Page 11 of Maggie Now

anyone and my few relatives are all in Boston...."

  "I know the very ones," he said. "Like your old man used

  to say, I know somebody what owes me a favor."

  He had decided to ask Big Red. Why? Who knows.

  Perhaps he thought Big Red would write Maggie Rose and

  tell her Patsy had named his first child after her and she'd

  be pleased and sad and know that he still thought of her

  even though she had married another after all her

  promises. Maybe, as he had told Mary. Big Red owed him

  something. And maybe it was because Patsy didn't have a

  friend in all the world that he could ask.

  He prepared for his visit to Big Red's house by going to

  C011fession. He had made a vow: Might he drop dead if

  he ever set foot in that house again. He was sure God

  hadn't taken that seriously but why take a chance on

  dropping dead?

  Father Flynn wasn't too easy on him. First, he gave hint

  penance for the sin itself; then more penance for waiting

  over three years to confess it. More penance for never

  coming to Mass except on Easter and Christmas. Added

  on was penance for over three years of routine sinning.

  Finally Father Flynn doubled the whole thing because he

  didn't like Patsy's arrogant attitude when 1 ''i', 1

  he, Father Flynn, told him that under no circumstance

  must he miss Mass, weekly confession and communion

  again. Patsy spent two hours on his knees doing the

  penance.

  He took communion next morning and, feeling brave

  and pure, he set out for East New York. Lottie and Tim

  were very glad to see him and, to Patsy's relief, no

  mention was made of their quarrel. Lottie wept with joy.

  "This is the first time anybody ever asked me to be

  godmother. I can hardly wait."

  " 'Tis a great honor," said Big Red, "the asking me to be

  godfather and the naming of the little one after me baby

  sister."

  (Baby sister, as proved by a picture Big Red had lately

  received from Ireland, had grown plump and matronly

  looking. The three small children clustered about her

  looked plump and matronly, too. But to Big Red she

  would always be Baby Sister.)

  Father Flynn christened the child. Lottie gave the baby

  the traditional christening gift: a little locket with a chip

  diamond in the middle of a little gold heart.

  "Diamonds is for April," said Lottie.

  "She looks just like me baby sister looked when she was

  born," said Big Red. Then he blushed. "That was the

  wrong thing to say," he apologised.

  "Oh, no," said Mary. "I'm pleased. I heard that your

  sister is very beautiful."

  "That she is."

  "The baby don't fool; like nobody," said Patsy coldly.

  "Just like her own sweet self," said Lottie tactfully.

  "That's right," said Big Red, ill at ease. "Well,

  sweetheart," he said to his wife, "I guess we gotta make a

  break."

  "He always calls me sweetheart," said Lottie to Mary.

  "That's nice," said llary. "And won't you come again to

  see us and the baby?"

  "I'd love to," said Lottie.

  "Sure," agreed Big Red.

  "Come often," urged Mary.

  The three looked to Patsy to second the invitation. Patsy

  stood mute.

  "Well, like I said," said Big Red uncomfortably, "we got to

  go."

  t841

 

  After they'd left, Mary said: "You never thanked him,

  Patrick."

  "Why should I? He owes me. I don't owe him. He owes

  me the way he can never make up to me for what he

  did to me."

  "Remember that," she said a little bitterly, "the next time

  you go to confession three years from now."

  He felt a pang because it was the first time she'd ever

  spoken unkindly to him. He knew that she loved him. He

  had never responded to her love, nor even acknowledged

  it. But he liked to have it around in escrows, as it were.

  She has her baby, Rev, he thought. And now she will take

  her love from me and give it all to the child.

  A few days after the baptism, a package for the baby

  arrived from The M[issus. It was llary's christening robe,

  slightly yellow with age. Attached to it was a five-dollar

  bill and a note. The Missus hoped the dress would get

  there in time for the christening, and she would have

  come to see her first grandchild, only Aunt Henrietta

  wasn't well and . . .

  "Some family," sneered Patsy. "Wouldn't take the trouble

  to come and see the only child of the only daughter."

