SOMETIMES IRISH

Poughkeepsie, NY, 1996

“Mind if I sit here?” the young woman asked, standing beside the empty end of the park bench.

“No,” replied the old man. He glanced up and smiled courteously.

She saw his white hair and thought him old enough to be her grandfather. He seemed friendly, harmless, so she joined him on the bench. Protected from the searing August sun by the shade of a tree, they sat and watched the languid Hudson River with nothing but the droning of locusts cutting their silence.

“This heat! I’m so tired of the heat. Fall can’t come too soon for me,” she said as she wiped the back of her neck with a tissue.

“’Tis a bit warm, I agree,” the old man replied.

She thought she detected an accent.

“This shade’s a relief. Days like this I wish we had air conditioning, but my husband hates it, claims it gives him headaches.”

He sat with his legs crossed and his arms folded in his lap, gazing at the water.

“I’m not bothering you, am I?”

“No, no, you’re not bothering me. I’m just relaxing here with my memories.” He faced her briefly and smiled, then turned his attention towards the river again.

“Are you sure? Because you look preoccupied and I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

“Whenever anyone says they don’t want to intrude, it usually means they have something to say -- or to ask.”

“Well -- I noticed your accent, and I was wondering if you’re Irish?”

“I was born here but I grew up in Ireland.”

“You mean you were born in Poughkeepsie?” she asked, turning sideways on the bench to face him.

“I meant I was born here in America -- in New York City actually. That’s where I live now.”

“I live in a small town upstate,” she said, gesturing towards the river. “My husband’s here on business, so I just tagged along.”

She pulled her long, dark hair into a ponytail to get it off her neck, and then she opened her compact to check her face. Her fair skin burned easily, so she was relieved to see that she was freckled but not burned.

“How long have you lived in America?”

“Forty-seven years this month. Our ship sailed right up the Hudson River on our way to Albany, but the tide forced us to drop anchor here,” he said, nodding towards the river.

“How old were you when your family moved to Ireland?”

“They returned to Ireland when I was four.”

“Returned?”

“Both of my parents were originally from Ireland. They immigrated to New York where they met and married and had children.”

“Did they miss Ireland? Is that why they went back?”

“Yes, but mostly it was because they fell on hard times here and wanted to go back to the comfort of their family.”

“Why did they come back to America?”

“They didn’t; they stayed in Ireland and I came alone.”

“Why?”

He looked at her with a curious, somewhat amused expression, which caused her to pause.

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry; I’m being too nosy. I’ll leave you alone,” she said as she turned to sit facing the Hudson again.

“No, no,” he hastened to add. “You’re fine, really. It’s odd, though, that you should be asking me about Ireland because lately I’ve been thinking about it. A lot, in fact. -- What was your question again?”

“Why did you come back to America?”

“Ah, yes. Well, I guess you could say I fell on hard times over there.”

“I’d love to see Ireland,” she sighed.

“Are you Irish?”

“No.” Then she hesitated and added, “Well -- sometimes.”

“Sometimes?” He laughed. “How can you be ‘sometimes Irish’?”

“It’s silly. Never mind,” she replied, looking away.

“You’ve piqued my interest!” Yet it was obvious from her flaming cheeks that her feelings had been injured, so he gently added, “Please, I promise I won’t laugh.”

She studied him for a moment and asked, “Promise?”

“Cross my heart,” he said, crossing his heart.

And so she began her tale.

Every February I slowly become Irish. Not in front of anyone, mind you. Heavens no. But when Robert leaves for work and the children leave for school, when I’m free to be myself, come February the Irish creeps up on me. By March I’m Irish.

I listen to James Galway and the Chieftains and I watch “The Quiet Man.” I fix oatmeal every morning and potatoes every night. I drink tea from a Belleek cup and saucer and eat hot cross buns, although I’m not certain if they eat hot cross buns in Ireland. I wear wool sweaters and a small Celtic cross, under my clothes, though, so no one can see. And as I drive by St. Mary’s Church, I cross myself. It’s just a bit of whimsy to while away the last bit of winter’s gloom. By April the spell has vanished.

