Maggie Now

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.