by J.F. Powers
“I don’t like the idea of a borrowed car,” Billy said. “Let’s see if we can buy one.”
They left Paul with the luggage and walked over to the main street. Father Urban had been impressed by Billy’s casual approach to buying a car, but he was afraid that Billy wouldn’t be able to bring it off in Duesterhaus, where the dealers sold more farm machinery than cars. The first place looked unpromising, but the other had a station wagon in the window, a Rambler, a brown one—what Father Urban believed was called desert tan.
“That’ll do,” Billy said.
“I understand the resale value is high.”
“Can’t you use it around the place?”
Until then, Father Urban hadn’t been sure that the transportation problem at St Clement’s Hill was being solved. “God writes straight with crooked lines,” he said.
“Come again.”
Father Urban said that they’d had a certain amount of trouble with the pickup truck, and that he had often regretted (and never so much as that morning) having to meet visitors at the station in the old thing.
“What you said before—how’s that go again?”
Father Urban repeated the line. “It’s an old saying. From the Portuguese, I believe. Anyway, one of my favorites.”
“I like it,” Billy said, and they entered the establishment. “I’ll take the one in the window,” he told the man inside.
“You will?” said the man.
Unfortunately, however, there was the matter of a license for the car, which had to be procured in Olympe, fourteen miles away. The dealer offered to send his wife for it, but this wasn’t good enough for Billy. He said that he’d been led to believe that the wagon was ready to roll, and he wasn’t going to lose time because some people didn’t know their business. He’d take delivery at St Clement’s Hill in one hour’s time or not at all. Father Urban, who had seen Billy like this before, in restaurants, followed him out of the place, feeling sorry for the dealer and hoping for the best. For Father Urban, it was a long one and three-tenths miles back to St Clement’s Hill. On the way, he tried some small talk on Billy, which was no good, and then on Paul, which wasn’t much better, for Paul did his best to observe the silence of his master.
At the Hill, they went straight to the refectory, where five retreatants were eating at the long table, and after Paul had been introduced to Wilf and Jack, they all sat down at the round table to beer and hamburgers, frozen sweet corn from their own garden, and strained conversation. Father Urban didn’t feel like talking, and he didn’t feel like eating. (Billy had removed his watch from his wrist, had put it by his plate, and was keeping an eye on it.) Oh, to be able to say, “Now, look here, Billy. What if the man does come a little late? He’s trying to do his best, and you have to give him credit for that. God does, you know. That’s really all that counts with Him. Now, how about it?”
No, it wouldn’t do. Father Urban’s influence with Billy was considerable, and growing stronger, but it wasn’t up to anything like that. Meanwhile, Billy was doing a certain amount of tangible good in the world, and this might more than compensate for his little crimes against humanity, some of which, anyway, were atoned for right on the spot by Father Urban through his silent sufferings.
“By the way,” Wilf said to Father Urban. “You had a visitor. A Mr Studley. He was in the neighborhood and thought he’d stop by.”
“I don’t really know him,” Father Urban said.
“Seems to think we could use an air strip here.”
“Bit of a nut on that subject—and others,” said Father Urban, thinking if there was one thing Billy hated, it was the airplane.
“He seemed nice enough. Non-Catholic.”
Ten minutes later Wilf was still leading the conversation, and it was still going nowhere. He said he’d spoken to the sheriff again about people parking on the golf course at night. The only response came from Jack, who, given more of an opportunity to talk than he usually got, said he understood (from a man he’d met in the Duesterhaus post office) that the trespassers were only looking for night-crawlers. “They’re used for bait,” he said, addressing this remark to Billy.
“Well, he made it,” Billy said. From where he was sitting, he could see the driveway without turning his head.
“Thank God,” said Father Urban.
“You don’t blame me, do you, Father?” Billy asked.
“No.”
A moment later, the doorbell rang, and Brother Harold answered it.
“Just ask the man how much it is,” Billy called after him, taking out his checkbook.
