A FEW NIGHTS BEFORE the wedding, Flo spoke to her daughter in the dubious privacy of Margy’s bedroom. She said, “Being as you’re getting married, there is things you ought to know.” Then she blushed painfully.
“I know them, Mama,” said Margy gently.
“Oh, you do, do you?” Suspicion flared up in Flo like excelsior to which a match had been applied. “So you’ve been running around,” came the instant accusation. “And all the while I’m sitting home alone thinking you’re a good girl, and all the while behind my back . . .”
“No. It’s just that the girls at the office . . . well, we talk about those things.”
“Fine company you keep! Telling dirty stories when you should be tending to your work. When I was a girl . . .”
“Mama, I’d drop dead if you ever stopped scolding me. I’d be that surprised. So save my life and don’t ever change.”
“All I was trying to do was what a mother should do—see that her daughter keeps out of trouble . . . tell her things.”
“I know. And it’s all right, Mom.” She kissed her mother on the cheek.
Both were intensely relieved; the mother to sidestep a painful duty and the daughter to be spared the embarrassment of her mother’s fumbling sex instructions.
Margy bought a long-sleeved white dress. “A fine wedding dress it will make,” the saleswoman assured her. “And after, you can shorten the skirt and dye it navy blue and wear it for everyday.”
Margy shuddered. She had had enough of navy blue to last a lifetime and, God willing, hoped she’d have no more of it.
She couldn’t afford to buy a veil. Reenie went with her to rent one. There was a store on Moore Street whose brightly lighted window displayed wax dummies dressed in bridal garb. A life-sized, tuxedo-dressed dummy, whose doll’s face sported a smirking mustache, linked arms stiffly with a waxen bride. A bridesmaid who had lost a wooden foot—the loss concealed by her long pink tulle dress—leaned drunkenly against a cardboard facsimile of an altar.
The girls stared at the display like two little kids staring at Christmas dolls. “That’s for me,” said Reenie, “when—I mean if—I marry Sal.” She referred to the bridal gown. “With a train and all. You could have rented that, Margy.”
“I want to own the dress I get married in,” said Margy. “I want to keep it for remembrance. It will be nice for when my daughter marries. It will be cute and old fashioned when she marries.”
“Listen to her!” said Reenie to an imaginary companion. “A daughter already and she’s not even married yet.”
“A person has to look ahead,” said Margy. “No sin in that. And you can be godmother.”
“Remember now. You promised!”
MARGY AND FRANKIE went to their prenuptial confession late Saturday afternoon. After supper, Frankie brought his parents and oldest sister, Cathleen, over to meet the Shannons. (Malone was in his civilian clothes.) Frankie brought Marty along, too. Marty was Cathleen’s fiancé and would be Frankie’s best man at the wedding.
After the boisterous, falsely gay flush of introductions and acknowledgments, the menfolk went out together to rent their outfits for the morrow’s wedding. Then Reenie came over. After Cathleen and Mrs. Malone had grudgingly made her acquaintance, Reenie went out with Margy to do some last-minute shopping. Flo was left alone with the two Malone women.
She didn’t like either one of them. Cathleen Malone, irritatingly called “Cat’leen” by her mother, was gaudily dressed, heavily made up, sullen and unsociable. Flo classified her as a skinny, snappy flapper.
Poor Cat’leen had reason to brood. Not only did she resent the loss of Marty’s company for the evening but she was furious because she had not been asked to stand up for the bride in company with Marty. But Margy had to pick out that Reenie! She hated Reenie. It often happened that the best man and bridesmaid started going around together—their romance getting off to a head start in the hothouse intimacy of a wedding meeting. If Reenie so much as smiled at Marty tomorrow. . . . Cat’leen clenched her hands. And that Margy! She had deliberately arranged the whole thing to get Marty for Reenie. So Cat’leen sulked the evening away.
The future mothers-in-law had hated each other before they met. They engaged in many little skirmishes throughout the evening but blood was drawn only once.
“Your girl is certainly getting a good man.”
“And what do you think your boy is getting?” asked Mrs. Malone. “I’d say he was lucky.”
“I didn’t mean nothing out of the way,” said Mrs. Malone. “But you don’t know how a mother feels.”
“Why don’t I? I happen to be a mother myself,” said Flo.
Mrs. Malone tried to explain. “Here’s the way it is: Your daughter might be a good girl for all I know.”
