J. Powers - The Stories of J.F. Powers

“Such as?” said the ex-Pharisee.

“ We were talking,” said the Pharisee. “Walt and I.”

“About what?” said the ex-Pharisee.

The publican leaned over the bar and, with a mouthful of egg, whispered, “Religion.”

“Oh, that ,” said the ex-Pharisee.

A young woman, a dish, entered the joint rattling a can of coins. She approached the Pharisee with it.

“What’s it for?” he asked.

“People.”

The Pharisee shook his head. “I give tithes of all that I possess,” he said.

“Oh, sure,” said the dish, and rattled the can at the publican.

“My wife takes care of all that. She’s off today.”

“Oh, sure,” said the dish.

“Hey, don’t forget us,” said the ex-Pharisee — who then folded a dollar and slipped it into the can.

The dish rattled the can at the young thief.

“We give at home,” he said.

The ex-Pharisee slipped the young thief a five, which he , having seen how it was done, folded and slipped into the can, saying, “Now I see.”

Watching the dish leave, the publican squeezed an egg, then rolled it on the bar, removed the shell, and salted the small end. “Want one?” he said to the Pharisee.

“Not today, Walt. Small brandy, please.”

“Hey, what’s happening?” said the ex-Pharisee. Going out into the entryway, where the dish was being attacked by rapists, he said, “Hi, fellas,” and after apologizing for the young ex-thief, who had attacked one of the rapists from behind, he spoke to them all in a nice way, telling them that they could jeopardize their future in the community by such conduct, if, that is, they persisted in it. Not surprisingly, they all agreed.

The ex-Pharisee, the young ex-thief, the dish, and the six ex-rapists then repaired to the bar where they sat in a row, but could see each other in the mirror, all talking about poetry, music, drama, and better recreational facilities.

“Tired?” said the ex-Pharisee.

“A little,” said the dish.

The young ex-thief said he’d be glad to go out with the can in her place, and offered to turn his gun over to her, the ex-Pharisee, or the ex-rapists, if that would make him more acceptable in her eyes, but that was not required of him, and he came back shortly with a full can.

“Don’t thank me,” he told the grateful dish. “Thank him .”

The ex-Pharisee said, “You did it your way, fella.”

The publican squeezed another egg, rolled it on the bar, removed the shell, salted the small end, and pointed it at the Pharisee invitingly.

“Not today, Walt. You see, I fast twice in the week, and this is one of my days.”

“Big deal,” said the ex-Pharisee. “I don’t fast, and I don’t give tithes, and I don’t go to temple, and I thank God (if there is one) I’m not like the hypocrites that do!”

“And so say all of us,” said one of the ex-rapists.

NOT COUNTING TEDDY bears and the like, they were seven — two teenage girls, two boys, seven and nine, a girl of five, Mama, and Daddy — and after eight days over land and sea, Daddy had a great desire to be out of the public eye. So when they landed in Cobh, though they’d intended to stay overnight there or in Cork, he phoned the hotel in Ballydoo, near Dublin, and was happy to hear that it would be all right to arrive that evening, a day earlier than planned. At Dublin, the train, to their surprise, became the boat train to Dun Laoghaire, and, since Ballydoo lay in that direction, they stayed on it — Daddy was happy to be saving a bit on taxi fares. At Dun Laoghaire, he was happy not to have to take ship again, and to find a taxi big enough (he’d been thinking they’d need two) to accommodate them and their luggage. Things, it seemed to him — after the hotel in St Paul, the heat in Chicago, the train trip to New York (who ever heard of washing your hair on a train?), the Empire State Building, Gimbel’s, Schrafft’s, Hammacher Schlemmer’s (for compasses), and six days at sea — were looking up.

Except for overcrowding in the taxi, there was no difficulty until they reached their destination, almost. On the road, caught just in time by the taxi’s headlights, there was a noisy gathering of some kind, around a two-tone horse.

“ Tinkers ,” the driver said with contempt, and proceeded slowly, half off the narrow pavement, while the tinkers and the horse, hoofs clonking, surged about in the dark.

“ Jem, don’t sell that harse! ”

“’ M sellin’ the bugger! ”

“Daddy,” said the younger boy, who was sitting on Daddy’s lap with Kitty, his stuffed cat, on his lap. “What’s wrong ?”

“Nothing’s wrong. The man who owns the horse — his friend doesn’t want him to sell it. That’s all.”

“Beebee’ll buy it,” said the older boy, who was sitting with Beebee, his teddy bear, on his lap, between Daddy and the driver, and gurgled at the thought of Beebee’s wealth.

“Give it a rest,” Daddy said.

Beebee, a millionaire (hotels, railroads, shipping, timber), had thrown his weight around on this trip — rather, had had it thrown around for him. When they checked into the hotel in New York, not a bad hotel, Daddy had been told, “Beebee usually stays at the Waldorf,” and when they found their cabins on the ship, “Beebee usually goes First Class,” and in the dining room on the first night, “Beebee usually drinks champagne”—and the wine steward, obviously a foreigner with ideas about American parents and children, had to be told no, that was not an order. Mama and Daddy were getting a little older, and had suffered a little more on this trip.

It was not their first one to Ireland. They had gone there for a year when the teenagers were small, again when the boys were smaller, and — the last time — the youngest child had been born there. Each time, they had rented a house in Ballydoo, and were hoping to do so again. And this time they wouldn’t have to settle for what was immediately available, would be able to look around for a while, because they would be staying on as sole tenants of the hotel after it closed for the winter and the proprietors, Major and Mrs Maroon, went to London. This arrangement, initiated by Irish friends, had been concluded by correspondence, and since the rent would be reasonable, and Mama and Daddy could not recall a small hotel facing the harbor, they were anxious to see it. When they did, they recalled it ( them , rather, these Victorian terrace houses, externally two, now internally one), now the — though it, or they, looked eastward to the sea — Westward Ho Hotel.

Without too much ado, Mrs Maroon, a fiftyish outdoors type, received and registered them as guests, which they’d be for two weeks before coming into their tenancy, and after they were shown their rooms and given tea in the lounge (in the presence of two other guests, women such as one sees in lounges in the British Isles, one reading a book, one knitting), Major Maroon, portly in a double-breasted blue serge jacket with one of its brass buttons, a top one, missing, so that the five remaining looked like the Big Dipper, appeared and proposed billiards — to the boys.

“Oh, I don’t know about that ,” Daddy said, rising, and, with visions of cues plowing up green pastures of cloth, accompanied the boys and Major Maroon, who smelled of stout, to what he called the Smoking Room and Library, which smelled of dog.

Billiards proved to be a form of skittles, the little table to be coin-operated. Major Maroon financed the first game, Daddy the second, after which he, having looked through the Library, a bookcase containing incunabula of the paperback revolution (Jeeves, Raffles) and Aer Lingus schedules for the previous summer but one (Take One), said it was past bedtime. “Ah, the lads’ll like it here,” said Major Maroon, and showed them where they’d find the cues.