100 Years of the Best American Short Stories

by Lorrie Moore

  After the dancing warm lights of the screen the street was cold and dark and ugly, with the slush and the roar and the millions of people all going somewhere in a great rush, but not one face she knew. She decided to go to Boston by boat the way she used in the old days when she visited Honora. She gazed into the shop windows thinking how the styles in underthings had changed till she could hardly believe her eyes, wondering what Dennis would say if she bought the green glove silk slip with the tea-colored lace. Ah, was he eating his ham now as she told him, and did the boy come to help as he had promised?

  She ate ice cream with strawberry preserves on it, and bought a powder puff and decided there was time for another moving picture. It was called “The Lover King,” and it was about a king in a disguise, a lovely young man with black wavy hair and eyes would melt in his head, who married a poor country girl who was more beautiful than all the princesses and ladies in the land. Music came out of the screen, and voices talking, and Rosaleen cried, for the love song went to her heart like a dagger.

  Afterward there was just time to ride in a taxi to Christopher Street and catch the boat. She felt happier the minute she set foot on board, how she always loved a ship! She ate her supper thinking, “That boy didn’t have much style to his waiting. Dennis would never have kept him on in the hotel”; and afterward sat in the lounge and listened to the radio until she almost fell asleep there before everybody. She stretched out in her narrow bunk and felt the engine pounding under her, and the grand steady beat shook the very marrow of her bones. The fog horn howled and bellowed through the darkness over the rush of water, and Rosaleen turned on her side. “Howl for me, that’s the way I could cry in the night in that lost heathen place,” for Connecticut seemed a thousand miles and a hundred years away by now. She fell asleep and had no dreams at all.

  In the morning she felt this was a lucky sign. At Providence she took the train again, and as the meeting with Honora came nearer, she grew sunken and tired. “Always Honora making trouble,” she thought, standing outside the station holding her bag and thinking it strange she hadn’t remembered what a dreary ugly place Boston was; she couldn’t remember any good times there. Taxicab drivers were yelling in her face. Maybe it would be a good thing to go to a church and light a candle for Honora. The taxi scampered through winding streets to the nearest church, with Rosaleen thinking what she wouldn’t give to be able to ride around all day, and never walk at all!

  She knelt near the high altar, and something surged up in her heart and pushed the tears out of her eyes. Prayers began to tumble over each other on her lips. How long it had been since she had seen the church as it should be, dressed for a feast with candles and flowers, smelling of incense and wax. The little doleful church in Winston, now who could really pray in it? “Have mercy on us,” said Rosaleen, calling on fifty saints at once, “I confess . . .” She struck her breast three times, then got up suddenly, carrying her bag, and peered into the confessionals hoping she might find a priest in one of them. “It’s too early or it’s not the day, but I’ll come back,” she promised herself with tenderness. She lit the candle for Honora and went away feeling warm and quiet. She was blind and confused, too, and could not make up her mind what to do next. Where ever should she turn? It was a burning sin to spend money on taxicabs when there was always the hungry poor in the world, but she hailed one anyhow, and gave Honora’s house number. Yes, there it was, just like in old times.

  She read all the names pasted on slips above the bells, all the floors front and back, but Honora’s name was not among them. The janitor had never heard of Mrs. Terence Gogarty, nor Mrs. Honora Go­garty, neither. Maybe it would be in the telephone book. There were many Gogartys but no Terence nor Honora. Rosaleen smothered down the impulse to tell the janitor, a good Irishman, how her dream had gone back on her. “Thank ye kindly, it’s no great matter,” she said, and stepped out into the street again. The wind hacked at her shoulders through the rag of a coat, the bag was too heavy altogether. Now what kind of nature was in Honora not to drop a line and say she had moved?

