The Stories of J.F. Powers (New York Review Books Classics) (60 page)

TOM: Blocks, sir. These could be held together by a “waterless cement”—not to put too fine a point on it—obtained from sulphur.

MELLER: Sulphur?

TOM: Yes, sir. Sulphur also is believed to exist on the moon.

HODGKINS: I’m surprised you didn’t know this, Senator.

WOODROW: I’m not.

MELLER: This isn’t my only committee, gentlemen.

HODGKINS: This isn’t
my
only committee.

WOODROW: Or mine.

HODGKINS: Nancy, see that the Senator gets copies of a report for a meeting in Washington, D.C., of the American Astronautical Society.

NANCY: Oh, all right.

WOODROW: Sophie, will
you
see that the Senator gets copies?

SOPHIE: Why do I have to do everything? Oh, all right.

MELLER: Thank you.

HODGKINS (
looking toward door
): Who’re all those people? Never mind. I thought they were coming in here. Well, Brown, we’d like to be of service to you, of course, but, as you know, this Administration is dedicated to economy as well as security, and we need every penny we have for projects under way—for
regular
agencies of the government. If there was anything really new in your approach, or if you’d actually made the trip to the moon and back, it might be different.

ACT TWO

Time
: Later

Place
: The Moon

HUB: Any luck, Tom?

TOM: It’s easy enough to get the dust shaped into a block, but as soon as you turn your back something happens to it.

HUB: We’re using too thin a mixture, you think?

TOM: Too thin, or too rich, or conditions aren’t right—or something! It won’t hold. How you comin’?

HUB: Well, this one worked up better than the last. The question is will it hold any better. Nope.

TOM: One more try, to use up what we’ve got on hand here, and then I’m turning in. We’ve had a long day, Hub.

HUB: You can say that again.

TOM: Round up some more p.d. and sulphur, so we can get an early start tomorrow. Go ahead, Hub. I’ll clean up here.

HUB: Thanks, Tom. You’re a brick.

TOM: That last batch of sulphur seemed to have more to it.

HUB: There’s plenty more where that came from. (
Goes off
.)

TOM: Don’t go too far away, Hub. It’s getting dark.

ACT THREE

Time
: Later

Place
: A crowded hearing room, Washington, D.C.

HODGKINS: Brown? Who’s he? How’d he get scheduled?

WOODROW: I’m sure I don’t know.

MELLER: Don’t look at me.

HODGKINS: Brown, if you’re Brown, who scheduled you?

TOM: I’d rather not say at this time, sir. When you hear all we have to say, sir, I think you’ll understand.

HODGKINS:
We? Who’s we?

TOM: My friend and I.

WOODROW: Is your friend present?

HUB: Yes, sir. Hickman, sir. Hub.

HODGKINS: Who scheduled
you
?

HUB: We’ve just returned from the moon, sir.

HODGKINS (
rapping the table
): Quiet! You people will please remember that you’re here as guests of the Committee.

MELLER:
Tom
Brown?

TOM: Yes, sir.

MELLER: Is it true, Tom, that you’ve just returned from the moon?

TOM: Yes, sir. Actually, we’ve been back about a week.

HODGKINS (
rapping the table
): Now see here—
quiet!

HUB: We wanted your committee to be the first to know, sir.

CYNICAL REPORTER: They came to the right place.

TOM: We would’ve come sooner, sir, but couldn’t get past your administrative assistants.

HUB: And legislative assistants, sir.

HODGKINS: I’m always available.

WOODROW: Me, too.

MELLER: Just the two of you made the trip, Tom?

TOM: Yes, sir. There wasn’t room for more, what with all the gear. It’s just a little two-seater, Hub’s heap. Supercharged, of course.

WOODROW: What kind of cock-and-bull story is this?

MELLER: My witness, Senator. And how was it on the moon, Tom?

