by Randle, Ned;
Theo glanced at the clock on the parlor wall and saw it was getting late. He needed to go to bed. Tomorrow was Friday, the day he visited the sick and then returned to the church to work on his sermon. However, the tiny amount of residual caffeine in the two cups of Sanka, along with his strenuous intellective debate, left him keyed up and restless. He went to the guest bathroom to rid himself of some coffee, then slipped silently into the bedroom and removed his clerical collar, took off his shoes and clothes, lingering naked only for a moment.
He listened to Naomi’s measured breathing as he put on his pajamas. Once dressed in his night clothes, he carefully placed his black trousers on a hanger and hung them in the closet and dutifully dropped his shirt, socks and underwear into the hamper, making sure as he moved about the bedroom that he didn’t wake Naomi, who appeared to be sleeping comfortably, swaddled in the sheet and blanket. He lay on his side of the bed without covers—since she had them pulled around herself—and stared at the ceiling in the dark, trying to reconstruct the pattern of the coffering from memory. He tried to occupy his mind with the mundane in an effort to rid it of the faces of the men he’d just met, the priest’s proposal, the conflicts of conscience, and the tedious theological arguments, all of which were coursing through his mind like a flume. He bit his fingernails in the dark. Finally, he concentrated on his wife’s rhythmic breathing, until exhausted, he fell sleep.
The next morning, Theo awoke early with Father Tom Abernathy and the two other clergymen on his mind. He slipped out of bed, leaving Naomi to sleep, and went into the kitchen and made a pot of coffee and a piece of toast. He picked up the morning paper from the stoop and creamed his coffee and buttered his toast as he did every other morning. But he was nervous and distracted. He looked at the kitchen clock repeatedly. He was waiting for a more reasonable hour to call Pastor Metzger at the Methodist Church and get his thoughts on the priest’s proposal.
After he’d emptied the coffee pot and read the newspaper front to back, it was still early, but he could wait no longer. He called Metzger. If it was too early for the Methodist to be in his office, Theo reasoned, he could at least leave a message urging Metzger to call him back as soon as possible.
Theo was confused for an instant when he heard a woman answer, “Hello.” There was a pause before she identified herself as the associate pastor and asked him his business. He asked to speak to Reverend Metzger. The woman demurred, saying only that Reverend Metzger had an appointment and was just leaving. Theo was uncharacteristically assertive, first identifying himself and then insisting Metzger give him a minute or two. There was silence on the other end of the line. Then he heard, “Two more minutes, Theo, and you’d have missed me.”
Theo was frustrated over the lost time that unnecessarily jangled his nerves. He should have called earlier.
“What’s up?” asked Metzger.
It was as if Metzger’s perfunctory question opened a floodgate, damming the outflow from Theo’s nervous psyche. He babbled non-stop about the meeting the night before with Father Tom, his concerns about clergy engaging in such activities, his questions regarding Father Tom’s motives, his reticence to be involved at all. Metzger stayed quiet and let Theo ramble on until obviously impatient to get going, he interrupted Theo and told him he was making too much of a simple matter. He then informed Theo that, unlike him, he had given the priest’s proposal scant thought. As he spoke, it was apparent to Theo that Metzger viewed the matter with a practiced equanimity which was reflected in his genial tone of voice and benign comments regarding Father Tom and his plan. He’d known the priest for a number of years, Metzger said, and he was willing to go along with the idea, which seemed well-intentioned, and see where it goes.
“I’ve been in Belle City a lot of years,” added Metzger. “I was here when Tom Abernathy was assigned to St. Michael. He and I have participated in ecumenical services. As you saw, he can be loud and corny and a bit of a jokester, but his heart’s in the right place. And don’t misunderstand him; he’s much more pious than he’d have you believe.”
In response to Theo’s implication of possible ulterior motives, Metzger stated flatly that the priest was a good man, what you might refer to as a man’s man, a straight shooter. Metzger assured Theo that Father Tom’s motives were very likely what he said they were.
