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

“He just asked about confessions.”

“So he’ll be here in time for confessions. Good.”

“Said he was calling from Whipple.”

“ Whipple? ”

“Said he was down there buying a car.”

Joe nodded, as though he regarded Whipple, which he’d driven through once or twice, as an excellent place to buy a car. He was waiting for Mrs P. to continue.

“That’s all I know,” she said, and shot off to the kitchen. Hurt. Not his fault. Toohey’s fault. Curate’s fault. Not telling her about the curate was bad, but doing it as he would have had to would have been worse. Better she think less of him than know the truth — and think less of the Church. He took the sins of curates and administrators upon him.

That afternoon, he waited until four o’clock before he got on the phone to Earl. “Say, what is this? I thought you said Friday at the outside.”

“Oh, oh,” said Earl, and didn’t have to be told who was calling, or about what. He said he’d put a tracer on the order, and promised to call back right away, which he did. “Hey, Father, guess what? The order’s at our warehouse. North Carolina goofed.”

“That so?” said Joe, but he wasn’t interested in Earl’s analysis of North Carolina’s failure to ship to customer’s own address, and cut in on it. He described his bed situation, as he hadn’t before for Earl, in depth. He was going to be short a bed — no, not that night but the next, when his assistant would be there, and also a monk of advanced age who helped out on weekends and slept in the guest room. No, the bed in the guest room, to answer Earl’s question, was a single — actually, a cot. Yes, Joe could put his assistant on the box spring and mattress, but wouldn’t like to do it, and didn’t see why he should. He’d been promised delivery by Friday at the outside. He didn’t care if Inglenook was in Monday and Thursday territory. In the end, he was promised delivery the next day, Saturday.

“O.K., Father?”

“O.K., Earl.”

The next afternoon, a panel truck, scarred and bearing no name, pulled up in front of the rectory at seven minutes after four. Joe didn’t know what to make of it. He stayed inside the rectory until the driver and his helper unloaded a carton, then rushed out, and was about to ask them to unload at the back door and save themselves a few steps when a word on the carton stopped him. “Hold everything!” And it wasn’t, as he’d hoped, simply a matter of a word on a carton. Oh, no. On investigation, the beds proved to be as described on their cartons — cannonballs. “Hold everything. I have to call the store.”

On the way to the telephone, passing Father Otto, the monk of advanced age, who was another who hadn’t been told about the curate, and now appeared curious to know what was happening in the street, Joe wished that monks were forbidden to wear their habits away from the monastery. Flowing robes, Joe felt, had a bad effect on his parishioners, made him, in his cassock, look second-best in their eyes, and also reminded non-Catholics of the Reformation.

“Say, what is this?” he said, on the phone.

“Oh, oh,” said Earl when he learned what had happened. “North Carolina goofed.”

“Now, look ,” said Joe, and really opened up on Earl and the store. “I don’t like the way you people do business,” he said, pausing to breathe.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, Father, but didn’t you say you liked cannonballs?”

“Better than Jenny Lind, I said. But that’s not the point. I prefer the other, and that’s what I said. You know what ‘prefer’ means, don’t you?”

“Pineapples.”

“You’ve got me over a barrel, Earl.”

In the end, despite what he’d indicated earlier, Joe said he’d take delivery. “But we’re through,” he told Earl, and hung up.

He returned to the street where, parked behind the panel truck, there was now a new VW beetle, and there, it seemed, standing by the opened cartons with Father Otto, the driver, and his helper, was Joe’s curate — big and young, obviously one of the newly ordained men. Seeing Joe, he left the others and came smiling toward him.

“Where you been?” Joe said — like an old pastor, he thought.

The curate stopped smiling. “Whipple.”

Joe put it another way. “Why didn’t you give me a call?”

“I did.”

“Before yesterday?”

“I did. Don’t know how many times I called. You were never in.”

“Didn’t know what to think,” Joe said, ignoring the curate’s point like an old pastor, and, looking away, wished that the beetle — light brown, or dark yellow, sort of a caramel — was another color, and also that it wasn’t parked where it was, adding to the confusion. (The driver’s helper was showing Father Otto how his dolly worked.) “Could’ve left your name with the housekeeper.”

“I kept thinking I’d get you if I called again. You were never in.”

Joe moved toward the street, saying, “Yes, well, I’ve been out a lot lately. Could’ve left your name, Father.”

“I did, Father. Yesterday.”

“Yes, well.” Standing by the little car, viewing the books and luggage inside, Joe wished that he could start over, that he hadn’t started off as he had. He had meant to welcome the curate. It wasn’t his fault that he hadn’t — look at the days and nights of needless anxiety, and look what time it was now — but still he wanted to make up for it. “Better drive your little car around to the back, Father, and unload,” he said. “The housekeeper’ll show you the room. Won’t ask you to hear confessions this afternoon.” And, having opened the door of the little car for the curate, he closed it for him, saying, through the window, “See you later, Father.”

When he straightened up, he saw that Big Mouth, a neighbor and a parishioner, had arrived to inspect the cartons, heard him questioning Father Otto, saw, too, that Mrs P. had decided to sweep the front walk and was working that way. Joe called to her.

“I’ve bought a few things — besides the bed and chest here — for the curate’s room,” he told her, so she wouldn’t be too surprised when she saw them. Then he gave her the key to the room, saying, perhaps needlessly, that she’d find it locked, and that the box springs, mattresses, and bedspreads would be found within. The other bed — the one that should and would have been his but for the interest shown in it by Father Otto and Big Mouth — the other bed and chest, he told Mrs P., should go into the guest room. “Fold up the cot and put it somewhere. Get the curate to help you — he’s not hearing this afternoon.”

Turning then to the little group around the cartons, he saw that his instructions to Mrs P. had been overheard and understood. The little group — held together by the question “Would he take delivery?”—was breaking up. He thanked the driver and his helper for waiting, nodded to Big Mouth, said “Coming?” to Father Otto, since it was now time for confessions, and walked toward the church. He took the sins of curates and administrators and North Carolina upon him. He gave another his bed.

That evening, after confessions, and after Father Otto had retired to the new bed in the guest room, Joe and the curate sat on in the pastor’s study. Joe, doing most of the talking, had had less than usual, the curate more, it seemed — he was yawning. “Used to be,” Joe was saying, “we all drove black cars. I still do.” Joe, while he didn’t want to hurt the curate’s feelings, just couldn’t understand why a priest, even a young priest today, able to buy a new car should pick one the color of the curate’s. “Maybe it’s not important.”

“Think I’ll turn in, Father.”