by Colin McAdam
“Good.”
You just be quiet, you see. And you don’t ask her a thing.
Or, “It’s cold as a hoor,” you say or something like that, because it looks like she likes a bit of the roughness. And she laughs like a boy on a ride.
And you say something like, “Don’t suppose you want to trade jobs?” and she says, “If only you had some skills,” and then you laugh, quiet, and she starts talking like a bird you can’t touch.
She told me all about herself in those first few mornings and to this day I don’t know her. Her parents were Irish and she grew up in Dublin till she was eighteen. Sisters, brothers, she was the oldest, she looked after them.
The part of her story I liked was she came here on her own. She followed a man and I hated that part. Broke her heart, she said, and I only half hated her. She started struggling and struggling and she was still doing that now but it was looking like she might see the end.
I had a lot of money saved, I thought, and I wanted her to know that, so I told her sometimes the end is closer than you know and she nodded like I was wise.
I liked to watch her hands make my sandwich.
She said that looking after her sisters and brothers was like being a mother and she said she needed a break from that for a while because she was only young. “That’s another reason kinda why I came here,” she said. “But,” she said, “I might want kids sometime.” You could still hear the pretty Irish in her voice, but you could tell she was trying to cover it.
I hadn’t thought about kids so I had nothing to say, and she liked me when I said nothing. She told me about Ireland, but my father was Irish so I didn’t listen. She told me about the house she grew up in, eight kids and the parents with three beds between them, or something of the sort. “Sheesh,” I said, or something to show that it meant something to me.
“You don’t know what that’s like, Jer, sleepin in a bed with so many kids,” and I said, “No,” to show her she was right. “I don’t have any brothers or sisters,” I said, in a deep voice, and she said, “Is that right, Jer?”
She told me a lot that day while she was putting the world in my sandwich. All I wanted to ask her was “Where did you come from, where did you come from?” even though she was telling me all about it.
ONE DAY WE had lunch together in her truck and one day a couple of days later, she didn’t turn up at all.
The day we had lunch in her truck was the day after I got my loan approved at the bank and my future appeared like a map. I was excited about the money.
“I’d like to buy you lunch, Kathleen.”
And she said, “I’d like to make it.”
She came around again at noon and we sat in the back of her truck on a couple of milk crates. I told her the good news, I said, “I got it.”
As soon as I went into that truck everything felt different. I felt like I was in her bedroom and her parents were out. Everything both of us did was slower and closer and every word had skin. The blade falling smooth through an egg said, “Jer, you’re a good strong man.” Everything she did said something about me and everything I did said something about her, and that is the truth about a boy in a girl’s bedroom.
“This calls for a celebration,” she said. She went up front and reached under her seat and pulled out a bottle of Dewar’s that she kept there, she said, “for bonfire nights.” It was an Irish expression I never understood. “You must have impressed that banker, Jerry.” And heavy came my cup.
The whiskey rubbed my nerves with velvet, and I ate half my sandwich without knowing it. She laughed a bit before she bit into her sandwich, and I don’t remember why, but there she is, in my mind, laughing before she ate her sandwich. She moved her crate a bit closer to mine and it was natural.
And there is one moment in every man’s life when Fear and Worry smile at each other and push him toward a woman. Something makes them decide you should forget about them, and there you are falling toward this woman with no real thought of being scared or pushed back—just a feeling of blood, chest, fast.
I gave Kathleen a kiss two lips. A kiss on the skin of her smile, then hand round the back of her head and Deep. And yes there is warm and yes you’ve landed soft and fast pushes further to a warm can’t believe. I kissed Kathleen and my palm was behind her ear and her head was touching my hand like grace and this is a man and a woman, finally. In that hand there, that thumb there. Soft.
Go away while I remember.
I DIDN’T LOOK into her eyes because when a man does that he’s an actor. It was so silent and I was so Jerry again and she the more Kathleen. There was my hand and her breath saying good.
Then Worry and Fear shut the truck up tight. There was a look around her mouth like love and What’ve you done.