“As far as I know, Tom has no family,” he added, which to Theo, made dense by concentration on his own self-concerns, seemed apropos of nothing.
He sat silently considering Metzger’s comments, but found himself disconcerted by the minister’s reference to the priest as a man’s man. Metzger tried to politely extricate himself from the conversation, mentioning to Theo that the truth was, he was slipping out early to play golf and had a pending tee time and the other golfers would be waiting. Before he could hang up, Theo asked him, “What about Billy Crump?”
“I don’t know much about him. He got into town a year or two before you did. He’s building a heck of a congregation, I’ll say that for him. I don’t really approve of his methods, but if it works, it works. He mostly seems to attract the flotsam and jetsam. But he’s also picking up more than the spare change. He snagged a couple of my good members shortly after he got to Belle City, and it still irks me. I wouldn’t get too close to him, Theo. He might use friendship as a pretext to visit St. Paul’s and try to poach a member or two. Anyway, he strikes me as an odd little fellow. But he might provide comic relief.”
Metzger then offered to call Billy Crump later and get his thoughts and see what he planned to do about Father Tom’s proposal.
“I’ll let you know what Billy has to say. I’ve got to get going now.”
For the time being, Theo was left to fret over the odd appeal Father Tom Abernathy and his plan held for him, particularly in view of Metzger’s comments. He also continued to fret over arcane principles of ecumenism and how Jesus’s unambiguous outreach to whores and tax collectors conflicted with the positions of his own Synod. Could socializing with a Catholic priest be worse than socializing with whores and tax collectors? It was a question that finally led him to fret over the paradoxical effect hierarchical edicts of any hidebound church had on the lives of lonely men.
Chapter Five
The weeks after his lame attempt at fellowship dragged for Father Tom. He continually reminded himself his was a pitiful performance and as the days passed his fecklessness was magnified in his mind. He knew he was being harder on himself than he deserved and that the other clergymen, busy men like himself, likely gave him little thought beyond the embarrassed pity they felt for the sad, old priest and his painful effort to make friends. That they gave him or his proposal scant thought was confirmed by the fact he’d heard nothing from any of them since their initial get-together and he assumed they had no interest in the idea, which was just fine with him. The whole matter could die the ignominious death it deserved as far as he was concerned.
He was stretched out in his recliner watching a baseball game when the doorbell rang. He looked at his watch; it was 7 p.m. on the nose. He sat up in his chair, slipped on his loafers and went to the door. The three Protestant clergymen were standing on his doorstep, and Tom looked them over head-to-toe as if they were uninvited missionaries who’d stopped by to hand out copies of The Watchtower, and he was taking in every detail in the event he had to identify them to the authorities if, chagrined by his abrupt dismissal of their proselytizing, they walked off with his Blessed Virgin lawn ornament or vandalized his mailbox.
Each man was decked out in the most casual of casual clothes: Metzger was wearing plaid golf shorts, a white golf shirt and Birkenstock sandals. Theo was dressed in sharply creased khaki slacks, an ill-fitting blue polo shirt that emphasized the boniness of his boney shoulders, and penny loafers sans socks; Billy Crump had on a pair of faded Levi’s jeans, a plaid, short-sleeve western-style shirt, replete with a pointed yoke appliqué across the shoulders and imitation pearl butto
ns, as well as cowboy boots which bore visible scars across the toe leather and looked to be run down unevenly at the heels. He also was wearing a bright red International Harvester cap with its one-size-fits-all adjustment band stretched to the max. Tom later observed, as he walked down the steps behind him, that the cap covered only the crown of Billy’s head, reminding him of the bishop’s scarlet zucchetto.
Tom realized he had an incredulous look on his face when Brian Metzger asked, “Is this the wrong night? A fortnight is two weeks, isn’t it, Tom?”
“Yes, yes, I sat down and turned on the ballgame and I guess I dozed off. Come in, come in.”
