The Beadle of Lower Port

By Kevin S. Greenwood

A small riverside community fights to stave off economic ruin. Friends and neighbors are as unaware of their strengths as they are their diversity. One young man among them weighs his diminishing options buoyed only by the spirit and support of an unlikely mentor. The river appears a constant reminder of what is lost and adrift and what is bound onto its diminishing banks.

A small group of unlikely friends join together in support of one another only to discover their boundaries are self-inflicted.

No one is unknown to the Beadle of Lower Port and no one is here by chance. He perceives the coming change and guides his followers from quiet confi nement to unlimited expanse. Only in confronting the future could such an unlikely past ever be revealed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 22, 2010
• ISBN: 9781453515594

Book preview

Chapter 1

The Backwards E

T HERE’S PLENTY OF fuel in the kerosene heater there, but you’ll have to take the battery out of that smoke detector or it’ll keep you up all night! Who’d have ever thought a blackberry winter could turn so cold? Mind the stove.

Chuck was sure Beadle was teasing him, that’s what he does. However, it would be nice to know that there was a good chance that his first night sleeping in the back of the tire shop, Beadle’s Tires, wouldn’t be his last. Crunchy steps through the frozen grass fades just as Beadle’s old Ford fires up reliably, not moving, windshield frosty white just yet. After several minutes of rumbling silence the crunchy steps approach again, but this time at the rear of the building. Chuck looks at the pale pains backlit by a distant street light.

AUUGH!! HAHAHA. Not to worry about that heater, I checked it.

I knew you were kidding me, Chuck said to the shadow in the pane.

Crunchy steps fade again. Don’t let the bedbugs bite… and don’t forget to say your prayers. The old Ford pulls out onto the street and makes it way left over the bridge that spans Lower Creek through the block of buildings that constitute downtown and then on homeward.

This was no luxury suite, the back room of a tire store. There has been someone living in this little area off and on for many years, more off lately. Chuck was thankful for it. He got a bit emotional when he thought of how generous Beadle had been to hire him a few months ago. He now lived there in the shop. He had a squeaky bed and rusty shower, public toilets. There was nowhere else to go at the moment that would be as convenient, and allow him to feel as independent. Chuck never slept well anywhere the first night, time to think, spend some time with himself, the best and worst part of insomnia, alone and his own accuser.

He recalled that it must have been twelve year ago? It was hot that evening but all the spectators at the baseball park insisted on sitting on the new bleachers though they had no overhead shelter to block the sun that was visiting that day. Chuck remembers choosing the old green stands, looking back, because of the solitude, though the shade would have made since just as well. It wasn’t until after he had climbed to the top and sat down did he notice that he had joined Beadle watching the game, a softball tournament? Chuck didn’t remember. Neither spoke, they had never spoken before, given their age differences, Chuck thought he remembered that Beadle was his Mom’s age. Beadle was tall and high-wasted, with an aquiline nose and almond eyes. His hair might have been a gigantic afro had it not always been pulled back in a pony tail and parted down the middle. He didn’t look black, or white, in Chuck’s universe he was the guy who always wearing concert shirts and a pony tail, Beadle.

E Pluribus Unum. The first thing Beadle ever said to him. Chuck was in a bad frame of mind when he rode his bike to the ball diamond and hearing something he didn’t understand from someone he didn’t really know was enough to cause him to abandon the field. He was visibly startled as he got up to leave, No dude, don’t go, I was reading your leg, backwards as it is there.

Chuck remembered this moment, for the first time, with great clarity. He had always remembered the words that had passed between them, but on this night he remembered the tone of Beadle’s voice. It was meant to help but offered no pity.

What do you, what does it mean?

From many, one, Beadle answered as he let his attention go forward towards the field of play where an official had just loudly proclaimed ‘Strike! Your Diana’s son, I went to school with her.

Yeah.

Pointing at Chuck’s legs Beadle said, Don’t let that bother you, cause you and your Mom are better than that and old Rick what’s-his-face. You got to be tough, don’t you? I know how it is. A loud Volkswagen Bug coasted to a stop behind the bleachers trying with no success to conceal the fact that the exhaust system was garbage. It sounded like generic thunder. Two girls occupied the orange car. The passenger yelled above the noise, Hey Beadle, Ruthie wants to know if you can fix this exhaust again?

