Frank McCourt - 'Tis

A knock on the door interrupted him.

Who is it?

A faint old voice. Virgil, it’s Harry.

Can’t talk to you now, Harry. I got the doctor here and I’m naked getting examined.

All right, Virgil. I’ll come back later.

Tomorrow, Harry, tomorrow.

Okay, Virgil.

He told me that was Harry Ball, eighty-five years old, so old you can’t hear his voice over a clothesline, who drives Virgil crazy with his parking problems. He’s got this big car, a Hudson that they don’t make no more, is that right, no more or anymore? You’re an English teacher. I dunno. Never went beyond the seventh grade. Ran away from the Sisters of St. Joseph Orphanage even if I’m leaving them money in my will. Anyway, Harry’s got this car and he goes nowhere with it. Says some day he’s gonna drive it to Florida to see his sister but he’s going nowhere because that car is so old it wouldn’t make it across the Brooklyn Bridge and that goddam Hudson is his life. He moves it from one side of the street to the other, back and forth, back and forth. Sometimes he brings the little aluminum beach chair and sits near his car looking for a parking spot to open for next day. Or he walks around the neighborhood looking for a spot and if he finds one he gets excited and gives himself a heart attack rushing to his car to drive it to the new spot which is now gone and so is the one he was in and there he is driving around with no spot, cursing the government. I was with him once and he nearly ran down a rabbi and two old women and I said, Christ, Harry, lemme out, and he wouldn’t, but I jumped out at the first red light and he yelled after me I was the type that flashed lights so the Japs could find Pearl Harbor till I told him he was a dumb bastard that didn’t know Pearl Harbor was bombed in broad daylight and he sat there contradicting me with the light turning green and people honking and yelling who gives a shit about Pearl Harbor, buddy, move your goddam Hudson. He could park that car in a garage for eighty-five bucks a month but that’s more than he pays for rent and that’ll be the day Harry Ball ever wastes a penny. I’m frugal myself, I admit that, but he could make Scrooge look like a spendthrift. Is that the right word, spendthrift? I ran away from the orphanage in seventh grade.

He asked me to go with him to a hardware store on Court Street so that he could get an egg timer for the telephone just installed.

An egg timer?

Yeah, this is a kind of hourglass with sand that runs for three minutes and that’s the way I like my egg and when I use the telephone I’ll know when the three minutes is up because that’s how they charge you at the phone company, the bastards. I’ll have the egg timer on my desk and I’ll hang up at the last grain of sand.

On Court Street I asked him if he’d like a beer and a sandwich at the Blarney Rose. He never went to bars and was shocked at the prices of beer and whiskey. Ninety cents for a little shot of whiskey. Never.

I went with him to a liquor store where he ordered cases of Irish whiskey and told the salesman his friend Frank liked it, and cases of wine, vodka and bourbon because he liked it himself. He told the man he wouldn’t pay the lousy taxes on his purchase. I’m giving you a big order here and you want me to support the goddam government on top of it. No, sir. Pay it yourself.

The man agreed and said he’d deliver the twenty-five cases.

Virgil called me next day. Even though his voice was weak he told me, I got the egg timer goin’ here, so I have to talk fast. Can you come down? I need a little help. The door is open.

He was sitting in his armchair in his bathrobe. I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night. Couldn’t get into the bed.

He couldn’t get into the bed because the liquor store man had piled up the twenty-five cases around his bed so high that Virgil couldn’t climb over. He said he had to try some of the Irish whiskey and the wine and that didn’t help much when it was time to climb. He said he needed soup, something in his stomach to keep him from being sick. When I opened a can of soup and poured it into a pot with an equal amount of water he asked me if I’d read the instructions on the can.

No.

Well, how do you know what to do?

It’s common sense, Virgil.

Common sense, my ass.

He was hangover cranky. Listen to me, Frank McCourt. You know why you’ll never be a success?

Why?

You never follow the instructions on the package. That’s why I have money in the bank and you don’t have a pot to piss in. I always followed the instructions on the package.

Another knock on the door. What? What? said Virgil.

Voigel, it’s me. Pete.

Pete who? Pete who? I can’t see through the door.

Pete Buglioso. I got something for you, Voigel.

Don’t talk Brooklyn to me, Pete. My name is Virgil, not Voigel. He was a poet, Pete. You should know, you’re Italian.

I don’t know nothin’ about that, Voigel. I got somethin’ for you, Voigel.

I don’t want nothin’, Pete. Call back next year.

But, Voigel, you’ll like what I have. Cost you a coupla bucks.

What is it?

Can’t tell you through the door, Voigel.

Virgil heaved himself from the armchair and stumbled to the egg timer on his desk. All right, Pete, all right. You can come in for three minutes. I’m setting my egg timer.

He tells me open the door and tells Pete the egg timer is working and even though grains of sand have already dropped Pete still has three minutes, so start talking, Pete, start talking and make it snappy.

All right, Voigel, all right, but how the hell can I talk when you’re talking. You talk more than anyone.

You’re wasting your time, Pete. You’re hanging yourself. Look at the egg timer. Look at that sand. Sands of time, Pete, sands of time.

Whadda you doin’ with all them boxes, Voigel. Rob a truck or somethin’?

The egg timer, Pete, the egg timer.

All right, Voigel, what I got here is, will you stop lookin’ at the goddam egg timer, Voigel, an’ lissena me. What I got here is prescription pads from a doctor’s office on Clinton Street.

Prescription pads. You been robbing them doctors again, Pete.

I didn’t rob ’em. I know a receptionist. She likes me.

She must be deaf dumb and blind. I don’t need no prescription pads.

Come on, Voigel. You never know. You might have a disease or a bad hangover and you’ll need something.

Bullshit, Pete. Your time is up. I’m busy.

But, Voigel.

Out, Pete, out. I have no control over that egg timer once it gets goin’ and I don’t want no prescription pads.

He pushed Pete out the door and yelled after him, You could get me in jail and you’re gonna wind up in jail yourself selling stolen prescription pads.

He slumped back into his armchair and said he’d try the soup even though I hadn’t followed the instructions on the can. He needed it to settle his stomach but if he didn’t like it he’d have a little wine and that would do the job. He tasted the soup and said, yeah, it was okay and he’d have it and the wine, too. When I popped the wine cork he barked that I was not to pour the wine now, I was to let it breathe, didn’t I know that and if I didn’t how could I teach school. He sipped his wine and remembered he had to call the air-conditioning company about his problems with pigeons. I told him stay in his chair and handed him the telephone and the number of the company but he wanted the egg timer, too, so that he could tell them they had three minutes to give him the information he needed.

Hello, you listenin’ to me? I got the egg timer goin’ and you got three minutes to tell me how I can stop these goddam pigeons, excuse the language, miss, how I can stop these pigeons from making love on the outside part of my air conditioner. They’re driving me crazy with the coo coo coo all day and they shit all over the window. You can’t tell me that now? You have to look it up? Whaddaya have to look up? Pigeons fornicating on my air conditioner and you have to look it up. Sorry, egg timer ran out and that’s the three minutes. Good-bye.