White Man's Problems Part 3

"Are you going to go to jail?"

Mike laughed. "No way, Jose. Cops just try to scare ya."

"Why didn't you run?" said Donny.

"You can't run, Donny," said Mike. "You can't just run."

"What happened to your hands?" said Donny.

"Cop did it. After they put us in the car. He picked up one of the broken beer bottles we'd chucked at the wall. He told me to open my hands, and then he put a piece of gla.s.s in each one and said, 'Make a fist.'"

"Jesus," said Donny.

"Mommy was scared," said John. "She was crying."

"She was?" Mike said. "Just forget about that."

"Ok."

"All right. Go to bed, man, ok?"

John closed the door and heard Margie and Annemarie in the bathroom. "C'mon. Move," said Annemarie. "Daddy's coming up. I have to brush my teeth."

John headed to the girls' bedroom, which was his room also, until a few years later when Mike got drafted. John climbed into Annemarie's bed instead of his own little cot, and when she returned from the bathroom, she pulled him in close under the covers, like she did on most nights, too tired to put him back where he belonged.

Rosemary died in February 1971 from primary brain cancer. She went fast. "Astro-site-toma, grade four," John heard the nurse say during one visit to the hospital, which stuck in his head because he was in fourth grade and it made him think of the Astrodome. She slept all the time at the end. John worried that she wouldn't wake up to say good-bye to him as time was running out. But she did. A few hours before she pa.s.sed, she held his face and said, "Jackie, my big strong man, you know what you have inside of you. Take care of your brothers and sisters."

At the funeral, John followed along in between Donny and Margie. A young nun sang "Ave Maria," standing black-and-white in the knave in front of the stained-gla.s.s explosions of the apostles. Mike was sent back from the army just in time to say good-bye, and John watched him from across the pew and in front of the grave. He tried to hold Mike's hand when he could during each of the processions of the day: from the church to the cars, from the cars to the gravesite, from the gravesite to the cars. When he couldn't be with Mike, he held Margie's or Annemarie's hand instead, letting go only to grab their shoulders if their heads went down to cry.

Thirty-five years later, John boarded the Metroliner in Penn Station on a Sat.u.r.day morning in fall. It had the makings of a good football day, and a conflicting, crisp mood took over Manhattan as he left. John thought of the b.l.o.o.d.y Marys he was missing in the parking lot at Columbia, where his friends from business school would be before the Cornell game. He walked through the train, stopped in the bar car for three Heinekens, and continued down almost to the end, where he threw his stuff in the seat on the aisle. He opened one of the beers and settled in next to the window.

John took the short trip to Philadelphia enough to know all the places and all their names. During breaks from college and business school he had ridden trains across Europe and even into Russia, the first in his family to go anywhere like that. But he didn't enjoy not knowing where he was. Rather, this trip was his train ride, the ride home. It afforded him just enough time to get mentally prepared. He liked putting his face against the cold window as the train made its way south through the industrial wasteland stations at Newark and Metropark, to more habitable ground of New Brunswick and Princeton Station, through Trenton and on to places like Cornwall Heights, before slowing down into Philadelphia.

When his mother died, John was the only one who recovered. And he knew he would be the same way now that Mike was gone. He had learned to rely on himself. "Yep," he said out loud, his inner thoughts forcing through. Mike had given in to colon cancer the previous afternoon. It was hard to believe he was dead. Then again, Mike had always seemed somewhat unreal. John opened the second beer. Nine years between two people was a lot of s.p.a.ce growing up. Mike embodied all the cliches: larger than life, a rebel without a cause, an artist without an art form, a working-cla.s.s hero. Mike was called up in 1970, "the last f.u.c.king guy drafted in America," as Donny put it.

When he got back from the service, Mike seemed a lot older. John came to realize that his brother was a loner and a wanderer-but not the f.u.c.ked-up Vietnam vet of the movies. "That's the cliche," John said to himself, speaking out loud once more. John always knew, from his mother, what Mike was doing at any given time, but the specifics were often fuzzy, maybe because he was in and out of AA. He migrated between trades, essentially a carpenter, always great with tools and craft, but an undependable worker, walking out of opened doors to his father's plumbing business and his uncle's machine shop.

