A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [136]
McGarrity had another dream; it was that Mae would come to him and confess that the children were not his. This dream made him happy. He felt that he could love those children if he knew they were another man’s. Then he could see their meanness and their stupidity objectively; then he could pity them and help them. As long as he knew they were his, he hated them because he saw all of his own and Mae’s worst traits in them.
In the eight years that Johnny had been patronizing McGarrity’s saloon, he had spoken daily to McGarrity in praise of Katie and the children. McGarrity played a secret game during those eight years. He pretended that he was Johnny and that he, McGarrity, was talking so about Mae and his children.
“Want to show you something,” Johnny said once, proudly, as he pulled a paper from his pocket. “My little girl wrote this composition in school and got ‘A’ on it and she’s only ten years old. Listen. I’ll read it to you.”
As Johnny read, McGarrity pretended that it was his little girl who had written the story. Another day, Johnny brought in a pair of crudely made wood book ends and placed them on the bar with a flourish.
“Want to show you something,” he said proudly. “My boy, Neeley, made these in school.”
“My boy, Jimmy, made these in school,” said McGarrity proudly to himself as he examined the book ends.
Another time, to start him talking, McGarrity had asked, “Think we’ll get in the war, Johnny?”
“Funny thing,” Johnny had answered. “Katie and I sat up till near morning talking about that very thing. I convinced her finally that Wilson will keep us out of it.”
How would it be, McGarrity thought, if he and Mae sat up all night to talk about that, and how would it be if she said, “You’re right, Jim.” But he didn’t know how it would be because he knew that could never happen.
So when Johnny died, McGarrity lost his dreams. He tried to play the game by himself but it didn’t work out. He needed someone like Johnny to start him off.
About the time that the three sisters sat in Katie’s kitchen talking, McGarrity got an idea. He had more money than he knew how to spend, and nothing else. Maybe through Johnny’s children he could buy the way of dreaming again. He suspected that Katie was hard up. Maybe he could scare up a little easy work for Johnny’s kids to do after school. He’d be helping them out…God knows he could afford it, and maybe he’d get something in return. Maybe they would talk to him the way they must have talked to their father.
He told Mae he was going up to see Katie about some work for the children. Mae told him, cheerfully enough, that he’d be thrown out on his ear. McGarrity didn’t think he’d be thrown out on his ear. As he shaved for the visit, he recalled the day that Katie had come in to thank him for the wreath.
After Johnny’s funeral, Katie went around thanking each person who had sent flowers. She had walked straight through McGarrity’s front door disdaining the deviousness of the side door marked “Ladies’ Entrance.” Ignoring the staring men hanging on the bar, she had come straight to where McGarrity was. Seeing her, he had tucked up one bottom end of his apron into the belt, signifying that he was off duty for the moment and had come from behind the bar to meet her.
“I came to thank you for the wreath,” she said.
“Oh that,” he said, relieved. He thought she had come to bawl him out.
“It was thoughtful of you.”
“I liked Johnny.”
“I know.” She put her hand out. He looked at it dumbly for a moment before he got the idea that she wanted to shake him by the hand. As he wrung her hand, he asked, “No hard feelings?”
“Why?” she answered. “Johnny was free, white and over twenty-one.” She had turned then and walked out of the saloon.
No, decided McGarrity, such a woman wouldn’t throw him out on his ear if he came with well-meant intentions.
He sat ill at ease on one of the kitchen