Mean Dads for a Better America

by Tom Shillue

  My daughter walked right up to the dad with her hand still in the shape of a gun, and held it out to him. “It’s not real,” she said. Then she flipped her hand back and forth to show both sides. “See? It’s not real.”

  The dad looked up at me, perhaps hoping I would get involved, and I just arched my eyebrows and shrugged as if to say, “Makes total sense to me.” My daughter had done exactly what I would have done as a kid and something that just plain makes sense.

  Of course if I parented exactly like my own parents, Child Services would probably come a-knocking. So, in order to avoid being judged by the touchy-feely modern parents in the neighborhood, I’ve learned to speak their language when necessary. Sometimes, however, the patented Shillue style seeps out. Once my daughter Louise was acting up on the playground, as kids do, and making excuses for her behavior. She was screaming about how bad she felt about something or other to keep me from getting angry.

  “I don’t care how you feel, I care how you behave,” I said. It must have sounded harsh because it caught the attention of the mom next to me on the playground. Louise walked away, not entirely content with the situation, but behaving better.

  “What did you just say?” the mom asked me.

  I said, “I don’t care how you feel, I care how you behave.”

  “Where’d you get that one?” she asked.

  “I’m pretty sure my mother used to say it.”

  The mother seemed a little unsettled, but also a little intrigued. I think she might have put it into her repertoire.

  Of course, I do care about what my daughter is feeling. I just want her to know that feelings don’t come first. Behavior is first, then feelings second. Most of the parents on the playground have it the other way around. Obviously, as a parent I need to strike a balance, a happy medium—go along with the rest of the world, but offer some resistance. And of course, always keep my mom’s aphorisms in my holster, at the ready.

  Here’s the thing. I’m proud of how I’m raising my kids. I’m proud of what I’m able to do with my career now, and how my beliefs and values have helped give me that career. Some of the things may sound old-fashioned or out of step, but they work. They helped me grow up to be content and give something to the world. If I can do that for my kids, all the better.

  MY UNCLE BOBBY WAS ALWAYS THE COOL UNCLE. When he’d come to visit us with my grandmother when I was a kid, we’d ride bikes together around the neighborhood. On Christmas morning he liked to play with our toys right alongside us. He seemed as excited about the train sets as we were. Bobby wasn’t like the other grown-ups. He was fun. He didn’t yell. He was easy to be around.

  One day when Bobby was visiting, we were out riding bikes together, and I heard my dad discussing Bobby with our neighbor, Mr. Sullivan. As he was raking his yard, he yelled over to my dad.

  “Hey what’s wrong with him anyway? Is he just slow?”

  “Yeah, he’s a little slow,” my dad answered.

  What were they talking about, slow? Why, because of the bicycle? Bobby is cool!

  I rejected whatever my dad and Mr. Sullivan had to say about my uncle. That is, until a few years later, when we started getting more grown-up gifts for Christmas. Bobby didn’t get so excited about those. That’s when we began to reassess our uncle.

  Gradually we came to realize that Uncle Bobby, my mom’s youngest brother, was slow. Or as my family called him, retarded. The word was not a slur then. Not even when it was deliberately being used as a slur. “What are you, retarded?” was a pretty innocuous comment; it just meant “Hey—what’s wrong with you?”

  *

  I was going to spend my second year of college at UMASS Boston; the state school was, for Massachusetts residents, about the biggest educational bargain there was. Tuition was a whopping $750 (yes, that’s seven hundred and fifty dollars) per semester. I applied for and received a $3,000 loan for the year, so when I went to pay my tuition I actually got cash back, but that was promptly eaten up by books, my meal plan, and various other expenses. I was at a zero balance, so my mother had the idea that I should move in with my grandmother in Dorchester, on the edge of Boston. She lived in the St. Gregory’s parish (in Dorchester your parish is your neighborhood), which was the last stop on the T at the Ashmont Station, on the MBTA Red Line. That way I could be in the city and take the subway to school.

  “It’s perfect,” she said. “My room is still there, just as I left it. Nothing’s changed.”

