A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [178]
“There’s no other place like it,” Francie said.
“Like what?”
“Brooklyn. It’s a magic city and it isn’t real.”
“It’s just like any other place.”
“It isn’t! I go to New York every day and New York’s not the same. I went to Bayonne once to see a girl from the office who was home, sick. And Bayonne isn’t the same. It’s mysterious here in Brooklyn. It’s like—yes—like a dream. The houses and streets don’t seem real. Neither do the people.”
“They’re real enough—the way they fight and holler at each other and the way they’re poor, and dirty, too.”
“But it’s like a dream of being poor and fighting. They don’t really feel these things. It’s like it’s all happening in a dream.”
“Brooklyn is no different than any other place,” said Neeley firmly. “It’s only your imagination makes it different. But that’s all right,” he added magnanimously, “as long as it makes you feel so happy.”
Neeley! So much like Mama, so much like Papa; the best of each in Neeley. She loved her brother. She wanted to put her arms around him and kiss him. But he was like Mama. He hated people to be demonstrative. If she tried to kiss him, he’d get mad and push her away. So, she held out her hand instead.
“Happy New Year, Neeley.”
“The same to you.”
They shook hands solemnly.
47
FOR THE LITTLE WHILE OF THE CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS, IT HAD BEEN almost like old times in the Nolan family. But after New Year’s things reverted to the new routine which had grown on them since Johnny’s death.
There were no more piano lessons, for one thing. Francie hadn’t practiced in months. Neeley did his piano playing evenings in the neighborhood ice-cream saloons. He had been expert at ragtime and was becoming even more expert at jazz. He could make a piano talk—so people said—and he was very popular. He played for free sodas. Sometimes Scheefly gave him a dollar on a Saturday night for playing the whole evening. Francie didn’t like it and spoke to her mother about it.
“I wouldn’t let him, Mama,” she said.
“But where’s the harm in it?”
“You don’t want him to get into the habit of playing for free refreshments like….” She hesitated. Katie picked up the sentence.
“Like your father? No, he’d never be like him. Your father never sang the songs he loved, like ‘Annie Laurie’ or ‘The Last Rose of Summer.’ He sang what the people wanted, ‘Sweet Adeline’ and ‘Down by the Old Mill Stream.’ Neeley’s different. He’ll always play what he likes and not care two cents whether anyone else likes it.”
“You’re saying, then, that Papa was only an entertainer and that Neeley is an artist.”
“Well…yes,” admitted Katie defiantly.
“I think that’s carrying mother love a little too far.”
Katie frowned and Francie dropped the subject.
They had stopped reading the Bible and Shakespeare since Neeley started high school. He reported that they were studying Julius Caesar and the principal read from the Bible each assembly period and that was enough for Neeley. Francie begged off reading at night because her eyes were tired from reading all day. Katie did not insist, feeling that they were now old enough to read or not—just as they wished.
Francie’s evenings were lonely. The Nolans were together only at the supper hour when even Laurie sat up to the table in her high chair. After supper Neeley went out, either to be with his gang or to play at some ice-cream saloon. Mama read the paper and then she and Laurie went to bed at eight o’clock. (Katie was still getting up at five in order to have most of her cleaning done while