Tom followed the men down the steps with cheerful banter and invited them to take a seat at the table as he scurried around the basement dumping potato chips and pretzels into bowls, setting out the bottles of wine and emptying the water out of the ice chest and restocking it. As he fussed, he caught the sidelong glances of the men who seemed to be somewhat abashed by his unpreparedness. Nevertheless, once he got over his initial surprise, Tom was in high good humor readying the snacks and drinks for his guests, and he whistled a spritely version of “Bringing in the Sheaves” in homage to his Protestant brethren.
Once he was satisfied with his offerings, he asked, “How ’bout a glass of wine till the beer chills?” Corkscrew in hand, he asked each man, “Red or white?” and with all three asking for red, he uncorked a cheap bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon and poured four healthy wine glassfuls. He then ceremoniously handed the first glass to Theo Swindberg and said, “Take and drink,” which startled Theo, and he spilled some of his wine, leaving a purple blotch on the altar cloth, causing Tom to laugh harder than he had laughed in two weeks. “Gotcha, Theo!”
“Perhaps we should start with a prayer,” Tom suggested after he finished handing out the wine and took his seat. “Who wants to lead? Theo?”
Theo declined with a panicked look on his face. “You go ahead. I need to go to the bathroom.”
He excused himself from the table and asked where he could find the bathroom. Tom pointed to the stairs, and when Theo was out of earshot, said, “One sin that’ll keep a good Lutheran out of Heaven is unrepentant self-righteousness,” which garnered a chuckle from Brian Metzger, who was well aware of Lutherans’ near pathological streak of anti-ecumenism. “We better say a quick prayer or Theo might sit in the can all night,” Tom added.
It was apparent to Tom from the blank look on Billy Crump’s face he was uninitiated into the quirks and subtleties of old liturgical churches, and any pointed references to the foibles of dark Lutherans (or to the superficiality of the liberal Methodists or the formal mysteries of his own Roman Catholicism) would be wasted on him. Crump, he figured, would pray earnestly with anybody, any time, any place, as long as the sinner had a dollar in his pocket as thanks for the experience. At that point, Tom wished out loud that Reverend Northrup had attended; everyone, he figured, could enjoy a good-natured poke in the pecuniary ribs of a stalwart Presbyterian. And he could have offered the Presbyterian a sawbuck to lead the prayer, he added, and let them all off the hook.
In mock deference to the historical primacy of the Roman church, and assured by the sworn understanding that no word of their acquiescence would ever be heard outside the group, Metzger encouraged Father Tom to lead the prayer. “It is a Catholic rathskeller,” he added in justification. Tom appreciated the Methodist’s good humor, stood and recited a short prayer asking for blessings to be bestowed on the gathered men of God, in their vocations and their personal lives, and then hollered up the steps toward Theo in the bathroom to let him know they were done with their formalities, and if he was done with his, he could take his seat at the card table.
When Theo rejoined the group, Tom raised his wine glass and said, “Here’s to the first meeting of the St. Michael Poker & Drinking Club.” The other men stood up and clinked glasses, each took a deep draught of wine, and Tom felt warm vindication of his idea rise from his belly.
“Since I organized this soiree, I’ll make the rules,” he said with a grin after sitting down. “Sweet and simple, like the Ecclesiastical Canon of the Holy Roman Church. I suggest five card draw and no wild cards. It’s a quick game and amenable to figuring odds. I propose a nickel ante, a dime on the first round of betting and up to a dime raise, with a three-raise limit. How about a quarter on the last raise? We’ll take turns dealing, and keep a close eye out to make sure Theo doesn’t deal from the bottom of the deck”
He glanced at Theo and watched him blush, both at the suggestion of chicanery and in pleasure at being singled out for attention by their host.
“Any objections to the rules?” Tom looked around the table. “Hearing none, the rules are unanimously adopted.”
“You always this formal, Tom?” Crump asked through the same rascally grin Tom recognized from the billboard on the south end of town. “I shoulda dressed up.”
