Norman Balmoral: On the table

He patted Agnes’s hand, still clutching the letter, and caressed it. They looked at each other for a long moment. They rose at the same time. He nudged her on the side of her neck. She ran her hands through his hair, stroking his jaw. Whether driven by acceptance of defeat, an instinctive revulsion to being alone, or desperate insanity, he still felt an electric jolt from her fuzzy softness – and wanted her body, against his better judgment.

“Agnes, my lover. This is the only thing we both want from each other.”

He was becoming aroused, feeling that familiar hardness between his legs. Norman placed his hand between her legs and discovered she was aroused, too.

“Norman Balmoral,” Agnes said, giving him a devious look, “stand still.”

She fell to her knees, unclasped his belt, and pulled his pants down. He stood directly in front of her, fully erect. He moaned when she took him inside her mouth. He removed his shirt and began thrusting inside her mouth.

He was going to come too soon. Suddenly he pulled away from her mouth. “Not so fast. You always wanted us to do it on the kitchen table. Now’s your chance.”

When they were finished, their clothes scattered on the floor beside them, they drank a bottle of wine and scavenged through the remains of their dinner. With disregard for the mess in the kitchen, he looked outside of himselfr at the scene in front of them – Agnes and Norman Balmoral, ending their marriage with intercourse on the kitchen table. Was there a better way to end a marriage? Agnes began stroking Norman’s crotch once again. He became engorged. Norman led her upstairs to the bedroom for an intense, uninhibited night. He wanted it to be their last.

Brian Larney: Abandoned storefront

He had a graceful gait to his walk that late evening along Sansom Street, passing storefronts abandoned since the strikes of ’93 despite Teddy Roosevelt’s best efforts. He hadn’t a care in the world – 23 years old, in love with Billy from New York, having just made his debut at Carnegie Hall with a performance of Schubert’s Fantasie. Life couldn’t have been better for Brian Larney, walking home from the 30th Street Terminal Sunday night after his weekend in Manhattan.

The two men had other plans for him that evening. Across the street, they nodded to each other and moved in on Brian. The squirrely one shifted behind Brian and picked up his pace until just six feet behind. The beefy one ran ahead and came from the opposite direction. He stood in front of Brian and flashed a knife in front of his face.

“Give me what you've got."

Brian turned to run but the Squirrel assaulted him head on, pulled his arms behind him, and flung him around to face the Beef. The Beef frisked Brian, tore his blue overcoat, ripped at his pockets, grabbed his wallet.

"Fifteen cents, only enough for a fare to New York. The chintz has no money."

The Squirrel goosed Brian with his knee. The Beef kicked him in the groin, punched his face with his left, stabbed him in the abdomen with his right. The Squirrel twisted Brian’s right arm until they heard the elbow snap, slammed his fist into the back of Brian's head. Brian fell to the ground. The Beef kicked him in his left ribs with all his force. The Squirrel did the same from the other side.

An hour later an ambulance delivered Brian to the Pennsylvania Hospital. Dr. Martin Limerick, the only resident physician on duty that Sunday evening, received the man whose only gruff words were Billy, I want Billy. Brian gasped for air and coughed up blood from his throat. Martin strained to hear what the man had to say.

Victoria Balmoral: What I hear

You didn’t know that I saw everything that happened, even when I wasn’t there. When my son was stabbed and in the newspaper as Philadelphia’s hero, you didn’t know that I knew what you were feeling. I saw it in your stretched lips, your sharp eyes, your tense fingers. I heard it in your tinny voice, and I felt it in the cold palms of your hands.

You did your best to hide it from us all – from my husband, from our grandchildren. But you didn’t hide it from my son. I saw it in him, too, because a mother always knows. When something is wrong. A mother can see when her son is hurting, just as she can she when he’s done something wrong. I saw it in the way he looked at you, how he averted his eyes when you entered the hospital room, the quiet in his voice, how he solicited your approval. My son never did that, unless he’d done something very wrong.

Looking at you, looking at him, I knew exactly what had happened. The same thing that happens to most married people – the only question being when. Some couples, it’s two years. Others, it’s twenty. My husband, he did it the same time my son did it – eight years.

A mother-in-law always knows.

