'Tis

by Frank McCourt

  It was hard pushing the pram because it had one bockety wheel that wanted to go its own way and it was harder still with Alphie buried under the mattress screaming for his mother.

  My father was there to drag the mattress upstairs and he helped us put the spring and the bedstead together. Of course he wouldn’t help us push the pram two miles from the Irishtown because he’d be ashamed of the spectacle. He was from the North of Ireland and they must have a different way of bringing home the bed.

  We had old overcoats to put on the bed because the St. Vincent de Paul Society wouldn’t give us a docket for sheets and blankets. My mother lit the fire and when we sat around it drinking tea she said at least we’re all off the floor and isn’t God good.

  The next week Mr. Calitri sits on the edge of his desk on the platform. He pulls our essays from his bag and tells the class, Not a bad set of essays, some a little too sentimental. But there’s one I’d like to read you if the author doesn’t mind, “The Bed.”

  He looks toward me and lets his eyebrows go up as if to say, Do you mind? I don’t know what to say though I’d like to tell him, No, no, please don’t tell the world what I came from, but the heat is in my face already and I can only shrug to him as if I don’t care.

  He reads “The Bed.” I can feel the whole class looking at me and I’m ashamed. I’m glad Mike Small isn’t in this class. She’d never look at me again. There are girls in the class and they’re probably thinking they should move away from me. I want to tell them this is a made-up story but Mr. Calitri is up there talking about it now, telling the class why he gave it an A, that my style is direct, my subject matter rich. He laughs when he says rich. You know what I mean, he says. He tells me I should continue to explore my rich past, and he smiles again. I don’t know what he’s talking about. I’m sorry I ever wrote about that bed and I’m afraid everyone will pity me and treat me like a charity case. The next time I have to take a class in English Composition I’ll put my family in a comfortable house in the suburbs and I’ll make my father a postman with a pension.

  At the end of the class students nod to me and smile and I wonder if they’re already feeling sorry for me.

  Mike Small came from another world, she and her football player. They might be from different parts of America but they were teenagers and it was the same all over. They went on dates on Saturday nights where the boy would have to meet the girl at her house and of course she would never be at the door waiting for him because that would show she was too eager and word would get around and she’d be alone every Saturday night the rest of her life. The boy would have to wait in the living room with a silent dad who always looked disapproving behind his newspaper knowing what he did on dates in the old days himself and wondering what was going to be done to his little daughter. The mother would fuss and want to know what movie they were going to and what time they’d be home because her daughter was a nice girl who needed a good night’s sleep to keep that glow in her complexion for church tomorrow morning. At the movies they held hands and if the boy was lucky he might get a kiss and accidentally touch her breast. If that happened she’d give him a sharp look and that meant the body was being reserved for the honeymoon. After the movie they’d have hamburgers and milk shakes at the soda fountain with all the other high school kids, the boys in crew cuts and the girls in skirts and bobby sox. They’d sing along with the jukebox and the girls would squeal over Frankie. If the girl liked the boy she might let him have a long kiss at her door, maybe one dart of a tongue in the mouth, but if he tried to keep the tongue in there she’d back away and tell him good night, she had a nice time, thank you, and that was another reminder the body was being reserved for the honeymoon.

  Some girls would let you touch and feel and kiss but they wouldn’t let you go all the way and they were known as ninety percenters. There was some hope for ninety percenters but the all-the-way girls had such a reputation no one in town would want to marry them and they were the ones who would pack up one day and go to New York where everyone does everything.

  That is what I saw in the movies or what I heard in the army from GIs who came from all over the country. If you had a car and a girl said yes she’d go with you to a drive-in movie you knew she was expecting more than popcorn and the doings up there on the screen. There was no sense in just going for a kiss. You could get that in a regular movie house. The drive-in was where you got the tongue into the mouth and the hand on the breast and if she let you get to the nipple, man, she was yours. The nipple was like a key that opened the legs and if you weren’t with another couple it was into the backseat and who cared about the goddam movie?

