Irish Tiger

by Andrew M. Greeley

  She leaned against the wall of the hospital corridor and slowly slipped to the floor. She curled up in a knot and began to wail. The child, in his father’s arms, joined in. The little guy could have been cute under other circumstances, a clone of his grandfather.

  “Get them both out of here, Tony, before she does any more harm.”

  Holding the child in one arm, he lifted his wife with the other.

  “Thanks,” he said to me as he struggled to bring his pathetic little family to the lounge at the end of the hall. The next stop, I feared, would be the divorce court.

  Okay, I was a bitch on wheels, but it worked. I had cracked open her cocoon of hatred, perhaps for only a few minutes.

  The door to the emergency room opened and a young woman, blond with gentle eyes and a kind smile, came out—along with the archbishop. Blackie was wearing his usual uniform—black jeans, a black turtleneck shirt, and a Chicago Bears Windbreaker. Since they made him an archbishop, he remembers more often his silver St. Brigid’s pectoral cross and his New Grange silver Episcopal ring, both made by his favorite cousin Catherine Collins who does gorgeous sunbursts.

  The young woman, who looked like she was sixteen, was wearing the standard green hospital clothes. A student nurse, a nurse’s aide?

  “Doctor Reynolds,” Blackie announced, “will discuss Mr. Donlan’s condition, which thanks be to God and the Blessed Mother, may not be as serious as was first thought.”

  The child was an MD?

  “Mr. Donlan was a victim of a savage attack. He suffered a brain concusssion of moderate severity and lost consciousness for a period of time. However, he is regaining consciousness now and brain scans show no serious malfunction in his brain. He was able to recite not only the names of his own family, but of Ms. Donlan’s family. There was no evidence of internal injuries in our CAT scan, but there is a chance that some may show up in the next couple of days. There may also be some bruised ribs. The assailants apparently did not know how to inflict anything more than cosmetic injuries which can readily be repaired. Mr. Donlan is a very fortunate man. I would ask the police to give five or six hours for further recovery before they attempt to interview him. I trust that his personal security protection will remain here with us. It may also be several days before he should attempt to return to work. He will awake tomorrow with aches and pain in most parts of his body. Thank you.”

  The crowd began to disperse.

  Blackie motioned me toward the emergency room.

  “We’re waiting for you and your daughter to visit us again. Whenever she comes to neonatal, I go upstairs to listen.”

  “Thank you . . . Maybe we can sneak over in the next few days to try some of our Christmas lullabies.”

  Good practice for the kids from Josephat.

  “Just a minute, Nuala Anne.” Mike Casey, looking for all the world like Basil Rathbone playing Sherlock Holmes in the films me ma loved, though she had only seen a few of them. Holmes the savior, Holmes the powerful, Holmes the total Brit.

  “I did wander over to the Union League Club with my good wife, Annie Reilly. To escape from purgatory I did listen to Sterling Stafford and did not become ill. It was, however, the same old stuff—Ronald Reagan won the cold war because he had courage. If we can be courageous we will bounce back in the next election, old-fashioned American values, no substitute for victory, keep faith with the troops, no substitute for victory, international terrorist conspiracy, if troops come home too early, terrorists will come right after them, prosperity depends on cutting taxes, Democrats are traitors etc. etc. etc.”

  “He’s running then?”

  “Oh yes he’s running, said Senator Obama is a foreigner, should not be permitted to run.”

  “Any chance?”

  “Not that I could see. He’s too long in the tooth and too confused. His wife is pushing him hard. She was sitting there beaming. Democrats stole the election. We’ll be back.”

  “Suspect?” Mike asked.

  “Our client hit him with a video camera! Threw it at him!”

  “He has a lot of grudges. We’ll take a closer look. . . . Maybe send Dermot over to talk to him . . . Interesting politics out there in Kishwaukee County.”

  “I’ve been thinking of that. Press credentials?”

  “Didn’t I tell you he had signed on as a stringer at the Herald? Just in case you don’t want to sing anymore?”

