Page 5 of Maggie Now


  "I'll relieve you of it."

  "I'll keep it. 'Tis no burtllen a-tall."

  The young man consulted the paper. "Mr. Moore," he

  read

  [ 33 1

 

  aloud, "is to be given every consideration. You are to

  carry his luggage...." The young man shrugged. "Boss's

  orders," he said cheerfully.

  Patsy gave him the knapsack. The young man rolled it

  up and tucked it under his arm. "Let us be on our way,"

  he said, "to your new home in America."

  Skillfully, he piloted Patsy across the street. "I'll put you

  on a horsecar," he said, "and that will take you to the ferry

  dock. You get on the boat and when it stops you get off

  and Mr. Moriarity will be waiting for you there with his

  carriage, to drive you to his home."

  "I'm that obliged to you . . ." began Patsy.

  "Don't thank me, Or. Moore. This is all part of my job.

  Now!" He gave a furtive look up and down the street. "Do

  you have any money on you?" Patsy's eyes narrowed

  suddenly. "I mean for carfare and the ferry?" added the

  young man quickly.

  "Well . . ." began Palsy cagily.

  "Here, then," said the young man. He gave Patsy four

  nickels. "That will get you over to Brooklyn and buy you

  a beer in the bargain."

  Patsy was ashamed `,f his suspicions. "I got two notes,"

  he said, "but the cabby said they was counterfeet."

  "Let's see 'em." Patsy gave him the notes. The young

  man examined them carefully. "Why these bills are just as

  good as gold," he said indignantly. "Only you have to get

  them changed into American money." He took another

  furtive look up and down the street. "Wait' I'll run in here

  and 'change them. Only take a minute. Be right back."

  He darted through the swinging doors of a saloon. He

  did not come back in a minute. As Patsy waited, he

  became heavy with premonition. I le waited a few minutes

  longer. Then he went into the saloon.

  The plate was empty save for the man behind the bar.

  He has a big man with big. mustaches and roached hair.

  A smell of vvet sawdust, stale beer and dank graveyard air

  seemed to rise from the barkeep like a vapor.

  "Yah?" he asked.

  ''Wllere's the man what just came in here? " asked Patsv.

  [ 34 ]

 

  "The man who canoe in to change me pound notes?"

  "No Mann ist trier," said the barkeep.

  "I saw him come in. He told me to wait."

  "Oudt mit you," said the man, yawning. "Reuse!"

  "Not till ][ get me note, back," said Patsy. He heard a

  small squeak; saw a door close stealthily in the rear. "I le's

  in there!" shouted Patsy. Ele made a dash for the door.

  But the bartender was too quick for him. Burly as he

  was. he took a nimble one-handed vault over the bar. He

  had an uglylooking blackjack in his flee hand.

  "Oudt' Get oudt from mine place," he bellowed. "Du

  Gottverdammten Irisher! " Patsy made it just in time. The

  blackjack came down on the t`'p of one of the inswinging

  doors and splintered it Patsy shuddc red and ducked

  around the corner.

  He walked the unaccustomed streets for hours. His

  heart wept for his familiar Irish village. He was lost and

  terrified. He was friendless and didn't knob where to go.

  It was worse than being lost in a vast Backless forest. One

  could sit down and rest in a forest. There was no plac c

  on the street where he could sit down and rest.

  In time, he came to a lonely side street and saw a man

  in white pushing a cart in which a broom and shovel were

  upended. He approached the white wing, cap in hand.

  "Officer, could you be telling me, and me a greenhorn

  just landed," he ,aid humbly, "how to get to this village?"

  He showed him the card.

  "Sure, Greerlie," said the obliging street cleaner. "Here's

  what you do." He gave him careful directions.

  It took Patsy six hours, three horsecars, one ferry and

  miles of walking to get to Bush~vick Avenue, Brooklyn.

  He stood at the bottom of the long stoop and took in the,

  to him, splendor of the three-story, parlor and 'casement,

  brownstone house with red geraniums in urns on ~ he

  stoop railing posts. Patsy climbed the stoop. There was a

  white porcelain plate next the door. It had a black button

  in the cent`.r. Underneath it said: Ring bell. patsy looked

  around but could find no rope to pull to ring a bell. He

  did the next best thing: He tapped on the etched-glass

  windovv of the vestibule door. After a while, a buxom

  wench opened

  1 ask]

 

  the door, gave him one look and said:

  "We don't want none."

