Answer as a Man Read online

  Mr. Mulligan had been reduced, by sad experience, to expressing his appreciation of employees by giving them cash. Jason was now receiving fourteen dollars a week, all the food he could eat in the kitchen, and the implied permission to take some of it home. Jason, who now felt that Mr. Mulligan was more than an employer, availed himself of this permission, but prudently. He often took home the end of a smoked ham and its bone, a loaf of slightly stale bread, a bucket of soup, a head of cabbage, the remains of corned beef or a lonely chop or two, and some pastries. But never did he take a roast or steaks.

  Lionel was receiving twelve dollars a week. But there were his tips, and often his income for a week was fifteen or even eighteen dollars. He had no complaints. He gave his father his wages, but kept the tips for himself, unknown to his male parent, who knew nothing about tips. Lionel now had a secret savings account. Jason gave all his money to his family, and with Bernard’s help had forced his mother to limit the laundry to some extent. Out of those wages Bernard paid the small real-estate taxes on the fourteen acres of land which Joseph Maggiotti had left Jason. “Someday that land will be valuable, mind my words,” he told Jason. But Jason did not think of that. He only thought that old Joe had not been properly avenged. His hatred for the executed murderers never abated.

  Because Jason did not receive tips, Mr. Mulligan had taken to slipping a twenty-dollar bill in the boy’s pocket at Christmas. On the first occasion Jason had wanted to return it. But Mr. Mulligan had affectionately patted him on the arm, saying, “You deserve it, bucko.” Mr. Mulligan knew he would not mention the gift to his friend.

  Lionel’s parents had no friends, no visitors. They were absorbed in work, in their religion, and in saving what they could. There was little conversation of a family sort in the house, no small jests, few if any smiles. To the adults their children were bewildering. Molly would quarrel vivaciously with her parents, and they thought her impudent, but preferred the girl to their son. Lionel’s easy laughing ways affronted them. He was “heedless.” He was light-minded. He was not serious. Lionel avoided his family as much as he could.

  Jason found the art of cuisine fascinating. Not infrequently one of the cooks would show his appreciation of this interest by teaching Jason the intricacies of his particular specialty. The cooks considered themselves artists, and would preen at Jason’s admiration. One of them, a very elderly man, would boast that he had worked as a chef in one of Philadelphia’s better restaurants, but age had finally overcome him and he had returned to Belleville, where he had been born.

  “You got to have a feeling and respect for people when you cook,” he said to Jason. “No one who ever hated folks was a good chef; he kind of puts pizen in the food, even if it tastes all right. Their stomachs feel it.”

  Jason understood. He told this to Lionel, who laughed. “You don’t believe that, do you?”

  Jason thought, and he nodded. “Yes, I do. You can do … things to people the way you think. There’s more ways of ‘talking’ to people than with your mouth.”

  Lionel had laughed again. “Well, I ‘talk’ to them in my mind about tips, and sometimes it works,” he said.

  Being very intelligent, Lionel knew that his friend had changed in some deep if inexplicable way since Joseph Maggiotti’s murder. His laugh was not so frequent; his jokes were inclined to be heavy, his confidences were rarer. Lionel could not understand this. After all, old Joe had been dead “for years.” It was not as if he had been a relative, a member of the family. In Lionel’s opinion Joe’s death was no great loss. He had been old and tired and very poor. When Jason talked of “justice,” Lionel was bored. Justice had been done. The murderers were dead, too. Why brood? Life was for the living. He saw that others respected and trusted Jason, whereas they did not respect or trust him. He only charmed them, and he found that much more to his interest, and far more profitable. There would never be any tips for Jason. He would have to earn every penny. Jason had “character.”

  “Character,” Lionel had once heard, “is everything.” Lionel did not believe that for an instant. Never self-deluded, he knew he did not possess that famed “character,” and he was glad of it. It could get in the way of fortune and be boring into the bargain. He honored it in Jason, for Jason would never cheat him. Lionel was convinced that, given an opportunity, all men were cheaters, with the exception of a very few, and one had to be on guard. He did not have to be on guard with Jason. He wished there were more men like Jason in the world so that he, Lionel, would not have to be so vigilant, and could then direct his mind with greater concentration on his own future.