Beadle looked at Chuck, out of the hearing of the two girls whose car had put him out of the hearing of everyone and said, Sure, let me go home and get my magic wand. Chuck smiled for the first time that day. The sun was setting as Beadle managed his tall frame into the backseat of the VW and it roared several miles down the road. Chuck new it did, because he could hear it.

Did Beadle really know how it was? Chuck remembered looking at his leg after Beadle had left with Ruthie and the other girl. It had several large whelps, some minor abrasions from the big belt buckle that had struck him repeatedly that morning. That’s how Chuck thought of it back then, it was the buckle. The buckle hit him. He couldn’t let himself believe his Mom would let anyone live in their house that would wrap a leather belt around his hand and whip his legs with… anything. It was a pipe fitters union belt buckle that held a silver dollar. The buckle had hit him with such force that it left a Lady Liberty impression marked backwards, Chuck could remember it plainly and then looking for words on his leg around the head. Then he saw it, a little backwards E. Beadle knew the rest.

That was the first time Chuck could remember having ever spoken to Beadle, but they had become friends since, leading up to the present employment situation. It was this situation towards which Chuck’s mind next wandered.

It’s all a bit confusing for a young man when his life doesn’t immediately take root and begin to grow. There are many who are unsure of themselves, unsure of their path. Some are given no encouragement; some are given the wrong kind. Others are given plenty and choose to ignore it; these are the sort whose roots have seemed not to have caught on to firm ground. There are young men, many young men who know from a very young age what they are going to do with their lives and then they go. Whether they are successful is not yet determined, the important fact is that they say that they want to be a park ranger and they are studying biology. They may want to be an Airborne Army Ranger and they are currently somewhere running in formation. They want to be a Texas Ranger so they are studying law enforcement or throwing a baseball. These are products of good parenting. It is certainly not due to any wisdom of the children. Never use the adjective wise when it comes to children, Chuck knew it didn’t apply.

Chuck’s roots haven’t, as of yet, taken. As he lay awake in the back of the tire shop pondering, considering, he began for the first time to feel the velocity of time. He had heard others speak the old axiom of how time flies. The summer after high school graduation isn’t too important. It’s a freebee. But when the fall comes and then winter hits and all of the sudden a year goes by and a young fellow starts to doubt himself. Most have no desire to be a ranger of any sort. Then another year, and a few more and a promising young man has a resume` of odd jobs and fast winters and his friends are graduating college and becoming Rangers and a tire shop is the dwelling that stands between living with your Mom and sleeping in your car. Chuck finds the entire situation confusing. He really doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life. He has no idea. That makes his self-evaluations of success all the more difficult. Why is he not a success? Is he dumb? He was a good student in high school, that was five years ago. Principal Popepush once told him that he had no stick-to-it-tive-ness, but that quote had always stuck with him. Is it because he quit going to church in the 11th grade, maybe God yanked his part of the Divine plan out from under him? Maybe helping Beadle out at the tire shop was the beginning of something big and he was supposed to be right where he is now. If that were the case then why did he feel so anxious this night? He was after all thankful, and he didn’t always get so gloomy but tonight was an exception, but when Chuck couldn’t sleep it became a good time for exceptions.

Once, during his senior year in high school he was sitting in the library reading a magazine article about environmental law. Chuck finished the piece and headed towards the bathroom down the hall. Passing Mr. Skies office, the guidance counselor, he was motioned in. There Skies and Principal Popepush, who were obviously just killing time, asked Chuck what he wanted to do when he graduated in a few months.

I’ve been thinking about going into environmental law, Chuck answered.

Oh, you want to be a lawyer, Skies said.

Yeah, I’ve been thinking about it, environmental law.

Popepush then jumping in said, Why not a fireman or an Indian chief!! He patted his open mouth with the pal of his right hand and screamed wo wo wo wo wo wo wo!

Let us know when you get into law school.

That afternoon Chuck was mad like never before. This was an extreme vote of no confidence. He’d show them, he thought at the time. But the truth is, in their eyes he probably hasn’t shown anything yet. And there is one other bit of truth that must now be told about Chuck. He thinks he might want to be a ranger. And Chuck’s a heavy young man; you might even say he has gotten fat.

Chuck looked at the LED display of his alarm clock and was relieved to see that it read only 2:00 am. He still had several hours to sleep before Beadle would be rolling in and preparing the shop for what was supposed to be a busy day if all appointments were kept. The snow has a way of changing appointments.

