by J.F. Powers
He went into the house. In the next two hours, he came to the window frequently. For a while he tried to believe that there might be maternal action at the foot of the oak while he wasn’t watching. He knew better, though. All he could believe was that the mother might be staying away because she regarded the dishpan as a trap—assuming, of course, that she had spotted the baby, and assuming also that she gave a damn, which he doubted.
Before dinner he went out and removed the birdhouse and then the bird from the dishpan, gently tipping it into the grass, not touching it. The nest the children had twined together slid with it, but the bird ended up more off than on the nest. There was plenty of good, growing grass under the dove, however. If, as the children claimed, the bird could move a little and if the mother did locate it, perhaps between them—he credited the baby with some intelligence—they might have enough sense to hide out in the lilies of the valley only a few feet away. There would be days ahead of feeding and growth before the little bird could fly, probably too many days to pass on the ground in the open. Once the mother assumed her responsibility, however, everything would become easier—that is, possible. He might even build a nest nearby. (One year there had been a dove’s nest in a chokecherry tree, only ten feet off the ground.) Within a few yards of the oak there were aged lilac bushes, almost trees, which would be suitable for a nest. At present, though, with the mother delinquent, the situation was impossible.
He looked up into the trees for her, in vain, and then down at the orphan. It had moved. It had taken up its former position precisely in the center of the little raft of grass the children had made for it, and this was painful to see, this little display of order in a thing so small, so dumb, so sure.
It would not drink. He set the water closer, and the bread, just in case, and carried away the dishpan and the birdhouse. He saw the bowel movement in the bottom of the dishpan as a good omen, but was puzzled by the presence of a tiny dead bug of the beetle family. It could mean that the mother had been in attendance, or it could mean that the bug had simply dropped dead from the spraying, a late casualty.
After dinner, standing on the back porch, he heard a disturbance far out in the yard. Blue jays, and up to no good, he thought, and walked toward the noise. When he reached the farthest corner of the yard, the noise ceased, and began again. He looked into the trees across the alley. Then he saw two catbirds in the honeysuckle bushes only six feet away and realized that he had mistaken their rusty cries for those of blue jays at some distance. The catbirds hopped, scolding, from branch to branch. They moved to the next bush, but not because of him, he thought. It was then that he saw the cat in the lilies. He stamped his foot. The cat, a black-and-white one marked like a Holstein cow, plowed through the lilies and out into the alley where the going was good, and was gone. The catbirds followed, flying low, belling the cat with their cries. In the distance he heard blue jays, themselves marauders, join in, doing their bit to make the cat’s position known. High overhead he saw two dopey doves doing absolutely nothing about the cat, heard their little dithering noise, and was disgusted with them. It’s a wonder you’re not extinct, he thought, gazing up at them. They chose that moment to show him the secret of their success.
He walked the far boundaries of the yard, stopping to gaze back at the old frame house, which was best seen at a distance. He had many pictures of it in his mind, for it changed with the seasons, gradually, and all during the day. The old house always looked good to him: in spring when the locust, plum, lilacs, honeysuckle, caragana, and mock orange bloomed around it; in summer, as it was now, almost buried in green; in autumn when the yard was rolling with nuts, crashing with leaves, and the mountain-ash berries turned red; and in winter when, under snow and icicles, with its tall mullioned windows sparkling, it reminded him of an old-fashioned Christmas card. For a hundred years it had been painted barn or Venetian red, with forest-green trim. In winter there were times when the old house, because of the light, seemed to be bleeding; the red then was profound and alive. Perhaps it knew something, after all, he thought. In January the yellow bulldozers would come for it and the trees. One of the old oaks, one that had appeared to be in excellent health, had recently thrown down half of itself in the night. “Herbal suicide,” his wife had said.
Reaching the other far corner of the yard, he stood considering the thick black-walnut tree, which he had once, at about this time of year, thought of girdling with a tin shield to keep off the squirrels. But this would have taken a lot of tin, and equipment he didn’t own to trim a neighboring maple and possibly an elm, and so he had decided to share the nuts with the squirrels. This year they could have them all. Few of the birds would be there when it happened, but the squirrels—there were at least a dozen in residence—were in for a terrible shock.
He moved toward the house, on the street side of the yard, on the lookout for beer cans and bottles that the college students from their parked cars tossed into the bushes. He knew, from several years of picking up after them, their favorite brand.
He came within twenty yards of the white oak, and stopped. He didn’t want to venture too near in case the mother was engaged in feeding the baby, or was just about to make up her mind to do so. In order to see, however, he would have to be a little closer. He moved toward the white oak in an indirect line, and stopped again. The nest was empty. His first thought was that the bird, sensing the approach of darkness, had wisely retreated into the shelter of the lilies of the valley nearby, and then he remembered the recent disturbance on the other side of the yard. The cat had last been seen at what had appeared a safe distance then. He was looking now for feathers, blood, bones. But he saw no such signs of the bird. Again he considered the possibility that it was hiding in the lilies of the valley. When he recalled the bird sitting in the very center of the nest, it did not seem likely that it would leave, ever—unless persuaded by the mother to do so. But he had no faith in the mother, and instead of searching the lilies, he stood where he was and studied the ground around him in a widening circle. The cat could’ve carried it off, of course, or—again—the bird could be safe among the lilies.
