127. Orders

When I decided to consider myself retired,  Sparky and I had a discussion. 

“Monks don’t retire,” he said. “Do you want some time off to hitchhike to Alaska?” he joked.

“Sparky, I just don’t have the heart, the eyes or the memory to do the work,” “I’ll have a verse in my head and turn to verify it in another manuscript and by the time I open that book I’ve forgotten what the hell verse I was comparing.”

We had been sitting at a table after our breakfast of rice and beans. The other Brothers had left for their work. In the agony of my defeat at the hands of the aging process, I had risen from the table and begun to pace the floor.

“Sit down here, Jesse,” said Sparky. “You’re upset and you’re in no condition to tough anything out. Take some time off. Just hang around, do some cleaning. When you feel better we’ll discuss what you might do in the future.”

Then he leaned closer to me and said, “But hear me. I do NOT want you in that night chapel!”

“Why?” I asked.

“It’s not good for you,” he said.

“But what do you …”

“Discussion over,” he said. “You have your advice from your Abbot.” And with that he got up and left the breakfast room.

And so I decided to spend my days in the cellar. Harpo seemed pleased. He had not been able to climb all the way to the attic, but he could now get down one flight of stairs to see me in the cellar, except for the day he tumbled down them. There seemed no need of my old printing skills at the time, so I would think up humorous book marks, print them up and deliver a hundred or so to public libraries on my trips to the plumbing section of various hardware stores in Saugerties and Woodstock. I’m pleased to report that not all librarians are matronly old ladies. Some are quite striking.

Anyway, I missed my chapel in the attic, but a consolation was the Time machine in the cellar window, a view of the ever changing sky that sometimes held a gorgeous sunset of pastels where I someday hoped to go.