Law and Order

by Uhnak, Dorothy

  “I thought there was something you wanted to say to me, Uncle Peadar. Hell, that’s why we’re all here, isn’t it? Ma said you wanted to talk to me.”

  Gene narrowed his eyes and studied him, then said, “He’s sharp, Peadar, is our young Bri.”

  Brian nodded. “That’s what I am, Uncle Gene. Sharp. A little young maybe; a little damp behind the ears still. But sharp enough.”

  What his mother had told him was that they were out of money. They had managed for nearly six months on what Brian brought home from his two jobs, on the small amounts Kevin and Martin kicked in occasionally from their odd jobs, on the few dollars Roseanne contributed from her evening job in Loehmann’s department store.

  It had come as a surprise; whenever he’d tried to discuss their financial situation, she’d brushed it aside and he’d assumed they were okay. Then she’d told him: the insurance money was nearly gone except for the sum set aside, irrevocably, for Martin’s seminary studies. That was untouchable. It had been a small sum to start with and there had been the expenses: her hospitalization and clothes outgrown and food eaten and all sorts of things.

  The only thing they had left was a piece of property which his dad had bought along with his brothers.

  “They bought this lovely bit of land, Bri,” his mother said, “not an hour’s drive from here. We were all to build summer cottages. There’s a lovely sparkling lake and all and it will all be private, Brian, just the family. Peadar and Eileen and Matt and Ellen and Gene and his family and your Aunt Ann and Uncle Dan Reilly and Maureen and John Kinelli, the whole mob of us was planning to have cottages and keep it for the family to spend summers together.”

  When his uncles questioned Margaret about her financial situation, though she’d been reluctant, she had finally revealed that they were low and in need of some cash. His uncles had offered to buy out the piece of land his father had bought.

  “It was decent of them to offer, Bri. They’ve even offered a bit higher price than your dad paid. And of course we’d all still be welcome to use any of the cottages any of them finally build. We are part of the family, even so.”

  He was angry, first, that she’d discussed their situation with them; it touched a raw edge of pride in him. He was either the head of his family or still one of the boys and he had to have it established once and for all.

  It was his grandmother who fixed it in his mind, whispered crazily into his ear, dug his arm with her long, hard, bony fingers. “Hold on to that piece of land any way you can. I don’t give a damn in hell whose house you’re to be welcomed into; hold the land yourself.”

  That was exactly what he intended to do, though they’d no notion of it yet.

  They were treating him as though he were still a boy; they kidded with him, prodded him a bit, provoked him a bit in the way of men, but he wasn’t fooled. They considered him a boy.

  “Well, Brian, we’re all family here and there’s no need for any of us not to speak right up,” Peadar, the oldest, told him. “Hell, that’s why we didn’t have John the Wop here tonight or even Ann’s husband for that matter either, but just the O’Malley men.” Peadar kept his eyes on the beer as he poured into his glass from the small jug. “I understand you’ve signed up at Delehanty’s, lad, and you’re studying for the Department examination. It’s a long way off yet, isn’t it?”

  “I figure that’ll give me a long enough time to prepare myself, Uncle Peadar. I’ll take the exam when I’ve just turned twenty-one. Maybe I’ll get lucky and get right to the top of the list.”

  “Jasus, Matty,” Gene said, “but don’t the time go by fast. Here’s our Brian’s son and talking about making the list. I look at you, Brian, and I see myself not all that many years ago. It goes fast, the years, lad.”

  “I guess so. But that’s not what we’re here to talk about tonight, right?”

  Gene clicked his tongue sharply and nodded. “He’s a sharp guy, right, Peadar?”

  “All right then,” said Peadar, finally. “We’ve been keeping our eyes open, lad, and, God knows, we realize how hard things’ve been. You’ve done a good job, keeping your heads above water, but you know, there’s nothin’ to be ashamed of at all in running out of the cash on hand. And you’re just a lad and you’ve done a fine job. We know you’ve been near to killing yourself working that hard—”

  Matt observed dryly, “He doesn’t exactly kill himself on my wagon. So if he’s near death from overwork, it must be from whatever the hell he does in the Loew’s Paradise at night.”

