Jerry Kerrisk whispers we should get away from this crazy crowd and have a beer. I don’t like spending money in bars with the trouble my mother is in but it’s Christmas and the whiskey I had already makes me feel better about myself and the world in general and why shouldn’t I be good to myself. It’s the first time in my life I ever drank whiskey like a man and now that I’m in a bar with Jerry I can talk and not worry about my eyes or anything. Now I can ask Jerry why Eddie Gilligan is so cold to his brother.
Women, says Jerry. Eddie was engaged to this girl when he was drafted but when he went away she and Joe fell in love and when she sent Eddie back the engagement ring he went crazy and said he’d kill Joe the minute he saw him. But Eddie was sent to Europe and Joe to the Pacific and they were busy killing other people and while they were away Joe’s wife, the one Eddie was supposed to marry, started drinking and now makes Joe’s life hell. Eddie said that was punishment for the son-of-a-bitch for stealing his girl. He met a nice Italian girl himself in the army, a WAC, but she has the blood infection and you’d think there’s a curse on the whole Gilligan family.
Jerry says he thinks the Irish mothers are right after all. You should marry your own kind, Irish Catholics, and make sure they’re not drinkers or Italians with blood infections.
He laughs when he says that but there’s something serious in his eyes and I don’t say anything because I know I don’t want to marry an Irish Catholic myself and spend the rest of my life dragging the kids to confession and Communion and saying, Yes, Father, oh, indeed, Father, every time I see a priest.
Jerry wants to stay in the bar and drink more beer and he turns peevish when I tell him I have to visit Mrs. Austin and her sister, Hannah. Why would I want to spend Christmas Eve with two old Swedish women, forty years old at least, when I could be having a grand time for myself with girls from Mayo and Kerry up at Ireland’s Thirty-Two? Why?
I can’t answer him because I don’t know where I want to be or what I’m supposed to do. That’s what you’re faced with when you come to America, one decision after another. I knew what to do in Limerick and I had answers for questions but this is my first Christmas Eve in New York and here I am pulled one way by Jerry Kerrisk, Ireland’s Thirty-Two, the promise of girls from Mayo and Kerry, and the other way by two old Swedish women, one always gawking out the window in case I might smuggle in food or drink, the other unhappy with her Irish husband and who knows what way she’ll jump. I’m afraid if I don’t go to Mrs. Austin she might turn savage on me and tell me leave and there I’ll be out on the street on Christmas Eve with my brown suitcase and only a few dollars left after sending money home, paying my rent and now buying beer right and left in this bar. After all this I can’t afford to spend the night doling out beer money for the women of Ireland and that’s the part Jerry understands, the part that takes away his peevishness. He knows money has to be sent home. He says, Happy Christmas, and laughs, I know you’ll have a wild night with the old Swedish girls. The barman has his ear cocked and he says, Mind yourself at them Swedish parties. They’ll be giving you their native drink, the glug, and if you drink that stuff you won’t know Christmas Eve from the feast of the Immaculate Conception. It’s black and thick and you’d need a strong constitution for it, and then they make you eat all kinds of fish with it, raw fish, salty fish, smoked fish, all kinds of fish you wouldn’t give a cat. The Swedes drink that glug and it makes them so crazy they think they’re Vikings all over again.
Jerry says he didn’t know the Swedes were Vikings. He thought you had to be a Dane.
Nodatall, says the barman. All them people in northern places were Vikings. Whenever you saw ice you were sure to see a Viking.
Jerry says it’s remarkable the things people know and the barman says, I could tell you a story or two.
Jerry orders one more beer for the road and I drink it though I don’t know what’s going to become of me after my two large whiskeys in Mr. Carey’s office and four beers here with Jerry. I don’t know how I’m going to face a night of glug and all kinds of fish if the barman is right in his prophecy.
We walk up Third Avenue singing “Don’t Fence Me In” with people rushing past us frantic over Christmas, giving us nothing but hard stares. There are dancing Christmas lights everywhere, but up around Bloomingdale’s the lights dance too much and I have to hold on to a Third Avenue El pillar and throw up. Jerry pushes in my stomach with his fist. Get it all up, he says, and you’ll have plenty of room for the glug and you’ll be a new man tomorrow. Then he says glug glug glug and laughs so hard over the sound of the word he’s nearly hit by a car and a cop tells us move on, that we should be ashamed of ourselves, Irish kids that should respect the birthday of the Savior, goddammit.
There’s a diner at Sixty-seventh Street and Jerry says I should have coffee to straighten me out before I see the Swedes, he’ll pay for it. We sit at the counter and he tells me he’s not going to spend the rest of his life working like a slave at the Biltmore Hotel. He’s not going to wind up like the Gilligans who fought for the U.S.A. and what the hell did they get for it? Arthritis and wives with blood infections and drinking problems, that’s what they got. Oh, no, Jerry is heading for the Catskill Mountains on Memorial Day, the end of May, the Irish Alps. Plenty of work up there waiting on tables, cleaning up, anything, and the tips are good. There are Jewish places up there, too, but they’re not too active in the tipping department because they pay for everything in advance and don’t have to carry cash. The Irish drink and leave money on tables or the floor and when you clean up it’s all yours. Sometimes they come back squawking but you didn’t see a thing. You don’t know nothing. You just sweep up the way you’re paid to. Of course they don’t believe you and they call you a liar and say things about your mother but there’s nothing they can do except take their business elsewhere. There are plenty of girls up in the Catskills. Some places have outdoor dances and all you have to do is waltz your Mary into the woods and before you know it you’re in a state of mortal sin. The Irish girls are mad for it once they get to the Catskills. They’re hopeless in the city the way they all work in fancy places like Schrafft’s with their little black dresses and little white aprons, Ah, yes, ma’am, ah, indeed, ma’am, are the mashed potatoes a little too lumpy, ma’am? but get them up in the mountains and they’re like cats, up the pole, getting pregnant, and before they know what hit them, dozens of Seans and Kevins are dragging their arses up the aisle with the priests glaring at them and the girls’ big brothers threatening them.
I want to sit in the diner all night listening to Jerry talking about Irish girls in the Catskills but the man says it’s Christmas Eve and he’s closing out of respect to his Christian customers even though he’s Greek and it’s not really his Christmas. Jerry wants to know how it could not be his Christmas since all you have to do is look out the window for proof but the Greek says, We’re different.
That’s enough for Jerry who doesn’t argue about such things and that’s what I like about him, the way he goes through life having another beer and dreaming of grand times in the Catskills and not arguing with Greeks about Christmas. I wish I could be like him but there’s always some dark cloud at the back of my head, Swedish women waiting for me with glug, or a letter from my mother saying thanks for the few dollars, Michael and Alphie will have shoes and we’ll have a nice goose for Christmas with the help of God and His Blessed Mother. She never mentions she needs shoes for herself and once I think of that I know I’ll have another dark cloud at the back of my head. I wish there was a little panel I could slide back to release the clouds but there isn’t and I’ll have to find another way or stop collecting dark clouds.