J. Powers - Morte D'Urban

On the evening after Thanksgiving Day (for which Wilf had procured an old hen, very tasty as prepared by Brother Harold, especially after so much fish), Father Urban said, “Ever think of revising ‘Danger Ahead!’ Jack?”

“Not much demand for it nowadays, Urban.”

“There could be,” said Father Urban, rising to turn off the radio. Besides the usual hum, there didn’t seem to be much on the radio but accident reports and warnings to drive safely. “Bring it up to date, why don’t you?”

“Your move, Urban.”

“I only mention it because I feel you should be doing something while you’re here. Don’t just let yourself go. A man can go nuts in a place like this.”

“I’ve been thinking of doing some writing, Urban.”

“That’s what I mean. Otherwise this’ll just be a big slice out of your life. My God!”

“It may turn out all right in the end, Urban. Are they in or out?”

“Out,” Father Urban said on that evening, and shook his head in sorrow.

When Wilf and Brother Harold were out, they were over in Olympe in connection with a crusade to get people to go to church more and to shop less during the Christmas season. Wilf was not the leader of the crusade, in which Protestants were participating on a separate-but-equal basis, but he was evidently high up in its councils. He called on merchants in their homes and asked them to point up the true meaning of the season in their window displays and advertising, and Brother Harold reported to headquarters (the Catholic high school in Olympe) where he and other artists produced “Put Christ Back into Christmas” signs, which were hung in the windows of stores and homes.

None of this was new to Father Urban. He would grant that there were abuses of the Christmas spirit (he felt that merchants should hold off until after Thanksgiving, or at least until after Halloween), but he also believed that whatever was done, or not done, should be done under the auspices of the hierarchy. If Wilf had hoped for his support, or Jack’s, he must have been disappointed, for they had let him see that they were just not interested. Father Urban had gone further than that. “How many are you sending to your brother?” he’d asked, seeing Wilf with a stack of “Put Christ Back into Christmas” signs. “Heh, heh,” said Wilf, whose brother, Rudy, ran a variety store in Berwyn, Illinois. And then he came around later, carrying a big brown envelope, saying (in the smarmiest voice you ever heard) that he was sending a supply of signs to Rudy — and saying this not to Father Urban, though he was in the refectory at the time, but to Brother Harold!

It bothered Wilf that Father Urban’s cap didn’t fit him, but until there was occasion to make another purchase at the lumberyard in Duesterhaus, which was also the source of the spatulas, Wilf couldn’t very well ask for another cap, he said. At one time, he had dealt exclusively with the lumberyard. Of late, though, hardly at all — for the Rec Room job only a pint of turpentine had come from the lumberyard, and on the strength of this purchase he had asked for two caps and a spatula. “Ticklish situation,” he said. He was afraid that the people at the lumberyard knew of his recent dealings with a Minneapolis discount house, since the latter shipped by rail. “Wacker at the station — he’d tell ’em. Don’t think he wouldn’t.”

Father Urban didn’t mind wearing a cap with the sides turned up, but he did feel that Wilf would do well to patronize local concerns. “There is such a thing, you know, as being penny wise and pound foolish.”

“Yes, I know. But those people at the lumberyard are way out of line pricewise. Too bad. They’ve got a little shaker there that really does the job. I wish you could see it. Ugh,” he said, for the discount-house paint, which was described in the catalogue as war-surplus stock, was very hard to stir. Wilf attributed the paint’s stiffness not to old age but richness. “Plenty of lead in this, Fathers. High government specifications.”

Wilf cut the first cans with thinner until the contents took on the consistency of paint, but by going over and over the replastered place in the ceiling, he committed them to giving the entire ceiling three coats. Even then, it didn’t look right. “She didn’t dry the way I thought she would,” he said. Suddenly — or so it seemed — he was down to one can of paint. This one he cut and cut until it tinkled like water. The situation got so bad that he didn’t really trust anybody else to paint. “ Stretch it on,” he said, bearing down on his roller. “It’s that old plaster!” he cried. And finally: “ Nobody could figure a job like this to the last drop.”

“I take it we’re out of paint,” said Father Urban.

“Well, we needed a little breathing spell anyway.”

The little breathing spell proved little indeed. Wilf went downstairs to the typewriter, Brother Harold shot off to the post office a few minutes later, and, before Father Urban could get out of his clown suit, Wilf was back up in the Rec Room — saying he’d changed his mind and they’d begin work on the floor at once, so as not to lose what he called valuable time. They’d remove what remained of the original varnish and prepare the floor for refinishing.

“But shouldn’t the floor be done last, after the walls?” said Father Urban.

“It’s usually done last,” Wilf said. “Not always.”

So, for the next two days, they messed around with varnish remover and scrapers, and then came Saturday. That afternoon and evening, and Sunday morning, the three priests were away from the Hill, as usual, working in another capacity — as priests. They returned to the Hill on Sunday afternoon, and on Monday morning they were back up in the Rec Room, with a fresh supply of paint.

And then once again, with only one wall to go, sentiment began to build up against the old plaster. “I knew it,” Wilf said. “I knew we should’ve given it a coat of sealer. It would’ve been money saved in the end.” And a few minutes later, turning on Brother Harold (of all people), he cried, “ What! No thinner?” No, said Brother Harold, there wasn’t a drop left in the house. “Turpentine then!” This didn’t last him long, not the way he used it, and when it was gone, he cried for more. “But there must be some around the place somewhere!” But there wasn’t, no, not a drop. “Oh, damn the cost!” Wilf cried then and, wearing his coveralls, drove to town for more. He returned with a bottle, a spatula, and, yes, a cap for Father Urban, a perfect fit. But he wore a worried look.

“Oh, it’s no use!” he said a little while later. “It’s as I feared. She’s bleeding. We’ll just have to reorder. Brother, this is what we get for trying to call it too close.”

“If it hadn’t been for that old plaster…” said Brother Harold.

Wilf talked of calling long distance, but in the end he fired off a letter, marking the envelope Rush-Urgent , and again Father Urban was wrong in thinking they’d have to stop work until more paint arrived from Minneapolis.

“We can do one of two things,” Wilf said. “We can apply the mahogany varnish you see in those cans over there — it’s the quick-drying type, three or four hours at the outside. That was my original plan, but I’ve since been thinking…”

Everybody stood by, waiting to hear the alternative.

“Why not sand the floor? And then, after we finish off this wall, we can apply a light stain, and a dressing of some kind — perhaps beeswax. I like that idea, and I think Father Boniface would.”

At this, Brother Harold nodded.

“If we do that, we’ll have a floor we can really be proud of.”