by Betty Smith
and the money."
"Get off me property " bellowed Mike. "Get the hell out
of me house! "
"Stable," corrected Patsy.
"You're sacked! No recommendation. Pack up your rags
and get!,,
Patsy didn't pack up and he didn't "get," because the
next day he and Mary were married by a clerk in City
Hall.
.~-.~; CHAPTER TEN ~
THEY came home directly from City Hall. The Missus
wept because there hadn't been a big church wedding with
a Nuptial Mass. But Mary seemed very happy. From time
to time, she looked at the wedding ring on her finger and
smiled at Patsy. Patrick Dennis swaggered with his hands
in his pockets and grinned at his father-in-law. Biddy
stood listening behind a half-closed door with her mouth
hanging open in amazement.
Mike Moriarity was the only one who didn't act normal.
He acted as though he were thinking; as though he had
been stricken ~ 56 1
speechless. Ibis silence made his wife and daughter
nervous.
"Won't you wish me stick, Papa?" said Mary.
"Let's see your papers," he said suddenly. Nervously but
happily, she got her marriage certificate out of her reticule
and gave it to him. He examined it. "Ha!" he said. "So you
wasn't married by a priest?"
"No."
"There wasn't time," began Patsy.
"And you came right home from City Hall?" asked Mike,
ignoring Patsy.
"Of course, Papa."
"Good!" He gave an order to his wife. "Missus, get me
hat and coat."
"Now, Michael," she started to say.
"Quiet! " he shouted.
"I mean," said The Missus timidly, "couldn't we have a
glass of wine first? All of us? Kind of celebrate?"
"There'll be a celebration all right, later on," he said
grimly. "But not what you think "
"Where you going now?" asked The Missus. Then she
said: "Excuse me for asking."
"I'm going straight to Judge Cronin and get this
marriage annulled."
"You can't!" wailed The Missus.
"Sure I can. Cronin owes me a favor."
"I mean they're married good."
"Oh, no, they ain't. Didn't you hear her say they came
right back from (pity Hall without stopping anywheres?"
"But . . ."
"That means the marriage wasn't con . . . consa . . . It
wasn't consumed!" he said triumphantly. He rushed out of
the house.
The Missus ran after him. "You can't, Michael," she
panted as she caught up with him.
"Don't you tell me what to do.''
"But what will she do with the baby?" wailed The
Missus. 'And she not married?"
He stopped so suddenly that his Missus bumped into
him. He grabbed her arm. "A hat baby?" he asked.
"Mary's and his."
t6- 1
"How do you know?"
"Biddy told me."
"How does she know?"
"She saw Mary up in his room. In her nightgown, Biddy
said. And they was hugging and kissing . . ." The Missus
blushed. ". . . and all. Biddy saw the whole thing."
"Why'n't she tell me?"
"Because she was afraid of Patrick. He said he'd kill her
if she told. That's what she said to me anyways."
Slowly he walked back to the house with The Missus
jogging along beside him. Arriving home, he gave her his
hat and coat to hang up, and, without a word to anyone,
he went into his den and locked the door. Alone there, he
put his head down on his desk and wept.
He wept because all the plans he'd had for his daughter
had come to nothing. When she was twenty, he had hoped
she'd marry a young lawyer he knew who he thought had
a wonderful future. But Mary had been too shy to
encourage the young man. Now the young lawyer was
Assistant District Attorney. Had a chance of being
Governor someday. Moriarity had dreamed of saying, "Me
son-in-law, the Governor . . ."
As the years went by, he was convinced she'd never
marry. Well, there were compensations in that, too. He
could count on her to grow old devoted to him; to attend
to his well-being if his wife died before him. T hat dream
had gone now. And he wept for that.
But fundamentally he wept because he knew his
daughter vas sweet and good and honest. She was too
good much too good for someone like Patrick Dennis
Moore. That almost broke his
heart.
They ate supper together. It was a sad wedding feast. No
one knew what to say and everyone was apprehensive of
Biddy, who served them with poor grace, banging the
dishes down and muttering to herself.
After supper, they went upstairs to the parlor and sat in
the chilly room. Mike sat in morose silence while Patsy
and the two women tried to make conversation. The
Missus asked Mary to play the piano. She requested "Over
the Waves." Mary said her fingers were too stiff from the
chill of the room. Then her father
1 6~1
broke his silence and asked her to play "Molly Malone."
Because she wished to ingratiate herself with him, she
played a chorus of the ballad, then closed the piano.
They sat there. The evening wore on. The Missus dozed
in her chair. Black shadows appeared under Mary's eyes.
Patsy began yawning and got The Boss to yawning, too.
No one wanted to be indelicate enough to suggest going
to bed. Finally Patsy took charge of the situation. He got
up, stretched his arms and yawned.
"I'm going to bed," he said. "I'm that tired." He held out
his hand to his wife. "Come, Ilary." EJalld in hand they
went to the door.
"Where are you taking her?? asked Mike.
"To me room," said Patsy. "Over the stable."
