Empire Falls

counter now and then,” Max said. “There’s nothing to flipping a burger, you know. And I like talking to people.”
    “I’d have to run you through the Hobart first,” Miles told him. “Rinse some of the crumbs out of your beard. You don’t seem to understand that people come into the Empire Grill to eat, and you’re a walking appetite suppressant.”
    “I may be sempty,” his father continued without missing a beat, “but I can still climb like a monkey.”
    Back to painting the church again. The old man was nimble, Miles had to admit, both of foot and of conversation. Miles had given up trying to corner him long ago.
    Max’s persistence about the church was curious, though. Thirty years ago, when Father Tom had hired another contractor to paint St. Catherine’s, his father had vowed never to set foot on the grounds again. Of course he hadn’t set foot inside for a decade anyway, leaving his wife and son (David wasn’t yet born) to attend services. The way Max saw it, though, was that everything his wife and son did, they did under his aegis, and the contractor Father Tom had hired was a damn Presbyterian, not even remotely connected to the parish. Maybe Max wasn’t a practicing Catholic himself, but he was married to one who practiced every minute of her life, even though she had it all down pat. Also, he’d bred another little Catholic, and that should have counted, too.
    Still, Max had been true to his pledge, which now caused Miles to wonder. Was his desire to help paint the church some kind of oblique regret? Miles had never known his father to indulge regret in any form, though he’d had more than his fair share of opportunities. After all, Max had made a poor effort at being a father and an even poorer one at being a husband. In truth he wasn’t even much of a house painter. He didn’t like to scrape, and he laid the paint on thick and sloppy. He preferred sitting in bars to painting houses, and so, to proceed from the former to the latter, he liked to work fast, even in circumstances that cried out for deliberation. He painted windows shut and couldn’t be bothered to wipe the glass off with a rag if he’d managed to swipe it with a brush.
    In any other man his age a desire to paint the church might have represented nothing more than a longing to spend some time with his neglected son, but Miles doubted this was the case with Max, who’d never given much evidence of enjoying the company of either of his sons, though he did appreciate anyone who’d spring for a donut so he could put the price of the donut toward a pack of cigarettes. No, the only conclusion that Miles could come to was that old age generally played havoc with your personality. Father Tom, for instance, who had always assigned the hearing of confessions to the junior priests, now, in his dotage, pleaded with Father Mark to let him hear just a few. If the younger priest wasn’t vigilant on Saturday afternoons, he’d look up and find the old priest had disappeared and then would have to hurry across the lawn between the rectory and the church to the dark confessional, where the old man would be patiently awaiting further revelations from his parishioners, curious now, in his old age, about what people were up to, and eager to share what he’d learned. It was from Father Tom that Miles first learned his wife was carrying on with Walt Comeau.
    “I’ll tell you another thing, too. Once I’m up on a ladder, I don’t get scared like some little girl.”
    “Works both ways, Dad,” Miles reminded him. “You can’t hurt my feelings either.”
    “Never meant to,” the old man said, exhibiting a kind of straightforward insincerity that was, in its own way, endearing. “When did you become such a damn sissy about heights, is what I’d like to know? I’m sempty and I can still climb like a monkey. And you’re what?”
    “Forty-two.”
    “Forty-two.” Max stubbed out his cigarette, as if at least the question of his son’s age had been established beyond question. “Forty-two and afraid to climb a stepladder. I fell two damn stories once and I’m not scared.”
    “Finish your coffee, Dad,” Miles said. “I need to get back to the restaurant.”
    “I fell off a scaffold over on Division Street—two damn stories—and landed on my ass in the middle of a rosebush. Try that sometime. That don’t mean I’m afraid to climb a ladder anymore.”
    Outside, a police cruiser pulled into the parking lot, and Miles