Aberration of Starlight

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The mandolin learned as a boy. Deep pear of its body, rich and lustrous brown. Mother-of-pearl discs set between the frets. You’ve Been a Good Old Wagon, But You’ve Done Broke Down. On the stoop in the twilight after supper, picking out songs. Clear tenor voice. Hello! Ma Baby. Elegant white piping on his vests, boaters with black silk bands, spectators. In old Brooklyn, the farms and fields. Bridget dressed like a Gibson girl the first time he saw her. Heavy and solid bosom in a starched white blouse and perfect ankles in taut black silk. His twin brother Bill the ne’er-do-well in derbies pulled low. over his right eye. Buttered his thick blond hair before he washed it. And the smell of whiskey on his breath. It’s the hair that gets the janes, kid. And a little chee-arm.

She sat on the railing at Sheepshead Bay. There is a photograph to prove that her smile still had something of love in it. Celibate at that point for the past four years. The night of Francis Caffrey’s wedding to that bucktoothed girl from Greenpoint, Agnes Kenny. He made her pregnant again and the child died. It was his fault, like an animal. Four years of smiling into cameras. Theresa dead of diphtheria, something the old bastard Drescher figured right. The judgment of God on his lust and Bridget carried out the sentence, oh Christ did she carry it out. Could she have known that Jimmy Mulvaney’s seven-teen-year-old sister made him crazy dancing with him? Softly straddling his right thigh each time they turned so that he could feel her young hot sex burning into him. Bill at the punch bowl smiling across the dancers at him. He mouthed Whoopee! Oh, Bill knew, the son of a bitch. Then pointedly danced with Bridget. The son of a bitch. Winked at him.

Had no heart for it so put the mandolin in the closet with the three sticks his father had owned, beautiful shillelaghs, blackthorn and ash, the handles rubbed smooth and almost ebony. Marie asked and asked him to play some songs until one evening he took the mandolin out and found that two of its strings had snapped.

His family Dublin Episcopalians originally from Londonderry. They thought he had married beneath him for Bridget’s people came from County Clare. That’s where the gawms live, his father had said. Bog-trotters. But he was charmed nevertheless by Bridget. Tried to stifle his sense of superiority after marriage but could not think of her family, the Caffreys and Kennys, as anything but bog-trotters. Whiskey drinkers who fought and cursed and trembled before Catholicism. And they thought of him as a Protestant unfortunate, mild, weak, a man who worked, bejayzus, in a poor bloody office. And what was the matter with the Police? She became enraged when he called them, however lightly, shanty Irish. Oh but she cut him down to size all right. That she did. He brought home the bacon and she gave him a daily allowance. Subway fare, ten cents. Pack of Camels, fifteen cents. Daily News, two cents. Lunch, thirty-five cents. The rest went into the bank. How slowly and completely they both turned into misers. Finally, taking the neighbors’ day-old newspapers off the dumbwaiter no longer embarrassed him. The Mirror, the Sun, the Journal-American. One day he looked across the room at her and saw a sloven. She was forty-eight. By God, she was shanty Irish. And was he any better? No wonder Marie married a guinea. Something to break the spell.

You need any help, kid, send me a wire, Bill said. The wedding breakfast was over and his bride had gone upstairs to change. He blushed. Her shyness drove him crazy on their wedding night. Jesus Christ. He didn’t even know how to do it. Couldn’t put it in her. Bridget wouldn’t touch him but lay stiff, her face burning. Dear little girl, dear little girl. Repeated over and over as he strained and pushed. Sweet Christ! Are they supposed to be so small? What would Bill do? He almost did it but messed all over her thighs and the sheets. Fell out, really, like some smutty joke. But Bridget was sobbing. You shouldn’t, you shouldn’t, you shouldn’t have married me. He kissed her eyes. Her mouth. Do you want to get up and wash? No. Again? John, again? She touched him with her thumb and forefinger. I’m your wife. Her voice was so soft, girlish. Angelic, was the word he thought of. And girlish, indeed. Jesus, she was more ignorant than he was. I have to wait, wait a while first, he said. You do? Girlish, my God, yes.

She used, oh God, how she used that girlish voice falsely, later when there was nothing at all but those goddamn newspapers smelling of garbage. To charm anyone, Tony especially. And of course, on the phone, not that they had a phone. Won every battle and one day he looked in the mirror and saw himself old. That night went through his dresser drawer to find himself, ha! In bits and pieces. Fragments. Of crap. Silver penknife, clay pipes from old-fashioned Irish wakes, one from that idiot, Mark Caffrey’s, shanty son of a bitch, even dead he looked drunk. And the other clays with the green satin bows on them, Erin Go Bragh, yes, and kiss my arse! The rusted knife with the point broken off that she used for paring her corns till he couldn’t stand the sight of it and hid it here. Bejesus Christ, you’d think a million dollars was lost the way she carried on. Tangles of string and cord, clam shells. Matchbooks and stirring rods from dozens of road-houses and taverns, coasters and napkins. Where in the hell did the one with the pink elephant come from? Dizzy-looking article floating amid glassy bubbles. COCKTAILS is all it said. And on the closet shelf hats and horns from New Year’s eves, a flowered pitcher and six matching glasses from the Electra and its rotten movies, tarnished watch chain and a broken old turnip in an envelope — that had been Bill’s. Inside the case was engraved Excelsior. Whatever the hell that was all about. His mandolin, the shillelaghs, a green paper derby. That had been Bill’s too, wore it the last St. Paddy’s Day he’d been alive. The luck of the Irish, kid! Come on, have a ball with me! One goddamn ball won’t hurt you! Right, Bridget? But there was no smile or girlish voice for Bill.