Mike went through two wives in a seven-year stretch and had a daughter with each. They lived with their mothers, both erratic women who pursued messy child-support claims. His first wife was a lying s.k.a.n.k named Debbie who moved around the South. The second, Joanie, lived in Jersey. John knew his nieces a little. The oldest, Margarita, was a nasty piece of business, already mixed up with mullet heads and meth at fourteen. The last John knew she was in the Florida Panhandle in a trailer. But the little one, Ava, Joanie's kid, was nine and lived in north Jersey. John tried to send her cards on her birthday and even invited her and her mom to come see him in the city. He liked Joanie. She had bought him beer when Mike or Donny weren't around. It just never worked out that she and Ava could get to New York, same way it never worked out with Joanie and Mike.

John got off the train at Thirtieth Street and walked up the ramp to grab the SEPTA line to Media. Inevitably, Mike became too deep in whatever he did. There was talk that he had done something really bad and gotten sideways with the wrong guys in Philly, who made him drive to New York City every Thursday and drop a package off in h.e.l.l's Kitchen. But Mike was back in the neighborhood by the seventh or eighth inning in the summer or the third quarter of a Big East game in the winter. No one asked any questions, and Mike spent most of the rest of his time in taprooms and at the OTB. John pulled the third beer out of his backpack after he sat down on the local commuter train. In a half hour, he would be home.

At the gray stone cathedral where the Donegans were baptized, confirmed, and married, where they confessed, and where they said good-bye to their mother, the mourners prepared for the homily. After the opening liturgical matters, Father Walsh spoke.

"There are many interpretations of the angel Michael and many versions of Saint Michael throughout history. The ancient Hebrews viewed Michael as a field commander in the army of G.o.d. In Paradise Lost, John Milton's Michael fought Satan as the leader of the army of angels, taking wounds in the process. In our Holy Roman and Apostolic Catholic faith, we celebrate Saint Michael the archangel, the guardian of the church brought here by our heavenly Father to protect us against the supreme enemy Satan and all of the fallen angels. As with the archangel, our Michael Donegan often saw it as his duty to protect us. Michael took wounds in the service of the Lord, Jesus Christ. Always on the lookout for evil that might face us, whether by serving in the armed forces or loving his family in the manner in which he did, as we all remember the bond between Michael Christopher and his mother, our dear Rosemary, G.o.d bless her beautiful soul. Though Michael had many shortcomings and was a sinner like the rest of the holy children of the Father, he was in his soul a protector of Christ, an archangel in the spirit of his namesake, Saint Michael. Today he comes back into the heart of Jesus Christ and rejoins the Holy Spirit. He is returning to the house of the Lord. Let us read from the Gospel of Saint Mark..."

When the service was over, John went to find Bobby Murray, whom he saw sitting alone in the back. He found him outside the church, smiling and chatting with a few people. He was a big guy, a lot heavier than John remembered. He was the only black person at the funeral, a well-known regular at the same bars as Mike. Last John knew, he was in the union at Boeing.

"Bobby, hey man," John said.

"Hey, Jack." The two hugged. "Long time. Sorry about Mike, man."

"Thanks, thanks. Hey, seriously, thanks for coming."

"Aw, c'mon," said Bobby. "Let me tell you something. Mike was a friend of mine. Me and him went way back. Way back. He was a stone-cold dude, but he was a warrior, you know what I mean? He was a good guy, your brother. G.o.d bless him."

"Will you come over the house for a while?"

"I'm gonna try to stop by. I gotta go to work, you know. It's busy as h.e.l.l down there. I'll try. Hey, where's Donny?"

"Back there with my dad," said John.

"All right," Bobby said. He shook John's hand and headed toward the church. "I might see you later."

