J. Powers - The Stories of J.F. Powers

“Got to talkin’… in Bill’s room,” Father Otto said, apologetically, and paused to watch his plate (which he’d been holding in a sloping manner) start down his outstretched leg, jump, and land on the floor, right side up. Once, twice, he nodded, as if to say no harm done, but his head hung down, finally, in an uncompleted nod.

Joe sprang into action. Others, nearer to Father Otto, had already sprung. But it was Joe who removed the fork (in the circumstances, a dangerous instrument) from Father Otto’s hand and thrust it at Potter, who hesitated to take it by the greasy end, and it was Joe who deftly kicked the plate aside and told Bill to pick it up, and Joe who instructed Hennessy and Conklin, instead of foolishly trying to firm him up, to lay the monk out on the couch. Joe then changed his mind about that, in view of the sepulchral effect it might have on the party. “Bedroom! Bedroom!” he cried. “Not mine! Not mine!” Conklin and Hennessy, frog-marching Father Otto this way and that, didn’t seem to know what they were doing. Then Joe saw what the trouble was. It was Conklin. Why, when there were plenty of clergy present, when the person in distress was himself one of them, why should a layman be playing such an important part? “Here, let me ,” Joe said, shouldering in, but the layman wouldn’t let go. Joe ended up with Hennessy’s portion of Father Otto. And so, borne up by Joe and Conklin, the helpless monk was removed from the scene.

When Joe got back from the guest room, he found that the juice, which he had yet to thicken with 1/2 tsp. of arrowroot dissolved in a little cold water, had already thickened, having been kept at, rather than brought to, a boil. Until then, he had hoped to serve cherries jubilee for dessert and to do the job himself, so Mrs P. wouldn’t have to be present, but now he didn’t know. The juice had definitely lost its liquidity, was hardening or charring at the edges of the top pan, or blazer. To go ahead now, with or without the arrowroot, might be a mistake. So, playing it safe, he blew out the flame, dished up the cherries as they were, room temperature and rather dry without their juice, and served them swiftly, with spoons. He said nothing, and nothing was said.

The conversation died when Joe sat down with his dish and spoon. He had tuned in earlier, though, while serving, and was curious to know why Hennessy thought that Conklin shouldn’t go on teaching at the Institute. “If he’s reasonably competent, and if Beans wants him back — well, why not?” said Joe, feeling broad-minded. (Hennessy, too, had that effect on him.) No response. “O.K. I’ll put it another way. What if he shaved off his mustache?”

Potter and Bill shuffled their feet and protested, but Joe ignored them. “Why not?” he asked, speaking directly to Conklin.

“You talkin’ about the mustache or the Institute?”

“Both.”

Potter and Bill protested again.

“It’s a fair question,” said Conklin. “About the Institute. You better tell him, Bill.”

Joe looked at Bill. “Well?”

“Conk’s lost his faith,” Bill said.

“That so?” said Joe. He was sorry to hear it, of course, and felt that more was expected of him, but he also felt that condolences weren’t in order, since some people regarded the loss of their faith as a step forward, and since he didn’t want to sound like he was rolling in the stuff himself. He now saw why Conklin had been invited, saw why so much was being made of him by Potter and Bill, saw what was really going on. It was an old-fashioned spiritual snipe hunt, such as they’d all read about, with Potter and Bill, if not Hennessy, happy to be participating, and also, it seemed, the snipe. That was the odd part.

“Conk just doesn’t take God for granted — unlike some of us in the Church,” Potter said, apparently to Joe. “That’s been our trouble all along. Atheism and faith — true faith — have that in common. They don’t take God for granted.”

Joe looked cross-eyed at Hennessy.

“But Conk’s not an atheist,” Bill said to Joe. “Are you, Conk?”

Conklin smiled. “No, but I’m working on it.”

Joe wanted to hit him.

“That’s what I like about Conk,” Potter said, grimly. “He’s honest.”

Bill nodded, grimly.

Joe sniffed. “What I don’t get,” he said to Conklin, “is why you want to go on teaching at the Institute if you’ve lost your faith. Just want to keep your hand in, or what?”

“Don’t blame Conk ,” Potter said

“ Conk wants to quit,” Bill said.

“He should,” Joe said, and gave him an encouraging nod.

“ No! ” cried Potter, and stood up. “What matters in teaching is a man’s competence, not his private beliefs, or lack of same. And that applies to things like Scripture and theology, if they’re teachable, and I say they are. By agnostics, infidels, and apostates, you say? Yes! I say. And, thank God, some of our better institutions agree!” Potter sat down.

Bill stood up. “But how many of our seminaries , Pot? How can we go on calling theology the Queen of Sciences?” Bill sat down.

“How about Beans?” said Joe, without getting up. Joe was pretty sure that Beans didn’t need Conklin, was just doing an ex-seminarian a favor, letting him keep his hand in, and maybe hoping for a delayed vocation. “ He know about this? No? Better tell him, then, so he can find somebody else, if necessary.”

Potter and Bill both stood up, both preaching, and Potter, of course, prevailed, but he was repeating himself.

“Look,” said Joe. “The Institute isn’t one of our better institutions.” Even as an adventure in adult education, which was all it claimed to be, it probably didn’t rate too high. “And it wouldn’t be one of our better institutions if you guys pulled this off.”

“It’d be a start,” said Potter, sitting down.

“It’d be a stunt,” said Joe, getting up. Going to the door, he took the tray from Mrs P., but on his return, with his mind on the trouble there could be over Conklin at the Institute — factions, resolutions, resignations, and so on — he overran the coffee table, jarring it and cracking his shin. In some pain, he backed up and put down the tray, saying, “I worry about you guys.” Pouring and handing around coffee, sloshing it, he spoke to them as he sometimes did to Bill alone, late at night.

HOME TRUTHS

He said that he, at their age, had dearly wanted to be a saint, had trained for it — plenty of prayer and fasting, no smoking, no booze (“Actually, I didn’t drink anything but beer then”), and had worn a hair shirt for a short period. At their age, he had worked out on himself, not on other people, and that was the difference between the men of his generation and theirs. One of the differences. “You guys even want to be saints? I doubt it. You’re too busy with your public relations.”

CHANGING STANDARDS

There might be worlds to be won, souls to be harvested, and so on, but not with stunts and gimmicks. He had been rather pessimistic about the various attempts to improve the Church’s image, and he had been right. Vocations, conversions, communions, confessions, contributions, general attendance, all down. And why not? “We used to stand out in the crowd. We had quality control. We were the higher-priced spread. No more. Now if somebody drops the ball somebody else throws it into the stands, and that’s how we clear the bases. Tell the man in the next parish that you fornicated a hundred and thirty-six times since your last confession, which was one month ago, and he says, ‘Did you think ill of your fellow-man?’ It’s a crazy world.”

STRANDED

There had always been a shortage of goodness in the world, and evil and ignorance were still facts of life, but where was the old intelligence? He had begun to wonder, as he never had before, about the doctrine of free will. People, he feared, might not be able to exercise free will anymore, owing to the decline in human intelligence. How else explain the state of the country, and the world, today? “We don’t, maybe we can’t , make the right moves — like those poor whales you read about. We’re stranded.”