He hurried to the fallen oak. Seeing the little bird at such a distance from the nest, and not seeing it as he’d expected he would, but entire, he had been deceived. The bird was not moving. It was on its back, not mangled but dead. He noted the slate-black feet. Its head was to one side on the grass. The one eye he could see was closed, and the blood all around it, enamel-bright, gave the impression, surprising to him, that it had poured out like paint. He wouldn’t have thought such a little thing would even have blood.
He went for the shovel with which he’d turned up no worms for the bird earlier that day. He came back to the bird by a different route, having passed on the other side of a big tree, and saw the little ring of grass that had been the bird’s nest. It now looked like a wreath to him.
He dug a grave within a few feet of the bird. The ground was mossy there. He simply lifted up a piece of it, tucked in the bird, and dropped the sod down like a cover. He pounded it once with the back side of the shovel, thinking the bird would rest easier there than in most ground.
When he looked up from his work, he saw that he had company: Mr and Mrs Hahn, neighbors. He told them what had happened, and could see that Mr Hahn considered him soft. He remembered that Mr Hahn, who had an interest such as newspapers seemed to think everybody ought to have in atomic explosions, didn’t care to discuss the fallout.
The Hahns walked with him through the yard. They had heard there were no mosquitoes there now.
“Apparently it works,” he said.
“The city should spray,” said Mrs Hahn.
“At least the swamps,” said Mr Hahn, who was more conservative.
He said nothing. They were perfectly familiar with his theory: that it was wet enough in the lily beds, in the weeds along the river, for mosquitoes to breed. When he argued that there just weren’t enough swamps to breed that many mosquitoes, people smil
ed, and tried to refute his theory—confirmed it—by talking about how little water it took, a birdbath, a tin can somewhere. “In my opinion, they breed right here, in this yard and yours.”
“Anyway, they’re not here now,” said Mrs Hahn.
He received this not as a compliment but as a polite denial of his theory. They were passing under the mulberry tree. In the bloody atmosphere prevailing in his mind that evening, he naturally thought of the purple grackle that had hung itself from a high branch with a string in the previous summer. “I’m sick of it all.”
“Sick of what?” said Mrs Hahn.
The Hahns regarded him as a head case, he knew, and probably wouldn’t be surprised if he said that he was sick of them. He had stopped trying to adjust his few convictions and prejudices to company. He just let them fly. Life was too short. “Insects, birds, and animals of all kinds,” he said. “Nature.”
Mr Hahn smiled. “There’d be too many of those doves if things like that didn’t happen.”
“I suppose.”
Mr Hahn said: “Look how the fish live.”
He looked at the man with interest. This was the most remarkable thing Mr Hahn had ever said in his presence. But, of course, Mr Hahn didn’t appreciate the implications. Mr Hahn didn’t see himself in the picture at all.
“That includes children,” he said, pursuing his original line. It was the children who were responsible for bringing the failures of nature to his attention.
Mrs Hahn, who seemed to feel she was on familiar ground, gaily laughed. “Everybody who has them complains about them.”
“And women,” he added. He had almost left women out, and they belonged in. They were responsible for the children and the success of Queen for a Day.
“And men,” he added when he caught Mr Hahn smiling at the mention of women. Men were at the bottom of it all.
“That doesn’t leave much, does it?” said Mr Hahn.
“No.” Who was left? God. It wasn’t surprising, for all problems were at bottom theological. He’d like to put a few questions to God. God, though, knowing his thoughts, knew his questions, and the world was already in possession of all the answers that would be forthcoming from God. Compassion for the Holy Family fleeing from Herod was laudable and meritorious, but it was wasted on soulless rabbits fleeing from soulless weasels. Nevertheless it was there just the same, or something very like it. As he’d said in the beginning, he was sick of it all.
“There he is now!” cried Mrs Hahn.
He saw the black-and-white cat pause under the fallen oak.
“Should I get my gun?” said Mr Hahn.
“No. It’s his nature.” He stamped his foot and hissed. The cat ran out of the yard. Where were the birds? They could be keeping an eye on the cat. Somewhere along the line they must have said the hell with it. He supposed there was a lesson in that for him. A man couldn’t commiserate with life to the full extent of his instincts and opportunities. A man had to accept his God-given limitations.
He accompanied the Hahns around to the front of the house, and there they met a middle-aged woman coming up the walk. He didn’t know her, but the Hahns did, and introduced her. Mrs Snyder.
“It’s about civil defense,” she said. Every occupant of every house was soon to be registered for the purposes of identification in case of an emergency. Each block would have its warden, and Mrs Snyder thought that he, since he lived on this property, which took up so much of the block . . .
“No.”
“No?”
“No.” He couldn’t think of a job for which he was less suited, in view of his general outlook. He wouldn’t be here anyway. Nor would this house, these trees.
