Nothing to Fear

by Jackie French Koller

  The movie was just as lousy as I expected, some drippy love story about an ambulance driver and a nurse during the war. I couldn't believe we'd passed up Tom Mix and a Hoot Gibson serial for this. The nurse dies in the end and I thought the whole theater was gonna get flooded with all the drippin' and snif-flin' going on. I looked over and saw that Mickey had his arm around Kitty. He nodded toward Maggie like I ought to do the same, and I gave him a look like I'd rather eat worms. I poked Maggie and nodded in their direction, expecting her to laugh, but she just gave me an annoyed look and dabbed at her eyes with the sleeve of her blouse.

  Mickey and Kitty held hands on the way home, and Maggie acted real funny. She was quiet for a long time and sighed a lot, then she started saying things like, "Wasn't that just the most romantic movie you've ever seen?" and "Aren't the stars beautiful tonight?" I'd never seen Maggie act like that before. I didn't know what to say to her.

  We passed one of those Dime-a-Dance parlors.

  "Oh look," said Maggie, grabbing my sleeve and pulling me over to the window. There was a row of ladies sitting on chairs, and every time the music started a bunch of fellas came over and picked out a girl and paid a dime to dance with her. It was a real waste of money if you asked me.

  "Isn't it wonderful?" said Maggie. "As soon as I'm old enough, I'm gonna get a job at one of these places." The band started playing "Someone to Watch Over Me," and she wrapped her arms around herself and started swaying dreamily around the sidewalk. I pictured her dancing with one of those fellas, and I didn't like it.

  "What would you wanna do a dumb thing like that for?" I asked her.

  "It's just so romantic," said Maggie, "all those swell gentlemen paying for the privilege of having a dance."

  The way she said "gentlemen" made me mad, like she thought I was some kind of flat tire or something.

  "Oh yeah," I said, "well what makes you think any gentleman would pay to dance with you?"

  Maggie turned and smiled at me. She didn't say anything. She didn't have to. With her dark hair shining on her shoulders and her blue eyes reflecting the light from the streetlamps, she was beautiful. When did she get so beautiful? When did she get so tall? It seems like lately everyone is getting tall, except me.

  "Well, you wouldn't catch me payin' to dance with no bean pole," I told her.

  Maggie just kept looking at me and smiling. She put her face very close to mine. "Don't you worry, Danny Garvey," she whispered. "You'll grow."

  The way she said it, so soft and breathless, her eyes staring straight into mine, made my mouth go dry and my ears start to burn.

  Then suddenly she giggled and ran off up the street after Mickey and Kitty.

  "Oh yeah?" I shouted after her. "Well, who asked ya?"

  EIGHTEEN

  Mama was listening to the radio and writing to Pa again when I came in.

  "Aren't those letters piling up some?" I asked.

  Mama just shrugged and smiled.

  "I'm just tellin' yer daddy about yer date. How was it?"

  "It wasn't a date," I said. "And it stunk."

  There was a sudden loud crash from across the hall, and then the sound of yelling.

  Mama winced. "He's been at it all evenin'," she said. "I was hopin' he'd stop once the girls got home."

  There was another loud crash, followed by a muffled scream. Mama jumped up and we rushed into the hall. Mrs. Mahoney was thumping down the stairs, her forehead creased with worry. We could hear the little Riley kids whimpering.

  "No, Pa ... Please!" I heard Maggie cry.

  "Shuddup or you'll be next," came her father's slurred reply.

  I banged on the door and rattled the knob. It was locked.

  "Mind yer own business," Mr. Riley shouted. There was another crash and some more screaming and sobbing.

  "Danny," Mama whispered, "run for a policeman."

  I hesitated, not wanting to leave them all.

  "Run, Danny," she insisted, "before it's too late."

  I dashed down the stairs, past the other tenants, who were starting to gather in the halls, and out into the street. There were no cops in sight. The police station was over on 104th between Lexington and Park. I started running in that direction, when out of the corner of my eye I spied a blue uniform coming out of the tunnel on 105th.

  "Officer," I shouted. "Officer—hurry!"

  The policeman's head went up at the sound of my voice and he ran to meet me, his heavy black shoes echoing dully off the pavement. I was glad to see that it was Pete Murray. Pete grew up in our neighborhood and knows us all, which saved me a lot of explaining.

  "Danny," he said when he got close enough to recognize me, "what's wrong?"

