William H. Hallahan - (19 page)

Against the family's wishes, her mother had married this charming
brute for love--deep love, a love that took a lot of killing before
it ended. For years a few murmured promises of reform were all her
father had to make in order to win her mother over once more--until
one day she scorned his vows and stoically watched as he wrecked the
apartment, breaking the few pieces of good furniture she'd inherited,
breaking them deliberately while watching her face.

Her mother left him in anger and lived in bitterness thereafter.
"Never tell a man you love him," she told Anne every night
at dinner. "Marry for security. Marry a good provider for your
children. Be a good wife but
never
love him. Never hesitate to
leave him. And never never never take him back. Never." That was
the sermon ingested with the soup diurnally. Amen.

"Brendan, I love you." She shook her head. Inside her,
her mother screamed. "Brendan, will you marry me?" She
looked in the rearview mirror and said it again. Then: "I love
you." She mouthed the three words silently. "I love you."
Her mouth looked ridiculous.

She rehearsed again the speech that she'd been rehearsing for
years. "I've loved you ever since I was fifteen. I get so
excited when I'm going to see you, my heart sings. And all the lights
go on.' No. I'll say, 'You fill my life with love.' No. 'Marry me and
I'll make you the best wife a man ever had--' Oh, bad. That's
terrible, Annie." She deepened her voice. " 'Now, Annie,
marry me and I'll make you the best husband any woman ever had.'"
She put on a skeptical expression. " 'I'll have to think about
this, Brendan. Marriage is no casual thing with me. I have my career
to think about. I don't know whether there's room for love and
marriage in my life. Convince me, Brendan. Kneel on the white
handkerchief.' Oh, Brendan." She embraced her shoulders. "
'Quick before you change your mind let's go find a minister.' Oh,
this is stupid. He'll never marry me or anyone. No, no, no, Annie.
Positive thinking. Say, 'I'm going to give myself the gift of a
lifetime. Brendan Davitt Happy lifetime, Anne O'Casey.'" Then
she changed her mind again. She vowed she would not ask him today.
Would she?

"Oh, Mom," she cried. "You have to love people and
let them love you. You can't hide from love." And yet, after all
those years of supper sermons, she was afraid.

"Where's your pride, Anne?" her mother asked.
 
 

Getting Brendan in the motor home was no problem: He was hungry
and she had food. He didn't object when she drove downtown. "We'll
have a front-row seat overlooking New York Harbor," she told
him. "Maybe we'll see a humongous snowstorm while we eat."

She drove down Ninth Avenue toward the Battery. "Twenty-four
today," she said. "Oh, bad."

"Is twenty-four really bad?" Brendan said. "I don't
mind it at all."

"Well, as they say, it's better than being in Philadelphia."
She watched him chuckle. "Old joke," she said lamely.

"What do you want for your birthday?"

"Oh, great. You wait until the day comes, then you ask me.
How about the Hope Diamond?"

"Seriously. What do you want for your birthday?"

"Seriously. I want you." It just popped out. What a
gaffe. She watched his face with dread. "I'm sorry. I mean. Oh,
what the hell. I'm not sorry."

He smiled at her. "Neither am I."

"What does that mean, Brendan?"

"I'm not sorry you want me for your birthday. Here." And
he held out both arms in surrender.

"I accept. Are you going to be gift-wrapped or do I get you
with the everyday packaging?"

Brendan said, "You're going to get me dead if you don't feed
me soon, Annie."

Did it again: She'd retreated into jokes and he'd followed her.
Then a switch to food and they were out of the sand trap. Once again.
She smiled at him gaily but something inside was grim. Like a genie
from a bottle, her mother's presence was sitting in the seat between
them.

It was a hell of a mess driving the motor home through the
financial district. Trucks were double-parked in the narrow curving
streets, and the noontime foot traffic had spilled off the sidewalks
and into the streets, bringing everything to a standstill. At last
she parked the motor home down at Battery Park near the entrance to
the Staten Island ferries.

"Luncheon is served," she said.