  From within the darkness of the house, Patsy heard the

  sweetest voice in the world say: "Who is it, Biddy?"

  "A peddler, Miss Mary . . . some tinker's son," said Biddy.

  "I'll attend to it."

  She came out of the darkness to Patsy and his heart fell

  when he saw that the sweetest voice in the world belonged

  to, according to Patrick's standards, the plainest face and

  plainest figure in the world.

  "I come from Countv Kilkenny," he began.

  "Oh!" She clasped her hands and her face brightened up

  with the sweetest smile in the world. "You must be the

  new boy. Come in."

  He followed her into the house, his heart sighing: Oh,

  if God had only gone A little further after he made her voice

  and her smile!

  "Papa," she called, "the boy is here from Ireland."

  Patsy stood on the l urkey-red carpet and looked around

  the dim room. The windows were hung with Brussels lace

  curtains and maroon velvet draperies tied back with

  golden cords, and green velvet portieres, hung from a

  fretwork arch that led into an alcove, were tied back to

  display a shiny upright piano with a velvet-covered stool.

  There were silver-framed photographs on the piano and

  a whatnot in a corner, its shelves filled with little

  "friendship" cups, and Boston ferns on the window ledges.

  And gilt chairs upholstered in pink and blue satin and a

  love seat. A big statue of a blackamoor was on the newel

  post of the stairs leading to the second floor. The

  blackamoor held a bowl over his head in which a gas light

  flickered. On the stair landing was a concave, oval, leaded,

  stained-glass window.

  Patsy thought it was all beautiful . . . beautiful. He

  promised himself that he would have a house like that

  someday. Until I get ale own, he thought, I'll be content to

  live here.

  Moriarity came into the room and greeted him

  boomingly. Then he shouted for his wife. A timid little

  woman scuttled into the room.

  "Missus, this is the new stable boy," he said. "Boy, this is

  your

  [36]

 

  Missus." The Missus bobbed her head in a s
cared way and

  scuttled back into the shadows of the room.

  "And me daughter, Mary." The plain girl gave Patsy her

  sweet smile. "American loom," said Moriarity. It was

  obvious that he was proud of his daughter. "And she

  studied to be a teacher. This here is Biddy, the cook. She

  comes from County Down." He addressed Biddy.

  "Biddy, me bird, Yathrick here is a fine-looking feller.

  Nov. don't you go making eyes at him when the both of

  youse should be working."

  Patsy looked at the big-busted Biddy with aversion and

  she looked at him with distaste. There's nothing there what

  I ~*'ant, thought Patsy.

  "And afther, I'll introduce you to me two best girls,

  Jessie and Daisy," Mike said to Patsy. "And now: Where's

  your satchel? "

  "A young man took it off me. He said he worked for

  you and that you said he should." Patsy thought it best to

  say nothing about the two pounds.

  "He took your satchel? '

  "Yes. Me 'sack."

  "Are you standing there and telling me you was taken in

  by that old thrick?" He laughed. "Yah-ha-ha! Yah-ha-ha!"

  The booming laugh scared The Missus. She threw up

  her hands in fright and scuttled from the room.

  "Yah-ha-ha!" laughed Mike. "Wait'll I tell the boys down

  at headquarters."

  "Now, Papa, don't laugh," said Mary Moriarity.

  "Remember the same thing happened to you when you

  came over. Only the man said he was your uncle's cousin.

  And he got your trunk. And all your money, too."

  Patsy gave her a grateful look. Ah, she's kind, he

  thought. But then, 'tis the nature of plaits women to be kind.

  "Har-umph!" The Boss cleared his throat. "'Tis so. Was

  so. But sure 'twas only an old thmnk filled with rags.

  Mary, go below stairs with Biddy and see that she fixes a

  dish of hot supper for the new boy." The women left.

  "And now Pathrick, me boy, I'll show you to your room.'

