Shanty Irish (12 page)

I
N
two weeks my father again came to St. Marys. He greeted me with no concern when he met me with my grandfather.

He had an old gray valise. It was shaped like a long box. Six heavy straps held it shut.

Empty bottles, corkscrews, a rusty beer can and several pipes were scattered about the room. An extra shirt, and an old necktie were in the bottom of a bureau drawer. He carried a very sharp razor with him. By some process known only to a near-sighted ditch digger, he managed to shave off every other whisker on his face.

Drunk or sober, he would shave each morning. When finished, his face resembled a red map of Ireland, dotted here and there with withered vegetation. He would lift his long red mustache and remove here and there the hair from the edge of his upper lip. This was no doubt done in order to give his mustache the proper swing downward. It gave him the appearance of a walrus.

My father contended with a group of ditch diggers in his room that desire for liquors always skipped a generation.

“How about you and Grandad?” I asked during a lull.

Father squinted at me with a puzzled smile. The ditch diggers laughed—

“The kid's all right, Jim—who'd o' thought o' that?”

A hunchback mud thrower slapped me on the shoulders hard enough to knock me forward. “You slipped one under your old man's belt that time.”

The men laughed at my father.

“Well,” he returned shaking the burning sensation of raw whisky from him, “a young fool can ask questions, a wise man can't answer.”

My father always carried ten-cent paperbacked novels about with him.

Whether or not he had discrimination regarding their contents has always remained a mystery.

There were good and bad ditch-diggers in his opinion. Books he did not discuss.

Such authors as Charles Garvice, Bertha M. Clay, Balzac, Dumas, Daudet, Scott, Cooper, Dickens, Hardy, Zola, Hugo and “The Duchess” made up part of his travelling library at different times.

He liked books about women. I first read “Sappho,” “Camille,” “Tess of the D'Urbervilles” and Flaubert's “Madame Bovary,” in my father's paper-backed collection.

He once bought a collection of poetry in a paper cover.

He read a few lines and threw the book on the floor. He looked around for a drink. Finding none, he kicked the book under the bed and left the room.

I read all the books that father had. Among others were “Cousin Bette” and “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

I remembered the names of the authors. My father gave me fifty cents to buy more books. I bought “Pere Goriot,” “Paul and Virginia,” “The Scarlet Letter,” “Les Miserables,” and “Germinal.”

At no time in my life has such passion been given to anything.

Goriot and Jean Valjean haunted me for months. Enraptured, I told the tale of the French bread thief to my father. He listened quietly.

“I've read it,” was all he said.

It was years before I could sense Hugo's falseness to life. I have not read him since.

The preface to “Paul and Virginia” told me that Napoleon had asked the author, “When are you going to give us another ‘Paul and Virginia'?”

Zola made me mentally ill.

I took him too seriously.

Years later I discovered his romantic realism, and wondered why even as a child, he had fooled me.

My father read these books, and more, without comment.

He was busy with liquor and life. He may have felt that they were not worth discussion. I do not know. His comment on Pere Goriot's daughters was—

“Women are that way.”

My sister came to the room on Sunday morning. Father sat near the window which faced Spring Street. He had a book in his hand and a bottle of whisky between his feet.

The church bells were ringing all over the town. Virginia looked about the room with sad eyes.

“I've come to take Jimmy to church,” she said to my father.

Our parent rose and splashed tobacco juice into a spittoon.

“All right,” he said indifferently, seating himself.

“But I don't want to go, Virginia—I went every morning for six years—that's enough,” I said.

My sister looked pleadingly at my father.

He caught the look, lifted his bottle, shrugged his shoulders and said, “It's up to the kid,” and took a long drink.

Virginia talked to me about my soul. She begged me with all the eloquence of seventeen.

My father paid no attention. Neither did I.

When she had finished I exclaimed—“I'll never go again.”

I never did.

She stood in the center of the room and looked at me. She held a prayer book and rosary in her hand.

“I'll say a prayer for you,” she said sadly.

“Say one for me while you're at it,” said my father, rising and aiming at the spittoon again.

