Aberration of Starlight

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What was John’s most treasured possession?

A letter from William X. Whitestone, the text of which follows:

Dear McGrath:

Bill Sutton has called to my attention your work on the Roseville Dress account. As you know, we have had no end of trouble here at National, in establishing the right line to take with Roseville and Ben Gelbstein. Dun & Bradstreet has been of some help, of course, Ed Murray in particular. But in looking over the careful file you have kept on the account in its business dealings with Textile over the years, as well as your notes and recommendations therein, it is clear that your attention to this difficult account has smoothed our path immeasurably.

You know, John, in what esteem I have always held your work as a credit investigator. This Roseville job reinforces my opinion of your skill and dedication to your accounts. Let me say that I and the National Credit Office as well as the entire credit business in New York is in your debt for this expert work.

My sincere good wishes,

Bill Whitestone

What were Bridget’s last words to John?

“The reason you come to the hospital every night is because you’re afraid what the goddamn neighbors will think, you can’t fool me.”

Name a few of the things that John came to loathe as he grew older.

The kitchen utensils; the metal clothes hamper outside the bath-

room door; the bathroom door that refused to close all the way; the insurance man, Mr. Levine; the laundryman, Phil, of Crescent Laundry; the dank and rusty-colored shower curtain; the broken Morris chair; head cheese and boiled potatoes; Woolworth’s sugar cookies; the artificial Christmas tree; boiled spareribs and cabbage; Bud Halloran; Bridget’s corsets; Billy’s crossed eye; Fibber McGee and Molly; turkey stuffing; rush hour on the Sea Beach Express; mandolin music; the Irish; Jimmy Kenny’s mouth; Mr. Svenson, the landlord; the front room in which he and Billy slept after Bridget’s death; any creche anywhere; the dining room table; the revealing clothing of young women; Dr. Drescher; all of Bridget’s relatives; the movies; all holidays.

What did he think of Bridget’s dream books?

He thought that they were foolish items for foolish people.

Did he ever consult them?

Once. He consulted What Your Dreams Mean, 1000 Dreams and Their Meanings, and Find Out What Your DREAMS Mean.

As to?

The meaning of the following dream: Jean Whiting is dressed in the clothing in which he first saw Bridget. Bridget is outside the door of their apartment, but the interior of the apartment is that of a cottage that he and Bridget once rented in the Rockaways. Bridget is playing his mandolin. She opens the door and, smiling, says, “She’s got a nice pussy, hasn’t she?” He turns to see Jean Whiting naked and has an orgasm. It might be noted that the dream books did not assist him in the interpretation of this dream.

What tradition did he keep with religious devotion?

On New Year’s Day, he visited all his surviving relatives to wish them the joy of the new year; at home, he made certain that he had on hand a supply of ladyfingers (bought at Ebinger’s Bakery) and a bottle of sherry with which to refresh any guests who dropped in to wish him and the family the joy of the new year.

What did Bridget think of this tradition?

That it was an Orange Church of Ireland affectation.

What did John think of Roman Catholicism?

That it was shanty Irish hocus-pocus to keep the thick Micks ignorant.

Speaking of shanty Irish, what were some of the opinions expressed by Bridget’s relatives at her wake?

That she looked wonderful; that she looked beautiful; that she looked better than she did alive; that she looked as pretty as she did when she was a girl; that she looked alive; that she looked as if she’d open her eyes and talk bejesus; that it was all for the best; that she was with God in heaven; that she had gone to a better place; that she was spared a lot of suffering going when she did; that she didn’t suffer at all thanks be to God; that she smiled like an angel after she took communion, the Father said; that Marie’s eyes were red as a beet from crying; that poor John looked as if he’d be next, worn out with grief as he was; that what John needed was a ball or two to buck him up, it never hurt any man; that Bridget was so young a woman; that the good always die young; that poor Marie was motherless too now; that the poor grandson didn’t know what to make of it all, God save the poor little cockeyed runt of a thing; that the prayer cards were bejesus works of art; that the undertaker’s eldest son was a sissy; that begod who could blame the boy growing up in an atmosphere like that; that the flowers were the most beautiful anybody had ever seen anywhere; that the casket must have cost a pretty penny; that the white Missal and white rosary that Bridget clasped in her hands were for certain the very same her mother God bless her gave her for her First Communion; that she was to be buried next to her mother in Holy Cross as was only right; that poor John, being an Orangeman, was now surely separated from her forever, saving of course in heaven if God was good.