They got into the dining booth in the back, and she took
sandwiches and delicatessen out of the paper bag and served them on
paper plates. Then she drew out the wine bottle. "Seduction
scene. You get to keep the cork as a memento of your conquest."
It was a Soave, a good white wine that they both liked even in the
plastic cups.

"How's the world of photography?" he asked her.

"Fantastic. I pulled off a real Edward Weston this morning. A
black-and-white study of a quartz mantel clock for a mid-town
jeweler. I could hardly believe I took it. The client's crazy about
it. Esther Logan wants us to open our own studio."

"Will you?"

"Why not? We're ready. We have lots of contacts and this is
New York. Esther has her eye on a loft studio in the Forties
somewhere. A lot of garment makers in the building but we'll get the
top floor with a bunch of skylights."

She watched him eat the sandwich. "What's in the future for
you, Brendan?"

"Oh, I don't know. Something, I suppose."

It was the same old evasion. "Think you'll stay with
Wandering Child?"

"I suppose."

"Brendan. You're making peanuts there. Typists make more
money than you do."

"Yes, but they don't have half the fun."

"Well, here's to your future, love." She held her
plastic cup up to him. "You're my favorite social worker. You
ever think of getting married?"

He was looking intently through the large window at the park. Five
cars were parked there with the engines running. Well-dressed men,
buttoned up against the wind, would come hurrying out of the
financial district and across the park. The men in the cars would
crank down their windows and pass out small packets and receive cash
in return. Then the well-dressed men would hurry back to their desks
in the countinghouses. Death wish: a personal '29 crash in the
offing. Madness.

"Marriage," she said. "Brendan."

"I went to the morgue this morning and saw the body of a
child with needle tracks up and down her arms. Probably murdered with
an overdose by a pimp because she had gonorrhea, syphilis and herpes.
An overdose is cheaper than medical attention. After all, the pimp
has his clients to think of and there's an abundance of healthy
fourteen-year-olds for replacements."

She saw the ferry arrive, watched a throng of passsengers hurry
away amid disembarking cars. They walked off into the wind and in
moments were absorbed by the city. Morgue. So much for her love
speech.

He smiled at her. "And I love you too, Anne."

"Oh, hooray. Brendan Davitt does his mind-reading act amid
the applause of thousands." She shook her head at him. "You
love everyone, Brendan. The whole damned world--people, snakes; dead
rats, even your enemies."

He took her stabbing finger. "Ever since we were fifteen on
Long Beach Island. You were my Miss February."

"I was? What does that mean?"

"We had a bag full of
Playboy
magazines. And you were
the spitting image of Miss February."

She frowned at him. "You looked at a centerfold nude and
pretended it was me?"

"She was like your twin. Same color hair." He smiled at
her. "All over."

"Oh boy." She put her hand to her mouth. "Damn it,
Brendan. I'm blushing. Here I was feeling the tenderest love for you
and you were mentally groping me."

"I told you I was in love with you--good healthy lusty love."
He smiled at her expression. "You're a real armful, Annie. You
could put Miss February to shame."

"Armful, ha. A sylphlike centerfold I am not. How come you
never told me all these years, champ?"

"You never told me."

"Told you what?"

"That you love me."

"Why would I tell you a thing like that? Who says I love
you?" She felt his eyes watching her expression. "Oh, what
the hell, Brendan. Of course I love you. I was ready to marry you
when I was fifteen."

He nodded solemnly at her. "It's not that easy, Annie."

"Damn it, Brendan, if I can say it, you can too."

He kissed her. "I love you, Annie."

"But--Right? There's a but?"

"Yes. There's a but. I said it's not that easy. There's
something in my future I can't ask you to share with me."

"Why not?"

"I told you, Annie."

"Not all of it. You make it sound like a death sentence."

"That's exactly what it may be."

Annie said, "Grab life by the ears--that's what Father Turner
says in his sermons."

"I don't think he had my case in mind."

She asked, "How much time do we have?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. Soon, I think."

