The Skeltons usually went to 9:30 mass. Ted and Mimi, their kids in public schools, were trying to supply for them what the nuns did years ago for their parents: get them to the church on time and get them to sit still when they got there. The 9:30 was less a production than the 11:00. It was easier to move their troops in and out of it and avoid riots in the process.
But now and then they decided to risk all in an early-arrival, front-pew, all-troops-present viewing of the biggie. They planned ahead for it, beginning with a quiet, early-bath and early-to-bed Saturday night at home, complete with reading to the little ones, preferably after a hard day’s running and screaming that left them limp and only moderately cranky.
Such a Saturday was the one preceding the day Devlin was to fill in at the 11:00 for the associate pastor visiting his sick father. The Skeltons had planned to attend that mass before they heard Devlin was to be its celebrant. Mimi, unsettled by her discovery that Devlin was leaving the priesthood (bad enough) and by her intuition that Ginny Morgan was awaiting his departure, had accepted the news with resignation. Painful it might be to watch the passing of a good priest. But she couldn’t walk away from the man. He was making, in her view, a terrible mistake, with implications, she was certain, for the whole world she lived in. But humanity being what it was as she viewed it, she was committed to the guy and couldn’t write him off.
Ted Skelton had been catching wind of l’affaire Devlin for several days now. Nate Goodman had made a remark just Friday about “getting Pat settled” at breakfast that day. It came in the midst of some moderate beer-drinking the two couples had engaged in at Doc Sweeney’s in Forest Park on Friday night, just before Earl Dooley and his wife had stopped by their table to chat. Dooley was the lawyer and member of St. George’s who had helped Father Jerry Skelton get his new boiler. He’d been part of the parish council group to which Jerry, accompanied by his brother Ted, had made his pitch for money. Dooley asked how Father Skelton was doing. Mimi told about visiting him a few weeks earlier. He was doing fine, she said, better than some she knew.
Ted caught that too, coming as it did moments after Nate’s talk about getting Devlin “settled,” and it raised a flag for him. Mimi said it with a quiet, stubborn look on her face that he knew enough by now to respect. He loved her for it. It was a part of her that fascinated him. But he didn’t plunge ahead with questions. That would be dumb. He hadn’t stayed married and relatively happy by doing things like that.
Later that night the talk came around to Devlin again.
“Had breakfast with Pat Devlin yesterday,” said Nate.
“Oh yeah,” said Ted. “You mentioned that earlier. How’s he doing?”
“Not bad, not good,” said Nate.
“Has he got his new assignment yet? It was a shame to lose him at St. Denis,” said Ted.
Nobody said anything.
“Wasn’t it?” said Ted.
“Ted,” said Mimi.
“Yes, Meem?”
“The church is losing him.”
“The church?”
Nate watched the exchange.
“He’s leaving the priesthood,” said Mimi. “In a little while, nobody’s going to have him. No parish. No Catholics.”
“Oh?” said Ted. “No more Father Devlin? Father Devlin is dead, long live Pat Devlin?”
“Something like that,” said Mimi. “If you feel like being cute about it.”
“Meem.”
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly.
“She feels betrayed,” said Carol. “She’s in the dumps about it.”
Ted reached out for Mimi’s hand and held it. She gave him a dark look full of hurt and anger but not at him. It was Mimi to a T, not hiding it, confident in her strong feeling.
“It’s all right,” Ted said softly. “It’s all right.” He let her hand go.
The Goodmans watched.
Ted drained his beer, smiled at them both, sat back and gave a sigh. “Oh boy,” he said with a grin, “When you’re out of Miller’s, you’re out of beer,” and they all laughed, including Mimi, who daubed at an eye with a handkerchief, looking first at Ted and then at their two friends.
“Well,” she said, “I guess the world will go on, won’t it?”
“Another day or so anyway,” said Nate, signalling the waitress for a second pitcher.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
On the night the Goodmans and Skeltons were at Doc Sweeney’s, Arthur and Melissa Williams had the quiet dinner out that they had planned on some weeks back when instead they went out with Devlin and Ginny.
They had dinner at Johannsens’, a Scandinavian place on North Avenue. At first they reserved for its bar and grill, just off the front entrance. But when they arrived, it was too noisy, crowded and music-filled.
Arthur checked on a table at the main restaurant, which much better reflected their sedate mood, found one would be available in five minutes, and cancelled at the first place, which seemed to get louder by the minute.
In twenty minutes, not five, they were seated in the soft-lit maroon-dominated friendly confines of the main dining room, where an incredibly fresh-scrubbed young woman, maybe a student working there for the summer, asked them what they would like to drink, Each went for Jack Daniels on the rocks. Rolls and crackers were put on the table. They settled in for relaxation, sipping the bourbon and looking now at each other, now at the other diners, a random assortment of west suburban couples and family groups, predominantly white but including a few other blacks besides the Williamses.