When John mentioned favorably some neighbors, the Mertises, what were Bridget’s invariable remarks anent same? Anent the Huckles? the Svensons? the Astrups? the Phillipses? the Looneys? the Golds? the Finneys? the Finks? the O’Neills? the Loftuses?

The Mertises: One’s arse is fatter than the other. If they ever all got on a trolley at once they’d sink it right through the pavement.

The Huckles: The old man’s benny would fit Finn MacCool; the wife was a frightened bird, God bless her, she’s too homely to look in a mirror for fear of scaring herself to death; the son, Georgie, was a gawm, by God he was behind the door when they passed out the chins, God bless the mark.

The Svensons: The old Swede bastard can’t understand a word of English when you want a little steam heat but he’s a genius when the first of the month rolls around.

The Astrups: There must be a law against cracking a smile where they come from in Scandihoovia, the greenhorn riffraff.

The Phillipses: They last drew a sober breath when Napoleon was a cadet.

The Looneys: When the poor little stunted rat of a man stands on the street you could drive a coal truck between his knees; the oldest daughter Philomena is a respectable girl but it’s a misfortune that she looks like Ben Turpin.

The Golds: Pushy kikes. Do you see the cigar always stuck in the man’s mouth like some Jew shyster?

The Finneys: If Thelma Finney puts any more lipstick and rouge on that potato mug of hers they’ll take her for a stoplight. Ah well, you can’t blame the woman with Jack crawling home on his hands and knees every night from Flynn’s with the raving horrors.

The Finks: There’s more than meets the eye over there with His Nibs a master tool-and-die maker and sits on the porch all day reading his red newspapers and his wife scrubbing floors like a nigger.

The O’Neills: Not that I mean any disrespect to the church but with the pie faces those two children have stuck on them they’re good for a priest or a nun. For who would have them but God Himself? Mrs. O’Neill is holier than thou and well she should be as everyone knows that she drove her husband to drink and he died amidst a gang of bums and greaseballs in a charity ward in Kings County and nobody there to see the poor man draw his last breath.

The Loftuses: It’s because the father and mother are in their sixties at least that poor Jackie looks to be turning into a moron and well on the high road to being a morphodite.

What were some of John’s great disappointments in life?

The almost uncanny change that occurred in Bridget after the death of their second daughter. His decision not to go into the suggested partnership with William X. Whitestone. His failure to convince Bridget to allow him to see her in the nude. His son-in-law’s abandoning Marie for Margie, a quintessential shanty-Irish slut; it seemed somehow a horrifying judgment on his own life’s failure. His slow transformation into a miser.

How did he feel about his grandson?

Billy frightened and saddened him. In him he saw but another boy poised on the edge of life’s meaninglessness.

What misadventure befell John at Lake Hopatcong some ten years before Bridget’s death?

Walking down a wooden boat dock in the pitch dark, John stepped off its edge into six feet of water, much to the surprise, fright, and subsequent hilarity of Bridget, Marie, Tony, Ralph Sapurty, a certain Mr. and Mrs. Rydstrom of Bethpage, and Cornelius A. Ryan, an alcoholic attorney.

Detail some oddities springing from this mishap.

