The City Below

by James Carroll

  "Not really ... Well, one is. Bright McKay."

  "Which one is he?"

  "He's another BC guy."

  "Does he know ... ?" She glanced toward the street, then let her eyes settle on Terry's. "You told me something last spring that I didn't forget."

  "What?"

  "That you weren't so sure about the priesthood anymore, and then, the next thing I hear, you're going to BC instead of the seminary. I mean, I was amazed, Terry, that somebody I knew would actually do something about his life."

  "Talking to you that day helped me make up my mind."

  "Not that I would have known that."

  "I would have told you, but—"

  "But your mother told my mother that you're still going in the sem, only later, after a couple of years at BC. That's what you said you might do. So you're still going to be a priest"

  "I wouldn't, I mean ..." He felt humiliated that she should have glimpsed his confusion, and cowardice. There was no question of his having told his mother the truth, but had he told it to himself? He'd thought his new fever for politics would have released him from the curse of the priesthood, but in some ways it was worse. Doyle's deepest wish was to be like John Kennedy, but how was that remotely possible for a boy like him? A new image of the priesthood was half formed in his mind, one that had less to do with the parish biddies of Charlestown—it appalled him to think of the mothers discussing his vocation—or even with the brilliant Jesuits, than with the as yet ill-defined joining of the moral and political purposes he associated with Senator Kennedy. Something special: he was called to something special, he just did not know what. Christ, couldn't they leave him alone? Couldn't she? Didi was giving him the feeling he always had at home, and he hated it.

  "I'm just trying to get things straight about you, Terry. That's all."

  "What things?"

  "Why you came to get me today."

  "Because we needed you."

  "That's it?"

  "Yes," he said coldly, "that's it."

  "Okay, Charlie." She pushed through the revolving doors into the lobby of the hotel. When he followed, she kept going, but said over her shoulder, "Where is this joint?"

  "Straight ahead."

  She began to walk like Charlie Chaplin, twirling a make-believe cane, her head jerking, her feet pointed to the side with each step. The bitch.

  The Young Dems had pushed into the usual crescent-shaped booth at the far side of the bar. The Grill Room was crowded, but there were a pair of empty chairs nearby, and Ed Lake pulled them up.

  "I'm glad you came," he said.

  Didi shook his hand. Terry realized she had no idea what a prick he was.

  All of the kids greeted her with special warmth. McKay wasn't there, but Terry saw his lighter on a Luckies pack at a vacant place.

  Once they'd sat, Doyle announced, "We just met Ted."

  "No shit," a Northeastern kid named Mark Sanger said, his tone dismissive and envious at once.

  "He was very nice," Didi said, and even she sensed that she had just passed some of them, moving closer to the center.

  Terry found Ed Lake's eye. "Ken O'Donnell put Didi on the team."

  "Well, good for you." Lake picked up the beer pitcher and poured for Didi. "Good for us." He seemed to mean it.

  "Chugalug!" Sanger cried. "We were just about to go." He hoisted his glass, as did two other boys, none of the girls. "Ready?"

  Lake finished pouring, but Terry didn't touch his beer.

  "Set?"

  Suddenly Didi lifted her glass to hold it in front of her nose.

  Terry almost leaned over to whisper, You don't have to ...

  Sanger yelled, "Go!"

  Three boys and Didi upended their glasses at their mouths. The beer flowed into gullets. When Didi banged her empty glass down, she was a perceptible instant ahead of the others.

  Lake's arm shot toward her. "Winner!"

  The others pounded the table, hooting.

  "What else are you fastest at?" one of the debs asked coyly.

  Didi was ashen-faced as she tried to get air into her throat. She pressed her hand against her chest, in such distress that the table fell silent, watching her.

  At last she recovered. She looked at Lake. "I do that with my brother. He wins contests against his friends. He makes me practice with him." She grinned. "But we use milk"

  "Milk!" Lake cried. "No fair!"

  "Rematch!" Sanger demanded.

  They all laughed.

  Didi felt them liking her. "No rematch. The champ retires."

  Pitchers were passed around again. Didi leaned to Terry and said quietly, "Jackie makes me do it every morning. I like the beer better."

