now.”
Higgins shrugged. “If you can’t, you can’t. But we’ll keep your rooms cool and ready.” He was giving up reluctandy, bowing to inevitability. He glanced at his watch. “I guess it’s time for me to be getting out to the airport.”
“So soon? I was going to ask you about old John Gordon. Is he still helping you at Lourdes?”
“ ‘Helping’? That’s a rather generous word for what John does at Our Lady of Lourdes. Actually, we try to talk him out of ‘helping’ us on the weekends.”
“He’s worse, dien?”
“I’ll say. His latest symptom is a kind of unconscious kleptomania.”
“Kleptomania!”
“Stoles, altar breads, every now and again a chalice.”
“Are you sure?”
“Uh-huh. He’ll finish Mass, divest, and every once in a while tuck a vestment or some such in his overnight bag. I just go through the bag as a matter of routine before I drive him back to me home. I retrieve the items that belong to the parish or me. We never mention anything about it. But it’s nerve-racking.”
“Poor man.” Foley shook his head. “It’s just age, I’m sure. Could happen to any of us-please God not. How old is he now … in his late eighties?”
“Ninety going on a hundred. You might get a kick out of what happened when we celebrated his ninetieth birthday. Actually, it was a super turnout. Incredible when you think he doesn’t have any contemporaries left. They’re all dead now.”
“Careful, Ralph, we may be the closest he has to a classmate.”
“I don’t know about you, Larry, but I plan to be a little bit more in control as we assail the seasons.”
“Anyway, I interrupted: Go on with your story, Ralph.”
“Yes, well, there must have been a dozen, fifteen, priests there to concelebrate Mass with the old man. One of the guys was John Miller. You remember him, Larry?”
“I think so. Good sense of humor. Used to be Gordon’s assistant, wasn’t he?”
“Uh-huh. Pastor himself now. Well, you know how stooped over the old man is-almost doubled over”
“Yes, yes, the poor man.”
“Well, we are all vesting before Mass, and Miller came over to the old man and said, ‘I want to get one thing settled: Are you going to straighten up or are we all going to have to stoop over like you?’”
Foley chuckled.
“Then, during the Mass, right after the consecration, he put the chalice down on top of the host. He covered the bread with the chalice. None of us saw him do it; Actually, we should have been paying closer attention. Anyway, just before the Lord’s Prayer-”
“The minor elevation,” Foley cut in. “Don’t tell me: When it was time to elevate the host and chalice, he couldn’t find the host!”
“That’s it,’ Higgins said; “Hunted all over for it. Looked at us as if he’d just worked a miracle.”
They chuckled over that for several minutes. And that story led to another and another until they had used up an additional forty-five minutes.
Ralph Higgins glanced again at his watch. “Holy mackerel, wouldja look at the time! I’ve really got to move it.”
“What time’s your flight, Ralph?”
“I’m on the12:30 nightcoach.”
“You’ll be okay.” Foley glanced at his watch. “Just 10:30 now. Do you need a taxi? Or can I drive you?”
“No, no, Larry. Rented a car when I got in this morning. It’s right outside.”
“Then you’ll be fine. It hasn’t snowed today so the freeways will be clear. And you don’t have to worry about parking. They have shuttle buses at the rental places.”
Higgins struggled into his coat. “A few hours from now I’ll put this mackintosh back in mothballs. You know, Larry, if you guys are worried about some nutty killer up here, you shouldn’t be so free and easy about opening your door. There’s no peep glass in your front door, and you didn’t have the chain on when you opened the door for me. I could have been anybody.”
Foley chuckled. “I’m worried for Mark, not me. Who’d ever want to kill an old fuddy-duddy like me?”
“Anyway, take care, old friend.”
“You too, Ralph. Safe home.”
And he was gone.
Foley looked down at his dog contentedly wagging its tail and looking up at its master. “I’ve got to hand it to you, John Paul. You are a very well-behaved pooch. Now, you come in here with me. I’ve got my office to finish for the day. Fortunately, just compline, night prayers, to say. I’ll just have time to finish before our eleven o’clock last run.”
Foley shuffled back into the living room, John Paul at his heels, tail going a mile a minute.
The old man sat down in his favorite chair, picked up and opened the breviary, and tilted his head back so he could see through the lower part of his bifocals. Before he could begin compline, a compact ball of dog landed in his lap, nearly taking his breadi away.
“Ungh!” he grunted. Dog and master looked deeply into each other’s eyes. A long history of Irish humor crinkled the corners of Foley’s eyes. Clearly, John Paul was singularly eager for the next anticipated event of the evening.
“You be patient now,” Foley admonished. “It’s not eleven o’clock yet-no matter what your usually accurate inner clock tells you. We’ve got a few minutes till I finish my prayers. Then we’ll go for our walk, and then-and only then-your cookie.”
At the word “cookie,” the busy tail began beating a furious rhythm between the arm of the chair and Foley’s thigh. The archbishop patted the dog until he quieted.
Foley opened the tattered old breviary and began.
Yes, John Paul, thought Foley, a perfect conclusion for you comes down to a cookie.
Distractions! The bane of my prayer life from the beginning, he thought, and plowed on.
He launched into the three psalms and further distractions. Distrations from his distractions.
While Foley’s lips formed the words of the psalms, his mind recalled an old anecdote told by, among many others, Fulton Sheen. It had to do with a monastery in the Middle Ages. A serf was talking to the abbot about the contrast in their conditions. The serf complained about his life of endless hard work while all the monks had to do was pray.
“Praying is not all that easy,” the monk said, “It is almost impossible to pray without distraction. I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” the abbot added. “If you can pray the Lord’s Prayer without a single distraction, I’ll give you that beautiful horse over there,”
The abbot had made an offer the serf could not possibly turn down. After all, all he had to do was recite the prayer aloud. He planned to play by the rules and have no distraction. But then who would know whether or not he was successful? And after ward, the horse would be his.
So the serf bowed his head, closed his eyes and began. “Our Father … who art in heaven … hallowed be thy name … thy kingdom come … thy will-by the way, do I get the saddle too?”
Foley chuckled, which disquieted the dog, who began to bark.
The archbishop glanced at the mantel. Eleven exactly. He shook his head. What a body clock!
“All right, John Paul: It’s time. Let’s go.”
The dog bounded from his lap and beelined for the door. Foley went to the closet, struggled into his boots and coat, put on his hat, buckled the collar with its license tag around John Paul’s neck, and out into the winter they went.
As was their custom, they commenced to walk completely around the small compact block. John Paul, as