TOM: About as expected, sir. Dusty. Airless, and therefore soundless, but we used sign language, and later lip reading. Hot during most of the day and cold at night. No rain to speak of while we were there, no moonquakes, and only an occasional meteor hit—none very close to us, fortunately.

HUB: Don’t you believe it, Senator. Tom had one near miss.

TOM: I’d say the hardest thing about it was the duration of the days and nights—each day, each night lasting two weeks. This made for a long workday, to say nothing of the time spent in the—pardon the expression—sack. But our bodies soon got used to it. Our thoughts were often of home.

HUB: You can say that again.

TOM: And of course it took a while to get used to the buoyancy. I weighed thirty-two and a half pounds, but had the full use of my strength, and a corresponding bulge on matter, which made our work a lot easier than it would have been otherwise.

MELLER: What was your work, Tom?

TOM: Constructing buildings, sir, with pumice dust. We had a devil of a time at first. Couldn’t get the p.d., as it’s called, to mix properly with the stickum—this obtained from sulphur, which is abundant on the moon, though in varying strengths, so that you have to know what you’re doing. We ran quality tests constantly. Once we got the hang of it, we were all right.

MELLER: Did you construct a building?

TOM: Two, sir. Oh, nothing like this one, but good and solid and not too small at that.

HUB: About the size of a bank.

TOM: But for the buoyancy factor, these buildings might have taken the two of us years to complete.

HODGKINS: Who scheduled you two birds?

WOODROW: I’ve had enough of this.

MELLER: Not so fast, gentlemen. Any signs of other life, Tom?

TOM: If you don’t mind, sir, I’d like to reply to the other Senator. We took the precaution to document our trip, fully expecting to be treated as we have been by some here today, though (
to Meller
) not by you, sir. Photographs of the buildings, samples of the soil, if you can call it that, p.d., sulphur, and so on—actually very little else.

HODGKINS (
rapping
): Quiet!

TOM: Now, sir, to your question. Yes, as you
might
expect if you keep up with the developments in the interstellar field, there were signs of other life on the moon.

HODGKINS (
rapping
): Here! Here! Order! Order!

MELLER: Pray continue, Tom.

TOM: With your kind permission, sir. Signs of other life, yes, and more than signs!

HODGKINS (
rapping
): Sergeant, do your duty. Order! Order! Order!

MELLER: You mean
they
are there?

TOM: Yes, sir.

MELLER: You saw them, Tom?

TOM: Yes, sir, and so did Hub.

HUB: Yes, sir.

TOM: In great numbers, sir. In very great numbers. They did not see us, but we saw them.

MELLER: What were they doing, Tom?

TOM: Why, constructing buildings with pumice dust, sir.

MELLER: How many buildings would you say they have?

TOM: Well, sir, when we left they had the beginnings of only one. Doubtless they ran into the same trouble we did at first, but, like us, they overcame that trouble. How many buildings they have now—with
their
program—I could not say. If I could, sir, I would not care to say in such a public place as this.

CYNICAL REPORTER: Well, I’ll be darned!

HODGKINS (
seeing a man trying to slink out
): Stop that man!

SERGEANT AT ARMS: Oh, no, you don’t!

MAN: Чëрт возъми! [“Devil take it!”]

HODGKINS (
seeing another man trying to slink out
): Stop
that
man!

SERGEANT AT ARMS: Oh, no, you don’t!

MAN:
? [“What’s to be done?”]

HODGKINS: Lock the doors! Lock the doors!

MELLER (
presently
): Well, gentlemen? What do you say now?

HODGKINS: My hat’s off to you, young man.

TOM: Thank you, sir.

HODGKINS: And to you, too, young man.

HUB: Thank you, sir.

WOODROW: Same here to both of you.

MELLER: You see, Tom and Hub, they really aren’t so bad. Whatever our party differences, we never fail to close ranks when threatened from without. What we have to do now is get that little machine of yours into production.

HODGKINS: And put a million men on the moon constructing buildings with pumice dust.

WOODROW: Two million.

MELLER: Three.