“There was a time I wouldn’t have relaxed in a situation like this,” said Arthur.
“I know what you mean,” Melissa said. “We would have made such a splash just showing up at the door.”
“Still would, given the right circumstances.”
“If the natives were restless, you mean,” she said, and they both laughed.
The room was blessedly lacking in music, canned or otherwise. There were no strolling performers, as they had endured at other places, nothing hoked up about the place. Just the freshly scrubbed waitresses and couples and families like themselves.
“I like this place,” said Melissa. There was noise but it came from table conversations. A woman knew the people at a table near theirs. She stopped by to talk, with a slight accent that might have been Swedish. Neither of them knew.
Arthur was reminded of the teeny-boppers he had seen in a New York hotel lobby, guests at the place in midtown Manhattan, lolling about in the evening, full of the impulsive comings and goings of adolescents and talking a language, very rapidly, that he couldn’t place. Finally, one of them, speaking to Arthur as he sat in the lobby with a drink, alone, listening to a combo at its far end, asked if he knew Portuguese. He said no, asked and was assured they were from Brazil, and was told they knew no English when he began to ask what brought them there.
The woman with the accent he and Melissa couldn’t place finished gabbing with her friends, who like four or five other groups were celebrating a birthday that night at Johannsens’, and went her way.
“I like it too,” said Arthur.
“Being here reminds me of my friend who said she was tired of hearing about black people. Years ago, during the revolution,” she said.
“White person, tired of us black folks?”
“No, black, tired of talking about the problem. It was tiring. You remember that, don’t you, Arthur? Isn’t it nice to have breathing time, like these days?”
She looked at him plaintively, a glimmer of tension around her eyes. Watching her brown, longish face, he remembered her terror when police had moved on their picket line once, only to be ordered back by a red-faced captain who had appeared almost out of nowhere. The terror had receded then, and he had held her as the situation cooled. Now, sitting in Johannsens’ years later, he watched the glimmer of tension fade away.
“I talked about those times the other day to Father Devlin,” he said. “Got a little hot about it, in fact. While jogging, no less, What’s the latest with him, I wonder.”
“Artie saw him the other day at McDonald’s.”
“With Ginny Morgan, I suppose. They meet there regularly. At least, I’ve seen them there,” Arthur said. “Our Father Devlin is in for a change of life, I would say.”
“It won’t be easy,” said Melissa.
“Now when is marriage easy? Marriage isn’t easy. It’s shocking. He ought to know that by now; so he’s a step ahead of the game.”
“Arthur, he’s almost fifty.”
“So what? For every drawback to being fifty, there’s an advantage. Or so my old Daddy used to tell me.”
“He’s walking out on a whole life. He isn’t just getting married. He’s changing everything,” said Melissa.
“So, he’ll need the support we can give him, people like us. He’s done things for us, we ought to do things for him. It’s that simple. Unless you’re stuck on authority and all that. Are you stuck on that sort of thing?”
“Itm not an anarchist, Arthur. But no, it isn’t authority as such. It’s commitment. He made a big commitment with his eyes open, and now apparently he wants to walk away from it.”
“Do you boycott your divorced and remarried friends? Because they walked out on a commitment? No. You don’t. So why pull that on Devlin?”
“I’m not boycotting him. He’s not a department store. I only boycott them when they get uppity.”
“No, but you’re giving it some thought. If you ask me. “Anyhow,” she said, “divorce is different. When you divorce someone, it’s only one you divorce. For him it’s a whole community that’s getting put aside. He has a commitment to a whole community he’s walking away from, not just to one other person.”
“Wait a minute,” said Arthur. “That whole community doesn’t depend on him as much as one marriage partner depends on the other. You walk away from marriage, you pull the props out from one or more very dependent people. No community depends that much on its priest, or on any one of its priests anyhow.”
Melissa knitted her brow and thought about that one. “He divorces a community,” she said. “But the community marches on.”
“Exactly,” said Arthur. “The community can use Devlin, but it doesn’t depend on him. With fewer priests around, are there fewer Catholics?”
“Sometimes I think being Catholic depends very little on priests. But we can all look back and —”
“Remember what a priest once did for us,” interrupted Arthur. “Sure. We can all use a good priest. We can all use a good wife or husband too, or a good friend. But someone like Devlin can’t wait around to be of use to a certain number of people, which if it grows big enough, makes his life cost effective. Be glad he’s done what he’s done, and welcome him into the ranks of the dumb lay people. Better yet, welcome him into the pews. See how he likes that. He won’t, I don’t think. But then he can write a book about it. From Pulpit to Pew: I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Sunday Sermon.”
“You’re so smart,” said Melissa, as the freshly scrubbed waitress returned (from a scrubbing?) to take their food order.
“I know,” said Arthur, taking menu in hand and focusing on London broil, which he ordered medium. Melissa, taking the cue from the smart man she was married to, did the same.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Dolan was convinced it was time for Devlin to fish or cut bait. He had not been happy to hear Devlin was still on the fence. He was convinced you could get splinters that way. It was an uncomfortable position and bad for your health.