  Inside the emergency room, his face black and blue, with streaks of red, a couple of teeth missing, a bandage on his head, and his chest taped, John Patrick Donlan still managed to look chic, with just a touch of a smile on his swollen lips.

  “Hi, Johnny Pat,” I said.

  “Hi!”

  “Who is she?” Maria Angelica in blue slacks and a dark blue and green sweatshirt, demanded.

  Maria had endured a horrid experience. She was also very tired. Yet her verve was undiminished and her beauty as radiant as ever.

  “Isn’t she the McGrail woman,” Jack whispered, “and herself a bit of a witch.”

  “Where did the Dow finish?” I asked.

  “Around 12,000, near a record.”

  “See, Jackie,” his wife said, “nothing wrong with your brain.”

  “He’s just resting a little,” the Latino nurse said with a smile, glancing at the brain scan on its monitor. “Which you should do, Mr. Donlan.”

  “I’m afraid that if I go to sleep again, I won’t wake up.”

  “The effects of the concussion are wearing off, sir. You’ll wake up all right.”

  “I know I’ve asked you this before, but have I had a stroke?”

  “Didn’t Archbishop Ryan tell you that you had not?”

  “And,” I added, “would himself not tell you the truth, and a holy bishop he is?”

  “My dad used to say, trust everyone but always cut the cards!”

  “Where’s . . . Dermot?”

  “Isn’t he back at house with the kids and all of them such sound sleepers, they didn’t hear the phone.

  “The dogs heard and didn’t Maeve ride over here with me?”

  “You left the poor dog outside?” Maria protested. “The poor dog is in the lobby charming everyone in sight.”

  “We’re going to move him upstairs in the morning,” Maria said, “perhaps into intensive care. He’ll have aches and pains all over, but it seems that he has a high tolerance for pain. . . . He’ll need some dental work. . . .”

  “If this isn’t heaven, I’d love to walk down LaSalle Street with a cane . . . create a sensation.”

  “So long as I’m on your arm, it’s all right.”

  He shut his eyes as if about to sleep.

  “Steal the show.”

  Someone knocked gently on the door.

  I opened it—a nurse’s aide who belonged in grammar school.

  “Are you Mrs. McGrail?”

  “That’s me ma. I’m Nuala Anne.”

  “I’ve seen you on television,” she said shyly. “Is that gorgeous white dog yours?”

  “She’s not making a nuisance of herself?”

  “We should add her to the staff. . . . You remember that obnoxious woman you threw out of the corridor? Well she and her kid were back there wailing and the dog . . .”

  “Maeve walked over to play with them?”

  “It was incredible! In just a few minutes they were both laughing and smiling and the woman was hugging her husband. . . .”

  “And me hound was strutting around like she owned the hospital?”

  “She’s so lovely. . . . Anyway the young woman asked if she could visit her father. She promised she’d be good.”

  I glanced at Maria Angelica.

  “Evie?”

  “Herself.”

  “Why not?” She lifted her arms in a magnificent Italian gesture of fatalism.

  “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” Evie screamed and fell on her knees next to the bed. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” She grabbed his limp hand. “I am a spoiled brat, an ungrateful bit
ch. Tony says I’ve become my own hate and he’s right! I’ll regret as long as I live what I’ve done. Please, give me one more chance! Please!”

  “Limit up!” he murmured with his wisp of a smile.

  She looked up at a thunderstruck Maria.

  “You too! The little good in me wanted to love you! I beg for one more chance . . .” She struggled to say the word, “Mom!”

  Maria of course had the last word.

  “I already have two daughters. A few more will just add to talk in the kitchen!”

  Evie scampered to her feet and rushed to the door.

  “I love you all! Thank you!”

  At the door, she touched my arm and won me over finally.

  “Great dog! Really great!”

  Jack Donlan closed his eyes.

  “Would you sing him a lullaby?” Maria asked.

  “Won’t I sing a couple?”

  Actually I sang the whole repertory for the Christmas show. The smile remained on his face. Poor dear man would have a lot of pain in the next couple of days—teeth, face, ribs. He was entitled to a pleasant night’s rest.

