J. Powers - Wheat That Springeth Green

“Yes.” And to make a drink.

Dr Wylie blew smoke in Joe’s face, saying, “Well, that’s what you get for playing catch in weather like this.”

“Just trying to keep in shape.”

“ Keep? You sure as hell don’t look like you’re in shape to me.”

“Let’s just say I’m trying to keep my weight down.”

“ Keep? Down to what ? You’re twenty pounds overweight.”

“Let’s just say I don’t want to be thirty.”

“Sure as hell will be if all you’re doing about it is playing catch with kids. Had a physical lately?”

“No.”

“Who’s your regular quack?”

“Don’t have one — haven’t since I was a kid.”

“About time you had one then. But don’t think I’m looking for business. Mind if I ask how old you are?”

For some reason, Joe did mind. “Forty-four.”

“Yeah? Guess how old I am.”

“Why?”

“Go ahead, guess. I won’t bill you for it.”

“Thanks. You’re about my age, maybe younger.”

“Like hell I am. I’m fifty -four.” Dr Wylie stubbed out his cigarette. “How do I do it, huh?”

“You’re on some new special diet?”

“Diet, shit. I eat like a horse, drink like a fish.” Dr Wylie lit a cigarette. “Try again.”

“You smoke a lot?”

Dr Wylie, as if he’d underestimated Joe, looked at him with qualified respect. “Smoking can be a factor in weight control, and to that extent it’s a plus, but there are minuses too. The Surgeon General has determined that smoking is dangerous to your health.”

Joe nodded.

“But smoking, or nonsmoking, could never account for this.” Dr Wylie, seen now in profile, hands hooked and pulling against each other, biceps and pectorals tumescent, lacking only grease, posed like the late Charles Atlas.

Joe nodded.

Dr Wylie relaxed then, only to expose a muscular calf and flex it.

Joe nodded.

Dr Wylie slapped his belly, which was tight as a drum, and glanced at Joe’s, which was embarrassing.

But Joe nodded.

“How do I do it, huh?”

“You pump iron?”

“Iron, shit.”

Joe nodded.

Dr Wylie laughed. “O.K., I’ll tell you. Last thing I do at night — drunk or sober — is go for a little ride.”

In case this meant what Joe thought it might and he was about to be tempted to have sex on medical grounds — celibacy was still the Church’s trump and why the heathen rage — Joe waited for clarification and did not nod.

“Sleep like a log.”

Joe did not nod.

“Wake up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”

Joe did not nod.

“See that horse in the lobby?”

Joe looked in the direction indicated, trying to see through the cinder block wall, but couldn’t. “Horse?”

“Mechanical horse — for kids. Have ’em in supermarkets.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Have one in my bedroom. Muscle model. Runs on two-twenty current. Knock the shit out of you. What you need.”

“That so?”

“If you can pass a physical, which I doubt.”

“That so?” Joe — he’d had enough of this — rose to go, but noticed his thumb, numb in its pink plastic sheath thing, and wondered what the prognosis was for it. “Won’t be deformed, will it? Gnarled? ”

“Shit, no,” said Dr Wylie.

Joe, dying for a drink when he got back to the rectory, had to deny himself, for Bill was in the study with a big, heavy, white-haired, red-faced type in a summerweight business suit with flared trousers.

“Mr McMaster,” Bill said. “Mayer, Mayer, Maher, Chicago.”

Mr McMaster, having heaved himself up from the couch with his right hand out, put it away. “Hurt your hand, Father?”

“Thumb.”

“Car door?”

“No.”

“Sorry,” Bill murmured to Joe, nodded to Mr McMaster, and left them alone.

Mr McMaster was sitting down again, but Joe — significantly, he thought — remained standing.

“Nice place you’ve got here, Father.”

“Thanks. Nothing special about it except the office area — in the basement but surprisingly bright and airy.”

“So I’ve been told, Father.”

Joe, hoping to hear more, sat down in his BarcaLounger.

“Understand you built the rectory, Father.”

“Also the school and convent.”

“ That I didn’t know.” Mr McMaster, in dismay, his big fat head cocked back, his pop eyes popping, then winked one of them. “And all paid for, Father?”

“ No .”

Mr McMaster smiled, nodding, as if he could never be so blunt and honest but would certainly like to be. “Father, wherever your name comes up — for example, at the Chancery — I’ve heard nothing but good.”

“That so?”

“Indeed. Oh, indeed.”

Joe — he’d had enough of this — said: “What can I do for you, sir?”

Mr McMaster, in dismay again, said: “Father, you took the words right out of my mouth!”

“That so?”

“Indeed. It’s part of my job, or I wouldn’t dare ask, but how’s the program going here?”

“If you’re talking about Arf, Mr McMaster, there’s no program here.”

Mr McMaster was obviously in pain. “Why’s that , Father?”

“Thought you knew.” And still thought so. “My assistant didn’t tell you?”

“I wasn’t here very long, Father, before you came.”

So Joe, though doubting it was necessary, explained his fiscal system to Mr McMaster. “You must’ve run across something of the sort in your travels.”

“Yes and no, Father. Exceptions are often made when it comes to a big-ticket item like this. Pastors, God love ’em, aren’t so rigid then.”

“Sell out, you mean.”

“Father”—Mr McMaster shaking his big fat head—“I couldn’t — and wouldn’t —say that about any of the many fine men like yourself it’s been my good fortune to meet.”

Joe sniffed. “I try to budget for everything that comes along. There’ll be no thermometer on my church lawn.”

“ That’s optional!”

“Not here.”

“Father, how can you budget for this ?” In his professional capacity, Mr McMaster would know Joe’s assessment.

Joe had weakened at the thought of it. “Fortunately, it’s spread over three years.”

“Three years ! You could wrap it up in three weeks !”

“Sorry. I’ll do it the hard way.”

“Too bad.” Mr McMaster was staring at Joe’s thumb. “Keeps you from saying Mass?”

“Afraid so.” Not many laymen would have thought of that, it occurred to Joe. “Look, Mr McMaster.”

“Just call me Mac, Father. All my other friends do.”

“Uh-huh. Look, Mac, we can’t do business, but I can make you a drink.” To say nothing of myself.

“Thanks. Bourbon, if you’ve got it, and water.”

While Joe was occupied in the bathroom, with the door open, Mac spoke to him of a certain Monsignor Pat (“in another diocese, Father, so I’m not talking out of school”) who, being shafted with a ball-breaking assessment and being a poor administrator for a pastor in the modern world of today, had spurned outside help (Mac?) and had then suffered a massive stroke — which, however, had become the balls of the program in his parish. “Over the top, Father.”

Joe, who’d had his hands — hand — full making drinks, brought them out of the bathroom on a tray. “How about Monsignor Pat? He make a miraculous recovery?”

“No, I’m sorry to say.” Mac bowed his big fat head in grief, but snapped out of it, scooted forward on the couch, the toes of his tasseled loafers pointing at Joe. “Father, in my humble but expert opinion — and they don’t call me the Grand Old Man of Fund-Raising for nothing — an exception could and should be made here. This is a hardship case. Sometimes, Father, it’s the little things that count.” Mac was staring at Joe’s thumb.