In Bill’s absence, Joe and Lefty, both collarless and in one case shoeless (always, Joe thought, a sour note somewhere, even when this life was most harmonious), blasted off into the empyrean of priestly fellowship. Confiding in each other as they ordinarily wouldn’t, they spoke the truth, the language of God, which was all the more cleansing and refreshing after what they’d said to each other, and not said, earlier. Lefty admitted that he wouldn’t mind being a pastor again, indeed desired it, and to that end when appearing before the Arch (Nijinsky having booked a hurry-up appointment for him) had appeared to bow before superior wisdom as well as authority and to forswear his declared intention to sue the state, which he’d already to himself, at the moment he’d broken the case, forsworn. “I could see it made Big Albert’s day, but I don’t feel so good about it, Joe. Pretty tricky,” Lefty confessed.
“You’re too hard on yourself, Left,” said Joe, absolving him.
“Not hard enough, Joe.”
Moved by such probity and given an unfair moral advantage he wished to neutralize in the interest of truth and priestly fellowship, Joe admitted that he too had been approached by the state department of health and—“Left, here’s why I didn’t tell you”—had gone and taken a physical. “Like Horse, I caved in, Left. I should’ve come to you,” Joe confessed.
“Sure, but, like Horse, how were you to know you weren’t alone, Joe?” said Lefty, absolving him.
Lefty spent the night at Joe’s, ultimately in the guest room.
The attempted holdup was featured in the NS, where the emphasis was on the heroism of Joe and Lefty, in that order, and on the robbers’ panic-stricken flight. “‘Spooks!’ they gasped when confronted by the doughy [sic] clergymen. Sheriff Shorts Morsberger, when asked if the wanted persons are thought to be devout Catholics, said: ‘We can’t rule it out. We’re looking at all the angles.’” The story, ignored by the Universe, was picked up nationally and internationally. Brad phoned to say he was proud of it, except for the typo (“Doughty, Father”), and hoped Joe would take it as “a peace offering, like.” Joe, trying to change the subject but perhaps revealing his concern that the story would damage him with the Mall crowd, inquired after Barb’s left leg.
28. THE GEEK ACT
WHEN JOE CAME IN, the Arch, in his usual chair, looking up from his reading matter, cried out, “Hail, the conquering hero!”
Joe, blushing, made for his usual chair and barber, murmuring rather stagily, “Oh, oh,” when the Arch asked if anyone there hadn’t read about the abortive holdup out in Inglenook, his barber interpolating, “Sir, it was on TV too,” other barbers confirming this and, where necessary, filling in their clients.
“Over here!” cried the Arch, after speaking to the barber belonging to and sitting in the next chair.
So Joe and his barber moved over to it.
“Well, well, Father. How’s it going otherwise?”
“No problems to speak of, Your Excellency.” Joe was relieved that he wasn’t being asked for a firsthand account of his heroism — that it had happened where it had and not, say, in a bank was probably as incriminating in the eyes of the many who didn’t know him (and Lefty) as it was in the eyes of some doughy clergymen who did, they thought, know him (and Lefty) all too well.
“Hmmm,” said the Arch. “Arf?” he barked.
Joe, trying to relax, tightened up. “We’re doing as well as can be expected in our circumstances”—a veiled, double-barreled reference to his system and his assessment.
“What’s that mean?” Blunt.
“No problem.” Brazen.
“Good. You run a tight ship, Father.”
“Thanks, Your Excellency. I try.”
“You must be doing more than that.”
Well, yes, I am — at the moment I’m lying in my teeth. “No problem, Your Excellency.”
“Music to my ears these days, Father.”
“That so?” Was the Arch in trouble with Arf? Joe hoped so, and while he hadn’t expected the Arch, an Ordinary’s Ordinary, moderate in all but moderation (and extortion), to reel off the names of delinquent pastors, he had expected his concerned “That so?” to be acknowledged in some way — the ensuing silence was embarrassing to Joe.
Presently: “Little bone to pick with you, Father.”
“Oh, oh.” The bad publicity arising out of his heroism? The bad company he kept (Lefty)? His refusal to cooperate with Mac? With Tom? With — but surely not, for even if the Arch did know of Joe’s involvement with the state department of health, which was doubtful, he, Joe, like Horse but unlike Lefty, had done the right thing, had caved in, had gone and taken and, furthermore, passed a physical…
“Thought you’d invite me out to bless your new rectory.”
“Oh, oh. Well, you see…” You see, I called the Chancery about this very thing, Arch, and Catfish turned me down flat. Bless one, have to bless ‘em all, he said, to which I — mindful of the material as well as the spiritual well-being of the Church — in this, if only in this, like you, Arch — sadly replied, How many new rectories are there nowadays? Busy here, bless it yourself, snapped he, and hung up. Typical. “I’m sorry, Your Excellency.”
“Bless it yourself, Father?”
“No, not yet.”
“Like me to come out sometime?”
“Of course.”
“It’s a deal. Monsignor Toohey’ll let you know when.”
That I doubt, Joe thought, tempted again to tell all, to get Toohey. “Thanks a lot, Your Excellency.”
The Arch, descending from his chair in the odor of witch hazel and talcum powder, dropped his reading matter in Joe’s lap, Forbes.
A couple of days later, Bill, having learned only that evening (when Potter called him) that Joe had been under suspicion at the state health department but was now considered “clean,” was able to explain why Conklin had borne false witness against Joe. It went back to that bad day at the Bow Wow. What Bill had told Joe at the time was substantially true, but not the part about Bill waiting in his little car for Conklin to come out of the Bow Wow — Bill had gone in after him; and Bill had omitted the next part entirely, the part where Dom called Joe a saint “in no uncertain terms” and Conklin laughed in Dom’s face. That was when Dom and the kitchen help completed the job begun by Father Beeman and Father Power on Conklin’s mustache. “Bill, what d’ya mean, Dom called me a saint ‘in no uncertain terms’?” “He put it very strongly.” “C’mon, Bill.” “Joe, he called you ‘a fuckin’ saint.’” “Yeah? What if Conklin was laughing at that?” “No, I think it was the whole idea, Joe.” “Yeah, it is funny, in a way.” Bill had minimized Dom’s loyalty to and respect for Joe because Bill hadn’t wanted Joe to feel responsible for even one of the day’s events. “Thanks.” Bill hadn’t foreseen the consequences — had, in fact, regarded the final, total loss of Conklin’s mustache as a good thing — and had been shocked to hear (from Potter) that Conklin had blamed Joe, along with Father Beeman and Father Power, and to hear that even in their case he’d taken such revenge.
“The thing is, Joe, I feel responsible for what you’ve been through. After all, Conklin was — is, I guess—my friend.”