Maggie Now

by Betty Smith

and the money."

  "Get off me property " bellowed Mike. "Get the hell out

  of me house! "

  "Stable," corrected Patsy.

  "You're sacked! No recommendation. Pack up your rags

  and get!,,

  Patsy didn't pack up and he didn't "get," because the

  next day he and Mary were married by a clerk in City

  Hall.

  .~-.~; CHAPTER TEN ~

  THEY came home directly from City Hall. The Missus

  wept because there hadn't been a big church wedding with

  a Nuptial Mass. But Mary seemed very happy. From time

  to time, she looked at the wedding ring on her finger and

  smiled at Patsy. Patrick Dennis swaggered with his hands

  in his pockets and grinned at his father-in-law. Biddy

  stood listening behind a half-closed door with her mouth

  hanging open in amazement.

  Mike Moriarity was the only one who didn't act normal.

  He acted as though he were thinking; as though he had

  been stricken ~ 56 1

  speechless. Ibis silence made his wife and daughter

  nervous.

  "Won't you wish me stick, Papa?" said Mary.

  "Let's see your papers," he said suddenly. Nervously but

  happily, she got her marriage certificate out of her reticule

  and gave it to him. He examined it. "Ha!" he said. "So you

  wasn't married by a priest?"

  "No."

  "There wasn't time," began Patsy.

  "And you came right home from City Hall?" asked Mike,

  ignoring Patsy.

  "Of course, Papa."

  "Good!" He gave an order to his wife. "Missus, get me

  hat and coat."

  "Now, Michael," she started to say.

  "Quiet! " he shouted.

  "I mean," said The Missus timidly, "couldn't we have a

  glass of wine first? All of us? Kind of celebrate?"

  "There'll be a celebration all right, later on," he said

  grimly. "But not what you think "

  "Where you going now?" asked The Missus. Then she

  said: "Excuse me for asking."

  "I'm going straight to Judge Cronin and get this

  marriage annulled."

  "You can't!" wailed The Missus.

  "Sure I can. Cronin owes me a favor."

  "I mean they're married good."

  "Oh, no, they ain't. Didn't you hear her say they came

  right back from (pity Hall without stopping anywheres?"

  "But . . ."

  "That means the marriage wasn't con . . . consa . . . It

  wasn't consumed!" he said triumphantly. He rushed out of

  the house.

  The Missus ran after him. "You can't, Michael," she

  panted as she caught up with him.

  "Don't you tell me what to do.''

  "But what will she do with the baby?" wailed The

  Missus. 'And she not married?"

  He stopped so suddenly that his Missus bumped into

  him. He grabbed her arm. "A hat baby?" he asked.

  "Mary's and his."

  t6- 1

 

  "How do you know?"

  "Biddy told me."

  "How does she know?"

  "She saw Mary up in his room. In her nightgown, Biddy

  said. And they was hugging and kissing . . ." The Missus

  blushed. ". . . and all. Biddy saw the whole thing."

  "Why'n't she tell me?"

  "Because she was afraid of Patrick. He said he'd kill her

  if she told. That's what she said to me anyways."

  Slowly he walked back to the house with The Missus

  jogging along beside him. Arriving home, he gave her his

  hat and coat to hang up, and, without a word to anyone,

  he went into his den and locked the door. Alone there, he

  put his head down on his desk and wept.

  He wept because all the plans he'd had for his daughter

  had come to nothing. When she was twenty, he had hoped

  she'd marry a young lawyer he knew who he thought had

  a wonderful future. But Mary had been too shy to

  encourage the young man. Now the young lawyer was

  Assistant District Attorney. Had a chance of being

  Governor someday. Moriarity had dreamed of saying, "Me

  son-in-law, the Governor . . ."

  As the years went by, he was convinced she'd never

  marry. Well, there were compensations in that, too. He

  could count on her to grow old devoted to him; to attend

  to his well-being if his wife died before him. T hat dream

  had gone now. And he wept for that.