  So I moved in with my grandmother, and my uncle Bobby.

  The house was just as it was when I visited on the holidays, decorated in standard Old Lady Catholic: small, dark rooms with multiple oriental carpets and religious portraits covering the walls. There were glass bowls on the glass tables filled with gumdrops. Lace pillows and afghans on the sofas, old-lady smell everywhere. The presence of a fifty-two-year-old son who had never left home was the only departure from the perfectly typical.

  My grandmother didn’t move quickly but was in constant motion. There was always work to be done, accompanied by her endless stream of patented catchphrases. She would vacuum the oriental rugs while repeating over and over, “The only thing that ever aged a rug is dirt!” or, apparently in reference to nothing, “Money makes money!” What she meant by this I never knew. Also there was lots of talk regarding potatoes. If she were on the phone in the afternoon, she would often excuse herself abruptly. “I gotta go put on my potatoes—good-bye!” That water had to be boiling by 4 p.m. sharp.

  Although she was constantly working, neither Bobby nor I ever did anything to help; she wouldn’t allow it. This was woman’s work, and if I offered any assistance, I was met with a curt, “Be useful and get out of my way!”

  My grandmother, like most biscuit-making, kindly little old ladies, spent a lot of her time yelling. She’d stand at the window and yell in the direction of the tough teens outside on the corner of Dorchester Avenue, “Go home to your own neighborhood!” She didn’t care that nobody heard her.

  “Oh, yeah . . . that’s right . . . home to your own neighborhood . . .” Uncle Bobby would echo from his easy chair. Okay, maybe one person heard.

  And despite her work ethic, and the fact that she always exercised her right to vote and drive well over the speed limit, no one could accuse my grandmother of radical feminism. She and Bobby would be sitting in front of the TV when I came home in the early evening. Liz Walker, the local NBC anchorwoman, would be reading the news.

  “Get back to your kitchen!” she would yell at the screen.

  I remember specifically that phrase—it wasn’t “Why don’t you go on home and make dinner!” or “You should be at home in the kitchen!” but rather, “Get back to your kitchen!” As if there really was a kitchen, perhaps just out of sight behind the TV news set, in which a roast was turning to charcoal and potatoes were boiling over, victims of Liz Walker’s ruthless career ambition.

  “That’s right . . . back to your kitchen,” Bobby would parrot.

  Bobby never had any original thoughts—only the thoughts of my grandmother, which he would dutifully and enthusiastically repeat back to her. I know that this was simply Bobby’s way—I tried not to hold it against him—but sometimes I got the feeling that it was two-against-one. You know when there are three roommates, and one always ends up the odd man out? That was me. I was the third wheel. The uncool roommate. My grandmother and Uncle Bobby would team up on me constantly.

  I had to sleep in my mother’s old room, in her old bed. The room was largely as she had left it the day she left home to start her own family. A twin bed, Rosary beads over the bedpost, a dresser with a round mirror, with a picture of Jesus above it. Not the kind-looking Jesus handing out loaves and fish—no, the intimidating Jesus who was looking at you out of the top of his eyes with a stern expression as he was opening his chest to expose a thorn-rimmed heart. I would come in late at night and turn on the dim lamp, and he would be staring at me with an expression that said, “Is there something you’r
e not telling me?”

  My grandmother did not believe in waking up to buzzers or bells. “Say a prayer and God will wake you up!” That was her method: when you prayed at night, you were to simply mention what time you wanted to wake up in the morning, and God would wake you up at the exact appointed time. Amazingly, this method worked—for my grandmother and my uncle. At 6:15 every morning without fail, they would simultaneously rise from their beds like synchronized swimmers from the spectral plane, and step noiselessly into their slippers to begin their day. I would usually oversleep. Was my wake-up call being ignored? Or was I not putting enough effort into the non-wake-up-call part of the evening prayers? That was very possible. Or was God’s wake-up alarm some kind of New Age sound—a pan-flute solo, or a cascading flourish on the hammered dulcimer? Because I think I would sleep right through that.