Siobhan Limerick: To my right

Lighting the candles instead of switching on the chandelier’s light, Siobhan stepped back to survey the table. Even in the Depression, she set a magnificent table.

By tradition, Siobhan sat at the end closest to the kitchen while her brother Collin, titular head of the family, sat at the far end, closest to the turkey and carving knife. Patrick sat on her right, Mother Limerick on her left. Agnes sat between Patrick and her uncle. Three empty chairs had been removed to the far corner of the room. Perhaps next year, they could afford to invite her sisters-in-law from the convent.

“Patrick, dear, why don’t you and Agnes switch places? She’s left-handed, you know, and it’s always best for her to sit on the left,” suggested Siobhan.

Her brother rolled his eyes. “Twenty years old and she still writes with her left hand. What did they ever teach you at St. Patrick’s School, Agnes?”

“As you well know, we could never get Agnes to write with her right like everyone else,” Uncle Collin answered. “I personally tutored and she would not budge."

“She’s always been a disobedient child, this one,” Siobhan answered, “but that’s our Agnes. Always has to be different.”

“Mama, please, you know I can’t write with my right hand. You’re embarrassing me, just like when you tell people about me being born with patches of carrot hair. I’m perfectly happy sitting next to Uncle Collin.”

Mother Limerick gave Agnes a wink of encouragement from across the table. “It’s all right, pumpkin, I love you, left or right.”

They started passing the turkey, vegetable platters, and cranberry relishes across the table, volleying conversations on school and religion across the table at the same time. Agnes passed the vegetable dish to her mother.

“Uncle Collin,” said Agnes, winking back at her grandmother during a rare lull in the conversation. “Would you pass the mashed potatoes, please? I’m over here on Mama’s left.”

Collin snorted. “Of course, child, and don’t be impertinent. Mind you don’t eat all of the potatoes. There might be less this year, but we can share what we do have.”

“I didn’t mean to be impertinent, Uncle Collin. I’m just hungry and felt left out.”

What to do with this child, Siobhan asked herself – always has to be different.

Cristina Rosamilia: Italian waiter on the phone

Cristina could hear noise in the background. Salvaterri’s phone hung on the wall near the kitchen door. Cooks and waiters buzzed about him. Peak hours were approaching when the neighborhood would march in, expecting lasagna and chianti. But Angelo took a break and called Cristina at home.

“Angelo, get back to work, they’re going to fire you for talking to me.”

“I just wanted to check on my baby, baby.”

Cristina looked down at the globe on her abdomen. “I’m fine and so’s the baby, baby.”

“What’re you doing, sunshine?”

“I’m helping Ma with dinner. Pop will be home from the market in an hour. I have to get back to the stove. I had a rough day with Agnes today.”

“Why? What’s wrong with Miss Limerick?”

“I can’t say on the phone, but she’s in real trouble. She has to marry Norman.”

“Why does she have to marry that monster?”

“There’s only one answer to that question, Angelo. Now back to work!”

She hung up. Of course, Angelo would call Norman a monster – she’d told him about Florence, being left on the street, no hotel and no money to pay for one, when he ran off to Berlin. Now that she worked in the same office as Norman, she had to be civil – but not polite. More than once she’d thrown daggers at him. And now he’d gotten her new friend pregnant, and she didn’t know any better about the way he operated. Norman Balmoral was a true operator.

Collin Doherty: Something square

Collin tried to pick up the wooden box in his hands. He felt the dull pangs of arthritic fingers and set the box back down on his desk. He let out a deep sigh, looking at the box. How would he get it out to the yard next to the rectory, so he could say a few prayers for Ruby and bury her?

“Monsignor Doherty,” he heard from behind him. He’d forgotten, he left his office door open – which he always did, when school was in session. Anthony Balfiglio stood in front of him. Again. Collin wondered what the little heathen had done now. He glared at the boy, always a challenge to him, especially now when his cat had just died.

“I didn’t do anything wrong, Father Collin. Sister Lucy sent me for twenty notebooks.”

“Anthony,” he said, deciding to give the eleven-year old chance to help. He was tall for his age. “My cat has just died and I need to bury her in the yard behind the rectory. Would you help me carry the box outside?”

“Yes, Monsignor Doherty, but Sister Lucy will be mad if I don’t go right back to class.”

