The Stories of J.F. Powers (New York Review Books Classics) (23 page)

Father Burner plowed up the silence, talking with a mouthful of smoke. “All right, all right, I’ll say what I said in the first place. There’s something wrong with the figures. A country as overwhelmingly Catholic as Spain!” He sniffed, pursed his lips, and said, “Pooh!”

“Yes,” Keefe said, still balking. “But it
is
disturbing, Father Burner.”

“Sure it’s disturbing, Father Keefe.
Lots
of things
are
.”

A big, faded goldfish paused to stare through the glass at them and then with a single lob of its tail slipped into a dark green corner.

Quinlan said, “Father Burner belongs to the school that’s always seeing a great renascence of faith in the offing. The hour before dawn and all that. Tell it to Rotary on Tuesday, Father.”

Father Burner countered with a frosty pink smile. “What would I ever do without you, Father? If you’re trying to say I’m a dreadful optimist, you’re right and I don’t mind at all. I am—and proud of it!”

Ascending to his feet, he went to the right side of the buffet, took down the card index to parishioners, and returned with it to his place. He pushed his dishes aside and began to sort out the deadheads to be called on personally by him or Quinlan. The Dean; like all pastors, he reflected, left the dirty work to the assistants. “Why doesn’t he pull them,” he snapped, tearing up a card, “when they kick off! Can’t very well forward them to the next world. Say, how many Gradys live at 909 South Vine? Here’s Anna, Catherine, Clement, Gerald, Harvey, James A., James F.—which James is the one they call ‘Bum’?”

“James F.,” Quinlan said. “Can’t you tell from the take? The other James works.”

“John, Margaret, Matthew—that’s ten, no eleven. Here’s Dennis out of place. Patrick, Rita, and William—fourteen of them, no birth control there, and they all give. Except Bum. Nice account otherwise. Can’t we find Bum a job? What’s it with him, drink?”

Now he came to Maple Street. These cards were the remains of little Father Vicci’s work among the magdalens. Ann Mason, Estelle Rogers, May Miller, Billie Starr. The names had the generic ring. Great givers when they gave—Christmas, $25; Easter, $20; Propagation of the Faith, $10; Catholic University, $10—but not much since Father Vicci was exiled to the sticks. He put Maple Street aside for a thorough sifting.

The doorbell rang. Father Burner leaned around in his chair. “Mary.” The doorbell rang again. Father Burner bellowed. “Mary!”

Quinlan pushed his chair away from the table. “I’ll get it.”

Father Burner blocked him. “Oh, I’ll get it! Hell of a bell! Why does he have a bell like that!” Father Burner opened the door to a middle-aged woman whose name he had forgotten or never known. “Good morning,” he said. “Will you step in?”

She stayed where she was and said, “Father, it’s about the servicemen’s flag in church. My son Stanley—you know him—”

Father Burner, who did not know him, half nodded. “Yes, how is Stanley?” He gazed over her shoulder at the lawn, at the dandelions turning into poppies before his eyes.

“You know he was drafted last October, Father, and I been watching that flag you got in church ever since, and it’s still the same, five hundred thirty-six stars. I thought you said you put a star up for all them that’s gone in the service, Father.”

Now the poppies were dandelions again. He could afford to be firm with her. “We can’t spend all our time putting up stars. Sometimes we fall behind. Besides, a lot of the boys are being discharged.”

“You mean there’s just as many going in as coming out, so you don’t have to change the flag?”

“Something like that.”

“I see.” He was sorry for her. They had run out of stars. He had tried to get the Dean to order some more, had even offered . . . and the Dean had said they could use up the gold ones first. When Father Burner had objected, telling him what it would mean, he had suggested that Father Burner apply for the curatorship of the armory.

“The pastor will be glad to explain how it works the next time you see him.”

“Well, Father, if that’s the way it is . . . ” She was fading down the steps. “I just thought I’d ask.”

“That’s right. There’s no harm in asking. How’s Stanley?”

“Fine, and thank you, Father, for your trouble.”

“No trouble.”

When he came back to the table they were talking about the junior clergyman’s examinations which they would take for the first time next week. Father Burner interrupted, “The Dean conducts the history end of it, you know.”

“I say!” Keefe said. “Any idea what we can expect?”

“You have nothing to fear. Nothing.”

“Really?”

“Really. Last year, I remember, there were five questions and the last four depended on the first. So it was really only one question—if you knew it. I imagine you would’ve.” He paused, making Keefe ask for it.

