Golden Years Page 20

  We both laughed at that.

  “The problem is that I’d like to be able to kill her. I bash her brains out in my dreams.”

  “Your grandmother is recovering this morning.”

  “Out of danger, they say. Still I don’t think she’ll be with us very long.”

  “You’re probably right … We all die sometime.”

  “I won’t. I’m young and convinced that I am immortal!”

  “No, you’re not! … Let me see if I understand you. You won’t kill Crazy Aunt Jane although she richly deserves it Yet you worry because you have homicidal dreams.”

  “And daydreams too … If somehow she turned up at Oak Park Hospital last night, I would have wanted to push her down the stairs, then kick her in her fat stomach at the bottom of the stairs.”

  “Your daydreams are vivid.”

  “Day and night dreams both.”

  “You think they’re sinful?”

  “No, but I shouldn’t have such thoughts, should I? I mean when I’m awake isn’t that anger wrong?”

  “Do you have a boyfriend Mary Margaret?”

  “Not exactly a boyfriend. There’s this boy who you could call a friend who kind of hangs around. Chucky says that he looks amused and bemused.”

  “Nice boy?”

  “So nice that if my parents had to choose between him and me, they’d choose him.”

  “Do you think you might marry him someday?”

  “I don’t know … Maybe … If someone better doesn’t come along.”

  “Which I interpret to mean ‘yes.’”

  “For the sake of the argument.”

  “You have daydreams and night dreams about going to bed with him?”

  I could see why Rosie says she’s a witch. She was backing me into a corner.

  “Sure … Like Chuck says, if we didn’t think that way, the species would have stopped existing long ago.”

  “I see … Now do you consider those thoughts to be wrong?”

  “Maybe if I waste my time on them all day long.”

  “You’re not about to hop into bed with him?”

  “Not for a long time.”

  “How long?”

  “Deponeth sayeth not.”

  “You see where I’m going?”

  “Sure, I see where you’re going.”

  “Tell me.”

  “You’re saying that the species wouldn’t survive unless we became angry when someone beats up on us or some of our family. It’s only wrong when it turns into the desire for revenge.”

  “Can you give me an example of that?”

  “What about the people who want to go to the execution room to watch someone die because of what the person has done to their family?”

  “Why do they want to do that?”

  “They say because they want closure … But they’ll never get it, will they Dr. Ward?”

  “No, Mary Margaret, they never will. They should learn to transcend their anger, which is not only good Christianity, it’s good mental health. Now tell me about what happened when your crazy Aunt Jane bopped you over the head.”

  So I did. And felt a lot better. We agreed that I would come back once more in two weeks to talk about it all again.

  I felt fine when I left to walk back home.

  Except that I had admitted that I actually might just marry Joey Moran.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Chuck

  As I slurped up my breakfast on Monday morning, I felt very sorry for myself. The house was deserted. Mary Margaret, Shovie, and Erin were in school. My wife, smelling of shower soap and her favorite scent and fully clad in her black business suit, was off on a visit to Dr. Ward. Her mood upon returning from such a session would be unpredictable. She had confided in me that Mary Margaret had a session with Dr. Ward to “work through” Aunt Jane’s head-bashing exercise.

  “Sleep in, Chucky Ducky, you need to recuperate from your sleep deprivation.”

  Her implication was that if I were of the superior gender, I would not suffer from sleep deprivation. How could I sleep in when there was so much work to do? And she had deprived me of my English muffin with raspberry jam, the preparation of which was an element in the spousal vows that my wife had made to me. More time for Maggie Ward than for my English muffin!

  My obligations included developing the rolls I had taken at the White House and preparing versions of the portrait for Newsweek, for the White House Press Office (which would never use them), for The New York Times, which wanted a complete collection (for reasons that escape me), and for the next volume of my collection of portraits. Then I had to return to our neglected Russian films and confer with my wife about our book. It was necessary to produce that book soon, so that my warning about the implosion of the Soviet Union would be on the record before it happened.