In the Methodist Hospital he looked up at him, eyes dull in that curiously flushed skeletal face. Bill, he said, and took his hand. I’m on my way, kiddo. I’ll give everybody your regards, especially good old Mark. He died right in the middle of his soundless laugh. Then he had to listen to Bridget tell everyone about how the whiskey will do it to you until he came as close to killing her … well, not killing her, but my God! Gave it the old girly-girly voice then, too. How he had grown to despise it. It was soon after that he began to hide a pint of Wilson’s under his shirts. Just a whisper, a hint of that phony voice and he could feel his throat begging for a swallow of that rotgut. It was intolerable precisely because it was such a perfectly monstrous imitation of the voice she’d really had. I’m your wife. Her small fingers wrapped around his penis, pulling it and squeezing it until he was ready. Again? Now, John? Sometimes, years later, he could feel her hand, feel just how it had been. Yeah? Have a cigar! What bullshit.

When did he stop singing? He hadn’t been bad at all, at all. Sweet Adeline, Genevieve, Home Sweet Home. When You Were Sweet Sixteen. Old man Kahn used to come out of the butcher shop with that one, his walrus moustache and his few little hairs swirled around on his head and plastered down with hair tonic. The old Dutchman loved that song. Mister Johnson, Turn Me Loose, Bill Bailey, Some of These Days — he did a nice thing on the break, could still do it if he wanted to, hell. What else, oh Jesus H. Christ, he knew a lot of songs. Play That Barber Shop Chord, right! Waiting for the Robert E. Lee, Alexander’s Ragtime Band, My Melancholy Baby, Ballin’ the Jack, I Ain’t Got Nobody, Pretty Baby — dozens more, dozens. All those old vaudeville songs that he got by ear. Sitting on a kitchen chair, his boater over one eye like Bill, picking away in his shirtsleeves.

You put it in nice and slow, kiddo, take it from the man who knows. Bill leaned close to him and winked, then threw his whiskey down and sighed, took a sip of beer. Nice and slow and easy on the girl, don’t be in a big hurry, me bucko. Then when you hear a loud pop you know you’re on your way. He looked at Bill, his eyes wide and his mouth half open. Ah, nah, nah! Bill said, don’t pay me any heed! There’s no pop, bejesus Christ — can’t your own brother have a little fun with you? But I’m on the level with that slow and easy stuff, take it from the man who was there, from the man who knows. Christ knows, she didn’t know. While she was taking a bath their first night in a hotel he opened her drawer and kissed her chemises and drawers and silk stockings. When she came out of the bathroom her dark coppery hair was loose, falling over her shoulders and back. Under her white wedding peignoir the collar of her nightgown showed, white too, and embroidered with pale-pink roses. She blushed and looked away. He could see her heavy breasts shift as she smoothed the night clothes over her hips. Are you warm enough, John? I think it’s a little chilly in here?

I’ve never been good enough for you, have I, Mr. High Mucky-Muck? Mr. Church of Ireland? Too much of a gentleman to be a man, a patch on a man’s ass is all you are. Why God in His goodness knows you weren’t but half a man on our wedding night! And you needn’t gape at me. Go out and get another pint of beer, for God’s sake! Ah, that got her back up — that she couldn’t drive him to the whiskey but for a ball or two now and again. How she wanted to turn him into another Mick drunkard, but it wouldn’t work. Walked around the house all day in her torn housecoats and broken shoes, the soles flapping, her stockings full of runs and twisted into knots below her knees. And he’d come into that, still impeccable in his starched white shirts and creased trousers, his heart dull and empty as he heard her: Wipe your feet! You’re late! Talking to one of those cheap painted chippies in the office again? I wouldn’t put anything past you! Later she’d sit across from him, cracking pretzels on her bottom front teeth and swilling her beer, lost in radio dramas, her feet planted on the floor, legs spread, so that he could look up to her naked crotch. God forbid she should put on drawers in the house and wear them out! It was disgusting. During the commercials she’d talk about how some old biddy neighbor of Aunt Lizzie or somebody had seen that bum of a brother of his fall in the gutter outside of Fritz’s Tavern, the puke, by God, all crusted on his shirt front. Something, something about Bill. Or maybe about that “tramp” Whiting in the office. Oh, you had your eye on her, didn’t you, you goddamn old fool? Jesus Christ almighty, Bridget! Don’t be using God’s name in vain with me, Mr. Big-Shot. And don’t deny for a minute that for six months here there wasn’t a conversation that the name of that tramp didn’t come out of your mouth a dozen times. Miss Whiting this, Miss Whiting that, Miss Whiting the other thing. And no wonder, the tramp probably wears her skirts up to here and takes good care that you see plenty of her when she crosses her legs.

