Бетти Смит: Maggie-Now

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder," he said.

Out of sight, out of mind, she thought. Will he come back? He always says he hates County Kilkenny. But an Irishman loves the land he came from. All the songs they love prove it. She ran over some of the songs in her mind.

"I'll take you home again, Kathleen." And, "Where my heart is, [161 I am going," and, "Ireland must be heaven for my mother came from there." And. .

"Lottie," he said, putting his hand on her head, and flattening her pompadour down to the rat. "Lottie, tell me not to go and I'll stay and not hold it against you."

There were nine of us girls, she thought, and times was hard. Annie died and Jeanie and Katie went in the convent.

Eileen and Martha went living out. Girly and Maudie and Wily got married. I was the last one left and getting nearly thirty. I never had a feller until I met Timmy. If it hadn't-a been for him, I'd be a old maid; old Aunt Lottie living with one of my married sisters; a servant girl without pay and bringing up her kids instead of my own.

And Timmy's good to?Ifama the five dollars he gives her every week. And I'm homely but he thinks I'm beautiful. He loves my cooking and I can't cook worth a nickel. I'm older than him and he goes and! says they made my birth certificate out wrong in City Hall that I'm too young for him! I got a beautiful home and I got Widdy from him.

Timrny will never let me want. No. I love this man. If he goes away and never comes back, I'll still be lucky because I already got a thousand times more then I would-a had if I

never got married to him.

"No, Timmy," she said. "You got to go. What kind a man are you anyway, when your mother needs you and all, to even think about not going?"

She knew he'd say he'd go only if she went along, so like a kind and thoughtful person she made things easy for him.

"I wish I could go with you, Timmy, but I can't. I can't take Widdy out of school."

"He could stay with your mother."

"There's the money. ."

"I could borrow on me insurance. . maybe.'' "Why do you always argue all the time? Go and go alone. And come back the same way. Hear?"

What have I ever done, he mused, to have all this luck? A

fine good wife like her! I don't deserve her a dope like me.

A tear ran down his face. He took the towel from her and wiped it away. He looked ashamed.

~ '7] "Gee! The wav you sweat!" she said tactfully-.

"Well, don't just stand there," he said. "Get the can and I'll get the beer and v.7e'11 eat."

Rory-Boy saw the stranger come in and his Irish intuition told him that the stranger was Maggie Rose's big brother come all the w ay from Brooklyn to beat the hell out of Patrick Dennis. He was too scared to warn Patsy.

He forgot the notes of "The Irish Washerwoman" as his fingers froze on his fiddle strings. His desperately sawing bow brought out a continuous one-note, high wail. Patsy thought the tune was ending and he went into the frenzied leap into the air where he usually clicked his heels together in a finale.

"Never have I le'ppe.l so hitrh! he called to his friend as he went up.

Indeed his leap was prodigious. He went up. . up without the volition of his legs and he stayed suspended in the air. For a second, he felt like an;mgel with wings, then he wondered what made his pants so tight. He found out.

Timothy (Big Red) Shawn had slipped out of the knot of men, and at the moment of Patsy's leap he had, like a trained acrobat, gotten a purchase on the seat of Patsy's pants and on the scruff of his neck and had given Patsv's leap a grand fillip. As Bertie, the Broomlllaker, who happened to be there, later wrote 1: /lY:1

in a letter for a gossiping cl ent: All corlviviality ceased and silence reigned.

Big Red held Patsy in the air and shook him as though he w ere a rag puppet. Big Red had rehearsed a speech coming over in the steerage. He had planned to give it as a prelude to a thrashing, but he forgot it entirely and had to ad-lib.

"You durtee, wee, little black'ard you!" he said loud for all to hear. "I'll learn youse to break the only heart of me only mother and. ." (Shake! Shake!) ". . scandalize the name of me baby sister. You jiggin' monkey! You durtee bog trotter, you!"

"What do you mean, bog trotter?" gasped Patsy, scared but insulted. "I never cut peat in all of me life."

Finally Big Red set him down and gave him one of those oldtime licking, When he had finished, he threw Patsy in the gen eral direction of the exit and dusted off his hands.

"And don't forget, fancy man," he said, "there's more where that come from."

Patrick Dennis backed out of the tavern. He wasn't taking any chances of being kicked in the behind.

Patsy's mother clucked over his bruises. He told her his bicycle had hit a rock and that he had been thrown into the brambles.

As often happens, those most concerned in an incident are the last to know of the motivating forces behind it. For instance all the village knew that the Widow Shawn had sent for her son, Big Red. Yes, all knew except Lizzie Moore and Patsy. An hour after the beating, all knew of Patsy's humiliation except his mother. Yes, Patsy was the last to know of Big Red's arrival and his mother was next to the last. Someone had told her just after Patsy had left for the tavern. It was news to her and she assumed it would be news to her son.

"Ah, the grand power of writing," she said, as she raved homemade salve on her eye apple's bruises. "Only half a shilling he charged to write the letter. Bertie, the Broommaker. And the words on the letter spoke out so clear that he was back in the shanty where he was born a month to the day when the letter left here. Timmy Shawn, I mean. Big Red they call him."

"Shawn? Shawn?" asked Patsy, beginning to understand.

1' I9 1 "The same. And a fine strapping man Brooklyn made of him. 'Tis said he's the head constable and his wages is a forchune."

"Tell me plain, Mother: Is it Maggie Rose's brother you tell of 2" "The same."

"And she sent for him to come-" "May God strike me flown dead! She did. 'Twas Nora O'Dell told me."

"I could nor see it ahead. I could not see it ahead,"

mourned Patsy "What, son?"

"The big rock in the road that chucked me off me wheel when I was coming home to you this night."

The next day, Sunday, a scared, chastened Patsy went to Mass with his mother. He saw his girl wedged in between her simpering mother and her burly brother. Patsy started to feel sick as he stared at Big Red's broad back.

Father Rowley came down from the altar and stepped to one side of it before the railing to make the routine announcements of the week. Patsy hardly listened to the rise and fall of the voice until, as in a nightmare from which there is no awakening, he heard the sound of his name.

". . weekly meeting of the girls' Sodality." The priest cleared his throat. "The banns of marriage are read for the first time between Margaret Rose Shawn and Patrick Dennis Moore. Your prayers are requested for the repose of the soul of. ."

Lizzie Moore gave a hoarse honk like a wild goose calling the flock in for a landing. There was a stir like a great sigh as the congregation turned to stare at Patsy and his mother. Big Red turned around and gave Patsy a grin of victory. His lips silently formed the words: There's more where that came from.

Patsy was caught and he knew it. Trapped, he moaned to himself. And by what thrickery did he get me name up for marrying and me the one should have the say of it? Caught!

Before two veeks is out I'll be married forever.

His mother wept foggily into the hem of her top petticoat. He kept it front me, she mourned. Me Iyin' 5071.

He went to the priest with the girl and gave himself up. And Big Timmy was sent for to give the girl away and she having no father to do so.