Wilf looked at Father Urban, seeking some clue to what was going on. Brother Harold reappeared, bringing a bill of sale and some other documents. Billy glanced at these and then passed them to Wilf without a word of explanation. That was how Billy gave.
When Wilf had got it all straight, he thanked Billy in the name of the Order, and said he was glad it hadn’t been necessary to trade in the pickup truck, which, by and large, had given good service and very likely would continue to do so. “I think this calls for a little celebration, and don’t forget them,” said Wilf, meaning the five retreatants.
Brother Harold brought in another round of beer. Father Urban left the room and led in the dealer. It was Father Urban’s intention to make peace between the dealer—a Mr Swanson, who said all his friends called him Swanny—and Billy, who said there used to be a song by that name.
There was a feeling of good fellowship in the refectory now. Mr Swanson, all the better for the bad time Billy had given him earlier, seemed very happy to be present. He took no part in the conversation, but he was enjoying his beer, and when he saw Wilf putting salt in his, was not afraid to ask for the shaker. Paul, not much for beer, he said, went out to look at the station wagon.
“I wanted to serve more of a meal than this,” Wilf said to Billy, “but Father Urban, here, said no. He said you’d only want what we usually have. Of course, we don’t have beer every day,” Wilf said, eyeing Mr Swanson.
“No,” said Mr Swanson.
“I didn’t come here to eat, but you don’t have to apologize for this,” Billy said. Then he addressed Father Urban. “You know Father Gabriel, don’t you? The Dalmatian?”
“Oh yes.” So Father Gabriel was still buzzing Billy.
“They had me out there for a meal recently,” Billy said. “Served three kinds of hock, and then the head man had the nerve to tell me they were a very penitential order.”
Father Urban laughed. “I wish we could say the same here —and serve the same.”
“They were just spreading themselves on your account, Mr Cosgrove. They’re not a wealthy order.” This from Jack.
Father Urban could have killed him.
Wilf and Mr Swanson were discussing the pickup truck. “But what if we traded it in—what would you allow us then?”
“Hard to say. It would depend on what you had in mind. I might go as high as seventy-five dollars.”
“I see. Well, thank you.”
Billy had expressed a desire to visit the chapel, and so, when lunch was over, the entire party moved in that direction.
“We’ll drive you back to town when we leave,” Billy said to Mr Swanson.
Father Urban was gratified to hear this.
As a sacred artist, Brother Harold had done as well as could be expected of a young man whose other occupations—cooking, housekeeping, gardening, and attendance at the golf course—left him little time for church decorating. He had made the most of his deficiencies by painting in the new Byzantine manner. His winged ox, lion, man, and eagle, viewed as a group in that setting, were quite recognizable as the four Evangelists. Father Urban explained who they were, however, in deference to Mr Swanson.
“They’re not representational in the photographic sense,” said Brother Harold.
“Who’s this?” Billy asked.
Father Urban explained that this—a stag drinking from three wiggly lines—was known as “The Living Wate
rs” and symbolized not only baptism but the other sacraments, and therefore, you might say, the Church.
It was apparent to Father Urban that Billy wasn’t taken with Brother Harold’s iconography. Nevertheless, as they were leaving the chapel, Billy bucked up and said, “You don’t have to apologize for any of this, Brother.”
After they’d left the chapel, Father Urban said to Billy: “Sure you don’t want to play a few holes?”
“Not now,” Billy said. “Maybe when we come back.”
So they made their way out to the station wagon. Paul had everything loaded, including Father Urban’s bag, and was sitting behind the wheel.
“I’ll ride in front with him, and that way I can tell him a few things about the car,” Mr Swanson said, as if he hoped thus to work his passage into town.
“Good idea,” Billy said.
Father Urban feared that Mr Swanson had been planning for some time to say what he’d just said, and that Billy didn’t like it—didn’t like having his little friendly gesture of offering Mr Swanson a ride turned to his own advantage.
“And then maybe he can tell you,” Mr Swanson said to Father Urban.
“Sounds good to me,” Billy said.
Mr Swanson, now confidently addressing Billy, said, “And then he can tell the others here when he comes back.”
