Maggie Now

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by Betty Smith

you know a Moriarity?"

  "Moriarit`,r? "

  "Yeah. Moriarity."

  The name was sounded back and forth and, for a

  breath, Ilike Moriarity seemed to lee again.

  "Naw," said Pop Pheid, and the breath was gone. "Sorry,"

  he added.

  "That's all right," she said. "We just want to look around."

  He said what he had said many years ago to her mother:

  "Help yourself." Pop and Son went back into the store.

  "There used to be a hedge of snowball bushes, Mother

  said, along here."

  "Snowball. . . ?"

  "Some people call them hydrangea, I guess. Mother loved

  them

  so."

  Walking back home, she told him how her father had

  lived in the stable loft when he first came from Ireland

  and how he had hated the horses.

  ~ ~o-1

 

  "The more I hear about your father," he said, "the more

  I want to know him."

  "You wouldn't like hi7n."

  "I'm sure I would. If for no other reason than that you

  like him."

  "Oh, I don't like him.'

  "You don't?" he asked, astonished.

  "I suppose I love him, though."

  "How can you love without liking?"

  "I don't know. But he's my father and a child should

  love its father."

  "I see. You love him because he loved your n-~other."

  "No. Because my mother loved him."

  They said good night on her stoop. He turned his head

  away to tell her he couldn't see her the next night; he'd be

  busy. And she turned her head away to say that was all

  right.

  This is the end of it, she thought. I'll never see him again.

  But, he told her, he might be able to make it Friday

  night if that was all right with her. She told him that

  would be fine. And she thought: He's trying to let me doyen

  easy. I know I'll never see him again.

  "Good night," he said.

  "Good-by," she whispered. She turtled and w ent into the

  house.

  filer father Noms standing by the No. indov. He let the

  curtain fall back into place when she came in.

  lVlaggie-Now knew he'd seen them together and she was

  dully surprised that he hadn't come out and made a fuss.

  "I seen him! I seen hint," said Pat exultantly, "the little

  bit of a man what you think is in love with you."

  "Oh, Papa," she cried out, "he isn't, he isn't. No one is

  in love with me."

  He felt her despair and was jubilant, thinking it was all

  over her friendship with the man. Perversely, however,

  he was indignant that the man wasn't; in love with her.

  "He's not worth your little finger," he said.

  She 10017ed at him, waiting for the quick retort to

  come into her mind. It didn't come. She said: "I'll get you

  up early tomorrow so you can go to six o'clock Mass

  before work."

  ~ ~o8 1

 

  "What f or? "

  "Because tomorrow's Holy Thursday."

  "It's enough to go on Sunday," he mumbled. "Once in a

  while," he added.

  "I'll get you up early for Mass," she said. She went into

  her room and he heard a sound he'd never heard before:

  the key turning in the lock of her door.

  Why alla' she go and do that for, he mused, just because

  I didn't say right away I'd go to Mass? Just for that, I won't

  go.

  Sadly, Maggie-Now prepared for bed, convinced that

  she'd never see Claude again. I should have been more

  careful, she thought, watched myself more and not told him

  everything about myself and I shouldn't have shower so plain

  how much I liked him.

  After all, what do I know about him? Nothing, come to

  think of it. And the things I told him about me!

  And all the wonderful things he said to me the first two

  nights! And tonight, nothing. He never said a word about my

  dress or noticed that I'd washed my hair or even, she

  swallowed a sob, how I smelled! That's how I know it's all

  over.

  Ah, well, no use being a fool, she thought as she turned

  out the light. Like Papa said, he's not the only pebble on the

  beach. He's not the only man in the world. She sat up

  suddenly in the dark. But he is! I'o me, he's the only man

  in the world and I want him no matter what! If I can't have

  him, I don't want anyone else.

  She couldn't get Pat up the next morning to go to Mass.

