by J.F. Powers
He made calls in Olympe, Great Plains, Brainerd, St Cloud, Duluth, and the Twin Cities, and once he went as far south as Rochester. The usual thing was to drop in on executives at their places of business, but to let them know right away that he didn’t want anything, and if nothing developed, he’d soon be on his way. “Just wanted you to know where we are. Drop in on us sometime.” Later, if he ran into somebody he’d met in this fashion, it was like old times. Hello—hello! He watched the paper for important funerals, too, and turned up at some of these. Wherever he went, people always seemed glad to see him—and, of course, it was all for the Order.
In St Paul, he dropped in on the president of the Minnesota Central. “I’m just between trains, and thought I’d come in and thank you for those two passes—and let you know we’re not misusing them.”
“Don’t need any more, do you?”
“Well, there are three of us.”
“What’s your name, Father?”
Father Urban told him again, and this time the man wrote it down.
“Not from around here, are you?”
“As much from around here as anywhere else. For many years, I traveled out of Chicago, but I consider Minnesota my home now—and consider myself fortunate.”
“Well, that’s fine.”
“Now I know you’re a Catholic, and we do have this retreat-house, and, of course, we’d love to see you up there, but I’m not trying to sell you on that. I know you’re a busy man. But why not drop in on us sometime, if you’re up that way? Play a round of golf, if you like.”
“Say, I’ve heard about that. Before I forget, should I address the pass to you?”
“It might be better if you sent it to Father Wilfrid.”
The man wrote it down.
“Two i’s,” Father Urban said. “But better yet—bring it along when you come.”
“I just might do that, Father.”
And that was it. The pass arrived two days later, addressed to Wilf. “Well, it finally came,” he said.
“You don’t say,” said Father Urban.
For some reason, he’d never gone to Ostergothenburg.
In the other dioceses around them there was always a demand for his services, but Ostergothenburg, though closest to his seat of operations, hadn’t been heard from at all. It almost seemed that the clergy of that diocese were pledged to have nothing to do with the Order of St Clement, and that this embargo applied to one who was so much more than just a Clementine. And so, when, in the middle of July, the call finally came from the backward diocese, Father Urban made no bones about being asked to hear confessions on Saturday as well as preach on Sunday. He whipped over in Sylvia’s little Barracuda, pursued by such questions as wouldn’t it be nice if this proved to be a turning point, nice if another diocese were opened for spiritual exploitation, nice if the Hill could draw retreatants from all adjoining dioceses (as a great university draws students from every state and from abroad)? It seemed highly significant to Father Urban that the call had come from the Cathedral in Ostergothenburg.
He arrived on Saturday afternoon, in time to hear confessions and “heard” again in the evening. The next morning, he preached at three Masses—it was this, his preaching he was wanted for at the Cathedral, so he’d thought, and why not?
He had arrived at the Cathedral, however, to discover first that the Rector wasn’t on hand that week, then that he hadn’t been there for a month, then that he wouldn’t be there for another month, and, finally, that he was in Europe. The curates were having a devil of a time getting a replacement for him each weekend, and that was why they’d called the Hill. Unfortunately, Father Urban didn’t find this out right away, and so, on Saturday night, after confessions, he’d returned to the rectory expecting a party of some kind, a gathering of the clergy who had been wanting to meet him. There had been nothing—not even hospitality from the curates. One took off for the movies and the other went to bed. So there was Father Urban, at nine o’clock in the evening, alone in a strange diocese, in a spare room, with the only light coming from a frosted glass pot in the ceiling—a maid’s room, without TV. He knew then, for sure, that he’d been had.
Nevertheless, he preached beautifully the next morning. Even if the people had come with the idea of hearing not whoever happened to be there that week, but Father Urban, they would not have been disappointed. Everywhere Father Urban saw that look of “Who is this?” in their eyes, and yet only one elderly man stayed after Mass to speak to him. Except for that, Father Urban had drawn a blank in Ostergothenburg. That was how matters stood at noon.