Chuck remembered that he had forgotten to say his prayers before getting into bed. He always said them but this time he was repeating Jeremiah 10:24. Not the actual verse. Just Jeremiah 10:24. He was dreaming. Then he dreamed he heard an orange VW as outside Beadle’s Ford pickup rolled into the parking lot.

The tire shop was old enough to have a chimney flue in the rear of the office so Beadle had installed a wood burning stove which was essentially a steel barrel converted. Chuck awoke alarmed to the smell of smoke but immediately realized that it was the stove and not the shop coming down around him.

Miss Apple won’t keep her appointment this morning for we got a good dusting of snow overnight, nearly a sixteenth of an inch Beadle said off handedly. Father Ant’s not scheduled ’til nine so I’m gonna run to Wally World. Do you need me to pick you up anything?

Toothpaste, Chuck said

Got it.

He was right about the first appointment. Any type of frozen precipitation tends to keep the folks of Lower Port, Kentucky in their homes until some imagined all clear is given. This happens in most of the smaller towns below the Mason-Dixon Line and although Lower Port was probably the farthest north of all towns to qualify for this distinction it still upheld the policy. And to go along with this, any mention of frozen precipitation, which this particular reoccurrence of winter, Blackberry Winter, would initiate a stampede upon the local markets and food chains to purchase every loaf of bread and every gallon of milk, and for those so inclined, every bottle of liquor afforded.

Father Ant lived just across the street in the rectory behind Saint Joseph of Aramathea’s Catholic Church. Chuck was to walk over and get the car himself. He already had the keys in his pocket.

Chuck was drifting back to sleep trying to remember Miss Apple’s real name. Beadle had his own moniker for seemingly everyone, but only used them around his friends. He would even use these nick names on the schedule that he kept in the desk. On one occasion someone had called to confirm an appointment and Chuck was unable to do so. He felt dumb and that really bothered him. Miss Apple, she had something to do with 45 rpm records, or so Beadle said… Her real name was Hornish, Janie Hornish… Father Ant was Father Anselm, probably called Ant (by Beadle) because he was 6'2" and weighed somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 pounds… Wal-Mart… Orange Volkswagen… E Pluribus Unum. Father Ant’s hair is the same color as the VW.

Beadle’s Tire Shop was an aluminum paneled building that had served as a full service gas station for nearly fifty years. The fuel tanks had been removed due to leakages and replaced with earth then paved over. There were two bays in which to drive a car or truck with a pneumatic tire changer between them. The building itself sat on the corner of the block in a quiet residential neighborhood and would never pass zoning laws if built today. There would have been a grand view of the Ohio River from the office/waiting room had it not been for St. Joseph’s and Lower Port Wesleyan Church. The Wesleyan’s lot was not only cattycorner from Beadle’s but the opposite side ended where Lower Creek and the Ohio River conjoined. St. Joseph’s was directly across from the tire store. Behind the Catholic Church was the rectory and parking lot. The Wesleyan’s parked along the street and used Beadle’s lot when attendance sometimes mandated. The Wesleyan rectory was two houses further down past the Catholic Church.

On the fourth corner where Main and Richards Streets cross, and so much of Chuck’s story takes place, there stands a large blue and white house adorned with numerous signs, slogans and symbols representing one of the collegiate basketball teams within the state. It always appeared empty.

Taul Mueller was a regular at the tire store. He had retired from the railroad over thirty years ago. He lived around the block and was known to many for his minor birds and his ability to find things. This ability to seek out the lost had begun when he was a boy and had supposedly tracked down a man’s lost wallet full of cash, which he promptly returned without getting so much as a thank you. Taul had his own chair in the office and was expected daily. The shadow of age had started following him more closely. Beadle noticed first, and Chuck could tell that it bothered him. Taul was absent the past two days and Beadle was uneasy until he found out that one of his grandsons had taken him to the V.A. clinic for more Alzheimer’s tests.

Taul, what did the doctor have to say, Beadle asked.

About what

Didn’t you have a doctor’s appointment last week?

No, that wasn’t me, Taul seemed like he thought he might have had one.

I don’t like going to the doctor, Beadle said while looking at Chuck slightly grimacing. "Hey Taul, let me tell you what happened to me at Wally World this morning.