  “Ah, well, when we get him in the Department, Matt, he’ll learn what hard work is,” Gene said. “Unless he becomes one of the forty thieves, like Peadar here, and learns to sleep a lot.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Peadar said, “can’t we get on with the matter at hand without your interruptin’ every minute or so?” He glowered around the table and his brothers shrugged and drank their beer. “Well now, Brian, as you know, we all got together more than a year ago, your dad and your uncles and me, and all of us bought this nice land your mother told you about. And we’ve started some of us putting up our little cottages and all.” He cast a far-off glance, over the top of the refrigerator, his eye fixed on another scene. “It’s a grand place, truly. And your dad had a nice plan for his house.” He shook his head. “Ah, may he rest in peace, Brian had some plans of his own.”

  “May he rest in peace” circled the table.

  It was Brian who brought them sharply back. “Mom says you want to buy our piece of land and divide it amongst yourselves.”

  Peadar watched him closely. “Well, that’s a sharp choice of words, lad, for the reason we’ve offered to buy is to give you a bit of cash rather than us a bit of land.” He raised his chin slightly, ready to see if any offense was intended.

  “I realize that, Uncle Peadar.”

  “It isn’t that we’re givin’ you something for nothing, Brian. God knows, we’re all family here and we’ve all our pride and don’t take something for nothing. We’ve offered your ma a fair price, so there’s no problem and everyone should be happy,” Peadar said. “And of course, lad, as I’ve told your ma, why you’re all of you to come to the lake any time—”

  “Well, there’s just one thing, Uncle Peadar.”

  Peadar leaned forward; they all sensed the tension emanating from the boy. His finely cut profile held very still and he met Peadar’s eye straight on. He seemed a little straighter in his chair; something had definitely changed in the room and the change had to do with young Brian. It was as though they all understood: there was something of importance about to occur.

  Peadar leaned back in his chair and gave his nephew his complete attention. “And what might that one thing be, lad? Eh?”

  He took a quick breath, then said, “I’m not selling.”

  “You’re not selling?”

  “That’s right.”

  Gene said, “Well, that’s interesting, but the land isn’t in your name, Brian, so it’s your mother’s decision to make, isn’t it?”

  Brian shook his head slowly and turned to Gene’s bright stare: his father’s narrowed hard look. “It’s in my name now. I thought it would be a good idea, since I’m the head of my family. Mom signed it over to me.”

  “Signed it over to you? What’s that mean?” Peadar demanded, for it meant more than he had been prepared to concede.

  “It means the deed has been transferred to my name. It means that I’m the owner of the acre of land which is smack in the center of your property, Uncle Peadar.” He licked his lips and tightened his fingers along the edge of the table. “And I’ve decided I don’t want to sell.” He waited but held their attention so that they knew he wasn’t finished. Quietly, he added, “Just now, that is. And not to any of you.”

  “Well, exactly what’s that supposed to mean, Brian?” Peadar asked in his soft, low, intimidating voice. “The choice of words has me a bit puzzled, lad, you’re not wanting to sell ‘just now’ to any of us. I seem to he
ar something beneath the words and you’re working your way toward whatever the hell it is you really want to say, so since we’re all family here, suppose you just cut out all the baloney and tell us what you’ve got in mind.”

  Quickly, Brian said, “Okay.” The hard image of his father glared at him, surrounded him, from Gene, from Peadar, now even from Matt, who revealed some inner hardness. Brian cast around quickly at them, found no special face to focus on, kept himself from lighting a cigarette and plunged ahead. “The first thing is that I’ll offer you the land for rent. Five dollars a month from each of you.”

  “You’ll rent it to us? Rent it?” Peadar asked, incredulous.

  Brian studied his fingernails before he risked the rest of it. “If you don’t want to rent it from me, my alternative would be to sell it.” He looked directly at Peadar now, the challenge finally out in the open. “But not to the family.”

