Annie visited Maggie-Now on a Sunday afternoon while
Pat was at lIrs. O'Cra~vley's. Maggie-Now was glad to
see her. She made coffee and sent Denny out to get some
coffee cake. Annie had brought her Tessie and her Albie
along and she suggested they go to the baker's with
Denny. Alone with Maggie-Now in the kitchen, she said:
"Jan tells me your man is gone?"
"Yes. "
"You are a good girl and he comes back again. You wait
and see." She had told the girl what Jan had told her to
say. Now she was on her own. It took her a little time to
think up something. Finally she said:
"Sometimes when a man is a little boy other people
too, when they is little- he falls down, maybe on the
head. And he gets big and he goes off and remembers no
more where he lives; not his name even. Tllen he
remembers only he's far away and it takes long to come
home." Maggie-Now smiled. "Is true!" said Annie. "Every
day y ou read in the paper it says so. Even doctors. They
go off like that. But they come back again and they don't
know where they was."
The kids came back and the kids had cake and milk and
Annie
1 299 1
and Maggie-Now had coffee with their cake. Maggie-Now
asked about Annie's work. She worked part time from ten
to two. And the children? Well, Jamesie was big and after
school he worked, and Tessie was in school and took her
lunch. Albie? Yes. Free day nursery for working mothers.
Only Annie worried about Holy Week, when Tessie would
have no school. Maggie-Now got a little excited and asked
could she have Tessie then? Annie said it would be a
great lump off her mind the word "load" eluded her at
the moment.
And so, a good, decent friendship was set up between
them.
Spring came. Denny made his First Holy Communion.
Father Flynn catechised him.
"Who made the world?"
"God made the world."
"Who is God?"
Denny was letter perfect, not missing a single answer.
Father Flynn was surprised and pleased. Maggie-Now had
told him that Denny did badly in school.
"You did fine, Dennis. Didn't miss a single question."
"Claude learned me . . ."
"Taught you . . ."
"Yeah. Every day Claude made me say the answers."
Father Flynn was pleased about that and felt a degree
of warmth toward Claude.
Maggie-Now went to the First Holy Communion Mass
and was proud of her brother. She thought of how moved
Claude would have been at the beautiful ritual and how
they would have talked about it afterward.
When I loly Week came and there was no school, she
and Denny went to eight o'clock Mass and then went over
and got Tessie. Maggie-Now took Albie, too. Annie came
and got her children at three. Maggie-Now fell in love
with Tessie. "She's like a Christmas doll in a toy-store
window," she told Annie.
Maggie-Now always had a cup of coffee and a piece of
cake or a cup of soup for Annie. "So many years I wait on
people and give out coffee and now someone gives out
coffee to me." She repeated Van Clees's theory. "You are
a good girl and your man comes back to you soon."
[ Joo 1
"Ah, Annie! Gus' Annie," said Maggie-Now affectionately.
It started to be summer and Denny came home
trembling the last day of school to tell his sister he'd been
left back: a terrible disgrace in the neighborhood.
"Don't tell Papa," he begged.
"He must know and you must tell him yourself."
"He'll whip me."
"Yes, he will. What's a spanking? It will take your mind
off being left back. And remember: You'll have a little boy
someday and you'll spank him too, if he gets left back."
"Will you hold my hand when I tell him?"
"Yes."
Hand in hand, they confronted their father. "Papa,
Denny has something to tell you."
"What? "
"Tell him, Denny."
"I got left back." Denny crowded closer to his sister.
To their surprise, the unpredictable man sided with his
son. First, he said they gave Denny too much homework
for the second grade. Next he put the blame on Claude.
"I don't wonder," he said, "I knew it would happen the
way that bastid filled the boy's head up with all that stuff
about South America and them grouchies on the pampies
or peepees or whatever the hell they was, instead-a helping
the boy with his A, B. Abs.'
Pat, in his element because he had a chance to abuse
Claude, ranted and raved and was indignant at Claude to
such an extent that Denny began to feel that he had
accomplished something admirable in not being promoted
to the next grade. But MaggieNow made Denny go to
summer school all the same.
Missing Claude was still a dull ache to her. Sometimes
she had a tiny flash of resentment toward him. Usually, it
was when her Time came. If only he had left me With
Child, she thought, it wouldn't he so hard for me to keep
going. And, she thought further, it's a terrible thing when a
woman never slept with a man before and then she gets used
to sleeping with one man and then he goes away. That's the
hardest thing of all.
And summer became fall and fall started to change into
winter
[3 ~ ]
and suddenly the war was over.
It was the Armistice and people poured out of their
stores and houses and walked up and down the street with
a jigging, up-anddown walk and hollered across the street
to each other that the war was over. And kids ganged up
and looted the stores. Most shopkeepers locked up for the
day, but the candy-store man, who had two sons in the
service and was deliriously happy that the war was over
and that his boys would come home safe and sound, got
a barrel and emptied the contents of his store into it and
lugged it out onto the sidewalk and threw handfuls of
candy into the air and laughed as the little children
tumbled over each other scrambling for it. Then some big
boys came along, kicked over the barrel, chased the man
back into his store, chased the little kids away and
gathered up the candy.
