"vVhat can 1 do, honey, what can I do ....
" That
was his way, whenever she was angry, to send his
voice fawning to her. "1 know I'm no bargain, I'm
no big-shot from the department of sanitation, a
guy with a steady income, pulling down his forty a
week just for rubber-stamping papers, like Dan An-
derson. There's no future ahead of me, that's a
cinch. But what right has your father got kicking,
when he's living off the city like the rest of us?
"Ve're all in the same boat, and the boat leaks. If
he don't like me for a son-in-law, let him grab him-
self a better guy. Only he'll have some long looking
to do, finding a fellow on the block who's getting
more than his few dollars from the drivers, or from
running errands for the bookies. Look, sweetheart,
you know I'm raving to work."
Still she kept herself from him. He moved closer
and touched her arm timidly, filled the room with
big talk.
"Look," he told her, "you've got to understand,
everything's a racket. There's the dirty end and the
dean end of everything, but so far, it's only the
dirty end for us on Thompson Street. Look at the
food depot ... sacks of potatoes rotting away, and
have to be kerosened to take the stink out of them.
But they won't give you a pound more than the
ticket says, so the guys who work there can take
what's extra. Look at the church. They come to your
door for money, they're right in line with landlord
and gas man. It's just another racket, turn any
way. you want, it's all a racket, these days. So I
figure, the only thing to do is grab off a racket of
my own. I'm figuring to get my cut of something.
I'm figuring to grab off my share of something, I
don't know what, because I see there's no headway
just watching your step.
"Listen, honey ....
"
But she moved her shoulders impatiently, to shake
off his male talk. She told him, maybe he'd better
watch his step, or the kid wouldn't know its father
...
she'd be telling it lies, to hide that he was in
jail. He didn't say anything then, only searched in
his mind for something cheerful to say, and there
was nothing to say. The room grew dark, and in
the dark she suffered herself to be stroked, but mak-
ing her /lesh passive as stone.
On the stairs, Tom met her old man. He was
coming up with a load of wood, and he looked up
slyly from under it. When he saw who it was, his
eyes jumped. He passed Tom without speaking.
Tom could hear the old man entering the /lat, and
how he tumbled the wood down on the /loor-and
how his wrath tumbled out at the same time, like
another burden that he couldn't carry any more.
Heard the names he called Annette, and Annette
shrilling back at him to shut up, or she would shout
the whole thing from the housetops. Then there
was only the sound of their voices, and he knew she
6
was telling him, Never mind. Never mind, it was
Tom Carney's brat, all right, and he'd father it,
with wedding bells and everything. Tom waited,
hating the old man who had no right to kick, living
off the city like the rest. Then he went down softly
to the third /loor, and decided it was time to tell
Pete about Annette and himself.
They were sitting in darkness, one candle burn-
ing on the bureau near the statue of St. Agnes under
glass. Tom knew when he came in that there was
something strange in the room, stranger than the
darkness even, and then he understood. There was
no radio going. They were cut off from light and
from sound, eating in silence and in darkness.
Tom thought he'd give it to them easy. "Jesus,
what kind of a funeral d'you call this-whose fu-
neral is it, anyway? Listen. What's the idea of hold-
ing a funeral like this, when I come to announce a
wedding?"
But they didn't get it. He fooled around for a
while, and then he told them point-blank he was go-
ing to mary Annette Deleo. Believe it or not, take it
or leave it ... he added that quickly, when he saw
his father's face.
Yin laughed outright. His mother stood across
from him at the table, holding the plate halfway,
not looking at Pete. What a habit she had lately, of
sighing. In the morning, when she got up and /lopped
through the rooms in her loose slippers, she sighed
all the time, as if the day was a burden being fast-
ened to her. And she sighed when she went to sleep,
like someone being unyoked from a chafing harness.
His mother stood there, as if waiting for the blow.
But Pete lifted himself slowly, took time to plant his
fists on the table. Tom watching him and thinking
how the Mussolini act was starting, and hating the
old man's guts, because he made such a fuss-maybe
wanting a fellow to mope around like a nutted dog,
because he had no job.
"What's the idea," Tom said, whining to Pete.
"What's the idea regarding me like a criminal?
Where's the crime, to get married? Maybe it hap-
pened before in this house ....
"
But Pete didn't hear him, he began softly.
Said Tom was his Own boss, he could walk out
on them and get married, he was his own boss. He
could go down to City Hall any day he wanted, no
one could stop him. It was past the time when a
father had any say.
Maybe it was a good thing, after all, Pete said.
He'd struggled to support his family for twenty-five
years of married life, and it was a struggle. Now
let Tom be the one, let him learn what it is to have
a family On his back. He saw it coming, Pete said.
Saw how Tom was rattling around, and the old say-
ing was right ... give a man enough rope, he'll hang
himself. So if Tom was so fixed he had to marry,
welcome to it. He could just walk out on them, there
was nobody could stop him.
JUNE,
1936