“Perhaps you can recall the question, Father?”

“Perfectly, Father. ‘What event in the American history of the Church took place in 1541?’” Father Burner, slumping in his chair, smirked at Keefe pondering for likely martyrs and church legislation. He imagined him skipping among the tomes and statuary of his mind, winnowing dates and little known facts like mad, only at last to emerge dusty and downcast. Father Burner sat up with a jerk and assaulted the table with the flat of his hand. “Time’s up. Answer: ‘De Soto sailed up the Mississippi.’”

Quinlan snorted. Keefe sat very still, incredulous, silent, utterly unable to digest the answer, finally croaking, “How odd.” Father Burner saw in him the boy whose marks in school had always been a consolation to his parents.

“So you don’t have to worry, Father. No sense in preparing for it. Take in a couple of movies instead. And cheer up! The Dean’s been examining the junior clergy for twenty-five years and nobody ever passed history yet. You wouldn’t want to be the first one.”

Father Burner said grace and made the sign of the cross with slow distinction. “And, Father,” he said, standing, extending his hand to Keefe, who also rose, “I’m glad to have met you.” He withdrew his hand before Keefe was through with it and stood against the table knocking toast crumbs onto his plate. “Ever play any golf? No? Well, come and see us for conversation then. You don’t have anything against talking, do you?”

“Well, of course, Father, I . . .”

Father Burner gave Keefe’s arm a rousing clutch. “Do that!”

“I will, Father. It’s been a pleasure.”

“Speaking of pleasure,” Father Burner said, tossing Quinlan a stack of cards, “I’ve picked out a few lost sheep for you to see on Maple Street, Father.”

II. Noon

He hung his best black trousers on a hanger in the closet and took down another pair, also black. He tossed them out behind him and they fell patched at the cuffs and baggy across his unmade bed. His old suede jacket, following, slid dumpily to the floor. He stood gaping in his clerical vest and undershorts, knees knocking and pimply, thinking . . . what else? His aviator’s helmet. He felt all the hooks blindly in the darkness. It was not there. “Oh, hell!” he groaned, sinking to his knees. He pawed among the old shoes and boxes and wrapping paper and string that he was always going to need. Under his golf bag he found it. So Mary had cleaned yesterday.

There was also a golf ball unknown to him, a Royal Bomber, with one small hickey in it. Father Desmond, he remembered, had received a box of Royal Bombers from a thoughtful parishioner. He stuck the helmet on his balding head to get it out of the way and took the putter from the bag. He dropped the ball at the door of the closet. Taking his own eccentric stance—a perversion of what the pro recommended and a dozen books on the subject—he putted the ball across the room at a dirty collar lying against the bookcase. A thready place in the carpet caused the ball to jump the collar and to loose a pamphlet from the top of the bookcase. He restored the pamphlet—Pius XI on “Atheistic Communism”—and poked the ball back to the door of the closet. Then, allowing for the carpet, he drove the ball straight,
click
, through the collar,
clop
. Still had his old putting eye. And his irons had always been steady if not exactly crashing. It was his woods, the tee shots, that ruined his game. He’d give a lot to be able to hit his woods properly, not to dub his drives, if only on the first tee—where there was always a crowd (mixed).

At one time or another he had played every hole at the country club in par or less. Put all those pars and birdies together, adding in the only two eagles he’d ever had, and you had the winning round in the state open, write-ups and action shots in the papers—photo shows Rev. Ernest “Boomer” Burner, par-shattering padre, blasting out of a trap. He needed only practice perhaps and at his earliest opportunity he would entice some of the eighth-grade boys over into the park to shag balls. He sank one more for good measure, winning a buck from Ed Desmond who would have bet against it, and put the club away.

Crossing the room for his trousers he noticed himself in the mirror with the helmet on and got a mild surprise. He scratched a little hair down from underneath the helmet to offset the egg effect. He searched his eyes in the mirror for a sign of ill health. He walked away from the mirror, as though done with it, only to wheel sharply so as to see himself as others saw him, front and profile, not wanting to catch his eye, just to see himself . . .

