As I moved away from the couple and attempted to get into my car Pat asked me if Mrs. Axe had returned and I told her she was due back in two days. She asked me how I managed to know that. I related that she had phoned Mr. Axe and she had apparently told him to inform me of her imminent arrival. I did mention also that Mr. Axe was up in his suite listening to an opera. Pat then complained about having to listen to opera while she did her domestic chores. I responded by admitting that I was always happy when Mr. Axe had an opera playing on his record player. That revelation brought the merriment of the three us standing in the parking lot to an end.
I got into the car and, without looking back at Pat and Jim, turned the key in the ignition and drove off the estate. I promised myself that I would not dwell on the erratic and domestic complexities of my home life at the castle.
AsIdrove down the long twisting driveway I turned the car radio on fullvolume.Guy Mitchellwas just coming to the end of his hit tune “I Never Felt More Like Singing the Blues”. This special evening of attending the high school prom with Muriel made me feel like I had grown a pair of wings befitting a swan. The joy, excitement and anticipation of walking into the high school gym this evening dressed in my formal attire went a long way to erasing almost all of my perceived and imagined insecurities. The image of the old worn-out suitcase with the second-hand shirt and socks that Pat had reminded me of brought a smile to my face – but I wasn’t really sure as to why.
As I sped along the highway the image of Muriel waiting for me made me feel and believe that I was becoming or had become a different person to the one who had emigrated from Ireland a few years earlier. As this slow and creeping metamorphosis crawled over me I got a fleeting sense that I was beginning to lose or had finally escaped from some inner reality that had for most of my life kept me from truly knowing and accepting that my life was my own. For a few brief moments I dwelled on the thought that the reason for this might be that I wasn’t as concerned or worried about committing ‘sin’ as I used to be. The concept and shape of ‘sin’ in my mind had gone from a dark presence that was omnipresent in my past to a pale vapour-like outline that was slowly floating away from me, like a burnt-out fire that was breathing its last warm breath under a persistent rainstorm. As I welcomed these thoughts I began to accept that liking myself was not a sin now nor was ever going to be one. The paradox of observing my own confusion and understanding it was as liberating as it was pleasurable.
Earlier, as I prepared for the evening – and with very little experience of self-perfuming – I had sprayed on so much underarm deodorant while I got dressed that the car began to stink like a hairdressing salon and I wondered if Pat and Jim had noticed the aromatic change in the air as they stood next to me. For a second or two I felt I should have asked them or even apologised, but I quickly dismissed the thought from my mind as I sped along the road towards Muriel’s house.
The anticipation of dancing with Muriel at the prom erased just about every memory of ever feeling responsible to anyone for anything at any time in my past. In my head, as I hurried to pick up Muriel, I could hear the voice of Marty Robbins singing “A White Sports Coat and a Pink Carnation” as well as Johnny Mathias serenading me with “Chances Are Because I Wear a Silly Grin”.
When I neared Muriel’s house I began to feel much happier and more secure than I had in a very long time. The fumes of my underarm deodorant had receded and the fresh air of summer caressed and maybe even congratulated my dear little car for getting me safely to my destination. When I pulled up alongside Muriel’s house she was already waiting on the veranda with her parents. Both her mother and father were holding wineglasses in their hands and appeared to be as excited as Muriel who stood next to them. My date was wearing a beautiful white dress and the shoes on her feet appeared to be silver. She looked so sparkling she could easily have been a modern Cinderella. To make up for my tardiness I waved to herand she immediately ran to the car and got in beside me. With a wave of my hand I bid hello and goodbye to Muriel’s parents and sped away down the street.
* * *
After dancing our feet off and imbibing a bit more than usual, Muriel and I decided to leave the prom before the last dance. Neither one of us wanted to be around the rest of our classmates who were themselves splitting off into couples. It was a night of celebration and discovery. The air was filled with the energy of lust, commitment and impatience. Couples left the dance floor more joined at the lips than hands. Outside the school the June air was warm and the nearly full moon was witnessing and maybe even laughing at the youthful stampede from the annual ritual of the high school prom. Muriel and I, after bidding adieu to some of our friends and fellow revellers, got into my convertible and drove off.