  Walking about with her mind in a whirl, she came to a small dingy square with iron benches and some naked trees in it. Sitting, she began to shed tears again. When one handkerchief was wet she took out another, and the fresh perfume put new heart in her. She glanced around when a shadow fell on the corner of her eye, and there hunched on the other end of the bench was a scrap of a lad with freckles, his collar turned about his ears, his red hair wilted on his forehead under his bulging cap. He slanted his gooseberry eyes at her and said, “We’ve all something to cry for in this world, isn’t it so?”

  Rosaleen said, “I’m crying because I’ve come a long way for nothing.” The boy said, “I knew you was a County Sligo woman the minute I clapped eyes on ye.”

  “God bless ye for that,” said Rosaleen, “for I am.” “I’m County Sligo myself, long ago, and curse the day I ever thought of leaving it,” said the boy, with such anger Rosaleen dried her eyes once for all and turned to have a good look at him.

  “Whatever makes ye say that now?” she asked him. “It’s a good country, this. There’s opportunity for all here.” “So I’ve heard tell many’s the countless times,” said the boy. “There’s all the opportunity in the wide world to shrivel with the hunger and walk the soles off your boots hunting the work, and there’s a great chance of dying in the gutter at last. God forgive me the first thought I had of coming here.”

  “Ye haven’t been out long?” asked Rosaleen. “Eleven months and five days the day,” said the boy. He plunged his hands into his pockets and stared at the freezing mud clotted around his luckless shoes.

  “And what might ye do by way of a living?” asked Rosaleen. “I’m an hostler,” he said. “I used to work at the Dublin race tracks, even. No man can tell me about horses,” he said proudly. “And it’s good work if it’s to be found.”

  Rosaleen looked attentively at his sharp red nose, frozen it was, and the stung look around his eyes, and the sharp bones sticking out at his wrists, and was surprised at herself for thinking, in the first glance, that he had the look of Kevin. She saw different now, but think if it had been Kevin! Better off to be dead and gone. “I’m perishing of hunger and cold,” she told him, “and if I knew where there was a place to eat, we’d have some lunch, for it’s late.”

  His eyes looked like he was drowning. “Would ye? I know a place!” and he leaped up as if he meant to run. They did almost run to the edge of the square and the far corner. It was a Coffee Pot and full of the smell of hot cakes. “We’ll get our fill here,” said Rosaleen, taking off her gloves, “though I’d never call it a grand place.”

  The boy ate one thing after another as if he could never stop: roast beef and potatoes and spaghetti and custard pie and coffee, and Rosaleen ordered a package of cigarettes. It was like this with her, she was fond of the smell of tobacco, her husband was a famous smoker, never without his pipe. “It’s no use keeping it in,” said the boy. “I haven’t a penny, yesterday and today I didn’t eat till now, and I’ve been fit to hang myself, or go to jail for a place to lay my head.”

  Rosaleen said, “I’m a woman doesn’t have to think of money, I have all my heart desires, and a boy like yourself has a right to think nothing of a little loan will never be missed.” She fumbled in her purse and brought out a ten-dollar bill, crumpled it and pushed it under the rim of his saucer so the man behind the counter wouldn’t notice. “That’s for luck in the new world,” she said, smiling at him. “You might be Kevin or my own brother or my own little lad alone in the world, and it’ll all come back to me if ever I need it.”

  The boy said, “I never thought to see this day,” and put the money in his pocket. Rosaleen said, “I don’t even know your name, think of that!”

  “I’m a blight on the name of Sullivan,” said he. “Hugh it is—Hugh Sullivan.”

  “That’s a good enough name,” said Rosaleen. “I’ve cousins named Sullivan in Dublin, but I never s
aw one of them. There was a man named Sullivan married my mother’s sister, my aunt Brigid she was, and she went to live in Dublin. You’re not related to the Dublin Sullivans, are ye!”

  “I never heard of it, but maybe I am.”