Out of the top drawer of the dresser he drew a clean white silk handkerchief and wiped the shine from his nose. He chased his eyes over into the corner of the mirror and saw nothing. Then, succumbing to his original intention, he knotted the handkerchief at the crown of the helmet and completed the transformation of time and place and person by humming, vibrato, “Jeannine, I dream in lilac time,” remembering the old movie. He saw himself over his shoulder in the mirror, a sad war ace. It reminded him that his name was not Burner, but Boerner, an impediment removed at the outset of the first world war by his father. In a way he resented the old man for it. They had laughed at the seminary; the war, except as theory, hardly entered there. In perverse homage to the old Boerner, to which he now affixed a proud “von,” he dropped the fair-minded American look he had and faced the mirror sneering, scar-cheeked, and black of heart, the flying Junker who might have been. “
Himmelkreuzdonnerwetter!
When you hear the word ‘culture,’” he snarled, hearing it come back to him in German, “reach for your revolver!”

Reluctantly he pulled on his black trousers, falling across the bed to do so, as though felled, legs heaving up like howitzers.

He lay still for a moment, panting, and then let the innerspring mattress bounce him to his feet, a fighter coming off the ropes. He stood looking out the window, buckling his belt, and then down at the buckle, chins kneading softly with the effort, and was pleased to see that he was holding his own on the belt, still a good half inch away from last winter’s high-water mark.

At the sound of high heels approaching on the front walk below, he turned firmly away from the window and considered for the first time since he posted it on the wall the prayer for priests sent him by a candle concern. “Remember, O most compassionate God, that they are but weak and frail human beings. Stir up in them the grace of their vocation which is in them by the imposition of the Bishops’ hands. Keep them close to Thee, lest the enemy prevail against them, so that they may never do anything in the slightest degree unworthy of their sublime . . .” His eyes raced through the prayer and out the window . . .

He was suddenly inspired to write another letter to the Archbishop. He sat down at his desk, slipped a piece of paper into his portable, dated it with the saint’s day it was, and wrote, “Your Excellency: Thinking my letter of some months ago may have gone amiss, or perhaps due to the press of business—” He ripped the paper from the portable and typed the same thing on a fresh sheet until he came to “business,” using instead “affairs of the Church.” He went on to signify—it was considered all right to “signify,” but to re-signify?—that he was still of the humble opinion that he needed a change of location and had decided, since he believed himself ready for a parish of his own, a rural one might be best, all things considered (by which he meant easier to get). He, unlike some priests of urban upbringing and experience, would have no objection to the country. He begged to be graced with an early reply. That line, for all its seeming docility, was full of dynamite and ought to break the episcopal silence into which the first letter had dissolved. This was a much stronger job. He thought it better for two reasons: the Archbishop was supposed to like outspoken people, or, that being only more propaganda talked up by the sycophants, then it ought to bring a reply which would reveal once and for all his prospects. Long overdue for the routine promotion, he had a just cause. He addressed the letter and placed it in his coat. He went to the bathroom. When he came back he put on the coat, picked up the suede jacket and helmet, looked around for something he might have forgot, a book of chances, a box of Sunday envelopes to be delivered, some copy for the printer, but there was nothing. He lit a cigarette at the door and not caring to throw the match on the floor or look for the ashtray, which was out of sight again, he dropped it in the empty holy-water font.

Downstairs he paused at the telephone in the hall, scribbled “Airport” on the message pad, thought of crossing it out or tearing off the page, but since it was dated he let it stand and added “Visiting the sick,” signing his initials,
E.B
.

He went through the wicker basket for mail. A card from the Book-of-the-Month Club. So it was going to be another war book selection this month. Well, they knew what they could do with it. He wished the Club would wake up and select some dandies, as they had in the past. He thought of
Studs Lonigan
—there was a book, the best thing since the Bible.

An oblique curve in the road: perfect, wheels parallel with the center line. So many drivers took a curve like that way over on the other fellow’s side. Father Burner touched the lighter on the dashboard to his cigarette and plunged his hams deeper into the cushions. A cloud of smoke whirled about the little Saint Christopher garroted from the ceiling. Father Burner tugged viciously at both knees, loosening the binding black cloth, easing the seat. Now that he was in open country he wanted to enjoy the scenery—God’s majesty. How about a sermon that would liken the things in the landscape to the people in a church? All different, all the same, the handiwork of God. Moral: it is right and meet for rocks to be rocks, trees to be trees, pigs to be pigs, but—and here the small gesture that says so much—what did that mean that men, created in the image and likeness of God, should be? And what—He thrust the sermon out of mind, tired of it. He relaxed, as before an open fireplace, the weight of dogma off his shoulders. Then he grabbed at his knees again, cursing. Did the tailor skimp on the cloth because of the ecclesiastical discount?