St. Patrick's Day 1959

I wake up to the loud music from the records with the thumping, skipping sound in them, Mother’s favorite old Irish records. It’s St. Patrick’s Day and I am off from school because our Monsignor is Irish and he declares it a holiday. Next year I will probably march in the big parade up Fifth Avenue in the city.  I play the fife in the school band, but I’m new and Mr. Callahan says I’m not ready yet.  Mother is already excited about me being in the parade next year.  She says she’ll see me on television, she can’t wait. Every year she watches the parade from start to finish. She has to get everything ready so she can sit down to watch it, and only run out to the kitchen on commercials. It starts at 11 o clock.  I lie in bed under the green bedspread, listening to  'It’s a Long Way to Tipperary'; 'I Had a Hat when I Came in', and 'Harrigan'. 

I start singing to myself as I get up to go into the kitchen, where Mother is just finishing the Irish soda bread and forming it into two round loaves, patting it with her hands. “Good Morning Glory!” She says happily.  She brushes the loaves with milk, then says "put the small chunks of butter on top of the loaves, that makes them crusty on the outside."  Into the oven they go. A few raisins have fallen out of the dough and lay on the pan. Flour and sticky dough lay in clumps on the enamel table, next to the box of raisins, bowls and spoons.  Mother’s hair is done up in pin curls, flat spirals around the top and the sides, held with silver clips. I’ve watched her make them. She concentrates very hard, getting the curl just right.

Next she sets up the dining room table, getting the leaf out of the hall closet, and laying the table pads on top.  The thick pads are kept under her bed.  Daddy keeps shoes under his bed.  All the while she sings along to every scratchy record stacked on the record player.  Then she puts the white tablecloth on, and sets the silverware out, with the cloth napkins beside them.  The good china with the pink flowers comes out of the drawers in the credenza. Everything for the holidays is in the dining room, and the record player is there too.  Today is a big celebration, and of course Uncle John will be coming. So, at his place at the head of the table (Daddy sits at the other end) she puts the silver ring on the napkin.  The silver ring has his initials on it, JFH.  She gave it to him a few years ago on his birthday.  But he didn’t take it home to the rectory with him.  It stays here for when he is here to eat.  Uncle John comes around noon on special occasions like this, wearing his black suit and roman collar. Tonight there will be corned beef and cabbage for dinner, with boiled potatoes and lots of mustard. The cabbage will have bits of bacon in it. The bright green cardboard Irish hats will be brought out. The tall top hat is for Uncle John and the round shiny green one for mother.  Daddy never wears an Irish hat. 

Later this afternoon, after she changes out of her housedress, Mother will go out to the bakery around the corner, where she’ll get the special cake, chocolate with the little green paper flag on top and green frosting swirling around the edges. Mother loves to have a special cake for every occasion.  Last month, we had two special cakes; one that looked like a log cabin for Lincoln’s birthday and the mocha cake with the cherries on top and the little hatchet, for George Washington’s birthday.

Special beer glasses, tall and shapely, will be set out for tonight and even I get to have some beer in my very own, little glass stein. I remember that it makes me burp and feel silly, just to feel grown up. Mother will get all “dolled up” later today, wearing her best green wool dress, with the wide belt.  She has earrings that are shaped like shamrocks with tiny emeralds and pearls, and a pin that matches. Her lipstick will be bright red, and nothing and nobody can shake her good mood today. She seems alive with electricity.

Later that night at dinner…
Uncle John finishes cleaning up his plate and declares “That was a grand feast, Margaret, thank you”. Mother smiles and nods, pleased. He wipes his mouth firmly, puts his napkin down and says “I have a story for you girls.”  His face is reddish and his eyes seem bluer.  Lillian and I look at each other. Some of his stories make us laugh so hard.  Once, milk came out of Lillian's nose, and we were both so overcome, we had to cross our legs till we got into the bathroom. But sometimes the stories are very long, and we have to pay close attention, or Mother gives us the kick under the table and the raised eyebrow. Daddy picks up his glass to have more beer now and looks over at us. 

