Virgil called me next day. Even though his voice was weak he told me, I got the egg timer goin’ here, so I have to talk fast. Can you come down? I need a little help. The door is open.
He was sitting in his armchair in his bathrobe. I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night. Couldn’t get into the bed.
He couldn’t get into the bed because the liquor store man had piled up the twenty-five cases around his bed so high that Virgil couldn’t climb over. He said he had to try some of the Irish whiskey and the wine and that didn’t help much when it was time to climb. He said he needed soup, something in his stomach to keep him from being sick. When I opened a can of soup and poured it into a pot with an equal amount of water he asked me if I’d read the instructions on the can.
No.
Well, how do you know what to do?
It’s common sense, Virgil.
Common sense, my ass.
He was hangover cranky. Listen to me, Frank McCourt. You know why you’ll never be a success?
Why?
You never follow the instructions on the package. That’s why I have money in the bank and you don’t have a pot to piss in. I always followed the instructions on the package.
Another knock on the door. What? What? said Virgil.
Voigel, it’s me. Pete.
Pete who? Pete who? I can’t see through the door.
Pete Buglioso. I got something for you, Voigel.
Don’t talk Brooklyn to me, Pete. My name is Virgil, not Voigel. He was a poet, Pete. You should know, you’re Italian.
I don’t know nothin’ about that, Voigel. I got somethin’ for you, Voigel.
I don’t want nothin’, Pete. Call back next year.
But, Voigel, you’ll like what I have. Cost you a coupla bucks.
What is it?
Can’t tell you through the door, Voigel.
Virgil heaved himself from the armchair and stumbled to the egg timer on his desk. All right, Pete, all right. You can come in for three minutes. I’m setting my egg timer.
He tells me open the door and tells Pete the egg timer is working and even though grains of sand have already dropped Pete still has three minutes, so start talking, Pete, start talking and make it snappy.
All right, Voigel, all right, but how the hell can I talk when you’re talking. You talk more than anyone.
You’re wasting your time, Pete. You’re hanging yourself. Look at the egg timer. Look at that sand. Sands of time, Pete, sands of time.
Whadda you doin’ with all them boxes, Voigel. Rob a truck or somethin’?
The egg timer, Pete, the egg timer.
All right, Voigel, what I got here is, will you stop lookin’ at the goddam egg timer, Voigel, an’ lissena me. What I got here is prescription pads from a doctor’s office on Clinton Street.
Prescription pads. You been robbing them doctors again, Pete.
I didn’t rob ’em. I know a receptionist. She likes me.
She must be deaf dumb and blind. I don’t need no prescription pads.
Come on, Voigel. You never know. You might have a disease or a bad hangover and you’ll need something.
Bullshit, Pete. Your time is up. I’m busy.
But, Voigel.
Out, Pete, out. I have no control over that egg timer once it gets goin’ and I don’t want no prescription pads.
He pushed Pete out the door and yelled after him, You could get me in jail and you’re gonna wind up in jail yourself selling stolen prescription pads.
He slumped back into his armchair and said he’d try the soup even though I hadn’t followed the instructions on the can. He needed it to settle his stomach but if he didn’t like it he’d have a little wine and that would do the job. He tasted the soup and said, yeah, it was okay and he’d have it and the wine, too. When I popped the wine cork he barked that I was not to pour the wine now, I was to let it breathe, didn’t I know that and if I didn’t how could I teach school. He sipped his wine and remembered he had to call the air-conditioning company about his problems with pigeons. I told him stay in his chair and handed him the telephone and the number of the company but he wanted the egg timer, too, so that he could tell them they had three minutes to give him the information he needed.
Hello, you listenin’ to me? I got the egg timer goin’ and you got three minutes to tell me how I can stop these goddam pigeons, excuse the language, miss, how I can stop these pigeons from making love on the outside part of my air conditioner. They’re driving me crazy with the coo coo coo all day and they shit all over the window. You can’t tell me that now? You have to look it up? Whaddaya have to look up? Pigeons fornicating on my air conditioner and you have to look it up. Sorry, egg timer ran out and that’s the three minutes. Good-bye.
He handed me back the telephone. And I’ll tell you something else, he said. It’s that goddam Harry Ball that’s responsible for all them pigeons shitting on my air conditioner. He sits in his goddam aluminum beach chair when he’s looking for a parking spot and feeds them pigeons over at Borough Hall. I told him once cut it out, that they were just rats with wings, and he got so mad he wouldn’t talk to me for weeks and that suited me fine. These old guys feed pigeons because they don’t have wives no more, anymore? I dunno. I ran away from the orphanage but I don’t feed pigeons.
He knocked on our door one night and when I opened it he was in his ragged bathrobe, holding a sheaf of papers, and drunk. It was his will and he wanted to read me part of it. No, he wouldn’t have coffee. It killed him, but he’d have a beer.
So, you helped me out and Alberta had me up for dinner and no one ever has old guys up for dinner so I’m leaving you four thousand dollars and Alberta four thousand and I’m leaving you my Thomas Aquinas and my ties. Here’s what it says in the will, To Frank McCourt I leave my collection of ties which he has admired and which are anything but somber.
When we moved to Warren Street we lost touch with Virgil for a while though I wanted him to be godfather at Maggie’s christening. Instead there was a call from a lawyer telling me of Virgil Frank’s death and the terms of his will as it pertained to us. However, said the lawyer, he changed his mind about the Summa Theologica and the ties, so all you get is the money. Do you accept this?
Sure, yes, but why did he change it?
He heard you went to Ireland for a visit and that upset him because you contributed to the gold flow.
What do you mean?
According to Mr. Frank’s will President Johnson said a few years ago that Americans traveling abroad were draining the country of gold and weakening the economy and that’s why you’re not getting the ties that are anything but somber and the three volumes of Aquinas. Okay?
Oh, sure.
Now that we had a portion of a down payment we searched the neighborhood for a house. Our landlady, Hortensia Odones, heard we’d been looking and one day she climbed the outside fire escape at the back of the house and startled me when I saw her head at the kitchen window with the great curly wig.
Frankie, Frankie, open the window. It’s cold out here. Lemme in.
I reached out to help her in but she yelled, Watch my hair, watch my hair, and I had to do the heavy work of hauling her in the kitchen window while she hung on to her wig.
Whoo, she said, whoo. Frankie, you got any rum?
No, Hortensia, only wine or Irish whiskey.
Gimme a whiskey, Frankie. My ass is frozen.
Here, Hortensia. Tell me, why don’t you come up the stairs?
Because it’s dark down there, that’s why, and I can’t afford to keep lights goin’ night an’ day an’ I can see the fire escape day an’ night.
Oh.
And what’s this I hear? You an’ Alberta lookin’ for a house? Why don’t you buy this one?
How much?
Fifty thousand.
Fifty thousand?
That’s right. Is that too much?
Oh, no. That’s fine.
The day we signed the agreement we drank rum with her while she told us how sad she was to leave this house after all the years she was there, not with her husband, Odones, but her boyfriend, Louis Weber, who was famous for running the numbers game in the neighborhood and even though he was Puerto Rican he was afraid of nobody, not even the Cosa Nostra who tried to take over till Louis walked into the Don’s house down in Carroll Gardens and said, What is this shit? excuse the language, and the Don admired Louis for his balls and told his goombahs back off, don’t bother Louis, and you know, Frankie, no one messes with the Italians in Carroll Gardens. You don’t see no coloreds or PRs down there, no sir, and if you do they’re passing through.