by Betty Smith
of fortysix with two children to support without a mother. I
say let them kill each other over ~here. They're all a bunch
of foreigners anyhow. Why should we butt in?
He looked at his son. Bv the time he gets big, he decided,
war will be a thing of the past. Maggie-Now. If she was a
boy, she'd have to go if there was a war. But there won't be.
The worst thing that could happen to her is some no-good
man will come along . . .
He looked at his daughter. She had put aside her book
and vitas on the floor helping Denny with his houses. She
was twentyone now and well formed.
She's a woman, now, he thought, and it's just a question
of time when she'll marry and leave the home. The boy will
start school
~ 'AS ]
soon and he'll grow up .luick,, arid before you know it he'll
be out of the house, too, a.,.d I'll be left all alone in me old
days.
He sat there and wondered what life would have been
like were he friends with his children. He had to admit he
had his lonely times. He would have liked to be one with
them instead of the outsider who, came home every night
and lived there, yet had no part in their secret lives. He
wished now that he had started to gain Maggie-Now's love
and friendship when she was a little girl. Encouraged her
to confide in him; brought her home little surprises and
made her laugh in delight in the way ,f children.
In the warm, c'~,mforttble room with his children
nearby, he was cold and lonely. ~Iaybe it w asn't too
late. Maybe he could y et make friends with them.
I've ,,,never mistreated t,,.,e,,n, he thought. I've given them
a honze and they have plenty or food and I match that
nothing had 1.~appe7is to them,. But why then does the
boy stop laughing 07' talking or whatever he's doing where
I cone home nights?
"Denny," said Maggie--Now. "It's time for bed."
"Maggie-Now," said Pat, "after the boy goes to Ted, sit
down with your father and we'll talk things over."
A look of alarm came over her face. "What did I do?"
she asked "Was it the supper? I know the potatoes
weren't mashed good because Denny kept bothering
me...."
"No, no. I mean . . ."
"Is it my dress? I didn't take money to buy a new- c,ne.
This is an old one. I dyed it and put a new collar on."
"No. I just want to talk to you."
"About what, Papa?"
"Nothing Anything. IUSt talk."
'is something the matter? Something I can fix up? Just
tell me what and I'll try."
"Never mind," he said. "Never mind. I just thought we
could say things. I could say something and then 70U
could say somerhing."
"Say what things, Papa?"
"Well, like I'd say: 'l)enny's got red hair and nobody in
me family or your mothe,'s family had red hair. Only
Timmv ~ Z661
Shawn and he was no relation.' Then you could say . . ."
"Denny can't help it that he's got red hair. And he's a
good boy just the same."
"I didn't say he wasn't,' shouted Pat, now exasperated.
He sighed and got his hat and went down to the corner
saloon for a beer. He had more than one.
"You know," he told the bartender, "I once had two of
the nicest children a man ever had and I lost them."
"That's the way it goes," said the bartender.
~ CHAPTER TWENTY-FT VE ~
"No," said Patrick Dennis Moore. "Denny goes to public
school."
"But I went to parochial school," said Maggie-Now.
"Your mother wanted you to be with the Sisters. I let her
have her way."
"I liked it and I know Lenny would like it too."
"I don't believe in mixing religion with education.
Weekdays for school and Sundays for church. He goes to
P.S. 49. When the doctor in the clinic shows up, take the
boy to be vaccinated."
Maggie-Now brought Denny to see Mr. Van Clees on
the boy's birthday The cigar man had six blue candles for
him.
"I have another friend," he said. "For her, pink candles;
six of them. Tessie came along two months after this young
man was born. You know Tessie? Annie's little girl?"
"She was a baby when [ saw her. How time flies! And
how is Annie? "
"She works still by the lunch counter in the five-ten. She
has now bad trouble with her feet standing up all the
time."
"I thought she'd marry again a nice woman like that. It
seems she'd have chances."
"No. Gus was the only man for her. Maybe some man
would like to marry her, alone. But three children?" He
turned up his palms and shrugged his shoulders.
~ /67 1
I sz~ppo.se, thought Maggie-Now, nobody will ever
marry me because I have Denny. Maybe when Denny grows
lip . . . but by that time, I'U be too old.
"And how are Annie's other children?"
"Jamesie he is in long pants novv."
"No! "
"He is twelve and he is big. He works Saturday bringing
the groceries to the houses for the man."
"That helps out a little."
"Ah, yes. And that Tcssie! My, she's pretty. And so
good! But that Albie! You know him? No he wasn't born
~et, then. Almost four years old now. And bad? Oh, my!"
"That's a shame."
"He is bad because there is no father to say, 'No!' Was
Gus still living . . ." He sighed, then brightened up again.
"And you, Miss Maggie? A fine young woman you are
now. Do you keep company with some nice young man?"
She shook her head. "A pity. You should marry and have
children. You are such a good mudder."
"I don't have much chance to meet young men."
"Well, the boy goes to school soon. Then you have time
for yourself. You go out then with the young girls and
meet their brothers. Maybe you steal some man away
from another girl. That's the way to do it. Was I only a
young man," he said gallantly.