Uncle John says “A man goes into a pet shop in Ireland. He’s looking to buy a special pet that will be a good companion. ”What’s the man’s name?” I ask.  Mother gives me the raised eyebrow and the glare, but Uncle John says quickly “Mr. Gilhooley, now listen, don’t interrupt.” Daddy lights up a cigarette, looks around for an ashtray. “The pet shop salesman sells the man a beautiful little green and orange bird that he calls a Rarey.  "It might talk to you, but be patient, it will take time."  "Mr. Gilhooley", he says in my direction, takes the bird home and he does turn out to be a good companion, but he doesn’t talk.  The man is patient. He feeds and talks to the bird, but as weeks go by, the bird keeps growing and growing…and growing.  The man has to keep buying a larger cage.  After the third cage, Mr. Gilhooley starts to worry.  He is spending more and more money to feed the bird, and he keeps outgrowing his cages. Finally, he talks to the bird and he tells him, “I’m sorry, truly I am, little friend, but I just can’t keep you anymore. I can’t afford to feed you.  He goes back to the pet store, but the owner won’t take him back. So, what is the man to do? 

One morning he puts the bird into his wheelbarrow, and he starts out on the path to the sea.  The bird looks at the man in a puzzled way. “Don’t you be looking at me like that,” Gilhooley said, “I have no choice”.  He goes to the edge of the cliff, high above the Irish Sea, and he begins to tip the barrow, getting ready to dump the bird below. 
The bird leans out to look waaaay down, then out at the sea, then turns to look mournfully  at Mr. Gilhooley and says very clearly “It’s a long, long way to Tip a Rarey! 

Mother lets out a large ahhhhhh kind of screeching scream, which is how she starts a big laugh, and then  slaps the table as she continues to laugh, holding her napkin up to her mouth. Uncle John is laughing the most.  His eyes water and he has to wipe them. His shoulders shake up and down.  Daddy puts out his cigarette and lights another and smiles over at me.  Lillian and I have a good laugh too, but not as big as Mother and Uncle John, who are winding down now and heaving big sighs like you do after a big laugh. 

And then I feel kinda bad for the Rarey, so I start asking questions. “Could the Rarey swim? Was the man sad? Why couldn’t he just find someplace else for the Rarey to go?” While they are still wiping their eyes, and not answering me, Daddy looks at me and says “It’s just a joke Toots, don’t worry about the Rarey. It’s just a story.” 

Northern Light

Her day was filled with non-stop non interlocking images.  There was the rabbit in the kitchen, the very small boy sitting at the table with the laptop; his little legs straight out in front of him; how old could he be, maybe 5?  Lunch conversation had circled from the lovely almost spring like day which had everyone exclaiming – have you been outside?  And then walking around with no coats on at all, even though March, as we know it is the most unpredictable month.  And so from daylight savings to a comment about living in a tent in Norway several years ago and how the northern light drove her crazy, and then it spiraled downhill fast to suicidal statistic in the suicide belt and then farmers with guns and bad health and depression and then the agricultural amputations in the machinery.  No! No!

Isn’t it bad enough that at some lunches she listened to stories about birthing a horse and how it just “plopped” into one's lap or about hogs copulating, or fishers being so vicious or the hen that lays eggs in the house beyond an eight foot snow embankment and now the eggs will be there for who knows how long?

And in between the deadlines, the conversations heard from cube to cube, the violent sneezing fits, the crouping coughs, the limping, the lamenting, the beautiful sad dog with the blue eyes and the gimping leg who gets walked every hour but doesn’t pee, the girl who brought chili to work because her father and stepmother defrosted it ( it had been made from the garden last summer) but they decided they didn’t want it so gave it to her, but it had kidney beans in it so she made chili and brought it in to share, and then the woman who just went to Cozumel, but had a bad airline experience and had to stay two days in Ft. Lauderdale waiting for a different flight, but still she brought in excellent dark Mexican chocolate to share.  And then there was a birthday but no one knew it, and she didn’t really look her age, the other women commented as they attempted to do knee bends against the wall just for the heck of it, but oh how their knees hurt getting up.  And of course then she had to be given a balloon, because after all, it was her birthday, but then someone accused someone else of withholding the birthday information, but that wasn’t fair –she didn’t know, and then there was all the crap about star wars and the mocking about caverns in pop culture.  And then the deadlines.  The newsletter, the annual report, the 4 panel brochure, the monthly state reporting, the post card print order with all the bleed line problems and the big red REJECT proof or the calm green one that said ACCEPT.  And indeed the weather was so balmy and wonderful to do the 15 minute loop around the plaza, but then someone was mocked for wearing the coat outside.  And the incessant phone ringing, and the freezing internet and the computer warnings, and the deadlines, and the inferences and the mocking….and 5 o’clock was so long in coming.