This year the spell began in January. I was pushing my grocery cart through the P&C parking lot when a gust of wind blew a scrap of paper into one of my bags. It was a contest entry form to win a trip to Ireland. It was a sign. I believe in signs.

You’re not Irish, my mother says. True, there’s not a drop of Irish blood coursing through my veins. English thoroughbreds through and through, Grandma says, matched and mated to preserve the bloodlines. Grandma is proud of our heritage. We’ve been here since the early 1600s, she says. 1621 to be exact. The fact that we didn’t come over on the Mayflower in 1620 has always been a sore spot with her, so she hedges on the year.

The Irish have always hated the English, my mother says. Why would you want to go to Ireland? she asks. England is the country you should visit, she says. Maybe come June I’d want to see England. But it was January and the contest was for a trip to Ireland, not England. And so, because I was already coming under the spell and because I believe in signs, I filled out the entry form and sent it in.

That night I began having tantalizing dreams of a man who wasn’t Robert. We were in Ireland on the remote island of Inishmaan. I knew it was Inishmaan from a travel article I had read in the New York Post, complete with pictures. In one dream we walked along the water’s edge, the sun warming our backs, my white cotton skirt fluttering in the breeze. In another dream, I watched him sleeping. I slid into bed next to him and he put his arm around me and pulled me close. I’d float through my days on dreams of wistful smiles and hands that briefly touch.

Such nocturnal carnal adventures normally don’t bother me because I have no idea who the other man is. I can’t control my dreams, so I wasn’t committing a sin. But these dreams involve some of the seven deadlies, like impure thoughts and coveting, because the fact is I know this man. It’s Frank the butcher.

Frank is not handsome. He has a hard, trim body, but he looks like he ran a hundred-yard dash in a ninety-yard gym. The consensus amongst his customers is that he was probably a boxer at one time. Bantam weight, according to one elderly gentleman. What Frank does have, though, is personality. He genuinely loves people and people love him. You feel good around Frank. Children giggle, men joke, and women of all ages swoon when he waits on them. Once a blue-hair standing behind me in line sighed and said that Frank made her feel young again.

I shop at Frank’s Butcher Shop twice a week. But once I start having the dreams, I go every day. I fix my hair. I fret over my clothes. I use makeup -- a bit of blush, a touch of lipgloss -- nothing fancy. The worst part is driving by St. Mary’s. I feel as though I’m driving straight to hell. I would have made a helluva Catholic. I’m wasted on the Presbyterians.

You’re buying a lot of meat, says Robert. I feel my face go hot, so I say that I could fix fish on Fridays, to which Robert says, Jesus! We’re not Catholic! Then I explain that Catholics can eat meat on Fridays, and then Robert says, Christ! I don’t care what the damned Catholics eat! I just meant that we’ve got a lot of meat in the freezer. True, when I shopped twice a week I’d buy several meals’ worth each time, and I just kept right on buying that much even though I was shopping every day. I could have said that I got some good bargains, but I didn’t think it wise to add lying to my list of sins considering that I was already hip-deep in lusting and coveting.

Frank runs a butcher shop. Meat is all he sells. I could think of no other reason to stop by his shop than to buy meat. So, I figured the sooner I got rid of the meat, the sooner I’d see Frank again. I increased the beef in casseroles, I cooked extra burgers, I added more meat to stews, and I fed the leftovers to Mitzi, our dog. And we had a lot of leftovers. Once I actually cooked a seventeen-dollar sirloin tip roast and sliced it just for sandwiches.

The longer I went without seeing Frank, the more ardent and aerobic my dreams became. I’d awake in a sweat, and then I’d go to the freezer and count the number of meals remaining. I calculated that if I stepped up our meat consumption a bit more, I could be back in line at Frank’s in time to buy a St. Patrick’s Day corned beef. It would be a struggle, but Mitzi seemed up to the challenge.