  No one ever questioned his real devotion to Jason. It rose partly out of gratitude that Jason was as he was, partly out of trust, and partly out of sincere affection. It was also the accolade the amoral give to the moral in their hearts. Years later Lionel was to say with insouciant cynicism, “How could the conscienceless survive and flourish if there were no men of conscience in the world?”

  One granite January night Lionel said to Jason, “Come on. Let’s have some fun. I’ve found a place.”

  “I’m sure you have,” said Jason, with no amusement. “You always do.”

  “Nice clean girls. Only two dollars.”

  “No. Besides, I don’t have two dollars.”

  “I’ll treat you.”

  “Thanks, no.”

  “Thinking of being a priest like your damned brother?”

  Jason’s wide smile was infrequent these days, but now he treated his friend to one. “Let’s say I’m helping my grandda save a little money for Jack’s seminary—when he can get in. Say. I thought you were coming home with me to see Joan and play cards with her after dinner.”

  Lionel hesitated. “It’s eight o’clock. She’s probably in bed.”

  “No. She’s expecting you. She helped Mum bake a cake.”

  Lionel shifted on his dancing feet. “Give Joan my regrets. Tell her I have to stay here on a special party.”

  “No. I’ll just tell her that you couldn’t come.”

  “You and your goddamn truthfulness. You’re dippy, you know. All right. See you tomorrow.”

  Jason said, thinking of his sister’s disappointment, “Shall I tell her you’ll see her tomorrow night?”

  “Fine. Bully. Give her my love.”

  Lionel waved his red-freckled hand and cantered off, whistling. Jason left the Inn-Tavern, frowning thoughtfully. Joan was sixteen, a woman. She was also frail and crippled, housebound except for school. For a minute or two he worried about her future, dreaded her inevitable hurt. He knew now that she was in love with Lionel, and he felt a touch of uneasiness. Lionel was gallant with all females, no matter their age. Jason had often seen him bowing in a most courtly fashion to little girls in pigtails and hair ribbons and ruffled frocks, and to very old ladies. They had been enchanted. Jason had not yet decided whether the courtliness was derisive or genuine, or simply a manifestation of good nature and natural charm. There were times when he suspected that Lionel was a complete stranger to him, enigmatic, smiling, with thoughts he would never reveal, and emotions, if any, he would never betray, not even to his best friend. Never had Jason seen him really angry, or melancholy, or heavily thoughtful, or conjecturing.

  But, there was Joan, of the angelic beauty, helpless, dependent, with eyes that seemed to glimpse a beatific vision. When she looked at Lionel her beauty became luminous, her mouth trembling with smiles, her flesh translucent. Lionel would kiss her lightly on the cheek like a brother—but he would hold her hand often on the table as they played card games or dominoes together, and the hold, Jason had seen, was not casual, but firm and lingering. At parting, he would put his hand on her gleaming black head and would gently stroke the tumbling bright mass of her hair, appearing not to be aware of what he was doing. Often he would just smile at her, and his lively face would change, but what that change was, Jason did not know.

  Jason often wished to ask him bluntly, “Do you like my sister?” But something preve
nted him from doing so. He was afraid that the answer would be a gay shrug, a wave of a thin freckled hand, an offhand word. He was afraid that Lionel merely pitied Joan, was trying to be generous, or endured Joan out of friendship for himself. Once Jason had said to his sister, “Lionel likes all the ladies, all of them. I see it in the dining room. It doesn’t mean a thing.” He had been almost shocked at the way her eyes had suddenly filled with, a fierce sparkling, but he did recognize the blue-steel glint in them as hatred. She had replied, “What do you know about Lionel, anyway? You’re too stupid to know anything about anybody.”

  It was then that Jason had realized what he had always refused to admit—that Joan had nothing but contempt for him, and aversion. He had been confused and amazed at the pain he had felt. She had added, “You’re just a countrified Irish bumpkin like Da.” Her pretty fluting voice had changed to the ring of a thrown hard stone on concrete, and she had turned her head away from him. John, listening, had smiled thinly, but he had said nothing. For all John’s affection for his sister and his dislike of Lionel, he would not add his warning to Jason’s. He had even been faintly amused by Jason’s stricken expression. Why hadn’t the big fool known long ago? John’s congenital selfishness had solidified and increased with his years.

