by J.F. Powers
Monsignor Renton, though, by the time Father Urban started helping out at St Monica’s, was beginning to feel the pressure from Orchard Park. On the occasion of their first meeting, which took place in the upper room, he said, “If you ever get the chance, and I don’t always myself, and you never will as long as you come here, watch this ‘All-Star Golf’ at five o’clock on Channel 3.” But then, having said this, he covered for Phil (who was down in the kitchen for ice cubes): “By the way, I think poor Phil suffers from claustrophobia to a certain extent. Fifteen minutes in the box is all he can take.”
Why, though, was Phil so hard to find at other times? Why, Father Urban wondered, was Phil so often out? “Going out for a bit of air,” he’d say, or “Have to get the oil changed in the car,” or just “Have to go out.” When in, he seemed to experience acute pain if the phone or doorbell rang, gave a start, and said, “Oh my!” Then, pretty soon, he’d be gone again. Where did he go? According to Mrs Burns, the housekeeper, he was often seen sitting in the periodical section at the public library, and Father Urban, noting the mileage on Phil’s late-model Plymouth, suspected that he just drove around, using the car as he did the library, to escape—but to escape what? His job, himself, what?
It hadn’t always been that way at St Monica’s, said Mrs Burns, not when Phil’s mother was living. Every morning, Phil’s mother had presented Phil and Mrs Burns and the curate with a list of things to be done during the day, and they’d done them. St Monica’s had been a model parish then.
“Why, I never touched the telephone in those days,” said Mrs Burns, who cleared all calls now, since neither Phil nor Father Chumley would pick up the telephone unless buzzed on the intercom by Mrs Burns. “All I want on my tombstone, Father,” she told Father Urban, “is 6:30, 8, 9:30, and 11.” These were the hours of the Sunday Masses.
So, with Phil out, and with Father Chumley, for all practical purposes, out—over in church, praying—things were in a bad way at St Monica’s. No wonder Phil was unpopular at the Chancery. Father Urban asked Monsignor Renton about this. “Is Phil getting any heat?”
“Yes, if that means anything—which I doubt,” said Monsignor Renton, who, it seemed, didn’t care for Father Udovic, the Chancellor.
“How about the consultors?” Father Urban asked. In any diocese, the bishop’s consultors are a comparatively gentle breed of men, older fellows who’ve received their earthly reward and risen as far as they’ll rise, but it is their duty, after all, to keep the diocese on a straight course, with or without the help of the Bishop.
“None of those guys wants an Orchard Park to rise up in his parish,” said Monsignor Renton, himself a consultor, “and certainly not I.”
And the Bishop—how was he taking it?
“Ah,” said Monsignor Renton. Phil was an irremovable pastor, but if the Bishop cared to get rough, he could avail himself of the prejudice against Phil that did, unfortunately, exist. The Bishop would never do this, though, for he had too high a regard for Phil as a person and as a priest. In fact, the Bishop might even have a secret sympathy for Phil in his present difficulty. Oh yes. For years, until his patron and pen pal Cardinal Mullenix died, the Bishop—“Dear James,” as Monsignor Renton called him—had sat on his ass, waiting to be translated to a more important see, and had built nothing. “It’s my guess there’ll be no change at St Monica’s until Phil dies.”
“I don’t get it,” said Father Urban. Phil, although he did have a heart condition, could live a long time, and St Monica’s couldn’t wait. And with all the fresh parishioners, so many of them young married people pulling down good dough and, unlike their elders, in the habit of spending it, there was no reason why St Monica’s shouldn’t have a new church at once. Yes, and a wing on the school. And how about a new convent for the good sisters? The first step should be a parish census. If the priests of the parish didn’t feel up to taking one, and doubtless Phil didn’t, well, there were always parishioners willing to go into the homes of other parishioners and ask a few questions. After the census, Phil would know where he stood, and could plan accordingly. Three, three and a half, maybe four hundred grand wouldn’t be asking too much of the people for a nice new church. “I still think he should build,” said Father Urban.
