By the Rivers of Brooklyn

by Trudy Morgan-Cole

  “Amen! Hallelujah!! Praise the LORD!!” The voices rise around her, hands reach out to clasp hers, she sits down. The pianist, who is quick, strikes up the tune and Rose catches her breath and joins the others, perhaps even leads them.

  No other fount I know

  Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

  DIANE

  BROOKLYN, OCTOBER 1950

  “MOM, YOU GOTTA DO something. We’re not going to just ignore it, pretend it’s nothing.”

  “I can ignore it if I want to,” Ethel says, pushing her mop over the linoleum with dogged determination. “I hate the way the dust gets in here,” she adds. It’s one of her ongoing complaints about the new apartment. Right on the street, it seems to eat up dust and grime from Flatbush Avenue. Ethel wages a constant war against dirt.

  Diane watches her mother, dressed in a cotton print housedress, her hair tied up under a scarf, her feet laced into sensible shoes. Diane sits on the couch in her bathrobe, her hair in rollers, eating a slice of toast and drinking coffee. It’s her half-day off work. She knows idleness drives Ethel insane.

  “Everybody makes a big deal out of their silver anniversary.”

  “Silver anniversary!” Ethel spits the words out like a curse. “Twenty-five years of married life and what have I got to show for it? Living in four rooms on top of a radio shop, working my fingers to the bone day and night, four grown adults tripping over each other in a space not big enough to swing a cat in? What have we got to celebrate?”

  “Love. Romance. Staying together,” Diane says, and is rewarded, as she expects, with a look of mingled fury and despair.

  “Don’t you have to get ready for work?” Ethel says. “I don’t need you underfoot when I’m trying to clean this dump.”

  “Gosh, give me a break, I’m on my way. So glad I could stay home and spend the morning with you, loving mother.” Diane gets up slowly, stretches, lays down her plate of toast crumbs and her coffee cup on the end table. She hears Ethel’s sigh and a grumble about people who can’t even be bothered to pick up after themselves, and the clink, tinkle as her dishes are brought in the kitchen and set in the sink. By that time Diane has squeezed into the tiny bathroom, where she unrolls and brushes out her hair. Today could be a big day. Diane has the chance to help arrange a new window display. She isn’t crazy about being a salesgirl, not like Carol who is a born salesperson, could sell refrigerator-freezers to the Eskimos. Diane loves arranging displays in the store, figuring how to lay things out in a way so attractive, no-one could resist, even if they’ve only come in to look and not to buy.

  Once she is out of range of her mother’s voice, Diane forgets all about her parents’ twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. She loves the subway ride uptown, the walk along Sixth Avenue, loves moving as part of a crowd, the huge rushing torrent of people going places, more people on a single afternoon on Sixth Avenue than walk on Flatbush Avenue or Fulton Street in a whole week. Different people, too. Men in sharply pressed suits, women in dresses at the height of fashion. This is my world, thinks Diane, this is where I belong.

  As she goes through the glass front doors of Macy’s, into her world of light and colour and retail sales, she thinks briefly of Mickey Malone, who never leaves Brooklyn at all. Her insides turn to water at the thought of Mickey, at his voice or his touch, but she cannot imagine a place for him in the clean, bright Manhattan life she imagines for herself. So it’s good that it’s time for her to start work and stop thinking.

  She gets home that night to find that the idea of a silver anniversary dinner has been taken up with great enthusiasm by her brother Jimmy. All four of them are at home for dinner, squished around the kitchen table, eating fried chicken. Diane, Jimmy, Mom, and the sports page of the Brooklyn Eagle, behind which Dad is buried, following the Dodgers’ uncertain fortunes.

  “Well it was just an idea,” Ethel says, buttering bread. “Just something Diane said.”

  “I think it’s a great idea!” Jimmy says heartily. Jimmy is always hearty. Diane rolls her eyes. “Me and Diane are both working now. We’ll treat you to a real nice dinner. Hey, why don’t we go to Gage and Tollner’s?”

  “No,” Ethel says. “I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. No place fancy.”

  “How about Junior’s?” Jimmy says. “The new place where Enduro’s used to be, you know? You been there, Diane? Me and Joyce ate there last week. It’s nice. A real family place.”