"Let's assume it's two weeks. Okay? Two weeks of waking up in
the morning and finding you beside me. Two weeks of sharing our
lives, going out to dinner, cleaning the pad, listening to music,
loving each other, whispering to each other and discovering things,
feeling things we've never felt before. Two whole weeks. I'll take
it. And count myself blessed."

"Two weeks?" He looked doubtfully at her.

"Yes," she said. "I want it. It's life and I'll
take a chance on it. Ride the tiger. I'll take my life with you like
salami--a slice at a time, a day at a time. No strings." She
pulled his arms around her. "You got your arms around a lot of
girl, Brendan, and I'm all yours."

He watched her face in silence, a bemused half-smile on his lips.

She felt his arms tighten around her and draw her closer. He still
didn't speak.

"Cat got your tongue, Brendan?"

He kissed her very lightly, tenderly. "A long time ago, I
decided I had to come to a decision about you. So a certain day came
and I took a long walk along the docks. It was a breezy day in April,
I remember, and the piers were busy--ships unloading and loading, all
those odors from all over the world--coffee and spices and burlap and
fruit. I even remember where you were. You were up in Maine with your
mother's uncle."

"That was three years ago."

"Yes. I wanted to ask you to marry me. I wanted to ask you to
wait until I got my degree. I wanted to tell you about my second
sight, as they call it in the family. I wanted to explain everything
so that you would know exactly what you were walking into. I wandered
for miles and miles along the Brooklyn waterfront up under the
Brooklyn Bridge, up around Wallabout Bay and the old Brooklyn Navy
Yard. And by the time I turned and walked back I'd decided to
propose. I was so happy I was dancing as I walked, and the
longshoremen stared at me. When I got back to Brooklyn Heights it was
dark and I went into the house. Aunt Maeve was in the kitchen and I
wanted to tell her what I'd decided so I went upstairs to wash my
face and get ready for dinner. Then without warning I had a
terrifying vision. I saw this awful face in a black monk's cowl. It
was a goat's face, covered with black fur, with two small horns that
grew against its forehead and skull and two glowing green eyes that
were so malevolent--so hate-filled--they were insane. Two insane eyes
and this sense of enormous, furious power. Those two eyes were
looking right at me. I knew that I was going to have to fight him.
And I was convinced I could never win. In that beast was the power of
the universe. I have often wondered if it was Satan himself." He
looked at her. "I could never involve you in any of this."

"You can't climb in a box and hide until Judgment Day,
Brendan. You have to dare to live. And so do I."

He looked away from her. "I had this all worked out and
bundled up and put away in my mind. Now you want me to take it out,
take off the strings and go through the whole thing again."

"But that's my decision to make, not yours."

"I didn't want to give you such a terrible decision. If I
didn't say anything, I was sure you would eventually meet someone
else and have a normal life. You're a beauty, Anne. Men stare at you.
And you have a marvelous personality. Go meet someone and have a
happy life."

"I have met someone--lots of someones. But I turned them
down. I only want you. Okay?" She nodded at him. "I just
got myself a live birthday present. And you just got yourself a girl,
Brendan."
 
 

The snow was still holding off but the city was getting ready for
it nonetheless. Before two in the afternoon, exiting car traffic had
become heavy at all the bridges and tunnels. Brendan saw several city
trucks with snowplows parked on side streets.

He watched Anne drive the long motor home through the streets. Her
expression changed with each maneuver, and he watched her face with
joy and love. She caught him at it and took his hand.

"Two hands on the wheel," he said, and they laughed.

But the memory of the morning trip to the morgue was still strong
in his mind and made him feel a certain guilt for the happiness he
was feeling: Mrs. Anne Davitt. Everywhere he looked on the streets as
they drove, he saw adolescents. How many were runaways in trouble,
like the girl in the morgue?

When he had first joined the Wandering Child agency, the staff
members had warned him not to let his feelings become involved in his
work. "These kids can break your heart," they said. And,
they said, "You can't save them all. You can't save one tenth of
them. You have to grow calluses."

But the counseling was not enough. Helping dozens of them return
home just whetted his appetite. Helping castoffs find new homes
spurred him on. What if he could intercept them when they were in the
process of running away?