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

“Thomas Nash Tracy,” Keefe said. “I thought you knew.”

“The prominent lay priest and usurer?”

Keefe coughed. “They say he’s done a lot of good.”

Quinlan spoke to Father Burner: “Did you take out a policy, Father?”

“One of the sixth-graders threw a rock through his windshield,” Father Burner said. “He was very nice about it.”

“Muldoon or Ciesniewski?”

“A new kid. Public school transfer.” Father Burner patted the napkin to his chin. “Not that I see anything wrong with insurance.”

Quinlan laughed. “Let Walter tell you what happened to him a few days ago. Go ahead, Walter,” he said to Keefe.

“Oh, that.” Keefe fidgeted and, seemingly against his better judgment, began. “I had a little accident — was it Wednesday it rained so? I had the misfortune to skid into a fellow parked on Fairmount. Dented his fender.” Keefe stopped and then, as though impelled by the memory of it, went on. “The fellow came raging out of his car at me. I thought there’d be serious trouble. Then he must have seen I was a priest, the way he calmed down, I mean. I had a funny feeling it wasn’t because he was a Catholic or anything like that. As a matter of fact he wore a Masonic button.” Keefe sighed. “I guess he saw I was a priest and ergo… knew I’d have insurance.”

“Take nothing for your journey, neither staff, nor scrip,” Quinlan said, “words taken from today’s gospel.”

Father Burner spoke in a level tone: “Not that I still see anything wrong with insurance. It’s awfully easy,” he continued, hating himself for talking drivel, “to make too much of little things.” With Quinlan around he played the conservative; among the real right-handers he was the enfant terrible . He operated on the principle of discord at any cost. He did not know why. It was a habit. Perhaps it had something to do with being overweight.

Arranging the Dean’s chair, which had arms, for himself, Quinlan sank into it, giving Keefe the Irish whisper. “Grace, Father.”

Keefe addressed the usual words to God concerning the gifts they were about to receive. During the prayer Father Burner stopped chewing and did not reach for anything. He noted once more that Quinlan crossed himself sloppily enough to be a monsignor.

Keefe nervously cleared the entire length of his throat. “It’s a beautiful church you have here at Saint Patrick’s, Father.” A lukewarm light appeared in his eyes, flickered, sputtered out, leaving them blank and blue. His endless fingers felt for his receding chin in the onslaught of silence.

“ I have?” Father Burner turned his spoon abasingly to his bosom. “ Me? ” He jabbed at the grapefruit before him, his second, demolishing its perfect rose window. “I don’t know why it is the Irish without exception are always laying personal claim to church property. The Dean is forever saying my church, my school, my furnace…”

“I’m sorry, Father,” Keefe said, flushing. “And I’ll confess I did think he virtually built Saint Patrick’s.”

“Out of the slime of the earth, I know. A common error.” With sudden, unabated displeasure Father Burner recalled how the Dean, one of the last of the old brick and mortar pastors, had built the church, school, sisters’ house, and rectory, and had named the whole thing through the lavish pretense of a popular contest. Opposed bitterly by Polish, German, and Italian minorities, he had effected a compromise between their bad taste (Saint Stanislaus, Saint Boniface, Saint Anthony) and his own better judgment in the choice of Saint Patrick’s.

Quinlan, snorting, blurted, “Well, he did build it, didn’t he?”

Father Burner smiled at them from the other world. “Only, if you please, in a manner of speaking.”

“True,” Keefe murmured humbly.

“Nuts,” Quinlan said. “It’s hard for me to see God in a few buildings paid for by the funds of the faithful and put up by a mick contractor. A burning bush, yes.”

Father Burner, lips parched to speak an unsummonable cruelty, settled for a smoldering aside to the kitchen. “Mary, more eggs here.”

A stuffed moose of a woman with a tabby-cat face charged in on swollen feet. She stood wavering in shoes sliced fiercely for corns. With the back of her hand she wiped some cream from the fuzz ringing her baby-pink mouth. Her hair poked through a broken net like stunted antlers. Father Burner pointed to the empty platter.

“Eggs,” he said.

“Eggs!” she cried, tumbling her eyes like great blue dice among them. She seized up the platter and carried it whirling with grease into the kitchen.

Father Burner put aside the grapefruit. He smiled and spoke calmly. “I’ll have to let the Dean know, Father, how much you like his plant.”

“Do, Father. A beautiful church… ‘a poem in stone’—was it Ruskin?”

“Ruskin? Stones of Venice ,” Father Burner grumbled. “ Sesame and Lilies , I know… but I never cared for his style .” He passed the knife lovingly over the pancakes on his plate and watched the butter bubble at the pores. “So much sweetness, so much light, I’m afraid, made Jack a dull boy.”

Quinlan slapped all his pockets. “Pencil and paper, quick!”

“And yet…” Keefe cocked his long head, brow fretted, and complained to his upturned hands. “Don’t understand how he stayed outside the Church.” He glanced up hopefully. “I wonder if Chesterton gives us a clue.”

Father Burner, deaf to such precious speculation, said, “In the nineteenth century Francis Thompson was the only limey worth his salt. It’s true.” He quartered the pancakes. “Of course, Newman.”

“Hopkins has some good things.”

“Good — yes, if you like jabberwocky and jebbies! I don’t care for either.” He dispatched a look of indictment at Quinlan.

“What a pity,” Quinlan murmured, “Oliver Wendell couldn’t be at table this morning.”

“No, Father, you can have your Hopkins, you and Father Quinlan here. Include me out, as Sam Goldwyn says. Poetry — I’ll take my poetry the way I take my liquor, neat.”

Mary brought in the platter oozing with bacon and eggs.

“Good for you, Mary,” Quinlan said. “I’ll pray for you.”

“Thank you, Father,” Mary said.

Quinlan dipped the platter with a trace of obeisance to Father Burner.

“No thanks.”

Quinlan scooped up the coffeepot in a fearsome rush and held it high at Father Burner, his arm so atremble the lid rattled dangerously. “Sure and will you be about having a sup of coffee now, Father?”

“Not now. And do you mind not playing the wild Irish wit so early in the day, Father?”

“That I don’t. But a relentless fate pursuing good Father Quinlan, he was thrown in among hardened clerics where but for the grace of God that saintly priest, so little understood, so much maligned …” Quinlan poured two cups and passed one to Keefe. “For yourself, Father.”

Father Burner nudged the toast to Keefe. “Father Quinlan, that saintly priest, models his life after the Rover Boys, particularly Sam, the fun-loving one.”

Quinlan dealt himself a mighty mea culpa .

Father Burner grimaced, the flesh rising in sweet, concentric tiers around his mouth, and said in a tone both entrusting and ennobling Keefe with his confidence, “The syrup, if you please, Father.” Keefe passed the silver pitcher which was running at the mouth. Father Burner reimmersed the doughy remains on his plate until the butter began to float around the edges as in a moat. He felt them both watching the butter. Regretting that he had not foreseen this attraction, he cast about in his mind for something to divert them and found the morning sun coming in too strongly. He got up and pulled down the shade. He returned to his place and settled himself in such a way that a new chapter was indicated. “Don’t believe I know where you’re located, Father.”