  [ 37 1

 

  Patsy turned and went toward the stairs. "Not up there."

  The Boss laughed. "Across the yard. Folly me."

  They had to go through the downstairs hall to get to the

  yard. Patsy heard Mary and Biddy talking in the kitchen.

  Biddy was saying: "Hot dish, me foot! Cold dish! I'm not

  the one to cook after hours for inny greenhorn just

  landed."

  "Now, Biddy," came Mary's gentle voice: "Don't call him

  that. You know you didn't like people to call you

  greenhorn when you came over five years ago."

  Ah, she's the sweet girl, thought Patsy. But plain. Ah, the

  pity of ill

  Patsy was introduced to the two mares, and shown a

  ladder which led to the loft above. "Your new home is up

  there. 'Tis small but you'll be as snug as a bug in a rug,

  ha-ha. Now get yourself a bite of supper and go to bed.

  I'll let you ok work until tomorrow."

  Patsy had his supper, not the hot one that Mary had

  ordered or the cold one Biddy had threatened: a slightly

  warmed-over dish of leftovers. When she had finished,

  Biddy told him that he'd use the water trough to wash in

  and the water closet in the basement. She gave him a

  towel and a cake of soap and a box of kitchen matches.

  Patsy was disappointed to know he had a kerosene lamp.

  He had expected gaslight.

  He climbed up the ladder and lit the lamp. He surveyed

  his kingdom. It was a small room with one window. It had

  a cot, a chair, a kitchen table with the lamp on it, and

  three nails in the wall for his clothes and towel.

  'Tis barer than a convent cell, he thought. And in America

  the horses do be living better than us honest immigrants. He

  sat in his cubicle, dead tired, but too wrought up to sleep.

  What am' I doing here, he mused, in this strange place

  amongst strange people? Why did that sport give me that

  card and none other? Some of the other boy-sis on the boat

  got cards for jobs to build a railway that ran on tracks over

  your head; the elevated, they called it. And they to get grand

  wages for it, and meself here. Was I born, now, to be a

  servant? No! Ah, he sighed, the good Lord must have had

  it in for me, the way He sent me here.

  He fell asleep but woke up in the middle of the night.

  He woke up in a panic because he didn't know where he

  was. He walked

  [3~]

 

  lopsided across the dark room to find the lamp. 'Tis

  strange, he thought, the boat still rocl ing Old did I not get

  or front it this morning? He found the table and lit the

  lamp. He looked around the tiny roonn. 'Tis Lo dry am,

  he told himself. I am here, alone amongst strangers. I am

  without one mother and one girl and me f riend, Rory-Boy.

  Maybe, he mused, that ballad tlJat Henny, the Hermit,

  made up afloat me was not bad a-tall. Had I but stayed to

  hear the all of it, I might not be here this night.

  Too many things was dance to one this day. And from

  now oil, I'll make everyone who pelts a finger to one life do

  penance for .eh,7t has been done to me, to me? I'atrick

  Dennis Moore.

  ~ (~HA l'TER Fl VE ~

  .``II~l. iNloR'.RIrY, called ions all file lloss, was a stout,

  ruddy man with a big belly and big mustaclles. He wore

  his pepperand-salt hair parted in the middle with a thick

  lap on either side which looked like a pair of

  gra,v-and-black pigeons nesting on top of his head. He

  wore a black broadcloth suit with a white vest that looked

  as though it never had been spotless even when new. A

  watcl1 chain, the links big enough for a dog leash, bisected

  his belly. I le was never without an uptilted cigar in the

  corner of his mouth. Outdoors, he wore a square-crowned

  derby tilted over one eye to almost touch the tip of his

  up-tilted cigar. He looked like a caricature of a Tammany

  ward heeler.

  He was a Tammany ward heeler.

  Molly, his wife, known as The Missus, w as a person

  soon overlooked. She was tiny, four feet ten, and weighed

  eighty pounds. She was forever frightened and put in her

  days scuttling back and forth, up and down the house.

  Mary Moriarity, but for her kind ways, would hate

  walked through life unnoted. Her face was plain. She was

  too tall for a woman and she lacked the curves that one

  looks for in a w omen. One didn't notion e her plainness

  at all w hen she spoke

  1'91

 

  or smiled. But she was not given to talking much and she

  smiled rarely.