Hungry from his labors in the pulpit, he returned to the rectory and found that no preparations were being made to eat. The housekeeper, who hadn’t done so badly the night before, seemed to be missing. “Hey, where is everybody?” Upstairs, the curate who’d gone to bed at nine the night before came out of his room. “When the Pastor’s gone, she always goes to her daughter’s on Sunday,” he said of the housekeeper, and of his colleague he said, “He always goes to his mother’s for dinner on Sunday.”
“Well, that’s nice,” said Father Urban.
“However,” said the curate, “I have permission to take the visiting priest out to dinner on Sunday, if need be.”
Something told Father Urban to quit Ostergothenburg at once—Turn back! Turn back!—but he couldn’t, not after that “if need be.” After that, he had to dine out on the Cathedral.
They ate at a little downtown place, early-American décor and a sizzling neon sign in the window. The sign, flashing off and on behind Father Urban’s ear, said EAT AT CLARA’S. Father Urban ordered “roast beef au jus.” When the waitress left, he asked the curate if the older woman at the cash register could be Clara.
“No, she’s off on Sunday,” said the curate. When the waitress returned to their booth, he asked, to be sure, “Clara’s not here, is she?”
“No, she’s off on Sunday,” said the waitress.
“That’s what I thought,” the curate said to Father Urban.
“Oh, she sometimes stops by,” the waitress said to Father Urban.
Father Urban nodded. When he saw what the waitress had brought him—gray meat, mashed potatoes in the form of two balls, bread cut diagonally, and brown gravy over it all—he said to the curate: “Is your mother still living?” And after a bit, he asked about the other curate, whom he’d scarcely seen. “What does your friend do on Sunday night?”
“He stays in. That’s my night out.”
“I see. And where do you go?”
“I go to the movies. The first show.”
“You guys must see a lot of movies.”
“As a rule, we just go once a week.”
“Just once a week.”
“As a rule. He goes on Saturday night, the second show, and I go on Sunday night.”
“The first show.”
“Yes.”
Father Urban declined dessert, which wasn’t easy, since it was on the dinner, the curate and the waitress both pointing this out. When the curate got his—red jello with watery whipped cream on it, topped off with walnut dust—Father Urban, watching the curate attack the stuff, changed his mind. After the waitress had brought him a dish of it and departed again, feeling better and saying, “After all, it’s on the dinner,” Father Urban changed his mind again—or so he pretended—and gave his dessert to the curate, who was quite happy with it.
“Know a man by the name of Zimmerman?” said Father Urban.
“Old man?”
“He could be seventy, if that’s old.”
“Goes to our church.”
“All right, but who is he? What’s he do?”
“Zim’s Beer.”
A few moments later, Father Urban lit a cigar. “Where’s Mirror Lake?”
“Why, he lives out there!” said the curate. “The man you were asking about!”
The usual thing was to put the brighter boys in cathedral parishes. Could this be the case in the Ostergothenburg dioces
e? “Who?” said Father Urban.
“Zimmerman! He used to live in town, but now he lives out there!”
“You don’t say,” said Father Urban.
The day was about right for his new straw hat with the fishnet band (from which he’d removed the feather and seashells). After he dropped the curate at the rectory—he’d driven the two blocks to Clara’s so the kid could say he’d ridden in a sports, or, as he called it, racing car—Father Urban pulled over in the shade of the Cathedral. He got out of the car, took off his coat, rabat, and collar, and put them on the other seat. Then he got in, started the motor, which had a plummy sound he loved, shifted himself into a slouch, and, with his head resting easily to one side as if he were dreaming, he—there was no other word for it—tooled toward the outskirts of town.
The little snub-nosed Barracuda was five months old, had wire wheels, leather upholstery, and so on, and it certainly made a man feel good to drive it. At a stoplight, though, when a girl in a white MG paused alongside him, a girl wearing sun-glasses and nothing else—so it appeared from where he was sitting—and with a crisp blue dog beside her, Father Urban experienced a heavy moment, a moment of regret and longing. He wished the little Barracuda were black or white instead of bright red, which just wasn’t right for him, and he wished he had a crisp blue dog beside him. So he put on his sunglasses. When he hit open country, he threw away his cigar and gave the little thoroughbred its head.
