A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [17]
Yes, everyone loved Johnny Nolan. He was a sweet singer of sweet songs. Since the beginning of time, everyone, especially the Irish, had loved and cared for the singer in their midst. His brother waiters really loved him. The men he worked for loved him. His wife and children loved him. He was still gay and young and handsome. His wife had not turned bitter against him and his children did not know that they were supposed to be ashamed of him.
Francie pulled her thoughts away from that day when she had visited the Union Headquarters. She listened to her father again. He was reminiscing.
“Take me. I’m nobody.” Placidly, he lit up a nickel cigar. “My folks came over from Ireland the year the potatoes gave out. Fellow ran a steamship company said he’d take my father to America—had a job waiting for him. Said he’d take the boat fare from his wages. So my father and mother came over.
“My father was like me—never held the one job long.” He smoked in silence for a while.
Francie ironed quietly. She knew that he was just thinking out loud. He did not expect her to understand. He just wanted someone to listen to him. He said practically the same things every Saturday. The rest of the week when he was drinking, he would come and go and say little. But today was Saturday. It was his day to talk.
“My folks never knew how to read or write. I only got to the sixth grade myself—had to leave school when the old man died. You kids are lucky. I’m going to see to it that you get through school.”
“Yes, Papa.”
“I was a boy of twelve then. I sang in saloons for the drunks and they threw pennies at me. Then I started working around saloons and restaurants…waiting on people….” He was quiet a while with his thoughts.
“I always wanted to be a real singer, the kind that comes out on the stage all dressed up. But I didn’t have no education and I didn’t know the first way about how to start in being a stage singer. Mind your job, my mother told me. You don’t know how lucky you are to have work, she said. So I drifted into the singing-waiter business. It’s not steady work. I’d be better off if I was just a plain waiter. That’s why I drink,” he finished up illogically.
She looked up at him as though she were going to ask a question. But she said nothing.
“I drink because I don’t stand a chance and I know it. I couldn’t drive a truck like other men and I couldn’t get on the cops with my build. I got to sling beer and sing when I just want to sing. I drink because I got responsibilities that I can’t handle.” There was another long pause. Then he whispered, “I am not a happy man. I got a wife and children and I don’t happen to be a hard-working man. I never wanted a family.”
Again that hurt around Francie’s heart. He didn’t want her or Neeley?
“What does a man like me want a family for? But I fell in love with Katie Rommely. Oh, I’m not blaming your mother,” he said quickly. “If it hadn’t been her, it would have been Hildy O’Dair. You know, I think your mother is still jealous of her. But when I met Katie, I said to Hildy, ‘You go your way and I’ll go mine.’ So I married your mother. We had children. Your mother is a good woman, Francie. Don’t you ever forget that.”
Francie knew that Mama was a good woman. She knew. And Papa said so. Then why did she like her father better than her mother? Why did she? Papa was no good. He said so himself. But she liked Papa better.
“Yes, your mother works hard. I love my wife and I love my children.” Francie was happy again. “But shouldn’t a man have a better life? Maybe someday it will be that the Unions will arrange for a man to work and to have time for himself too. But that won’t be in my time. Now, it’s work hard all the time or be a bum…no in-between. When I die, nobody will remember me for long. No one will say, ‘He was a man who loved his family and believed in the Union.’ All they will say is, ‘Too bad. But he was nothing but a drunk no matter which way you look at it.’ Yes, they’ll say that.”
The room was very quiet. Johnny Nolan threw his half-smoked cigar out of the unscreened window with a