She had the sense to smile and make a joke, and I was grateful because all I could have said was Wow and This is Serious.
“That’s not how you’ll keep the banker happy,” was what she said.
We both leaned back and were each a kid on a crate, except really she was all grown up now. She picked up the bottle of Dewar’s again and filled up both our cups and she stood up and said, “’Nother sandwich?”
I got so nervous then, I tell you with no pride, and I didn’t know what to do. She walked around, getting bread and tomatoes and I was too scared to look at her. Maybe I looked at her legs in her jeans and was proud. But I was scared and I wanted her to say more and she was just slicing bread. I didn’t know whether to say “Come back here” or “I’ll go.”
I forgot that we were parked there by a site and it was lunchtime for more than just the two of us. I heard other builders coming toward the truck and in a couple of seconds Kathleen was sliding open the serving window and was taking orders for food. It all suddenly felt exactly like it was: Jerry in the back of a food truck.
As soon as I got outside, my leaving felt like a mistake. I felt like I should be back in there in her.
SHE CAME BY the next morning with her “How are yiz” like a whisper. She made me a special breakfast, she said, and there it was all wrapped up, sausage still hot and a toothpick. I wasn’t ready for that. I hated the thought of someone thinking all night about what it was like being kissed by Jerry McGuinty, and I still don’t like the thought. I’ve kissed plenty of women, and I don’t want to know how it felt for them. I was expecting her not even to show up that morning, or to show up with a look like No. But there was my special breakfast. We didn’t need to say much because one right look is like the sun on fog. I was a confident man standing there by her truck with a sausage in my mouth, and I didn’t say a word but “Nice.”
I ASKED HER OUT to dinner. The day after the day after I kissed her I asked her. It wasn’t my first time taking a girl to dinner. I did it once before, but that was no good because I wasn’t clean.
Kathleen got a smile on her face and said, “OK.”
I didn’t have a car in those days so we decided she would pick me up in her truck and we’d go a couple of blocks over to Giovanni’s, you know, Italian.
I got clean for that date, boy. I went back to my place early and Washed.
At eight o’clock she rolled around like luck and I met her on the curb. She wanted to come in and meet Mrs. Brookner and see where I lived but I told her no. “Let’s eat,” I said, like a man who knows his mind. We got up into her truck and it was the first time I had been driven by a woman and every time she turned a corner was like a long flirty smile. She drove that truck smooth.
“Giovanni’s,” she said.
“Giovanni’s.”
“I know what I’m gonna have,” she said.
We didn’t say much when we were walking into the restaurant. She just made a sort of squirrel-eating-nuts noise which in those days I found cute. “Smells good in here,” I said. A waiter came and took us to a table, and I let Kathleen go first even though I was hungry. When we sat down we both had that phony look that people get when they sit down in restaurants. I saw myself in a mirror behind Kathleen’
s head, and it was then that I felt nervous. I looked like a fuckin idiot. Young. Kathleen took longer to get rid of her phony look, but it was only like the difference between a beautiful thing and a painting of it.
“So what are you gonna have?” I asked her, as soon as we were settled.
“I don’t know yet, Jer.”
“But I thought you said you knew.”
‘Sure I knew, but I don’t any more.”
“I see. I see.”
We were flirting.
“I know what I want to drink,” she said, “if ya don’t mind, Jer,” and that was a highball of Dewar’s.
“Make it two, make it two,” I told the waiter.
We sat there and smiled and there was her neck right across from me. I remember her dress and her hair but I won’t tell you about them because why would that interest you.
“Jer,” she said. “I’ve been so happy for you, since you got that loan. Happy, happy happy.”
The drinks came.
“When a man does something on his own,” she said. “When someone does something on her own, he comes back a different person. I came back different. You came back different. Cheers. I loved that . . . I hope ya don’t mind me saying this . . . but I loved that look on your face when ya came to the truck the other day because it reminded me of mine. I looked just like that when I came here from home. When I got off the boat . . .”