  "It's Mr. Riley again."

  Pete nodded and rushed past me. I hurried after him. When we reached the building the tenants parted to let us through. Mama still stood by the Rileys' door, Mrs. Mahoney by her side. They both had tears in their eyes.

  "Oh, Peter, thank the Lord," said Mama when she saw Officer Murray. "He's surely gone crazy this time."

  Officer Murray banged on the door.

  "Open up, Riley," he shouted. "It's the law."

  "Go ta hell," came the answer.

  "Officer, please help—"

  The voice, Maggie's, was silenced by a loud slap.

  "Break the door down," I shouted. "I'll help you."

  "That won't be necessary," said Officer Murray. He took a skeleton key from a ring on his belt and opened the lock. The door opened a crack and stopped again, held by a chain. Officer Murray frowned. "Let's try the front-room door," he said.

  Mama shook her head. "They've got an extra bolt on it," she said. "The girls sleep in there."

  Officer Murray tried it anyway, but it wouldn't budge.

  "All right, Danny," he said to me, "you can give me that hand now."

  He jammed his billy club into the crack in the kitchen door and used it as a wedge, throwing his weight against it. I threw my shoulder against the door just below his.

  "Okay, now!" he shouted.

  We shoved with all our strength. We heard a crack, but the door held.

  "Again," shouted Officer Murray.

  We shoved again, and this time Mama and Mrs. Mahoney threw their weight against our backs. I pushed so hard I thought my veins were going to pop, then all of a sudden there was a splintering sound and the door burst open, tumbling the lot of us into the room.

  Mr. Riley staggered over to the stove, grabbed one of Mrs. Riley's irons, and lunged at Pete Murray. Luckily, though, Mr. Riley was so drunk and clumsy that Pete easily rolled out of the way and jumped to his feet. One blow of the billy club sent the iron crashing to the floor, and the next thing we knew, Officer Murray had Mr. Riley bent over the kitchen table and was snapping his wrists into handcuffs.

  Mama got up and went over to help Kitty with Mrs. Riley, who was slumped on the floor beside the icebox, her hands covering her face. Maggie, an angry red welt below her right eye, comforted the little Rileys who huddled together in the corner, sobbing quietly.

  "Mrs. Riley," said Officer Murray, when he had Mr. Riley fully secured, "what do you want me to do?"

  Mrs. Riley spoke from behind her hands, her voice trembling and tearful. "Fix it," she said, "so he can never set foot in this apartment again."

  Mr. Riley never flinched. He stared straight ahead, his eyes red and watery, his mouth set in a hard line. I saw Maggie look at him. Tears filled her eyes, then she caught my gaze and quickly looked away again.

  Officer Murray steered Mr. Riley to the door. "I'll send someone up to fix this," he said, "and I'll come by with the papers in the morning."

  Mrs. Riley nodded, still behind her hands.

  "Danny," said Mama, after Officer Murray and Mr. Riley were gone, "help Mrs. Mahoney upstairs and tell the neighbors they can go back to bed now. Everything is all right."

  I did as Mama asked. When I came back down Mrs. Riley was sitting at the table. Her eyes were swollen black and blue, and bloo
d oozed from a cut on her cheek. She dabbed at the tears that streamed from her eyes with a crumpled handkerchief.

  "Oh, Molly," she said sadly, "what's become of our men?"

  Mama looked up at me.

  "Go on home to bed now, Danny," she said gently. "I'll be along shortly."

  "Aw, Ma."

  "Go on with ya now, and check on Maureen."

  "Yes ma'am."

  NINETEEN

  Maureen was sleeping soundly, totally unaware of anything that had happened. I lay down on my bed, but my stomach hurt and my mind kept trying to make some sense of everything I had just seen.

  Folks around here have been making allowances for Mr. Riley as long as I can remember. He grew up just a couple of blocks from here, his parents Irish immigrants like Ma and Pa. People say he had a fine wit and a good heart and everyone was fond of him. He fell in love with Maggie's mom, except she wasn't Maggie's mom yet, of course. Her name was Katherine Gerky then, and she lived in the neighborhood, too. They were all set to get married when our country got itself mixed up in the World War, and Mr. Riley and most of the other guys in the neighborhood ended up in the army.