  But fundamentally he wept because he knew his

  daughter vas sweet and good and honest. She was too

  good much too good for someone like Patrick Dennis

  Moore. That almost broke his

  heart.

  They ate supper together. It was a sad wedding feast. No

  one knew what to say and everyone was apprehensive of

  Biddy, who served them with poor grace, banging the

  dishes down and muttering to herself.

  After supper, they went upstairs to the parlor and sat in

  the chilly room. Mike sat in morose silence while Patsy

  and the two women tried to make conversation. The

  Missus asked Mary to play the piano. She requested "Over

  the Waves." Mary said her fingers were too stiff from the

  chill of the room. Then her father

  1 6~1

 

  broke his silence and asked her to play "Molly Malone."

  Because she wished to ingratiate herself with him, she

  played a chorus of the ballad, then closed the piano.

  They sat there. The evening wore on. The Missus dozed

  in her chair. Black shadows appeared under Mary's eyes.

  Patsy began yawning and got The Boss to yawning, too.

  No one wanted to be indelicate enough to suggest going

  to bed. Finally Patsy took charge of the situation. He got

  up, stretched his arms and yawned.

  "I'm going to bed," he said. "I'm that tired." He held out

  his hand to his wife. "Come, Ilary." EJalld in hand they

  went to the door.

  "Where are you taking her?? asked Mike.

  "To me room," said Patsy. "Over the stable."

  Mike stood up. "Me daughter wasn't raised to sleep in

  a stable," he said.

  "Neither was my husband," said llarv.

  "Michael," said The Missus timidly, "surely in this big

  house there is a room . . ."

  "We'll sleep in my room," said Mary. The two women

  stood silent, waiting for Mike's outburst. He said nothing.

  Patsy went to The Missus. "Good night, me sweet

  mother," he said. He kissed her cheek. The Missus

  beamed and gave him a fierce, loving hug.

  "Good night," he said to Mike and held out his hand.

  Mike ignored it.

  Mary kissed her mother, then went to her father, put

  her arms around his neck and rested her head on his

  chest.

  "Oh, Papa," she said, "I'm so happy. Please don't spoil

  it for me."

  Tenderly, he stroked his daughter's hair with one hand

  and held out his other hand to his son-in-law.

  "Be good to this good girl," he said to Mary's husband.

  Later, they were married by a priest. The Missus didn't

  want them to be married in the neighborhood parish. She

  said they were too well k
nown and people would think it

  was "funny" her daughter being married without a veil

  or bridesmaid or Nuptial Mass.

  They were married in the adjoining parish of Williamshurg

  b

  ~ 69 1

 

  Father Flynn, a priest newly come to the neighborhood.

  He was very nice to them.

  The marriage disrupted the household. Biddy announced

  it was beneath her to wait on an ex-servant even if he had

  married The Boss's daughter. She turned in her notice and

  they had to break in a new servant girl. And The Missus

  and Mary decided it was not becoming for a member of

  the family to be a stable boy. Patsy agreed with them.

  Mike had to get a new stable boy and Patsy was released

  from his menial and odorous chores.

  Mary lost her teaching job when she married. Married

  women were not permitted to teach in the public schools.

  Therefore, Mike had to support Patsy and Mary and pay

  a new stable boy in the bargain.

  Patsy hung around the house all day smoking his pipe of

  clay and picking out "Chopsticks" with two fingers on the

  piano. He was very loving to Mary and courtly to his

  mother-in-law. Both women worshiped him.

  The Missus bloomed under Patsy's attentions and she

  stopped scuttling for a while. }le called her "Mother,"

  which thrilled her. He stopped addressing Mike as "Sir."

  He called him "Hey, Boss!" which irritated Mike. Patsy got

  things out of Mike by using Mary's name. Mike referred

  to this process as "bleeding me white."

  "Hey, Boss, me wife s lys . . ."

  "You mean, me daughter says . . ."

  "Me wife says I need a new suit. Ile wife says I'm a

  disgrace to me fine father-in-law the way me backside is

  showing through me pants they is that worn out. And the

  way me bare feet is on the ground for want of soles on me

  brogans. So . . ."