  He touched her arm: Good for you. Then he gestured toward her other side. She looked up. A colored man was standing beside her with his hand out. "Hi. We didn't meet, you were so busy, but I admired your work I'm Bright McKay."

  "You're—?" She flinched.

  "Bright McKay."

  Didi swung back to Terry.

  "My friend."

  She felt woozy. The beer was hitting her. She took McKay's hand, couldn't keep from staring at the black fingers encircling hers. "Bright," she said. "I like your name."

  He sat next to her. "Light-skinned," he said solemnly, "which is a joke."

  "Oh, well, I love a joke." She pushed her glass toward Lake, who filled it eagerly.

  When the group broke up after midnight, Terry was aware of her unsteadiness as she got to her feet He took her elbow as she stumbled, but she fell the other way, into McKay. Bright put his arm around her. She looked into his face and said easily, "Thanks. I'm okay."

  Bright gave her a squeeze. "You are okay." And the warmth of the smile they exchanged relieved Terry.

  He still had her by the elbow. "I'll take you home, kid."

  "You're damn right you will."

  A few minutes later they were in the back seat of a taxi. Didi was leaning against Terry. "I'm drunk," she said.

  "I'm feeling pretty good myself."

  "Good enough for this?" She brought her mouth up to his and kissed him.

  He put an arm around her and kissed her back. Then he pulled away, glancing at the indifferent driver. "But I don't want to mislead you."

  "Don't worry about that, Charlie."

  He stiffened. "I hate it when you call me that."

  "Charlie, Charlie, Charlie," she said, a broguish Cary Grant.

  He faced away, looking out the window. His arm remained awkwardly around her shoulders. His pants bulged with his erection, but also he wanted to throw the cab door open and jump out They were cruising past the bakery on the corner of Causeway Street The lights were blazing and the aroma of bread filled the night air. They crossed the Charlestown Bridge, the navy yard on their right He pointed at it "My father shipped out from there. I don't remember it, but my mother says I stood on the pier waving at him as the ship pulled away. I never saw him again."

  Didi snuggled closer. "Geniuses all lose their fathers when they are young."

  "Where'd you hear that?"

  "It's true. Einstein, Darwin, Elvis ..."

  "Jesus Christ, Didi."

  "Him too?"

  "I never know how to take you."

  "Just take me."

  "Are you making that shit up?"

  "What, that you're a genius? Relax, I read it in Reader's Digest."

  Despite himself, he laughed.

  And she kissed him again, but now she slid her fingers under his tie, between the buttons of his shirt. "God, Terry," she whispered, "you don't wear an undershirt That really makes me—"

  He swung around on her, kissed her harder. Her mouth opened, and his tongue found its way between her teeth. She began to suck on it, with noises that made him think of the driver again. But fuck the driver. Doyle took her tongue into his mouth, then he made the noises.

  He felt dizzy with desire and hope. Finally he was doing it He began rubbing her body through her clothes, as she was rubb
ing him. When he felt the firm pressure of her breasts, and when she made no move to stop, he pushed his fingers inside her dress, inside the wires of her bra.

  "Here we are, kids," the driver said.

  They came up like a pair of divers, blinking and gasping, the bends. The cab was at the curb in front of the Mullen house. Above and across the street was the hill park of the square, the fierce steeple of the monument outlined against the moon.

  Didi pulled her clothes together while Terry paid. The cabbie said, "Thanks for the show, lover boy." But Terry ignored him and helped Didi climb out of the cab. She had to hold on to him to keep from falling.

  He looked up at the windows of her house. A light was on in the living room. To his horror, he saw a curtain move.

  "Your mom is there."

  Didi straightened up and got her distance at once. "Oh, that bitch."

  "Didi, don't."

  "I'll never get past ... I feel sick." She began to giggle. "She'll never believe me, I met Ted Kennedy."

  "You were great tonight, Didi, really great."

  "And I got drunk Oh, God."

  "Didi, your mother—"

  "It's your mother you're worried about"

  "No it isn't." But it was, and now that he saw it, Doyle made a decision. He took her inside his arm again. "The hell with mothers, right?"

  "Right."