  “Brava,” said the young doctor standing behind me at the door. “He’s sound asleep now, helped by the medication and the music. He’ll be fine tomorrow, except for all the bumps and bruises. His brain looks great. We’ll keep our eyes open for internal injuries. Home the day after tomorrow, please God.”

  “We’ll have guards here all the time. If he can’t walk twenty yards down a corridor without getting into a fight, we’ll have to protect him all the time.”

  We’d better push ahead with our work. What kind of morons would beat a man as they beat Jack? Someone who hated him a lot.

  Me cell phone beeped.

  “Nuala,” I whispered.

  “Meself . . . How is he?”

  “Pretty good, nothing too serious. They’ll keep him around tomorrow to check for internal injuries. Sleeping peacefully. A lot of things happened.”

  “I didn’t hear the phone.”

  “Good thing you married a light sleeper.”

  “Maeve went with you. . . . She’s not around here.”

  “Stole the show. She’s snoozing right outside of the emergency room now.”

  “Fiona is pacing anxiously and your elder daughter is wondering where you are.”

  “Tell them I’m coming home right away and that they both should go back to bed.”

  I suggested a decade of the rosary for Jack and led it, of course. Then I kissed poor Maria good-bye. “Call me in the morning.

  “Come on, girl,” I told Maeve who had managed to break the rules and sneak up to the door of the room where I was, her primary responsibility. “They’re waiting for us at home. . . . And quietly!”

  She restrained her impulse to bound. Nonetheless when I opened the door of me Navigator, didn’t she jump in before me. The night’s work was done and it was time to go home.

  Dermot

  NUALA ANNE had crashed completely when she returned from St. Joseph’s last night.

  “He’ll be fine in a few days,” she said as she shed her boots, jeans, and sweatshirt and tossed them in a disorderly heap on top of her black leather jacket, behavior utterly untypical of my fanatically neat wife.

  “Maria and Evie made peace,” she said as she snuggled beside me in her underwear. “And the puppy stole the show, as she always does.”

  Then she was in Whatever precinct of the land of Nod to which fey mystics go when they crash out. I folded her into my arms, a place she likes to be when she returns from East of Eden. Or in her case perhaps West of Eden.

  About eight o’clock I went downstairs to make her breakfast. Ellie was feeding the kids who were in a wild mood, though they were not quite at the food-throwing stage.

  “Ma came home late from the hospital last night,” Nelliecoyne informed me. “She was there alone.”

  “Except for Maeve.”

  “Maeve went to the hospital with her?” the Mick said. “Totally cool.”

  “Maeve should be chaplain at the hospital,” I said.

  “Maeve stays here,” Socra Marie insisted as she slowly consumed her dish of fruit.

  “And you, young woman, finish every bit of that delicious fruit.”

  “Yes, Da!” she said with a loud sigh.

  There were logistic problems. Ellie had a class at ten thirty. Danuta’s hours were irregular. Ellie would take the kids across the street to school, but someone had to take care of poor Patjo—who looked anything but poor as he devoured all the food in sight.

  “Patrick Joseph,” I commanded, “don’t you dare eat Socra Marie’s breakfast.”

  “Yes, Da.”

  “Your ma might come downstairs and catch you.”

  “Yes, Da.”

  “You can leave right after you dump the kids, Ellie. I’ll cover for the punk.”

  I then brought herself’s breakfast upstairs—tea (so strong you could walk on it), orange juice (a full-to-the-top glass), oatmeal (steaming hot), and three slices of toast with the crusts cut off.

  I gave the crusts to Patjo who made them disappear instantly.

  My wife was sitting, freshly showered and smelling of soap, at the breakfast table in the master bedroom, chin in hands and staring glumly at the gray autumn.

  “Lake effect flurries,” she said. . . . “Sure, Dermot Michael, aren’t you a paragon of a spouse! . . . The oatmeal is hot, is it?”

  “Woman, would you look at the steam coming off it?” She touched the mess with her index finger and withdrew it quickly.

  “’Tis hot!”