“Let’s get going,” Billy said.
They paused twice on the way for refreshments, and reached Henn’s Haven at sundown. Billy stepped out, with his rod and reel already stripped for action. He introduced Father Urban to Mr Henn who had come out to greet them, and then hurried off toward the dock to try his luck in Bloodsucker Lake. Paul, who knew his way around, drove down a sandy road to their cottages. That left Father Urban alone with Mr Henn, who apparently either hadn’t been told that one of Billy’s party would be a priest or hadn’t expected to see one wearing gray flannel slacks, a white turtleneck sweater, and a crew cap. (You never knew what people were thinking—only that you lost or gained ground fast the moment it was known you were a priest.) Chester, as Billy had called Mr Henn, was in his late fifties and wore an old felt hat. Stuck in the band were three badges: “Keep Minnesota Green”; “Minnesota Centennial 1857–1957”; and “Prevent Fires.” Chester had a complaining face and a contented voice. He said he’d run out of the names of game fish native to the region and didn’t care to start in on the pan fish, and so he’d taken a doctor friend’s advice and named his three new cottages Jolly, Good, and Fun.
“And I suppose I’m stuck with Good,” said Father Urban.
“They’re all the same,” Chester replied. “And if there’s anything wrong, I want to know it. If there’s nothing wrong, tell your friends.”
They walked down to the lake together. Billy was standing at the end of the dock, casting a plug out into the water. He wasn’t having any luck, but this didn’t appear to bother him. “I just want ’em to know I’m here,” he said.
“Doc Strong, he got a nice one off there last month,” Chester said. They watched Billy reel in nothing once more. “It’s been a lot better in Snowflake this year,” Chester said, and led Father Urban up to the main lodge, which was constructed of logs painted dark green, with fresh white chinking. “We’ll go out to Snowflake in the morning,” Chester said. “And maybe to Strong. That’s a lake I named after Doc Strong, who you may have heard me mention.”
“Yes.”
“Doc helped me when times was hard—like Mr Cosgrove during the war when we got hit by gas rationing. For Mr Cosgrove’s sake, I wish we hadn’t run out of no-name lakes.”
“Say, this is nice,” Father Urban said. There was a screened-in porch running clear across the front of the lodge, from which there was a wonderful view of the lake.
“We think so,” Chester said.
Inside, the lounge, dining room, kitchen, and lavatories, and on the second floor, Chester said, were living quarters for himself and the missis. The logs were natural-varnished on the inside. The whole place was very well kept up. The stuffed birds and fur-bearing animals on the walls wore cellophane slip-covers. That was overdoing it, Father Urban felt.
“Like a cup of coffee?” Chester asked him. “Or we have soft drinks. Near beer, if you want something a little stronger. Mr Cosgrove, I guess you know, he brings his own.”
“Nothing right now, thanks.”
Father Urban knew from signs he’d seen along the way that the proprietors of Henn’s Haven were Dad and Mother Henn, and from Billy he knew that Chester’s first wife had died and that he had married again. But Father Urban hadn’t been prepared to see such a young woman as the second Mrs Henn, and he didn’t know how to take it when Chester introduced her—she couldn’t have been more than twenty-five—as “Mother.”
“Hello,” she said, and after that she just smiled. She was dark, perhaps part Indian, and so attractive that Father Urban was relieved when she left them for the kitchen. Her scent remained, however. Father Urban moved away from it.
“My first wife was an older woman,” Chester said.
“I see.”
“For business reasons, we go on using the old name. It’s a natural, and in this game all you’ve got is your name, built up over the years.”
Father Urban nodded. There wasn’t much wrong with that. After all, it would only be a matter of time before Mother looked the part. As for Dad—“You have children, Mr Henn?”
“Well, no. Neither my first or my second wife—yet. Guess we just have to keep hoping.”
“That’s right,” said Father Urban, and, in a firm tone, swept on, “Say, if you don’t mind, I’d like to see where I live, before it gets dark.”
“Honey!” Chester called, and his wife returned.