  We must divvy up the list of people who had mourned with us and send them notes of gratitude for their sympathy; I would certainly visit my mother at Oak Park Hospital before the day was over. She would probably come out of intensive care sometime today.

  And I was too tired to do anything except pour my second cup of tea and consider the wisdom of making my own English muffin. I was home from Moscow less than ten days. I had not kicked the jet lag. I had been through several wrenching emotional experiences and I was now the titular head of the family (which together with the required fare would earn me a ride on the Chicago subway). That meant that the women in the family would go through the motions of consultation before they did whatever they had already decided.

  The weekend had been a nightmare of rushing back and forth to the hospital and trying to snatch a few moments of sleep as the Good April improved. Poor dear woman, her burdens were simply too heavy. Yet she had bounced back when she heard the luminous Mary Margaret leading the Rosary, accompanied by the smell of roses which might have been a message from someone. Flappers are pretty hard to kill, even when crazy Aunt Jane invades your house with two storm troopers.

  Mary Margaret the favorite grandchild? She and April were as unlike as two women could be—Dr. Panglossa over against my daughter’s clear-eyed, tough-minded realism. What did I know about such things, save that I was now toasting my own English muffin.

  To add to the list of responsibilities about which I could do nothing, was the sad tale of the abrupt end of Sean Seamus’s romance. He was twenty-five, going on twenty-six. His brother Kevin was about to become the father of a third child, his brother Jimmy was about to be ordained. All Seano had was the thrill of the trading floor without the booze and women with which many of the young traders whiled away their afternoon free time.

  Why did he choose to fall in love with women from other cultures whose loyalty to their heritages would prove stronger than their affection for him? Why couldn’t he be sensible like Mary Margaret and pursue a spouse from across the street or down the road?

  Like I did

  By the time I was his age I was already the confused father of a daughter and three sons.

  I had never been twenty-six, had I? No, not really.

  Then there was my wife. Sadness, sleep deprivation, responsibility had terminated prematurely our silly romance. Wrong time, wrong place. Only she had been swept up in the fallingin-love-again dynamic and enjoyed it too much to quit prematurely. One more impossible job.

  At that point the wife in question swept into the kitchen.

  “Still eating breakfast, Chucky? Ick, your hands are sticky! Come on there’s work to be done!”

  “I had to make my own English muffin. This could constitute grounds for seeking an annulment of our marriage contract.”

  She laughed.

  “Well you can punish me in bed tonight for that omission … Ugh, your lips are sticky too. You haven’t taken a shower yet. Come on, lover, it’s a gorgeous day.”

  “It’s raining.”

  “Just a light rain and that’s beautiful too … I know what you need before you go to work in the darkroom. You need a brisk swim
to wake you up … That’s why we bought the pool, so you could get some wake-up exercise. Come on, I’ll swim with you.”

  “Without any clothes?”

  “Chucky Ducky, this is Oak Park on an autumn morning … Come on let’s go.”

  She bounded up the stairs as I trailed behind her. She had removed her dress before she reached the head of the stairs. However, this was to be exercise in the name of health and vitality, not lovemaking, though she did insist on continuing the kisses as we swam. Then allegedly invigorated but only more weary, I accepted my banishment to the darkroom. In shorts and a University of Chicago tee shirt, she retreated to her office to work on her Russian notes.

  It was not hard to find a half dozen shots of Bonzo the President that would serve various purposes—handsome, genial, dedicated, and just a trifle empty. I had merely to hint at the hollowness of this hollow man. Indeed the hint had to be so subtle that most Republicans would not notice it and yet sense somehow on the edge of their teeth that the picture was a little wrong. Mrs. Reagan might think the portrait to be perfectly wonderful.

  I did not create the emptiness. It was there. I didn’t even accentuate it. I would not use the shots that made him look like a perfect idiot. He was not that either. He was just a hollow man with no interest in new ideas, like my prediction of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the evil empire.