  The GIs said there were funny nights when you might be making out but your friend was having trouble in the backseat with his girl who was sitting up and watching the movie or it might be vice versa where your buddy is making out and you’re so frustrated you want to explode in your pants. Sometimes your buddy might be finished with his girl and she’s ready to take you on and that’s pure heaven, man, because not only are you getting laid the one who rejected you is sitting there stonefaced pretending to watch the movie but really listening to you back there and sometimes she can’t stand it anymore and climbs on you and you’re caught between two broads in the backseat. Goddam.

  Men in the army said you’d have no respect later for the girl who let you go all the way and you’d have only a little respect for the ninety percenter. Of course you’d have complete respect for the girl who said no and sat up watching the movie. That’s the girl that was pure, not damaged goods, and the girl you’d want to be the mother of your children. If you married a girl who fooled around how would you ever know you were the real father of your kids?

  I know that if Mike Small ever went to a drive-in she was the one who sat up and watched the movie. Anything else would be too much of a pain to think about especially when it’s hard to think of her even kissing the football player at her own door with her father inside waiting.

  The nuns tell me Mrs. Klein is losing her wits with the drink and neglecting poor Michael what’s left of him. They’re moving them to places where they can be cared for, Catholic homes, though it’s better not to tell anyone about Michael for fear some Jewish organization would claim him. Sister Mary Thomas is not against Jews but she doesn’t want to lose a precious soul like Michael’s.

  One of Mary O’Brien’s boarders is gone back to Ireland to settle on his father’s five acres and marry a girl from down the road. I can have his bed for eighteen dollars a week and help myself in the morning to whatever is in the fridge. The other Irish boarders work on the piers and warehouses and they bring home canned fruits or bottles of rum and whiskey from cases that accidentally fell when ships were being unloaded. Mary says isn’t it wonderful that when you say there’s something you’d like a whole case of it is accidentally dropped the next day on the docks. There are Sunday mornings we don’t bother cooking breakfast we’re that happy in the kitchen with slices of pineapple in heavy syrup and glasses of rum to wash it down. Mary reminds us about Mass but we’re content enough with our pineapple and rum and soon Timmy Coin is calling for a song even if it’s a Sunday morning. He works in Merchants Refrigerating and often brings home a great side of beef on Friday nights. He’s the only one who cares about going to Mass though he makes sure he’s back in no time for the pineapple and rum which can’t last forever.

  Frankie and Danny Lennon are twins, Irish-Americans. Frankie lives in another apartment and Danny is a boarder with Mary. Their father, John, lives on the streets, wanders around with a pint of wine in a brown paper bag, and cleans Mary’s apartment in exchange for a shower, a sandwich and a few drinks. His sons laugh and sing, “Oh, my papa, to me he was so wonderful.”

  Frankie and Danny take classes at City College, one of the best colleges in the country and free. Even though they’re studying accounting they’re always excited over their courses in literature. Frankie talks about seeing a girl on the subway reading James Joyce’s A P
ortrait of the Artist as a Young Man and how anxious he was to sit beside her and discuss Joyce. All the way from 34th Street to 181st Street he would leave his seat and move toward her, never having the courage to talk to her, and losing his seat each time to another passenger. At last when the train pulled in to 181st Street he bent to her and said, Great book, isn’t it? and she jerked back from him and let out a cry. He wanted to tell her, Sorry, sorry, but the doors were closing and he was out on the platform with people in the train glaring at him.

  They love jazz and they’re like two mad professors in the living room, putting records on the phonograph, clicking their fingers to the beat, telling me all about the great musicians on this Benny Goodman record, Gene Krupa, Harry James, Lionel Hampton, Benny himself. They tell me this was the greatest jazz concert of all time and the first time a black man was allowed on the Carnegie Hall stage. And listen to him, listen to Lionel Hampton, all velvet and glide, listen to him and Benny coming in, listen, and here comes Harry sending in a few notes to tell you watch out, I’m flying, I’m flying, and Krupa going bap-bap-bap-do-bap-de-bap, hands, feet going, sing sing sing, and the whole damn band wild, man, wild, and the audience, listen to that audience, outa their mind, man, outa their everlovin’ mind.