  Ethel frowns, pushes her mashed potato around on her plate. “Maybe Junior’s,” she says.

  Jimmy turns to the Brooklyn Eagle. “Whaddya think, Dad? An anniversary dinner at Junior’s for you and Mom?”

  A faint rattle. “Whatever your mother says. I don’t want no big fuss.” Jim’s voice comes from behind the paper.

  “No fuss,” Ethel echoes. For two people who virtually never exchange a word, and haven’t as long as Diane can remember, it’s amazing how much alike they are. Probably that’s what marriage is all about.

  With that ringing endorsement, plans for the anniversary dinner are laid. Of course, everything starts to fall apart within days. Exactly at the point when Jimmy explains that he’s borrowing his friend Jake’s car to drive them to dinner. “It’s a brand-new Packard,” he says. “Lots of room for the five of us to go in style.”

  “The five of us?” Diane repeats. They are again in their parents’ kitchen, late at night. Mom is in bed and Dad is down in the shop.

  “Yeah: Mom and Dad, you, me and Joyce,” Jimmy says, as though she has difficulty counting.

  “You’re bringing Joyce?”

  “Of course I’m bringing Joyce. She’s my girlfriend.”

  “Then I’m bringing Mickey.”

  Jimmy freezes in the act of buttering a piece of toast. “Diane. You are not bringing Mickey Malone to our parents’ anniversary dinner.”

  “Why not?” Diane turns a chair around and sits down on it backward, like a guy. “You’re bringing Joyce, she’s your girlfriend. I’m bringing Mickey, he’s my boyfriend.”

  “It’s not the same thing at all. Me and Joyce are serious.”

  “Me and Mickey are serious.” You want to know how serious? she almost adds, really wanting to push him over the edge. She’s pretty sure Jimmy and Joyce have never actually done it. But he is still her big brother, after all, so instead she says, “We’ve been going together for two years. That’s longer than you and Joyce.”

  She breaks the news to Mickey that night. “You’re kidding me,” he says. “Go to dinner with your mom and dad and Jimmy and his girlfriend? Couldn’t you just shoot me now and have it over with?”

  “You’re so funny,” she says.

  “I’m not goin’,” he says.

  Diane nestles into his arms. She can time this right. There will be a moment when he can’t say no to her, when he’ll go along with whatever she asks. For now, she drops the subject.

  Sure enough, the following evening at five-thirty they are all on the sidewalk in front of Taylor’s Radio Repair: Ethel, in a blue dress; Jim wearing pressed pants, a shirt and tie, and a suit jacket Diane hasn’t seen on him in at least five years; Jimmy and Joyce; Diane and Mickey. Everyone is dressed up except Mickey, who wears jeans and a T-shirt. Jimmy shoots Diane a look that says he could kill her, and Mickey a look that says he actually will kill him, later on. After the parents’ anniversary dinner, which nobody wants to spoil.

  The Evans family can seldom think of much to say when four of them are sitting around their own cozy kitchen table. Here, amid the aggressive orange splendour of Junior’s, they are as subdued as people at a funeral. The waiter shows them to their table. “And are we celebrating a special occasion this evening?” he asks. Apparently he recognizes that this odd assortment of people would not go out to dinner with each other for anything but a very special occasion.

  “It’s my parents’ silver wedding anniversary,” says Jimmy, rising to the moment. “James and Ethel Evans, twenty-five years married.” The happy couple, sitting at o
pposite ends of the table, look away from each other but cannot find any eyes they are willing to meet.

  “Well, well, well. Congratulations. Twenty-five years,” says the waiter, handing them all menus. “Can I get anyone a drink while you’re waiting? Champagne, perhaps?”

  “Oh no, no, not champagne,” Ethel says, as if he had suggested drinking the blood of a goat. “I’ll have…let me see…may I have a cup of tea? Very, very weak tea,” she adds. And of course, after that it’s impossible for anyone else to order champagne or indeed anything particularly festive, except for Mickey, who goes last and doesn’t seem to have any difficulty asking for a beer.