  "Now, Patrick," said Mary patiently. She knew Patsy was

  terribly disappointed that her mother hadn't come for a

  visit. She knew that he was very fond of The Missus.

  For the first year of its life, the baby ` as called and

  referred to as "Baby." Mary waited for a nickname to

  evolve. Would it he "Maggie Rose" or "Pegeen" or

  "Maggie"?

  In that neighborhood, few children were called by their

  baptismal names. The formal name appeared or was used

  only for diplomas and registration and things like that.

  Sometimes foreignborn parents had trouble pronouncing

  a name; sometimes the child nicknamed itself. A

  "Catherine" would be pronounced, "Cat-rip," shortened to

  "Cat," then expanded to "Catty" and finally translated to

  "Pussy." "Elizaberh" went into "Lizziebet," to "Lizzie," to

  "Litty" (because the child couldn't pronounce the z's), and

  ended up "Lit." Long na mes were shortened and short

  names were lengtl-~ened. For instance, many an "Anna"

  ended up "Anna-la."

  It was Patsy who accidentally gave the baby the name she d

  i b'5 1

  always be known by. One night as he and Mary were

  preparing for bed, he looked at the big one-year-old baby

  who was sleeping sprawled sidewise across the bed.

  "I don't get me sleep nights, no more," he said. "This

  bed ain't big enough for the three of us. This baby now .

  . ." He paused, and then he gave her her name. ". . . This

  here Maggie, now, is big enough to have a bed of her

  own."

  They got a crib for her. She cried the first night she

  slept away from her mother. Mary soothed her.

  "There, baby, there!" The child bawled harder. "Hush,"

  said Mary. "Hush, Maggie. Hush, Maggie, now." The child

  stopped crying, smiled blissfully put her thumb into her

  mouth and went off to sleep.

  She grew up healthy, happy and loving. She was full of

  mischief and cheerfully disobedient. The day long

  throughout the house it was:

  "Maggie, now give me those scissors before you stab

  yourself."

  "Maggie, now mind your father when he speaks to you."

  "Maggie, now . . ."

  And so she became known as Maggie-Now.

  ~ CHAPTER FOURTEEN ~

  MARY, never having hall younger sisters or brothers, had

  no experience in bringing up a child. Her natural maternal

  feelings had been used in an o
rganised way to handle

  thirty-odd children a day as a schoolteacher. She had a

  tendency, tempered by indulgent love, to regiment

  Maggie-Now. Mentally, she reached for a bell each

  morning to get the child started. She organized the child's

  day and was apt to give instructions as a schoolteacher

  would.

  "We will take our little walk now."

  "Eat your nice lunch, dear."

  "What story shall we read tonight?" [861

  "It's time for a certain good little girl to go to bed."

  When Maggie-Now was three, Mary tried to teach her

  to read. Maggie-Now squirmed, itched, scratched, rolled

  her eyes and made spit bubbles. Mary had to give it up.

  "She's intelligent," Mary told her husband, "but she won't

  sit still long enough to learn."

  "She'll be on her behind long enough when she starts

  regular school," said Patsy. "Besides, why does she have to

  learn everything so quick? Why, she ain't housebroken yet

  and you expect her to read!"

  "Don't you believe in education, Patrick?"

  "No," he said. "I went as far as what amounts to the sixth

  grade in America. And where did it get me? Cleaning

  streets."

  But Maggie-Now was very precocious in practical

  things like work. Even as a toddler, she dusted while her

  mother swept, insisted on drying the dishes when her chin

  was but an inch above the sink drainboard, tried to make

  up a bed, and asked constantly when she could cook. Her

  reward for being good was permission to grind up left-over

  meat in the food chopper. Her punishment when naughty

  was the withdrawal of the privilege of grinding the

  morning coffee beans.

  One day each summer, as she was growing up, her

  parents took her to the beach. Maggie-Now dearly loved

  the ocean. The ride in the open trolley was grand and the

  boarding of the Long Island train at Brooklyn Manor

  Station was a thrill. The high point of the journey was

  when the train went over water on a wooden trestle. Mary

  held the girl's arm tightly, admonishing her not to fall out,

  now.