“No, the fuss would kill him—it’d be suicide,” said Monsignor Renton, and asked Father Urban how he’d like to spend his last days in consultation with fund-raisers, architects, contractors, and salesmen.
Father Urban hadn’t had this experience and could think of worse fates. “Then Phil should let somebody come here who will build.” There were men unhappy in rural parishes, there were men not doing so well where they were as they might do elsewhere, and there were men on the way up, assistants with their tusks fully grown, ready for parishes of their own. “He’s like the dog in the manger now.”
“I trust you’ll never say anything like that to Phil. Because that’s exactly how he feels.”
“Then why doesn’t he put in for a change?”
“Phil feels it would be for too short a time—and so do I.”
Well, Father Urban would be sorry when and if Phil departed this life, and perhaps others besides Monsignor Renton and the Bishop would be sorry, but in an ongoing institution like the Church there was just no place for such a man—or, if there was, it wasn’t in a parish like St Monica’s.
And was Monsignor Renton’s devotion to his friend, so good to see, really so pure and selfless as it appeared?
One Saturday night, in the middle of December, Father Urban was locking up the church when Monsignor Renton appeared, carrying a light bulb and saying that nothing annoyed him so much as burned-out bulbs in public places. They dragged out a ladder and replaced a bulb in one of the gilded sconces that flowered out from the sanctuary wall. The janitor, a cripple, was slow to make repairs requiring a ladder, Monsignor Renton explained, but what they were doing still struck Father Urban as rather odd. “Now that’s better. You’d never find fixtures like these today.” Monsignor Renton then said that he’d picked them up in Italy, and had had them wired for electricity. Even so, although, as every pastor knows, every donor wants his gift to be properly displayed, looked after, and prized over all others, Father Urban was still puzzled. But the changing of the light bulb, and the larger mystery of Monsignor Renton’s whole attitude toward building a new church, suddenly made sense to Father Urban as they were going out the door, when Monsignor Renton stopped and looked back at the little red wound of light in the darkness of the sanctuary and said, “I offered my first Mass in this old church.”
Phil and Monsignor Renton would be leaving for Florida in the wee hours, catching the North Coast Limited for Chicago at its nearest stop, and so New Year’s dinner was served the night before at St Monica’s. It was a goose-and-champagne affair, with Monsignor Renton present and Father Chumley leaving the table early to hear confessions (no more penitents than he could accommodate were expected on New Year’s Eve). Monsignor Renton and Father Urban did most of the talking. According to Monsignor Renton, there would soon be no oil left in the world, and the railroads would then be able to cash in on the situation that they, by running their passenger business so badly, had more or less created. Yes, the automobile was on the way out. It was just a question of time. The happy few would have their own horses and carriages, but most people would have to ride the streetcars (yes, they’d be back), and would be better for it, too. “If we’re careful, we should have enough coal for the railroads and industry, once we stop making cars and beer cans.”
“I didn’t realize there was such an oil shortage,” said Father Urban.
“I don’t think it’s generally known,” Monsignor Renton said. “A few years ago, you may recall, everybody was talking about tranquilizers—no ill effects, they said. I knew there’d be ill effects. Now everybody knows it. Too many people in this country are dedicated to the proposition that what goes up may not come down.”
“And now, in the same way, you know there�
�s a world oil shortage?”
“Yes. You can’t have as many morons as we have driving cars in this country without ill effects. There just isn’t that much oil—or anything—in the world.”
“How about atomic energy?”
“A bust, I’d say. No good has come of it yet, and I doubt that any will. When I was a boy, one of the worst things you could do was crap on somebody’s front porch. I don’t know that I ever heard of it actually happening, but I do know we talked about it a lot. Today it happens every day—to everybody. I’m talking about the fallout, of course. Ah, Mrs Burns, it isn’t often I get a chance at goose that hasn’t been frozen.”
When they finally rose from the table, they put on their coats and went out, Monsignor Renton going over to the church, Phil and Father Urban getting into the car.
They drove to the outskirts of Great Plains, and then on, into the country. Father Urban was to meet an old woman he’d be bringing Holy Communion to daily in Phil’s absence.
“I have to let her know when I’m going to be away,” Phil said.