  “Holy Mother of God,” Peadar intoned and they stared at their dead brother’s son and absorbed what he had just said.

  “Brian,” Gene said, “you ought to get your goddamn head shoved right through that wall.”

  “You’re talkin’ a bit of blackmail, sounds like,” Matt observed thoughtfully.

  It was Peadar who reached out finally and punched him roughly on the side of the arm with the side of his fist. It was a man’s gesture to a man, respectfully, grudgingly admiring. “You sure are a cute son of a bitch, Bri,” he admitted. “Is that what you learned all that time out on the road?”

  “I learned how to survive,” Brian said. “Could I have that beer now, Uncle Peadar? I could stand to wet the whistle now.”

  “I think we’ll have a good belt of whiskey all around,” Peadar said. “I think we could use it at this juncture.”

  It was a mark of passage and he swallowed the hard shot of whiskey down the back of his throat and blinked the rush of tears back and absorbed the new way his uncles looked at him with a growing sense of his own place among them.

  Finally, Matt O’Malley said to his brothers, “Sweet Mother of God, if the old man could see his grandson, oh, wouldn’t he ever spin in his grave. The little bastard’s turned himself into a landlord of all things!”

  FIFTEEN

  IT HAD BEEN KNOWN from his earliest childhood that Jimmie John O’Brien was marked with a special gift: the gift of joy. It was not a wild and frightening joy, tinged with the constant threat of violent action such as surrounded the O’Malleys. It had a special quality and it was all his own.

  Jimmie John had been a somewhat quiet, contemplative child who had done all chores willingly if somewhat absent-mindedly. If rebuked or walloped by his father, it was all the same to Jimmie John for he was not given to grudges or brooding.

  Mostly, his failings were caused by his being taken to things most people didn’t even notice, and so he forgot what it was he was about. He saw and held to all the minutiae of his daily life. He found a special beauty in sights and sounds and smells and was entranced by the vast unknowable connectedness of things one to the other. He could stand for hours, his eyes scanning and counting and recognizing each of his flock; he knew the relationship each bore to the other, for though they might seem identical, each animal was special and had its own special and particular way of viewing life. Jimmie John saw and knew what others could not be bothered with.

  It was this special vision and awareness which filled him, lifted him, enabled him to catch the sudden hint of spring air that wafted through a dark winter morning before anyone else had any idea that winter was indeed coming to an end.

  Jimmie John sang nearly all the time. His was a clear, pure voice which could rise and fall with ease, which caressed and tasted and savored and enjoyed equally the saddest of songs or the gayest His instinct for melody was true; he could sing anything he’d heard just once and return the song with something extra added to it: a part of himself.

  He joined the O’Malleys, to whom he was twice connected by his two sisters, when he was a fair-haired lad of twenty-two. Even then his look marked him out as special, for at that tender age, his hair, which was long and silky, was as purely white as if he were a man of sixty, yet his heavy brows were black and his eyes a clear grass-green. He had been a gangling boy at home, all large knobby wrists and raw hands, and he’d seemed constantly stooped against the wind. But he had grown into himself and held himself tall and straight in a manner that might be called proud by those who did not know his gentle nature.

  The O’Malleys immediately tried to take possession of him. They found him a job as a dishwasher for a small but honest wage, with lunch thrown in, at Schrafft’s restaurant on Madison Avenue. His large hands were reddened even more by the harsh water and soap but the constant good nature of the boy was always evident. Before long, Jimmie John, decked out in clean starched white trousers and shirt, neat little black bow tie clipped to his collar, jaunty little hat perched over one eye, was serving in the position of sandwich man behind the gleaming dark wood counter. The manager had guessed, quite rightly, that the lad had a quality which was good for business. He had a lovely politeness and bright pleasant smile and happy manner which came over as great vitality and he was attractive to the lady lunchers.

  Jimmie John became a focal point at the counter and he was seemingly unaware of the watchful, hopeful, hungry eyes which followed his swift, graceful, effective movements as he delivered the little toasty sandwiches from the dumb-waiter to the counter, unfailingly delivering the right sandwich to the right lady.

