J. Powers - Wheat That Springeth Green

Joe poked it at him. “What if I told you I got this little thing playing catch? Hard-ball.”

Mac merely nodded. “So what? It’s not the same, no, as a massive stroke. But, Father, the fact is — You. Can’t. Say. Mass. Can you think of anything worse for a priest? I can’t. Everybody in the parish with kids, or without ’em — everybody who was ever a kid — would get behind you and the program. It’d fly, Father, believe me. Over the top!”

“Sorry, Mac.”

“Father, could I say something — with your kind permission?”

Joe kindly gave it with a nod.

“Father, go ahead, go it alone — it’s no skin off my ass. But whatever you do, Father — go it alone, or go with the program — I want you to know my hat’s off to you.” Turning over his gray enameled straw hat, which was cooling upside down on the end table by the couch, Mac raised it to Joe and let it drop right side up on the table as though resting his case. “Father, if it’s not asking too much, I’d like to see the office area before I leave.”

“Why wait?”

So, carrying their drinks, they went down to the office area, with which Mac was anything but unimpressed (unlike some of the clergy), as he was (“Indeed! Oh, indeed!”) with Joe’s office/offices lecture, after which, saying it had made him think, he appeared to be depressed.

“Father, I’m worried about the Church these days. So many changes, and not all of ’em, I’d say, for the best.”

“Hardly any, I’d say.”

“No, but I shouldn’t say it.”

“Why not? Who cares?”

“Father, I’m a convert.”

“Hard to believe.” (Mac, smiling, appeared to take this as a compliment.) “Convert from what?”

“Nothing much.”

Joe nodded. “In that case, you should feel right at home these days.”

Mac grinned. “Not many left like you, Father.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Mac.”

“ I do, Father — going from diocese to diocese, the things I hear and see.”

“We just have to hang in there, Mac.” The phone rang. “St Francis.”

“Father, I know it’s late and I don’t want to say who I am, but my husband and I, we’re not regular contributors, and now we wonder if we should be. The other one was here a while ago and said if people give to the church and anybody knows about it, except God, it’s not true charity. That’s what he said, Father.” (A man, presumably her husband, came on the line: “If you ask me, the other one’s full of shit.”) “We thought you should know this, Father.”

“I’ll make a note of it. Anything else, ma’am?”

“No, Father.”

“Thanks for calling. G’night.”

Unfortunately, before Mac could leave he had to return to the study for his hat, with which he then — having to rest for a moment to catch his breath from climbing the stairs — sat fanning his face. “For some reason, Father, I keep thinking of my friend Lou.”

“Lou?”

“Cooney.”

“ Cooney? Oh, you mean Father Cooney.” Joe had expected this to have (on a layman and a convert of Mac’s vintage) more of an effect than it did.

“That’s right. Lou, if you don’t know, Father, had your system, but he couldn’t sleep nights. A bad case of the shakes— moneywise , Father. The same with Lad — Ladislaw, Lou’s assistant. Poor guys, Lou and Lad. Out every night beating the bushes for bucks, trying to make their assessment.” (Mac shook his big fat head.) “It’s not a ballbreaker like some — like yours, for instance, Father — but it’s still a nice piece of change. Naturally, I wanted to help, but Lou can be a very stubborn individual, Father. I left my card. ‘Call me if you change your mind, or even if you don’t — we can always have a drink.’ A couple of days later Lou did call me — in the middle of the night. I got dressed and went to see him. Something I’d said made him rethink his situation, he said, namely that it wasn’t hopeless, that he could wrap it up in a matter of weeks without really going against his system — against the letter, maybe, but not the spirit. That’s what counts, as I understand it.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So Lou’s all fixed up now. He’s got a twelve-man pledge team — three of ’em women, a nice mix — who, for the purposes of the program, take the names of the twelve apostles and wear badges to that effect, which they get to keep. One of my ideas.”

“Who’s Lou — Judas?”

Mac answered the question substantially. “Lou and Lad don’t go out, Father — just the ‘apostles,’ all parishioners in good standing.”

“I see. And how’re the others —the other parishioners in good standing — taking it?”

Mac answered the question with a nod and asked Bill, who’d come into the study, “How’d it go, son?”

Son , thought Joe, how’d what go?

From the bathroom, where he was making himself a drink, Bill said, “Not good.”

Mac shook his big fat head.

So , thought Joe, he knows.

Mac then heaved himself up from the couch and had the nerve to leave his card on the end table. “Sorry about your hand, Father, but it could be a plus, if you know what I mean. Call me if you change your mind, or even if you don’t — we can always have a drink, Joe.”

Joe , thought Joe.

Joe saw the man out, returned to the study, poured himself a much needed drink, settled himself in his BarcaLounger, and after a moment of silence, another, another, spoke to Bill. “O.K. Let’s have it.”

“Only made three calls,” Bill said, looking up from Sports Illustrated . “Went 0 for 3.”

“Not talking about that. Why’d you let that man, of all people, know how we spend our evenings?” Now the interested, the oh so interested clergy (“How’ll you handle this one, Joe?”) would also know. Poor guys, Joe and Bill. Out every night beating the bushes for bucks, trying to make their assessment . Ugh. And all — like Joe’s thumb — Bill’s fault.

“I just told him the truth, Joe. You ashamed of it?”

“As a matter of fact, I am. You think I want the Chancery, Catfish Toohey, Judas Cooney, and everybody to know we’re out every night beating the bushes for bucks?”

“But we are , Joe — most nights. I’m not ashamed of it.”

Joe sniffed. “It’s not the same for you, Bill.”

“No?” As if Joe didn’t appreciate him, what he went through most nights.

“All I mean is I’m the pastor here, you’re not. The joke’s on me, not you.”

Bill looked as though he’d like to, but couldn’t, argue with that. “I’m sorry, Joe, if that’s the way you see it.”

Joe sniffed. “Is there another way?”

“Look, Joe. You made a promise to your parishioners — no special collections, no matter what — and you’re keeping it. The clergy respect you for this — maybe they don’t want to, but they do. Even that man respects you, Joe. His hat’s off to you, he told me.”

“His hat’s off to everybody.”

“O.K., Joe, for what it’s worth, I respect you. And so do you , Joe. So who cares who the joke’s on?”

Joe was silent, thinking that respect for him might not be as widespread as Bill said, might not, in fact, go beyond the two of them, but that it was certainly good of Bill to say it did, that Bill hadn’t known what he was doing when he gave them away to Mac, that Bill might have done so even if he had known, that discretion, not loyalty, was what Bill lacked, that Joe, not Bill, would pay for this, would be, to the clergy, for all their respect for him, if any, a figure of fun, and that there would be justice in this, justice exacted by the very ones he’d tried to deceive (“I try to budget for everything that comes along”), retributive justice…