The students who had left the prom earlier had got a head-start and had driven immediately to the secluded spots around the outskirts of town and the nearby lake as well as other less-travelled hideouts. The local police, on prom night, purposely took the night off from patrolling the ‘make-out’ hideouts. Not having a romantic place to park the car available I drove all around and about the township of North Tarrytown and the fabled locations of Rip Van Winkle and the Headless Horseman. At one point, under the vast and late summer sky, I drove my old Ford up to the front gate of the Rockefeller Estate but quickly made a U-turn to avoid a confrontation with the security guard at the gate.
Slightly after midnight and anxious in the extreme to hold and embrace Muriel, I parked the car in front of Marymount College. Marymount, a Catholic girls’ college, was situated on the highest point in Tarrytown. From the front lawn of the school one could see both up and down the Hudson River. There were statues and crosses and symbols of Christianity all over the front of the building. It was as if the shadow of my childhood in Ireland had followed and ambushed me on the highest hill in Tarrytown. The magnificent glow and aura of the moonlight sky had a surreal effect on the huge cross on top of the college building. The restive light bounced off the cross and with so many memories of the image of Jesus dancing on the rim of my mind from my childhood I had an urge to stop and salute it and obliterate all that I was looking forward to in my present situation with Muriel by my side. The Christian symbols stood out like a proclamation that suggested some kind of a Biblical gesture of triumph. The stone statues of the saints looked as if they were sentries and guards of the college, appearing animated and lifelike. In their immobilised state they could have been witnesses to all that went on below and before them. Standing in the night they glimmered with impatience and seemed to be hoping that the sun wouldn’t rise.
I wanted to censure every impulse that was dashing through my body and I almost betrayed the beauty and newness of the moment by focusing on the religious symbols that at this late hour made me think I was committing sin. When the late-night moon passed behind a cloud, a warm comfortable darkness engulfed the hilltop. My mind returned to where I was and who I was with and I blamed the images I had been seeing on the fact I’d had too much beer to drink earlier at the prom. Also I was stampeded by uncontrollable physical urges as the aroma of Muriel’s presence intoxicated my brain.
Then Muriel fell into my arms. The impulse was fast, furious and immensely exciting. All manner of fear, trepidation, apprehension and accountability fled as both Muriel and I consumed each other as if we were crashing and colliding stars in search of a physical galaxy that fuelled and explained the concept of time itself. We embraced and conjoined in a newness that obliterated individuality, creating a oneness that heretofore was forbidden in the memory of every cell in my body. The indefinable language of not wanting or wishing to express oneself in words complemented the stillness and the darkness that surrounded the old car we were in. It was a baptism of the flesh that obliterated sight and sound and all thoughts that struggled to define my ability to understand my own mind. In the birth of the moment the physical connection to Muriel promised an infinity of joy. The consummation of passion and desire was an exuberance that blanked out any sense of wi
shing for a tomorrow that would remind Muriel and me of who we were before this night in the back seat of my car in front of the religious icons that adorned the college on the hill this summer night of the high school prom.
* * *
A week later I was officially informed that I would not be eligible to graduate and be part of the graduation ceremony that was to take place in two weeks’ time. This was most painful and humiliating.My indifference to algebra and biology had finally taken its toll.
Muriel and her parents did their best to ameliorate my disappointment and sadness. Her father even took me and his family out to dinner twice that week to reassure me that he was in my corner.
During the drive from Tarrytown to White Plains Mr.Anderson expounded on the union movement in America and a few times he mentioned several Irish names. He probably did this to make me feel that I was in some way connected to causes he believed in. I had told him when we first met that I was once in the Irish Hotel Workers Union. That fact might easily have been my most appealing feature as far as he was concerned. A serious union with his daughter Muriel in the future would likely be less endearing.
