Golden Years
Page 11
Then he began the beautiful graveside prayers of the Church. At Mary Margaret’s instigation, the small fry answered with loud and enthusiastic “Amen” to each of them. I glanced around the huge crowd that had assembled. What would they think of this ultimate in Crazy O’Malley capers?
Finally, the closing prayers, definitive and conclusive. My sons produced their instruments. The sun began to break through the clouds. Nature and nature’s God were cooperating.
“Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon him.”
“AMEN!”
“And may all the souls of the departed rest in peace.”
“AMEN!”
Kevin Patrick raised his trumpet into the air.
“When the saint …” he began, then reprised it on the horn.
“Go marching in, go marching in, go marching in!” Rosemarie and I began our vocalization as the trumpet and sax joined us.
After the first stanza, Kevin Patrick spoke to the astonished crowd.
“We’re going to march around the grave, like the ancient Irish did, then go back to the cars as we celebrate the victory of life over death.”
I am just a lonesome traveller,
Through this big wide world of sin;
Want to join that grand procession,
When the saint go marchin’ in.
I: Oh when the saint go marchin’ in, :I
Lord I want to be in that number
When the saint go marchin’ in.
All my folks have gone before me,
All my friends and all my kin;
But I’ll meet with them up yonder,
When the saint go marchin’ in.
I: Oh when the saint go marchin’ in, :I
I will meet them all up in heaven,
When the saint go marchin’ in.
Come and join me in my journey,
‘cause it’s time that we begin;
And we’ll be there for that judgment,
When the saint go marchin’ in.
I: Oh when the saint go marchin’ in, :I
We will be in line for that judgment,
When the saint go marchin’ in.
I: And when the stars begin to shine :I
Then Lord let me be in that number
And when the stars begin to shine
I: When Gabriel blows in his horn :I
Then Lord let me be in that number
When Gabriel blows in his horn
I: And when the sun refuse to shine :I
Then Lord let me be in that number
When the sun refuse to shine
I: And when the moon has turned the blood :I
Then Lord let me be in that number
When the moon has turned the blood
I: And when they crown him King of Kings :I
Then Lord let me be in that number
When they crown him King of Kings
I: And when they gather round the throne :I
Then Lord let me be in that number
When they gather round the throne
I: And on that halleluja day :I
Then Lord let me be in that number
On that halleluja day
I: And while the happy ages roll :I
Then Lord let me be in that number
While the happy ages roll
When the saint go marchin’ in.
I: Oh when the saint go marchin’ in, :I
Lord I want to be in that number
When the saint go marchin’ in.
We sang all the way down to cars, joyously defying death and sending John Evangelist O’Malley on his marching way toward the world-to-come. With one final ruffle of drums from Gianni Antonelli the jazz group trailed off into silence. The mourners cheered enthusiastically.
“Great exit,” Peg announced.
“Wasn’t it thoroughly refreshing?” the Good April asked. “I’m sure Vangie is proud of that cute little group.”
“Three of Sheridan’s raiders,” Rosemarie whispered to me, “and two of Garibaldi’s drummer boys.”
I had maneuvered matters so that Rosemarie and I were sitting in the backseat and Peg and Mom were in the front seat. We sang “When the Saints Go Marching In!” all the way back to the country club. Exercising my right as a man falling in love, I permitted my unruly hand to creep under Rosemarie’s skirt and up her nylon-coated thigh. She sighed in soft protest but did not banish my hand.
Wrong time for a man to fall in love again with his wife? Not the wrong time at all. Maybe just the right time. However, the mysterious cycle of falling in love in the life of the male of the species displays no respect for time or place. It just happens. Presumably the evolutionary process has selected for it.
I assume, though with no solid evidence, that a similar cycle affects the female of the species, though, as in all matters, she hides it better than does the male. Many women, I gather, reject the return of their mate’s adolescent foolishness. The man then either gives up on romance or, in a few cases, finds someone else to fall in love with.
My Rosemarie is usually amused by my regression to the teenage years. She claims that I am most attractive when I am a “cute little boy.” I reply that I was more than a cute little boy on that day in Lake Geneva in 1946 when I held her in my arms. She replies with characteristic smoothness, “You were simply adorable, Chucky Ducky, and irresistible.”
At that point in our lives I didn’t know how to be irresistible, fortunately for both of us.
If I didn’t fall in love with her periodically, I would be a cad, an idiot, and a blind fool. My Rosemarie is breathtaking, radiant, glorious. She is more beautiful now than she was when she was my Bride. She denies this fact, though with what certainty I don’t know. She tells me that her ancestor about whom she is writing a novel, another Rosemarie with similar genes, was drop-dead beautiful at sixty, but she rejects any argument that the same comment must be made about her.
I suspect that this is part of the conviction of Irishwomen that if you accept a compliment you might lose that which is the object of the compliment, a mean trick played by a jealous God. That is not the God we sang to at Queen of Heaven Cemetery.