  So Mike bought him new clothes. If Mary knew her

  husband was using her to get things from her father, she

  never said a word about it.

  "Me wife . . ."

  "Me daughter. . ."

  "Me wife says I'm getting to be a reglar mully-cuddle the

  way I sit in the house day :md night with only wimmen

  folks. 'Be like me father,' says me wife. 'Have the grand

  life like me dear father and he amongst the men all day.'

  "

  1~701

 

  "Me daughter don't talk that way."

  "Them was her words. '[Take a night off once a week,'

  she says 'and stand up to the bar with the boy-sis and have

  your schooner of cool beer. Or two."'

  So The Boss gave him a dollar once a week for a night

  on the town.

  One night, six months later, The Boss and his Missus

  were preparing for bed. She scuttled into the double brass

  bed and lay tight against the wall to displace as little space

  as possible. He sat down on the side of the bed to pull off

  his congress gaiter shoes. His weight made her bounce up

  and down once or twice. As usual he was complaining

  about his son-in-law.

  (During the day, about the house and also in public, she

  seemed frightened of him and he never spoke to her

  without shouting or without sarcasm. But at night, in the

  privacy of the room and bed they had shared for thirty

  years, they turned into congenial companions.)

  "Me patience is used up, IIOIINT'', he said. "Out he

  goes as soon as she has the baby.'

  "What baby, Micky? "

  "Mary's. And," he added grudgingly, "his'n."

  "Oh, they're not going to have a baby," she said brightly.

  "But you said. You told me that Biddy told you. She told

  you that she saw them two nights before they was married.

  And they was intimate."

  "Oh, Miclty, you know what a liar Biddy always was."

  He sat there aghast, holding a shoe in his hand. "So I've

  been thricked into this marriage! And that's how the

  durtee cuckoo got into me clean nest!"

  "Say your rosary and ~ ome to 'bed, Micky."

  "I got to find some way of getting him out of me house.

  But how? "

  'You could get him a job and give them a house to live

  in. That's how."

  "Hm. That's not a bad idear, Molly. I'll start thinking on

  it tomorrow." He got into bed. "Now where's me beads?"

  "Under your pillow lil;e always."

  A! 1

 

  Moriarity pulled wires and cut red tape and bribed and

  blackmailed and got his son-in-law a job with the

  Department of Sanitation. He was asked whether he

  wanted his son-in-law on garbage collecting. He was

  tempted to say yes, but he knew he couldn't push Patsy

  that far. So he got him a job as street cleaner.

  Then he gave his daughter and her husband a house of

  their very own to live in.

  Among Mike's holdings was a two-family frame house

  in Williamsburg on what was then known as Ewen Street.

  Fifteen years before, Mike had bought it for five hundred

  down and a first mortgage of three hundred and a loan of

  two hundred. This was in the years when property was still

  cheap.

  In those old days, the plumbing was an outhouse in the

  yard, people drew water from a community pump down

  the street, the lighting was from kerosene lamps and

  heating came from a cooking range in the kitchen and a

  "parlor" stove in the front room.

  Recently gaslight and water had been installed in the

  house. Mike had taken a small woodshed attached to the

  house and made it into a bathroom of sorts: a small tin

  tub boarded with wood and a toilet and wash bowl.

  Upstairs, a toilet had been put into a bedroom closet and

  a sink in the kitchen. Mike had paid off the

  two-hundred-dollar loan and then turned around and

  gotten a thousand-dollar mortgage on the "improved"

  house. The upstairs flat rented for fifteen a month and the

  downstairs for twenty. C)ne half or the other was usually

  without tenants. Mike made no attempt to pay off the

  thousand-dollar mortgage. He simply paid the interest and

  kept "renewing" the mortgage. The taxes were still low.

  Since he put no money into improvements, the rent was

  a decent little profit on his original five-hundreddollar

  investment.

  This visas the house he turned over to his daughter and

  her husband. He made a little speech when he turned over

  the deed ending up with: "'Tis your very own, now."