He noted a billboard with interest. “FRESH! ZIM’S BEER!” He wondered, though, who wanted fresh beer. Then he saw another billboard: “SEE MIRROR LAKE—SEE YOURSELF FISHING, BOATING, SWIMMING, HEATED CABINS.” Would he find Mr Zimmerman living in one of them? (Turn back! Turn back!) Such a thought wouldn’t have occurred to Father Urban—even a small brewery could be a very worth-while affair—if he hadn’t formed such a poor impression of life in the Ostergothenburg diocese.
Some shirtless youths in an old car roared up from behind him. “Drag?” they shouted. Their old tub, lower by several inches in front, seemed to be running downhill. It was painted two shades of green to look like a watermelon, which it did, one of the striped variety, and on the front fender were the words “THE MELLON.” “Drag race?” Father Urban shook his head. “Chicken!” The Mellon shot ahead. Father Urban put it out of mind and, enjoying the feel, the roadability, of the little Barracuda, thought of Sylvia.
He was worried about her. After she’d brought the little car out to the Hill the day before, and after he’d driven her home before setting out for Ostergothenburg, she’d asked him to read from a book she happened to have with her, just one verse of a poem, and this Father Urban had been glad to do. When he finished, he said, “Yes.”
“Is that what you mean?”
“Yes, I suppose it is.”
And it was—the poet had put it very well:
An intellectual hatred is the worst,
So let her think opinions are accursed.
Have I not seen the loveliest woman born
Out of the mouth of Plenty’s horn,
Because of her opinionated mind
Barter that horn and every good
By quiet natures understood
For an old bellows full of angry wind?
Yes, and so had Father Urban. But Father Urban, with and without benefit of poetry, had been through this sort of thing with too many women—women with husbands like Ray Bean, all business, and women with husbands unlike Ray Bean, to say nothing of women without husbands—and he was afraid Sylvia might be building herself up for a letdown. Sylvia might not know what she had in mind. Or she might. In effect, by asking him to read the poem, she had put words in his mouth, words he might think but would never speak, words which might be said to compromise him, words from which, in the privacy of her imagination, Sylvia might distill pleasure of an illicit nature. And “loveliest woman born” was pushing it some in her case. “Damned attractive redhead” would’ve been more like it. Experience had shown Father Urban that a handsome priest couldn’t be too careful with women. Should he go on using Sylvia’s car? Considering that he’d be lost without it—many of his little trips would’ve been impossible without the car—he guessed he would. Maybe he’d use it less, though.
He found Mr Zimmerman living around on the other side, the “old” side, of the lake. Mr and Mrs Zimmerman were out in front of a five- or six-room cottage, sitting in tubular chairs under some lovely oaks, with the Sunday papers on the grass at their feet, and with the lake, which appeared to have a good sandy beach, just a chip shot away. There was a picnic table, and on it a Scotch-plaid jug and some colored aluminum tankards. Mrs Zimmerman filled and brought one of these to Father Urban.
“It’s called Icy-ade,” she said. Except for her hair, which was longer, and her dress, Mrs Zimmerman looked exactly like her husband. This was a phenomenon Father Urban had often observed in elderly couples, and could only attribute to their common diet. “You may have seen it advertised on television,” she said.
“Grape?” said Father Urban, after a taste, since the stuff was purple. “Good and cold.”
“That’s the main thing,” said Mr Zimmerman.
“Still there’s a lot to be said for a good glass of beer,” said Father Urban.
“Too gassy,” said Mr Zimmerman, getting up.
Father Urban followed him to the water’s edge and then out onto the dock to which a big plastic boat was tethered. Father Urban, if he owned a boat of that class, would want to see brass and mahogany. Mr Zimmerman’s boat looked like a bath toy. After admiring the boat, they considered the sad state of affairs in what Father Urban believed was called a live box. There were three small fish floating in it, and a few more that appeared to be dying, sipping at the surface of the water.