  He said his back hurt. She and Denny went to the eight

  o'clock Mass. When Pat came home that night, he noticed

  with relief that there were no wet towels, no steamy

  bathroom or scent of soap and powder. And she had

  cooked his favorite supper: breaded veal cutlets, mashed

  potatoes, stewed tomatoes thickened with a slice of rye

  bread, and an open-faced apple cake from the baker's.

  Also the coffee was good and strong the way he liked it.

  Ah, the good girl, thought Pat. She's making it up to me

  the way she tormented me by going out with that feller. Sure

  and she had a fight with the little man and sensible girl what

  she is, she gave him the gate. Now she's glad she's got a

  father to fall back on.

  He had a feeling of well-being. It made him generous.

  "Have another piece of cake, Denny," he said.

  [ 209 ]

 

  ~ ou took the last piece already,!' said Delmy.

  Pat shoved his piece of cake over to Denny. "Have it,

  do,'' he said. "I ain't touched it yet." He turned to

  Maggie-Now. "Girl. dear, being's tomorrow is Good

  Friday, I'll go to Mass."

  "I'll try to get you up early," she said without interest.

  '~You don't need to. I'll go to the eight o'clock with

  you and Denny."

  "You'll be late for work."

  "Half an hour. I'll make it up Saturday afternoon. The

  way I look at it," he said, "a family should stick together;

  go to church together."

  "Ah, Papa! " she said, and gave him her wide smile.

  ~ CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE ~

  GOOD FRIDAY was alway s a somber day, but the

  Good Friday of April 6, 19~7, was more somber than

  usual. The morning papers carried the news that the

  House of Representatives had finished the ratification and

  formal declaration of war with Germany was expected

  hourly.

  The church was crow deaf for the eight o'clock Mass.

  Workingmen stood in the back: the letter carrier, bag

  slung over shoulder, pausing in his rounds to attend Mass;

  the uniformed cop deserting his beat for ten minutes; Pat

  among them in his street cleaner's uniform, and others.

  Few missed Mass that Good Friday.

  After lunch, Maggie-Now took Denny shopping with her

  to buy the fish and vegetables for supper and the

  huckleberry pie; and dye and eggs for colored Easter eggs.

  The streets seemed unusually crowded and people moved

  about slowly or stood silently in groups as though waiting

  for something to happen. She he
ard one man ask another

  what had happened.

  The man said: "They say we're in the war." He shrugged.

  [ 210 ]

 

  "But I don't know. You hear all kinds of things

  nowadays."

  Within the hour, the extras were on the streets. The

  word "War" was in black letters six inches high.

  "War!" read Denny, proud that that was another

  three-letter word he could read.

  There it was. President Wilson had signed the

  declaration of war at 1:13 P.M., Good Friday, April 6,

  1917. The President had made a statement: "America has

  found herself."

  The people of the neighborhood were one with each

  other as they were always when there was a blizzard or a

  great fire, a child raped and murdered by a fiend in the

  neighborhood or some other great catastrophe. People

  spoke to each other without formality or preamble.

  "War is terrible," said a woman, a stranger to Maggie-Now.

  "Yes," agreed Maggie-Now.

  "But it's more terrible when it starts on our Lord's Day,

  Good Friday. And the time one-thirteen. That's unlucky

  and it makes it more terrible."

  "War by itself," said another stranger, "is terrible, no

  matter what."

  Maggie-Now and the first woman agreed.

  Later in the afternoon, there was proof positive that

  America was at war. The kids in the street had already

  invented a war game. Maggie-Now and Denny watched

  from the front window. Three boys, about Denny's age,

  had their sawed-off-broomstick shinny sticks aimed at the

  enemy. They stood in a row. The "enemy" was a little kid

  of three, his sodden, baby-wet diaper hanging out the legs

  of his manly little pants. They had placed an upside-down

  white enameled child's chamber pot on his head for a

  Hun's helmet.

  "Bang, bang, bang," they shouted. The little kid stood

  there, bewildered.

  "You're supposed to be dead," yelled a kid.

  "Fall down, you Goddamn bologna," said another kid.