For a special treat Mr.Anderson would drive to White Plains for what he and Mrs.Anderson considered extraordinary homemade ice cream. It was during one of the forays in pursuit of ice cream par excellence that Muriel informed me that she had been accepted to Williams College in Vermont, and was very much looking forward to going there. This meant that she’d be going away not only from her family but from me as well. Williams College was a liberal arts institution that pioneered a more open approach to education. It seemed to me at the time to be a choice made by Muriel’s father. Mr.Anderson’s philosophy about life in general was very much in line with the curriculum at Williams. Study at Williams, in contrast to other academic institutions, was considered to be geared towards subjective expression as opposed to objective analysis of the world outside one’s own perception of self. This concept of academic development at Williams was not popular with many members of my senior class who were also heading for college at the end of summer.
Mr. and Mrs. Axe had on many occasions talked about me going to college but Mrs. Axe in particular was of the mind that I should have patience and see how I navigated my way through high school. A part of me felt that she needed to be doubly reassured of my ability and commitment to books rather than the flights of fantasy that I often portrayed when I talked to her and Mr. Axe about the future. My childhood years of having been exposed to the world of celluloid continued to be in conflict with Mrs. Axe’s idea of a more grounded reality. She reminded me on occasion that she was carrying out Maggie Sheridan’s wishes and instructions. At times I felt she had Maggie’s interest in mind more than mine, even though Maggie had been deceased for way over a year. Maggie’s memory in some ways continued to be a reality that inadvertently diluted my relationship with Mrs. Axe. The question and problem of graduating from high school was the first time a serious issue had surfaced that required a solution that didn’t involve Maggie’s wish or opinion.
Knowing I wasn’t likely to graduate without going to summer school to make up two courses I was in need of had been akin to having the Sword of Damocles hanging over me for the final six months of my senior year and at least one of the bulbs that kept the light on in my brain had gone out. But I had kept this from Mrs. Axe. These days she was away on business trips more than ever before. She came back after being away for over a week after I had been given the bad news of not graduating. I informed her while retrieving her breakfast tray one morning that she shouldn’t look forward to seeing me on the high-school stage receiving a diploma. She had been away at a health spa and was looking more refreshed than I had ever seen her. She appeared to have recovered the sense of joy and lightness she had when she was in Maggie’s company. When I finished relating my sad tale to her she got upset and called the high school principal. Despite her pleas and protestations she was not able to convince the school faculty that I deserved to be granted a diploma on the official day of graduation.
That same evening, as I sat on the balcony overlooking Tarrytown with the Axes, Mr. Axe did his best to comfort me by talking and reiterating to me about how the early Greek and Roman civilisations sowed the seeds of democracy for the present Western World. And how early China was so civilised it had neither laws nor police. Early Chinese culture and respect for the elderly seemed to be the summit of Mr. Axe’s civilised perception and he didn’t hesitate in his instruction on that matter when he talked to me on many of our walks around his estate. To encourage me he mentioned that if in the future I showed signs of pursuing an academic career he’d do his best to get me into his alma mater Harvard.
Mrs. Axe went out of her way to remind me not to be in a hurry. She wasn’t able to resist reminding me about my life in Ireland two years earlier. She also couldn’t resist mentioning that I might have paid too much attention to my social life rather than my studies at school. My accomplishments on the soccer field didn’t impress her much either. I took her comments on my social life to mean that I was spending too much time with Muriel and her family. The only thing she left out was my excursions to the local pub and my time spent with Frank Dillon and his inebriated buddies.
After a toned-down diatribe from Mrs. Axe I decided to refrain from defending and explaining myself. My immature mind resisted dwelling on the past, be it recent or ancient. This was one night, however, when I had more interest in not having accumulated a school credit in Intermediate Algebra than in how democracy took hold thousands of years earlier – or how, before I met Margaret Sheridan and Mrs. Axe, I was hardly able to spell my own name.
