THE WAITING GAME

THE WAITING GAME

   There are places in the world that you may have never visited but feel as familiar as your hometown.

New York had always figured high on my list of locations where I felt an emotional pull but no particular desire to experience in the flesh.

My work with the Irish airline Aer Lingus saw me land and take off worldwide but only stay for a few hours. 

Over the years, my bucket list of return destinations grew longer, but the ‘Big Apple’ was not on it.

Brother-in-law, Matt had migrated to the US nearly thirty years before. Initially, we heard little from him, but he became more communicative as the years passed and after he met and married Onya, an American-born child of an Irish immigrant couple from County Cork. 

He never spoke about work in his letters home but mentioned that they lived in an apartment on Lexington Avenue in the Bronx with their two girls, Rose and Annie.

In the late 1950s, Dublin was my home and my focus. My wife, Mary, loved the romance of a brother she could hardly remember, sending her copies of the Saturday edition of ‘The New York Times that ran to 300 plus pages.

Every couple of months, a familiar thud in our front door letterbox would herald the arrival of the latest American news and page upon page of ‘Funnies,’ every manner of cartoon character from Snoopy and Dagwood to Ripley’s ‘Believe It or Not.’

 Mary would unfurl the tightly rolled package as if conducting intricate surgery. Oft times, hidden within the rolls of the newspapers were a couple of pairs of nylon stockings, a much-prized luxury in post-war Ireland.

Out of the blue, we got a letter telling us he was coming ‘home’ and would stay for six weeks, July through August, a mere three months away.

Mary threw herself into a panic of excitement which, by the time of Matt’s arrival, had progressed to an operation of near military precision.

Sadly, most of our good intended preparation soon became obsolete.

Matt, this man who coveted his heritage and espoused his ‘Irishness,’ claiming that he was as homesick now as the day he left, quickly revealed himself to be the archetypal ‘Ugly American,’ loud, rude and opinionated. 

His first day in Dublin saw him pick a fight with a taxi driver; the reason for his outburst is lost on me. Still, I remember commuters outside Amiens Street Railway Station watching on bemused as this ‘Yank’ in a loud shirt and Panama hat berated the hapless cabbie leaving him with his final insult, “You and this goddam one-horse town deserve each other.”

The next day saw a fracas in a department store on O’Connell Street. He had asked us to show him where there was a ‘good’ food store. Mary and I took him to the food hall and left him alone for a few minutes. The sound of raised voices, becoming more familiar, alerted us to the contretemps between our guest and a young female shop assistant. Over-dramatic gesticulations and raised voices drew us to where Matt and the assistant stood peering with intent at, wait for it, a box of locally produced biscuits.

How could an International Incident spring from such an innocent circumstance, you ask? Dear reader, it was all a question of language and interpretation.

Matt, the local boy who made the big-time, was back home, ready to show us how. He had asked the young lady to show him a box of crackers. Fortunately, she did not think he meant Christmas crackers in mid-July but indicated that she was unsure how to handle his request. Matt’s short fuse quickly kicked in as he loudly reinforced, “Crackers, crackers, Jeez, I just want some crackers.”

Mary sought to pacify him while the salesgirl withdrew to a safe distance; my wife soon discovered this would be the first of a few language differences. Matt had wanted to buy a presentation box of assorted biscuits to give to Mary as a gift. His years in America had changed his vocabulary from biscuit to cracker, and the poor unfortunate salesgirl had fallen victim to the miscommunication. He later admitted that he had forgotten how many words we spell differently but mean the same. Some words mean different things, such as crackers meaning water-biscuits in English but all kinds of biscuits (and cookies) in American.

By the time the first week of his visit had elapsed, we were wondering how his family back home were enjoying his absence. The Lexington Avenue apartment must have luxuriated in the peace and quiet. This man was so obscenely LOUD that it detracted from whatever nice things were in his character.

Week two arrived, and, to our great relief, Matt informed us that he would be leaving the following day to meet up with his wife Onya’s family in County Cork, and he would be back in Dublin (with us) in two weeks.

He came back a changed man. We will never know where or how the epiphany came about, but the bravado and bluster had left him revealing a rather personable fellow.

Perhaps Mary’s signature dish, Lasagne or the crack that followed triggered the outpouring of Matt’s American odyssey.

We must have talked; in truth, he must have spoken for the best part of four hours. He told us of his arrival in New York and how he got a job as a Bell-hop at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. How racked with loneliness and home-sickness, he took to drinking and became dependent on alcohol. He told us that ultimately his employers discovered his drink problem and, after failing to respond to a final warning, lost his job and accommodation.

