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

GOOD RULES FOR BUSINESSMEN

Don’t worry, don’t overbuy; don’t go security.

Keep your vitality up; keep insured; keep sober; keep cool.

Stick to chosen pursuits, but not to chosen methods.

Be content with small beginnings and develop them.

Be wary of dealing with unsuccessful men.

Be cautious, but when a bargain is made stick to it.

Keep down expenses, but don’t be stingy.

Make friends, but not favorites.

Don’t take new risks to retrieve old losses.

Stop a bad account at once.

Make plans ahead, but don’t make them in cast iron.

Don’t tell what you are to do until you have done it.

To the extent that these rules could be made to apply to him — and all of them could, to an extent — the Bishop was doing pretty well, he thought. Presently, with the cat on his lap, he took a call from the editor of the diocesan weekly, Father Rapp, who said that Monsignor Holstein had just left, after giving him an argument over the spelling of “godlessness.” “I told him we never capitalize it,” Father Rapp said. “‘Then you better begin,’ he told me.”

“Don’t capitalize it,” said the Bishop, and returned to the pastoral letter.

Father Gau, the Chancellor, who had put through the call, entered the office, saying, “I thought I’d better let him talk to you.”

“Took care of it.”

“Is that ready to go over, Your Excellency?”

The Bishop looked down at the pastoral letter. “No — and what’s the big hurry?”

“No hurry, Your Excellency.” Father Gau smiled in that nice way he had. “I guess I just wanted to read it.”

Three days later, the episcopal Cadillac went to New Pilsen for Father Scuza’s funeral. Father Gau was at the wheel, the Bishop and Monsignor Holstein in the back seat, where there was some talk, on the Vicar-General’s part, of possible successors to the deceased. The Bishop was careful not to commit himself. St John Nepomuk’s, where Father Scuza had been pastor, was one of the most important parishes in the diocese, and the Bishop intended to take more of a hand in such appointments. Every pastor in Ostergothenburg, where there were three churches besides the Cathedral, was one of Monsignor Holstein’s men.

After the funeral, on the way back to Ostergothenburg, Monsignor Holstein raised the matter again. “We were down in the church basement, and Leo”—who was Monsignor Holstein’s choice for pastor of St John Nepomuk’s—“says why not heat the rectory from the church? Run a pipe underground, and convert the rectory from hot water to steam. Not a bad idea.”

The Bishop said nothing.

“I was worried about the radiators in the rectory, but Leo says they’re sound. Just have to watch your joints when you go to steam. And switch from oil to gas, Leo says. That’s one thing Leo understands — heating.”

The Bishop liked Leo well enough. Leo might easily have had the job in days past, but he was one of Monsignor Holstein’s men.

“House needs a lot of work,” said Monsignor Holstein. “As usual, curates don’t give a damn. Saw their rooms — nails in the walls and woodwork, and so on. Whoever goes there will have plenty to do. I’d say Leo’s your man, John.”

The Bishop said nothing.

As if he’d settled that matter, Monsignor Holstein moved on to the next one. How did the Bishop feel about relocating the big cross in the cemetery so that it would be visible from the new highway? “John, wouldn’t it be fine if, next summer, people driving north on their vacations could see the cross?” Then, not mentioning the argument he’d had with Father Rapp, although Father Rapp was present now, riding up in front with Father Gau, Monsignor Holstein got onto the spelling of “godlessness.” He said he could see how the word, under special circumstances, might not be capitalized. A heathen of no faith at all — and there were many such in ancient Rome, by all accounts — might be said to be godless as well as Godless. “But, of course, when we use the word, we don’t mean anything like that, do we? I don’t know whether I make myself clear or not.”

Father Gau and Father Rapp, no longer conversing, seemed to be listening for the Bishop’s response. It was the Bishop, after all, who had said, “Don’t capitalize it.” Later, the Bishop had checked the dictionary and found himself right, but as he saw it now the dictionary was wrong. He said nothing.

Father Gau glanced around and, smiling, said, “How would you spell ‘atheism,’ Monsignor? With a capital ‘T’?”

By tradition in the diocese of Ostergothenburg, whoever became chancellor had to be a good, safe driver. Always before, with his long confirmation trips in mind, the Bishop had taken a young man a few years out of the seminary — a practice that might have been criticized more if the diocese hadn’t enjoyed the services of a very able, though aging, bishop and a strong vicar-general. For a number of years, Monsignor Holstein had had a lot to say about who should be chancellor, but Father Gau had been the Bishop’s own choice for the job. He had come to it at the ripe old age of forty, after years spent entirely in rural parishes, ultimately as pastor in Grasshopper Lake, a little place that hadn’t been much in the news until he went there — until, to be more exact, Father Rapp, a classmate of Father Gau’s, took over as editor (and photographer) of the diocesan paper.

In May, on a confirmation trip to Grasshopper Lake, the Bishop had had a chance to see some of the wayside shrines he’d been reading about (and seen pictures of). They weren’t as close to the road as he would have liked them, but Minnesota wasn’t Austria, and the highway department had to have its clearance. The figurines in the shrines were perhaps too much alike, as if from the same hand or mold, and the crosses had been cut from plywood. But, garnished with the honest flowers of the field, as they were in May, these shrines — these outward manifestations of the simple faith of simple people in a wide and wicked world — were a very pretty sight to the Bishop. When he’d pulled up at the church in Grasshopper Lake, little children had suddenly appeared and, grouping themselves around his car, raised their trained voices in song, pure song. The Bishop had never heard the like. “First time I ever heard angels singing, and in German at that!” he told the congregation before beginning what turned out to be a good, long sermon.

Late in August, returning from a trip that had taken him to the northern border of the diocese, the Bishop had paused at Grasshopper Lake. It was the day of the parish’s harvest festival. Such occasions still had meaning in the Ostergothenburg diocese, the Bishop believed, and he did all he could to encourage them, only asking that they be brought to a close by sundown, that there be no dancing, and that pastors keep an eye on the beer stand. Father Gau was doing this when the Bishop arrived, and was not tending bar, which was something the Bishop didn’t want to see, as he’d said time and again. Together they had strolled among the people, the Bishop smiling upon the pies and cakes and upon the women who had baked them, and occasionally giving his hand to a man for shaking. To the grownups he’d say, “You earned this. You worked hard all year,” and to the children, “Give us a song!” And, since he was still a long way from home, he had kept moving, in time with the little Ach-du-lieber-Augustin band that played in the shade of a big tree, until he was almost back to his car — in which his chancellor of the moment sat listening to the Game of the Day. After asking whether Father Gau’s driver’s license was in good order, and hearing that it was, the Bishop had said, “Like to live in Ostergothenburg, Father?”