Frank McCourt - 'Tis

On the day itself Mr. Carey invites the housemen of the hotel and four chambermaid supervisors to his office for a little Christmas drink. There’s a bottle of Paddy’s Irish whiskey and a bottle of Four Roses which Digger Moon won’t touch. He wants to know why anyone would drink piss like Four Roses when they can have the best thing that ever came out of Ireland, the whiskey. Mr. Carey strokes his belly along the double-breasted suit and says it’s all the same to him, he can’t drink anything. It would kill him. But drink anyway, here’s to a Merry Christmas and who knows what the next year will bring.

Joe Gilligan is already smiling from whatever he’s been swigging all day from the flask in his back pocket and between that and the arthritis there’s the odd stumble. Mr. Carey tells him, Here, Joe, sit in my chair, and when Joe tries to sit he lets out a great groan and there are tears on his cheeks. Mrs. Hynes, the head of all the chambermaids, goes over to him and holds his head against her chest and pats him and rocks him. She says, Ah, poor Joe, poor Joe, I don’t know how the good Lord could twist your bones after what you did for America in the war. Digger Moon says that’s where Joe got the arthritis, in the goddam Pacific, where they have every goddam disease known to man. Remember this, Joe, it was the goddam Japs gave you that arthritis the way they gave me malaria. We haven’t been the same since, Joe, you an’ me.

Mr. Carey tells him take it easy, take it easy with the language, there are ladies present, and Digger says, Okay, Mr. Carey, I respect you for that and it’s Christmas so what the hell. Mrs. Hynes says, That’s right, it’s Christmas and we must love each other and forgive our enemies. Digger says, Forgive my ass. I don’t forgive the white man and I don’t forgive the Japs. But I forgive you, Joe. You suffered more than ten Indian tribes with that goddam arthritis. When he grabs Joe’s hand to shake it Joe howls with pain and Mr. Carey says, Digger, Digger. Mrs. Hynes says, Will you, for the love o’ Jesus, have respect for Joe’s arthritis. Digger says, Sorry, ma’am, I have the greatest respect for Joe’s arthritis, and to prove it he holds a large glass of Paddy’s to Joe’s lips.

Eddie Gilligan stands over in a corner with his glass and I wonder why he looks and says nothing when the world is worried about his brother. I know he has his own troubles with his wife’s blood infection but I can’t understand why he won’t at least stand closer to his brother.

Jerry Kerrisk whispers we should get away from this crazy crowd and have a beer. I don’t like spending money in bars with the trouble my mother is in but it’s Christmas and the whiskey I had already makes me feel better about myself and the world in general and why shouldn’t I be good to myself. It’s the first time in my life I ever drank whiskey like a man and now that I’m in a bar with Jerry I can talk and not worry about my eyes or anything. Now I can ask Jerry why Eddie Gilligan is so cold to his brother.

Women, says Jerry. Eddie was engaged to this girl when he was drafted but when he went away she and Joe fell in love and when she sent Eddie back the engagement ring he went crazy and said he’d kill Joe the minute he saw him. But Eddie was sent to Europe and Joe to the Pacific and they were busy killing other people and while they were away Joe’s wife, the one Eddie was supposed to marry, started drinking and now makes Joe’s life hell. Eddie said that was punishment for the son-of-a-bitch for stealing his girl. He met a nice Italian girl himself in the army, a WAC, but she has the blood infection and you’d think there’s a curse on the whole Gilligan family.

Jerry says he thinks the Irish mothers are right after all. You should marry your own kind, Irish Catholics, and make sure they’re not drinkers or Italians with blood infections.

He laughs when he says that but there’s something serious in his eyes and I don’t say anything because I know I don’t want to marry an Irish Catholic myself and spend the rest of my life dragging the kids to confession and Communion and saying, Yes, Father, oh, indeed, Father, every time I see a priest.

Jerry wants to stay in the bar and drink more beer and he turns peevish when I tell him I have to visit Mrs. Austin and her sister, Hannah. Why would I want to spend Christmas Eve with two old Swedish women, forty years old at least, when I could be having a grand time for myself with girls from Mayo and Kerry up at Ireland’s Thirty-Two? Why?