I could hear Virginia walking on the silent street below.

My father looked up from his book.

“Why did ye not go?” he asked.

“Because,”
I replied.

He took a swig from the bottle and volunteered—

“It's as good as anything else.”

My father outgrew many things. He remained a Democrat.

He was a passionate admirer of Grover Cleveland. So was Grandad Tully.

I remember hearing them talk of an incident in Cleveland's life. When it was learned that Cleveland was the father of a bastard child, his friends and others were alarmed.

“What will we do about it?” they asked.

“Print it,” replied Cleveland.

Old Hughie Tully took a silver dollar of my father's money which lay on the bar.

He spoke to the bartender, saying: “Here's some idle money—let's drink.”

My grandfather was irate.

“The veery ideah—of any man peerin' into the great Cleveland's bizness wit' a woman,” he became more angry. He hit the bar.

“The very nerve of it—why I'd vote for Cleveland now if he had more bastards than the King of Ingland.”

“And the old boy likes his drink too,” put in the bartender.

“Shure—an' why wouldn't he,” exclaimed Old Hughie—he's a
MAN
… God love the big belly of him, an' the big brain—he's the bist dimmycrat of thim all.”

To tease Old Hughie, a drinker at the bar chanted:

Old Hughie drank feverishly and shouted—

“Do ye hear the words comin' outta the empty head—the wind's blowin' inside it—”

My father had given much thought to the wiles of women. He said to me a few months after I had left the orphanage, “They're all alike—some man can get 'em all.”

We were in his bedroom above the pool room. Two bottles of “gunshot” whisky were near his pillow.

Save for a red flannel shirt, wide open, he was naked as truth.

I groped for his meaning.

His long arms, his rope-muscled legs, his immense chest were covered with hair.

“Your mother,” he said, “would o' fell too—they're all alike.”

He was restless that Sunday night. The saloons were closed.

He interspersed talk with the rattling of liquor down a heavy throat.

He never followed a drink of whisky with water. He mixed nothing with raw liquor.

“No use spoilin' it,” he said often.

Late into the night he told me of what he had learned about life and women.

Early next morning his ditch-digging friends called on him.

“This your youngest boy, Jim?” one of them asked.

“Sure,” said my father indifferently.

The delvers into mud felt my arms and shoulders.

They laughed heartily.

“He's a husky kid.”

“Ain't you gonna buy a drink, Jim?”

“Sure thing,” replied my father.

He reached into a bureau drawer for a rusty tin bucket. He took a bacon rind and greased the bottom and sides.

“That's the stuff,” said one of my father's friends. “It'll make the beer fall flat and stick like lead—we'll git twice as much.”

“An' sure—don't I know it,” retorted my father.

“Here son,” he said, “Go down to Oland's on the corner and tell 'em your dad sent ye for a can of beer—twenty cents' worth.”

I took the bucket and two dimes.

I asked the bartender for a dime's worth of beer.

I watched him hold the bucket as far from the brass faucet as possible to make more foam in the bucket.

Before returning to my father I put water in the beer.

The men drank with wry faces. “It's damned weak,” they agreed.

My father sent another ditch digger after the next bucket of beer.

Later in the day he said to me, “Kid—never spoil a bucket o' beer for a nickel or a dime.”

He frowned.

“I once knew of an Irishman who drank water—his stomick got rusty an' he died. But he niver mixed it with beer.”

There was in my father but one touch of ego. When drunk, which was often as convenience and chance would allow, he would bet money that he could throw a shovelful of dirt further than any man in Ohio.

And once, at an Irish picnic, he included the whole world.

A rival ditch digger heard him announce his claim to fame. He was from a German settlement at the other end of Auglaize County.

“You couldn't throw dirt over a Protestant's grave,” he shouted.

The saloon was full of men and the odor of frying fish. Above the noise could be heard the bragging of the rival diggers of ditches. It ended with both men placing a bet of ten dollars each in the hands of John Crasby and my grandfather's bosom friend.

