“I’ll tell you what else,” Brad said when he returned. “Plenty.” The Shopping News would be renamed and restructured, would become the New Shopper and a tabloid. It would still run Badger’s ads, of course, but ads as well from other local concerns and (these at cost) from the general public — classifieds, wedding announcements, obits, eck cetera, eck cetera. “Wait.” [Barb was making noises.] Why would other local concerns and the general public advertise in the NS? Circulation. Yes, the old SN had had that. Circulation, yes; readership, no. The NS would have both. It would have circulation because, like the old SN, it would be a throwaway, and it would have readership because, unlike the old SN, it would have readability, would be unthrowawayable. The NS would not be like the lousy Universe, full of crap about the school board and widening the highway. The NS would give people what people want, in easy-to-take capsule form, from the world of politics, sports, crime, space, women, TV, dieting. Furthermore, the NS, unlike the old SN and the lousy Universe, would be controversial. “Controversial but fair,” to quote Dave (the c.e.o., Mr Brock). “He reads these”—Brad held up the Nation and the New Republic. “He reads books.”
“Hmmm,” Joe said.
Barb was silent, perhaps coming around.
“Now hear this,” Brad said. “Dave wants me to go to Nam for the NS. ‘See what’s going on over there, Brad, and while you’re at it see your boy.’ Earlier, I’d told him about Scott.”
Barb clutched her head. “I hate to say this, Brad, but what about…”
Brad shuddered. “Hardest thing I ever had to do, Butter-cup, but I thought I’d better and I did. I told Dave about Greg. And you know what? He was very understanding. How about that?”
Joe nodded in approval — what he’d dropped in to tell Barb could now be told to Brad, thanks to Dave, or could it?
Barb poured herself a shot of Kahlua.
Brad tossed back what was left of his drink. “You know what else Dave said? ‘Find out how high up she is and how big around, and we’ll do better.’ He was talking about the weather ball.”
“Oh oh,” Barb said.
“Oh,” Joe said.
Brad got up, saying, “I shall return.”
“Wait,” Joe said. “I’ve had word from Greg — just a card.” Standing up, switching hands, Joe got the card out of his coat pocket but held on to it, keeping the view of Montreal toward him, his fingers clamped down over the stamp and postmark, while Barb and Brad read the message and had the reference to shoes explained to them.
“Yeah, yeah,” Brad said, going for the card. “Where the hell is he?”
Joe, shaking his head and moving away, put the card in his pocket.
“I don’t get it,” Brad said, looking from Joe to Barb.
“Brad, he’s afraid if he tells us where Greg is we’ll tell Tom.”
“Yeah? You know what? I think we should. Come on, Padre. Give.”
Joe, not caring for this at all, sniffed. “I don’t know how you — or Tom — can get in touch with Greg. I don’t have his address. If I did, I wouldn’t tell you. This is how Greg wants it, and my responsibility is to him. He asked me to tell you he’s all right. I’ve done more than that.”
“We’re his parents,” Barb said. “What about your responsibility to us?”
“Yeah,” Brad said. “What about that?”
“I was coming to that.” Joe then came to it. “I thought Greg would tell you this, but he didn’t — probably for my sake. I advised him to follow his conscience — in this matter, as in others. Not that he was inclined not to. And Tom knows this, so you don’t have to tell him.”
Brad, it seemed, was under so much stress he had to sit down, which he did, croaking, “Advised him not to report for induction?”
“I’m sorry,” Joe said to Barb. “I should’ve told you this before.”
“You didn’t have to tell me,” Brad said. “I knew it in my bones. And you know what else, Padre? Padre, hell! The trouble in Nam’d be all over now if it weren’t for pricks like you!”
Joe, rising swiftly, said, “If I hear from Greg again, I’ll let you know,” and swiftly departed, hearing them call after him:
“Don’t bother!”
“Do!”