“She is a good girl,” said Mrs. Shannon. “And you know it.”
“I have nothing against your daughter. I would feel the same no matter who my son married. Even if she had a million dollars in her own name.”
“I wouldn’t,” said Flo. “I’d feel a whole lot different if my daughter married a millionaire. Not that I have anything against Frankie. But you’re a mother—like you said. And you can understand how another mother feels.”
Cat’leen yawned.
MARTY, TAKING HIS job as best man seriously, took charge of the costume-renting expedition. He steered the three men to a store on Seigel Street which had a sign in the window: COSTUMES SUPPLIED FOR THEATRICALS, MASQUERADES AND WEDDINGS. In no time flat, the overanxious proprietor got the boys into satin lapelled tuxedos and the two fathers into striped pants, swallow-tailed coats and ready-made, on-an-elastic, black, satin, puff ties.
The boys looked handsome in their tuxedos but Frankie demurred at the white lawn tie supplied, insisting that black ties went with tuxedos. The merchant had an answer to that.
“You are a smart fellow to know that,” he granted. “But you’re not smart enough to know that weddings is different. White ties is the style. You want people should laugh when you stand up in your church in a black tie? No, my friend. For funerals is black ties the style. But not for weddings.”
The fit of Henny’s suit was far from perfect. The trouser bottoms hardly came an inch below the tops of his high laced shoes. The sleeves exposed his wristbones and made the hands coming out of the smooth, pressed, black cloth seem alien. The man assured Henny that the stiff detachable cuffs supplied with each “rental” would fix that up. Henny asked what would fix up the shortness of the pants. The man said the pants were of the right length to give him “hi’th.”
Derby hats went with the rentals. The boys drew hats that fitted well enough but Malone’s was too small for his big head and Henny’s was too round for his narrow oval head. The resourceful proprietor made Henny’s hat fit by inserting strips of toilet tissue under the sweatband— He kept a roll under the counter for such emergencies. He couldn’t stretch Malone’s hat. So he told him that he surmised men didn’t wear hats in their church. “And on the street, who looks? And if they look, you can carry the hat in your hand.”
The four stared at themselves in the triple mirror. “The Harmony Four,” decided Malone. “We look like a Goddamned quartet.
“All together now, fellers. Let’s harmonize,” he suggested. “Mee—mee,” he ventured tentatively, then broke into the opening lines of “Shine on, Harvest Moon.” Marty and Frankie joined in. Henny stood silent. He always felt ill at ease in the presence of exuberance or exhibitionism.
The costume renter beamed. “Good times I like to see in my store,” he said.
While the three were harmonizing, Henny came to his decision. He announced it at the end of the song. “I ain’t going to do it,” he stated flatly.
“What? Do what?” asked Frankie, worried.
“Wear this monkey suit tomorrow.”
“You look swell in it,” boomed Mr. Malone. “Like J. P. Vanderbilt himself.”
“That’s a lie.”
“What are you kicking about?” asked Malone surveying his bulk in the mirrors. “We’re all in the same boat. I don’t look so hot myself. But who gives a damn?”
Henny was adamant to begging, threatening and coaxing. He had made up his mind that he wouldn’t be found dead in that outfit. He formulated a personal declaration of independence. “I was born a workingman,” he said, “and I’ll die a workingman.”
“I’m a workingman, myself,” admitted Malone. “And I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything.”
“As a workingman I’ve been shoved around a lot in my time but nobody’s going to shove me into that outfit tomorrow. I won’t dress up like no horse’s ass for nobody.”
The simile was so terrifying in its finality that they gave up trying to persuade him. Malone decided that Shannon was shy a few marbles and he felt sorry for his son, getting into that kind of a family.
Henny changed his mind as the outfits were being boxed. He had a thought of how upset Margy would be if he wasn’t dressed properly for the wedding. He thought of his wife’s reproaches. He decided it was better to look like a fool than to go through a lot of emotionalism. He told the man to wrap up his outfit, too. The three men took turns pounding him on the back in gratitude.
The rental fee was exacted in advance and a deposit collected—“So that you should return the garments in good condition and not spill nothing on them.” Henny insisted that they get a receipt for their money. (He was receipt conscious ever since he lost that victrola handle years ago.) As the proprietor complied, Frankie complimented Henny on his business acumen and Marty said that Mr. Shannon sure knew his onions all right. Henny modestly replied that all he knew was what his rights were.