  She then gave me a play by play account of the dramas at the hospital. Maeve appeared, stretched contentedly, and lay down for a morning snooze at my feet.”

  “Good dog, Maeve,” I said.

  The hound sniffed in contentment.

  “And yourself now having two women in your cult group?”

  “Och, Dermot, won’t she be on the phone this morning? And meself with a Christmas show to prepare. And I have no choice about her, do I?”

  “You don’t! You open your big mouth and you have another dependent. . . .”

  “So does poor Maria Angelica, a battered husband, and a newborn child . . . Dermot, what would you be doing on this terrible day?”

  “I was planning on fantasizing about my adventure last night.”

  She flushed.

  “Heathen.”

  “Well, ravishing an Irish goddess is an event to remember, isn’t it now?”

  “An experience you’ve never had before . . . Aren’t you going to pour me tea?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Why don’t you ride down to the office of Donlan Assets Management and see what this fella Joey McMahon is like? Didn’t he start this whole friggin’ mess? Besides, you can read all them silly reports on the computer and tell how DAM is really doing?”

  “Yes ma’am . . . Do you think it possible that your new friend Evie might be faking her personality transformation?”

  “I do not. I was there, Dermot Michael. It was all quite transparent and moving. . . .’Course we’ll have to see what happens.”

  “And what about former Congressman Stafford?”

  “I don’t like the man, Dermot love, and I wonder if it is a coincidence that poor Jackie was attacked the same night he was giving a lecture. . . . Yet from what Mr. Casey reports, he’s a loser.”

  “Losers can be dangerous!”

  “Well that’s for tomorrow. Joey McMahon for today . . . Och, the friggin’ phone.”

  Someone from CTN about today’s practice. Me wife turned on her charm.

  I picked up the breakfast tray.

  She put her hand on the phone and kissed me, revealing a notable amount of décolletage, enough to sustain me through the day.

  “You’re a grand lover, sir, and a desperate husband altogether.”

  What more could you ask, idiot?

  Energy, stamina, hormones.

  Give over
, you’re getting a lot more of her than you deserve.

  ’Tis true.

  Dermot

  THE OFFICES of DAM were peaceful the morning after my ride through the North Side. Joe McMahon was presiding with a sure touch in Jack’s office. He confidently assured all callers that “the boss” is fine. Highly strong guy. “He’ll probably be home tomorrow. You know the Irish! We all have hard heads! We got a computer over to St. Joseph’s so he can watch the indexes. Both Frodo and Samwise slipped a little in early trading, but they’re doing fine now. No, this stuff isn’t doing any good, but not much harm either. Yeah, I’ll tell him you called.”

  Despite his smooth responses to the phone calls Joseph Xavier McMahon seemed woefully out of place at John Donlan’s desk. A short, round man in an off-the-rack grey suit with patches of hair around a bald head, a constant frown and darting eyes, he did not look like the market wizard he was alleged to be.

  “The last time this happened was when the old fella died. He had stepped back from the business and Jackie was running it with the same intelligence as the old fella and a lot more flair. He was out in California at the place where his wife went to dry out. I’m here by myself and I don’t even know whether I have a job and people are calling me from all over the country. Jackie flew back of course and commuted to Los Angeles on weekends. Tough times for all of us, but things settled down and his poor wife came home all bright and shiny. I asked him whether I still had a job the first day he was back. ‘Of course you do, Joey,’ he says to me with a puzzled look. ‘As long as you want and with a lot more money than you’re getting.’ That’s the kind of man Jackie is.”

  “You’ve been here how long?”

  “Fifty-five years come next June. I came when I was eighteen and I’ll be seventy-three next month. Old enough to retire. No reason to do that. My sainted wife is dead, my two fine sons are highly successful doctors at opposite ends of the country. I’ll die in the harness.”

  “And you started out as an office boy and a clerk?”

  “Yeah and the old man was a tough guy to work for. Demanding, ridiculed your mistakes, but a great teacher . . . I loved the old bastard.”

  “And when did you start making investment recommendations?”