A site was selected where a large creek was being dug with the aid of horses and scrapers. My father rode with the German. Two drunken generals surveying a muddy country could not have looked more important. A score of men followed. Shovels were procured. As both men were right-handed it was decided to throw the dirt on the right side of the creek. Two men were to mark the spot where the largest portion of the dirt landed.

It was a drizzly day.

Each man was allowed ten minutes' practice. The German stood in the bottom of the creek, the banks of which were far above his head. He threw the dirt with such speed that it hummed through the air. My father merely threw the dirt a short distance.

When the time was up each man stripped for action.

They stood, bare to the waist, in the drizzling weather.

Gum boots reached to their hips. There was shouting and laughter from the men on the bank.

When it was discovered that my father had beaten the German by three feet, the rival ditchers returned arm-in-arm to the saloon.

John Crasby, the holder of stakes, was nowhere to be found. He was at last discovered with Old Hughie in the Horseshoe Saloon.

They had spent the money for drink.

W
ITH
his valise across his back, peddler fashion, my father walked away.

Our parting was casual.

My loneliness was intense, my heart bitter. I said no word.

My father left me his small library of paperbacked novels. I was working in a combination saloon and restaurant.

I stood in back of the lunch counter, sleeves rolled to my elbows, a greasy apron tied about me. The dish sink was so near the street that people could see me as they passed.

There soon took root in my heart the false weed of humility, which often conquered pride.

It was apparent to the rustic drunkards and glib salesmen, who teased me as a result.

The owner of the restaurant joined in the merriment with his customers.

The teasing made life weigh more heavily upon me. I was often ashamed to go on the street when the day's work had ended. Instead, I would go to my little room and read—with my world in upheaval.

One evening a young farmer who did not like the Lawlers became personal.

When my grandfather came, I threw my childish pride away and broke down in his arms. He caressed me roughly, and said—

“Take yere own part, me boy—if ye let thim kick ye at yere age—ye'll niver do nothin' but crawl the rist o' yere life.”

His words made me brave.

“Come fer a long walk wit' me,” he be-seeched, “It'll be undher the moon on the dark streets, an' no one will see an old man an' his boy.”

As if to ease my heart, he talked constantly.

“You shouldn't be washin' daishes. Yere too wild a bird for so greasy a cage—”

“We're both savages me boy—did ye iver think of that—well no—yere too young—but it's much I know of Ireland an' her payple—you an' me come out of mud huts—our payple were dumber than the hogs they killed for the praist—indade, an' I know—we are the
Red
Irish—wit' the angry eyes an' the bleuit faces.

“We were little more than two-legged cattle held together by the Holy Mither Church—a hundred years ago—we're Danes an' Irish, me boy—the descindents of big red Danes who traveled the says in canoes—an' who came into Ireland an' had their way wit' the lovely girls—a kind fate for a Dane—”

The old man stumbled at the curb. “Why in the hill ye have to stip up an' down like a horse is more than I know in this town—they git enough money outta the saloons to have dacent straits.”

He recovered his equilibrium when he saw me smile.

“Laugh at yere old grandad an' he'll till ye
no
more about Ireland.”

“I'm sorry, Grandad,” I said quickly. “Please go on.”

“There's nothing to go on to now, me boy, excipt to tell ye to niver trust a woman an' walk on yere heels round the dead—yere old Grandaddy knows things. He kin lie in bed at night an' hear the world go round.

“He's walked over many a ragin' strame on the rocks—an' his fayt have bin wet wit' the blood of life—an' that's made me catch the cold of wisdom—an' helps me to rade min's hearts behind their faces—thire's somethin' in ye an' yere brither Tom—so maybe ye'll both git hung—for that's the way of rale Irish—they git throttled in their slape—so that's why I talk to ye—I'd give a quart of Peoria licker to be able to watch ye from my grave. I'd shove the clouds in Satan's eyes foriver if I could see ye twenty years from now. I'd go an' git yere mither out of her grave in Glynwood—an' I'd say to her—

“‘Look Biddy—look—that's our boy—him that is of yere blood an' mine—an' the great sad heart of ye'—and Biddy would weep for joy—while the wind blew through the fire of her hair—an' the grand proud form of her stood straight up.