John's old friends, Kenny and Maria, drove him to his father's house after the burial. There wasn't enough room in the hea.r.s.e, and John didn't want Mary Meehan feeling awkward. John preferred to be with his friends for a few minutes before diving back in anyway.

"Ok." Maria had printed out a list of the most popular things from 1978.

Kenny said, "Probably disco."

"That's right, said Maria. "'Stayin' Alive.' Bee Gees."

"Perfect," said John.

John and Kenny were best friends since being a.s.signed the same locker at Indian Lane Junior High School. John had been in New York City for the past fifteen years, and they didn't see each other much. Ken was an offensive lineman in high school who got a CPA and became an accountant for a mobile-phone start-up. Maria, always the smartest, had a law degree and did real estate part time as she raised the kids. Kenny and Maria were a couple since tenth grade, and John was the third wheel. John had a few girlfriends float in and out, but mainly it had been the three of them.

As he looked at Maria from the backseat, John thought about how different she was from his sisters. She was a bright, brutally articulate girl from an educated, if still poor, Italian family. Her father taught art history at the community college, and her mother, Angela, was an Italian immigrant thrust into the role of American housewife. Angela Ursotti and Maria went to Ma.s.s together constantly, even through high school, when most girls avoided their mothers. It was the one true thing Maria shared with her mother, and while she did it out of duty and loyalty, she also developed faith. Maria loved Flannery O'Connor and Thomas Aquinas and had no problem telling lawyers' kids from the sprawling neighborhoods of Upper Providence with more secular, agnostic tastes that they were morons.

"Let's see, what else?" said Maria. She read through the list. "Pete Rose, three thousandth hit...Pope John Paul I dies, John Paul II takes over...Darkness on the Edge of Town released."

"Wow. Darkness," said John.

"Badlands," said Kenny.

"Promised Land," said Maria. "Who won the World Series?"

"Yankees," said Kenny.

"I hate the Yankees," said John. And then, after a second, "Mike hated the Yankees."

"Me, too," said Kenny, eyes on the road.

"Me, too," said Maria. "f.u.c.k the Yankees."

Whenever John returned to Pennsylvania, the first thing that grabbed his attention was the smoke. Cigarettes blended with the smell of the fireplaces burning all over their block. The surfaces in the house had not been redone in twenty or maybe thirty years, and the yellows had gone brown and the greens a dull gray. The house seemed smaller each time he returned, more decrepit, more Catholic. Christ was everywhere, as were the faded ma.s.s cards with inscriptions like In Memory of Margaret Dugan or Walter Coughlin-Blessed Be Thy Soul over watercolor pictures of Jesus with a golden tunic, chestnut beard and hair, and those blue, blue eyes. And today there was a new one that read Forever in our hearts, Michael Christopher Donegan Jr., with the blessed Virgin Mary in a blue frock with a tilted head and beams of light shooting out of her hands.

John was greeted with slaps of h.e.l.lo all around from cousins, neighbors, and nephews, and his face was held with both hands by aunts who kissed him. The group stood in the living room drinking and smoking, but they were pretty quiet. Father Walsh hadn't even left the reception yet. It was the stage before the shine hits: the ties were still on, and the shirts yet unstained with sweat. John whispered to Kenny, "Watch out for this crowd when it gets loose." It was half past five. The men had thick necks and jowls and mustaches, and almost every one of them was in his only suit, polyester with pleats in the pants bought on sale at Penney's or Boscov's. The women, as Donny said, came in two flavors: black-haired with fine and pretty features ("the ones you screw") and sweet-natured with fat ankles and fat a.s.ses ("the ones you marry"). John always wondered if it had occurred to Donny that his descriptions fit their own sisters.

The bar in the kitchen had two-liter bottles of Jameson, Canadian Club, Seagram's Seven, Gilbey's Gin, Smirnoff Red Label Vodka, and cans of tonic water, 7UP, club soda, and ginger ale. There was an aluminum tub stocked with ice and lots of Miller Lite and Budweiser. There were two-gallon cartons of red and white wine. The only food for the fifty or so mourners in the house was a large platter of lunch meat: turkey, ham, and roast beef with tomatoes, green and black olives, and a plastic tub of mayonnaise next to some soft round rolls. Aunt Marian brought a small plate of deviled eggs and slices of Lebanon bologna stuffed with cream cheese.