Taul grabbed at the straps of his bibbed overhauls as if to adjust them for the news. He could tell by the tone of Beadle’s voice that this was going to be a joke or one of his tall tales. His face brightened, as Beadle knew that it would, his smile exposing his long teeth, dark and stained but true teeth and not false ones. Wally World, that’s Wal-Mart right? And then without waiting for a reply, "I don’t like the new ones, too big.

Well, Beadle began, this will play right into that. I drove over to the one across the river this morning before we opened, didn’t I Chuck, and as I was going in the door I asked the greeter standing there if it would be alright if I was to get into one of those electric carts and do my shopping driving around instead of walking. She says ‘Sir the motorized carts are reserved for handicapped people.’ I said ma’am I don’t have to have a cart but let’s at least be honest with one another. Those carts over there aren’t for handicapped people, they’re for fat people. If they’re for the handicapped people then why don’t you ever see one over in front of the fresh apples and oranges? Or the salad mix or celery? I’ve been run over by one of them carts on three different occasions down the frozen pizza isle! Do you know I was here once, I think it was the last fourth of July when you all had a sale on hot dogs. They were thirty-nine cents a package, it looked like a dozen fat people back there playing bumper cars. I went to the manager and said that if you’re going to sell them wienies for thirty-nine cents a pack you’re gonna have to install traffic lights back there, or at least keep the advertisements out of the paper.

Everyone was having a good laugh when the phone rang. All right Father, Chuck will come over and get it

Chapter 2

Father Anselm’s Fat Ride

F ATHER ANSELM O’REILLY was

born and raised in Louisville Kentucky, where he attended the best Catholic schools and excelled in academics and sports. He turned down an athletic scholarship to play football at a Division II school, but probably would have pursued a chance to play Division I ball. He followed another course of study, and life, and became a Catholic priest to the delight of his mother and, she assured him, his deceased father. Anselm had thick wiry red hair that never lay the same one day to the next and always sported a large mustache that covered his upper lip. The whiskers were also red, if red is a polite description of bright orange.

Anselm began seminary life highly motivated, having firmly set his roots in soil and knowing the direction in which his branch was to grow. He soon suffered many disillusions. He hadn’t expected his fellow seminarians to be so… unlike himself. Several spoke openly of past sins of unusual attractions, and didn’t seem contrite. He didn’t feel comfortable around their dissimilar ways. He persevered. He realized early that he wouldn’t move up the hierarchy of the Church, for just as in high school there was an in crowd there too. This didn’t bother him for at his lowest times he would comfort himself by thinking of the perils of St. Paul and all that he had endured. At other times he would draw comparisons between himself and the Reverend Crawley, one of his favorite literary characters. Anselm loved the beauty of the Mass. He loved saying it, and it never became routine for him. He listened to confessions and dispensed practical advice to his parishioners that may or may not have always gained the approval of the pontiff. Anselm spoke enough Spanish to say a Spanish mass monthly for the immigrants who travelled in during the summer months to work in the tobacco and hay fields. He thought himself positively involved in the lives of his parishioners and was correct. He was doing a great deal of good for them and in turn they were showing their love for him in all ways but monetary.

To be fair to Father Anselm’s flock, they didn’t have much money. Lower Port was an impoverished community. Over half of the people in the town were retired. The school showed that eighty percent of the children were on free or reduced lunches. There were six manufacturing jobs within the town and none of those six paid a living wage. It’s believed the single plant produces bricks, but it may be mattresses. The local food market employs six people. The school employs quite a few folks, but many of them drive in from out of town to work there. A few of these attend Anselm’s church and tithed regularly. There are a couple of bait shops, and Beadle hired Chuck. The city government of Lower Port employs about a dozen folks and it’s understood that most of them work. When the baskets are passed, the good people of St. Joseph’s of Aramathea give what they can, and sometimes when pressed, what they can’t. The Bishop and the bishopettes don’t care; they want money coming into the coffers. They talk about bingo and raffles and persuasion technique. Father Anselm responds with so-and-so’s basement has collapsed, another has medical bills, gasoline is how much a gallon?

As the money problems loft about the old brick Chuck walks down the side of the rectory along the east wall towards the back where the garage door is to be unlocked. Chuck stepped lightly, as if to do otherwise would have been irreverent. As a child he had attended mass with his mother and the abusive Rick, who favored the denomination. This was the extent of Chuck’s papal knowledge. Chuck felt excited to drive Anselm’s car, even for the short period of coming around the block. Anselm, unlike many of his fellow priests opted to drive a sporty car, a Charger, rather than a more modest vehicle. The car had all the options available and a powerful hemi engine. Chuck studied the car keys and accompanying remote door opener, and being careless of where he stepped, tripped and fell just outside the entrance of the rectory. So much for being quiet, he thought as two metal trash barrels clanged down beside him. The grass, still slightly blackberry frozen within the shadows helped absorb some of the noise as the barrels rolled apart. Chuck lay alone and embarrassed on the cold walkway.