“I shall explain it to her, young man, and she will understand. Is it agreed, then?” Collin thought about Ruby, twenty years of companionship, gone in the flash of a second. “The love of a pet, Anthony, is a very tender thing. I loved my pussy more than anything. Why –“

The boy turned around and ran back to his classroom. “Anthony, come back here, let me clarify –“

The car

Mrs. Honeywalker swept the barn floors when she heard an engine buzzing a whirl of complaints outside. She stopped in mid-sweep and headed out the door. Chickens made a train behind her.

An old Ford sat in the muddy driveway, rear wheels spinning out, man and woman inside – and then they stopped, hobbled into place. Gracie stared at the car, her hair blowing in the wind, and gave them the most belligerent face she could muster, protruding her lower lip, sticking her jaw out, creasing her brows. Colored folks had such an advantage, she thought, making hard faces, especially eighty-year old ladies like her.

Grace marched right over to the car as the man made a final attempt to get it out of the ditch. The man stopped and leaned out the window. Before he could open his mouth to speak –

“Don’t you be kicking up mud in my driveway, young man. You be stopping that car right now,” she ordered and wagged her index finger at them. “What in the devil’s name you doing here anyway? Who’re you all?”

"I’m Balmoral,” the man said. “Woman, we’re lost.”

Gracie squinted. “No one’s ever lost out this far. You done come here for a reason.”

He leaned out even further. “We’re simply driving about. You’ve no place to question us, ma’am.”

“You think I was a fool born yesterday? You done come to steal from me, I know it. I can smell it from here.”

Gracie looked inside the car – couldn’t see the woman too well, but the man, something about his stubborn chin told her, they weren’t leaving any too fast. She’d set them straight, before they got any ideas about her.

“Well, you ain’t getting nothing. I got me a rifle inside the house and I’ll use it if I need to. Your car’s stuck in the mud. You might as well come on out from that contraption. We’ll get old man Lacey’s truck over here --”

“Old man Lacey,” the man echoed as they got out of the car. An updraft blew his loose shirt tails up and the woman’s carrot-top red hair in her face. “He’s the one who sent us.”

Gracie smiled at the mention of Lacey and turned to look at the woman. Her smile widened. “Well, you having a baby for me to deliver. That’s why you done come. Why didn’t you say nothing?”

Collin Doherty: Middle-aged man in a cardigan

Collin swept the marble floors at St. Patrick’s. He used to love Tuesdays. Monsignor Ryan presided at the school those days and he had the day to himself. After morning mass, five or six in the pews, he’d start preparing his homily for Sunday’s mass. He’d eat lunch alone in the rectory. Mrs. Scheidelmaier always prepared his Tuesday favorite, corned beef and sauerkraut.

He’d go back to his desk for reflection on his chosen lessons and, before an hour had passed, he’d have the outline of his first draft completed. As a reward, he’d read a book for pleasure and, more likely than not, he’d fall asleep for twenty minutes. Fifteen years would have fallen by the wayside when he awoke and he’d go for a walk around Rittenhouse Square before returning to the rectory for a light supper, reading, and off to Neverland.

These days, he’d lost interest in his homilies, cycling each year through the same lessons, pontificating the same moral platitudes, reprimanding children and adults alike for committing the same sins. The sins never changed, only the people. When he went for his walks these days, he used a cane and dressed warmer than he used to dress. When it went below fifty, he’d have to wear gloves – but even ten years ago, he’d gone outside without a parka at forty-five.

Collin didn’t see any point to the same routine. His family had deserted him – Siobhan and Patrick had gone to Washington. Julia had retreated to her life of books in Manhattan. And Agnes – the only one who remained in Philadelphia, she lived only five blocks away. Yet he could not see her. She’d have to make the first move.

Norman Balmoral: My love life

If Agnes wanted specific details, he’d give them to her – just not the truth. Mary Holmes never existed, at least not as Norman’s lover. She was this busybody British lady at the Florence pension when he and Cristina had first had sex, back in ’29. Technically he wasn’t lying to Agnes when he said the other woman was Mary Holmes – to be honest, the woman’s name was Cristina Rosamilia, but their sex together, they called it Mary Holmes.