* * *
Later that evening I decided I couldn’t deal with the insecurities I was feeling so I jumped into my car and drove to the local watering hole where Frank Dillon and his crew were holding court. When I entered the place I was greeted like a long-lost friend. Frank seemed more than happy to see me. He was bragging about his plan to go to New York and try out for several plays he had seen mentioned in Show Business, an entertainment tabloid. Some itinerant patron at the bar apparently had left the newspaper on the counter and the barman, knowing Frank’s obsession for Shakespeare and the theatre, had kept it for him. The paper advertised for actors and actresses to audition for upcoming theatrical productions both in New York and in nearby summer-stock theatres – theatres that presented stage productions only in the summer, as Frank explained. With excitement equal to having won the lottery, Frank practically ate the newsprint off the paper. He read out every audition notice that he imagined himself to be right for. And as he leaped from audition notice to audition notice he quoted his favourite bits of Shakespeare: “Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand?” from Macbeth. And the obvious overused soliloquy from Hamlet: “To be or not to be, that is the question.”
The Hamlet quote put me in touch with my own dilemma. To graduate or not to graduate? Or put another way, to please Mrs. Axe or not to please Mrs. Axe. Unable to solve the riddle of myself, I decided I would join Frank Dillon and the gang at the bar and drink another beer and another.
With the passing of two hours or so I found myself leaning over the bar more inebriated than I had ever been in my entire life. Frank Dillon and his friends were singing at the other end of the room but I was so drunk I couldn’t focus or concentrate on the lyrics of the songs they were singing. Some of them appeared to be a blend of “Danny Boy” and “Galway Bay”, presumably being sung in my honour, but I wasn’t sure. While the spontaneous vocalising continued I made my way to the exit.
Outside on the street and hardly able to stand up I fell on the hood of my car, but before my nose and face made an imprint a pair of hands turned me over and picked me up. Sergeant John Gilroy of the Tarrytown police department had me half hanging over his shoulder as he transported me to his patrol car that was parked right behind my old Ford. Before I could crystallise a word of inquiry or worry about where I was or wh
ere I was being taken, John Gilroy had me stretched out in the back of the patrol car. Later, whether it was seconds or minutes or an eternity, Sergeant Gilroy was entering the gates of Axe Castle and driving up the long twisted driveway.
I had been very much aware of Sergeant Gilroy’s presence since my arrival in Tarrytown. When I first got my driver’s licence I had driven over a front lawn in a pristine neighbourhood of Tarrytown and he was called to the scene. At the time he hadn’t been promoted to sergeant and was very lenient towards me when I told him I had recently arrived from Ireland. He told me he was second-generation Irish and even though I had squashed somebody’s flowers and was inches from breaking their front garden wall he was most sympathetic.
Back then Maggie was still residing in the castle and John Gilroy got me back on the road and directed me home while he cruised behind me. He took it upon himself to ring at the front door of the castle. Pat answered but immediately turned the situation over to Maggie who was walking in the foyer nearby. Mr. Gilroy inquired about my presence and informed Maggie of my driving mishap. What transpired during the course of their meeting was that John Gilroy became very respectful of Maggie and she didn’t hold back in praising him, his Irish mother and father and all his Irish relatives. She even invited him to get in touch with her if he ever got the opportunity of visiting Ireland. Unbeknownst to me, later John Gilroy and several members of his family did make the journey to Ireland. Before they departed Tarrytown he contacted Maggie by mail and informed her of his impending Irish visit. Maggie, because of her failing health, had only recently returned to Ireland but I am told she made it possible by way of her friendship with President Éamon de Valera for Sergeant John Gilroy of the Tarrytown police department to visit the residence of the President of Ireland in the Phoenix Park with several other American notables, and have a ten-minute audience with the president. The invitation and the event impressed the policeman so much that afterwards whenever I bumped into him on Main Street in Tarrytown he gave me a salute.
I Dream Alone Page 11