“Rules are like fences, Billy,” Tom responded as he opened a fresh deck of Bicycle playing cards. “Remember what Robert Frost said about fences? ‘Good fences make good neighbors’? Good rules make good games. Every game has its rules. Like golf, right, Brian? Can’t play golf without rules. If you didn’t have rules, you wouldn’t be able to cheat.”
Tom had some loose change in his trouser pocket and took a few coins out and laid them on the table. Crump carried his coins in a blue Crown Royal sack, which impressed Tom with its practicality and indicated to him the little evangelical was neither a novice card player nor a teetotaler. Metzger had his money in a Zip-Loc bag, and Theo rested an old-fashioned leather coin purse on the table. Tom took a nickel from his pile and placed it as his ante in the middle of the table. The other three did the same, but it was a reach for the short-armed Crump who was sitting at the end of the table.
“Yes, Billy, I like rules,” Tom added as he counted the pot to make sure everyone was in, “but according to the bishop, I just don’t like following rules. Pot’s right; let’s deal.”
Tom picked up the deck of cards and shuffled and bridged, shuffled and bridged, all the while keeping up a constant stream of chatter. Theo was fascinated by Tom’s deft handling of the cards, and he watched his movements closely. When Tom tossed Theo his last card he said, “Here’s an ace for the good Parson Swindberg,” and Theo’s eyes widened when he picked it up. He looked as if he suspected the priest might be dealing from a marked deck or engaging in some sort of sleight of hand or other shenanigans. Tom chuckled, not because of the surprised look on Theo’s face, but at the way the man was holding his cards: in loose, splayed array, like a small-handed kid might hold Old Maid cards. His amusement was short-lived, however, as he focused on Theo’s hands. His were the fingers of an anxious man, Tom observed, with fingernails gnawed down to the quick.
Tom dealt himself a pathetic hand. Crump, sitting to his left, discarded one card and asked for one. Metzger drew three, and Theo stopped chewing his thumbnail long enough to ask for three cards as well. As soon as he picked up his cards, which he held in his hand in his exaggerated array, Theo began a low hum that sounded melodic and familiar to Tom. Metzger glanced sideways at Theo and smiled. Tom discarded three and took three. Crump, at the dealer’s left, opened the betting with a dime. Metzger folded. Theo saw Crump’s dime and raised a dime. Tom tossed in his cards. At that point, Theo reasoned if Tom was working from a crooked deck he likely would have dealt himself a better hand. Crump met Theo’s raise and raised again, this time a quarter, and Theo called and laid down his hand. It was a good hand—three threes with an ace kicker. Crump tossed his hand onto the discard pile without showing what he had, and Tom made a mental note that the little Bible-thumper had just showed himself to be a four flusher. With a doleful smile, Theo raked in the pot and began to stack the coins next to his purse.
Tom passed the deal to Crump, who took off his cap and hung it on the back of his chair, popped his knuckles in an exaggerated way, and shuffled the ca
rds. He was masterful in handling the cards, exhibiting amazing dexterity with his pudgy fingers as he shuffled and as he dealt the cards, with each man’s successive card landing aligned on top of the previously dealt card as gently as a butterfly on a daisy. The second hand was uninspired, with each man drawing three new cards. Theo checked the bet, Metzger opened for a dime and Tom and Crump folded. Theo pondered his position with his left thumb nail at his teeth. It would cost him a dime to stay, so he tossed his cards on the discard pile, and Metzger swept the pot of 30 cents.
So the rounds of cards progressed with little money lost or gained. The deal was passed around the table, so each man could have a turn at dealing the cards. Tom enjoyed watching the men shuffle and deal as much as he enjoyed the competition. Crump continued to be masterful at handling the cards. Theo, who dealt after Crump, suffered by comparison. He was awkward and bumbling and his mishandling of the cards resulted in at least one misdeal, although the other three men assessed no penalty for the error. Metzger was an adequate dealer but maddeningly slow.