Mike stood up. "Me daughter wasn't raised to sleep in
a stable," he said.
"Neither was my husband," said llarv.
"Michael," said The Missus timidly, "surely in this big
house there is a room . . ."
"We'll sleep in my room," said Mary. The two women
stood silent, waiting for Mike's outburst. He said nothing.
Patsy went to The Missus. "Good night, me sweet
mother," he said. He kissed her cheek. The Missus
beamed and gave him a fierce, loving hug.
"Good night," he said to Mike and held out his hand.
Mike ignored it.
Mary kissed her mother, then went to her father, put
her arms around his neck and rested her head on his
chest.
"Oh, Papa," she said, "I'm so happy. Please don't spoil
it for me."
Tenderly, he stroked his daughter's hair with one hand
and held out his other hand to his son-in-law.
"Be good to this good girl," he said to Mary's husband.
Later, they were married by a priest. The Missus didn't
want them to be married in the neighborhood parish. She
said they were too well k
nown and people would think it
was "funny" her daughter being married without a veil
or bridesmaid or Nuptial Mass.
They were married in the adjoining parish of Williamshurg
b
~ 69 1
Father Flynn, a priest newly come to the neighborhood.
He was very nice to them.
The marriage disrupted the household. Biddy announced
it was beneath her to wait on an ex-servant even if he had
married The Boss's daughter. She turned in her notice and
they had to break in a new servant girl. And The Missus
and Mary decided it was not becoming for a member of
the family to be a stable boy. Patsy agreed with them.
Mike had to get a new stable boy and Patsy was released
from his menial and odorous chores.
Mary lost her teaching job when she married. Married
women were not permitted to teach in the public schools.
Therefore, Mike had to support Patsy and Mary and pay
a new stable boy in the bargain.
Patsy hung around the house all day smoking his pipe of
clay and picking out "Chopsticks" with two fingers on the
piano. He was very loving to Mary and courtly to his
mother-in-law. Both women worshiped him.
The Missus bloomed under Patsy's attentions and she
stopped scuttling for a while. }le called her "Mother,"
which thrilled her. He stopped addressing Mike as "Sir."
He called him "Hey, Boss!" which irritated Mike. Patsy got
things out of Mike by using Mary's name. Mike referred
to this process as "bleeding me white."
"Hey, Boss, me wife s lys . . ."
"You mean, me daughter says . . ."
"Me wife says I need a new suit. Ile wife says I'm a
disgrace to me fine father-in-law the way me backside is
showing through me pants they is that worn out. And the
way me bare feet is on the ground for want of soles on me
brogans. So . . ."
So Mike bought him new clothes. If Mary knew her
husband was using her to get things from her father, she
never said a word about it.
"Me wife . . ."
"Me daughter. . ."
"Me wife says I'm getting to be a reglar mully-cuddle the
way I sit in the house day :md night with only wimmen
folks. 'Be like me father,' says me wife. 'Have the grand
life like me dear father and he amongst the men all day.'
"
1~701
"Me daughter don't talk that way."
"Them was her words. '[Take a night off once a week,'
she says 'and stand up to the bar with the boy-sis and have
your schooner of cool beer. Or two."'
So The Boss gave him a dollar once a week for a night
on the town.
One night, six months later, The Boss and his Missus
were preparing for bed. She scuttled into the double brass
bed and lay tight against the wall to displace as little space
as possible. He sat down on the side of the bed to pull off
his congress gaiter shoes. His weight made her bounce up
and down once or twice. As usual he was complaining
about his son-in-law.
(During the day, about the house and also in public, she
seemed frightened of him and he never spoke to her
without shouting or without sarcasm. But at night, in the
privacy of the room and bed they had shared for thirty
years, they turned into congenial companions.)
"Me patience is used up, IIOIINT'', he said. "Out he
goes as soon as she has the baby.'
"What baby, Micky? "
"Mary's. And," he added grudgingly, "his'n."
"Oh, they're not going to have a baby," she said brightly.
"But you said. You told me that Biddy told you. She told
you that she saw them two nights before they was married.
And they was intimate."
"Oh, Miclty, you know what a liar Biddy always was."
He sat there aghast, holding a shoe in his hand. "So I've
been thricked into this marriage! And that's how the
durtee cuckoo got into me clean nest!"
"Say your rosary and ~ ome to 'bed, Micky."
"I got to find some way of getting him out of me house.
But how? "
'You could get him a job and give them a house to live
in. That's how."
"Hm. That's not a bad idear, Molly. I'll start thinking on
it tomorrow." He got into bed. "Now where's me beads?"
"Under your pillow lil;e always."
A! 1
Moriarity pulled wires and cut red tape and bribed and
blackmailed and got his son-in-law a job with the
Department of Sanitation. He was asked whether he
wanted his son-in-law on garbage collecting. He was
tempted to say yes, but he knew he couldn't push Patsy
that far. So he got him a job as street cleaner.
Then he gave his daughter and her husband a house of
their very own to live in.
Among Mike's holdings was a two-family frame house
in Williamsburg on what was then known as Ewen Street.