Father Urban could see how a change of priests could be an unsettling experience for an old person, but he thought it odd that he was being given this chore. “Any others, Phil?”
“There’s one other, but Johnny can handle that one.”
Father Urban thought this odder still. Why shouldn’t one man make the rounds? “What’s the name here?” he asked, when they turned into a private road. The big iron gates were open.
“Thwaites.”
“Not our benefactress?”
“Yes.”
“Your parishioner?”
“Yes.”
“What’s she like?”
“You’ll see.”
When Father Urban saw the house, which was approached through wooded grounds, he thought of Major. They were admitted by a rosy-cheeked girl whom Phil introduced only as Katie. Her heavy gray sweater reminded Father Urban of the one he wore when he was at the Hill, and suggested that the house wasn’t being heated all over. They kept their coats on, and went upstairs.
In a room much larger than any bedroom at the Hill, Mrs Thwaites sat in an overstuffed wheelchair, watching television on two sets. The only light in the room came from the sets, a dead light, so that Mrs Thwaites’s face showed up like a photographic negative: a little old woman with the face of a baby bird, all eyes and beak, but with a full head of bobbed white hair. One hand was wrapped in black rosary beads the size of cranberries, and the other gripped the remote control. A humidifier steamed at her feet. To one side of her chair there was a table with dominoes stacked on it. Across the room, an elevator, door open, was waiting. In one corner, a big bed, fancier than Wilf’s and higher off the floor, was also waiting. The shades were drawn in all the windows, and the temperature was equatorial.
Mrs Thwaites cut the jabber that had been coming from one of the sets, but did not invite them to sit down. The pictures went on—a giveaway program and a panel show, with contestants on both wearing paper hats—while Phil introduced Father Urban to Mrs Thwaites.
“So Father Chumley won’t be coming,” Phil said.
“No, I don’t want him.”
“That’s all taken care of, Mrs Thwaites. Father Urban, here, will be the one.”
“That’s right,” said Father Urban.
Mrs Thwaites, without giving him so much as a look, said, “Nine o’clock sharp.”
Well, old people were like that, Father Urban told himself. He did wish, though, that Phil had introduced him to Mrs Thwaites as a Clementine. That might have meant more to her.
“We’d better be running along,” Phil said.
Mrs Thwaites beckoned him over to her then, and asked for his blessing. She bowed her head slightly for it (but Father Urban could see that she was watching the sets), and, when it was over, she handed Phil an envelope. “Take care of yourself,” she said.
Father Urban, after opening the door for Phil, smiled at Mrs Thwaites and cried, “Happy New Year!” But he was too late.
Mrs Thwaites had turned up the sound.
On the way back to St Monica’s, Father Urban said, “What’s the wheelchair mean?”
“Old age.”
“She can walk then?”
“Yes.”
“What’s she got against Chumley?”
“The last time I was gone, they didn’t get along.”
“Oh?”
“No,” Phil said, but that was all.
“The girl—Irish, isn’t she?” Her “Good evening” had sounded like it to Father Urban.
“Yes.”
“Mrs. Thwaites brought her over?”
“Yes.”
“I shouldn’t think there’d be much for a girl in a place like that.”
“No.”
“But I suppose she’s well paid, or thinks she is anyway.”
“I suppose.”
“The old woman—she likes her television.”
“Yes.”
Back at St Monica’s, in the upper room, while Phil was down getting ice cubes, Father Urban engaged Monsignor Renton on the subject of Mrs Thwaites and did better.
“If we had another channel up here, she’d have another set,” Monsignor Renton said. “She doesn’t want to miss anything. Tonight she’ll ring out the old, and ring in the new, in all the time zones. I wonder—do they go on to Honolulu?”
“Not on television. What’s she got against Chumley?”
“She worries about the next world, and questions every priest she meets. Johnny Chumley told her, ‘You are what you eat’—she was on black molasses at the time—‘and will be what you are.’ Sound doctrine.”
“Yes, but it takes some explaining.”
“She was out of the Church for a time, did you know?”
“As a matter of fact, I didn’t.”
