’n’ I hope it’s not anything serious. You haven’t your school finished yet. You haven’t a tosser in your pocket. Is there any sense in courting a girl?”
“What do you mean, courting?” Jim forced a laugh. “We’re just friends.”
The father made a guttural noise that was the equivalent of “horse shit,” but he didn’t say it.
“You’re making a big thing out of nothing,” said Jim.
“I’m just warning you for your own good.”
Jim stood up to leave. “Is it all right if I have her in this evening? I mean, you won’t take that for a formal engagement, I hope, if she comes this evening?”
“Have her in if you want,” the father replied. “She’ll be glad enough of something to eat, I suppose.”
“She doesn’t need anything to eat,” Jim retorted. “They eat better than we do.”
“Sure.”
Jim left the kitchen before they could get started on the Hairy Apple again. Was there anywhere a more pig-headed man?
Jim got to his room and nestled under the covers again. His resting spot was still warm, and it felt good. But he couldn’t sleep; he didn’t have any peace of mind. In a way, he had been looking forward to his act of revolt when he would bring Eva into the house. Now that it was all set, the father had taken all the pleasure out of it with his talk of expectations and marriage. Maybe she did have expectations of marriage. Why shouldn’t she? He’d make a good husband too. He imagined himself married to Eva. He could almost see her in the bed with him. He fell into a half-sleep, and he dreamt that he and Eva had their wedding night. It was a delightful dream.
But then the dream continued. Eva was standing in the front hallway of the Meagher home with her belly pushing out a maternity dress, and Mr. Meagher was standing beside her livid with rage. Jim, backed up against the wall, had chains around his arms and legs, and the father was shouting, “You gave her expectations! You gave her expectations!”
A huge, shapeless monster was suddenly descending on him, swallowing him.
He felt himself plunging off a precipice.
He fell down into hell, into the eternal fires.
He screamed.
Florence ran into the bedroom, and Jim suddenly became aware that he was lying on the floor beside the bed, tangled in the bedclothes.
“Jim! Jim! What’s the matter with you? You’re white as a sheet!”
She helped him untangle the bedclothes, and he got loose, and stood up and sat on the bed. “I’m all right.”
She bent over and looked into his face. She felt his forehead for a temperature. “Are you worried about school? God, you’re in a sweat.”
“I’m all right.”
“What’s the matter? Tell me.”
“There’s nothing the matter.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“You’re not getting a grippe?”
“Oh, stop it, will you? I’m all right. Let me get dressed.”
She left. He dressed and went to Mass. Sitting in church, he felt a heavy load of guilt. He had added a new betrayal. The dream wasn’t difficult to interpret: as soon as he had gotten Eva pregnant, he couldn’t get away from her fast enough. Good, kind, sweet Eva.
Yesterday, when everything was going wrong—Phelan called him a sneak, his father told him he wasn’t worth a shit, Florence told him there was something wrong with him—he went to Eva and she had bound up the wounds, and he betrayed her now too.
It was just a dream. But it wasn’t just a dream. It was him. His stomach was bouncing.
He left Mass, chastened, resolved to do good things.
Florence was waiting for him at home. “Jimmy? Would you do me a favor?”
“What?”
She was hesitant even to ask. “It’s a trip all the way downtown.”
“For what?”
“I forgot the cranberry sauce.”
“Okay.”
He was so compliant, she couldn’t believe it. “Do you feel all right?”
“Yeah, I’m all right.”
“I’ll make breakfast for you.”
He sat at the kitchen table and pulled the sports section out of the Times.
His father always bought the Times on Sunday before he went to Mass. It was the thickest paper on the newsstand, and therefore obviously worth the money. Florence fried Canadian bacon, chicken livers, blood pudding, slices of tomato dipped in batter, and two eggs. She was a great cook. Amid a constant stream of conversation, he tried to read Arthur Daley’s sports column. “You don’t mind if Ralph is bartender today, do you?” she asked.
“Huh?”
“You don’t mind if Ralph is bartender?”
“No. Of course not. What do I care?”
“It will make him feel good,” she said. “And it will give him something to do.”
She poured two cups of coffee and brought one to Jim, and sat opposite him to drink the other. He continued to read the paper, and nodded automatically as she talked.
“It’s not that he’s that way, really. It’s his mother. He says that she influenced his sense of himself. She’s very fearful. She put all kinds of restrictions on him when he was growing up. She wouldn’t let him go to the pool when the other kids went, because she was afraid he would get some kind of a germ. And she didn’t want him to drive. And things like that. He says she practically destroyed his self-concept. He needs a lot of reassurance. You like him, don’t you, Jim?”
“Huh?”
“You like him, don’t you?”
“Yeah, he’s a nice guy.”
“He’s kind. Sometimes lawyers are shrewd and hard, but he’s not that way. He’s got brains too. He presents his own cases, and that’s very unusual. Usually the younger ones just help the older ones in court. But he presents his own. And he wins. He just needs someone to tell him all the time that he’s good. To give him confidence.”
She brought over the plate of food, and Jim put the paper down. “It’s a terrific position for a young lawyer,” she continued. “Like Ralph says, he can go in a hundred different directions. Dewey was District Attorney in New York, you know.”
“Yeah,