“Wolftangl, he better watch it,” Mr Zimmerman said, gazing out across the water. “I’ll shoot ’em on sight—anywhere in this lake.”
“How’s that?” said Father Urban.
“Joe Wolftangl, fella over on the next lake. Raises turtles for the market. One got in my box last month. Fish don’t have a chance.”
“You catch these fish, and you put ’em in here, and you eat ’em later—is that it?”
“My wife likes to eat ’em, but she don’t like to clean ’em.”
Mr Zimmerman gazed across the water again, and then he returned to land, Father Urban following, saying, “You’re not the Zim’s Beer Zimmerman, are you?”
“My son runs that now,” Mr Zimmerman said. “We had a skunk pass through here again the night before last. Good thing we don’t keep chickens.”
Why am I here? Father Urban asked himself. Turn back! Mrs Zimmerman was gone when they returned to the chairs. Father Urban was about to sit down—having decided to let his host play it his way—when Mr Zimmerman said, “Like to see my shack?”
Father Urban glanced up at the cottage. “O.K.,” he said.
They went up to the cottage, but then on into the woods behind it, until they came to a log cabin of recent construction. “My shack,” said Mr Zimmerman.
“And what do you do here?” said Father Urban. The cabin was partitioned off into two sections.
“Just read and write,” said Mr Zimmerman, moving out of view. “This is where I do the writing.”
Father Urban looked in on an upright typewriter, straight-back chair, and library table. The typewriter was old and had a patient look. On the wall, there was a larger-than-life photograph of the late junior senator from Wisconsin. There was also a filing cabinet. “And what do you write?” said Father Urban, retreating to the other section where there were chairs. Lincoln and Washington were in there.
“Wait,” said Mr Zimmerman, from the room where he did the writing. He brought Father Urban a large scrapbook with covers of dark polished wood. In wood of a lemon color, inlaid, were the words: “LETTERS TO THE EDITORS BY CARL P. ZIMMERMAN.”
“One of the boys at the prison made that for me,” Mr Zimmerman said. “A former employee. I didn’t ask h
im to, but I wrote and thanked him.”
“I should think you would,” said Father Urban, wondering if that was all Mr Zimmerman had done. “Minneapolis Tribune. St Paul Pioneer Press. CHICAGO Tribune,” said Father Urban, and looked up to see Mr Zimmerman smiling. “J. Edgar Hoover,” said Father Urban, coming upon one of his open letters. “How’d he get in here?”
“I thought that one was worth keeping. One of his best. The Shrapnel Brothers were here two weeks ago. Spent the day here.”
Father Urban didn’t reply at once.
“You know who they are?”
“Yes.” Yes. Most of Mr Zimmerman’s letters had appeared in the Drover, with the Ostergothenburg Times a close second. Father Urban had reached the point where he didn’t know what to say. “I take it,” he said, “you write mostly for the newspapers.”
“And magazines,” said Mr Zimmerman. He went into the room where he did the writing. He returned with a sheet of paper. “Here’s one I wrote a month or two ago—no, I see it was longer than that. This went to Time magazine,” he said, handing a carbon copy to Father Urban.
“But wasn’t published?”
“No, it wasn’t—at least not yet.”
“Has Time published anything of yours?”
“No, and I don’t have to tell you why.”
“No?”
“Pink.”
Father Urban didn’t reply at once.
“I wouldn’t say that to you—a stranger—if you weren’t a Catholic priest,” said Mr Zimmerman.
Father Urban believed that there was a great deal to be said for the conservative position, but he also believed—since a tree is known by its fruit—that Mr Zimmerman and his sort weren’t the ones to say it. He handed back the carbon copy and closed the scrapbook. Wouldn’t Mr Zimmerman be happier living in town? There were too many references to turtles and skunks and bears in his letters to the editors—snapping turtles down in Washington, dirty skunks down in Washington, and Russian bears. “You haven’t always lived out here, have you?”