Odd and sketchy fantasies about Jean Whiting. But he was no fool. Not yet. The girl could have been his daughter, she was younger than Marie. The night that Bridget had humiliated him in front of that goddamn flatfoot Jimmy Kenny and his common-law moron of a wife, Helen what’s her name. Mentioned once, once, by Christ, to Bridget that she was a great help in the office to all the credit men in his section, a nice bright girl. Oh Jimmy, did John mention to you that he’s gone ga-ga over some little chippy in the office? Why, you should see him, am I right, John? He goes to work every morning dressed up like Astor’s pet horse, oh, fit to kill! And then that fat cop’s laugh, the phlegm catching and tearing in his throat until he spit his filthy oyster into a grey handkerchief. And what did he say? The great strong hero, the lord of the manor, Caspar Milquetoast? Ha ha ha— she’s a dizzy jane, cheap and pimples all over her face, God bless the mark. And you should smell the Woolworth’s poi-fee-yume off her, my God, she’s like a nigger on Christmas. We all feel sorry for her. He felt sick and drank off two more ginger-ale highballs as fast as Jimmy made them. But that licking of the floor, the dirt, kissing her ass, wasn’t enough. Bridget squeezed the blood out and when it was gone she kept on squeezing. Insisted that he better his insults until Jean became their jointly invented monstrosity, their freak. And Jean moved then, even more strongly, in his fantasies.

But what would he ever have had to say to her? Her sweet face and mouth, her red hair? God, I hate a redheaded woman, Bridget said. And so proved that he had once, in innocence, told her the color of her hair. Everything was a weapon to maim and hurt. When would he learn anything in this terrible life? Could be her father, my God, younger than Marie. Well, Miss Whiting, Jean, I’m so glad that you could have lunch with me — I hope you don’t mind eating at the good old Exchange Buffet, the Eat It and Beat It? Ha ha. Oh, she’d be a good sport. Her bright head across the table and other men looking at him enviously. I’m going to leave my wife because she forced me to insult you in front of a stupid ox of a gawm named Jimmy Kenny, a stupid gawm of a policeman. Then what? Now, Jean, take me somewhere, take me away, show me what to do, show me how to sin, do you want me to “keep” you? I’ve never ever seen a woman naked, do you know that? Oh my God! Not even when I was young, not even my wife, ever ever ever. It’s true! Oh God! Now, my brother Bill, there was a ladies’ man. A little bay rum, kid, a few Sen-Sen, get the old nails buffed and, oho! you win the cigar! The janes fall down and woiship.

And when Marie and the boy came, beaten and broke, she became more of a sloven than ever. Stopped cooking, tied her hair up in old rags, ordered the girl around like she was a servant. Another Katie, another poor Katie in the house. Took it all and worked like a slave and he never once opened his mouth. And where would you be without your mother and father to take you in and put a roof over your head? Stink of garbage from the rattled Mirror. You see how much that dago greaseball of a husband thinks of you, him and his redheaded slut! Bud Halloran was doing it to her, the son of a bitch. He wasn’t much younger than he was! When she’d stoop to open a bottom file drawer he watched how her skirt molded to the shape of her sweet thighs. My sweet Jesus Christ. No, he couldn’t be doing it to her, she was too sweet, too fine, too clean. A virgin for sure. Too fine. Oh Christ, I hope he isn’t doing it to her!

Then started buying two quarts of Wilson’s a week. He’d drink in the closet, the bathroom, guzzle some when she went out of the room. A kind of peace dropped on him into which came her first complaints, then her illness proper. The old slob Drescher with his “anemia.” He drank his Wilson’s and still went out for his pint in the evening, but now he and Marie drank it, while she whined and complained from the bedroom that they were glad to be rid of her now that she was too sick to get out of bed. And he couldn’t look across at his daughter because he knew that they would find in each other’s eyes the truth of her complaint. How quickly she died after being admitted to the hospital. A serious relapse, old Drescher, the horse doctor, said. Right, sure, they call it leukemia. Goddamn horse’s ass! Jean Whiting came to the wake with Bud Halloran and some other people from the office. And she sent a mass card. Back, he was back at work in a week and felt nothing. He looked at Jean’s thighs and bottom and felt ashamed of himself. His lust for her had helped to kill Bridget.

He tried to talk to Marie one night, a couple of weeks after Bridget was in her grave, about how much he had tried, you know, tried, with Bridget, and then he began to cry and as she came over and sat by him while Billy stood unhappily looking on, he murmured, over and over again, oh Bridget, oh Bridget, God forgive me, oh Bridget. As Marie rubbed his back and sniffled and told him that she would take care of him now and that everything would be fine, he knew that he was crying for himself and for that lost alien girl who now, suddenly, appeared in perfect clarity to his memory in a starched white blouse. Her full bosom. Her thick coppery hair. Her slender ankles in taut black silk. We’ll make a family, Poppa, you’ll see, a real family. Oh Skip, Skip. He reached out for Billy and then hugged him tight around the waist, his other arm around Marie’s shoulders. A real family, he said.