Within five years of leaving Ireland to strike it rich in the land of opportunity, he was unemployed, destitute and sleeping rough. Oh, and by the way, too ashamed to write home asking for help.

Too poor to drink and still too proud to beg, he sought help at Alcoholics Anonymous. An Irish Catholic priest from a parish in the Bronx oversaw the first meeting he attended. Father Liam, as he was known, took an interest in Matt, and when he turned up again the following week, still destitute, unemployed, but still sober, the priest offered to help him get a job.

After two weeks and two more meetings, Matt started working as a janitor in an apartment block on Lexington Avenue. Twenty-odd years on, he’s still there, living with the three women in his life in the ground-floor apartment that comes with the job. He is still sober, attending AA meetings regularly, visiting branches, and sharing his story with others.

He ended by admitting that he had felt compelled to return to Ireland again before he died but knew that Onya would have ringed him in behaviourally. “I just wanted to do my own thing,” He said, but now I wish she was here; she would never have put up with how I behaved those first few days.”

We went to bed that night looking at Matt through a completely different prism.

The remainder of his stay went well. Matt made most of his own arrangements to meet other family members and friends and even went out on a couple of evenings alone on what he called, ‘business.’ We are pretty sure that he was attending AA meetings in town.

When the time came to say our goodbyes, there was a genuine warmth and affection in the platitudes, ‘come again,’ and you must come to visit us in America.’ However, neither of us saw it as a realistic possibility.

All that changed when Are Lingus decided to buy the ‘new’ Boeing 747 for the Atlantic routes in 1971. Boeing was flying a ‘Demo’ model from Seattle to Dublin for talks with management, mostly to do with cabin configuration.

With my job involving the engineering side of aviation, I was surprised to be drafted into initial conversations with Boeing personnel who came over on the flight. The surprise increased when several of us were invited back on the return journey to visit the Boing production facility in Seattle.

Our visit was scheduled for a working week, five days, and would include actual airtime where we could see and appreciate the ground-breaking advances we would be enjoying with our new purchases.

I casually asked if any flights would include a trip to New York. With Americans' unbridled enthusiasm for their own, I was told that recently renamed ‘John F Kennedy International Airport’ was on our flight list, and we would be on the ground with time to spare should I wish to catch up with Matt and family in the Bronx.

When I called Mary and told her she said I just had to go, I decided that if everything went as planned, I would get a cab from JFK and surprise Matt and Onya at their apartment.

That was never to happen. Mary had Matt’s phone number and told him days before the flight. On the morning of the ‘big day,’ I received a call from Matt asking if I wanted him to meet me at the airport. I replied that my hosts had already given me so much information that I felt I could recite the significant points of interest from JFK to the Bronx by heart. Thanks anyway; I was looking forward to the thirty-minute trip in a ‘Yellow Cab.’

Came the big day, and the inflight activity proved flawless; immigration, with the help of Boeing staff, was a breeze, and the trip to the ‘Big Apple’ was exactly as I had been told to expect.

Having quickly come to terms with my accent, the Greek-born cab driver regaled me with his disrespectful commentary on how the ‘Land of the Free’ was being ruined by people from all over the world coming to the US simply because it was ‘easy street’ in comparison to their homelands.

I noted, with amusement, not a word of vitriol was directed to Greek or Irish communities.

The humour was suspended when a police car stopped before us, and an officer approached the driver. “Either turn back to where you’ve come from or make a left at the next intersection; we’ve closed Lexington for the next three blocks.”

The cab driver turned to me, “I’m gonna drop ya here and turn back, OK?”

“I guess so. Do you know what’s going on?”

He swung the wheel and guided the cab to the kerb without answering. “Wait,’ he commanded as he reset his radio.

The newscaster was babbling. I only caught the odd word but heard ‘Lexington, Bank, shooting and closure,’ enough to give me an idea of what was happening.

“Take me back to JFK, please. I requested.”

Half an hour later, having ‘enjoyed’ another dissertation, this time on the evolving criminal scenario in NYC fuelled by ‘hoodlums and bums,’ again, no reference to Greek or Irish malfeasants, I was back at the airport and phoning Matt from the Boeing facility building.

He was all over the situation. A bank had been targeted one block away from where he lives, but a passing NYPD patrol car saw the incident evolve, called for backup, and a shootout followed.

Matt recounted it in such a matter-of-fact tone that he could have been reading a shopping list; I was amazed.

With apologies, we said our farewells, and two days later, I was back home. From the business perspective, my trip created some life-long contacts, many of whom have become friends.

I remain, however, true to my original values; in a sensory way, I feel an attachment to New York; by accident, I had the chance to visit, however briefly.

I left Matt expectantly waiting for me in the Bronx. Will I be back? I don’t think so.

1980 Words