"There are no wakes in America," John said, talking to himself for the third time that day. It was just what happened after a funeral in their small corner of the world. It was a b.a.s.t.a.r.dized tribal ritual, no more a proper Irish wake than a sports bar in Parkside was a pub in Dublin.

Mary Meehan came through the crowd to grab John. "Jackie, there you are. Come. Let me get you a drink, love. Your father is in the kitchen."

"Mary, you remember Kenny and Maria," said John.

"Of course. h.e.l.lo, you two." She gave them kisses.

Mary Meehan was not slowed down by a funeral. In her late sixties, she was in fine form, a handsome woman with a shock of white hair and not-so-bad gin blossoms at the cheekbones. She had become Mickey's companion thirty years ago after a coincidence of cancer took her husband, too. They married once a respectful amount of time pa.s.sed, but inside the family she was still called "Mary Meehan," because no one wanted to trounce on the graves. She wasn't John's mom, not by a long stretch, but she filled in and took care of his dad, and for that he was grateful.

As they came through the crowd, Mickey was telling stories, going in and out of an Irish brogue: "You know what my mother-she was from the old country-you know what she said when Mike was born? She came to me in the hospital and said, 'Ah...best to name him Michael, Mick. It's a good name...That's why I give it to you...The fishermen say, "Plenty comes to the boat on Michaels' Day..."'" Mickey saw John. "Hey, there's my boy. And, my G.o.d, Kenny...and Maria."

"Mick-ey," said Kenny. And he grabbed Mickey's shoulders, pulled back, looked him in the eye, and said softly, "We just want to say sorry about Mike. I know he's in a better place." Maria moved in to give Mickey a hug.

"It's all right, it's all right," Mickey said gently as he hugged Maria back and looked at Kenny and John. His tie was loosened, and his white shirt was rolled up, revealing his forearms, broad and strong from years of hard work. Deep within the aging and liver-spotted skin was the faded ink of a World War II tattoo, the kind you knew was the product of a one-night leave in Boston or Baltimore or San Diego. Mary Meehan once told John that Mickey confided that he wished he could remove it. "I didn't join the G.o.dd.a.m.n marines or anything," he said. "I was just a guy from Scranton who got drafted into the navy, like everybody in those days. We were all scared as h.e.l.l."

Mickey took John's elbow and said, "Jackie, come here. I want to show you something." They walked to Mickey and Mary's bedroom on the third floor. When they were alone, Mickey produced a money clip and handed it to John.

"This is Mike's. I thought you should have it."

John looked at the silver clip and its contents: no cash, but there were school pictures of Margarita and Ava from three or four years earlier and a picture of Mike and Ava in front of a roller coaster at Great Adventure. There were two credit cards: a PNC bank card and a card that denoted membership in some form of discount club at McAleer's Taproom on Baltimore Pike.

Then John saw a little torn piece of notebook paper with Mike's handwriting that read BVM Novena: Day 1, Mom. Day 2, Ava. Day 3, Margarita. Day 4, Joanie. Day 5, Debbie. Day 6, Annemarie. Day 7, Margie. Day 8, Mary M., Day 9, Holy Mother.

Eventually, the kitchen thinned out, and a group was left sitting around the maple dinner table. The kids who had been there-strangled by ties, bored, and confused-were now in front of a TV somewhere or long gone. Ashtrays and empty beer bottles littered the table. The guys drank shots of Jameson. Besides John, Kenny, and Maria, there was a smattering of Donegan cousins and Donegan friends from the neighborhood-Mike's friends, people he had known all his life. The stories were starting.

"Who was that girl from Indian Lane who was so in love with him?" said Margie.

"Shannon Kelly," said Annemarie. "The skinny one from Nether Providence. She moved away-she married a guy in New York."