  “Ye have the look of a Sullivan to me,” said Rosaleen, “and they’re cousins of mine, some of them.” She ordered more coffee and he lit another cigarette, and she told him how she had come out more than twenty-five years past, a greenhorn like himself, and everything had turned out well for her and all her family here. Then she told about her husband, how he had been head-waiter and a moneyed man, but he was old now; about the farm, if there was some one to help her, they could make a good thing of it; and about Kevin and the way he had gone away and died and sent her news of it in a dream; and this led to the dream about Honora and here she was, the first time ever a dream had gone back on her. She went on to say there was always room for a strong willing boy in the country if he knew about horses, and how it was a shame for him to be tramping the streets with an empty stomach when there was everything to be had if he only knew which way to look for it. She leaned over and took him by the arm very urgently.

  “You’ve a right to live in a good Irish house,” she told him. “Why don’t ye come home with me and live there like one of the family in peace and comfort?”

  Hugh Sullivan stared at her out of his glazed green eyes down the edge of his sharp nose and a crafty look came over him. “’T would be dangerous,” he said. “I’d hate to try it.” “Dangerous, is it?” asked Rosaleen. “What danger is there in the peaceful countryside?” “It’s not safe at all,” said Hugh. “I was caught at it once in Dublin, and there was a holy row! A fine woman like yourself she was, and her husband peeking through a crack in the wall the whole time. Man, that was a scrape for ye!”

  Rosaleen understood in her bones before her mind grasped it. “Whatever—” she began, and the blood boiled up in her face until it was like looking through a red veil. “Ye little whelp,” she said, trying to get her breath, “so it’s that kind ye are, is it? I might know you’re from Dublin! Never in my whole life—” Her rage rose like a bonfire in her, and she stopped. “If I was looking for a man,” she said, “I’d choose a man and not a half-baked little . . .” She took a deep breath and started again. “The cheek of ye,” she said, “insulting a woman could be your mother. God keep me from it! It’s plain you’re just an ignorant greenhorn doesn’t know the ways of decent people, and now be off—” She stood up and motioned to the man behind the counter. “Out of that door now—”

  He stood up too, glancing around fearfully with his squinted eyes, and put out a hand as if he would try to make it up with her. “Not so loud now, woman—it’s what any man might think the way ye’re—”

  Rosaleen said, “Hold your tongue or I’ll tear it out of your head!” and her right arm went back in a business-like way. He ducked and shot past her, then collected himself and lounged out of reach. “Farewell to ye, County Sligo woman,” he said tauntingly. “I’m from County Cork myself!” and darted through the door. Rosaleen shook so she could hardly find the money for the bill, and she couldn’t see her way before her, hardly, but when the cold air struck her, her head cleared, and she could have almost put a curse on Honora for making all this trouble for her . . .

  She took a train the short way home, for the taste of travel had soured on her altogether. She wanted to be home and nowhere else. That shameless boy, whatever was he thinking of? “Boys do be known for having evil minds in them,” she told herself, and the blood fairly crinkled in her veins. But he had said, “A fine woman like yourself,” and maybe he’d met too many bold ones, and thought they were all alike; maybe she had been too free in her ways because he was Irish and looked so sad and poor. But there it was, he was a mean sort, and he would have made love to her if she hadn’t stopped him, maybe. It flashed over her and she saw it clear as day—Kevin had loved her all the time, and she had sent him away to that cheap girl who wasn’t half good enough for him! And Kevin a sweet decent boy would have cut off his right hand rather than give her an improper word. Kevin had loved her and she had loved Kevin and, oh, she hadn’t known it in time! She bowed herself back into the corner with her elbow on the windowsill, her old fur collar pulled up around her face and wept long and bitterly for Kevin, who would have stayed if she had said the word—and now he was gone and lost and dead. She would hide herself from the world and never speak to a soul again.

  “Safe and sound she is, Dennis,” Rosaleen told him. “She’s been dangerous but it’s past. I left her in health.”