While Mr and Mrs Hahn explained to Mrs Snyder that the place was to become a parking lot for the college, he stood by in silence. He had never heard it explained so well. His friends had been shocked at the idea of doing away with the old house and trees—and for a parking lot!—and although he appreciated their concern, there was nothing to be done, and after a time he was unable to sympathize with them. This they didn’t readily understand. It was as if some venerable figure in the community, only known to them but near and dear to him, had been murdered, and he failed to show proper sorrow and anger. The Hahns, however, were explaining how it was, turning this way and that, pointing to this building and that, to sites already taken, to those to be taken soon or in time. For them the words “the state” and “expansion” seemed sufficient. And the Hahns weren’t employed by the college and they weren’t old grads. It was impossible to account in such an easy way for their enthusiasm. They were scheduled for eviction themselves, they said, in a few years.
When they were all through explaining, it must have been annoying to them to hear Mrs Snyder’s comment. “Too bad,” she said. She glanced up at the old red house and then across the street at the new dormitory going up. There had been a parking lot there for a few years, but before that another big old house and trees. The new dormitory, apricot bricks and aluminum windows, was in the same style as the new library, a style known to him and his wife as Blank. “Too bad,” Mrs Snyder said again, with an uneasy look across the street, and then at him.
“There’s no defense against that either,” he said, and if Mrs Snyder understood what he meant, she didn’t show it.
“Well,” she said to Mr Hahn, “how about you?”
They left him then. He put the shovel away, and walked the boundaries of the yard for the last time that day, pausing twice to consider the house in the light of the moment. When he came to the grave, he stopped and looked around for a large stone. He took one from the mound where the hydrant was, the only place where the wild ginger grew, and set it on the grave, not as a marker but as an obstacle to the cat if it returned, as he imagined it would. It was getting dark in the yard, the night coming sooner there because of the great trees. Now the bats and owls would get to work, he thought, and went into the doomed house.
BILL
IN JANUARY, JOE, who had the habit of gambling with himself, made it two to one against his getting a curate that year. Then, early in May, the Archbishop came out to see the new rectory and, in the office area, which was in the basement but surprisingly bright and airy, paused before the doors “PASTOR” and “ASSISTANT” and said, “You’re mighty sure of yourself, Father.”
“I can dream, can’t I, Your Excellency?”
The subject didn’t come up again during the visit, and the Archbishop declined Joe’s offer of a drink, which may or may not have been significant—hard to say how much the Arch knew about a man—but after he’d departed Joe made it seven to five, trusting his instinct.
Two weeks later, on the eve of the annual shape-up, trusting his instinct again though he’d heard nothing, Joe made it even money.
The next morning, the Chancery (Toohey) phoned to say that Joe had a curate: “Letter follows.”
“Wait a minute. Who?”
“He’ll be in touch with you.” And Toohey hung up.
Maybe it hadn’t been decided who would be sent out to Joe’s (Church of SS. Francis and Clare, Inglenook), but probably it had, and Toohey just didn’t want to say because Joe had asked. That was how Toohey, too long at the Chancery, played the game. Joe didn’t think anymore about it then.
He grabbed a scratch pad, rushed upstairs to the room, now bare, that would be occupied by his curate (who?), and made a list, which was his response to problems, temporal and spiritual, that required thought.
That afternoon, he visited a number of furniture stores in Inglenook, in Silverstream, the next suburb, and in the city. “Just looking,” he said to clerks. After a couple of hours, he had a pretty good idea of the market, but he was unable to act, and then he had to suspend operations in order to beat the rush-hour traffic home.
Afterward, though, he discovered what was wrong. It was his list. Programmed without reference to the relative importance of the items on it, his list, instead of helping, had hindered him, had caused him to mess ar
ound looking at lamps, rugs, and ashtrays. It hadn’t told him that everything in the room would be determined, dictated, by the bed. Why bed? Because the room was a bedroom. Find the bed, the right bed, and the rest would follow. He knew where he was now, and he was glad that time had run out that afternoon. Toward the last, he had been suffering from shopper’s fatigue, or he wouldn’t have considered that knotty-pine suite, with its horseshoe brands and leather thongs, simply because it had a clean, masculine look that bedroom furniture on the whole seemed to lack.
That evening, he sat down in the quiet of his study, in his Barcalounger chair, with some brochures and a drink, and made another list. This one was different and should have been easy for him—with office equipment he really knew where he was, and probably no priest in the diocese knew so well—but for that very reason he couldn’t bring himself to furnish the curate’s office as other pastors would have done, as, in fact, he had planned to do. Why spoil a fine office by installing inferior, economy-type equipment? Why not move the pastor’s desk and typewriter, both recent purchases, into the curate’s office? Why not get the pastor one of those laminated mahogany desks, maybe Model DK 100, sleek and contemporary but warm and friendly as only wood can be? (The pastor was tired of his unfriendly metal desk and his orthopedic chair.) Why not get the pastor a typewriter with different type? (What, again? Yes, because he was tired of that phony script.) But keep the couch and chairs in the pastor’s office, and let the new chairs—two or three, and no couch—go straight into the curate’s office.