Yet anyone who can live with a woman like her, absorb daily her beauty and brilliance and not fall in love with her is, to put the matter mildly, insensate.
Falling in love is distinct from both sex and love, though clearly involved with them. Good sex and deep love may persist in life, without the need—at least in the short run—of falling in love. But when you do fall in love both sex and love take on a new dimension.
Silliness, Rosemarie calls it. “You act silly, Chucky Ducky, but I like you when you’re silly.”
My fingers reveled in her thigh as we left the expressway at First Avenue and turned north. She had closed her eyes and pressed her lips together as we paused for breath between singing.
“Chucky,” she whispered as my out-of-control fingers reached their goal, “Not now!”
Okay, not now. It was time to retreat anyway. However, my redeployment was slow and luxurious.
As I helped her out of the limo, she shook her head, as if in despair.
“You’re terrible! And on this day of all days!”
“No better day.”
She sighed loudly, but not, I think, in disagreement.
The dinner (or more recently lunch) after a burial is part of the Catholic tradition. Ours was different from most only that it was at a country club and the food was both better and less laden with calories. Despite my romancing of my wife in the back of the funeral limo, my stomach wanted only a few crackers and cheese and a sip or two of wine.
There was much hugging and congratulation inside the club. We all praised the exuberance of the quintet and urged them to turn away from their other careers and go national.
Many of the graveside mourners told us that it was the “most Catholic” burial they had ever attended.
“Burial,” I said with apodictic theologica
l confidence, “is only a prelude to resurrection.”
My son, Deacon Jimmy, assured me that was a theologically correct assertion.
“It is also,” I told him, “true.”
“One other thing, Dad …”
“Yes?”
“You’ve done a good job of imitating Grandpa’s family strategy …”
“So?”
“I hope I can do the same thing as a priest.”
I thanked him briskly, lest I collapse in tears.
I cornered my wife and led her by the hand into the club’s chess room, usually empty because there were no chess players among us.
“Chucky, darling, you are importunate!”
“Is that bad?”
“Can’t you wait till this evening?”
“I’m in love with you,” I protested. “I want to hug and kiss you.”
So I did. And added a few special caresses.
“Importunate and impossible … You’re not going to fuck me here at the club, are you?”
“No, but that’s not a bad idea.”
She ended our clinch and turned toward the door of the chess room.
“One more thing, Charles Cronin O’Malley.”
“Yes?”
The full name usually meant I was in trouble.
“I have been proud of you in our marriage more times than I remember, but never as proud as I was this morning during your eulogy.”
“Oh,” I gulped. “Now I’m really in love with you!”
She shook her head in feigned dismay.
“And,” I added quickly, “thank you.”
“You’re welcome!”
We rejoined the party, for it was a party, one last defiance of death. I hated Oak Park Country Club. It was once a center of anti-Catholicism, from which Catholics were banned. In the 1920s, led by one of the local monsignors, a group of Catholics founded Butterfield, as a Catholic rival which it was, only better. My late father had joined both at the same time, the first Catholic member of Oak Park. Now it was dominated by overweight Irish Catholic Republicans whom I couldn’t stand. However, Peg argued that a) Dad had been the first Catholic member and b) there were three wedding receptions at Butterfield on this September Saturday afternoon.
The Good April was ensconced in a regal chair as befitted a reigning grand duchess and flanked by two lovely ladies-inwaiting, Peg and Rosemarie. They were both, I was convinced, slim and trim because they reinforced each other’s willpower, an especially difficult task for my poor wife after her “elderly” pregnancy, which had produced the luminous Siobhan Marie. I was also convinced that they worried about their figures not because of their husbands but because of their own self-respect.
“Here’s some healthy food for you, Chucky.” The Good Mary Margaret handed me a plate. “Eat it slowly or you’ll be sick again.”
I didn’t ask how she knew I was sick in the first place.
“You were sensational,” she continued. “I was proud of you, especially when you kept your cool when dippy Auntie Jane walked out.”
“Thank you,” I said. “It’s not an easy day … Poor Aunt Jane is deeply troubled.”
“Nutty as a fruitcake,” she laughed. “I don’t think we’ve seen the last of her … Eat this stuff slowly, big fellow. We don’t want you sick again … ’Scuse me. I gotta tend the kids again.”
She would be as good a mother as her own mother.
“Wait a sec?”
“Yes?”
“Who is this Oriental woman I see with Sean Seamus?”
“Asian …”
“I stand corrected.”
“Her name is Maria Anastasia and she’s Luong. They’re a tribe from Laos. She works on the trading floor.”
“Ah … Serious?”
“Could be.”
“Are they sleeping together?”
“No way, she’s an old-fashioned Catholic.”
“Like you?”
“Kind of.”
“Sean has a taste for exotic women, doesn’t he?”
“You’ve noticed?”
“Nothing wrong with that.”
“Dad, she’s a hell of a lot less exotic than I am. She was born in this country and went to Catholic schools for sixteen years.”
“Yes, ma’am … What’s her name again?”