  They play Count Basie, point their fingers and laugh when the Count hits those single notes, and when they play Duke Ellington they’re all over the living room clicking fingers and stopping to tell me, listen, listen to this and I listen because I never listened like this before and now I hear what I never heard before and I have to laugh with the Lennons when the musicians take passages from tunes and turn them upside down and inside out and put them back again as if to say, look, we borrowed your little tune awhile to play our own way but don’t worry, here it’s back again and you go hum it, honey, you sing that mother, man.

  The Irish boarders complain this is just a lot of noise. Paddy Arthur McGovern says, Shure, yeer not Irish at all with that stuff. What about some Irish songs on that machine? What about a few Irish dance tunes?

  The Lennons laugh and tell us their father left the bogs a long time ago. Danny says, This is America, men. This is the music. But Paddy Arthur pulls Duke Ellington off the phonograph and puts on Frank Lee’s Tara Ceilidhe Band and we sit around the living room, listening, tapping slightly, and not moving our faces. The Lennons laugh, and leave.

  29

  Sister Mary Thomas somehow found my new address and sent me a note to say it would be very nice if I came over and said good-bye to Mrs. Klein and Michael what’s left of him and to pick up two books I’d left under my bed. There’s an ambulance waiting outside the apartment house and upstairs Sister Mary Thomas is telling Mrs. Klein she has to put on her wig and, no, she can’t have a rabbi, they don’t have rabbis where she’s going and she’d be better off on her knees saying a decade of the rosary and praying for forgiveness, and down the hall Sister Beatrice is crooning to Michael what’s left of him and telling him a brighter day is dawning, that where he’s going there will be birds and flowers and trees and a risen Lord. Sister Mary Thomas calls down the hall, Sister, you’re wasting your time. He doesn’t understand a word you’re saying. But Sister Beatrice answers back, It doesn’t matter, Sister. He’s a child of the Lord, a Jewish child of the Lord, Sister.

  He’s not Jewish, Sister.

  Does it matter, Sister? Does it matter?

  It matters, Sister, and I’d advise you to consult your confessor.

  Yes, Sister, I will. And Sister Beatrice goes on with her cheerful words and hymns to Michael what’s left of him who may or may not be Jewish.

  Sister Mary Thomas says, Oh, I nearly forgot your books. They’re under the bed.

  She hands me the books and rubs her hands together as if to clean them. Don’t you know, she says, that Anatole France is on the Index of the Catholic Church and D. H. Lawrence was a completely depraved Englishman who is now howling in the depths of hell, the Lord save us all? If that’s what you’re reading at New York University I fear for your soul and I’ll light a candle for you.

  No, Sister, I’m reading Penguin Island for myself and Women in Love for one of my classes.

  She rolls her eyes to heaven. Oh, the arrogance of youth. I feel sorry for your poor mother.

  There are two men in white coats at the door with a stretcher and they go down the hall for Michael what’s left of him. Mrs. Klein sees them and calls, Rabbi, Rabbi, help me in my hour, and Sister Mary Thomas pushes her back into her chair. They shuffle back down the hall, the men in white with Michael what’s left of him on the stretcher and Sister Bea-trice stroking the top of his head that looks like a skull. Alannah, alannah, she says in her Irish accent, sure there’s nothing left of you. But you’ll see the sky now and the clouds in it. She goes down with him in the elevator and I’d like to go myself to get away from Sister Mary Thomas and her remarks on the state of my soul and the terrible things I’m reading but I have to say good-bye to Mrs. Klein all dressed up in her wig and hat. She takes my hand, Take care of Michael what’s left of him, won’t you, Eddie?