  Terry kissed her. It was a chaste kiss compared to the others, but in its way it was the most adventurously erotic of all.

  She leaned against him. "Thank you."

  "Didi, what I said before wasn't true."

  "Which of the many lies you told me?"

  "The one about why I came to get you. It wasn't only for the campaign, for the typing. I'd been wanting to see you again."

  "Well, now you did. And without misleading me."

  "I didn't mean that either."

  "Well, what did you mean, Charlie?"

  He kissed her, his tongue brushing the space between her lips. "That."

  Her eyes were closed when he pulled back to look at her, but she opened them, and they were brimming. "I want to tell you something, Terry Doyle. I see right through you. And I like what I see."

  "Didi, I—"

  "No, listen to me. I know what's going on inside that eggnoggin of yours, and I don't mind. I'm your friend. No strings. You sort things out. I'll be here. Okay, Terry?"

  "In that case, you can call me Charlie."

  "I only call you Charlie when I'm mad at you. And I'm only mad at you when you get scared."

  "I'm scared all the rime, Didi." To his horror, his own eyes began to fill now. He had never made such an admission before. It was true and it was incomplete: he could not have said what he was afraid of.

  "You got to believe in yourself, Terry. If I can, why can't you? You've got a lot more going for you than I do."

  "That's not true. You're a very special person. You're gutsy and honest."

  "I'm 'Horseface.'"

  "A thoroughbred is what you are. Everyone saw that tonight."

  "Watch out for those people, Terry. Especially the girls. They're ponies. I mean phonies."

  "McKay's no phony. I talk to him like I've been talking to you."

  Didi shrugged. She didn't mean the colored guy. A colored guy was Terry's business. "I mean that Harvard hot shot."

  "I thought you liked him."

  "I mean those girls with the sunny names, Ginger and Pebble, give me a break Switzerland and the islands in Greece, enough already. And that guy with the pilot's license, offering to take us up."

  "You, Didi. Offering to take you up."

  "Tweed. What the hell kind of name is Tweed?"

  "They've been around—"

  "They don't know half of what you know. I'll tell you something. People like that, with their fancy schools and their vacations and their oil paintings of their grandfathers and ladies like my grandmother cleaning their houses—they love the Kennedys. And do you know why? Because deep down where it counts, the Kennedys are not like them. But us, Terry. We're what the Kennedys come from. Us! Right here! A neighborhood like this! Scrubwomen on their knees. Children who grow up hungry for something not food! Like we did! Like us! We are who the Kennedys are, and the Kennedys are not ashamed of it So don't you be ashamed either. Certainly not of where you come from. Ted Kennedy recognized us tonight, didn't you see that?"

  "I'm not ashamed, Didi."

  "Enough of that 'I'm not worthy' crap, then."

  "That was about God."

  "You don't have to be ashamed with him either. He made you, didn't he? He died for you, right? What the hell, Terry. How bad could you be if God did that?"

  "I'm not sure I believe it," he said.

  "If you were sure, it wouldn't be believing."

  Terry smiled. "How do you know so much?"

  "I know everything." She kissed his cheek. "Good night, sweet T." She turned and went to the door of her house. Just as she was about to take the knob, the door opened.

  Jackie Mullen was standing there in pajamas. "Hi, guys," he said.

  "Oh!" Didi jumped back.

  He grinned, eager to let her know she owed him a big one. "Mom was out of her mind about where you were. I got her to go to bed by saying I'd stay up. You're lucky Pa is on the shift." Didi pushed past her brother, not deigning to acknowledge him. He turned his shit-eating grin on Terry. "My mother called your mother. Then she called back twice. Your ass is grass, Charlie. And your mother is the lawnmower."

  Terry's face began to burn. Listen to this. Think of it How could Didi seriously expect that of him, not to be ashamed?

  4

  A WAY FROM CHARLESTOWN, with his Marlboro cigarettes and raunchy black coffee and his beers at the Parker House; with his pressed chinos and his new crew-neck sweater; with his razzmatazz teammates who themselves could get the country moving again; with the stagy Tracy-Hepburn routine that marked him and Didi off as a stylish duo, but never in the neighborhood—Terry Doyle had simply become someone else altogether.