We both drank those whiskeys quick like Here Comes a Holiday and ordered a couple more. I ordered spaghetti and Kathleen ordered spaghetti because that’s what Giovanni’s was known for. And we got a jug of red wine.
“It’s terrifying, Jer, thinkin that there’s nothing between you and starvation, you and some great cold nothing, except your own courage. You’ve gotta . . . I’ve gotta . . . stand up, go out and do something, because if ya don’t there’s nothing but that cold, do ya hear me, Jer?”
She just went right ahead and got all thoughtful and it was just what I needed, just what we needed, to make a kiss in the back of a truck more than that. Just what I needed to make me hungry and easy.
“I knew about every step when I got here, like every time somebody said something to me I remembered it. Tom, the fella I followed, disappeared completely. I walked around, like, not knowing where to walk around. And ya decide, don’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“You decide. Am I gonna be lost or not?”
“That’s right. You plan.”
“Exactly, Jer. You plan what yer gonna do next. What’s your next move, as they say. That’s what ya decide. And I decided.”
“The truck.”
“Exactly, Jerry. That’s a lovely Irish name. Did you know that my father had a brother named Gerald? Gerald became a priest. That was his decision. Some of them find God, don’t they, but that wasn’t my decision. In Ireland, Jerry, ya make God your decision for keepin out the cold, or ya leave. It wasn’t just Tom, ya see, Jerry. It was me. I knew, Jerry, that he didn’t want me to come, but I came no matter. I was frightened like a little kid, I was, everything louder and bigger. None of it’s louder or bigger but I felt so, Jerry, I felt so, and all the funny accents and the drivin, flip me, if I couldn’t get used to the drivin when I got that truck. It was one of them little things ya have to get used to, like the little things on top of all the big things, on top of that worry have I made the right decision leavin home and that fecker Tom leavin me and it’s colder here in the winter than the devil could have planned and my family’s at home forgettin me, and there I am drivin on the wrong flippin side on top of it all. You know, Jerry? Ha! This is good, eh?”
Long sip spaghetti wine.
“So ya come here and ya sit in some rat’s arse of an apartment and ya think who are ya, is what you think, and who would I be, you see, if I weren’t sittin here in this apartment. And ya get some courage, some comfort, they say, thinkin of the bad things you’ve avoided and the bad things ya could’ve become or done, or even the boring things that weren’t all that bad that you avoided because they just bored you, and ya think, right, I’m not so bad off, but that’s utter bollocks is that, Jer, when yer actually sittin there with shite around you, isn’t it, because deep inside ya know who you are and that no matter what comfort yiz are getting from thinking of the people you aren’t yer still the person you are, who is a cold and lonely one sittin there surrounded by shite which slowly yiz are realizing only yooz can clear away That’s what I realized anyways, Jer, and that’s in my circumstances, Jerry, where the plannin really starts, and could ya just top that up for me there, that’s delicious that. I thought about what me mam said before I left which I won’t repeat because I don’t want ya to think less of her. She’s lovely. But she told me yiz are making a mistake followin that man and she was right, I will grant the woman that. But she said yooz’ll be lost, and that is where she was exactly wrong. Wrong, Jerry, because that’s what I’m saying and you know it, that when yiz are sittin out there completely alone yer found, found, found, not lost. Ya sit there and ya think, so this is me. Ya find yerself, and that’s the difficult part. And that’s what I’m sayin. Ya reach that point and ya think, right, what do I do with this me. And there’s some, Jerry, like you, who find some great thing to do.”
There was something so exciting about that point right there that made us chew on our glasses when we drank.
“And no flippin thinkin yiz have done it all wrong, because you cannot, Jerry, you cannot think of the past. You burn your bridges, Jerry, is what you do, or it’s what I did. Do ya have many bridges, Jerry? And maybe that was good for yiz, but for me it was, I’m leavin, you know, and it wasn’t just one person it was one bridge after another and I don’t want to think about it and get all sad, but it was me mam and me dad and me brothers and sisters and Gran and Tom, in a way, and everyone in a long line of people ya can feel like yooz’ve disappointed if ya let it, but ya mustn’t. Moving forward is what yuv gotta do in that truck there outside. Isn’t it beautiful? I mean isn’t it a flippin beauty, Jerry, cause it’s mine and I’m thinkin of repainting it even brighter yellow to cheer you miserable lot up in the morning. Driving around in that, free like that, is a beautiful thing, like the sight of a new plate of spaghetti. Do ya want more?”