  None of the O’Malleys knew how it had come about, though they had all speculated through many hours of fanciful calculation. Jimmie John’s extreme discretion was a source of annoyance to them and they were left entirely to their own imaginations as to what took place in Jimmie John’s life at a certain point. It just came about, somehow, that one of the lady diners, a rich widow with more than fifteen years on him, had taken a fancy to him. Jimmie John must have returned her feelings, for he did a totally incomprehensible thing.

  At age twenty-five, and just at the time an examination for the Police Department opened for filing, and the O’Malleys had arranged an application for him so that he could join them in their chosen career, the lad packed his meager belongings—a collection of clean underwear, several pairs of socks, an extra pair of trousers besides those he wore, two clean shirts, one warm sweater and one light jacket—and informed them all that he was off to start a new life.

  “But what the hell are you talkin’ about then?” Peadar demanded.

  Jimmie John, considerate as always, said, “Why, it’s a life you’d not approve, Peadar, so why should I burden you with it?”

  “Well, I’ve some right to know, seein’ as how you’ve been under my roof for nearly two years and seein’ as how was me arranged yer fine job for you in the first place,” Peadar reasoned.

  Jimmie John conceded to some extent. “Well, all right then, but I’d rather not say too much, you understand. You see, Peadar, a fine lady has taken an interest in me.”

  “A fine lady? Taken an interest in you? Now what the devil does that mean?”

  Amiably, Jimmie John said, “Why, Peadar, it’s that which I’m off to find out.”

  That was it. It was all he would say and he left them to ponder without a further word of explanation ever.

  When next they saw him, it was not a beaten, shamed boy but a quietly relaxed, subtly changed man. Any lesser than the O’Malleys would have been in awe of him for he arrived, unannounced and unexpected, with the beam of good health glowing from his handsome face. He wore obviously expensive clothes: a handsome dark-gray sharkskin suit, crisp white shirt and dark tie. His shoes gleamed not only with high polish but from the quality of the leather.

  They had predicted, darkly, that he would return with his tail between his legs and his sins to account for. It had taken two years and he came laden with gifts for one and all, unmistakably thoughtful gifts, each chosen specifically for the one for whom it was intended.

/>   It was clear once and for all that no power on earth could force, cajole or jolly any more information from Jimmie John than he cared to relay and where his personal life was concerned he was pleasantly tight-lipped.

  Through the years, Jimmie John appeared and disappeared in and out of their lives. Sometimes he’d stay with Ellen and Matt, but more often with Margaret and Brian, for his bonds of kinship were stronger and more natural with Margaret. She had a discretion close to his own and a deep inborn loyalty which respected his own strange loyalty to the unknown woman.

  There were times, though Jimmie John never let slip a word of complaint or concern, but there were times Margaret knew her brother’s visit was because he’d had some falling out with the woman. He’d arrive, somewhat pale and hesitant, empty-handed and with just the clothes on his back, and stay a week or so, rarely more. Each night he’d wash his shirt and underwear carefully, not letting Margaret do his laundry. Bedded down in a pair of borrowed pajamas, which he’d wash each morning, Jimmie John would sleep, rise and shower and press his shirt and dress and get the kettle up before anyone in the house was awake.

  Another thing he insisted on: he’d help with the household chores. He’d perch on a window sill and sing and polish the panes to a high gleam, then go to work on the floor to make it shine as well.

  “For Christ’s sake,” Brian would say about his brother-in-law, “is that what he does for her, then? Is that his special talent?”

  But Margaret knew there was no work that did not give Jimmie John pleasure; yet there was more than the joy of doing involved. He had to have some way to pay for his bed and board. In the evenings, he sang and told stories to the children and just kept them all good company and they’d feel better for his presence.

  As suddenly as he arrived, Jimmie John would depart with just a word, a quick hug and a whisper in his sister’s ear. “Thanks, darlin’, for your kindness. God watch over and love you until next time.”