Читать книгу A New World - Robert M. Keane - Страница 5

The Meaghers lived on Brush Avenue in Riverdale, a neighborhood of tree-lined streets in the Northwest section of the Bronx. When the father and the son got home they walked up the path single-file to their two-story brick home. The father, walking ahead, was a tall, large-shouldered Irishman, still handsome at fifty-nine, with black hair and blue eyes. The son, nineteen, was very nearly a physical copy of the father, without the wrinkles around the eyes or the thickening at the waist.

Florence heard the door open, and stuck her head out of the kitchen. “Oh, you’re home.” She was Mr. Meagher’s daughter, the woman of the house, for the mother had been dead for nineteen years.

Mr. Meagher passed through the foyer into the living room, then the dining room, and then into the kitchen, where he opened an upper cabinet and took down a bottle of Old Overholt whiskey. Florence watched him pour out two ounces and drink it down. She was surprised. He almost never drank except at parties.

“Daddy, do you mind if we eat early?”

“Why so?”

“I have so much to do this afternoon.”

“It’s alright with me.”

The father, son and daughter sat down to the table in the dining room, a room dark even now in mid-afternoon in the month of May. Florence gave her brother James a series of orders. “There’s a big order at the A&P that has to be picked up. I shopped this morning but I didn’t bring it all. And the bathroom has to be done. And this week it has to be done right.”

James gave her a sour look. She was four years his senior, a big girl, heavy at the breasts and hips. She had the family blue eyes in a pretty face. “You always wait until he’s in the area before you issue commands,” Jim accused.

Her father cut her short. “We’ll say grace first.” He stood up. “Bless us, O Lord, for these and all thy gifts which we have received from thy bounty through Jesus Christ, our Lord” —he hit hard on the “Our” and “Lord”—“Amen.”

“—and the order has to be picked up tonight,” continued Florence.

James didn’t answer. The father also remained silent. Florence looked at them both. “What’s the matter?” James still didn’t answer.

“He came out to the brewery to me,” said the father, “to tell me he’s been thrown out of college.”

Her eyes went wide. “What?”

James said in a voice loud with exasperation, “I told you, Pop. I haven’t been thrown out of school. I’ve been suspended for two weeks. Two weeks.”

The father turned on him angrily. “Don’t you raise your voice at me, you pup. Whether it’s two weeks, or however long it is, they don’t want you.”

“A lot of guys get suspended. You don’t have to make such a big deal over it.”

“Big deal? Big deal is it? You talk as if it was an honor they gave you. Sure, maybe I’ve been mistaken. Maybe it was an honor they gave you, and me thinking you were in disgrace.”

James threw down his fork, pushed the chair back and started for the other room.

“Sit down there!” the father thundered, his arm pointing to the chair.

James stopped. “I don’t want to eat.”

“Sit down there.”

“I don’t feel like eating.”

“Sit down there! You’ll get up when we’re all finished.”

James sat down again.

“What happened?” Florence asked.

Mr. Meagher answered, “He’s been put down for theft.”

James answered, “I borrowed one of the reference books from the library.”

Mr. Meagher: “He stole it.”

James: “I brought it back already.” He turned to the father. “And it wasn’t stealing.”

“What does suspended mean?” Florence asked.

“It doesn’t mean anything really,” said James. “I don’t go to class for two weeks.”

“The priest wants to see me tomorrow,” said the father.

“What priest?” Florence asked.

“The dean,” said James. “Father Phelan.”

Florence started to cry.

“What are you crying for?” the father asked.

She wouldn’t reply. She covered her face and continued to sniffle.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She was still sniffling.

“Well, your bladder is very close to your eyes if you’re crying and there’s no reason.”

“Everything’s going wrong,” she wailed.

“How does it affect you?” the father asked.

“How does it affect me?” Her eyes were big. “Ralph is coming with his family tomorrow and everything’s in a mess. The house is a wreck. The food is still in the store. Nobody wants to do anything to help. And James is suspended from school. And now you won’t even be here tomorrow. The whole thing is going to be a. . .a. . .fiasco.”

“Won’t I be back for dinner?”

“Well, Ralph will hear about it. And his family will hear about it.”

“Why should they hear about it?” Mr. Meagher asked.

“Even if they don’t hear about it,” she continued, tears still flowing, “everything is going wrong. Aunt Nora wants to cook the turkey. I tried to tell her I don’t need her help, but she’s so bossy, you can’t tell her anything. And she cooks her turkeys so dry. She’ll just ruin it. I don’t see why Nora has to come tomorrow at all.”

“Don’t they have dinner with us every Sunday?” asked the father.

“Couldn’t they miss one?”

“Don’t they want to meet the boy and his family too? And why not? Your Aunt Nora has been good to you.”

“I’m sure Ralph’s mother and father will be delighted to meet Aunt Nora and Uncle Arthur,” she continued. “Especially if Arthur is high, which he will be, because he hasn’t come home yet this weekend. I hope he stays high, wherever he is, God forgive me.”