  "Maybe the trestle will break this time," said

  Maggie-Nou hopefully, "and we'll all fall in the water."

  "By God," said Patsy, "she wants it to break! She lDants

  the train to fall in the water!'

  "Sh!" said Mary.

  Maggie-Now had no bathing suit. She grew so fast from

  year to year that it would have been a waste of money to

  buy one each year for just one day at the beach. Trying to

  follow her mother's admonition not to be ashamed

  because nobody was looking Ilaggie-Novv, undressed

  behind a big towel that her mother held around her like

  a limp barrel. She changed into a

  1 'S'- ~

 

  pair of out-grown pants and a worn-out dress in lieu of a

  bathing SUit.

  She ran whooping into the ocean and plunged into the

  first wave with a scream of delight. She held onto the rope

  and leaped and ducked and squatted to let the waves

  break over her head and howled in pretended terror

  (though flattered by the attention) when a big boy dived

  and grabbed her ankles and tried to duck her.

  Mary and Patsy sat on the towel: she in her Sunday

  dress and hat, sitting primly with her gloved hands in her

  lap, and Patsy lolling on an elbow and, as was traditional

  with men, eying the women in their bathing suits, their

  legs in long, black lisle stockings and the ruffles of

  bloomers showing beneath knee-length skirts.

  After an hour, Pats' went to the water's edge and

  induced Maggie-Now to come out. She changed back to

  her dry clothes inside the towel. Then they had their lunch

  which Mary had brought from home in a shoebox: ham

  bologna sandwiches, hardboiled eggs, sweet buns and

  drinks, now warm, which Patsy had bought when they got

  off the train. There was a bottle of beer for Patsy, a celery

  tonic for Mary, and a bottle of cream soda for

  Maggie-Now.

  After the lunch, Patsy announced that he would take a

  half hour's nap and then they would make a break for

  home to avoid the rush. Maggie-Now was given permission

  to walk up the beach and given strict orders not to take

  candy from anyone.

  She ran up the beach, leaping over outstretched and

  sometimes intertwined legs. She stopped to stare frankly

  at a couple lying on the sand on their sides and looking

  into each other's eyes. Their faces were hardly an inch

  apart. The young man, discomfited by her staring, lifted

  his head.

  "Get a gait on, kid," he said.

  "What gate?" asked Maggie-Nov.

  "She don't get your drift," said the young woman languidly.

  "Twenty-three, skidoo," said the young man.

  "I gotcha," said Maggie-Now, pleased that she could

  speak their lingo. "I'll beat it.'

  Going home on the I.ong Island, she sat between her

  parents and raved her hands in a paper bag of Rockaway

  sand.

  ~ ss 1

  "You know what?" she said. "I'm going to make a wish

  on the first star tonight. I'm going to wish that when I get

  big I'll have a house right by the water and listen to the

  waves when I'm in bed nights. And in the daytime, I'll

  jump in any time I feel like it."

  "I'll make a wish, too," said Mary. "I wish that all your

  wishes come true." Maggie-Now hugged her mother's arm.

  Obscurely, Patsy felt left out. If he couldn't be in on

  their emotional closeness, the next best thing was to

  destroy it.

  "People what lives by the water," he said, "always get

  rheumatism and their teeth fall out because they got to

  eat fish all the time."

  "Oh, you gloomy Gus,' said Maggie-Now.

  "We do not use slang," said Mary.

  "And we do not," said Patsy with bitter mimicry, "talk to

  our father that way, in the bargain."

  Mary knew how he felt. She reached across and took the

  shoebox from his knees. It had lIaggie-Now's wet bathing

  clothes in it.

  "I'll hold it," said Mary. "It's leaking through on your

  good pants."

  Not long after this, Mary told Pat that she was going to

  start Maggie-Now in parochial school in the fall.

  "She ain't going to no C atholic school and that's

  settled," said Patsy.

  "I've already enrolled hi r," said Marv.

  "Unroll her, then."

  "Now, Patrick . . ."