  When the waiter is gone they are alone in the echoing silence that follows Mickey’s order. The restaurant is in fact quite noisy, couples and families and friends all chattering happily away, apparently having many subjects they can safely discuss. But a glass bell seems to have dropped over the Evans table. Jimmy peruses his menu. “I think I might have a steak. Whaddya think, Dad?”

  “Steak is good,” says Jim.

  Joyce plunges in. She is not a girl who has difficulty finding words, Diane has noticed, nor is she particularly good at picking up little subtleties. “I always order chicken when I go out,” she begins chattily. “Or fish. I love going out to dinner, don’t you? Junior’s is really nice. Don’t you think so, Mrs. Evans?”

  Ethel shakes her head. “We don’t eat out very much, these days.”

  “But I’m sure you did when you were dating, didn’t you?” Joyce burbles happily. “Now you know, a silver anniversary is time to look back on your courting years. At my parents’ silver wedding they had all their old friends get up, and everyone had to tell a story about when Mom and Dad were dating each other. Oh, it was so funny.” Another little well of silence. “So, Mr. and Mrs. Evans, don’t you have any romantic stories? How did you meet?”

  Ethel looks at Diane in mute appeal, but it’s Jimmy who steps in. “Well, that’s kind of a funny story, Joyce. Funny I never told you before. My mom and dad, you see, they grew up together, back in Newfoundland. And when they first came to New York, it was actually my dad’s brother, his brother Bert, that Mom was engaged to.”

  Joyce’s very blue eyes open wide, then she smiles her dimpled smile and shakes a finger at Jim. “Oh, Mr. Evans, did you steal your brother’s girlfriend right out from under his nose? How naughty!”

  Again, silence. Jimmy opens his mouth but nothing comes out. Ethel finally speaks, her voice as dry as layers of tissue paper rustling. “Well, it wasn’t quite like that, you see, Joyce. My –Mr. Evans’ brother, Bert – you see, he had an accident. He fell from a building and was killed.”

  Mickey, who has also never heard this story, looks interested now. Diane and Jimmy have only heard the story of Bert as a distant legend. No-one has ever elaborated on how Ethel went from being Bert’s fiancée to being Jim’s wife. Romantic courtship stories have never made up part of their family lore.

  “So she married me instead,” Jim finishes, in a tone usually reserved for judges pronouncing sentence of death.

  At this moment the waiter arrives with their drinks. Very, very weak tea for Ethel. Coffee for Jim and Jimmy. Ginger ale for the ladies. A nice big frothy mug of beer for Mickey. Jim and Jimmy eye it enviously. The waiter takes their orders and abandons them to their fate. Everyone takes a sip of their drink at the exact same moment. Diane meets Mickey’s eyes over the rim of her glass and sees that he wants to laugh, and knows that if they look at each other a moment longer, she will laugh too. She kicks him under the table, but her mother glances up with a sharp look of surprise and Diane realizes she has connected with the wrong ankle.

  “So,” says Joyce, as if gathering her strength, “so, Mr. Evans, you were there for Mrs. Evans in her time of grief. I’m sure you were a great comfort to her. How very sweet.”

  Jim nods slowly, and all four Evanses look at Joyce with new respect, not to mention relief. She obviously has a talent for finding the right thing to say in difficult moments. A gift that will come in handy in this family.

  Jimmy suddenly picks up a knife and taps it against his glass, as though they are all talking with such animation that he needs to do this to get their attention. As they are, in fact, all sitting in silence, the effect is startling.

  “Well, uh…ladies and gentlemen,” he says, looking around at their table in a self-conscious speechmaking voice. “It’s, ah, it’s an honour to be here tonight to celebrate my father and mother’s twenty-fifth anniversary and the, ah, accomplishment they’ve made in raising such a wonderful family.” Mickey rolls his eyes. “It’s only, ah, it’s only too bad, too sad, that my brother Ralph can’t, uh, is no longer with us to, ah…I’m sure we would all be very happy if Ralph could be here with us too tonight.” Ethel looks as if someone has punched her in the gut, and raises her napkin to her eyes. Jim looks away, over at the people at the next table, as if wondering whether he can detach himself from his family altogether. Joyce’s eyes widen a little more. Diane wonders if she’s even heard about Ralph. Has Jimmy told her anything about his family?