26. ANOTHER INSPECTOR CALLS
THERE HADN’T BEEN any more anonymous complaints about Bill. In fact, one night after he’d gone to bed, there had been an anonymous compliment for Bill, which Joe, remembering it the next night, passed on to him. “Some woman phoned to say the Church could do with more young priests like you, Bill. And old ones, I told her. She agreed wholeheartedly.” Bilclass="underline" “Joe, you’re not so old.” This, though well meant, hardly needed saying, Joe thought, and got up immediately, which he hadn’t meant to do, to freshen his drink. He didn’t know what had appealed to the woman — she’d told him only what he’d told Bill — but he was afraid it might be the same thing that had scandalized the other woman (and her husband), “true charity.” If so, if this thing got going, parishioners, and not only dp’s, would be asking themselves and each other, “Hey, whose writ”—the pastor’s or the assistant’s—”runs here?”
Speak to Bill? And say what? Just tell him in a nice way to go easy on Scripture. Just renege in a nice way, you mean. You’re the one who set him off, you know, with your Scripture’s rough and tough and hard to stay with, people can’t have it both ways, and the clergy can’t, though God knows we try. And thy Father, who sees in secret, will reward thee — right, Joe? Not necessarily, Bill. You see, we have to distinguish between what we might call acts of true charity and simply contributing to the support of the Church, the former not to be performed at the expense of the latter. The faithful are obliged to maintain the Church’s mission, ministers, real estate, and so on, according to divine positive law. The Lord ordained that they who preach the Gospel should live by the Gospel—1 Cor. 9:14. This, if read both ways, covers laity and clergy alike. This is also one of the Precepts of the Church, Bill. Joe, I know that. We had it at the sem, right after finger painting. But if people can’t afford to pay the going rate, let ’em give what they can — it’s better than nothing, isn’t it? And if it’s done on the Q.T. so much the better — thy Father, who sees in secret, will reward thee. Go easy on that, will you, Bill? Joe, I only say it to those who can’t pay the going rate. What’s wrong with that? Let God, who numbers the hairs on our heads, do the bookkeeping, Joe. Great, Bill. But if this thing spreads, if paid-up parishioners get wind of it, what happens to our fiscal system — the parish? Joe, you mean the parish as we know it, don’t you? Well, yes, Bill, I do. Oh, that. One of the turning points in ecclesiastical history, Your Holiness, Your Eminences, Your Excellencies, a case, you might say, of an idea whose time has finally come — and none too soon for me. I’d never been happy with the business side of the Church. Even as a child, when an altar boy and my mind was often elsewhere during sermons, I still heard too much about the Dollar-a-Sunday Club — an upgraded version of the envelope system, up from a dime (“A few lire, Your Excellency”). The day I celebrated my first Mass in my home parish will live in infamy. So, when I got my own parish, meaning to spare myself and my people all talk of money from the pulpit (“Why, Your Excellency? I guess you might say I’m funny that way”), I installed the country club, California, or game sanctuary system (also known as the table d’hôte). With this I did as well as could be expected but not well enough, owing to the greed of the Archdiocese. Desperate to make my nut and deaf to the siren song of the fund-raiser, thanks to the prophetic counsel of my curate (as His Eminence then was), I installed the honor system, that is, no system at all, which, need I say, is now in use by dioceses everywhere and by not a few civil governments inspired, perhaps, by the success of our own IRS? We all know how this system works, but a word on why. People — and not just deep-seagoing saints and mystics — have always tried to make contact with God, especially in time of trouble. But most have had to settle for the ordinary, the all-too-ordinary, consolations of religion, among these the respect and sympathy of other believers (once a minority). Religion, in our time, had lost its clout, had become the victim, as “science” was the beneficiary, of changing fashions in credulity. Who, then, would have dreamed that religion could become what it is today — a matter of giving blindly, of sacrificing secretly, for the love of God? Could this be what the Great Bookkeeper — so jealous of his prerogatives and oh so mum since Old Testament times — has been waiting and hoping for? My view is that bookkeeping is bad for people, for those who do it and even for those who don’t if they take pleasure in thinking they aren’t like those who do. A plague on both your houses, I say. Sursum corda, folks!