St. Patrick’s Day dawned full of promise, the one day each year when even the English can be Irish. I wore my genuine, hand-knitted Irish sweater, and I whizzed by St. Mary’s on my way to Frank’s without a twinge of guilt.
The butcher shop was alive with vigorous conversation. Everyone wanted to know where Frank was. Frank’s not here?, I asked panicked. No, says a redhead. His brother Joe is taking his place, she says. But why? I ask. No one knows why.

I tell Joe I want corned beef. Where’s Frank?, I ask. In Ireland on his honeymoon, says Joe. Frank? Honeymoon? Ireland? By chance are they in Inishmaan?, I ask. Yeah, says Joe. Frank read an article in the New York Post about it and thought it sounded romantic, says Joe. How did you know?, he asks. I read the same article, says I. I could have gone to the P&C for corned beef, says the blue-hair behind me, and all the women nod.

Of course no one in my family likes corned beef. I tried to develop a taste for it myself, but I just don’t like it. We all gag on the cooked cabbage and we barely tolerate the cooked carrots. Mostly we eat the potatoes. Mitzi won’t touch any of it. Why do you cook this stuff if no one likes it?, asks Robert. Because it’s St. Patrick’s Day, I say. But we’re not Irish!, says Robert. I know, I reply. All I can think about is that Frank is married and he took his bride to Ireland … our Ireland.

She slowly heaved a deep sigh and said, “That was back in March. I’m back to my old Presbyterian self again.”

“Did you win the trip to Ireland?” the white-haired man asked.

“No.”

“’Tis a shame. You’d love Ireland,” he said. “By the way, is Frank Irish?”

“No, Italian. Go figure!” They sat in silence for a few moments, then she asked, “What was it like? -- living in Ireland, I mean.”

Once again he faced the Hudson and seemed to gaze into another time.

“It was The Depression and everyone was poor, grindingly poor. As poor as people were here in America, it was far worse in Ireland. We were cold because we had no money for coal, and with little more than bread to eat we were always hungry. One Christmas we had nothing but a pig’s head for dinner, a sickening sight that my father kept hidden under the table. We wore the same clothes, day in and day out, until they fell from our bodies in tatters. We were lucky if we had shoes, even ones with holes. Everyone lived in wretched hovels on the lane and used the same lavatory, what you’d call an outhouse. The lavatory was right next to our home. The buckets would slop over into the lane, right in front of our door, as people carried them next door to empty. ‘Twas a nasty, filthy stench. Two of my brothers and my only sister died from disease when they were babies. I nearly died from typhoid when I was ten. My father drank the dole, what you call welfare, and my mother had to beg for everything. The schoolmasters were bullies and the priests were heartless. Above all, we were wet. From October to April everything was damp, which brought on hacking coughs and bronchial illness. It’s a wonder I survived.”

“Gee, I had a happy childhood,” she said almost apologetically. “We weren’t rich but we never needed anything, and I still have all my brothers and sisters.”

“Ah, yes, the happy childhood. Hardly worth remembering,” he said. “Now the ordinary miserable childhood is something, but worst of all is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.”

“Are things any better over there?” she asked.

“Oh yes, much better! ‘Tis a far cry from when I lived there,” he said. Then he turned towards her, smiled and said, “You should write your story down. You have a charming way of telling it.”

“I do?”

“Yes, you do. I used to teach writing, so I should know. You tell a story as though you were Irish. Are you sure you’re not?” he asked teasingly.

“Not according to Grandma!”

She checked her watch and said, as she rose to go, “I should be going now. I have to meet Robert. You know, maybe you should take your own advice and write your story down, too.”

“I might just do that,” he said with an impish grin, and extended his hand. “By the way, my name is Frank.”

“Nice to meet you, Frank. Frank -- what a coincidence! My name is Angela.”

“Angela. ‘Tis a lovely name, Angela.”

She smiled a most luminous smile and said, “America really is a great country, isn’t it Frank?”

“’Tis.




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