However, it was not long after he had met “Father Louis” (Merton), and shortly after the famous priest’s weird death, that Harold decided he was destined to become the next Merton.
Meanwhile, back on Madison Avenue, the fate of Harold May was the subject of animated conversation and debate in advertising circles and over leisurely lunches until, after a reasonable interval, the advertising career of Harold May and its possibilities was laid to rest.
Only in one person’s mind did the memory of Harold May not fade. Robert Begin never forgot Harold. Begin felt somewhat like the young Catholic woman engaged to a young agnostic man. She desperately wanted unity of religion in her marriage. To humor her, he took instructions in the Catholic faith-and was so influenced by them he became a priest.
Similarly, Begin had introduced Harold to Alcoholics Anonymous with the hope that the group could help him off the road to self-destruction and back on the path to the presidency with its perks for both of them. But, along the way, Begin lost Harold to God.
Harold-first Brother, then Father, Augustine-threw himself wholeheartedly into the religious life. He did well as a Trappist. That he was a gifted writer had been proven in his secular life, and his abbot knew it. So Augustine soon was assigned the duties of a scribe. He meticulously researched, then wrote treatises that were published in academic journals. Because they appeared in such scholarly publications, no one expected Augustine’s pieces to be so interestingly and imaginatively written. So, few readers recognized that he was several cuts above the ordinary.
In addition to this writing ability, Harold’s ease and skill in allocution in the monastery also were soon noted. That marked the beginning of Harold’s “outreach” assignment: to spend weekends outside the monastery helping in nearby parishes, thus creating a greater sense of presence and opportunity for recruitment for the order.
At first, Harold was reluctant to leave the monastery and its shelter from the world. After all, he hadn’t left the world only to return to it. Then he began to enjoy the camaraderie of the parish priests he met on these assignments.
Parish priests, in turn, generally enjoyed entertaining visiting priests, and did well in offering quality bed and board, especially board. While the visitor’s accommodations might be spartan-frequently an afterthought in the rectory’s architecture-food and drink were usually topflight.
Harold was to learn that he hadn’t learned much. He’d never bought the AA maxim, “Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.” He held himself to a couple of drinks before dinner on Saturday parish assignments, but it was extremely difficult.
After evening confessions, he drank himself into oblivion. If Sunday morning duties had not been so strictly routine, he would never have been able to carry them off. After his final Mass on Sunday, he would demonstrate once again that AA saying, “One is too many and a thousand are not enough.”
This led to quite a few altercations with Massachusetts Highway Police except on those Sunday afternoons and evenings when he was lucky enough to get back to the monastery safely without encountering the law. In all his run-ins with road cops, one thing and one thing only saved him from a ticket, the drunk tank, a trial, probation, or imprisonment: He was a priest-and police were notoriously slow to ticket the clergy.
Then came the book.
The plot came to him in dribs and drabs, mostly during private prayer. At first, he thought he was undergoing a chronic failure in his prayer life: distractions. He confessed them as such-until he was able to see the gold at the end of the rainbow.
It was a believable plot, with three-dimensional characters, complete with a surprise ending. Conscientiously, he brought his new project to the abbot, who at first was cool to the notion of a contemplative dabbling at a mystery novel. But, persevering, Augustine finally convinced Father Abbot of the good that could accrue to the order, and the potential added income for the monastery.
The book was written in what was-if anyone kept statistics on how long it took to write a novel in a monastic setting-probably record time. Everyone in the monastery was impressed, especially when it was accepted for publication on the very first submission.
There was an author’s tour, agreed to most reluctantly by the abbot-
Augustine was assured that in most of these interviews he had performed admirably. That he had to take on faith. Most of the time, he was deeply, gravely under the influence.
But never before 11:30 in the morning.
It was after returning to his monastic routine and enforced sobriety that the first invitation from Klaus Krieg came to join P.G. Press. And then a second and a third. Each offering something more than the previous offer.
Then came Augustine’s conversation with his former colleague at the agency, and his conversation with his abbot. There followed Augustine’ final rejection of any possible offer Krieg might make.
At least Augustine considered his rejection final.
It was not long ago-Augustine would never forget the day-when Krieg visited the monastery and made a proposition he felt sure could not be rejected.
In a former day, Krieg would have experienced great difficulty getting permission to visit one of the monks. With the strict rules regarding silence and cloister, Augustine might have been well beyond Krieg’s ability to reach. Now, with more relaxed rules, it was relatively easy for the two to meet. It was made even easier since Augustine did not object to Krieg’s request for a meeting. Augustine began to regret that decision as soon as Krieg started spelling out the terms of what was actually an ultimatum.
Quite simply, Krieg knew all there was to know about Augustine’s drinking problem. From his college days- when no one seemed to sense any problem at all-to the ad agency, to AA, to the weekends away from the monastery, to the book tour-Krieg knew it all. And, quite simply, everyone would know it all unless Augustine signed with P.G. Press.
Augustine was not stupid. He knew immediately what such a revelation would do to his present and future life. There was the distinct possibility that he might be expelled from his treasured monastic life. But even if not, his freedom to go and come, the weekend respites he so enjoyed, all would come to an end. Perhaps the greatest blow, his dream of becoming the second Merton would disintegrate into a nightmare. The most dissolute sinner could become a saint by, at some point, reforming his life and turning to virtue. As was the case with-among many-the original Saint Augustine. Indeed, Merton had sown his wild oats before becoming the saintly monk. The reverse procedure was not allowed. Father Augustine, outside of drinking, had sown few wild oats. The drinking, however, qualified as vice enough.
Now he was supposed to be beyond vice and embarked on a life of unmitigated virtue. It just wouldn’t work. Exposure of his past-and especially his present-drinking bouts would send crashing every hope he had.
A dilemma! But one that was not immediately pressed by Krieg. He left the monastery that day without exacting a commitment from Augustine. The ultimatum was there, without doubt. But it was not dated. Krieg had given Augustine time to stew and fret. Augustine was unsure if it was not kinder to a condemned man to just take him out and shoot him rather than keeping him on death row for an unspecified time.
Then the invitation came to participate in this writers’ seminar at Marygrove. Immediately he saw Krieg’s name and the description of his role in the workshop, Augustine recognized that this was not an invitation. It was a summons. A summons he could not refuse to an offer he could see no way to refuse.
In the weeks between the mandatory acceptance of this invitation and the start of the workshop, Augustine thought of little else but his position between a rock and a hard place.
In Augustine’s mind, this was a desperate problem. Reluctantly, he concluded that any possible solution would require desperate means. For the very first time in his life he was forced to consider the ultimate act of violence. He surprised himself with how naturally, logically, and practically he was able to consider doing great harm to another person. Was it the compelling predicament in which he found himself? Was it his new familiarity with the murder mystery genre? Was it the gross evilness of Klaus Krieg?
Slowly, Augustine came to believe that the world would be better without this impostor, this gross creature who debased the nature of religion.