Why am I trying to be quiet? he asked himself aloud. His voice sounded muted due to the brick enclosure of church and rectory. Detaching from the cold wet ground, Chuck found himself looking into Father Anselm’s study. The windows weren’t frozen, in contrast to the others that stood along the walls. Chuck thought it odd, wondering if the windows had been opened, or the heat was turned up that much more inside the study. The window situation vanished from his mind as he noticed Father Anselm sitting in his large recliner, though upright and not reclining, his head leaning back painfully over the top of the chair and his mouth agape. Was there something on the ceiling that caught the attention of the priest? No, Chuck decided that he must have fallen asleep in this odd position. No movement could he detect from the unconscious man who sat in such an unorthodox position. Chuck decided that he had surely fallen asleep but still there remained no movement at all. The face was deathly calm, the red hair sticking straight from the scalp like aquarium fixtures. And the chest, the large rotund chest which seems to have been fitted into the upper recliner was completely motionless. Any breathing would be visible from this vantage point. There was no in and out, no up and down. No movement. Was he alive? Could the big man have died from cardiac arrest? Had he eaten his last super-size meal? Had lack of exercise caught up with him? All was still. No movement occurred. Chuck moved slowly to his left, backtracking upon his own frosty steps to the oval topped wooden rectory door which opened directly and noisily into Anselm’s office. Chuck opened it with the minimum amount of complaint the brass hinges would allow. Chuck became nervous, hesitant. One foot remaining outside, the other landing upon the mat just over the stoop, Chuck observed the priest, who still lay silent, motionless. Had he found a dead body? Why hadn’t the old latch been locked, even stuck? Why had there been no bolt to keep people out until they had identified themselves? Chuck’s stillness mocked that of the priest. What should he do? Should he call Beadle for help? Should he call 911? He should do something, but he couldn’t look away. He had frozen just as the town itself had succumbed to the unforeseen cold weather.

Suddenly, violently, Father Anselm jerked and bolted as if hit by a massive electrical shock and then inhaled a snore that seemed to drain the oxygen from the room. Chuck too ended his sedation with a start that nearly ended the dryness of his clothing. A kick outward of his massive legs, and Father Ant, though still asleep, pushed the recliner back into its most horizontal position and continued the snorting and struggled snoring. Well he’s not passed on, Chuck thought as he silently gathered himself and stepped backward from the warm room and onto the sidewalk again. He closed the door as gently as he had opened it. After replacing the cans into their receptacle position, he headed along the side of the house and around to the Parrish garage.

Adjusting the stereo settings for the few hundred yards back to the shop, Chuck carefully backed the new red car out of the garage. Pulling the transmission lever back into the drive position, Chuck sat for a second considering the sleeping priest. Should he say something to Ant about what he had seen? It must have been forty-five seconds that his friend failed to breathe. He decided he would say something to him about it when they had a moment alone. If Anselm was aware of his sleep apnea, Chuck thought he could rib him about it in a light hearted Beadle-like manner. As Chuck carefully steered the car into the shop bay he remembered Anselm had said something once about having a sleep machine at his bedside. That didn’t help him when he slept in his chair, which he often did.

How’s Father Ant? Beadle asked Chuck as the helper climbed out of the fat ride.

He was breathing when I left him, he responded.

The tires had been rotated and balanced on the red Charger. The procedure proved to be a learning experience for Chuck as Beadle led him through the process emphasized the danger and ease of scratching the expensive chrome rims upon which the tires were mounted. Chuck had preferred to watch and learn, but Beadle knew that hands-on experience was the best kind, and he felt confident that his assistant could now perform the procedure solo if he had to do so.