Shining Shoes

Comes a time
Morning rushing
through you like a freight train
You seek a newspaper
to polish shoes
like he did
On those rushed mornings
Headed for school

He'd look down

my feet ensconced in school scuffed
navy blue,
color of my life

Tersely, firm jaw working

Above a starched white collar
Take those off, they need a shine
Protesting was useless
I’m late, they’re Ok

Already, he’d be at the table

spreading a sheet of the Journal American
fishing out the small round can
from under the kitchen sink
Opening the folded rag, stained brown, and black and blue,
shiny and scented with the polish of a thousand
oxfords, loafers, wing tips.

In stocking feet I wait as he diligently applies the paste,
rubs and rubs and rubs
Then brushes and brushes to his satisfaction.
Here, he hands them over
His voice softer with the tone of a job well done.
My cold feet slip quickly into leather buffed to a comfortable shine,
I feel the insides still warm from his hands.

 

 

The F Train

The conversation wandered aimlessly, like a litter of puppies on their first foray into the backyard.  Their talk drifted from the 1945 nuclear testing site at Alamogordo, NM, with its covert arrogance and disregard for the health of its residents, to last wills and testaments, wishes and future desires, if given the chance. The word cancer was not used. The word tumor was used carefully.

The dried yellow of runny poached eggs clung to the plate as the intent to travel was stated; a concept previously only allowed to others, like those with fatter wallets or self-indulgence. “Why go on a vacation? You just have to come home and work harder to catch up”, he liked to say. The Sunday morning’s breakfast table gleamed with the newly refinished top, and seemed to catch some water filled eyes, though tears did not fall.  There was finger tapping, and shifting in chairs, alternating with sitting so urgently still, that an ancestor’s whisper might well be able to intrude.

The wandering conversation drifted, curiously enough, to the world of Madison Avenue in the sixties, to the large, square, light filled office, veiled in the blue curling smoke of eight or more women.  Maybe the conversational sojourn was an engineering feat on his part, a nod to her to “take the floor”, amuse, reminisce, weave tales, and tell a story that could make them laugh.  They needed desperately to laugh.

In that large, square, light filled office, with windows looking down on the avenue, the nine-to-five women worked diligently at their desks, their ashtrays close at hand,  their manicured hands able to locate the pack of cigarettes and silver lighter without so much as a glance.  Most pored over large ledger books, adding up columns of figures, not looking at the keys of the bulky adding machine, their fingers flying over the keys, the paper tape rolling to the floor and beyond. Their dresses were crisp, stylish, their hair smooth and groomed.  

And then the conversation left the office, glided to the subway and the memorable ride of the battling sisters, that morning on the F train.  Of course, she’d told the story before, but he pretended he’d never heard it.  She suspected not so much diplomacy as the need for what he knew would be an increasingly animated story, and then the watering eyes could be blamed on the laughter.

So she told of that subway ride, the jam packed car, the man pressing up against her, and she, new to that experience staring pleadingly across several people to her older  sister who finally figured out was what was wrong and mouthed the words” we’re getting off at the next stop.”  They remained powerless, in their youth and manners and fear, to say anything, though their mother’s reminder about the well placed hat pain did cross both their minds.  They continued to hurtle through the tunnel, the speeding car and the darkness adding to the heightened sense of alarm, with people rocking to the rhythm, hanging onto the straps, their morning eyes glued to their Daily News Jumbles, or staring at the eye level posters of images of women with sparkling floors and men in tuxedos laughing and smoking slim cigarettes.  Finally the train came up from the underground, slowly sliding into the station, where a crowd of people waited on the platform to board.  As her sister pressed her way out the door, so did the man.  She stayed put, calling to her sister to get back on. “Never mind, its ok, he got off!”  Her sister’s face registered confusion, then panic.  She gave that furious clenched jaw look and made a dive for the door to get back on, but caught her shoe between the train and the platform.  With a final twist to free her shoe, she pressed into the car, but as she did, her one heel snapped off and fell down the space. 

The rest of the train ride was spent in silence, as they were still separated by layers of people, but when they got off at at Forty Second Street, her sister elevated furious to livid, and delivered a steady tirade of accusations as she step-hopped, up and down,  all the way along Fifth Avenue, on her way to get the shoe fixed. It was hard to keep a straight face, and to this day, the story cannot be told without a great deal of laughing, and tears running down cheeks.  Just like now, as they both have their first good laugh of the past few days. 