  My grandmother also insisted that all inside doors remain open at all times. She didn’t say why. I don’t believe it was for safety; I know for a fact that in the case of a fire in the home, a closed door is best. But I suspect that my grandmother was more concerned that a closed door might lead to something else, something that would in turn lead to a fire of a different kind.

  In a loose interpretation of the door rule, I was allowed to keep my bedroom door slightly ajar when I went to sleep. After the inevitable oversleeping, my grandmother would then wake me up using this curious method: she would reach through the crack, and bring her arm around to bang repeatedly on the back of the door with the palm of her hand. I would awake in a fog to this loud drumbeat and then, looking to my left, I would see an elderly, disembodied arm flapping against the door. It was spine-chilling. But it woke me up.

  The house thrived on routine. Wheat flakes with sliced bananas would be waiting on the table in the morning. As I sat down, my grandmother would pour the milk over the flakes, then wipe butter on my toast and then pour boiling water over a tablespoon of Sanka. I didn’t have to do anything for myself. I remember thinking, This is the way Bobby lives his whole life. Everything was set in a constant, familiar pattern. After breakfast, Bobby would change into his dark-green janitor’s uniform that had been left out by his mother, folded neatly on the chair in his bedroom, take his bag lunch and two subway tokens from the telephone table at the bottom of the stairs, and go off to work at the Prudential Center. He swept floors and emptied trash bins five days a week, year after year, and his paycheck was always deposited directly into his savings account. He never spent a dime of his pay; he never had to.

  Bobby probably enjoyed his job, and I imagine he was treated well—certainly better than he had been in school. Years ago when Bobby was in school there were no special needs classes, nothing tailored to those who were learning impaired. Kids like Bobby just went to regular school and were labeled “slow.” The nuns, with only rulers for discipline, were probably not keen on “child-centered learning,” so he was just the dumb kid who happened to come home every day with sore knuckles. My mom told me he had a tough time in school, but he never complained—he was not the complaining type, unless it was to repeat a complaint his mother made. I’m sure he just got through every day of school as best he could, and then went home to his mother every night, who made him dinner and tucked him into bed. One thing he was good at was his prayers. He knew them all. And he loved the Mass. Bobby could recite the entire Catholic Mass in Latin. He would do it at home in front of the fireplace.

  Meanwhile, I settled into my college student routine. When I came home late at night, I would let myself in the front door with my keys. It was an old door with old locks that would stick—some nights I would spend several minutes out in the cold trying to get those old tumblers to fall into place so the key would turn. I approached my grandmother with the problem.

  “Don’t force it!” she said. “Just jiggle it. It will open if you jiggle it!”

  “That’s right, Tommy. Don’t force it.”

  Thanks, Bobby.

  I got home late one frigid night and my key would once again not turn. I stood outside for some time jiggling. Nothing. I jiggled some more. It was about 22 degrees. Finally I got impatient, gave a hard and quick turn to the key. It broke off cleanly.

  I stood in the cold for a few minutes, and then, realizing I had few options, took the metal knocker and knocked on the door. Tap, Tap, Tap. I waited. Tap, Tap, Tap.

  A minute later I saw Bobby’s figure at the top of the stairs pause, and then begin walking down slowly with his pajamas buttoned to the top. I had interrupted his extremely consistent sleep schedule, ordained by God. Is that a smile? Is he smiling? I wondered. He doesn’t know how to smirk, does he? It looked like a smirk.

  The door opened. Bobby looked at me blankly, and then down to the lock, and then slowly back up to me. I swear I could see a smirk.

  “You forced it, Tommy.” He wanted to make sure he could savor the moment.

  “You shouldn’t have forced it, Tommy.” He kept his hand on the door.

  There I was. Alone with Bobby—I would have thought that when it came down to the two of us, man to man, I would have had the upper hand. But it was Bobby for the win. I was on his turf, and he knew it. I had been told not to force it, but I did it anyway. And now I was standing on a concrete porch in freezing cold at one in the morning being upbraided by the slow guy.