Fifteen years before, Mike had bought it for five hundred
down and a first mortgage of three hundred and a loan of
two hundred. This was in the years when property was still
cheap.
In those old days, the plumbing was an outhouse in the
yard, people drew water from a community pump down
the street, the lighting was from kerosene lamps and
heating came from a cooking range in the kitchen and a
"parlor" stove in the front room.
Recently gaslight and water had been installed in the
house. Mike had taken a small woodshed attached to the
house and made it into a bathroom of sorts: a small tin
tub boarded with wood and a toilet and wash bowl.
Upstairs, a toilet had been put into a bedroom closet and
a sink in the kitchen. Mike had paid off the
two-hundred-dollar loan and then turned around and
gotten a thousand-dollar mortgage on the "improved"
house. The upstairs flat rented for fifteen a month and the
downstairs for twenty. C)ne half or the other was usually
without tenants. Mike made no attempt to pay off the
thousand-dollar mortgage. He simply paid the interest and
kept "renewing" the mortgage. The taxes were still low.
Since he put no money into improvements, the rent was
a decent little profit on his original five-hundreddollar
investment.
This visas the house he turned over to his daughter and
her husband. He made a little speech when he turned over
the deed ending up with: "'Tis your very own, now."
The mortgage and the unrented upstairs apartment were
their very own, too.
Mary got a woman in for a day to help her scrub and
clean up the house. She had two hundred dollars saved
from her teaching job and Patsy had nearly a hundred.
They had the rooms up
[ 72 ]
stairs and downstairs cheerfully papered and the
woodwork painted. Mary was allowed to take the
bedroom furniture from her room at home and she and
Patsy bought what additional furniture was needed. She
made muslin curtains for the windows and set up her
hand-painted china plates on the shelf that ran the length
of the kitchen wall.
She was able to rent the upstairs apartment soon after
they had taken over the house. She made it very plain to
Patsy that the rent was to be used entirely for taxes and
mortgage interest and payments on the mortgage itself.
Mary liked her little home but Patsy didn't like it one
bit. To Mary, it was a great adventure creating a home
of their own. Patsy liked the brownstone house on
Bushwick Avenue much better. He liked that
neighborhood and he had liked not working while living
there with Mary. He hated his job. Nearly every evening,
he visited his father-in-law and complained about every-
thing. Now he referred to Mary as Moriarity's daughter
rather than as his, Patsy's, wife.
" 'Tis a disgrace that your only daughter has to live in
that cellar with a winder in it that you name a home. 'Tis
a shame that a high-toned woman like your daughter has
a husband who has to shovel horse manure all day to
support her."
"Stop your bellyaching, me boy," said Moriarity. "Times
is hard and men is out of work and banks is closing down.
But let me tell you: I figured it out. The country is
sound."
"I read that too," said Patsy. "In last night's World."
"They say there's a panic on," said Mike. "But what's
that to a man fixed like you? You got a house to live in.
Nobody can take that away from you. You got a city job.
Can't be sacked. You get your pension when you retire.
And your wife gets a pension when you die."
"God forbid!" said Patsy. He waited but Mike didn't
second the motion by an "amen" or by knocking on wood.
"Say! Did me daughter take her money out of the bank
like I told her?"
"We took our money out. dies."
"That's good because your bank closed this morning."
"We only had eight dollars in it. She, I mean, we, paid
the interest and some of the taxes just last week and eight
dollars
thy]
was all was left. And you," asked Patsy shrewdly, "was you
lucky enough to get all yours out before your bank closed
up?"
"That I did. And in plenty of time, too."
"I bet it was more than eight dollars," suggested Patsy.
Wouldn't you like to know, thought Mike. He said:
"Well. it wasn't a forchune, but enough, enough. It's safe
under me mattress now. If anything happens to me, God
forbid . . ."
He waited. Thought Patsy: He didn't say "amen" for me
when 7 said, "die, God forbid." So I'm not going to say it for
him.
"Tell The Missus . . ." continued Mike.
"You mean me new mother?" interrupted Patsy.
You bastard, breathed Mike under his breath. "Well, just
tell her that the money is in a old sock under the
mattress."
Stubbornly, Patsy went back to his complaining. "I still
don't like to shovel manure panic or no panic; pension
or no pension."
"It won't be forever. Someday you will be superintent'
and stand on the street in kid gloves making other men
shovel manure. And sure, your house ain't no marble
mansion...."
"That can be said again," agreed Patsy.
"But 'tis only temporary against the time when you and
me daughter get everything I own; me big house and me
carriage and fine horses and all of me money. And it
might be sooner than you or me think. Me old ticker ain't
acting so good." He pressed his hand to his heart.
Patsy shivered because The Boss had not knocked wood
when he spoke of his failing heart. Patsy had an impulse
to knock wood for Moriarity. But he squelched it. Let the
bastid knock his own wood, he decided.
1-4 i
~ CHAPTER ELEVEN Hi'
THE way things turned out, Patsy and Mary were never to