  The mortgage and the unrented upstairs apartment were

  their very own, too.

  Mary got a woman in for a day to help her scrub and

  clean up the house. She had two hundred dollars saved

  from her teaching job and Patsy had nearly a hundred.

  They had the rooms up

  [ 72 ]

 

  stairs and downstairs cheerfully papered and the

  woodwork painted. Mary was allowed to take the />
  bedroom furniture from her room at home and she and

  Patsy bought what additional furniture was needed. She

  made muslin curtains for the windows and set up her

  hand-painted china plates on the shelf that ran the length

  of the kitchen wall.

  She was able to rent the upstairs apartment soon after

  they had taken over the house. She made it very plain to

  Patsy that the rent was to be used entirely for taxes and

  mortgage interest and payments on the mortgage itself.

  Mary liked her little home but Patsy didn't like it one

  bit. To Mary, it was a great adventure creating a home

  of their own. Patsy liked the brownstone house on

  Bushwick Avenue much better. He liked that

  neighborhood and he had liked not working while living

  there with Mary. He hated his job. Nearly every evening,

  he visited his father-in-law and complained about every-

  thing. Now he referred to Mary as Moriarity's daughter

  rather than as his, Patsy's, wife.

  " 'Tis a disgrace that your only daughter has to live in

  that cellar with a winder in it that you name a home. 'Tis

  a shame that a high-toned woman like your daughter has

  a husband who has to shovel horse manure all day to

  support her."

  "Stop your bellyaching, me boy," said Moriarity. "Times

  is hard and men is out of work and banks is closing down.

  But let me tell you: I figured it out. The country is

  sound."

  "I read that too," said Patsy. "In last night's World."

  "They say there's a panic on," said Mike. "But what's

  that to a man fixed like you? You got a house to live in.

  Nobody can take that away from you. You got a city job.

  Can't be sacked. You get your pension when you retire.

  And your wife gets a pension when you die."

  "God forbid!" said Patsy. He waited but Mike didn't

  second the motion by an "amen" or by knocking on wood.

  "Say! Did me daughter take her money out of the bank

  like I told her?"

  "We took our money out. dies."

  "That's good because your bank closed this morning."

  "We only had eight dollars in it. She, I mean, we, paid

  the interest and some of the taxes just last week and eight

  dollars

  thy]

 

  was all was left. And you," asked Patsy shrewdly, "was you

  lucky enough to get all yours out before your bank closed

  up?"

  "That I did. And in plenty of time, too."

  "I bet it was more than eight dollars," suggested Patsy.

  Wouldn't you like to know, thought Mike. He said:

  "Well. it wasn't a forchune, but enough, enough. It's safe

  under me mattress now. If anything happens to me, God

  forbid . . ."

  He waited. Thought Patsy: He didn't say "amen" for me

  when 7 said, "die, God forbid." So I'm not going to say it for

  him.

  "Tell The Missus . . ." continued Mike.

  "You mean me new mother?" interrupted Patsy.

  You bastard, breathed Mike under his breath. "Well, just

  tell her that the money is in a old sock under the

  mattress."

  Stubbornly, Patsy went back to his complaining. "I still

  don't like to shovel manure panic or no panic; pension

  or no pension."

  "It won't be forever. Someday you will be superintent'

  and stand on the street in kid gloves making other men

  shovel manure. And sure, your house ain't no marble

  mansion...."

  "That can be said again," agreed Patsy.

  "But 'tis only temporary against the time when you and

  me daughter get everything I own; me big house and me

  carriage and fine horses and all of me money. And it

  might be sooner than you or me think. Me old ticker ain't

  acting so good." He pressed his hand to his heart.

  Patsy shivered because The Boss had not knocked wood

  when he spoke of his failing heart. Patsy had an impulse

  to knock wood for Moriarity. But he squelched it. Let the

  bastid knock his own wood, he decided.

  1-4 i

 

  ~ CHAPTER ELEVEN Hi'

  THE way things turned out, Patsy and Mary were never to