"Michael was so good looking when he was young," said one of the women.

"The thing I will never forget," said Donny, "was that he didn't complain about his teeth. I mean, when we were in high school, Mike's teeth were black in the back. He never said a word about it. I think he finally saw a dentist in the army."

Carmen D'Ign.a.z.io said, "Yo, ok. I got a story about your brother-you wanna hear a story about your brother?" Carmen was younger than Mike but had been around Donny and Annemarie and Margie his whole life. He left school when he was seventeen to work at his father's auto body shop. He had a mustache and was a pain in the a.s.s, but he would come over in the middle of the night to replace an old lady's blown fuse. Carmen was a fact of life for the Donegans, like the woods off of Middletown Road or the trolley running from Media to Sixty-Ninth Street.

"Go ahead, Carm," said Annemarie.

"I was about fifteen. Mike was five or six years older than us, and we thought he was, like, some scary dude who was Donny's brother. It was, like, seventy-three, seventy-four maybe. People don't remember, but it was nuts back then. The country was crazy. Nixon, all that c.r.a.p. Lots of s.h.i.t, lots of racial s.h.i.t. Anyway, I'll never forget it; we were out at the Dairy Queen that used to be down on Pennell Road near Brookhaven, in front of the Kmart. I was with Jimmy Mingey."

"Oh s.h.i.t," said Donny, "Jimmy Mingey. Je-sus Chriiiist."

They recognized the name, the face, and the reputation of not just Jimmy Mingey but all the Mingeys, a family of nine children, with everyone remembering the Mingey that they knew best. Some recalled affairs; some recalled football practice; some recalled playing pinball at the mall in junior high. But everyone at the table, young and old, knew a Mingey, had a Mingey story, and because they had all lived with them all their lives, knew that Carmen's story would profit from having a Mingey in it. Backs of chairs were pulled closer to the table.

"So, me and Mingey, we smoked and smoked and smoked on this one day until we were stupid, right? We were f.u.c.k upped as a n.i.g.g.e.r's checkbook." He took a drag of his cigarette. "So we decide to walk to the Dairy Queen and get ice cream cones. Back then there was nothing to do except get stoned and go to the Dairy Queen."

Nods all around. "Hey, it's still what I do," said Peter. Margie laughed, which made her start to cough, for which she slapped Peter in the arm.

"So, me and Mingey are getting ice cream cones, and there's this black girl there in line with us. She orders a strawberry sundae-I'll never forget it-a strawberry sundae. And Mingey-the dumba.s.s-goes, 'I like berries,' or something like that. The black girl looks him up and down and goes, 'f.u.c.k you. Ain't n.o.body aks you what you like.'"

There were smiles all around the table. They loved it. John and Kenny both looked at Maria, who was no fan of Carmen D'Ign.a.z.io. She was smiling, going with the flow for this one.

"Now, I'm ignoring it," Carmen said. "I start walking back to the road or whatever. Then out of the corner of my ear, I hear Mingey mumble something to her. So I just keep on walking and say, 'Let's go, Minge.' I'm just heading to the parking lot...da da da, you know, all stoned and happy...Next f.u.c.king thing you know, four big n.i.g.g.e.rs get out of a Cutla.s.s and start heading at Mingey. Big bucks, big, gigantic n.i.g.g.e.rs with Afros." Carmen put his hands six inches from each side of his side of his head to indicate the size.

Eyebrows raised, mouths opened up, and everyone grinned. John checked Maria again.

"So Mingey backs up. They had those solid stone picnic tables, remember?

"Solid stone, yup," said Peter.

"Right? You remember, Pete? So we back up behind them tables, and I'm looking for anything, like a broken beer bottle, piece of gla.s.s, anything. And I'm thinking, 'Oh G.o.d, this is it. I'm gonna die here today at the f.u.c.king Dairy Queen!'" He took a drag on his cigarette. "One of the n.i.g.g.e.rs comes up to Mingey and says, 'What did you say to my sister?' and he pushes Mingey in the chest. Then he goes, 'With all that mouth, you must like to get your a.s.s kicked.'" Carmen looked around, savoring the moment. "But then he stops like he's just going to scare Mingey and not do anything else. So, we're standing there-and remember, we're all f.u.c.ked up, and to top it off, Mingey is crazy, right?" Carmen was laughing to himself now. "So, Mingey stares right at him and goes...'f.u.c.k you.'"