  Jimmy, for his part, ploughs on. “In spite of, uh, all that, it’s wonderful to be here this evening and I want to congratulate my parents and wish you, ah, a very happy anniversary, Mom and Dad.” He hesitates, then raises his cup of coffee. “To Mom and Dad.”

  Everyone raises their glasses or cups. Diane echoes, “Mom and Dad,” and Joyce quickly mumbles, “Mr. and Mrs. Evans.” Mickey says nothing but takes a long pull at his beer in obvious relief.

  This would be the time for Ethel and Jim to look at each other tenderly, raise their tea and coffee cups, and say “To us.” Ethel blushes, looks embarrassed, and sips her very, very weak tea. Jim, however, actually does say, “To us, Ethel girl!” rather loudly, and she looks up as if someone has kicked her again.

  Diane looks around for the waiter, but of course he’s not back yet. At least, she figures, her brother has had his little speech now and no longer needs to pretend he’s speaking in front of sixty people at a rented hall. But Jimmy has a surprise for them. He goes on.

  “Since we’re celebrating the, uh, joys of marriage tonight, it seems…ah, it seems appropriate that, I mean, I think this is a good time to announce, that, ah, Joyce and I…”

  Diane sees her mother freeze, and for a moment feels almost sorry for Ethel. Not that Ethel disapproves of Joyce, or wouldn’t want her to marry Jimmy. But Diane can almost hear her mother’s thoughts: Not tonight. Not one more thing, after all this! She places her hand on top of her mother’s for a moment.

  “…we’ve set a date, and decided, and, uh, Joyce has agreed to do me the honour of becoming Mrs. James Evans. The Second. In June.”

  In the stunned silence, Mrs. James Evans the First pulls her hand out from under her daughter’s and begins to clap very quietly, and the others follow her lead. Ethel leans forward, past Diane, to Joyce. “Joyce, dear, my very best wishes. I hope you and Jimmy will be very happy.”

  At that moment the waiter arrives with their meals. Once food is in front of them they can talk about the food, and about Jimmy and Joyce’s wedding plans, about Jimmy’s wonderful opportunity to manage Taylor’s new store out on Long Island, about where they will live. To other tables around, they no doubt give a good imitation of a happy family celebrating not one but two special occasions. A keen observer might pick up tiny strains: the handsome young man dressed entirely inappropriately to whom no-one ever speaks, or the fact that the older couple, presumably the guests of honour, never actually look at each other all evening. But they finish the evening with ice cream sundaes and everyone goes back out to the car feeling that, on at least some levels, the evening has been a success.

  Diane has waited through the whole endless dinner to get Mickey alone, to laugh with him about her ridiculous family. After Jimmy drives them all home she stands in the street with Mickey, looking oddly mismatched with her new pink dress and pearls next to his jeans and T-shirt. Without say
ing anything, they begin walking down Flatbush. Diane puts out her hand and brushes Mickey’s hand, and he holds hers, but without any real warmth or pressure. Just as if it’s something he’s carrying for a few minutes. Mickey stops suddenly next to a lighted sign that reads “CANDY…CIGARS.”

  “That’s what you want, isn’t it?” he says.

  “Candy cigars?” Diane says, feeling the need for a joke. The night is chilly, and so is Mickey’s glare.

  “Candy cigars, Jimmy and Joyce. You know. Nice little place on Long Island. He’s gonna be manager of the store, good prospects. Babies comin’ along in a coupla years…a nice little life. That’s what you want too, isn’t it?”

  “No! No, that’s not what I want at all!” Diane says. She thinks of walking down Sixth Avenue, carried on the current of rich, successful people all striving for something more. “I don’t know exactly what I want, but it isn’t that.”

  Mickey starts walking again, fast. She has to almost run to keep up. “You know where Joyce and Jimmy are gonna be in twenty-five years, huh?” he says. “Right back at Junior’s, same table, their kids in between them, making a toast. Can’t even look at each other, they’re so sick of the sight of each other after all these years. Just like good old Mom and Dad.”