  Eddie. I feel a fierce pain in my heart because of this and a terrible memory of Rappaport and the laundry at Dachau and I wonder if I’ll ever know anything in the world but darkness. Will I ever know what Sister Beatrice promised Michael what’s left of him, birds, flowers, trees and a risen Lord?

  What I learned in the army comes in useful at NYU. Never raise your hand, never let them know your name, never volunteer. Students just graduated from high school, eighteen years of age, raise their hands regularly to tell the class and the professor what they think. If professors look directly at me and ask questions I can never finish the answers with the way they always say, Oh, do I detect a brogue? After that I have no peace. Whenever an Irish writer is mentioned, or anything Irish, everyone turns to me as if I’m the authority. Even the professors seem to think I know all about Irish literature and history. If they say anything about Joyce or Yeats they look at me as if I am the expert, as if I should nod and confirm what they say. I nod all the time because I don’t know what else to do. If ever I shook my head in doubt or disagreement the professors would dig deeper with their questions and expose my ignorance for all to see, especially the girls.

  It’s the same with Catholicism. If I answer a question they hear my accent and that means I’m a Catholic and ready to defend Mother Church to the last drop of my blood. Some professors like to taunt me by sneering at the Virgin Birth, the Holy Trinity, the celibacy of St. Joseph, the Inquisition, the priest-ridden people of Ireland. When they talk like that I don’t know what to say because they have the power to lower my grade and damage my average so that I won’t be able to follow the American dream and that might drive me to Albert Camus and the daily decision not to commit suicide. I fear professors with their high degrees and the way they might make me look foolish before the other students, especially the girls.

  I’d like to stand up in those classes and announce to the world that I’m too busy to be Irish or Catholic or anything else, that I’m working day and night to make a living, trying to read books for my courses and falling asleep in the library, trying to write term papers with footnotes and bibliographies on a typewriter that betrays me with the letters “a” and “j” so that I have to go back and retype whole pages since it’s impossible to avoid “a” and “j,” falling asleep on subway trains all the way to the last stop so that I’m embarrassed I have to ask people where I am when I don’t even know what borough I’m in.

  If I didn’t have red eyes and an Irish accent I could be purely American and I wouldn’t have to put up with professors tormenting me with Yeats and Joyce and the Irish Literary Renaissance and how clever and witty the Irish are and what a beautiful green country it is though priest-ridden and poor with a population ready to vanish from the face of the earth due to puritanical sexual repression and what do you have to say to that, Mr. McCourt?

  I think you’re right, Professor.

  Oh, he thinks I�
��m right. And, Mr. Katz, what do you say to that?

  I guess I agree, Professor. I don’t know too many Irish.

  Ladies and gentlemen, you must consider what has just been said by Mr. McCourt and Mr. Katz. Here we have the intersection of the Celtic and the Hebraic, both ready to accommodate and compromise. Isn’t that right, Mr. McCourt, Mr. Katz?

  We nod and I remember what my mother used to say, A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse. I’d like to say this to the professor but I can’t take the risk of offending him with all the power he has to keep me from the American dream and make me look foolish before the class, especially the girls.

  Monday and Wednesday mornings in the fall term Professor Middlebrook teaches the Literature of England. She mounts the little platform, sits, places the heavy textbook on the desk, reads from it, comments and looks at the class only to ask an occasional question. She starts with Beowulf and ends with John Milton who, she says, is sublime, somewhat in disfavor in our time but his day will come, his day will come. Students read newspapers, work at crossword puzzles, pass notes to each other, study for other courses. After my all-night shifts at various jobs it’s hard to stay awake and when she asks me a question Brian McPhillips jabs me with his elbow, whispers the question and the answer and I stammer it back to her. Sometimes she mutters into the textbook and I know I’m in trouble and that trouble takes the form of a C at the end of the term.