  And the little kid stood there and cried and baby-wet his

  diaper some more.

  "Can I go out and play? " asked Dennis.

  "No!" said Maggie-Now.

  "Why? "

  t211 ]

 

  'Because I say so," she said sharply.

  "Why do you say so?"

  "Because," she said more gently, "this is the day our

  Lord died and it's not right to play such games on this

  day." She pulled down the shades.

  Pat was relieved that night when he came home from

  work (full of theories about the war which he was anxious

  to give voice to) to smell fish frying. She wasn't going out,

  then!

  For no woman in her right mind, he thought, would K

  oust to meet her sweetheart smelling of frying fish.

  He also smelled the incense she had burning in a tin jar

  lid on the stove. He assumed it was some religious

  observance. (His wife used to burn incense on special

  religious days.) He would have been upset had he known

  she was burning it to take the fish smell out of her hair.

  Maggie-Now was going out to meet Claude. Her strong

  feeling that she'd never see him again had changed to a

  stronger feeling that she would see him again. The

  declaration of war had something to do with it. Also, the

  candle she had burned in church that morning. She

  dressed after supper.

  "So you're going our again," he said.

  "Yes.,'

  "What about the boy?"

  "He is your son, Papa. You should look after him once

  in a while."

  After she had left, Pat prepared to go out, too. He

  wanted to talk about the war to somebody. Denny

  followed him from the bathroom where he waslled, to the

  bedroom where he changed his clothes.

  "Why are you follying me around?" he asked.

  "Because I don't want to be left," said Denny.

  Standing before the mirror, struggling with his collar,

  with L)enny standing next to him, Pat examined his son's

  face in the mirror. Again, he wondered where the boy got

  his red hair from. There had been no red heads in the

  Moore or lloriarity family. Timothy Shawn had had red

  hair. It occurred to Pat that maybe a hundred or so years

  ago, back in Ireland, a Moore had married or mated with

  a Shawn and the red hair had worked through to Denny.

  Somehow, the thought pleased Pat.

  [ 212 1

 

  I'd be proud, he thought, if the boy grew up to be half the

  man that Timmy Shawn, the bastid, God rest his soul, was.

  He turned around and looked directly at the child. The

  boy didn't have the light lashes that usually went with red

  hair. He had dark lashes like his mother and he had his

  mother's eyes, too.

  He thought of Mary with the baby in her arms; how he

  had said he'd always wanted a son to go hunting and

  fishing with. He had a small moment of prescience.

  When I'm a very old man, he thought, I'll remember how

  the little boy wanted to be with me this night and I'll cry me

  heart out and wish I was young again so I could stay with

  the little boy. So I will grieve when I am old.

  But tonight I am young and I don't want to stay with the

  little boy. I want to talk to men about the war.

  He compromised. "You can come along when I go out," he

  said.

  The boy :looked up at him and put his hands together

  in ecstasy and smiled the way Mary used to smile at Pat

  when he said or did something nice. Pat's heart turned

  over a little.

  Walking down the street, the boy slipped his hand into

  his father's and said: "I like to go out with you."

  The man felt a drop of moisture in the corner of one

  eye and felt a second of anguish. Why does he always give

  in? If he'd only tell me to go to hell! Then I'd know what to

  do. First I'd beat the be-Jesus out of him for talking that way

  to his father. Then I'd be proud of him for standing up to his

  old man and not taking no guff from me or nobody.

  They came to a candy store. Pat said: "Here's five

  pennies. You go in and buy whatever you want. And look

  around. See if there's anything you want for Easter. Not

  more than a quarter, hear? And maybe I'll buy it for you."

  The boy gave him what Pat called 'that llary look" a look

  of gratitude and happiness combined. "And wait for me

  here."

  Pat asked for a short beer. The bartender said maybe

  he'd like to think it over. A small beer now cost a dime

  and would cost fifteen next week. On account of the war,

  explained the bartender.