“Oh yes. When she married Andrew she left the Church. That was part of the deal. That was Andrew’s great work in life—making apostates. And making money.”
“Lumber?”
“While it lasted, and then pumps. Hydraulic pumps. Government contracts. Here and abroad. Foreign capital built the railroads in this part of the country, did you know?”
“I don’t know whether I did or not. She came back in when he died?”
“Yes, and she’s been making up for lost time ever since. That’s where you guys come in. My guess is she wanted to take the curse off the old place. Maybe there was a tax angle, too, a write-off of some kind. That’s how her mind works. She hasn’t done anything else for you, has she?”
“No.” From Wilf, Father Urban had understood that there were surviving heirs, but he preferred to start from scratch with Monsignor Renton. “Any children?”
“A boy and a girl. The boy—hell, he must be almost as old as you are. The boy’s been in and out of religious orders for years. As a brother. When he’s out, as I believe he is at the moment, he’s a professional layman, if you know what I mean.”
“And the girl?”
“Sally’s out of the Church, but I’d say she’s the best of the lot—a bad lot.”
“Andrew was the son of the man who did away with his wife . . .”
“His wife and another, and then himself. The other man—just a lumberjack—was a French Canadian. Catholic. In my opinion, that’s what made Andrew such a son-of-a-bitch. Ah, well.”
After a moment, Father Urban said, “Still, she is back in the Church.”
“I’m told she was a looker in her day. Otherwise, I don’t think she’s changed much.”
“Still, she must have changed some.”
“It all goes together. The television sets, the bomb shelter, and the religion.”
“Bomb shelter?”
“You saw the elevator?”
Father Urban nodded.
“Takes her down to it.”
Father Urban felt that Monsignor Renton was probably right about Mrs Thwaites—up to a point. After that, there was no knowing, and, in any case . .
. “Who are we to judge her?” he said. “What if she is only motivated by old age and fear of the Lord? That’s enough, thank God. It takes all kinds to make the Church.”
“God is not mocked.”
“The woman’s a daily communicant. That should count for something.”
“God is not mocked.”
“No, but . . .”
No, but and Yes, but and On the other hand and Much as I agree with you, and Apart from that and Far be it from me—Father Urban, it seemed, was always trying to present the other side, the balanced view. This kept him busy, for Monsignor Renton talked like a drunken curate. One moment it was “God is not mocked” or “Christ, and Christ crucified,” and the next moment it was “Your ass is out.”
Nevertheless, they were kindred souls, at one on fundamentals, and sharing many preferences and prejudices—until the conversation moved into a certain area. This was a very large area, easily arrived at, and here they were like the blind men in the fable who, touching the elephant’s body here and there, could not agree about it. The elephant, in the case of the blind men in the upper room, was their vocation. Much of the secondary activity sponsored, and sometimes even participated in, by the clergy left Father Urban cold, and Monsignor Renton said some things about the various “movements” within the Church that badly needed saying. “Yes, but don’t throw the baby out with the bath water,” said Father Urban, when he felt the cold current in Monsignor Renton’s thought. Father Urban’s good work over the years, as a preacher and as a person but always as a priest, would count for little if, as Monsignor Renton said, any time not spent at the altar, or in administering the sacraments, was just time wasted for a priest. (“That’s why I took up golf.”)
Father Urban had encountered others who held this limited view of the priesthood, but with Monsignor Renton it was a cause. He carried it into the confessional where, of course, he had Father Urban at an unfair advantage. “Ah, yes. We’re here today, and gone tomorrow, and while we’re here we more or less run on divine momentum—more, if we happen to be priests. We’d do well to keep that in mind at all times, and perform those few sacred offices for which we’ve been chosen by God, and forget the rest. Oh, of course, we’re entitled to a little harmless relaxation. And, whatever else we do, let’s not put ourselves between God and the people—or let them put us between them and Him as too often happens nowadays. Ah, yes. Now, for your penance, pray for the Carmelites. Meditate on the life of those poor men and women. Let’s say a half hour a day for the next week, and you might pray for the Trappists, too, if you get a chance. Now make a good act of contrition, and pray for my intention.”