Gilbert Sorrentino - Aberration of Starlight

Speak of the devil, Marie came out on the porch. She sat down in the rocker next to John’s and said that Mr. Thebus — oh, he liked that! “Mr. Thebus”—had forgotten his tobacco pouch and that he wanted, well, and she handed him Thebus’s note. The anger and contempt that John felt when he finished the note made his face almost blue. His lips were drawn back and his false teeth looked hideous. The son of a bitch is not welcome in my house and he won’t put one foot inside it! But Poppa … he only wants to get the … and explain … I want to give him his personal… his belongings. She stood up, shaking, and took the pouch out of the pocket of her pinafore. His pouch, Poppa! My God, what do you take the man to be? My God! Poppa! He stood up too, and took the pouch out of her hand. Well, young woman! You want to fly in my face again, you go ahead and fly in my face! If you want to see that half-assed mongrel with his little smudge of a moustache you just make damn certain that you pack your valise first and take yourself and your boy with you. Poppa! Marie sat down again, her hands clasped in her lap. John shook the tobacco pouch in her face. And this sly little trick … This will be in the mail, today. The son of a bitch will not set foot inside my house and if you don’t like it you can go and beg Katie to take you in off the street!

He banged the screen door entering the house and went up the stairs. In his room, he wrapped the pouch in paper cut from an old brown paper bag and then went up the stairs to Marie’s room, pulled her address book out of her drawer and oh, sure, the silly jane had his name in her book as neat as you please, how sweet, how goddamn sweet! He addressed the package and went downstairs again, walked out on the porch and shook the pouch at Marie. I’m going down to the Post Office past the Bluebird and that will take care of Mr. Thebus! She sat and looked at him, her knees drawn together, her arms folded tight across her chest, her face blank and homely. By God, the girl was getting old! Running around like a little chippy and anybody with half an eye could see that she was no spring chicken. What the hell is the matter with her?

John walked steadily, keeping as much as he could in the shade of the trees, stopping every now and again to take a breather and mop his face. When he reached the Post Office, he mailed the package first class, and asked how long it would take to arrive. He was pleased when the clerk told him a day, at the most two. Then he started back, stopping off at the Bluebird for a glass of beer at the bar. Summer’s almost over, the bartender said. Sure went fast. John agreed. Fella with the little moustache, always smoked a pipe, he gone back already? John nodded. Nice fella, said he was a salesman? John nodded again and said that it was time for all of them to put their noses to the grindstone again. That’s for damn sure, the bartender said.

As he got near the house, he saw the Copans’ car parked in front and the two daughters in their bathing suits putting blankets and towels in the trunk. They must have got bored with the Fair, John thought. No boys to shake their behinds at, and of course, those damn fool parents of theirs bowed and scraped and took the brats home and now, with it three o’clock already, now they were taking them bathing. Anything the princesses wanted — what they need is a good swift kick in the ass! Coming closer, he saw Helga on the porch, smiling at the girls and saying something to the older one, the little tramp. Next to Helga, and with a towel folded under her arm, stood Marie. She was holding a polo shirt out to Billy, who stood before her on the bottom step, tightening the belt of his trunks. Well, he was glad to see that she was going bathing too, instead of spending her time cooped up in her room with a face on her like death warmed over. Her robe was open and John could see that she was wearing her old flowered bathing suit. Good, he thought. Maybe she’s got some sense after all. Helga Schmidt saw him and waved.

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.