Бетти Смит - Maggie-Now

"Tessie comes in the store last week," he said. "My, what a nice young lady she turned out to be. But all your children is nice, Annie."

"I think, yes. But then. I'm the mother."

"Even so. Now Jamesie: married to a nice girl with what they say, class."

"Shirley," Annie shrugged. Shirley was all right only Annie didn't think she was good enough for her son.

"And Albie." Mr. Van Clees raised his eyebrows and spread out his hands. Annie took this as a gesture of disparagement against her youngest.

"Albie is not worser as other boys like his age," she said.

"Did I say different? Then excuse me. But Tessie, now.

Too bad Gus don't live to see her grow up to be a lady."

There was a moment of silence our of love for a beloved husband and a beloved friend.

"Yes, Tessie, now," continued Van Clees. "Only yesterday a straight-up-and-down kill. And today, a woman with a built."

Annie tucked her pocketbook under her armpit to indicate that the visit was over. "I say to you, good day,"

she said.

"Did I say something?" he asked, worried.

"You did, then you know it. You don't know it, I don't tell you."

She walked away angry. She didn't think it becoming of Mr.

~,701 Van Clees, who had known Tessie from infancy, to notice and to comment on the fact that the infant had grown a bust.

That's what I get, she thought, talking all the time to everybody what listens.

Annie was upset about Van Clees's observation of Tessie. She was upset that Denny W.IS, as she presumed, after Tessie; that Tessie wanted Denny to be after her.

She trembled for Tessie's safety in a world suddenly filled with wolves.

There is things I should tell Tessie. Like my mother should-a told me. But she didn't know how to tell me and I

don't know how to tell Tessie. So l till her anyway because somebody must talk.

After supper, Amlie sent Albie off on an errand in order to Tell Tessie Things.

"Tessie, now you change to be a young lady. Young ladies what just stopped being girls, sometimes they get funny idears. Then a man looks on them and gets funny idears."

Here it comes, groaned Tessie inwardly. Mama's going to tell me about sex and it's going to be terrible for both of us.

Just because I want to go out with Denny, all of a sudden all eaten are awf ul.

"In the world," began Annie portentously, "there gives men and women And from men and women together, come babies."

"No kidding!" said Tessie.

"Get fresh with me," said Annie, "and I'll give it to you big like you are."

"I didn't mean to get fresh, Mama. But this makes me nervous; this all about where babies come from. I know all about it."

"Ha! "

"Listen, Mama. I know how you and Papa had us three children and how it happened that: Shirley and Jamesie are going to have a baby. A girl gets married, she's going to have a baby. That's all."

"Sometimes," said Annie darkly, "a girl could have a baby even if they ain't married."

"Not a decent girl, Mama."

"Them kind, too. A i~mercent girl she loves a nice-looking man and they go out dancing and they dance like they was stuck together like flypaper. After, they stand in the hallway where is dark and he says: 'You is beautiful like a queen with a crown on.'

t37i 1 And then. ."

Annie's face flamed red with embarrassment. She looked the other way.

"And then. . and then. . he kisses her on the neck where it tickles and the next thing, she's got a baby."

Tessie choked back a laugh. "Sit in the rocker, Mama."

Tessie faced her mother, her hands on the rocking-chair arms, and rocked her mother back and forth soothingly as she spoke. "Look, Mama, I appreciate it that you're trying to tell me. . things. But listen, Mama, I know. In high school the girls and me talked about such things and w hat one didn't know, the other one did. And one of the girls had a book that told all about it. So I know, Mama. And you don't have to knock yourself out telling me. Okay? "

"Ho-key. NONV stop rocking me. You want your mama should get a headache?"

". . and as far as I'm concerned, Denny, you're good enough for any girl. But Annie's worried…."

"Okay! Okay! Do I have to sign a paper? I felt sorry for the kid. Who'd give her a second look; I offered to take her to a movie. Tell your Annie for me that her kid's poison as far as I'm concerned." He threw himself out of the house.

Maggie-Now sighed and wished that Denny wouldn't, as always, give up so easily.

Each Sunday when Tessie came out of church, she walked slowly, expecting Denny to appear and fall into step with her. She gave up expecting that after three Sundays in a row.

Denny went out with other girls. Maggie-Now always knew when, because he made a derogatory remark about Tessie after each date with some other girl.

"That Tessie!" He mimicked her in a mincing way. "My goodness! I must ask my mama." That was one remark.

[372 ~ "All you got to do is say hello to that Tessie and she thinks she's engaged to you." Remarks like that.

He likes her, deduced Maggie-Now.

Denny got to staying out late nights. Pat got tired of telling him to get home early. He issued a simple ultimatum: "From now on, if you ain't in the house by ten o'clock, I'll go looking for you with me big stick."

Denny took the easy way out and got home before ten.

His father was always sitting by the window with his shillelagh between his knees, his expression black with disappointment because Denny got in on time and he couldn't go out looking for him.

One night, Denny wasn't home by ten and Pat went out looking for him. He found him in the areaway of a vacant store. Dennv and four other boys were kneeling in a circle. They were shooting craps. Facing Pat was a fat backside straining at the seat of a pair of pants. It was as though Pat had been waiting all his life for that. He gave it a good whack with his thorny shillelagh. The boys scattered, except Denny, who knew it was no use to run, and the fat boy, who was in too much pain to run.

Pat spoke gently to his son. "Here, me boy. Hold me stick." Denny held it while Pat got down on his knees and scooped up the nickels and dimes.

"Hey, mister," whined the fat boy, "that money belongs to us."

"I will give it to the Churcll,'' said Pat, "for the sins of all of youse."

(Of course, the Church never saw the money.)

After that, Denny took to hanging out in the pool parlor. In those prohibition days, nearly every poor section of Brooklyn was the headquarters of some crime syndicate or some gangster corporation. The poolroom where Denny hung out was a front for the neighborhood gang lord.

Sal (The Gimp) Hazzetti (he got his nickname because one of his legs was a half inch shorter than the other) used this poolroom as a sort of gangster college. Entrance requirements were simple. A kid had to be a punk to matriculate.

One of Sal's instructors worked on the punk and turned him into a hoodlum. Then a sort of assistant professor came in and turned the hoodlum into a gangster. If the gangster worked hard and did what he was told and didn't doublecross Sal or the syndi

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care, why, in time he might get to be a first-class criminal.

The punks stood around and their faces brightened and they stood up real straight when one of Sal's men walked into the poolroom. Who would be chosen? All were anxious. When the man chose a kid and gave him a neatly wrapped box containing three fifths of rye or Scotch with an address and the instructions: "Collect twenty-five and keep five," the boy beamed as though he had been tapped for a fraternity, and all the other punks were jealous.