  So it jolted his eyeteeth, one evening in late October, to look up from a list of New England NSA chapters and see Nick standing there. Squire.

  Didi was running the mimeo machine a few feet away. Bright McKay poked at the typewriter keys on the desk beside Terry. Four or five others, boys and girls both, worked the phones at adjacent tables. The third debate was two nights away, and the push was on for TV parties in college dorms from Rhode Island to Vermont As usual, the Catholic schools—Providence, the Cross, St Mike's, St A's, and a dozen smaller ones like Assumption, Merrimack, and Salve—were turning out the real numbers, which had the Young Dems from Harvard, BU, Wellesley, and Tufts fetching coffee for the BC, Emmanuel, and Regis kids who made the phone calls. The debate parties were important because they would kick over to supply bodies for the New England grand finale at Boston Garden. The arena proper would be full of pols and party hacks from across the state, gathered by the campaign officers upstairs. The Young Dems' job was to pack the rafters and streets outside with "jumpers," the wildly cheering kids who would start the pandemonium when Kennedy arrived.

  Terry brought his swivel chair forward with a thunk. "Nick! What are you doing here?"

  Terry's brother grinned amiably back. Born to bring flowers, that boy: Terry could hear their grandfather's boast Who didn't like Nick? And having lost him, who wouldn't feel regret? They still slept in the same room, but Terry was rarely home for meals anymore. Sometimes, very late at night, Terry would look up from studying to find Nick staring at him with a sad expression. "What's wrong?" Terry asked once. Nick shook his head and rolled over, his only statement in the way he pulled the covers up.

  Jackie Mullen was standing behind Nick, bigger than ever. Unlike the forever cool Squire, Jackie seemed uneasy here, shifting feet, glancing first at Terry, then at his sister, whom he did not quite acknowledge, then back at Terry and over to Bright McKay. Mullen took out a pack of Pall Malls, lighting up with patently false nonchalance. The p
air looked awfully young in their high school dugout jackets, the red wool body, the white leather sleeves, a varsity C on each right breast, the number 61 on each left shoulder, their names curling in a nun's perfect script— Squire, Jackie —on their left breasts. Terry knew that arching across their backs would be one proud word, Charlestown. He wanted to tell them, Don't wear your coats downtown, fellas.

  "Hey, Charlie, how goes?" Mullen blew a quick set of smoke rings.

  "Easy as it comes, Jackie." Terry winked. "Hi, Nick"

  "Hey, brother." Squire offered his hand and they shook "Nice to see you when you're awake, Charlie."

  Bright McKay said, "Charlie? What's that, for Charlestown?" No one answered, so he got half up from his chair and offered his hand to Squire. "I'm Bright McKay. Terry's told me about you."

  Squire smiled easily. "I wish I could say the same. Terry tells us nothing."

  Jackie put the cigarette into his mouth, pointedly taking it deep between his lips. Then he took it out and offered it to Squire. "Want a drag?"

  The end of the cigarette was wet with saliva, a full inch of it. Squire took the butt and held it up, a display. Nigger-lipped.

  Terry nearly reached across to slap the thing out of his brother's hand.

  Squire eyed the cigarette, then looked at Terry with an apologetic wince: Do you believe this crude asshole Mullen? "I think I won't," he said. He mashed the cigarette out in an ashtray in front of McKay. But he had made Mullen's gesture a success.

  McKay's fabulous smile had not faded. He sat there in his starched shirt and perfectly knotted narrow tie, hands clasped serenely behind his head, and Terry realized with relief that a jerkoff like Mullen couldn't touch the classy Bright McKay.

  Terry stood and made as if to move Squire away, as though they had nothing to discuss that wasn't highly confidential.

  But Squire did not budge. Instead, he scanned the room, sizing up the Dems, disarming them with his smile, the girls especially.

  Didi had gone back to cranking the mimeograph, saying everything she felt about this intrusion by ignoring it.

  Terry turned to Jackie. "What gives, fellows? What's the rub?"

  Jackie shrugged. "We thought, you know, we could help."

  "Help?"

  Squire answered, "The thing at the Garden."