Yes!
“And I will never be what I was, Jerry, just a flippin maid cleanin up and wiping the arses of all my brothers and sisters and the Catholic flippin Church, Jerry. The Catholic feckin Church lookin over every cold day when ya wake up and ya jump out of bed and kids, kids, kids, and yiz are never alone at all. Yooz have got it here and I respect that and if yer a Catholic, Jerry, I apologize, but over there it’s something else, Jerry, and it’s what makes ya feel like ya have to clean up them kids all the time and I don’t want to start ranting. But there it is outside, Jerry, that van and I hope ya like it. I was driving around the other day thinkin that if it wasn’t for the petrol, and it’s feckin expensive, Jerry, but if it wasn’t for the petrol, and the money I owe on it, I could drive for ever, you know, like drive around these lovely streets and they drive into my dreams and I drive into them and it’s just a lovely gliding feeling all free, do ya know? Because I’m all new Jerry and ya don’t need to know about all them things from the past, and there’s something in your eyes Jerry that’s very sort of wise and I love it. I hope ya don’t mind. And you know, if it wasn’t for the money for the petrol I could drive absolutely everywhere sellin sandwiches, because that’s the lovely thing about a sandwich. You can laugh, Jerry, but people eat sandwiches everywhere. That’s what I like about it. And I love meeting the new people. That’s lovely wine isn’t it, that wine. I only drink on bonfire nights such as this one. Do ya like singing? Men don’t sing over here and I respect that but I love singing. Will ya hum a tune for me, Jerry? I’m only joking. I’ll hum for ya sometime, shall I, Jerry? And I have to say. Jerry.”
We leaned closer across that table.
“Jerry, I’ve been thinkin about nothing else but what we did in the van, J
erry, the other day in the van. And it was lovely. I hope ya don’t mind me saying that, a strong man like you mustn’t like that talk, but it was lovely, Jerry. Because ya just came up into the van, didn’t ya? Jerry.”
Look at her there.
“Ya came up into the van and that was a lovely kiss on my lips.”
I’LL TELL YOU what it looked like in those neighborhoods before they became neighborhoods but while they were on their way. It’s men like me you have to thank for making them solid and tight.
Much of this earth, in those days, was meant to be built upon. I didn’t see much land that was pure and beautiful. A lot of it was sacred because the sacred part of land is the use you make of it, and most of this land was saying “use me.” There was so much developing or prospecting around that the world looked like it was going to roll up and leave, and if you didn’t hold on to it, if you didn’t put your boot down on the dirt and say, “That’s mine,” it would move under the boot of the next man who would change it. The earth knew it, and it made itself as unfinished and in-between as a twelve-year-old boy. Hills weren’t hills and rocks would barely need blasting. It was land that was either aching to be touched or aching to get back, and my choice was to touch it. And I’m not talking about some sort of Eden. It wasn’t a case of spoiling or leaving innocent or doing anything at all of bigger meaning than building a house for Mom and the kids and a building for suit-wearing Daddy. I already knew about the sweat of my brow. I know the Bible. I know about women and change and searching and evil, and none of it has to do with building a neighborhood, because a neighborhood, like the unused earth before it, is just a vessel.
So have a look on the map here and I’ll show you. From here, which is now Hunt Club, all the way over to here, now, see there, McCarthy Street, was nothing but moving aching land, all, as I say, half land, half nuisance, half pitiful and perfect. There were some small farms but the rest of the land wasn’t even clean, a lot of it. There was a young boy drank from one of the puddles before we built there who lost his eyesight for a little while because of it. Sometimes land comes poisoned before you bring the machines.