Homer’s Fame

A strange mania had gripped the readers of the nation. Homer Kelly’s little monograph, Hen and Chicks, was the talk of cocktail parties. Glitzy bars buzzed with Homer’s name. It did not seem to matter that few people had read past the first obscure pages, because everyone fully intended to pick up the book any minute now.

Success went to Homer’s head. But that was all right, decided Mary. For the last year, the poor man had felt the day of his retirement looming closer and closer, and it was an added insult that her own star kept rising at the same time. Whenever the phone rang, Homer would jump to answer it, only to say glumly, “She’s right here,” and hand it over. In fact, things had become so sticky, Mary had begun to keep her small triumphs to herself.

Now things were different. Homer was in demand everywhere. The chairman of Harvard’s Committee on Academic Honors wanted to speak to him. And would Professor Kelly address the Academy of Arts and Sciences? Would he accept a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Modern Language Association?

So now it was Mary’s turn to hand over the phone with a dry remark—“It’s NPR,” or “It’s the New York Review of Books.”

“The trouble is,” said Homer after agreeing to be filmed while puttering around his delightful riverside residence or sitting at his keyboard composing another chapter of a thrilling new work to be called Steeplechase, “there’s no time left to write the damn book.”

So when his editor called again at dawn, it was the last straw. A joyful shout came over the phone, “Sex, I forgot about sex.”

“Well, that’s too bad,” said Homer, sitting up in bed and rubbing his ear. “I never forget it for a single moment.”

“I mean in those churches of yours,” gabbled Luther. “The preacher eloping with the choirmistress, fornication in the cloister, copulation in the crypt.”

“There ain’t no cloisters in these here churches,” growled Homer. “Nor no crypts, neither.”

“Well, I don’t care where it happened, but it must have happened somewhere. Fornication any old place on the sacred premises, okay? Screwing in the steeple? Hey, that’s pretty good. Readers, they’ll eat it up, and you got another bestseller.”

“I can’t believe it,” said Homer, dumping sugar in his breakfast coffee. “Luther’s a distinguished editor at a dignified old university press. What’s gotten into him?”

“He wants to make another killing—that’s what’s gotten into him. But you know what, Homer? He may be right.”

“Right!” Homer was scandalized. “The preacher and the choirmistress? Screwing in the steeple?”

“Well, no, probably nothing as sensational as that. But I’ll bet those pious old church histories don’t always tell the whole truth.” Mary clattered the breakfast dishes into the sink. “Come on, let’s get away from the phone and chase a few steeples. I’ll bet all the churches around here have skeletons of some kind or other in their closets.”

“Good, where shall we start?”

“Right here in Concord. Why not? We can begin with the First Parish. Then we could talk to the Trinitarians. And who else? The rabbi of Temple Emanuel?”

“Temple Emanuel? No, no, Mary dear, think about it. The temple isn’t exactly a hatchling from a Protestant chicken yard.”

“Of course not. Moses and Jeremiah sat on that egg. And anyway, temples don’t have steeples.”

“Right,” said Homer. “We gotta have steeples.”