He wished he’d never seen Cristina again. Norman detested her frank observations on his behavior and her literary pretensions – almost as much as he liked having sex with her and being inside her. He’d gone so long without her, it had hurt – almost ten years since she’d married Angelo. He’d really given up on her, until they saw each other that one evening in the square and then, two years later, at the library.

Why’d she have to be Agnes’s best friend? He’d done his best to avoid her since he and Agnes had gotten married. The only time they’d been to Cristina’s house for dinner, Norman manufactured a falling-out, but six years later, found out Agnes had kept up with Cristina. Then she sought him out and they’d ended up in bed, just like in Florence – three times before he confessed to Agnes.

He vowed to himself, and to Agnes, he would never see Mary Holmes again.

Siobhan Limerick: Lost

Siobhan’s heart went icy cold at the horror unfolding at the Mother’s Day table. She had no idea what Agnes was implying about Collin, but he must know – he was turning beat red, his hands were shaking, and he picked at a scab on his neck.

“What could’ve possessed you to say such things to your uncle, Agnes?” Siobhan implored. “You should be ashamed.”

“I’m only asking questions, Mama. These questions have been gnawing at me for years and I still don’t have answers.”

“It is a sin how you’ve disobeyed your mother,” Collin said.

“It is a sin for me to dishonor her, Uncle Collin. The Ten Commandments tell us to honor our parents, not to obey them.”

The chasm opened up and swallowed them – Agnes and Collin, her only daughter and her favorite brother, slashing each other with words they could never retract.

“Agnes, you’ll regret this,” Collin thundered as he retreated to the foyer. “Siobhan, get your coat. You’re not to say another word. Do I make myself clear?”

Siohan wept anew. “I just don’t understand, Agnes. Why have you thrown us into this pit? My daughter is lost to me, Collin. She is gone, gone, gone!”

Collin pushed her out the door and slammed it shut. The quick bang pierced Siobhan to the heart. She still didn’t understand what Agnes had been implying about Collin and the school boys who shivered when they passed his office.

Brian Larney: Admiration

With the peach face, the smooth lips, and the pillow eyes, everything Martin Limerick said to Brian that afternoon at the Pennsylvania Hospital caressed his heart with a glossy sheen and magical sparks. Victoria’s philandering son might’ve been on the British throne and the blustery Rough Rider might’ve been in the White House for five years – but Brian looked into Martin’s eyes and reigned over all things, English, Irish, and American.

“Nurse, we must change these dressings every four hours. Fresh bandages, please,” the good Dr. Limerick said, smiling at his patient, “otherwise infection may set in and we shall lose him. He’s far too kind for such a fate.”

Dr. Limerick triggered a memory in Brian, playing polo with his father at the Wynnewood Lawn Club, at least until Mrs. Wickham-Smith had evicted them, club policy preventing employees from enjoying the amenities, even after hours – he had the same baritone vibrato as his father. True, Brian had been twelve when he’d died, but that was only seven years ago.

“Most unfortunate, nurse, that Mr. Larney sustained these injuries in the attack. Perilous terrible, what some young men must endure, simply for attending a music lecture …” Brian felt stronger hearing the good doctor’s words. How might he repay him for his kindness, if not now, years down the road?

Agnes Limerick Balmoral: On the way to work

October was Agnes’s favorite month. She loved morning walks – and her job at the War Department allowed her to walk fifteen blocks every morning. She didn’t much care for the late afternoon walks home, but at least she had the children and a lovely meal from her mother-in-law to look forward to. But her morning walks! She’d walk down Locust Street to 13th Street, up to Arch Street, and then over to 5th Street into the new building. October days were cool and breezy. She could jump from side to side, crunching golden leaves under her shoes.

She loved her new job, six months she’d had a junior position as clerk to Dr. Dixon at the War Department. She had no idea how solving differential equations could possibly be useful to Dr. Dixon or the war effort, but she did her job to the best of her ability, solved the equations, and he seemed to be happy with her job performance. Thank goodness Norman had volunteered to serve with the Navy in England – otherwise, he’d never have allowed her to work. At least she could have an interesting job, her piano lessons, the children at home. And thank goodness for her mother-in-law – Victoria made life bearable for her.