The problem wasn’t what to do. Dolan was convinced it was pretty sure only one route was open to his friend, and that was defection. So do it, was Dolan’s position. Take the leap of unfaith and get it over with. Then salvage what was left of your life. Pick up the pieces and start over. That was Dolan’s advice, but Devlin wasn’t asking it.
Devlin, in fact, appeared to be in something of a fog. He was returning to St. Denis to say eleven o’clock mass the next day, Sunday, and that, in Dolan’s opinion, was a bad idea. You don’t return to the scene of one’s peccadillos. Returning was a sign of Devlin’s indecision.
“Can you spare me Sunday?” Devlin had asked, and Dolan, thinking his friend had at least a hot date or at most was taking off for good, had nodded yes. He might be dumb, but he wasn’t stupid, and he hadn’t put his manpower eggs all into a Devlin basket.
“I’ll be over at Denis,” Devlin added, and Dolan turned from his desk to look at Devlin, standing at the door of his room.
“Over where?” he blurted.
Devlin just looked at him. He knew an honest didn’t-hear-would-you-repeat question when he heard one. This wasn’t one of those.
“What are doing over there?” asked Dolan.
“Saying the eleven. McCarthy has to go see his father. He’s very sick, you know.”
“And you’re saying the eleven?”
“O’Malley’s tied up with some sort of study group. It was me or a Dominican. And I know the ropes and told him I’d do it for nothing.”
“That’s mighty white of you,” said Dolan. “But do you think it’s a good idea?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
Dolan by now had turned entirely toward Devlin, who continued to stand in the doorway. “Well for one thing, you got removed from that spot by the archbishop, who had serious objections to your performance there. And for another, it’s not fair to the new pastor to show up this way.”
“He’s the one who’s asking me.”
“He doesn’t know the story.”
“Well who does? What story?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I know what you mean. My impending retirement from the service. You want me out right now? You want me gone and forgotten, the sooner the better? What’s the matter with me returning to Denis for one eleven o’clock mass? The way it used to be, with everybody’s favorite pastor — everybody’s but one or two —holding forth like the good old days? Besides, Ginny’s gonna be there.”
Before that moment, Dolan had thought he’d heard everything. He took in a quick breath, got red in the face and stood up.
“Pat,” he said. “Why? What is she doing at mass? Or at one you’re saying? How does she fit in? Pat, I don’t get it.”
“Terry, take it easy. This is getting out of hand. Sit down.”
Dolan sat down.
“Terry, I want you to calm down on this thing, Let me tell you something. There are very few people whose opinion I care about. You know me. You know that’s true. I’ve never been one to give two shits about it. Right?”
Terry nodded.
“There are very few I care about, but you’re one of them. I have absolutely no doubt that when this passage of mine is completed, I will still have you for my friend. O.K.?I’m not pushing any panic buttons on this thing. But I think you are.”
Dolan breathed heavily a few times but otherwise just sat there with his arms folded, looking at Devlin.
“The irony of this exchange does not escape me. I find it very odd to be giving advice to anyone at this point. But frankly, you’re not doing this right.”
“Well I have a problem, Dev,” Dolan said quietly. “I’m having trouble thinking up a good way to do it.”
“I know you are, and I understand that. I’m not talking about approving or disapproving. I’m talking about how you personally handle it.”
“The two are connected,” said Dolan.
“Right, but not so they can so they can’t be separated. You can’t be so committed to your ideals that you can’t function in pursuit of them.”
“What the hell does that mean that mean?”
“It means you ought to re-emphasize the sardonic side of your nature, the part that has served you so well in helping you to cope with the presently reigning archbishop, the one whose decision to expel me from my parish you were just now defending.”
“God, you’re full of speeches this morning.”
“Not full of something else? A distinct improvement, wouldn’t you say?”
Dolan chuckled. “It’s distinct, all right.” He sighed. “Dev, go ahead to St. Denis Sunday. Lead the circus, I mean liturgy. Preach up a storm if you want. Call for the archbishop’s resignation, condemn the church’s traditional lack of hospitality towards atheists, announce your retirement, as you call it, from the priesthood. Say you’re taking it early. Tell them not to worry, because your pension is vested, or tell them to expect you on their doorstep because it isn’t. It isn’t, is it?”
“No,” said Devlin.
“But one thing above all not to do.”
“Geez, what’s left not to do?”
“You can’t guess?”
“No,” said Devlin. What are you talking about?”
“Don’t introduce your girl friend, have her stand up and take a bow, anything like that.”
Devlin grinned. “It’s a deal,” he said. “I won’t do that. If I don’t do that and maybe don’t even do some of the others you said, do I proceed with your blessing, Father?”
“For what it’s worth, you proceed with my blessing.”
(end of chapter 22)
Blithe Spirit 