Joe stood there in a distressed state. “Can’t type,” he said to himself, and then to the curate, “You mean at the sem you did everything in longhand? Term papers and everything?”
The curate, who seemed to think that too much was being made of his disability, nodded.
“Hard to believe,” Joe said. “Why, you must’ve been the only guy in your class not to use a typewriter.”
“There was one other guy.”
Joe was relieved — at least the gambler in him was — to know that he hadn’t been quite as unlucky as he’d supposed. “But you must’ve heard guys all around you using typewriters. Didn’t you ever wonder why?”
“I never owned a typewriter. Never saw the need.” The curate sounded proud, like somebody who brushes his teeth with table salt. “I write a good, clear hand.”
Joe snorted. “I write a good, clear hand. But I don’t do my parish correspondence by hand. And I hope you won’t when you’re a pastor.”
“The hell with it, then.”
Joe, who had been walking around in a distressed state, stopped and looked at the curate, but the curate — pretty clever — wouldn’t look back. He was getting out a cigarette. Joe shook his head, and walked around shaking it. “Father, Father,” he said.
“Father, hell,” said the curate, emitting smoke. “You should’ve put in for a stenographer, not a priest.”
Joe stopped, stood still, and sniffed. “Great,” he said, nodding. “Sounds great, Father. But what does it mean? Does it mean you expect me to do the lion’s share of the donkey work around here? While you’re out saving souls? Or sitting in your room, waiting for something to turn up? Does it mean when you’re a pastor you’ll expect your curate to do what you never had to do? I hope not, Father. Because, you know, Father, when you’re a pastor it may be years before you have a curate. You may never have one, Father. You may end up in a one-horse parish. Lots of guys do. You won’t be able to afford a secretary, or public stenographers, and you won’t care to trust your correspondence to nuns, to parishioners. You’ll never be your own man. You’ll always be an embarrassment to yourself and others. Let’s face it, Father. Today, a man who can’t use a typewriter is as ill-equipped for parish life as a man who can’t drive a car. Go ahead. Laugh. Sneer. But it’s true. You don’t want to be like Toohey, do you? He can’t type, and he’s set this diocese back a hundred years. He writes ‘No can do’ on everything and returns it to the sender. For official business he uses scratch paper compliments of the Universal Portland Cement Company.”
Depressed by the thought of Toohey and annoyed by the curate’s cool, if that was what it was, Joe retired to his office. He sat down at his desk and made a list. Presently, he appeared in the doorway between the offices, wearing his hat. “And, Father,” he continued, “when you’re a pastor, what if you get a curate like yourself? Think it over. I have to go out now. Mind the store.”
Joe drove to the city and bought a typing course consisting of a manual and phonograph records, and he also bought the bed — it was still there — the double, with pineapples. He was told that if he ever wished to order a matching chest or dresser there would be no trouble at all, and that the bed, along with box spring and mattress, would be on the Thursday delivery to Inglenook.
“O.K., Father?”
“O.K., Earl.”
And that afternoon Joe, in his office, had a phone call from Mrs Fox. She just wondered if everything was O.K., she said — as if she didn’t know. She was still dying to see the room. “What’s it like!” Joe said he thought the room had turned out pretty well, thanked Mrs Fox for helping him, and also for calling, and hung up.
Immediately, the phone rang again. “St Francis,” Joe said.
“Bill there?”
“Bill?”
“For me?” said the curate, who had been typing away, or, anyway, typing.
Joe tried to look right through the wall. (The door between the offices was open, but the angle was wrong.) “Take it over there,” he said, and switched the call.
There were no further developments that day with respect to the curate’s identity, but Joe was pleased to see the young man wearing black and white — black shoes, socks, trousers, and white shirt — at dinner, and afterward, with a few more things to say to him, things best said in private (out of Mrs P.’s hearing), Joe took him into the study.
“Try one of these,” Joe said, producing a box of baby cigars when the curate got out his cigarettes. “They’re better for you. I don’t say good; I say better.”
“O.K. Thanks.”
“Don’t forget to put your little car in the garage tonight, Father.”
“I’m not worried about it.”
“I’m not worried about it, but we don’t want the place looking like a trailer camp. Lots of miles per gallon, huh?”
“I can’t say yet.”
“Well, when you can, don’t. Most small-car owners, that’s all they talk about. I don’t suppose you’ll use any, but your gas and oil are on the house. Go to Smiley’s Shell, here in town, and tell ’em who you are.” Tell me! “Your dry cleaning’s on the house. Also laundry. Hard on it, sending it out, but don’t try to economize. You’ll have a liberal clothing allowance.” Did the curate realize how lucky he was to have Joe for his pastor? Joe doubted it. “By the way, and I should’ve told you this before last night, the curfew blows at nine.”
“You’re kiddin’!”
“Afraid not.”
The curate shook his head in, as seen on television, dismay.
“O.K., Father. Let’s see if I can make myself understood. Let’s say you’re me, and I’m you, and this is my third day on the job. On the first day, I show up at the last possible minute. On the second day, I go out for dinner and come in eleven hours later. The next morning you have to call me down to the office. And now you sound like you want to stay out all night. I do, I mean. Remember, I’m you. I guess I expect to come and go as I please. I guess I think I’m old enough to look after myself — and maybe I am. Let’s say I am, Father. But, Father — remember now you’re me—how do you know?”
“I don’t. I just assume you’re an adult and I treat you like one.”
“You do, huh?”
“Until I have reason not to.”
“Until, huh? And then what — slam on the brakes?”
“If necessary.”
“No good, Father. It’s punitive then. This way, no. It’s just one of the house rules — like black socks and no overalls. There’s nothing personal about it. And look. Don’t take it so hard. You want to go somewhere — a movie, a ball game — we’ll work it out so you can. Maybe so we both can. So put your little car away, Father, and I’ll make us a drink.”
14. REVELATIONS
ON THURSDAY MORNING, as usual, Joe knocked out the church bulletin and, though it lacked something again, he was about to put it to bed when, inspired, he phoned the state highway department, was switched to the license division, and spoke to a voice that seemed to be coming out of a can.
“O.K.,” it said. “Color and make?”
“VW Beetle. Light brown, or dark yellow — sort of a caramel color.”
“Brown VW Beetle. O.K., who’s calling?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“Is this an accident case?”
“Oh, no.”
“Sometimes people leave the scene of an accident. Then they get to thinking they might’ve been seen and reported. So they try and fix it up with the damaged car’s owner before he or she goes to the police.”