The table erupted. Beer bottles and shot gla.s.ses were slammed down. The drunkest ones laughed loudest, but even the most sober grinned hard.

"So, now they're mad. I don't know whether to run or what...and then-I swear on my mother's life-there's this huge screech in the parking lot. Right out of a movie. And this navy-blue Grand Torino comes flying up. The door opens, and we all look over-even the n.i.g.g.e.rs-and...it's like time stopped. Here comes Mike. I don't know how or where he came from-even to this day-but he just comes flying out of the car. He's got an army jacket on and that wild long hair and beard. And he's got a two-foot Stillson pipe wrench in his hand, and it's, like, gold-he had a gold Stillson pipe wrench. Who knows where the h.e.l.l he ever got that? Never seen one before or since. He points it at the big n.i.g.g.e.r in the front, and he goes, 'Whoa, whoa, whoa, back up, back up!' And the n.i.g.g.e.r just freezes. I couldn't believe it. He just stands there looking at Mike."

"Mike let his hair grow when he got back from the service-remember that?" said Annemarie.

"Now, of course," Carmen said, "Mike could talk to n.i.g.g.e.rs. He wasn't afraid of them. And they were kinda scared of him, actually. Because he didn't act scared around them."

"Well, he knew them," said Peter. "He used to drink down in those bars in Chester. He'd stay down there all day and night. He lived with them, for Christ's sake."

John took a cigarette from Donny. Carmen let the crowd settle down.

"So, the main n.i.g.g.e.r goes, 'What you want, you Billy Jack mothaf.u.c.ka?' And Mike breaks into this crazy smile and says, 'Ok. You want to get it on? Huh? Where you live, anyway? Where you stay? Twenty-First Street? Chester Park? I probably know your brother. I know all you little punk n.i.g.g.e.rs. You want to fight me? I've been to Vietnam, you black motherf.u.c.ker. I'll kick your a.s.s.' And they stand there for a while looking tough, and Mike just stares at them...stares at 'em. I was so f.u.c.king scared." Carmen went for the full effect. "Finally, after like three minutes, Mike says to me and Mingey, 'Get in the car.'"

The group was in suspense, waiting. Carmen stood, in full command.

"And then Mike says, 'Mingey, gimme the five in my glove box. I want to get a Dilly Bar.'"

Shrieks of laughter. But Carmen held his arms out.

"Wait, wait..." Carmen said. "Then Mike goes to me and Mingey. 'What do you guys want?'"

Somebody whooped. "No!" said Annemarie, above the rest.

Carmen was yelling to be heard. His face was so red it was turning purple. "And then Mike looks at the big black guy and goes, 'How about you? You want something?'"

Margie's eyes sprouted tears. Donny fell halfway out of his chair. John, who had been trying to resist, felt the laughter thunder out of him like air from a tire. His ears rang.

"And the guy goes, 'Nah, man.'" Carmen was crying and laughing and yelling. "And Mike says, 'C'mon, get something.'"

"So the black guy thinks about it, and then he says, 'Let me get a chocolate cone.'" Carmen gasped for air between words. "And...Mike...says, 'Like, chocolate ice cream...or the chocolate sh.e.l.l? Which one?'"

Peter fell into Donny's lap. Carmen was bent over, veins popped out of his neck and forehead standing in front of the table. The words sputtered out.

"And...the...guy...goes, 'Chocolate ice cream, man...You're crazy, you know that?' And then he laughed at Mike and shook his head. And that was it."

The group at the table stomped and clapped. As they recovered, they reached for cigarettes and grabbed beers. After a minute, Peter shook his head and backhanded tears from his eyes. "That was Mike."