  Mr. Riley came home from the war, but a lot of his friends didn't. Folks say Mr. Riley was never the same again. "Shell-shocked," they call it. He's never worked much. The Rileys have been on relief long as I can remember. Mr. Riley just lies around the apartment or hangs out down on the stoop, drinking Mrs. Riley's homemade beer and sponging off her and the kids. Sometimes, like tonight, he gets ahold of a bottle of bootleg whiskey, and then there's real trouble.

  I felt like hating him after what he'd done to Maggie and her ma tonight, but that didn't seem fair. After all, it wasn't his fault he went off and got shell-shocked. But whose fault was it then?

  After what seemed like a long time I heard the kitchen door open and close, and the rattle of the chain latch sliding over. I'd left the bedroom door curtain open, and I saw Mama come into her room and bend over the crib at the foot of her bed. She stood for a long time that way, smoothing Maureen's blanket and stroking her hair. Then she sat down in her rocker and put her head in her hands. I heard her sigh deeply.

  "Mama? Are you okay?"

  She looked up.

  "Danny?" she whispered. "I thought you'd be asleep by now."

  "I can't sleep."

  Mama came in and sat on the edge of my bed. She smoothed back my hair and caressed my cheek.

  "I know," she said. "Such an awful thing for a child to see."

  "I'm not a child anymore, Ma."

  She looked at me sadly. "No," she said. "I don't s'pose you are, but 'twas an awful thing to see, just the same."

  "Why did Mrs. Riley marry him," I asked, "if he was shell-shocked like people say?"

  "Because she loved him, Danny, and she thought her love could bring him around again. Seemed like it might, too, for a time. He straightened out some after Maggie and Kitty were born, worked hard, stayed clear o' the bottle...."

  Mama smiled a faraway smile. "Those were good times," she said. "We did everything together, the Rileys and us. Do you remember at all? You were just a wee bit of a thing."

  "I remember the picnics at Coney Island and the trips to the zoo."

  "Do ya then? Good. Try to remember Johnny Riley that way, Danny, not the way you saw him tonight."

  "But what went wrong, Ma?" I asked. "Why did he change back again?"

  "I guess something wasn't healed inside him," Mama said. "When the other babies started coming, one after the other, times got hard for the Rileys. Mr. Riley started fallin' apart, little by little. Then the depression came...."

  Mama stopped talking. She stared out the window into the darkness of the alley.

  "Something wrong?" I asked.

  She shook her head, but her eyes were glazed and far away. "Hard times," she said softly. "I thought it would be different here." Then she looked at me and laughed a little at herself. "That's the Irish in me, I guess, always lookin' for that pot o' gold."

  I smiled. "Are you ever sorry you left Ireland, Ma?" I asked.

  "Oh, I miss it sure enough. It was such a lovely green place, and family all around. But no, I wouldn't go back. I was wrong to say it isn't different here. It is. Yer pa has learned to read and taken up a trade. You're gettin' an education and Maureen will, too, even though she's but a girl. Everyone has a chance here, no matter how poor. Why, you could even grow up to be president, like that Mr. Lincoln, if you wanted to bad enough."

  I had to laugh. "An Irish Catholic president! You are a dreamer, Ma."

  Mama stiffened at my words.

  "Aye," she said with a toss of her head. "It's dreamers make the world go round, and don't ya forget it."

  "Sorry," I said. "I was just teasing."

  Mama relaxed again and took my hand in both of hers. "I know," she said, squeezing it tight. Then suddenly she held my hand up, as if to see it better. "What's this?" she said. "You been growin' again?"

  I snorted. "I doubt it, Ma."

  "Yes, yes ya have. Look here now. Yer hand is bigger than mine."

  "Really?" I spread my fingers out to measure against hers. "Wow," I said. "Keen."

  Mama laughed. "Never ya mind," she said. "Don't be springin' such surprises on yer poor mother. Next you'll be tellin' me yer too big to hear a story."

  I smiled at her. "Never, Ma."

  Even Pa loves Ma's stories. Ma's grandfather was a seanachie, a storyteller, back in Ireland, and Mama has "the gift."

  "Get under the covers then," she said, "and close yer eyes."

  I did as she told me, happy to let her take me back with her to the hills of Ireland, hills I know as well in my mind as the streets of New York. They're magic hills, full of fairies and leprechauns and pots of gold, but they're scary, too, haunted by ghosts and the scream of the banshee. Most of all though, they're Mama's hills and Pa's too, which somehow makes them mine as well. I never tire of hearing about them.

