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

“There,” he said finally. He removed the lock, threw open the door, but before he went in, he stepped over to the fuse box. The overhead light went out. Father Fabre entered the basement, where he had been only once before, and not very far inside then. The pastor secured the door behind them. From a convenient clothes tree he removed a black cap and put it on — protection against the dust? Father Fabre hadn’t realized that the pastor, who now looked like a burglar in an insurance ad, cared. The pastor glanced at him. Quickly Father Fabre looked away. He gazed around him in silence.

It was impossible to decide what it all meant. In the clothes tree alone, Father Fabre noted a cartridge belt, a canteen stenciled with the letters U.S., a pair of snowshoes, an old bicycle tire of wrinkled red rubber, a beekeeper’s veil. One of Father Fabre’s first services to the pastor had been to help John carry two workbenches into the basement. At that time he had thought the pastor must have plans for a school in which manual training would be taught. Now he felt that the pastor had no plans at all for any of the furniture and junk. A few of the unemployed statues when seen at a distance, those with their arms extended, appeared to be trying to get the place straightened up, carrying things, but on closer examination they, too, proved to be preoccupied with a higher kind of order, and carrying crosiers.

The pastor came away from a rack containing billiard cues, ski poles, and guns.

“Here,” he said, handing an air rifle to Father Fabre.

Father Fabre accepted the gun, tipped it, listening to the BB shot bowling up and down inside. “What’s this for?”

“Rats.”

“Couldn’t kill a rat with this, could I?”

“Could.”

But Father Fabre noticed that the pastor was arming himself with a.22 rifle. “What’s that?” he asked covetously.

“This gun’s not accurate,” said the pastor. “From a shooting gallery.”

“What’s wrong with trapping ’em?”

“Too smart.”

“How about poison?”

“Die in the walls.”

The pastor moved off, bearing his gun in the way that was supposed to assure safety.

Father Fabre held his gun the same way and followed the pastor. He could feel the debris closing in, growing up behind him. The path ahead appeared clear only when he looked to either side. He trailed a finger in the dust on a table top, revealing the grain. He stopped. The wood was maple, he thought, maple oiled and aged to the color of saddle leather. There were little niches designed to hold glasses. The table was round, a whist table, it might be, and apparently sound. Here was a noble piece of furniture that would do wonders for his room. It could be used for his purposes, and more. That might be the trouble with it. The pastor was strong for temperance. It might not be enough for Father Fabre to deplore the little niches.

“Oh, Father.”

The pastor retraced his steps.

“This might do,” Father Fabre said grudgingly, careful not to betray a real desire. There was an awful glazed green urn thing in the middle of the table which Father Fabre feared would leave scratches or a ring. A thing like that, which might have spent its best days in a hotel, by the elevators, belonged on the floor. Father Fabre wanted to remove it from the table, but he controlled himself.

“Don’t move,” said the pastor. “Spider.”

Father Fabre held still while the pastor brushed it off his back. “Thanks.” Father Fabre relaxed and gazed upon the table again. He had to have it. He would have it.

But the pastor was moving on.

Father Fabre followed in his steps, having decided to say nothing just then, needing more time to think. The important thing was not to seem eager. “It isn’t always what we want that’s best for us,” the pastor had said more than once. He loved to speak of Phil Mooney — a classmate of Father Fabre’s — who had been offered a year of free study at a major secular university, but who had been refused permission by the bishop. Young Mooney, as the pastor said, had taken it so well… “This — how about this?” said Father Fabre. He had stopped before a nightstand, a little tall for typing. “I could saw the legs off some.”

The pastor, who had paused, now went ahead again, faster.

Father Fabre lifted his gun and followed again, wondering if he’d abused the man’s sensibilities, some article of the accumulator’s creed. He saw a piano stool well suited to his strategy. This he could give up with good grace. “Now here’s something,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind having this.” He sounded as though he thought he could get it too.

The pastor glanced back and shook his head. “Belongs upstairs.”

“Oh, I see,” said Father Fabre submissively. There was no piano in the rectory, unless that, too, was in the pastor’s room.

The pastor, obviously pleased with his curate’s different tone, stopped to explain. “A lot of this will go upstairs when we’re through remodeling.”

Father Fabre forgot himself. “ Remodeling? ” he said, and tried to get the pastor to look him in the eye.

The pastor turned away.

Father Fabre, who was suddenly seeing his error, began to reflect upon it. There was no material evidence of remodeling, it was true, but he had impugned the pastor’s good intentions. Was there a pastor worth his salt who didn’t have improvements in mind, contractors and costs on the brain?

They moved deeper into the interior. Above them the jungle joined itself in places now. Father Fabre passed under the full length of a ski without taking notice of it until confronted by its triangular head, arching down at him. He shied away. Suddenly the pastor stopped. Father Fabre pulled up short, cradling his gun, which he’d been using as a cane. Something coiled on the trail?

“How’s this?” said the pastor. He was trying the drawers of a pitiful old sideboard affair with its mirrors out and handles maimed, a poor, blind thing. “Like this?” he said. He seemed to have no idea what they were searching for.

“I need something to type on,” Father Fabre said bluntly.

The pastor hit the trail again, somehow leaving the impression that Father Fabre was the one who was being difficult.

They continued to the uttermost end of the basement. Here they were confronted by a small mountain of pamphlets. In the bowels of the mountain something moved.

The pastor’s hands shifted on his gun. “They’re in there,” he whispered, and drew back a pace. He waved Father Fabre to one side, raised the gun, and pumped lead into the pamphlets. Sput-flub. Sput-flub. Sput-spong-spit .

Father Fabre reached for his left leg, dropped to his knees, his gun clattering down under him. He grabbed up his trouser leg and saw the little hole bleeding in his calf. It hurt, but not as much as he would’ve thought.

The pastor came over to examine the leg. He bent down. “Just a flesh wound,” he said, straightening up. “You’re lucky.”

“ Lucky! ”

“Tire there at the bottom of the pile. Absorbed most of the fire power. Bullet went through and ricocheted. You’re lucky. Here.” The pastor was holding out his hand.

“Oh, no,” said Father Fabre, and lowered his trouser leg over the wound.

The pastor seemed to be surprised that Father Fabre wouldn’t permit him to pinch the bullet out with his dirty fingers.

Father Fabre stood up. The leg held him, but his walking would be affected. He thought he could feel some blood in his sock. “Afraid I’ll have to leave you,” he said. He glanced at the pastor, still seeking sympathy. And there it was, at last, showing in the pastor’s face, some sympathy, and words were on the way — no, caught again in the log jam of the man’s mind and needing a shove if they were to find their way down to the mouth, and so Father Fabre kept on looking at the pastor, shoving…