  When I’m at work in the darkroom I forget about all the things I’m not doing that I should be doing and do not notice the passage of time. So it was late afternoon when I ambled up to Rosemarie’s office to show mommy my handiwork.

  “Rough prints,” I said, spreading them out on her desk over her Russian notes.

  “Chucky! I was beginning to worry about you! … Let me see … Oh, my, they’re very good, aren’t they … We certainly don’t like the man very much, do we? … But no one at the White House will get it …” She shuffled the shots around and reordered them … “This one for your book … This color one for Newsweek and this one here for the Times and the White House …”

  Thirty years of marriage will not produce such agreement unless there is some sharing of fundamental tastes. I had lucked out.

  “You are a genius, Charles Cronin O’Malley,” she said as she gently caressed my arm. “A dangerous genius. These shots are just like your portrait of LBJ … I wouldn’t buy a used car from this man …”

  “Or a used antimissile system.”

  And I suddenly fell in love with her again. She did have excellent taste, did she not?

  Then the magic of the moment was broken by the sound of the thundering herds coming home from school. They (Mary Margaret, Erin, and Shovie) bounded into the office of the materfamilias and made the appropriate approving sounds about Daddy’s work.

  “Got ’em!” Mary Margaret shouted triumphantly.

  “I don’t like him,” Shovie said. “He’s scary.”

  “A bit of a gombeen man, isn’t he?” Erin whispered.

  “Women of excellent taste … I’d better get back to work.”

  I had finished the portraits for Newsweek by suppertime. They’d love them. We had a full house at supper, all the residents and Seano, who had come to play with his beloved Shovie. We were all in good spirits and the meal was festive. My wife, who insists that in our house she is the cook, had made delicious spaghetti and meatballs which we consumed frantically as we argued about the fates of the ill-starred Chicago sports franchises.

  I noted that Seano was guardedly considering Erin’s aboriginal Irish beauty. Whenever she spoke he listened intently. For her part she avoided looking at him.

  There were dangerous possibilities in the chemistry of that nonexchange. I cornered Mary Margaret before we left to visit the Good April at the hospital.

  “Warn your brother that she’s a very vulnerable young woman, not to be used as a second fiddle.”

  “You noticed too, did you, Chuck! Of course Rosie caught it. Erin is superficially vulnerable all right, but beneath she’s as tough as any of us Crazy O’Malleys. She can take care of herself. Seano is such an idiot. I’ve been talking to him about her and he’s never bothered to look till now.”

  Machinations within machinations.

  “I take it that you and my wife approve even at this early stage.”

  “Sure! Why not! He won’t hurt her, Chucky. He wouldn’t dare. But I’ll warn him just the same.”

  The Good April had regained some of her color and seemed bright and upbeat.

  “It was all so silly, dears. I’m fine. The doctors say I must take it easy for a few weeks and watch what I eat and I’ll be just fine. I’m sorry I caused all that trouble.”

  “Loving you is never any trouble for us,” my wife assured her. “Aren’t you sweet, Rosie? I’m so glad that Chuck finally married you. It was a long struggle, wasn’t it?”

  “It was, Mom, but he’s worth it—some of the time anyway.”

  Much laughter.

  “Did you bring along any of your pictures of that awful president of ours, Chucky dear?”

  “Sure did!”

  I pulled several of them out of my leather folder and passed them over to her.

  “Bonzo the President.” She sighed. “What a terrible empty man! I’d make a better president!”

  April Mae Cronin O’Malley was a lifelong Democrat and fiercely partisan, the only dimension of her personality where Panglossa was firmly banished.

  “You certainly would, April,” Rosemarie agreed. “So would Shovie.”

  “Poor dear little child. She’s so nice when she comes to visit … What about our sweet little Mary Margaret? Is she engaged to that darling Joey Moran boy yet?”

  Rosemarie looked at me. I’m the head of the family. I must answer that conundrum.