  The saloon was crowded. There was a lot of loud talk;

  they talked loudly about the war and much louder about

  beer going up a nickel a glass. The little fellow that Pat

  was sure he had seen someplace was in the center of a

  group of men, waving his glass

 
[ 715 1

 

  of beer and giving his version of the outbreak of war. Pat

  made his way over to the man.

  "I thought you'd be in uniform by now," he sneered. To

  Pat's surprise, the little man shook his hand.

  "The honoryou did me," said the stranger, "yourself

  saying I should enlist and me wllat'll never see fifty again.

  You gave me me youth back. Do you not remember me,

  Pathrick, your old friend from night-school days>"

  Pat knew it was Mick Mack, Jor, he thought, Ho else in

  all the world would take an insult for a complir~ie~t.

  "Ah, you've changed,' said Mick Mack.

  "Not as much as you," said Pat, "the bad way you look,

  I didn't recognise you."

  "And I didn't recognise you, Pathrick, the grand w ay

  you look after all these years."

  Mick M[ack's story was soon told. He had sustained a

  bacl; injury when a big treacle had run into his trolley car

  and, after years of litigation, the truck company had

  settled fifteen dollars a week on him for life. His wife was

  dead and his children all married. He didn't see much of

  them. In his own words, they had no room for the old

  man. But he was happy, he insisted, with his fifteen

  dollars a week and the room and board he got at the

  home of a grand widder woman for ten dollars a week.

  "She owns her own house," he said, "on Schaeffer Street,

  just off Bushwick Avenue. She runs a hat store for ladies

  in the basement and upstairs is the boarders. And, oh, the

  grand table she sets! Her husband," he continued, "rest his

  soul, even though I never laid eyes on him, deft the

  widder well fixed with the house in her name, and, I

  wouldn't be surprised, a bit of money to go with it, and

  she with a darlen shape in the bargain."

  "And I wouldn't put it past the likes of yourself," said

  Pat, "to look at her darlen shape and get idears."

  "Ah, no. 'Tis her cooking has won me heart. Do you

  come and eat Easter Day dinner with me, Pathrick. Only

  thirty-fi~-e cents for outsiders."

  "No," said Pat. "Home I eat for nothing. And eat good,

  too.

  "I'll treat," said Mick Mack. "Friendship, to me, is more

  than money "

  [ 2~4 ]

 

  "I'll eat with you then," said Pat. "Not that I want to, but

  because I'm sorry for a miserable little man, the likes of

  you, having to pay to have someone eat with him."

  "Ah, you talk so mean," said the beaming Mick Mack,

  "because you don't want me to find out the goodness what

  is in

  you.',

  "Miss me"' asked Claude.

  "Yes."

  "That's the way it should be," he said, tucking her arm

  into his. "I am taking you to dinner tonight."

  "That's nice." She was pleased. He didn't ask and she

  didn't tell him she'd already had her evening meal.

  He took her to an upstairs chop suey restaurant on the

  corner of Broadway and Flushing Avenue. After they were

  seated, they made an agreement not to discuss the war.

  "Let us talk only of ourselves," he said. "Our time

  together may be shorter than we know. Now: Will you

  have beef or pork chop suey?"

  "Could I have something else?" she asked. "You see, I've

  never eaten Chinese food before and . . ."

  "Start on something familiar, then. You like eggs?"

  "Oh, yes."

  The Chinese waiter was at their table. He had come

  silently. 'iYiss?" he inquired.

  "Shrimp eggs foo yung for the lady and pork chop suey

  for me.

  "Yiss."

  The waiter brought a pot of tea and two little bowls.

  "Oh, how beautiful," she exclaimed, admiring the

  bone-white china with its larkspur-blue Chinese markings.

  "And this!" She ran her hand over the raffia-wrapped

  handle of the teapot and smiled across the table at him.

  He picked up one of the little bowls and looked at the

  bottom. "Yes. Made in China. The Orient." He smiled

  back at her and her smile widened. "~411 the Orient is in

 

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