  Jason, in spite of his new knowledge, continued to love his sister and did not know why. His urge to protect her, to prevent harm from touching her, remained with him, and he worried often about her. Jason knew that his grandfather worried also, despite his quite open dislike of the crippled girl and her dislike of him. Jason knew his mother’s anxiety about her daughter, her fear for her, though Joan was often discourteous to Kate and seemed to regard her as her personal attendant, valuable for her services but not to be taken with seriousness. In some obscure and senseless way she half-consciously believed her mother guilty of her condition, and was resentfully bitter in consequence. Jason had once hesitantly mentioned this to his grandfather, and Bernard had gloomily grimaced and had remarked, “Who knows all the hell in the human soul? Best to accept it, then ignore it, unless it attacks you.”

  5

  One Monday night shortly after eight, Jason was preparing to ride home from the Inn-Tavern. He had every other Sunday off and on Mondays—a slow evening—he could leave at eight o’clock instead of the usual ten o’clock. As the Inn-Tavern was a long distance from his home, and there was still no public transportation in Belleville, Jason had bought a third-hand bicycle so that he would never be late. But he did not buy this until Lionel had appeared with a very fancy new model, all shining and lavishly equipped. “We’re not clods any longer,” he informed Jason. “Besides, it saves shoe leather, and a bicycle gets you home quicker.” After some thought, this seemed reasonable to Jason. When Lionel appeared one morning, during a rainstorm, in a fine new mackintosh—“saves your clothes”—Jason went to a secondhand-clothing shop and bought a rather grimy one for himself. This also seemed reasonable. Lionel’s coat had cost an extravagant twelve dollars—it was very stylish—but Jason’s had cost but one dollar and fifty cents. Kate had done her best to make it presentable, but had not been too successful. However, it was an adequate protection.

  Mr. Mulligan was not unaware of these transactions.

  On this Monday night Jason wheeled his bicycle out of the back employees’ entrance. He had tied a bag of food to the handles of his vehicle. Since Mondays were slow, the meals served were leftovers from Sunday. Mr. Mulligan’s establishment did its best business on Sunday in spite of the righteous frowns which were bent on him in this very religious little city. On Mondays Jason’s home-going bag was very heavy since he knew the food would be stale the next day. Mr. Mulligan himself sent large baskets of perishables to the little local convent on Mondays. But on Sundays, Father Sweeney had a basket of delicious edibles, given with generosity and invariably concealing, in its depths, a few dollars in an envelope, in addition to what Mr. Mulligan gave at Mass collections. Father Sweeney was now able to afford a new habit once a year; he also had a bicycle, a Christmas gift from Mr. Mulligan. Father Sweeney suspected that Jason Garrity had had something to do with this, and he was not far wrong.

  Father Sweeney also suspected that quite frequently Mr. Mulligan’s transient rooms were occupied by prosperous married men and pretty, well-dressed young ladies of ambiguous reputation. So long as they did not “paint their faces” flagrantly, and were genteel of manner and low of voice, the townsfolk did not too vociferously object, for the “friends” of these females owned the factories and the few fine shops and businesses of Belleville, including the four banks which held mortgages. But Father Sweeney was a different matter. He had once spoken to Mr. Mulligan quite sternly, and Mr. Mulligan had listened with a respectful and indulgent smile.

  “Hell, Faether,” he had said, “and is it my affair? Or yours, if I may say, with all respect? My establishment is no whorehouse …” Father Sweeney flinched. “Decorous, it is. So long as there is no open bawdy display or behavior, and all is discreet, who am I to judge? I’ve seen some of the wives.” Mr. Mulligan shuddered and raised his eyes to heaven. “It is the husbands you should pity. Seems to me our Lord had something nice to say about Mary Magdalen, then. Didn’t he?” Father Sweeney was frustrated, but he had become much milder over these four past years, and not so rigorous as before. Besides, many ladies from out-of-town accompanied their husbands on their business in Belleville. Who could tell one lady from another, whether wife or doxy? Many was the doxy who was more of a lady than the wife she had displaced. Open sin was not to be tolerated, especially cheap and offensive sin, which violated the sensibilities of others, but this sin was not obvious at Mr. Mulligan’s, nor would it have been permitted. But Father Sweeney wistfully wished that some of the prosperous gentlemen were Catholic. He could then severely admonish them in the confessional. But almost all Catholics in Belleville were very poor, and most were Irish.