  "And I told yer Uncle Tomas," Mama was saying, "'Don't take yer eyes from him, not for a minute, and I'll run get the spade.' I ran like the banshee was chasin' me, but when I got back the leprechaun was gone just the same, and there was yer Uncle Tomas, sleepin' like a babe."

  I laughed. "So the leprechaun tricked you out of the gold again?"

  "Aye, that he did."

  Mama sat back a little and her eyes grew dreamy. "That night," she said, "as we were lyin' on our pallets in the byre, your Uncle Tomas turned to me. 'Molly,' he said, 'if we'da got that pot o' gold, and ya could have anything in the world, what would ya choose?'"

  Mama looked at me and her eyes sparkled. "Can ya guess what I said?"

  "No, Mama, what?"

  "A pitcher of cream." She tossed her head and laughed at herself. "How's that," she said, "for a child's wildest dream? A pitcher of cream..."

  TWENTY

  Sunday, October 23, 1932

  "Danny? What're ya doin' on the floor, lad? Did ya fall out of bed?"

  Mama's voice startled me awake, and I sat up, trying to figure out where I was.

  "Danny?" she said again. "Did ya fall out of bed?"

  "Uh ... no, Mama. I was saying my prayers.... I guess I fell asleep on my knees."

  "Poor dear," she said. "Such a good boy. You'll have to hurry now, though, or we'll be late for Mass."

  "Okay, Ma."

  I didn't tell her that the prayers I was saying were my penance for sassing Sister at catechism yesterday. As a matter of fact, I'd forgotten all about them in the excitement of last night. Then I had this dream that Sister was chasing me through the sewers, throwing flowers at me. I woke up in a cold sweat, sure it must be some kind of bad omen or something. So I got down on my knees and started in, only I was so tired that I kept falling face forward into the sheets. The next thing I knew, Ma was waking me up. I still didn't know if I was done or not, so I said the rosary to myself the whole time I was getting dressed and all during breakfast and all the way to church, just to be safe.

 
We saw the Rileys at Mass. Maggie and her mother both had on those kind of hats with the little veils that come down over your face. Ma invited them all over for Sunday dinner and Mrs. Riley nodded. After Mass, Ma gave me a quarter and sent me to the bakery to buy buns for supper.

  "Spend the whole quarter," she said.

  I stared at her. "The whole quarter, on buns?"

  "Aye," she said. "The Rileys will be stayin' the afternoon, I'm sure."

  "But ... the whole quarter?"

  "Aye," Mama repeated. "I'm thinkin' we all deserve a bit of a treat. Go along with you now."

  "Okay, Ma."

  The bakery was crowded, but I didn't mind the wait. Standing there, surrounded by all those good things to eat, breathing in that sweet, buttery air was about as close as you could get to heaven without dying. When my turn came I looked over the buns. There were cheese, raspberry, apple, lemon, cinnamon ... ten kinds in all. "I'll have two of each," I said, feeling very rich as I pushed the quarter across the counter.

  It started to rain on the way home and I tucked the buns under my jacket to keep them dry. Their warmth felt good against my chest. Mama was bustling around the kitchen when I came in. A huge pot of chicken soup boiled on the stove.

  "Run up and tell poor old Mrs. Mahoney to join us," Mama said. She always calls Mrs. Mahoney "poor old Mrs. Mahoney." I'm not really sure why. She doesn't seem that poor or that old. I think it's got something to do with her wooden leg or her being a widow or maybe both.

  "No sense in her spending the day alone up there," Mama went on, "when one more or less down here won't make a bit o' difference."

  Mrs. Mahoney was delighted. She asked me to carry her box of beadwork down for her, and she followed with a pot of "tea" tucked under her arm. Mrs. Mahoney supports herself by doing piecework, making beaded pocketbooks at home. I don't know how much she makes, but she pays us kids two cents a pocketbook to help out, and we're always glad to get it. Whenever we have some free time we go up and sit in her kitchen and string beads, and she tells us tales of when she was young and her husband was alive. Her husband was a merchant marine, and when they were first married Mrs. Mahoney used to sail all around the world with him. She says that's how she lost her leg. It was bitten off by a shark one time when she was washed overboard in a gale. Mama winks and says Mrs. Mahoney is just giving us a bit of the blarney.