so the talk went, there had been reason to think that Monsignor was headed for a bishopric. Now it was too late; Monsignor’s intercessors we
re all dead; the cupboard was bare; he knew it at heart, and it galled him to see another man, this crazy man, given the opportunity, and making such a mess of it.

  Father Eudex searched for and found a little salt for Monsignor’s wound. “The word’s going around he’ll be the next archbishop,” he said.

  “I won’t believe it,” Monsignor countered hoarsely. He glanced at the newspaper on the swing and renewed his horror. “If that fellow’s right, Father, I’m”—his voice cracked at the idea—“wrong!”

  Father Eudex waited until Monsignor had started down the steps to the car before he said, “It could be.”

  “I’ll be back for lunch, Father. I’m taking her for a little spin.”

  Monsignor stopped in admiration a few feet from the car—her. He was as helpless before her beauty as a boy with a birthday bicycle. He could not leave her alone. He had her out every morning and afternoon and evening. He was indiscriminate about picking people up for a ride in her. He kept her on a special diet—only the best of gas and oil and grease, with daily rubdowns. He would run her only on the smoothest roads and at so many miles an hour. That was to have stopped at the first five hundred, but only now, nearing the thousand mark, was he able to bring himself to increase her speed, and it seemed to hurt him more than it did her.

  Now he was walking around behind her to inspect the tires. Apparently O.K. He gave the left rear fender an amorous chuck and eased into the front seat. Then they drove off, the car and he, to see the world, to explore each other further on the honeymoon.

  Father Eudex watched the car slide into the traffic, and waited, on edge. The corner cop, fulfilling Father Eudex’s fears, blew his whistle and waved his arms up in all four directions, bringing traffic to a standstill. Monsignor pulled expertly out of line and drove down Clover Boulevard in a one-car parade; all others stalled respectfully. The cop, as Monsignor passed, tipped his cap, showing a bald head. Monsignor, in the circumstances, could not acknowledge him, though he knew the man well—a parishioner. He was occupied with keeping his countenance kindly, grim, and exalted, that the cop’s faith remain whole, for it was evidently inconceivable to him that Monsignor should ever venture abroad unless to bear the Holy Viaticum, always racing with death.

  Father Eudex, eyes baleful but following the progress of the big black car, saw a hand dart out of the driver’s window in a wave. Monsignor would combine a lot of business with pleasure that morning, creating what he called “good will for the Church”—all morning in the driver’s seat toasting passers-by with a wave that was better than a blessing. How he loved waving to people!

  Father Eudex overcame his inclination to sit and stew about things by going down the steps to meet the mailman. He got the usual handful for the Monsignor—advertisements and amazing offers, the unfailing crop of chaff from dealers in church goods, organs, collection schemes, insurance, and sacramental wines. There were two envelopes addressed to Father Eudex, one a mimeographed plea from a missionary society which he might or might not acknowledge with a contribution, depending upon what he thought of the cause—if it was really lost enough to justify a levy on his poverty—and the other a check for a hundred dollars.

  The check came in an eggshell envelope with no explanation except a tiny card, “Compliments of the Rival Tractor Company,” but even that was needless. All over town clergymen had known for days that the checks were on the way again. Some, rejoicing, could hardly wait. Father Eudex, however, was one of those who could.

  With the passing of hard times and the coming of the fruitful war years, the Rival Company, which was a great one for public relations, had found the best solution to the excess-profits problem to be giving. Ministers and even rabbis shared in the annual jackpot, but Rival employees were largely Catholic and it was the checks to the priests that paid off. Again, some thought it was a wonderful idea, and others thought that Rival, plagued by strikes and justly so, had put their alms to work.

  There was another eggshell envelope, Father Eudex saw, among the letters for Monsignor, and knew his check would be for two hundred, the premium for pastors.

  Father Eudex left Monsignor’s mail on the porch table by his cigars. His own he stuck in his back pocket, wanting to forget it, and went down the steps into the yard. Walking back and forth on the shady side of the rectory where the lilies of the valley grew and reading his office, he gradually drifted into the backyard, lured by a noise. He came upon Whalen, the janitor, pounding pegs into the ground.

  Father Eudex closed the breviary on a finger. “What’s it all about, Joe?”

  Joe Whalen snatched a piece of paper from his shirt and handed it to Father Eudex. “He gave it to me this morning.”

  He—it was the word for Monsignor among them. A docile pronoun only, and yet when it meant the Monsignor it said, and concealed, nameless things.