HODGKINS: I still don’t know who scheduled you young men.

TOM: You haven’t heard
all
we have to say, sir.

HUB: What Tom means, sir, is that he’d like your daughter’s hand in marriage.

TOM (
to Senator Woodrow
): And what Hub means, sir, is that he’d like
your
daughter’s hand in marriage.

HODGKINS: You mean it was Nancy who scheduled you, Tom?

TOM: Yes, sir.

WOODROW: And it was Sophie who scheduled you, Hub?

HUB: Yes, sir.

HODGKINS: Well, in that case, I don’t see why not.

WOODROW: I’ll go along with that.

CYNICAL REPORTER: Let me out of here!

THE TIME TO plant grass seed is in the winter, the man in the next parish had told Joe: just mix it in with the snow and let nature do the rest. So Joe had done that—had believed a priest who rode a scooter and put ice cubes in his beer—and, toward the end of April, had ordered sod. When he discovered that leftover sod couldn’t be returned for credit, he’d had it laid down alongside the church, over the flower beds—things like petunias—and now, on a warm Sunday, he could walk in what shade there was during the last Mass, read his breviary, and keep an eye on the parking lot. “
The story is told
. . .” And when the church windows were open, as they were now, he could catch the sermon. He had heard his curate, Bill, earlier, and now he was hearing the old monk who helped out on weekends, Father Otto. “
In like manner, my good people, one part of the camel’s corpus was followed by another (indeed, it could not be otherwise) until, at last, the rough beast was inside the tent, and the merchant, poor man, with all his good intentions, was out in the raging desert storm, or simoom. How. Like. Sin. That. Is
.”

While Father Otto took it from there, Joe moved out of range, out into the sun. Crossing the parking lot, he paused before a little pile of cigarette butts in the gravel, thought of inspecting the ashtrays of the nearest cars, thought again, and moved on toward his new rectory, thinking, As this church is the house of God, my good people, so this parking lot is—forget it. “You’re good people,” he called to a young couple. “Good and late.” No response. People who’d once been able to take and even enjoy a little friendly needling from their pastor, like the customers in a night club where an insulting waiter is part of the show, were restless and crabby nowadays. They wanted their “rights,” expected a priest to act like a minister, to say things like “So nice to see you” and “So glad you could make it,” and still they emptied their ashtrays in his parking lot. Entering the rectory by the back door, he washed his hands at the kitchen sink, then slipped into his illustrated apron, wearing it inside out over his cassock so the funny stuff was hidden, and set about making Father Otto’s breakfast.

When Bill, on his way over to church to help Father Otto with Communion, passed through the kitchen, Joe looked up from the breadboard, from sawing an orange, and said, “This isn’t for me”—just as he had a few weeks back, anxious then to explain his continuing presence in the kitchen to Bill. (It had been Bill’s first Sunday at the rectory.) “This isn’t for me” had since become something of a family joke, the thing to say when making another nightcap, when not declining dessert, which showed what a good guy Joe was, for he had a slight eating problem, unfortunately, and also a slight drinking problem.

As Bill went out the back door, Joe intoned, “
The story is told
. . .” Father Otto’s sermons had become something of a family joke, too. There should be others in time.

Fifteen minutes later, Father Otto passed through the kitchen, and breakfast—or brunch, as he sometimes called it with a chuckle—was served in the dining room. Joe and Bill ate in the kitchen on Sunday, the housekeeper’s day off, but Joe felt that Father Otto deserved better, as a man of the old school
and
as hard-to-get weekend help. After serving him, Joe sank down at the other end of the table with a cup of coffee. What he really wanted was a cold beer. “How’s everything at the monastery, Father?”

“About the same,” said Father Otto, and helped himself to the strawberry preserves. He praised the brand, Smucker’s. He said he preferred strawberry to red raspberry, and red to black raspberry, as a rule, and didn’t care for the monastery stuff, as the nuns skimped on the natural ingredients. “And make too much plum.”