  *

  A few years later, when I was living in New York and sharing an apartment with my sister Ann, my grandmother died. We drove back to Boston for the funeral. In addition to my mother, my grandmother had three sons, but they all decided I should give a eulogy at the service, owing to my experience as a “public speaker.” Of course, I am more than comfortable getting up in front of crowds and speaking as a comedian, but this was different. This was my family, and someone very important to us had just died. I don’t have a lot of icebreakers for this kind of audience, and my copy of Doc Blakely’s Handbook of Wit and Pungent Humor was back on my bookshelf in New York.

  I was used to standing on altars. I’d been an altar boy, for goodness sake, and had served at many funerals and many weddings. But up on this altar, I was nervous. It was the crowd, the way they stared blankly at me. It is often said of a great performer, “He really knows his audience,” but I couldn’t possibly know a crowd better than my own family, and yet these guys looked unforgiving.

  “Margaret Corrigan . . .” I began.

  Why am I calling my grandmother by her first name? It seems wrong, but I can’t call her what I normally call her, “Nanny,” in church. Can I? And with the body right there in front of me, shouldn’t I use her full name?

  I went on: “. . . there were many people here that meant so much to Margaret—like Richard, Jackie, Rosemary . . .”

  Hey, that’s my mother. Rosemary is my mother’s name. It is absolutely inappropriate to call your mother by her first name, isn’t it? But I’m already committed to the first-name thing so I’ve got to stick with it. I’ve only been up here for ninety seconds, how am I supposed to fill five minutes?

  I droned on for a few minutes, and I ended by saying, “Thank you for coming . . . God bless you.” I looked over my shoulder at the priest, who was giving me a look like, You didn’t say God bless you, did you? You can’t say that; that’s what I say.

  Was he right? Do I not get to say that? And was I right about what the priest was thinking as he looked at me? Why can’t I say it? Don’t people say God bless you every time someone sneezes? Maybe you’re allowed to say it anywhere except church.

  I slid back to my seat. I’m not sure what happened for the rest of the service. The only thing I can be sure of is that my grandmother didn’t sit up and critique my performance. But I was sure everyone else had.

  At the afterwake, which is when Catholic families have sandwiches, I was feeling insecure about my eulogy. It didn’t seem to have gone too well, since no one was saying anything about it. But while everyone was standing around eating their chicken salad and deviled ham, I could see my uncle Bobby pushing through
the crowd, making a beeline to me. He stuck out his big, thick hand to me, and I shook his hand. “Tommy, that was a very thoughtful speech you gave. Thank you.”

  That put me at ease. Then I realized that this was the first time I had ever heard Bobby utter an original thought. I couldn’t believe it. Bobby only parroted things his mother said. Then he walked away from me, walked right up to my sister and said, “Ann, thank you for coming, and driving a long way. Please, have a sandwich.” Another original thought. I had never heard anything like this from Bobby before. He was taking the initiative.

  I realized Bobby had just been waiting for his moment, so he could do a little thinking for himself. And that unfortunate moment happened to be his mother’s death. She had always done everything for him. She made his breakfast in the morning. She left his tokens out on the banister. She set up his dinner on a TV tray when he came home from work. Now that she was dead, he was going to have to get smart, or who knows what would happen.

  If anyone in that room was worried about how Bobby was going to take care of himself, his actions were telling them, “I’m okay. You don’t have to put me in a home. Bobby’s fine.”

  So it didn’t take long for everyone to realize that Bobby was going to be fine living on his own in Dorchester. He took over the house, and owned it outright. Financially, he was more than sound—all those janitor paychecks that he never spent? My grandmother put them directly into the market, in America’s top dividend-paying companies. Did you ever wonder what would happen if you put every paycheck you earned into stocks? Wealth is what would happen.

  As an independent adult, Bobby’s days were a whirlwind of activity. Instead of his bag lunch from Mom, he went up to the Carney Hospital refectory for lunch. He started singing in the St. Gregory’s choir—or at least he moved his lips. He even went to AA meetings once a week. He never had a drink in his life; he just went for the free coffee and conversation.