Maggie-Now was flattered and embarrassed. "Now
where did that boy go to?" she sahl, frowning. "He knows
I'm taking him tO be vaccinated and he s trying to duck
out of it. Well, thank you, Mr. Van Clees, for the candles
and give my regards to Annie when you see her."
Maggie-Now was twenty-two. She was restless and
lonely and needed young friends. Of course, she had old
friends. Father Flynn was a friend but she was too awed
by him ever to have the easy but respectful friendship her
mother had had with the priest. Then there was good Mr.
Van Clees and some of the storekeepers and neighbors
who were her good friends, but they were all older than
Maggie-Nos~o She longed for friends of her own age
and generation.
1 1681
Of course, there was always but as Maggie-Now grew to
womanhood she saw less and less of Lottie. The twins
were
living with Lottie now. Widdy, believing America's
entry into the war was imminent and being afraid he
wouldn't be drafted (because he had a wife and two
children), enlisted in the navy. Gracie turned the twins
over to Lottie and got a job and a room down near the
Brooklyn Navy Yard. She liked to see the ships come in.
Widdy might be on one of them.
Lottie had her hands full. Her mother was old and
senile and needed constant care as did the twins. But she
loved the twins dearly and supported them and her
mother and herself on Timmy's pension. Lottie told
Maggie-Now it vitas hard, sometimes, to make the pension
"reach."
Sometimes Gracie's mother love got the better of her
and she took the twins away from Lottie. Lottie would cry
because she missed the children. It always happened that,
when Lottie got adjusted to not having the twins, Gracie
brought them back again.
Whenever Maggie-Now went to visit her, Lottie was in
a turmoil. If the kids were there, she'd complain about
being overworked, getting no rest and the money not
reaching. If the twins were away from her, she'd weep for
De Witt and Clinton, whom she referred to as "My little
steam-y boats," and she'd tell Maggie-Now it was "like a
big piece was ripped out of me when the little steam-y
boats were taken from me."
Lottie still wore her hair in a pompadour, although that
was old-fashioned now. She wore the same kind of dresses
she'd worn when her Timmy was alive. She no longer wore
bustles and ruffles because, with adv.mcing age, she lost
the urge to be desirable.
Maggie-Now did not enjoy poor Lottie's company as
much as she used to. Lottie's life was standing still, and
when MaggieNow was with her the girl felt that her life
too had been frozen, as far as Lottie was concerned, in the
year of Timmy's death.
Lottie still told the same old stories about Big Red and
Patsy Dennis and Kilkenny and the thrashing and
Margaret Rose and the Moriaritys. Maggie-Nov was tired
of the old stories and she was irritated that Lottie's world
was fixed in those olden times and that she expected
Maggie-Now's to be fixed in the same times.
['69]
Maggie-Now got r estless at the many repetitions of the
phrases: "And that kept us sweethearts," or, "So we staved
sweethearts to the end." Maggie-Now didn't think it right
that this aging woman still considered herself a sweetheart
when Maggie-Now, who was in her early twenties, had no
anecdotes about sweethearts. It wasn't fair. The friendship
waned as Lottie kept talking of the past and Maggie-Now
kept wondering about the future.
When Denny started school, Maggie-Now was at loose
ends. She had many lonesome hours on her hands. She
got a little tired of the house and the same old streets and
stores and the same Old people. She wanted a change to
see and to know new things. She got a little frightened.
Why, I might get old aild die before I've ever lived, she
thought.
The girl was young, vital, healthy and had a normal sex
urge although she'd never think of calling it that. She
wanted to marry and lie in bed with her husband. She
wanted to love and to be loved. She wanted children. She
had her desperate moments when she wondered how
she'd ever get to know any man whom she could marry.
No young men ever came to the house and she couldn't
pick someone up off the street.
So she was all ready for Claude Bassett when he showed
up.
~9 CHAPTER TTUENTY-SIX ~
CLAUDE BASSETT drifted into Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Nobody knew where he came from because he didn't say.
He was tall and good-looking but a little too thin. He had
a closely clipped small mustache and he wore pants and
coat that didn't match, which made him very conspicuous
in a neighborhood where men wore pants, coat and vest
all made of the same material. He smoked cigarettes,
which made him suspect in a community where men
smoked cigars or pipes or chewed tobacco.
His speech was precise English on the academic or even
lit
[ 17 ~1
eraryside. This was a strange affectation or was it a sort of
defense? After :he warmed up to a person or began to
feel at ease with someone, his English w as just as
colloquial as the next man's.
He had what appeared to be another mannerism. When
one spoke to him, he listened intently for a moment, then
cocked his head sharply sidewise. I his gave the
impression that he didn't want to miss one precious word
of what the person was saying. It was very
flattering especially to women. They felt that he hung on
to every word they said.
As a matter of fact, he had a punctured eardrum which
made him deaf in his left ear. Therefore, the habit of the
sharp turn of his right car to the speaker, in order to
enable him to hear better. He cocked his head more for
women than for men because men spoke louder and he
didn't have to strain to hear.
