The Old Priest

The Old Priest

1 The Old Priest The Old Priest 1 T HE OLD PRIEST IS A JESUIT, BRAINY AND fey. He smokes Pall Malls fixed bayonet-style in an onyx and silver cigarette holder and crosses his legs at the knee. He tells stories as if he is being interviewed for a public television special on old priests. A small, guttural chuckle serves to launch one of his very interesting anecdotes: it’s a kind of punctuation that serves as transition, like a colon or dash. You bring your latest girl to see the old priest, you always bring your latest girl to see the old priest. “Mildred, what are you doing with this rascal?” asks the old priest, ordering a Tanqueray martini “standing up.” Mildred squeals at the idea of you as a rascal. Everything is very jolly. The old priest’s hair is the same shade of silver as the end of his cigarette holder, a prop that fascinates Mildred. “This cigarette holder was given to me by the mother of one of my students,” explains the old priest. “She didn’t think priests should smoke non-filtered cigarettes, and she objected to the bit of tobacco that became occasionally lodged in the corner of my mouth. Later that same mother, emboldened by onetoomanygrappas,triedtoseducemeinthesittingroomof the country house where I was to spend the weekend.” Your latest girl is rapt at the stories of the old priest, they are always rapt, the old priest does half the seducing for you. 1 2 A n t h o n y Wa l l a c e Back in the room Mildred says, “That’s some old priest. Is he gay?” “What do you think?” “I think all you Catholic school boys seem gay.” Anothergirlandtheoldpriest,alwaysreadytobeboughtlunch or dinner. He smokes, drinks, laughs, tells stories—makes people feel as though they are participating in the history of their own time. The old priest is a monologist of the old school, tossing brightly colored balls into the air and keeping them aloft. “Another time, we were in Madrid and wanted to get out and see the night life,” recalls the old priest. “We concocted a story that the American ambassador had invited us to dinner, but the prefect said that in order to receive permission to leave the houseafterninewe’dneedthepermissionoftheprovincial.The provincial said, ‘If the American ambassador really wants to see you, he’ll invite you to lunch.’ My friend Arthur Ramsay thought we were sunk right then and there, but I convinced him that we shouldgothroughwithitanyway,eventhoughitwasagainstthe rules. We danced the flamenco till three.” Everything is very jolly. Your girl is from the South this time and refers to the old priest as a “sexy old queen.” Time and again you meet the old priest. Years fly by the way they used to mark time in the movies: wind and leaves, the corny tearing of the calendar page, the plangent tolling of Time’s own iron bell. You either bring a girl along or, if you’re depressed, you go by yourself and expect to be consoled. “I want to write but I can’t write,” you say. “It will come,” says the old priest. “Give it time. But the pattern is that you should have written your first stories by now. You’re a bit behind schedule, you know.” 3 T h e O l d P r i e s t You can almost convince yourself that he knows what he’s talking about. He speaks with the authority of a grammar book and is relentlessly optimistic. 2 Life takes you through a couple of twists and turns, you do things you never thought you’d be doing. You live in a rooming house, you drink a lot in the evening, you work a day job as a blackjack dealer in Atlantic City. You wear a white tuxedo, red bow tie and matching red buttons, which your fellow croupiers refer to as “the clown suit.” Nobody, not even you, can believe it. In summer the old priest comes for a visit. You shake martinis in your third floor efficiency. The heat is stifling, oppressive . Through the walls wafts the scent of frying meat, and a loud conversation that goes on and on. “This is a house of failure,” the old priest says, jaunty in his white polo shirt and Madras shorts. “It’s experience.” “So is being bitten by...