One of Alberta’s friends, a German named Dietrich, drove off in his Volkswagen to replenish the beer supply and when he returned there was trouble with the owner of a Buick he had backed into. Someone told me about the trouble outside and since I was the bridegroom it was my duty to make peace. The Buick man was a giant and poking his fist into the face of Alberta’s friend. When I stepped between them he let loose with his big punch. His arm swung around the back of my head, into Dietrich’s eye and we all fell to the ground. We wrestled a bit, one with another, no one a bit particular, till Schwake, Collins and McPhillips separated us with the Buick man threatening to tear Dietrich’s head from his shoulders. When we dragged the German inside I discovered my trouser knee was ripped, the kneecap bleeding. The knuckles of my right hand bled, too, from being scraped along the ground.
Upstairs Alberta started to cry, telling me I was ruining the whole night. My blood boiled a bit and I told her I was only trying to be a peacemaker and it wasn’t my fault if I was knocked down by that baboon next door. Besides, I was helping her German friend and she should be grateful.
The argument would have continued if Joyce hadn’t stepped in to call everyone to the table for the cutting of the cake. When she slipped off the covering cloth Brian laughed and kissed her for being such a genius of an artist you’d never know this cake was scooped off the street a short time ago. The little bride and groom were secure though his head wobbled and fell and I told Joyce, Uneasy lies the groom that wears a head. Everyone sang, The bride cuts the cake, the groom cuts the cake, and Alberta looked mollified even though we couldn’t cut proper slices and the cake had to be dished out in chunks.
Joyce said she was making coffee and Alberta said that would be nice but Brian said we should have one more drink to toast the newlyweds and I agreed and Alberta got so angry she ripped the wedding ring from her finger and threw it out the window though she remembered suddenly that was her grandmother’s wedding ring from early in the century and now it was out the window, God knows where in Queens and what was she going to do, it was all my fault, and her great mistake for marrying me. Brian said we’d have to find that ring. We didn’t have a flashlight but we were able to light up the night with matches and cigarette lighters as we crawled across the lawn below Brian’s window till Dietrich shouted he had the ring and everyone forgave him for stirring up trouble with the big Buick man. Alberta refused to replace the ring on her finger. She’d keep it in her purse till she was sure of this marriage. She and I took a taxi with Jim Collins and Sheila. They would drop us at our apartment in Brooklyn and continue into Manhattan. Sheila wasn’t talking to Jim and Alberta wasn’t talking to me but as we swung into State Street I grabbed her and told her, I’m going to consummate this marriage tonight.
She said, Oh, consummate my ass, and I said, That’ll do.
The taxi stopped and I climbed from the backseat I had shared with Sheila and Alberta. Jim got out of the seat by the driver and came to where I stood on the sidewalk. He intended to say good night and get back in with Sheila but Alberta pulled the door shut and the taxi drove away.
Christ Almighty, said Collins, this is your goddam wedding night, McCourt. Where is your bride? Where is mine?
We climbed the stairs to my apartment, found a six-pack of Schlitz in the refrigerator, sat on the couch, the two of us, and watched television Indians drop from the bullets of John Wayne.
46
In the summer of 1963 Mam called to say she had a letter from my father. He claimed he was a new man, that he hadn’t had a drink in three years and worked now as a chef in a monastery.
I told her if my father was a monastery chef the monks must have been on a permanent fast.
She didn’t laugh and that said she was troubled. She read from the letter where he said he was coming with a three-week return ticket on the Queen Mary and how he looked forward to the day when we could all be together again, he and she sharing a bed and a grave for he knew and she knew that whatever God hath joined let no man put asunder.
She sounded uncertain. What should she do? Malachy had already told her, Why not? She wanted to know what I thought. I put it back to her. What do you think? After all, this was the man who put her through hell in New York and Limerick and now he wants to sail to her side, a safe harbor in Brooklyn.
I don’t know what to do, she said.
She didn’t know what to do because she was lonely in that dingy place on Flatbush Avenue and she was now illustrating that Irish saying, Contention is better than loneliness. She could take back this man or, at fifty-five, face the years alone. I told her I’d meet her for coffee at Junior’s Restaurant.
She was there before me, puffing and gasping on a strong American cigarette. No, she wouldn’t have tea. The Americans can send a man into space but they can’t make a decent cup of tea, so she’d have coffee and some of that nice cheesecake. She drew on the cigarette, sipped the coffee and told me she didn’t know under God what to do. She said the whole family was falling apart with Malachy separated from his wife, Linda, and the two small children, Michael off to California with his wife, Donna, and their child, Alphie disappeared into the Bronx. She said she could have a nice life for herself in Brooklyn with the bingo and the odd meeting of the Limerick Ladies’ Association in Manhattan and why should she let the man from Belfast upset that life.
I drank my coffee and ate my strudel knowing she’d never admit she was lonely though she might have been thinking, Ah, sure if it wasn’t for the drink he wouldn’t be bad to live with at all, at all.
I told her what I was thinking. Well, she said, he’d be company for me if he’s not drinking, if he’s a new man. We could take walks in Prospect Park and he could meet me after the bingo.
All right. Tell him to come for the three weeks and we’ll see if he’s a new man.
On the way back to her apartment she stopped often to press her hand against her chest. ’Tis my heart, she said, going a mile a minute so ’tis.
It must be the cigarettes.
Oh, I don’t know.
Then it must be nervousness over that letter.
Oh, I don’t know. I just don’t know.
At her door I kissed her cold cheek and watched her gasping her way upstairs. My father had put years on her.
When Mam and Malachy went to meet the new man at the pier he arrived so drunk he had to be helped off the ship. The purser told them he had gone wild with the drink and had to be kept in restraint.
I was away that day and when I returned I took the subway to see him at Mam’s apartment but he had gone with Malachy to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. We drank tea and waited. She said again she didn’t know under God what to do. He was the same lunatic with the drink and all that talk about being a new man was a lie and she was glad he had a three-week return ticket. Still, there was a darkness in her eyes that told me she must have had hopes of a normal family, her man by her side with sons and grandchildren coming to her from all over New York.
They returned from the meeting, Malachy big, red-bearded and sober because of his troubles, my father older and smaller. Malachy had tea. My father said, Och, no, and lay on the couch with his hands joined under his head. Malachy left his tea to stand over him and lecture him. You have to admit you’re an alcoholic. That’s the first step.