I can’t answer him because I don’t know where I want to be or what I’m supposed to do. That’s what you’re faced with when you come to America, one decision after another. I knew what to do in Limerick and I had answers for questions but this is my first Christmas Eve in New York and here I am pulled one way by Jerry Kerrisk, Ireland’s Thirty-Two, the promise of girls from Mayo and Kerry, and the other way by two old Swedish women, one always gawking out the window in case I might smuggle in food or drink, the other unhappy with her Irish husband and who knows what way she’ll jump. I’m afraid if I don’t go to Mrs. Austin she might turn savage on me and tell me leave and there I’ll be out on the street on Christmas Eve with my brown suitcase and only a few dollars left after sending money home, paying my rent and now buying beer right and left in this bar. After all this I can’t afford to spend the night doling out beer money for the women of Ireland and that’s the part Jerry understands, the part that takes away his peevishness. He knows money has to be sent home. He says, Happy Christmas, and laughs, I know you’ll have a wild night with the old Swedish girls. The barman has his ear cocked and he says, Mind yourself at them Swedish parties. They’ll be giving you their native drink, the glug, and if you drink that stuff you won’t know Christmas Eve from the feast of the Immaculate Conception. It’s black and thick and you’d need a strong constitution for it, and then they make you eat all kinds of fish with it, raw fish, salty fish, smoked fish, all kinds of fish you wouldn’t give a cat. The Swedes drink that glug and it makes them so crazy they think they’re Vikings all over again.

Jerry says he didn’t know the Swedes were Vikings. He thought you had to be a Dane.

Nodatall, says the barman. All them people in northern places were Vikings. Whenever you saw ice you were sure to see a Viking.

Jerry says it’s remarkable the things people know and the barman says, I could tell you a story or two.

Jerry orders one more beer for the road and I drink it though I don’t know what’s going to become of me after my two large whiskeys in Mr. Carey’s office and four beers here with Jerry. I don’t know how I’m going to face a night of glug and all kinds of fish if the barman is right in his prophecy.

We walk up Third Avenue singing “Don’t Fence Me In” with people rushing past us frantic over Christmas, giving us nothing but hard stares. There are dancing Christmas lights everywhere, but up around Bloomingdale’s the lights dance too much and I have to hold on to a Third Avenue El pillar and throw up. Jerry pushes in my stomach with his fist. Get it all up, he says, and you’ll have plenty of room for the glug and you’ll be a new man tomorrow. Then he says glug glug glug and laughs so hard over the sound of the word he’s nearly hit by a car and a cop tells us move on, that we should be ashamed of ourselves, Irish kids that should respect the birthday of the Savior, goddammit.

There’s a diner at Sixty-seventh Street and Jerry says I should have coffee to straighten me out before I see the Swedes, he’ll pay for it. We sit at the counter and he tells me he’s not going to spend the rest of his life working like a slave at the Biltmore Hotel. He’s not going to wind up like the Gilligans who fought for the U.S.A. and what the hell did they get for it? Arthritis and wives with blood infections and drinking problems, that’s what they got. Oh, no, Jerry is heading for the Catskill Mountains on Memorial Day, the end of May, the Irish Alps. Plenty of work up there waiting on tables, cleaning up, anything, and the tips are good. There are Jewish places up there, too, but they’re not too active in the tipping department because they pay for everything in advance and don’t have to carry cash. The Irish drink and leave money on tables or the floor and when you clean up it’s all yours. Sometimes they come back squawking but you didn’t see a thing. You don’t know nothing. You just sweep up the way you’re paid to. Of course they don’t believe you and they call you a liar and say things about your mother but there’s nothing they can do except take their business elsewhere. There are plenty of girls up in the Catskills. Some places have outdoor dances and all you have to do is waltz your Mary into the woods and before you know it you’re in a state of mortal sin. The Irish girls are mad for it once they get to the Catskills. They’re hopeless in the city the way they all work in fancy places like Schrafft’s with their little black dresses and little white aprons, Ah, yes, ma’am, ah, indeed, ma’am, are the mashed potatoes a little too lumpy, ma’am? but get them up in the mountains and they’re like cats, up the pole, getting pregnant, and before they know what hit them, dozens of Seans and Kevins are dragging their arses up the aisle with the priests glaring at them and the girls’ big brothers threatening them.