Mr. Meagher was exasperated. “If you don’t want Nora to do the cooking, then tell her you don’t want her to do the cooking.”

“You tell her that,” said Florence. “I can’t.”

“If she can cook every other Sunday,” said the father, “I see no reason why she can’t cook tomorrow.”

“Fine, fine,” said Florence in a strained voice, throwing out her hand dramatically, “we’ll let Aunt Nora do the cooking and Ralph and I and his mother and father will go out to a restaurant.”

Mr. Meagher smashed his fist down on the table so that the dishes jumped. “Will you stop talking horse shit.”

Florence pushed back her chair, stood up and walked out of the room. “Come back here,” the father roared. But the command went unheeded. She went up the stairs to her bedroom.

Mr. Meagher got up. “Goddammit,” he said, “a man can’t have a meal in peace.” He clumped out through the kitchen and out the back door of the house.

Jim was left alone at the table. He started to laugh.

Florence leaned over the banister. “Where’s he gone?” she asked.

“To Nora’s.”

“Oh hell,” said Florence. “She’ll get mad now. What are you laughing at, anyway? Sometimes I think you’re crazy.”

“The two dragons will have a fight in the backyard,” said Jim.

Mr. Meagher crossed the backyard to a neighboring house where the Connollys lived. He found Nora Connolly, his sister, peeling potatoes in the kitchen. The glistening white spuds were all around her. A stout, large-breasted woman, she had a round, freckled face with a pug nose stuck incongruously in the middle of it. Her cotton stockings were knotted in ugly lumps above her knees, and she was wearing an old green housecoat. She asked, “Harry, what are you all upset about?”

“Don’t cook tomorrow.” Realizing how loudly he had spoken, he softened his voice. “Florence wants to cook, so let her do the cooking.”

Nora pursed her lips and said, “What do I want to be doing the cooking for if she wants to do it? Tell her go right ahead. The best of luck to her.”

Mr. Meagher nodded his head, satisfied.

“She doesn’t know the first thing about cooking a turkey,” said Nora, cutting a half inch into the meat of the potato. “And I was thinking she wanted to make an impression on the young man and his family, but she thinks she knows it all, so the best of luck to her.”

“Good,” said Harry. “Where’s Arthur? He’s off again?”

“Old Nora will be good enough for every other Sunday. Indeed ’n’ I don’t feel a bit bad about it. It will be a pleasure to just sit down and eat. That is, if we’re welcome at all.”

“You’re welcome of course,” said Harry, annoyed.

“I could have made good brown gravy with giblets in it, and potato dressing, and—.”

“Enough of that. Where’s Arthur?”

“Who knows where he is? Wherever there’s a bum in town with a nickel in his pocket looking for a carousing, that’s where he is.”

“He hasn’t called?”

“He wouldn’t remember the number if he could reach the phone.”

“He’ll be in,” said Harry.

“He always makes it home,” said Nora. “Tis God’s blessing for me.”

“I have to finish my dinner,” said Harry.

He went back to his own dining room and sat to the table again. Thinking Florence was up in her room—she was out of sight, looking out the window in the living room—he yelled up to the second story, “I told Nora you’d be doing the cooking, and she says that’s all right. So that’s the end of it. We’ll have no more of it.”

Jim wanted to break out laughing at the incongruity of the father yelling upstairs to Florence when she was actually only eight feet away, but his father was in a dangerous mood, so he choked off the laugh. The two went on eating in silence. The father seemed to be lost in thought. At length he looked up and asked Jim, “Who is this Ralph?”

Jim couldn’t hold it anymore. He burst out laughing. Florence bolted into the dining room and cried “Daddy!” in a shocked voice. “You don’t even know who he is?”

“I thought you were in your room,” said Mr. Meagher, flustered.

Florence said, “You know who he is. He’s the lawyer. You told me one night that you liked him.”

“I know well enough who he is,” said the father.

Jim was laughing like a fool.

“What in hell are you laughing at?” the father demanded.

Jim challenged him. “What does Ralph look like?”

“Never mind what he looks like,” the father stormed.

Florence was near tears again. “We’ve been steady for almost four months. I thought you liked him, Daddy. You know who he is, don’t you?”

“Well, there’s a lot of them come in and out.”

Florence charged on. “He’s the one who’s the assistant district attorney. Remember you said that was a good job for a fellow who was starting in law?”

“Certainly I remember.”

“He talks about you all the time, Daddy. In fact, he wants to go out and see you at the brewery.”

Mr. Meagher had grown white in the face. But this time it wasn’t in anger. He pressed his hand against his midsection, and bent forward.

“Are you all right?” Florence asked.

He didn’t answer for a moment or two, then said, “Get me a glass of milk.”

Florence got the glass of milk. Mr. Meagher took it and got up from the table. He sat down in the living room and switched on the television. A wrestling match was on. He watched the program in silence. He still had his hand pressed against his stomach. His face was drained of blood.

Florence quietly cleared the dishes from the table.

“I’ll go for the groceries,” said Jim.

“Good,” said Florence. “Curley is minding them at the counter.”