  "That's me last word on the subject. She goes to public

  school.' He had nothing against the parochial school. He

  just liked to argue. He sat down to read the evening

  paper. Suddenly he jumped up with a great oath.

  "I won't stand for it! By God! l won't stand for it!"

  Mary thought he was referring to the school. "It's

  settled," she said firmly.

  "What about Brooklyn?' he shouted.

  "The school's in Brooklyn," she said, bewildered. "You

  know that."

 
1 9~1

 

  "What the hell's the school got to do with it? Brooklyn

  ain't no longer a city. It says so in the paper. Now it's only

  a borough of New York City."

  "Think how the people in New York feel. That used to

  be New York City. Now it's only the Borough of

  Manhattan. Anyhow, Patrick, you can't do a thing about

  it."

  "Oh, no? I can take the kid out of parochial school."

  "What good would that do?"

  "It would let me have me own way for once." He got up,

  grabbed his hat and threw himself out of the house.

  The saloon was so crowded Patsy could hardly get in. It

  was full of Irishmen bitterly cursing the annexation of

  Brooklyn by New York. They blamed it all on the British.

  "And is it not the fault of England," shouted a burly

  man in a square-topped derby, "and she bragging how

  London is the biggest city in the world and that making

  New York jealous? And what does New York turn around

  and do? She steals Brooklyn and hitches it- on to make

  New York the biggest city in the world."

  "But there'll always he a Brooklyn!" rang out a voice in

  the crowd. This sentiment was loudly applauded and wildly

  cheered.

  "Let's all drink to that!" yelled another man. They

  crowded up to the bar.

  "What's yours?" the bartender asked Patsy.

  "I ain't drinking to that darrm foolishness," said Patsy.

  "On the house," said the bartender.

  "I'll have a double rye. With water on the side," added

  Patsy. The bartender gave him a beer.

  All held their glasses aloft. "To Brooklyn!" said the

  bartender.

  Before they could drink, another voice rang out.

  "Brooklyn go bragh!"

  "Brooklyn go bragh! ' shouted all the men in the saloon.

  And a couple of men passing on the street stopped to

  holler: "Brooklyn go bragh!"

  Maggie-Now attended parochial school. T o Mary's

  distress, her daughter was not the brightest one in the

  class. To Patsy's relief, she was not the dumbest one. She

  vvas down near the bottom of the average kids But the

  teaching nuns liked her.

  ~ 9 1

 

  She got to school early and stayed late. She washed the

  blackboards and clapped the chalk dust out of the erasers

  and filled the inkwells. On Mondays, when the children

  had to bring pieces of broken glass to school to scrape ink

  spots off the floor, MaggieNow showed up with a bagful of

  glass to supply the kids who had forgotten to bring their

  own. She spent her Saturdays collecting bottles and

  smashing them for that purpose.

  Sometimes; her mother let her take her lunch to school.

  Usually it was two bologna sandwiches. She always traded

  them for the three slices of dry bread a wispy girl brought

  for lunch, insisting that she hated meat and liked plain

  bread better. It wasn't that she was sorry for the girl or

  overly generous; she just liked to give things.

  "She is a giver," sighed Sister Veronica to Sister Mary

  Joseph.

  "She'll have a busy life, then," said Sister Mary Joseph

  dryly. "There are ten takers for fine giver."

  Regularly, each morning at ten and each afternoon at

  two, Maggie-Now's hand shot up in the air for permission

  to leave the room. This regularity irritated Sister Veronica.

  Once she frowned and said: "We had recess h If an hour

  ago. Why didn't you attend to your needs then?"

  "I did," said Maggie-Now frankly. "Now I got to 'tend to

  my horse." The class tittered.

  "Watch your language, Margaret," said Sister Veronica

  sharply.

  Out in the yard, Maggie--Now with many a "Whoa

  there," and a "Hold still, boy," untied an imaginary horse

  from an imaginary stake. Then she became the horse. She

  ran about the yard, galloping and prancing and snorting.

  Then she was a steeplechase horse taking imaginary

  hurdles. And lastly, not to neglect the humbler species, she

  was a junk-wagon horse in harness, straining to pull a load