He would have been su rprised to know that he was
under observation as he walked the streets. He thought he
moved about unnoticed in that strange, teeming, yet quiet
neighborhood with its old-law tenements and new walk-up
apartment houses and slanted-roof houses dating back to
pre-Revolutionary times wedged in between the larger
buildings. He would have been surprised to know that
lATilliamsburg, along with Greenpoint, Flushing and
Maspeth, still retained the customs and way of thinking of
the small town. And he vitas a newcomer in a small town.
Maggie-Now first saw kiln in Van Clees's store when
she went to buy tobacco for her father. Claude Bassett
had some placards under one arm and a burning cigarette
in his other hand. He was talking earnestly to Van Clees
in a very educated voice and Van Clees was answering
with ;l flat, uneducated "No." Claude gave Maggie-Now a
quick appraising look when she walked in and then
continued urging something on Van Clees.
Maggie-Now gathered that the young man was trying to
rent Van Clees's store in the evenings for a week. She
heard him mention "school." Van Clecs said "No," looking
with distaste the while at the cigarette in the man's hand.
Ingratiatingly, the man asked something about a card in
the window and it was "No" again. Maggie-Now felt sorry
for the man. She wished she could tell him he'd get
nothing from Van Clees while he held a cig,arette, the
way Van Clees 1lated cigarette smokers.
~ 1-1 ~
Later, Maggie-Now saw his placard in a grocery-store
window. It announced a free course in salesmanship.
"Earn twenty dol
lars a week in your spare time. Nothing
to buy and etc. etc." Classes were to start the following
Monday and the place where instructions would be given
was written in ink at the bottom of the placard.
Schools were always cropping up in the neighborhood.
Someone was always setting one up in a parlor, a loft, a
basement or a too-long-vacant store which could be
rented for a song. Selfstyled teachers gave lessons in
tatting, tattooing, singing, dancing, juggling everything.
There were lessons in marcel waving and in how to sit and
stand and breathe; how to make hair grow, how to get rid
of hair growth, how to develop your bust and how to grow
mushrooms in the cellar.
So many teachers w ho knew these things and couldn't
get rich by knowing them thought they could get rich by
telling other people how to do them. Those who took
lessons or courses dreamed of being headliners in
vaudeville like those other Brooklyn boys, Van and
Schenck, or a dancer like Irene Castle, or getting to be
Miss Flatbush with a developed bust or being in a carnival
to exhibit hair that grew in waves down to the ankles like
the Seven Sutherland Sisters on the hair-tonic bottle.
No teacher became rich; no pupil's dream came true.
All that teacher or pupil garnered was a little gleam of
hope for a while. None of the schools lasted long; a week
or two or, at the most, a month. But they brr ught a little
interest and excitement to the community.
Maggie-Now decided to attend the classes. One, she was
interested in making twenty dollars a week in her spare
time. Two, she was anxious to get out, be with other
people; and, three (she didn't fool herself at all), she
wanted to see more of Claude Bassett.
The school was an upstairs dentist's waiting room on
Grand Street. The dentist didn't practice nights and the
waiting room just stood there and the dentist thought he
might make a dollar or two out of it.
The little room was crowded w hen Maggie-Now arrived.
[ ~7-'1
There were about a dozen women there and four men.
The women ranged in ages from eighteen to forty. The
men were nearer middle age and one was quite old. There
weren't enough seats. Five women sat on a wicker settee
meant for three. The others were two to a chair. They sat
slightly sidewise, turned a little away from each other.
They looked like Siamese twins joined at the hip. The
men sat on the floor. They looked awkward and ill at
ease.
The scent of Djer Kiss and Quelque Fleurs talcum
powder and of Pussy Willow face pow der and of sachet
powder that smelled like sweet, warm candy tilled the
room. This scent was interlarded with the acrid medicinal
smell belonging ho dentists' offices.
I'm the stilly flue, thought .~1ag~gie-N't>>v ruefully,
without cologne on.
The women for the most Part wore cheap georgette
waists, transparent enough for the camisole, beaded with
pink or blue baby ribbon, to show through, or crepe de
(,hine waists and long, tight skirts with wide, cinching
belts. They wore beads and pearl button earrings and
dime-store hracclers which filled the air with jingle-jangle.
Their hair was arranged in the styles of the day: spit
curls or dips or an iron marcel wave. The youngest girl,
being the most daring, had a Dutch cut. She thought it
made her look like Irene Castle. All seemed to have the
same makeup faces powdered dead white with two coats
on the nose, painfully plucked eyebrows and mouths
painted to look like baby rosebuds.
Why, it's like a party, or a dance, decided Maggie-Now,
the way everybody's so dressed zap. They didn't come here to
learn anything, she thought derisively. They came to get a
man! Listen to me, she chided herself. As if I didn't cone
here for the same thing!
"Good evening," said C laude Bassett, who was sitting
behind a small table on which were piled a dozen books.
I know her, he thought. I've known her for a lore; time.
Bitt W]~?o is she? He smiled at ~NIaggie-Now.