  “I think that they have an implicit and unspoken agreement to let their friendship continue in an open-ended way. Are they formally engaged? Not yet and not for a long time perhaps. Will they eventually marry? Don’t anyone bet against it.”

  “Well, there’s no hurry … I always thought your generation married too young … It was all those wars … Anyway, I’m glad you did, dears. Chucky was about to become a typical Irish bachelor like his father, God be good to him.”

  “In some ways,” my wife said, “he is and always will be a typical Irish bachelor. He can’t even make an English muffin with raspberry jam without my help.”

  They both laughed at my discomfiture. Once more what John Knox had called the monster regiment of women had conspired to put me down.

  Nonetheless, I did not reject Rosemarie’s suggestion we stop at Petersen’s for “dessert.” Indeed, as we sat next to each other in the booth, my wife cuddling close to me more than was necessary given the dimensions of the booth, I realized that my infatuation with her was not waning.

  “What do you think, Chucky?”

  “About what?”

  “Mom, Aunt Jane, Seano—for starters.”

  “I’ll answer in reverse order: It would not be a terrible mistake for that twosome of black Irish aborigines to fall in love. We can have no impact on Aunt Jane. I wouldn’t be surprised if she stays forever in that hospital. I don’t think she wants to live a normal life anymore. Mom … I hate to say this, Rosemarie, my darling, she’s a game fighter but I don’t think she’ll be with us for long. She’s so frail …”

  “She wants to see the next crop of great-grandchildren and Jimmy’s ordination. Maybe Gianni’s wedding. Not necessarily Mary Margaret’s. Then she’ll be happy to join Vangie and tell him how wonderful they all are.”

  “And we become the elderly grandparents …”

  “Not a bad role …”

  Usually my hand finds its way to her thigh in this booth in the ice-cream store. This time she beat me to it.

  “Woman, you are really infatuated.”

  She shivered with delight.

  “And I love it … And you.”

  “We’re fighting off old age and death,” I said solemnly.

/>   “If you say so, Chucky Ducky.”

  Back at home, she went to her office to finish a draft of her manuscript on Russia and I went up to our bedroom. I wanted to deal with sleep deprivation, but I knew that would not be permitted. In truth, I did not want to sleep at all. I wanted to ravish my wife again. I delved into the Bride Mary O’Brien files as a distraction from my imperious hunger for her.

  Finally, she appeared in a gossamer white gown that made my eyes pop open.

  “Rosemarie,” I protested, “that is a scandalous gown! I’m surprised at you!”

  “I may let you take one of your obscene pictures of me in it.” She spun around and the thin fabric spun with her. It was husband bait.

  Then she lay on the bed next to me, her belly down, her face on top of mine.

  “You don’t know what a wonderful man you are, my sexy darling. You were perfect with that impossible president, you were a tower of strength for all of us through the weekend. You were good to poor Seano. You calmed me down—and our daughters too. You were so sensitive to April—and all the while you’re practically dead on your feet. I’ve never loved you more …”

  She covered me with kisses.

  I doubted all of these charges.

  “I’m pretty good at submitting to attacks by sex-crazed women,” I said.

  “Don’t tear my gown.”

  “I have to save it for the shoot.”

  We know about the courtship and marriage of Bride Mary O’Brien and Joseph Thomas Raftery almost entirely from his testimony. They both had learned to be cautious about sex and love. As with many people at their ages in life, they were wary of the dating game and skeptical of the advantages in an intense love affair. Both had been burned before and knew all the dangers of intimacy. Yet they both desired intimacy and family before they grew older.

  Joseph Raftery, reflecting on the neighborhood in Chicago where he grew up, remarked to us that the support of family and friends, of the Church and the local community helped the young couple before they made their choice of a spouse and after marriage in working through the adjustments of the common life. It wasn’t perfect, he said, but better than two people passing in the night who suddenly decided to go for broke in the marriage market