Agnes wanted Norman to stay in England forever. She hoped the war never ended and he kept on drafting blueprints for Navy buildings in England, Holland, and France. Keep the Germans at bay, yes – but don’t defeat them, she hoped. And then maybe, after fifteen or twenty years, maybe the war could end without too many men dying … and without Norman coming home.

She walked into the War Department and up to her desk. Dr. Dixon had a long series of equations for her to solve that morning. She had no idea what he was up to – but why, she wondered, why was he conferring with a priest in the middle conference room?

Cristina Rosamilia: My hair

Angelo would be returning with the boys in fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. They’d gone over to Ma and Pop for a visit. The three of them would be spending an evening at a Philadelphia Athletics baseball game. As far as Angelo knew, she’d be spending the evening with Mary Holmes, her former coworker at Smith and Weisskopf. But Angelo didn’t know that Mary didn’t really exist, at least not in Philadelphia. Angelo didn’t know that “Mary Holmes” was a code phrase she and Norman had created for their trysts.

Mary Holmes was this nosy English lady who occupied the room across the hall in the Florence pension where they first consummated their relationship – back in ’29, before Cristina had met Angelo, before Agnes had blundered her way into their lives. No one knew about Florence … except Ma and Pop, and they’d never breathe a word to Agnes. Or to Angelo.

She looked in the mirror. Why couldn’t she have straight, silky hair like Agnes? No, she had this black frizzy hair, these crazy curls and caterpillar eyebrows. And why’d she have to be so nearsighted? Glasses so thick, it made her eyes as big as the Jupiter sunspot. Agnes didn’t have to wear glasses, after all. And her figure … already she’d gained too much weight. Having two children did that to her – no longer the supple figure Norman had first caressed in Italy. But Agnes had given Norman two children, too – without gaining any weight.

Cristina put her long coat on. At least it wasn’t so cold that she needed gloves that November 1st. She didn’t have any. Angelo didn’t earn enough money to afford them. But Agnes had several pairs of gloves, at least one for each social occasion Norman took her to. Perhaps Norman wouldn’t notice when they met at the restaurant, and perhaps he wouldn’t notice when they left the hotel room.

Allow me to introduce myself

I multi-tasked before anyone knew the term. I multi-tasked before Facebook, before texting, before smartphones, before Google, before DVDs, before VCRs, before PCs, even before Ronald Reagan. Picture it, Sophia Petrillo – Pittsburgh, 1980. A seventeen-year old Opie with the horny weenie of the Marlboro Man after a photo shoot, the supple lines of a butterfly swimmer who just broke the high school record, and the witty confidence of Bea Arthur after Season 2 of “Maude.”

Uncle Ed Gallagher died in the middle of a heat wave, June of that year. He was seventy-three years old, ancient by my teenaged standard, little more than middle aged, now that I’m pushing fifty. No one knows I was suffering from a terrible case of athlete’s foot, I’d been peeling dead skin between my toes for six months, but most of all – that I enjoyed it. Every time I pulled dead skin from my toes it felt like I was creating a Rembrandt masterpiece.

My toes itched like crazy that Monday afternoon I went to swim practice at the University of Pittsburgh, but I ignored it because I wanted to see my coach, hot and sexy Fred the neurotic Chevrolet Caprice driver. Why’d he drive a Caprice, I wonder. Even then, single men in their thirties wouldn’t be caught dead in a housewife’s car, let alone a muscular Italian with a hairy crotch – no one knows I remember things like that. I remember neurotic Fred’s hairy crotch, too bad I never got to bury my face in it.

I drove home that Monday – believe it was June 23, 1980. Double practice day, we swam three miles that morning followed by ten times around the stadium, up and down those god-damned stairs. But I got to see Fred’s bush in the showers, made it worth it. Then I drove the Datsun B-210 to afternoon practice, swam another two miles, and drove home. Too bad I got the urge to put my watch on while I was driving up Rodi Road, because I did and forgot to look where I was going. Swerved right into a telephone pole and went sideways down the hill. Car was totaled beyond recognition, but I crawled out the passenger window unharmed. Poor Jeff, it was supposed to have been his car. Don’t tell anyone … I’ve always told people I passed out due to the heat wave.

Multi-tasking didn’t work then and it doesn’t work now.