The quartet adjourned to a chain shoe store on Broadway where the two young men were effectively shod in paper-thin, patent-leather oxfords at three ninety-eight a pair.
“They’re the cat’s meow,” said Marty, admiring his outthrust twinkling feet.
“You said it,” agreed Frankie.
“Very, very snappy,” was Mr. Malone’s comment.
“But can you wear them for work after?” asked Henny.
The boys tried to inveigle Mr. Malone into buying a pair but he said, “I got a pair a black oxfor’ ties will do in a pinch and boy, do they pinch!” He laughed heartily.
On the way home they came to a store with a curtain across the window but with lights behind the curtain glowing through the dull red stuff and making it look gypsy-ish. A neatly printed sign said: CIDER STORE. NOTHING STRONGER. DON’T ASK FOR IT! Malone interpreted the sign correctly. “Let’s go in for a beer,” he said.
They walked through the store proper where a lot of flappers and cake eaters were sitting at round tables covered with rumpled red-checked tablecloths and drinking mugs of cider through straws. A nickel-in-the-slot piano was tinkling out, “Yes, We Have No Bananas.” They went through a door into a large back room equipped with round saloon tables and chairs to match, a bar with a soaped-mirror backdrop, and a white-aproned, shirt-sleeved bartender.
Over the mirror was a sign which read: IN GOD WE TRUST. ALL OTHERS PAY CASH. Under the sign were two hairy coconuts tied together with a neatly lettered card crediting Brigham Young with ownership.
Mr. Malone stared at the display and Frankie cringed when his father went closer to read the card under the coconuts. Frankie tensed himself in preparation for some dirty remark from his father. But all that Patsy said was:
“Guy runs this place is losing time. He could be an expert sign writer.”
“You said it,” agreed Henny.
They had four needle beers at a quarter a glass. Malone laid down a dollar and after waiting a second to see if his father would add a tip, Frankie put a dime on the bill. They toasted the bride and groom in the beer. Malone waited for Henny to treat to the next round. Henny had his next week’s carfare and lunch money in his pocket. He held back a while. Then he decided what the hell, let next week take care of itself. He bought the second round and gave the bartender a quarter tip. Frankie bought the third and they looked to Marty to buy the fourth, but he had spent all his money accumulating his best-man outfit. He rapped on the table and said, “I pass.” Malone thought that was very comical.
When the bartender came over, thinking the rap was a call, Patsy Malone asked him whether he had anything stronger than doped-up beer. As the bartender hesitated, Malone added: “This here young feller’s putting his head in the rope tomorrow and we’d like to cheer him up.”
Henny turned that remark over in his mind. He was in a pleasant glow from the beers. He knew he should resent the remark but he decided to be broadminded and let it pass.
The bartender produced a pint of dark turgid liquor “just off the boat.” They drank it with beer chasers. Henny started to brood over the rope remark. He decided instantly that the wedding was entirely on Margy’s side with the Malones a necessary evil attached to it. Margy was the one putting her neck in the noose if you asked him.
Malone got a little high and began telling dirty premarital jokes. Henny got more resentful. Like many fathers to whom a loved daughter still seemed an innocent little girl child, he was revolted by the thought of her in physical intimacy with a man.
Frankie resented the jokes, too, but for a different reason. Since the time when as a child he had been told by some boys on the street that he owed his being on earth to physical relations between his father and mother, sex talk coming from either of his parents had nauseated him.
Marty was the only one who laughed at the jokes. He tried to top one of them out of his own meager experience. While Malone laughed loudly at Marty’s anecdote, he filed away the conclusion in the back of his mind that Marty was too dirty minded to be allowed to go around with his innocent daughter, Cat’leen.
Frankie suggested that what they all needed was a brisk walk home in the frosty air to sober them up. They left the place, but the flighty Marty had to go back after a block because he had left his outfit in the speakeasy. They walked slowly, waiting for Marty to catch up to them. Henny kept brooding over the impropriety of the rope remark and getting angrier at the dirty stories Malone had told with Margy in mind. He boiled over while they waited at a street intersection for Marty.
“Malone, you got a big mouth,” he announced out of a clear sky.
“Come again?” requested Patsy Malone politely. By this time Marty had joined them. “He said I had a big mouth,” Malone told Marty as though anxious that the boy not be left out of anything.