Betty's Sunnyside Cafe

                                                               
There’s a place up Saratoga way
tucked just north of the grey & pink houses
where east facing windows
look bleakly to the lake,
the shoreline sprinkled with the skiffs of summertime.

Drive past once white, long haired cows,

now the color of old men’s teeth,
lying contentedly in lumpy mud
on straw laced fields,
bovine reminders of yesterday’s farms.

Stumble on in to Betty’s

…Sunnyside Café
Crack a Molson, and sit warmly,
rest your bottle on the red vinyl tablecloth,
gingerbread men prancing gaily across

You may feel unwelcome at first

for the farmers’ backs on red leather stools
are solid and unyielding
behind a blue curtain of smoke at the bar
a stranger with a notebook is a foreign sight

But soon you’ll feel warm and safe at Betty’s

a fat black stove rocks slightly,
stuffed with snapping logs
as Betty serves up brewskies
then kicks open the back door behind her
to shuffle in a sliver of hard March air.

The walls are knotty pine,
thickly coated with the stink of beers
from sixty years or more,
a crooked canvas to a neon group of clocks
Budweiser, Miller, Schlitz, Beck

But the water doesn’t stink at Betty’s

like the miraculous springs of sulfur past
and blue linen towels unwind continuously in the
bathroom dispenser
and the walls whisper of pool hall hustlers and
farmers with a week’s pay from their grain.

A tractor wide man with big black suspenders
parks his John Deere outside
and a young farmer with a wedding band
approaches your table to quote Shakespeare
a twinkle in his eye born of boredom
and farmer's daydreams.
Just stumble on in to Betty’s
…Sunnyside Cafe

Gale and Bill and Elvis

They were friends of some friends who were themselves not really close friends, but, for a couple of years, we got together regularly and I tried to fit in.  They were all older than me, the two, sometimes three couples, all settled in large houses with teenagers, dining room sets with draperies and houseplants that had grown up with their kids. I was in the land of toddlers, potty training, chicken pox and five and dime shades on the windows.

There was usually really good food, prepared by Athena, who shared my then husband’s Yugoslavian heritage.  She was a lovely, petite woman with a pronounced accent and a delightful laugh who seemed to cringe at her husband’s mannerisms and crude jokes.  Gale and Bill were their closest friends and always present at the get-togethers.  I watched Gale closely.  She was a statuesque woman with large breasts, red hair, very white skin and a very shy way about her.  She was woman incarnate to me, a rather lanky twenty something with traces of bad skin, and no breasts to speak of, even after two kids. She and Bill had three teenagers who all seemed to be well-behaved, average kids.  Often I wondered how Gale really handled it all; she seemed so ill-equipped for motherhood, nonchalantly folding her arms under her large breasts and smiling widely as Billy (as she called him) told stories and drank beers, as his cheeks became pinker and his grin wider.    

Inevitably, after the veal marsala and the salads and the pastries, and the scotch and the beers and wine, everyone would settle into the deep plush brown couches, and begin casting glances at the guitar case that lay behind Bill.  “Oh c’mon Bill” they would start to cajole.  “Give us some tunes!”  Gale would smile shyly, her long wispy red bangs in front of big brown eyes, like venetian blinds.  “ Go ahead Billy, play for us” she would coax.  Well, Billy really didn’t need any coaxing.  In fact, he was pretty darned good and this was really the highlight of the evening for most everybody gathered.  Bill, in fact, was a sort of Glen Campbell  look alike, with a large round face, pale blond hair and a wide grin.  He liked to play Glen Campbell tunes too, and so he would begin.  And he wound his way through Wichita Lineman and Galveston, threw some Johnny Cash in too, and everybody was warming up.  But I was watching Gale, who, I knew, would soon start saying quietly  “C’mon Billy,  do it. Play it for me.”  And after a few more tunes, Billy would take pause, his blond stringy hair now hanging in his face and he a little bit sweaty, and he would strum loudly and throw his head back and start wailing  in the most spectacular Elvis tones “One Niiiighhtt with Youuuuuuuuu”   And Gale would blush and giggle and squirm and say “ Ohhhh, Billy……..!"  in the most erotic way. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mkx0BTSDGD8

 

 

The Lion Waits Tonight
Mixed Media January 2014