  “That’s good enough,” said Dennis, without enthusiasm. He took off his cap with the ear flaps and ran his fingers through his downy white hair and put the cap on again and stood waiting to hear the wonders of the trip; but Rosaleen had no tales to tell and was full of homecoming.

  “This kitchen is a disgrace,” she said, putting things to rights. “But not for all the world would I live in the city, Dennis. It’s a wild heartless place, full of criminals in every direction as far as the eye can reach. I was scared for my life the whole time. Light the lamp, will you?”

  The native boy sat warming his great feet in the oven, and his teeth were chattering with something more than cold. He burst out: “I seed sumpin comin’ up the road whiles ago. Black. Fust it went on all fours like a dawg and then it riz upon and walked longside of me on its hind legs. I was scairt, I was. I said Shoo! at it, and it went out, like a lamp.”

  “Maybe it was a dog,” said Dennis.

  “’Twarn’t a dawg, neither,” said the boy.

  “Maybe ’twas a cat rising up to climb a fence,” said Rosaleen.

  “’Twarn’t a cat, neither,” said the boy. “’Twarn’t nothin’ I ever seed afore, nor you, neither.”

  “Never you mind about that,” said Rosaleen. “I have seen it and many times, when I was a girl in Ireland. It’s famous there, the way it come in a black lump and rolls along the path before you, but if you call on the Holy Name and make the sign of the Cross, it flees away. Eat your supper now, and sleep here the night; ye can’t go out by your lone and the Evil waiting for ye.”

  She bedded him down in Kevin’s room, and kept Dennis awake all hours telling him about the ghosts she’d seen in Sligo. The trip to Boston seemed to have gone out of her mind entirely.

  In the morning, the boy’s starveling black dog rose up at the opened kitchen door and stared sorrowfully at his master. The cats streamed out in a body, and silently, intently they chased him far up the road. The boy stood on the doorstep and began to tremble again. “The old woman told me to git back fer supper,” he said blankly. “Howma ever gointa git back fer supper now? The ole man’ll skin me alive.”

  Rosaleen wrapped her green wool shawl around her head and shoulders. “I’ll go along with ye and tell what happened,” she said. “They’ll never harm ye when they know the straight of it.” For he was shaking with fright until his knees buckled under him. “He’s away in his mind,” she thought, with pity. “Why can’t they see it and let him be in peace?”

  The steady slope of the lane ran on for nearly a mile, then turned into a bumpy trail leading to a forlorn house with broken-down steps and a litter of rubbish around them. The boy hung back more and more, and stopped short when the haggard, long-toothed woman in the gray dress came out carrying a stick of stove wood. The woman stopped short too, when she recognized Rosaleen, and a sly cold look came on her face.

  “Good day,” said Rosaleen. “Your boy saw a ghost in the road last night, and I didn’t have the heart to send him out in the darkness. He slept safe in my house.”

  The woman gave a sharp dry bark, like a fox. “Ghosts!” she said. “From all I hear, there’s more than ghosts around your house nights, Missis O’Toole.” She wagged her head and her faded tan hair flew in strings. “A pretty specimen you are, Missis O’Toole, with your old husband and the young boys in your house and the travelling salesmen and the drunkards lol
ling on your doorstep all hours—”

  “Hold your tongue before your lad here,” said Rosaleen, the back of her neck beginning to crinkle. She was so taken by surprise she couldn’t find a ready answer, but stood in her tracks listening.

  “A pretty sight you are, Missis O’Toole,” said the woman, raising her thin voice somewhat, but speaking with deadly cold slowness. “With your trips away from your husband and your loud colored dresses and your dyed hair—”

  “May God strike you dead,” said Rosaleen, raising her own voice suddenly. “If you say that of my hair! And for the rest may your evil tongue rot in your head with your teeth! I’ll not waste words on ye! Here’s your poor lad and may God pity him in your house, a blight on it! And if my own house is burnt over my head I’ll know who did it!” She turned away and whirled back to call out, “May ye be ten years dying!”