  The paper was a plan for a garden drawn up by the Monsignor in his fine hand. It called for a huge fleur-de-lis bounded by smaller crosses—and these Maltese—a fountain, a sundial, and a cloister walk running from the rectory to the garage. Later there would be birdhouses and a ten-foot wall of thick gray stones, acting as a moat against the eyes of the world. The whole scheme struck Father Eudex as expensive and, in this country, Presbyterian.

  When Monsignor drew the plan, however, he must have been in his medieval mood. A spouting whale jostled with Neptune in the choppy waters of the fountain. North was indicated in the legend by a winged cherub huffing and puffing.

  Father Eudex held the plan up against the sun to see the watermark. The stationery was new to him, heavy, simu-lated parchment, with the Church of the Holy Redeemer and Monsignor’s name embossed, three initials, W.F.X., William Francis Xavier. With all those initials the man could pass for a radio station, a chancery wit had observed, or if his last name had not been Sweeney, Father Eudex added now, for high Anglican.

  Father Eudex returned the plan to Whalen, feeling sorry for him and to an extent guilty before him—if only because he was a priest like Monsignor (now turned architect) whose dream of a monastery garden included the overworked janitor under the head of “labor.”

  Father Eudex asked Whalen to bring another shovel. Together, almost without words, they worked all morning spading up crosses, leaving the big fleur-de-lis to the last. Father Eudex removed his coat first, then his collar, and finally was down to his undershirt.

  Toward noon Monsignor rolled into the driveway.

  He stayed in the car, getting red in the face, recovering from the pleasure of seeing so much accomplished as he slowly recognized his curate in Whalen’s helper. In a still, appalled voice he called across the lawn, “Father,” and waited as for a beast that might or might not have sense enough to come.

  Father Eudex dropped his shovel and went over to the car, shirtless.

  Monsignor waited a moment before he spoke, as though annoyed by the everlasting necessity, where this person was concerned, to explain. “Father,” he said quietly at last, “I wouldn’t do anymore of that—if I were you. Rather, in any event, I wouldn’t.”

  “All right, Monsignor.”

  “To say the least, it’s not prudent. If necessary”—he paused as Whalen came over to dig a cross within earshot—“I’ll explain later. It’s time for lunch now.”

  The car, black, beautiful, fierce with chromium, was quiet as Monsignor dismounted, knowing her master. Monsignor went around to the rear, felt a tire, and probed a nasty cinder in the tread.

  “Look at that,” he said, removing the cinder.

  Father Eudex thought he saw the car lift a hoof, gaze around, and thank Monsignor with her headlights.

  Monsignor proceeded at a precise pace to the back door of the rectory. There he held the screen open momentarily, as if remembering something or reluctant to enter before himself—such was his humility—but then called to Whalen with an intimacy that could never exist between them.

  “Better knock off now, Joe.”

  Whalen turned in on himself. “Joe—i
s it!”

  Father Eudex removed his clothes from the grass. His hands were all blisters, but in them he found a little absolution. He apologized to Joe for having to take the afternoon off. “I can’t make it, Joe. Something turned up.”

  “Sure, Father.”

  Father Eudex could hear Joe telling his wife about it that night—yeah, the young one got in wrong with the old one again. Yeah, the old one, he don’t believe in it, work, for them.

  Father Eudex paused in the kitchen to remember he knew not what. It was in his head, asking to be let in, but he did not place it until he heard Monsignor in the next room complaining about the salad to the housekeeper. It was the voice of dear, dead Aunt Hazel, coming from the summer he was ten. He translated the past into the present: I can’t come out and play this afternoon, Joe, on account of my monsignor won’t let me.

  In the dining room Father Eudex sat down at the table and said grace. He helped himself to a chop, creamed new potatoes, pickled beets, jelly, and bread. He liked jelly. Monsignor passed the butter.

  “That’s supposed to be a tutti-frutti salad,” Monsignor said, grimacing at his. “But she used green olives.”

  Father Eudex said nothing.

  “I said she used green olives.”

  “I like green olives all right.”

  “I like green olives, but not in tutti-frutti salad.”

  Father Eudex replied by eating a green olive, but he knew it could not end there.

  “Father,” Monsignor said in a new tone. “How would you like to go away and study for a year?”

  “Don’t think I’d care for it, Monsignor. I’m not the type.”

  “You’re no canonist, you mean?”

  “That’s one thing.”

  “Yes. Well, there are other things it might not hurt you to know. To be quite frank with you, Father, I think you need broadening.”

  “I guess so,” Father Eudex said thickly.

  “And still, with your tendencies . . . and with the universities honeycombed with Communists. No, that would never do. I think I meant seasoning, not broadening.”