“A big, dirty mouth,” amended Henny.
“Shannon, you asked for it,” said Malone and swung. He missed by a mile. His fist swung in a circle and hit his own shoulder. The two boys caught him to prevent his falling as he went off balance.
Henny put his box down on the sidewalk. He took off his overcoat, folded it neatly, put his hat on top of it and took a fighting stance. Marty grabbed Henny’s arm while Frankie held his father back. Malone was glad to be held back.
Marty got out oil for the troubled waters. “Now, Mr. Shannon, you wouldn’t go and hit an old man, would you?”
“No, I wouldn’t hit him,” said Henny mildly, “I’d just beat the b’Jesus out of him.”
“You’d beat an old man with kidney trouble?” asked Malone incredulously.
“You wouldn’t be on the force with kidney trouble,” said Henny.
“I’m retiring next year,” said Patsy quickly.
Henny decided to be fair. “Which side is your bum kidney on?” he asked. “So’s I can wallop you on the other side.”
“Now, Shannon,” said Patsy calmly, “if I said anything out of the way, I’m sorry I said it.”
“If!” sneered Henny. “If! You know damned well you said plenty out of the way.”
Malone rearranged his apology. “If I said anything that you could take up to be out of the way, I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t have to take up nothing. It was out of the way. My daughter’s an innocent, decent girl and no man’s going to tell dirty jokes with her in mind while I’m around.”
“So I’m a son-of-a-bitch,” acknowledged Malone graciously. “And I don’t blame you for trying to take a swipe at me. I’d do the same if it was my daughter, Cat’leen. Let me tell you a purer girl never. . . .” He stopped. Suddenly he remembered the dirty story Marty had told. He was sure that the boy had Cat’leen in mind at the time. His eyes sought out Marty.
“You sow,” he said. “You holy sow!” He lunged at the boy.
The astonished groomsman jumped behind Henny for protection. “What’s biting you?” he asked of his future father-in-law.
Frankie, taking a firmer grip on his father’s arm, now spoke up. “Thanks,” he said bitterly. “Thanks for the swell send-off you’re giving me on my wedding eve.”
Malone came to his senses. “Excuse me, son,” he said. “I guess I got a little out of line. But I didn’t mean nothing by it.”
Henny was instantly ashamed. He sort of liked Frankie and he figured the boy wasn’t to blame for what his father said and did. “I’m too hot headed, myself,” he apologized. He held out his hand grudgingly. Malone shook it warmly.
HENNY WAS COLD sober when he got home. After putting his cutaway and striped pants on a hanger, he went into his sleeping daughter’s bedroom. He stood looking down on her in the faint light from the street lamp. He wished that they had the habit of talking intimately together; that he had the gift of articulation; that he could tell her what he thought in such a way that she’d know he spoke the truth purely. If only there was that communication between them he could wake her up and tell her not to marry on the morrow; that somehow there would be a miracle in the home; it would change into something wonderful that she couldn’t bear to leave while she was still so young; that a man more mature, more tender, wiser, more worthy of her would materialize someday.
Still, if he could, he wouldn’t tell her those things because he knew in his heart they could never happen.
Her white wedding dress, luminous in the faint light, hung on its wire hanger from the central light fixture. The veil was neatly folded on a chair and the little white satin slippers peeped in eager readiness from under the bed. His eyes went to the dresser top and clung to the objects arranged in an orderly row there; the white prayer book (he recalled buying it for her when she had made her first communion); the small white-beaded child’s rosary; a beruffled and beribboned blue garter; a lace-edged handkerchief.
Something old, something new;
Something borrowed, something blue.
The aged incantation was meant to ensure a happy marriage. The old prayer book, the new dress, the borrowed handkerchief and the garter of clearest blue—she had gathered the sacrificial items to appease whatever pagan god of marriage might still ride the winds of night. (Only she called it being superstitious.)
She slept peacefully, the carefully made waves of her freshly washed hair protected by a blue net. (She always liked blue, Henny thought in the past tense.) Her cold-creamed hands were growing softer and smoother through the night in the old kid gloves she wore. He looked at her closely.
The father saw only a bright-haired child playing with clothespins.
HE WENT OUT and sat in the dark kitchen. After a while Flo came and sat with him. She sat quietly, saying nothing. Clumsily and fearing a rebuff, he reached out and took her hand in his.
She did not pull it away.