When they asked for their papers I told them they were so bad that if I had returned them each paper would have been given a zero and would they prefer that to nothing at all?
They weren’t sure and when I thought of it I wasn’t sure myself. Zero or nothing at all? We discussed it for a whole period and decided that nothing at all was better than zero on your report card because you can’t divide nothing at all by anything and you can divide zero if you use algebra or something like that because a zero is something and nothing at all is nothing at all and nobody could argue with that. Also, if your parents see a zero on your report card they’re upset, the ones who care, but if they see nothing they don’t know what to think and it’s better to have a father and mother who don’t know what to think than a father and mother looking at a zero and giving you a punch upside your head.
After my classes at Brooklyn College I would sometimes leave the train at Bergen Street to visit my mother. If she knew I was coming she’d make soda bread so warm and delicious it melted in the mouth as fast as the butter she slathered on it. She made tea in a teapot and couldn’t help sniffing at the idea of tea bags. I told her tea bags were just a convenience for people with busy lives and she said no one is so busy they can’t take time to make a decent cup of tea and if you are that busy you don’t deserve a decent cup of tea for what is it all about anyway? Are we put into this world to be busy or to chat over a nice cup of tea?
My brother Michael married Donna from California in Malachy’s apartment on West Ninety-third Street. Mam bought a new dress for the occasion but you could see she didn’t approve of the proceedings. There was her lovely son Michael getting married and no sign of a priest, nothing but a Protestant minister in the living room who could pass for a grocer or an off-duty policeman in his collar and tie. Malachy had rented two dozen folded chairs and when we took our places I noticed Mam’s absence. She was in the kitchen smoking a cigarette. I told her the wedding was about to begin and she told me she had to finish her cigarette. Mam, for Christ’s sake, your son is getting married. She said that was his problem, she had to finish her fag and when I told her she was keeping everyone waiting her face tightened, the nose went up in the air, she stubbed out her butt in the ashtray and took her time going to the living room. On the way in she whispered she had to go to the bathroom and I hissed at her that she’d bloody well have to wait. She sat in her chair and stared over the head of the Protestant minister. No matter what was said, no matter what softness or sweetness surged here, she wouldn’t be part of it, wouldn’t yield, and when bride and groom were kissed and hugged Mam sat with her purse in her lap staring straight ahead so that the world would know she was seeing nothing, especially the sight of her lovely son Michael falling into the clutches of Protestants and their ministers.
When I visited Mam on Flatbush Avenue and we had the tea she said wasn’t it a peculiar thing she was back in this part of the world after all these years, a place where she had five children, though three would die, the little girl here in Brooklyn, and twin boys in Ireland. It might have been too much for her to think about that little girl, dead at twenty-one days, a short distance from here. She knew that if you walked down Flatbush Avenue to where it crossed Atlantic Avenue you’d still see the bars my father went wild in, spending his wages, forgetting his children. No, she wouldn’t talk about that, either. When I asked her about her days in Brooklyn she doled out scraps and then went silent. What was the use? The past is the past and it’s dangerous to go back.
She must have had nightmares alone in that apartment.
45
Stanley spends more time in the teachers’ cafeteria than anyone. When he sees me he sits with me, drinks coffee, smokes cigarettes and delivers monologues on everything.
Like most teachers he has five classes but his speech therapy students are often absent because of the shame of stammering and trying to make themselves understood with cleft palates. Stanley gives them inspirational speeches and even though he tells them they’re as good as anyone else they don’t believe him. Some are in my regular English classes and they write compositions saying it’s all right for Mr. Garber to talk, he’s a nice guy and all, but he doesn’t know what it’s like to walk up to a girl and ask her to dance when you can’t get the first word out of your mouth. Oh, yeah, it’s all right for Mr. Garber to help their stammer with singing in his class but what good is that when you go to the dance?
In the summer of 1961 Alberta wanted to be married at Grace Episcopal Church in Brooklyn Heights. I refused. I told her I’d rather be married in City Hall than in some pale imitation of the One, Holy, Roman, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Episcopalians irritated me. Why couldn’t they stop the damned nonsense? They’re up there with their statues and crosses and holy water and even confession, so why don’t they call Rome and tell them they want to return?
Alberta said, All right, all right, and we went to the Municipal Building in Manhattan. It wasn’t required but we had Brian McPhillips as best man and his wife, Joyce, as bridesmaid. Our ceremony was delayed because of a quarrel between the couple ahead of us. She said to him, You goin’ be married to me with that green umbrella on you arm? He said that was his umbrella and he wasn’t going to leave it out in this office to be stolen. She nodded toward us and told him, These people ain’t gonna steal you goddam green umbrella, excuse the language on my wedding day. He said he wasn’t accusin’ nobody of nothin’ but goddam he paid a lot for that umbrella on Chambers Street from a guy that steals them and he wasn’t givin’ it up for nobody. She told him, Well, then, marry you damn umbrella, and she picked up her bag and walked out. He told her if she walked out now that was the end and she turned to the four of us and the woman behind the desk and the official coming out of the small wedding chapel and said, The end? What you talkin’ about, man? We be livin’ together three years an’ you tell me this is the end? You don’t tell me this is the end. I tell you and I’m tellin’ you that umbrella ain’t goin’ to my weddin’ an’ if you insist there’s a certain party in South Carolina, a certain ex-wife, that would like to know where you at an’ I be glad to tell her if you know what I mean, certain party lookin’ for alimony an’ child support. So take you choice, Byron, me in that little room with the man an’ no umbrella or you back in South Carolina with you umbrella standin’ before a judge tellin’ you, Pay up, Byron, support you wife an’ child.
The official at the door of the wedding chapel asked if they were ready. Byron asked me if I was the one getting married today and would I mind holding his umbrella because he could see that I was like him, going nowhere but into that little room. End of the road, man, end of the road. I wished him good luck but he shook his head and said, Damn, why we all whupped like this?
In a few minutes they were back to sign papers, the bride smiling, Byron grim. We all wished them good luck again and followed the official into the room. He smiled and said, Are we all atthembled?
Brian looked at me, raised his eyebrows.
The official said, Do you promith to love, honor, cherith? and I struggled to keep myself from laughing. How could I survive this wedding conducted by a man with such a powerful lisp? I’d have to think of some way of controlling myself. That’s it. The umbrella on my arm. Oh, God, I’ll fall apart. I’m caught between the lisp and the umbrella and I can’t laugh. Alberta would kill me for laughing at our own wedding. You’re allowed to weep with joy but you must never laugh and here I am made helpless by this man with the lisp, promithing thith and that, first man ever in New York to be married with a green umbrella on his arm, solemn thought that kept me from laughing, and the ceremony was over, the ring on Alberta’s finger, groom and bride kissing and being congratulated by Brian and Joyce till the door opened and there was Byron. Man, you got my umbrella? You did that for me? Kep’ it right here? Wanna have a drink? Celebrate?