J. Powers - Wheat That Springeth Green

On hot days, like this one, he might wake up in a sweat and wade through the study in a dazed state, startling the monk (“My!”) but for whom Joe might have had his nap in the air-conditioned comfort of the study. That afternoon Joe kept moving, like a fighter in trouble, and made it to the kitchen, where he opened and reached into the refrigerator for a beer and then resisted it. Orange juice then? No. V-8? No. Tonic ( no gin)? No. Ice water? No. Lukewarm chlorinated water from the tap? No, not even that. How about taking a much needed bath? No. A spot of mouthwash? No. How about just going to the toilet? No. Hey, I know — how about a beer ?

Hey, what was he doing?

Ninety in the shade, and he was going out into the sun! Why? Hadn’t he done enough? Hadn’t he, though he’d lost points by opening the refrigerator, rallied, fought back, and won by a clear decision? Yes, he had, but the thing is not to let up, the thing is to pour it on, as every champion knows, be he (or she) athlete or saint, and that was what he was doing, pouring it on. Spiritually and physically — let’s face it — he’d dropped too many decisions. He was on the way down. But he still had it at times. Call it guts, call it class. The great ones all had it — Sugar Ray, St John of the Cross, Man o’ War, Stymie, and, not to forget the ladies, Gallorette…

From the can of nails in the garage, as from the ump, he took the official American League ball (a dog’s ball of rubber, actually) and strolled out (about thirty feet out into the driveway, actually) to the mound in that hitter’s heaven and pitcher’s hell, Fenway Park, smelling the popcorn, the peanuts, the hot dogs, the cigarette and cigar smoke, the natural grass, hearing the chuckle of beer pouring into paper cups, the partisan but (he being what he was) reverent cries from the Bosox fans. After taking his warm-up tosses, these powdering the inside corners of the strike zone (chalked on the garage door of stadium green), he hitched up his trousers — a few clubs had worn dark uniforms in the past, the Chisox last? — and mopped his brow (one of the ways he doctored the ball) and glared at the hitter. It was the usual bases-loaded-nobody-out situation, or he, having worked and won at home the night before, after hearing confessions, wouldn’t have got the call. Announcers up in the booth going on and on about him. “A picture-book pitcher!” “His delivery as, in the words of the Psalmist, oil being poured out!” “Yeah, and how he fields his position!” “He didn’t learn that in books!” “Wire here signed Arch: ‘MAY THE BETTER THAT IS TO SAY MORE DESERVING TEAM WIN.’ How about that! That’s America, folks!” “Understand Father said the ten o’clock Mass in his parish this morning.” “Understand it was a high one.” “Flown in by United.” “Police escort.” “Wire here signed Lefty: ‘IF FATHER FIGURED IN A TRADE COULD BACKWARD CHURCH AUTHORITIES QUEER DEAL?’” “Well, as I understand it, they could , but probably wouldn’t — in the national interest.” “The Bosox could sure use Father.” “ Any club could.” He alone, with his knowledge of batters (encyclopedic), his stuff (world of), his control (phenomenal), had made the Twins a constant threat down the years. Forty-four now, ancient for baseball, he was perhaps best described as a short, fat, white Satchel Paige. Once a starter and consistent twenty- (make that thirty-) game winner, now used principally in relief. Iron Fireman. Little Engine That Could. His ERA still infinitesimal. Like Walter Johnson (the Big Train) and Ty Cobb and Rogers Hornsby, he was more respected than loved by players and fans, to say nothing, in his case, of his flock and fellow clergy. “Struck ’im out!” “Blew it past ’im!” “Father can really bring it!” “Wire here signed LBJ: ‘HATE THIS METHODOLOGY BUT WILL SAY THIS FOR THE MOTHER HE DON’T TAKE NO CENSORED.’” “Wire here signed Backward Church Authorities, per Catfish: ‘BOSOX CAN HAVE HIM GOOD RIDDANCE HIT ME WITH CROSS.’” Tough product of bygone era, up the hard way, sandlots, maximum-security seminary, buses, daytime ball. Boozer? A secret if so, but no secret — vide bios and centerfolds in Playboy and Homiletic and Pastoral Review —once wore no underwear on heavy dates and now chews Mail Pouch exclusively. Said to employ spitter (true), beanball (false) — Look out! Miraculously, his old sweat shirt, never laundered, dry-cleaned, or pressed (why not paper money?), gave off a pleasing odor, and his flapping right sleeve, denounced by batters and pruned by umpires, always grew back. The truth, known only to his confessor and the North American hierarchy, was that the garment in question, once without sleeves but no longer so, having grown them, was his old hair shirt. It would hang, when his playing days were over if they ever were, in Cooperstown, by the wish of the late Chaplain General U.S.A. and Cardinal Archbishop of New York (a recusant Bosox fan) in the pious and patriotic hope that it would settle for all time (sæcula sæculorum) the hash of un-American nativist hillbilly, and un-American pinko knee-jerk liberal, enemies of the Church.

“Struck ’im out!”

To a standing ovation from the all-too-loyal but ever-fair Bosox fans, he left the mound, returned the ball to its can of nails, and red of hand and face, dripping sweat, he passed through the kitchen, by the refrigerator (still pouring it on), through the study (“My!”), into the bathroom. Here he, now the aging champ surrounded by handlers, press, police, and other well-wishers (“Had the little wife make a novena for you, Father”), stripped down to nothing (“Sorry, boys, no pix”), urinated— any thing to make the weight — and stepped on the scale. Something wrong with it? He turned on the bathwater full blast and sat down in it to save time (people spent what otherwise might have been the best part of their lives waiting for bathtubs to fill) and to get the benefits, if any, of hydrotherapy. He turned off the water with his toes to exercise the muscles and joints he might need to climb trees if civilization broke down completely, if there were any trees then and he was still around — the last man on earth a priest, Apostle to the Insects, if any, or business as usual. He used Dial soap, wishing everybody did, and emerged from the tub pink. He dried himself thoroughly — it was the weight of water that had kept the oceans, thank God, a mystery to man — and stepped on the scale. Something wrong with it? No, a man had a chance spiritually — it was more or less up to him — but physically, after a point, no. Still, he did feel better after he’d pitched an inning or two, enough to give him that old afterglow that only athletes know.

And so, deodorized, pink, immaculate in black and white, carrying his breviary, he passed through the study again (“Well!”), through the kitchen, and went over to the church. He chose a pew at random, knelt, and prayed. First for his parishioners, his first concern as pastor, then for his friends and relations living and dead, his enemies, if any, and then for, well, peace. The trouble was he believed that light would have to come first, that light even more than love was what was needed in the world today — light and the guts to act from it, the grace to gamble on it. Before people in general, including himself, and not just the assholes in high places (who know what people are like and profit by that sad knowledge) could lift up their minds and hearts there would have to be light. “ Let there be light. ” So it was simple-minded, and not just simple-hearted, to pray for peace. But since that was the form — God knew he knew better — he prayed for peace. Then he sat back in the pew and read his office. If the text suggested a line of thought, he went along with it for a bit, not counting the time entirely lost. But he no longer hoped for a breakthrough, no longer forced himself to meditate, lest God and he both be bored.