“‘See Biddy Lawler,' I'd say, ‘For him did we drame not in vain—he's our boy wit' the hurt hearts of us undernathe his own—he's a little mad Biddy—bein' a Lawler.' I'd say very quiet like—‘but ye can't have iverything Biddy—and if he's a great son—well Biddy—quit yere cryin'—or I'll send ye back to yere grave. I'm takin' ye for a walk, Biddy, to watch yere son that's the son of my son—don't ye see, Biddy—can't ye see. He's the great Goovenor of Ohio—an' he learned his politics from his old Grandad—an' how to carry his licker—an' from you Biddy he got—iverything that's in April—the quick tear an' the pity for fool that nade not be'—thin whin ye'd gone I'd go galavantin' over the blue meadows wit' Biddy—an' out of their graves would come the mithers of min—an' thim that died with the birth of their children would be first—an' all of thim would sing softer than the fithers of robins in May—while Biddy and I played marbles with the stars.”

He laid his shovel-twisted hand upon my shoulder.

“I talk like a woman, me boy—I'm an old mick wit' a drame that broke in his head—”

He touched his temple.

“There's a lot ye'll learn, me boy, as the years pass. None of it'll be worth much. Ye'll break yere heart in yere own way in the ind. I kin tell by the way ye look at me that ye were born to suffer. Yere mither was like that.

“But don't take it so hard—I'm no happier than ye are, boy—an' niver have I been—if it wasn't for whisky I'd drink bluin' in Holy Water to kape from goin' crazy. They think I don't think because I'm an old man with fire in his throat—but whin I'm sausage for the worms, me boy—I want ye to remimber—that Old Hughie Tully was not a fool.”

A faint moon poured dotted shadows through the arched maple trees.

The old man walked slowly and ponderously. The heavy nails in his shoes scratched the cement pavement.

We passed under an arc light.

My grandfather's face was a hard mask with soft eyes.

The light faded behind us. Even the moon was hidden.

“Ah well—ah well—I should o' stayed a pidler in the South—I don't belong here—an' I niver have—I belong where the hearts are warmer—where the women's voices are softer—an' the moon shines aven in the daytime.”

We walked some distance in silence. As if to relieve congested lungs, the old man blew a deep breath.

“Indade—I'd give a million o' the Lord's gold if I were yere age—I'd lave here with the robins—a-rollin' stone may gather no moss—but a rovin' dog sometimes picks up a bone—an' that's what makes min happy—the sudden things—the wimmen a pidler sees,—but not for too long—the biggest bottle gits empty in the ind—an' thin ye kin whistle with it.

“For it's niver the woman ye can trust too long, me boy.

“A friend of mine was a bold bad man in Ireland. He killed so many Inglish it broke the good Quane's heart. Indade he hated the whole world an' trusted nobody but his sweetheart. She betrayed him.”

He held a sardonic laugh in his throat.

“Why I aven knew a mermaid who wint back on her vow of holy matrimony. She took the ring off her tail an' scampered away.

“She'd come up for air one time when Johnny Dodagen saw her—an' bein' Irish an' a fool—he fell in love. She was so beautiful the waves turned gold where she'd swim—an' thin they'd turn into waves of rainbows.

“Well, Johnny married her with an old blind praist. He sat by the bed an' covered her tail—the praist he thought the lady was ill—”

The old man laughed—

“Ye know—or maybe ye don't—mermaids have babies faster than aven poor payple—about six a month if they go to confession; an' if they don't it's a dozen a month. In three months there were thirty nice little Dodagens—an' they all had Irish faces an' fishes tails—”

“Johnny wanted her to go to confession and she would not—and woe an' behold one Sunday morning she took her thirty nice little Doda gens an' wint to the say—an' niver came back to him. Johnny Dodagen came near to faintin' ivery time a shark's tail flapped in the water—he thought it was his dear wife or the oldest girl—but it was no use—the Dooblin papers reported she'd married a whale an' wint to live in London.

“One of the Dodagen boys grew up to be a lawyer—an' he was the bist in Ingland—he was—a strange family was the Dodagens.”