For Father Urban, it had been a rather tiring day, and after Honey, or Mother, had shown him to his cottage (which was Good), he stretched out on his bed—but not for long, for Billy and Paul dropped in. Billy said he was in Jolly. At his suggestion, they all went over to the lodge for a sandwich and a drink, Paul carrying a piece of Billy’s luggage into the kitchen of the lodge. Billy and Father Urban entered the lounge. Billy chose a table near the dead fireplace and shoved it nearer. “Come on,” he yelled. “Turn on the heat.”
Chester came out of the kitchen. “I didn’t know if you’d be over or not,” he said. He knelt and set off the logs already arranged in the fireplace.
“This is more like it,” Billy said when the logs had blazed up and Paul came in with their drinks. “Hey, where’s the piano?”
“You didn’t see this, did you?” Chester said, going over to a jukebox and turning on its fiery front. “We didn’t have this when you were here in the spring.”
“Where’s the piano?” Billy asked again.
“I had a chance to sell it, Mr Cosgrove.”
“Why, I loved that old piano,” Billy said to Father Urban.
“We found out that was where all the moths was coming from,” Chester said.
“You must be slipping, Chester,” Billy said. “That was the only piano I could ever really play.”
“When we found out where all the moths was coming from, I said, ‘Honey, we better get rid of this old piano,’” Chester said.
“Those moths were coming from you,” Billy said.
To nobody in particular Chester said, “I have to get along with people.”
“Where’s the piano?” Billy asked.
“A fella stopped by that makes a business of buying up these old pianos,” Chester told him. “He wasn’t from around here.”
“I was afraid of that,” Billy said. “Well, let’s get on the phone and see if we can buy one.”
Father Urban looked at the cuckoo clock over the fireplace. “Hadn’t we better wait until tomorrow?”
But by the time Father Urban had finished his club-steak sandwich, Paul, on the telephone, had reached the owner of a music store in the nearest town of any size, forty miles away. (“And most of it over gravel roads,” Chester said. Father Urban couldn�
��t see why Chester was so sad, if Billy was going to pay for the piano.)
“He don’t deal in secondhand jobs,” Paul shouted, from the phone. “He says he’ll be real glad to sell us a new one.”
“Ask him if he’ll be real glad to deliver one tonight,” Billy said.
Paul reported back. “He says are we kiddin’?”
“Tell him no,” Billy said. “You better talk to him, Chester. Tell him who you are and how the hell to get here.”
Father Urban finished his drink and declined another. He waited a moment, and then excused himself, saying he was tired. Billy didn’t take this very well. He acted as though Father Urban should be willing, and more than willing, to wait up for the piano.
“I’ve had a long day, Billy.”
“We’ve all had a long day.”
“The truth is I have some office to read.”
Billy’s face softened up entirely. “Oh,” he said. “That’s different.”
13. . . . A BAD HAND
PITY THE POOR resort operator! At the bottom of his efforts to get along with people there may be only the base conviction that it will profit him, but, even so, Father Urban felt sorry for Chester the next day. Billy and Paul had gone to bed the night before and left Chester waiting up for the piano. When it had come, in the wee hours, Chester and the truck driver had had to move it into the lodge. Early in the morning, Chester had had to get Billy out of his bed, and minnows for the day’s fishing out of their tank. It was Chester who made breakfast. He said Honey came down later.
The fishing that morning, as Chester said to a colleague—another guide in a passing boat—was nothing to brag about. Father Urban made the only catch, and Billy, who was after lake trout, had actually wanted him to throw it back—“a lousy two-pound walleye!” They tried Snowflake and they tried Strong. They tried trolling, fast and slow, Chester making the old outboard talk in a whisper. They tried jigging—yanking the rod up and down when reeling in the line, after a cast. They tried it shallow. They tried it deep. They tried all kinds of bait—redheads, daredevils, tezerenos, artificial mice, doctor spoons, hula dancers, and lazy ikes. Chester went ashore and caught a frog, and Billy tried that. Billy had one strike, but nothing came of it. “Probably a shoe,” he said.