Not all the people of the neighborhood were out on the
streets, though. Lots of the older ones went to church to
give thanks. And in some houses, where there was a gold
star in the window, the people stayed home and pulled
the shades down as though it were night.
That was the false Armistice.
When the real one came through on November I l, an
impromptu block party was organised that night. A band
got itself together: a fellow with a cornet, a girl with a
violin, a middleaged German, taken on sufferance because
he played the concertina, and
a high-school kid with a
drum. Two benign cops, one at each end of the l~lock,
closed the block to traffic so that there could be dancing
in the street.
There were a few men in uniforms. They were from
nearby camps. Some were home on furlough, others on
short leave, and a few were just A.W.O.L. They danced
with their own girls or with pick-ups. There were some
sailors, those who did paper work down at the Brooklyn
Navy Yard, and they had their own girls. You could
always tell a sailor's girl. She wore pants, a lace blouse,
very high-heeled shoes, rhinestone earrings and had a
shingle haircut. Just the same, there were more girls than
men and the surplus girls danced with each other.
Maggie-Now stood on the sidewalk with Denny to
watch. From time to time, someone started a song in
compecition to the band.
[ 302 ]
Though the army is in ~lover,
sang out a voice, and everybody else sang the next line:
'Twas the navy brought them over.
And everybody agreed songfully in the punch line that the
navy would bring them back.
Maggie-Now saw Sonny's sister dance by with Cholly.
"Look!" called out Gina. She pointed to the chevron on
Cholly's sleeve. "Private first class!" she called out proudly.
Cholly whirled Gina around so he could talk to
Maggie-Now over Gina's shoulder. "I fought and I fought,"
he hollered, "but I had to go anyhow."
"Yeah," said a soldier, evidently a buddy of Cholly's.
"Yeah! He fought a good clean war up there at Yaphank."
Someone started to sing: You're ire the army now. There
were cries of "Shut up!" and "Drop dead!" and "You
should live so long! "
The next time Gina danced around, Maggie-Now called
out: "How's Sonny?"
"As if you cared," said Gina bitterly.
Maggie-Now waited until Gina danced around again. "I
ask as a friend," she shouted above the noise.
Gina made Cholly pause and they stood, swaying to the
rhythm of "There Are Smiles," while she answered
Maggie-Now. "Strange as it may seem to you, Mis. Bassett,
he's just fine."
"Meow!" said Cholly, and they danced away.
Then it was Thanksgiving again, and soon after that
MaggieNow lost her job. The manager of the movie house
told her that the veterans were coming home and needed
jobs and it was only right that he give her job to a guy
who was willing and ready to die to make The World Slfe
for Democracy. Maggie-Now agreed that she felt the same
way.
"Yeah," said the manager, "they fought for the privilege
of eating apple pie and watching the Dodgers play ball.
And the least we can do . . ."
"That's right," agreed Maggie-Now.
She wasn't worried. She had fifteen hundred dollars in the
bank
[ 3 3 ]
saved from her salary and the rent from the rooms
upstairs. If Claude came back . . . if, and if he didn't get
work right away, there was enough money to go on for a
while without her father getting nasty about finances.
It was December. There wasn't much snow. One day it
did snow real hard but it changed to rain. Then it snowed
again a little and for three days it snowed on and off.
Maggie-Now did not believe that Claude would come
back. What did she have to go on? True, he had come
back last winter, but then he had been free to go away in
the first place. He had come back because he wanted to
marry her then. But now . . .
Still, she waited for him, pretending.... Each night at
ten, she dressed warmly and went out on the streets,
walking for blocks in the direction he had come from the
year before. Then she'd go home, prepare for bed, put on
her white robe, go out and sit at the window, brushing her
hair, and wait. No, she didn't expect him to come back,
but the waiting for him, the pretending that he might
come back, gave her a kind of surcease.
One night she was out walking. The snow had been
around for days now and she told herself there was no
rule that he would come back with the snow. She heard
her name spoken in his voice but there was no one on the
street. I'm getting queer, she thought, hearing voices when
there is no one here.
"And where did you get that funny hat?"
She turned around. He had come up behind her from
the opposite direction. She looked at him, then put her
hands over her face and wept. He took her in his arms
and comforted her in the old way.
"I know, I know. There, now. There, Margaret, there,
MaggieNow."
"If you had only sent a line, a note, just a card with your
name on it . . . something that I could have hoped on,"
she wept.
"I know, I know. Someday when we are old and have
run out of things to talk about, I'll tell you all about it.
Why, I must . . ."
"If you go away again, please, please, oh, Claude, tell me
first. I won't keep you, I won't hold you, I won't . . ."
"If I go again, will you come with me, Margaret?"