  Bridget, that is, Biddy, the cook, could not possibly be

  ignored. She w as all pervading. Patsy hated her at first

  sight. She wore her coarse, black hair in two walloping

  braids around her head. She had the biggest bust Patsy

  had ever seen and he came from a land of big-breasted

  women. Her bust was pushed up and out by tightly laced

  and high-riding
corsets.

  If she had turned up in the old days when he and

  Rory-Boy had been friends, he would have told Rory-Boy

  that it looked as though she were carrying a tray before

  her on which were two loaves of unbaked bread. Rory-Boy

  would have laughed and inspired Patsy to build up the

  story.

  "And sure," he would have said, "the buttons on her

  waist look alive the way they do be fighting all the time to

  get out of the buttonholes. And the third one from the

  top goes in and out like a eye that does wink at you all

  the time."

  But there was no Rory-Boy as friend; no one to talk to

  like that; no one to laugh with. So he saw no fun in Biddy.

  She revolted him.

  The two matched mares revolted him, too. When he

  washed or curried them and the skin rippled beneath his

  hand, it gave him the creeps. He hated their coarse

  eyelashes. He wondered why they needed such big yellow

  teeth only for oats and hay. He was disgusted by their

  ankles, which seemed too thin to support the heavy

  bodies. And tears of indignity filled his eyes when the

  horse's rump 'before his face blotted out the light of the

  day as he stood there braiding red ribbon into a

  coarse-haired tail.

  He hated the manure which he had to garner each day

  to deploy around the base of the snowball bushes in the

  yard because The Missus had told him, with fright in her

  face, that it must be done because the Illmps were pure

  gold to the bushes and would make the flowers icy blue in

  colon

  He hated the tiger cat that lived in the stable with the

  horses to keep the rats and mice away. He hated the way

  the cat sneaked around the stable all night. Often, he

  would have given it a good, swift kick but he was afraid its

  yowls would bring The Boss's

  1 4 ]

 

  wrath down on him. He squatted on his heels when he

  saw the cat, tail upright, come weaving toward him hoping

  for a stroking. Hands on knees, Patsy glared into the cat's

  yellow eyes and the cat glared into Patsy's blue eyes. The

  cat was the first to turn away. Patsy was expert in the

  game of outglaring the cat.

  Each day, Patsy had to walk the horses four times

  around the block for exercise. He had to wear a bibbed

  apron, made of mattress ticking, while he walked the

  horses. How he hated to wear that apron!

  The first day's walk was full of incident. Some kids

  playing hookey from school followed him yelling: "Mick!"

  and "Greenhorn!" and "Why don't vou button your dress

  in the back?" They got sick of that soon enough and went

  away.

  An ambulance bore down on him. He had to get himself

  and the horses up on the sidewalk to avoid being run

  down. An intern or doctor leaned on the strap in the

  back. Patsy stared at the visored cap on top of a

  pompadour. He'd never seen a woman doctor before.

  Then a COp came along and gave him hell for standing

  on the sidewalk with two horses.

  "Try that again," suggested the cop mildly, "and I'll run

  you in. You and the horses."

  A street walker, off duty and returning from shopping,

  invited him up to her flat to see her birdie. He blushed

  raspberry red until he saw that she NV:IS actually

  carrying a box of freshly purchased birdseed.

  She does lie having a birdie ii, a cage after all, thought

  Patsy. And may all the saints forgive me for thinking the

  other way.

  The third time around the block, he saw a brassy blonde

  leaning out of a window. Her unconfined breasts bloomed

  out of her kimono and lumped on her arms which were

  folded on the window ledge. Patsy stared at this bounty

  with stars in his eyes.

  'Tis as they say, he thought. America is a free country.

  Everything is free.

  But she made shards of his pleasure by calling out:

  "Hey, Mister! Your petticoat's hanging down. P.H.D."

  Then he had to stop while one of the mares obeyed a

  call of nature. He was shamed to death. A street cleaner

  appeared from nowhere with cart, broom and shovel.

  to'']