Across the street Anselm awoke from his prolonged nap with a headache caused by the violent snoring and lack of oxygen. This pain, to which he was accustomed, failed to deter the sharp pangs of hunger that leapt from his stomach. Slowly disengaging himself from the recliner he eyed his desk clock as it shown 11:00 a.m. He headed for the kitchen, which was an elongated room attached to the office as if all the appliances could make no further progress into the rectory than a wide hallway. He couldn’t remember if one of his parishioners had recently brought him food. The ladies of St. Joseph’s were dependable in their leaving casseroles and other assorted eatables for him in the refrigerator. Fried, baked, mixed and almost always ensconced in Tupperware, the food appeared frequently. Anselm removed a blue container from the refrigerator and placed it into the microwave for a ninety second zapping. Returning from another room after a few minutes he carefully handled the dish onto the counter, removed the lid and realized that he had just possibly ruined a nice amount of pimento cheese salad. Still, it wasn’t too bad after it had cooled into gelatinous goo. Much of the cheese remained welded to the inside of the dish limiting his intake to only a half dozen spoonfuls. Ant knew the odd taste was not worth the gastronomic price he would later pay, but it seemed wrong of him that he should be wasteful.

The strange meal was suddenly interrupted by a telephone. Anselm realized that it was his cell phone and not the office phone that called for him although their rings were similar. Because it was his cell he answered without as much hesitation as he might have. Few had his cell phone number so this call would very unlikely be business related, business referring to dealings that Anselm was forced to undertake with his superiors within the church hierarchy and not those who attended Mass.

Hello, Anselm said rather hoarsely, for it was the first word he had uttered in many hours.

Hi, yeah, we’re looking for someone to fill a gap in our offensive line. There was a slight pause. By ‘our’ of course I mean the Cincinnati Bengals. It was Father Tim, one of Anselm’s friends and a priest who lived in the far eastern region of the state and a man whom Anselm respected and admired and had known since the earliest days of his career.

I am very sorry to disappoint you, Anselm answered, but I am now retired. A contract worth a vast fortune could change things however. Anselm mentioned money as an agent for change because he was sure that his friend had called him regarding that topic. Father Tim, however, being a man with an odd since of humor laughed for more than a few seconds.

So how are things, Anselm? By things he too thought of things financial for it was a major topic among the diocese that the church in Lower Point was barely self sufficient. They were not sending anything up the ladder as Tim was want to say.

For one thing, Anselm said, I’m glad the immigrants are back to work. Anselm switched from his left ear to his right thinking that the change would be distance enough to aid in the reception. It’s been hard on them this winter, most of them staying here instead of returning home for fear of not getting back in the country.

So they stayed through the winter this year? Father Tim hadn’t really wanted to discuss the immigrants.

That’s right, quite of few of them this time, Anselm answered.

I had lunch with the Bishop Saturday, he asked regarding you. I think he’s more concerned with St. Joe’s than the immigrants. Well, that is, he believes that the immigrants can be better accommodated by St. Joe’s than by reopening that other church down there… Tim couldn’t recall the old Catholic Church that had been consolidated with other churches as parishioners dried up during the 1970’s and 80’s. You must really have gone among the poor, according to what he was saying

Well, yeah, I guess if you mean poor you’re not talking of the poor in spirit, Anselm answered. After saying this he wished he hadn’t. He didn’t however want to pursue the topic of money. He felt as if his friend was an agent sent to gather information that Anselm would have gladly supplied to his superiors if only they would communicate in less condescending fashion. Maybe I should start playing the lottery, Anselm said.

Hey, old fellow, I’m just giving you a friendly head’s up," Tim answered.

How’s your church doing? Anselm asked.

Were doing well with bingo. I’ve even promoted it on Sunday mornings. Tim paused for a second to draw out a response from Anselm, but his friend was silent. It’s nothing I relish, but it makes thing go smoothly with the powers that be. Tim knew that his friend would never set up bingo in his own town, though it would be a success, as all gambling tends to loosen the pockets of the poor. He thought for a moment of mentioning Anselm’s own large inheritance, but that would really seem to be taking sides against him. Others have commented on his supposed personal fortune.

All I can do is repeat myself, buddy. There’s nothing stirring down here. The local economy has flat-lined. The majority of my flock are pensioners and they do what they can! Anselm paused here for he didn’t want to get too heated with his friend. All I here from the Bishop and his minions is money, money, money.

I wouldn’t worry old chap, what are they going to do? Fire us? By us he meant Anselm. They’re probably jealous of your fat ride.

I’ll be glad to loan it to his ‘most reverend’ if he is short on cars! Anselm paused and Tim started back with his peculiar but pleasant laughter. "Speaking of which, I need to go across the