“Maria Anastasia.”
I nibbled on a bit of wheat bread with some kind of nondairy spread. My stomach lurched in protest. I put the dish of food on a table and rushed to the men’s room. When I was finished I was utterly empty.
When I returned to the luncheon, I realized that my allergies had returned and myself without any tissues.
I whispered in my wife’s ear, “Tissues!”
“Chucky, you look green!”
“Irish,” I said. “Do we approve of this Chinese kid that’s hanging around Seano?”
She produced a pack of tissues from her purse.
“She’s very sweet … Chucky, are you going to pass out?”
“Probably.”
Maria Anastasia, no last name given, approached me timidly.
“Mr. O’Malley, your eulogy was so beautiful that I want to cry every time I think of it.”
True to her word, she began to cry.
And I sneezed.
“Thank you, Maria Anastasia, you’re a woman of great good taste.”
She blushed and, having delivered her compliment, turned away. Doubtless she would report to Sean Seamus. Well, I had done something right. It would take her a while to remember that I knew her name.
I searched for Jamie Nettleton, April Rosemary’s husband and son of my commanding officers in Bamberg, John and Polly Nettleton.
“You look like you’re going to die, Chuck,” he said with less concern than would have been appropriate. “That was a wonderful talk today, I’ll call Mom and Dad and tell them.”
I sneezed again.
“Allergies,” I managed to say between spasms. “If I take my allergy meds, will it make my stomach disorder any worse?”
“They won’t make it any better.” He laughed. “I seem to remember a story my mom tells about your stomach acting up one night in Bamberg.”
“Defamation!”
“I was sorry about your sister acting out … My guess is that she’s on medication and won’t take it.”
“Her husband is a shrink like you are!”
“I only work with kids … It’s a good way to punish a psychiatrist if you refuse to take his prescriptions … Sorry if I’m intruding.”
“Not at all, Jamie. That will help us to understand … I hope my daughter never does that to you.”
Dumb thing to say, but he didn’t seem to mind.
“April? No danger of that!”
I wondered as I searched out my wife for my allergy meds, if Ted McCormack had said that long ago about Jane.
“Maybe you shouldn’t take them, Chuck, with your stomach as upset as it seems to be.”
The words of a mother.
“I talked to Dr. Nettleton,” I said proudly.
“What does he know? He’s a shrink!”
But she fished the bottle of Bentyl out of her purse.
The “lunch” went on forever, largely because of the incorrigible inability of Irishwomen to say good-bye to one another.
Finally, the last of them left. My mother, my wife, my sister, and my daughter looked around the room to make sure they hadn’t missed anyone and decided that it was time to “go home,” which meant to the family house on New England Avenue. Mary Margaret collected her little sister from the room in which she had been napping. The little redhead hugged me fiercely.
“You were wonderful, Daddy. I was so proud of you!”
“Thank you dear. I’m always proud of you.”
The “inner family”—Peg, Rosemarie, Ed, Vince, and I—went home with mother. Mary Margaret would turn Shovie over to Erin, our nanny, a young Irishwoman who had already bonded with Rosemarie in the common conspiracy against me,
and return for the final phase of the obsequies.
Mom stretched out in her favorite chair.
“Well,” she said, “I’m sure poor dear Vangie is very pleased with us. On the whole, we did very well.”
“Except for Jane,” Peg said sadly. “She certainly hates the rest of us.”
“Especially me,” Rosemarie added.
“Poor Janie.” Mom sighed. “She’s not herself. I really think Ted ought to do something to help her.”
I told them Jamie Nettleton’s diagnosis.
“That doesn’t sound good,” Ed said. “I wonder if there’s anything we can do to help her? Maybe you could talk to Ted, Chuck?”
“For the moment,” I said cautiously, “it’s probably best to let him take the initiative. Life is probably difficult enough for him as it is.”
“I don’t think we’ve seen the last of her,” my Rosemarie said thoughtfully. “She feels that we have done a terrible wrong to her that ruined her life … . Maybe she has a point.”
“It’s all in her imagination, isn’t it?” Vince asked. “From not taking her pills?”
“She believes that I replaced her in the family. When I appeared, the family stopped paying attention to her.”
Mom put her arm around Rosemarie, who was sitting on the ottoman next to her.
“But, Rosie, dear, that isn’t true. It’s not your fault. We never stopped loving poor dear Jane, did we, Chucky?”
“She thinks we did, which is the problem. I’m not sure that she can ever give that notion up, no matter how much of a mistake it is.”
“She never liked me much,” Peg said. “She always thought I was an obnoxious brat.”
The conversation was circling aimlessly and was not healthy. Indeed it could not be healthy, not tonight or any night.
Then Mary Margaret arrived with a package from the drugstore.
“Bentyl,” she said handing it to me. “Jamie said that you shouldn’t take any liquor with it, but you don’t drink much anyway, Chucky. Here’s a glass of water. Take it now … It will make him sleepy, Rosie, so you drive home.”