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

Myles, noticing in the curate a tendency to lecture and feeling that he’d suffered one “perhaps” too many, defended himself, saying, “The man we met today wouldn’t let us set foot on church property in his diocese. What can you do with a bishop like that?”

“The very one you should have persevered with! Moses, you may remember, had to do more than look at the rock. He had to strike it.”

“Twice, unfortunately,” murmured Myles, not liking the analogy. Moses, wavering in his faith, had struck twice and had not reached the Promised Land; he had only seen it in the distance, and died.

“It may not be too late,” the curate said. “I’d try that one again if I were you.”

Myles laughed. “ That one was your own bishop,” he said.

“The bishop said that?” The curate showed some alarm and seemed suddenly a lot less friendly. “Is that why you’re here, then — why Mac’s here, I mean?”

“I couldn’t tell you why I’m here,” Myles said. In Mac’s defense, he said, “I don’t think he’s mentioned the Work here.” It was true. Mac and the pastor had hit it off right away, talking of other things.

“I heard him trying to sell the pastor a new roof — a copper one. Also an oil burner. Does he deal in those things?” the curate asked.

“He has friends who do.” Myles smiled. He wanted to say more on this subject to amuse the curate, if that was still possible; he wanted to confide in him again; he wanted to say whatever would be necessary to save the evening. But the shadow of the bishop had fallen upon them. There were only crumbs on the fudge plate; the evening had ended. It was bedtime, the curate said. He offered Myles a Coke, which Myles refused, then showed him to a couch in the parlor, gave him a blanket, and went off to bed.

Some time later — it was still night — Mac woke Myles and they left the rectory. Mac was sore; he said he’d lost a bundle. He climbed into the back seat and wrapped himself in the car rug. “A den of thieves. I’m pretty sure I was taken. Turn on the heater.” And then he slept while Myles drove away toward the dawn.

The next day, as they were having dinner in another diocese, another town, another hotel — Mac looked fresh; he’d slept all day — Myles told him that he was quitting.

“Soon?” said Mac.

“Right away.”

“Give me a little time to think about it.”

After dinner, Mac drew one of his good cigars out of its aluminum scabbard. “What is it? Money? Because if it is—” Mac said, puffing on the cigar, and then, looking at the cigar and not at Myles, he outlined his plans. He’d try to get more money for Myles from the Fathers, more take-home dough and more for expenses. He’d sensed that Myles had been unhappy in some of those flea bags; Myles might have noticed that they’d been staying together oftener. Ultimately, if the two of them were still together and everything went right, there might be a junior partnership for Myles in the store. “No,” Mac said, looking at Myles. “I can see that’s not what you want.” He turned to the cigar again and asked, “Well, why not?” He invited Myles up to his room, where, he said, he might have something to say that would be of interest to him.

Upstairs, after making himself a drink, Mac said that he just might be able to help Myles in the only way he wanted to be helped. He was on fairly good terms with a number of bishops, as Myles might have gathered, but an even better bet would be the Clementines. Myles could join the order as a lay brother— anybody could do that — swiftly win the confidence of his superiors, then switch to the seminary, and thus complete his studies for the priesthood. “I might be able to give you such a strong recommendation that you could go straight into the seminary,” Mac said. “It would mean losing you, of course. Don’t like that part. Or would it? What’s to stop us from going on together, like now, after you get your degree?”

“After ordination ?” Myles asked.

“There you are!” Mac exclaimed. “Just shows it’s a natural — us working as a team. What I don’t know, you do.”

While Mac strengthened his drink just a little — he was cutting down — Myles thanked him for what he’d done to date and also for what he was prepared to do. He said that he doubted, however, that he was meant for the Clementines or for the community life, and even if he were, there would still be the problem of finding a bishop to sponsor him. “Oh, they’d do all that,” Mac said. Myles shook his head. He was quitting. He had to intensify his efforts. He wasn’t getting to see many bishops, was he? Time was of the essence. He had a few ideas he wanted to pursue on his own (meaning he had one — to have another crack at the curate’s bishop). The induction notice, his real worry, might come any day.

“How d’ya know you’re all right physically?” Mac asked him. “You don’t look very strong to me. I took you for a born 4-F. For all you know, you might be turned down and out lookin’ for a job. In the circumstances, I couldn’t promise to hold this one open forever.”

With the usual apprehension, Myles watched Mac pour another drink. Could Mac want so badly for an underpaid chauffeur, he wondered. Myles’ driving was his only asset. As a representative of the Fathers, he was a flop, and he knew it, and so did Mac. Mac, in his own words, was the baby that delivered the goods. But no layman could be as influential as Mac claimed to be with the Fathers, hard up though they were for men and money. Mac wouldn’t be able to help with any bishop in his right mind. But Mac did want him around, and Myles, who could think of no one else who did, was almost tempted to stay as long as he could. Maybe he was 4-F.

Later that evening Mac, still drinking, put it another way, or possibly said what he’d meant to say earlier. “Hell, you’ll never pass the mental test. Never let a character like you in the Army.” The Fathers, though, would be glad to have Myles, if Mac said the word.

Myles thanked him again. Mac wanted him to drive the car, to do the Work, but what he wanted still more, it was becoming clear, was to have a boon companion, and Myles knew he just couldn’t stand to be it.

“You’re not my type,” Mac said. “You haven’t got it — the velocity, I mean — but maybe that’s why I like you.”

Myles was alone again with his thoughts, walking the plank of his gloom.

“Don’t worry,” Mac said. “I’ll always have a spot in my heart for you. A place in my business.”

“In the supermarket?”

Mac frowned. Drinking, after a point, made him appear a little cross-eyed. “I wish you wouldn’t use that word,” he said distinctly. “If y’wanna know, your trouble’s words. Make y’self harda take. Don’t have to be jerk. Looka you. Young. Looka me. Dead. Not even Catholic. Bloody Orangeman. ’S truth.”

Myles couldn’t believe it. And then he could, almost. He’d never seen Mac at Mass on Sundays, either coming or going, except when they were working, and then Mac kept to the vestibule. The bunk that Mac had talked about Myles’ being a cradle Catholic began to make sense.

“Now you’re leaving the Work, I tell you,” Mac was saying “Makes no difference now.” They were in Minnesota, staying in a hotel done in the once popular Moorish style, and the ceiling light and the shades of the bed lamps, and consequently the walls and Myles’ face, were dead orange and Mac’s face was bloody orange.

Myles got up to leave.

“Don’t go,” Mac said. He emptied the bottle.

But Myles went, saying it was bedtime. He realized as he said it that he sounded like the curate the night before.