Later that night, after a hot bath and three ounces of the Christian Brothers brandy, John thought over this accidental plunge into the lake and felt suddenly young. He remembered a girl who lived across the street from him when he was a boy of thirteen or fourteen, remembered walking her to the bakery one Saturday afternoon in the fall and buying her hot chocolate in Otten’s ice-cream parlor, over which she told him that she wanted to be a nurse. It was at precisely this moment that he realized how magically lovely girls could be and he fell in love. Two months later, she and her mother and two sisters moved away after her father hanged himself in their backyard privy. Ten years after his marriage to Bridget, he mentioned this girl and discovered that Bridget had gone to school with her — had been, in fact, in her class — and that Bridget despised her for being a “dumb Polack who thought she was God’s gift to the world, oh yes, a regular little prima donna.”

Give John McGrath’s opinions on any and all movies.

“A bunch of horse’s asses.” “A bunch of goddamn fools.”

Give two conflicting reasons for the total apathy he felt toward the cinema.

His life and its problems were so present to him that he could not spare any of himself for the celluloid dramas of others. His life and its problems had worn him so thin that he found no parallels whatsoever in celluloid dramas.

What was the one truth in his life that he would not face?

That he had energetically conspired in his own defeat.

List a few of John’s memories of his brother Bill.

His Trilby hat. His silk foulards. The brilliance with which he danced the Peabody. His endless stock of dirty jokes. The odd fact that all his girl friends seemed to blush constantly. The lecherous eye he always cast on Bridget. His monumental capacity for whiskey. His hangover cure — two ounces of whiskey, an ounce of port, two or three dashes each of Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco, a slice of onion chopped fine, and a raw egg: “It builds up the red blood, my lad,” he’d say. His adoration of their mother and hatred of their father. The unearthly sweetness of his tenor voice before alcohol and cigars had wrecked it. The cornflower boutonnieres he wore on his summer suits. His amused tolerance of Bridget’s relatives: “One must be kind to the lame and the halt,” he’d say. The wry joke he made moments before his death. His long and womanly eyelashes.

What were, and had been, John’s feelings about Helga Schmidt?

Desire and lust, against which he fought.

Why did he fight against these feelings?

He fought against these feelings when Bridget was alive because Bridget was alive. He now fought against these feelings for far more subtle reasons: He asked himself that if he, at fifty-seven, could feel these sexual urges toward a woman of almost fifty, how then did Tom Thebus, a man in the prime of life, feel about Marie? The idea of Marie, involved in sexuality of any kind, troubled him more than he could understand. So he curiously reasoned that if he “really” didn’t feel anything toward Helga, Tom “really” didn’t feel anything toward Marie. An admission of the reality of his own lusts would allow the admission of the reality of Tom’s.

Had Bridget ever spoken to him of Helga Schmidt?

She had called her, in private, “Dutchie.” She seemed to like her and referred to her often as a “decent woman.” She regularly said that she had legs as strong as a horse. This latter image troubled and heated John, since he invariably thought of those legs wrapped around his back in coitus, in the position he had once seen a naked (but for stockings, shoes, and mask) woman in in a pornographic photograph Bud Halloran had shown around at the office.

What did Marie think of Helga Schmidt?

She was mildly hostile and openly contemptuous toward her. She poked fun at her accent, which she called “put on.” She often made references to her “setting her cap” for a good man.

How did John think of Marie’s attitude toward Helga?

He saw it as rude and self-serving. He thought that one, she wanted to marry him off to this Dutchwoman to get rid of him so that she could do whatever the goddamn hell she pleased; two, she wanted him married to this Dutchwoman so that he would be, if she proved right in her antipathy toward her, miserable for the rest of his life; three, she wanted to deny him any happiness he might possibly find with this Dutchwoman in his declining years by setting herself adamantly against any idea, however vague, of marriage. There was no way that he could reconcile these three theories.

What, essentially, was his deep, his irrational objection to Tom Thebus as suitor or friend to Marie?

His moustache was exactly the same as the one worn by the man in the already mentioned pornographic photograph. And if Tom was the man in the photograph, the masked woman was, of course, his own daughter.