  The barrooms in the rear of the Inn-Tavern were supposed to be closed on Sundays. On those days the windows were heavily blinded with thick draperies, and no light shone through them. There was an inconspicuous door to the bars in the rear, which silently opened and shut with astonishing frequency, admitting many gentlemen accompanied by their ladies. The dining room, of course, did its best business on Sunday, and everyone had ruddy cheeks and twinkling eyes, though there was but water on the tables, or “tea.” Children were notably absent. The majority of wives were at home, sleeping off enormous noontime dinners, while their husbands were ostensibly out for “brisk long walks” with their friends of the same sex. Sometimes the “friends” invited husbands home later for a “light supper,” which was appreciated by the wives, still sluggish from the early dinners.

  Jason, half-mounted on his bicycle, looked back affectionately at the Inn-Tavern. Mr. Mulligan often bragged that the shell of his establishment had been built over one hundred and twenty years ago. It had been an abandoned wreck on a street which had once been the most majestic and prosperous area in the town. After Mr. Mulligan had bought his property, many other, old ruins had been bought and refurbished. Now the street had a certain style and liveliness, though it was suspected that the house on the corner did not really shelter a stout jeweled widow by the name of Mrs. Lindon, with her several pretty young daughters and handsome young nieces who were “just visiting from other parts of the state.” Mrs. Lindon had an extraordinary number of nieces, it appeared, and “young cousins.” The “daughters” were more permanent. If well-dressed gentlemen, late in the evenings, came to call—well, a mother had a right to look for excellent marriages for her daughters, did she not, and to do the same kindly thing for the “nieces” and “cousins”? They were all good patrons of Mr. Mulligan’s, including Mrs. Lindon, who had well-bred manners, much jewelry, and was very proper and kept a careful eye on her protegées. She had a most stately air and a fine big bosom, and her deep voice was refined.

  She was also one of the richest depositors in all four banks. Her “husband” had
been an “importer” in Philadelphia. She had moved to Belleville to “live a nice quiet life with my girls.” No one openly contested this. When any of her more beautiful charges married bachelors or widowers of distinction, only the best people were invited to very opulent wedding parties—held in one of Mr. Mulligan’s private dining rooms. The marriages were always celebrated in Belleville’s more affluent churches, and the brides all wore veils and virginal white and kept their eyes modestly down.

  The remaining girls were soon joined by more “nieces” or “cousins” who had decided to spend long visits with Auntie Clementine, or who had been “suddenly orphaned.” If the authenticity of all this was universally doubted, no one openly complained. If the widowed mayor of Belleville and other gentlemen like himself came to call on Mrs. Lindon—well, she was a wealthy widow and a great catch herself. Wasn’t she? Mrs. Lindon was the largest benefactor of local charities and went to church every Sunday, always accompanied by several “daughters, nieces, and cousins.” She had a new motorcar, too, a Stanley Steamer, and a victoria with two sleek black horses. She looked like a queen in them, and her silks and furs, it was rumored, were all bought in New York. She had a number of servants of the utmost discretion, for they were paid incredible wages and were very loyal. They loved Mrs. Lindon and all the girls.

  Jason, as he stood looking at Mr. Mulligan’s establishment, doubted, with a wry smile, that Lionel was visiting any of Mrs. Lindon’s enticing young relatives that night. He could only afford two dollars. Jason never condemned Lionel’s small excursions into sin. He had long since learned that there was very little joy in the world. So long as the joy hurt no one else, and brought no overt evil with it, then it should be tolerated. Jason had also discovered that there was more real evil among the ostentatiously virtuous than among the lovers of joy.