"Yes! Yes! Anywhere . . . anyplace just so we are
together."
[ 3 4 ]
He had brought back two small steaks which were
wrapped up and pushed in his coat pocket. She made
coffee and prepared to fry the steaks. He emptied his
pockets and placed nearly thirty dollars on the table.
"I earned it," he said, "and I want you to buy a dressing
table so that, at night, I can lie in bed and watch you
brush your hair and see you from the back and see your
face in the mirror at the same time."
She put the coffeepot clown. He was sitting, she
standing. She took his head in her hands and held it
against her breast, but all she said was: "Oh, Claude!"
He asked about Denny and about her father and said:
"I hope he doesn't wake up and come out here. I'm too
tired to spar with him tonight. I'll take him on tomorrow."
"I'll see that he doesn't bother us," she said.
She went up to her father's room. She was going to tell
him under no circumstances to come out into the kitchen,
that Claude was back and they wanted to be alone and, if
he wouldn't let them be alone, she would leave with
Claude immediately.
"Papa, wake up!" He groaned. She shook him awake.
"Now what?" he said irritably.
"Claude is back and . . ."
"What?" he shouted.
"Sh! Don't holler. The tenants . . ."
"The hell with the tenants! " he shouted louder. "What
did you say?"
"Claude just came home and I want you . . ."
He jumped out of bed. "If you think for one minute I'm
there half the night ta
lking to that bastid . . ." He was
ranting and raving and cursing and stamping his foot like
Rumpelstiltskin, the dwarf in the fairytale.
The tenant occupying the rest of the apartment banged
on the wall, and yelled: "A little quiet in there. We want
to sleep."
"Drop dead!" Pat yelled back.
"Yeah?" came the weary voice of the wife. "You drop
dead!"
Pat shook his fist at the wall and shouted: "I'll bury youse
all!"
After a while, Maggie-Now got him bedded down and
quieted.
[3 5]
When she got back to the kitchen, Denny was standing
there in his pajamastalking a blue streak. Claude, almost
asleep, was nodding his head from time to time.
". . . Ieft back and I went to summer school and got
promoted on prohibition" (he meant probation), "and I
belong to a gang, The Rotten Roosters, and we got a
password...."
"Denny," she said sharply, "what are you doing out of
bed?"
"I got up to say hello to Claude."
"Say good night."
"Good night."
"Now get back to bed."
"But . . ."
"Don't let me tell you again," she threatened. He went
back to bed.
Claude fell asleep while he was eating his steak. She got
up and pulled him to his feet. She pulled one of his arms
over her shoulder and got him into the bedrom. ". . .
sleepy," muttered Claude. "Don' know why . . . getting
older . . ."
She sat him on the bed and got his pajamas from under
the pillow where she always kept them. She got her
nightgown from under the other pillow. But Claude had
keeled over and was sound asleep. She pulled back the
covers, got his legs up onto the bed, pulled his shoes off,
and, not bothering to try to undress him, she got him
under the covers. She undressed. She thought of the
half-eaten food on the table and the unbanked fire and
she didn't care. It was the first time she'd ever left the
kitchen untidy.
She put out the light and got into bed beside him. She
turned him on his side and got her arm under his
shoulder, put his head on her breast and her hand on his
cheek, pressing his head against her. She was utterly
content. He felt like a baby in her arm.
He was up early the next morning and in wonderfully
high spirits. She brought him his breakfast on a tray and
he made her sit on the bed and share it with him. He told
her he was going out to get a job. She gave lfim his thirty
dollars back and added twenty of her own and told him to
get a suit and shoes and a hat. He refused at first,
mentioning the dressing table. She said he could buy that
for her out of his first week's pay.
She watched him fondly as he went down the stoop
whistling.
[ dog ]
He walked over to Henny Clynne's section. As he
approached the super who was indoctrinating this
snowfall's crop of "college men," Claude started to whistle:
"High Above Cayuga's Waters." He whistled tenderly,
nostalgically and with many trills. Henny's ears stood up;
his nostrils quivered. He got the scent of a live one. His
little eyes twinkled when he recognised Claude. He was
seldom lucky enough to get the same college man two
years in succession.
"Graduate from college yet?" he asked Claude.
"Oh, yes, sir. And now, I'm working on my master's...."
He paused and winked at Henny. ". . . you know what.
And when I get finished with that," he looked around
cautiously and dropped his voice to a whisper, "then I'll
start on my pee aitch dee."
It sounded vaguely dirty to Henny. He snarled: "Don't
get wise with me, college boy."
"Oh, no sir," said Claude eagerly.
Henny heaved a shovel at him. Claude caught it in one
hand. He stroked the smooth wood. "Oh, sir," he said,
"you don't know how I've dreamed of this. All year, cold
and hungry, I dreamed you would put a shovel in my hand
. . ." Some of the men started to laugh.
"Fall in, beautiful dreamer," ordered Henny. The men