Heaphy - The Last Kid On the Steeplechase

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This work is dedicated to Sister Stephen Gerard, cousin Bobbe. She is well thanked for the push I needed to get these thoughts down on paper. So sweet, smart and loving and an encouragement to many more than just me.

To Ma, Dad, Aunt Agnes and of course, Anne...who puts up with me and my dreams.

.....And now to you, as well...just for picking this up.

When I was about seventeen years old I started to keep a journal.... please don't say "Diary".... At the writing of this piece I'm pushing sixty-one. Been at it a long time, it looks. Can't believe it, but I'm forced to.

The purpose of it, initially, was to simply write down things that stuck out in my head from time to time...way before the blog and the things that followed.

Its really is a compilation of poetry, song lyrics, ideas and memories I have held close over the years. You may find it boring at times...I do ...but hopefully, there will be some worth in the read. Something that will bring us closer together in some way. We all have many circumstances in common, I think. Life is simply like that. The way we come across them is just different. My hope is that you will find "that something", provoked by these writings. My other hope is that this will wind up on some dusty book-shelf in your room...like a photo you came across again after many years and you say to yourself, "I remember that". Big hopes, I know but there it is and here it goes.....

"You get the hell back into your room". My father stood in the hallway, in front of the door, shaking like a leaf. I was behind her, waiting for the lunge... Mom stood in the kitchen with her hands to her face, she had enough, it was going on for a half an hour by now. "You get the fuck outta' my way, I'm going out... Ya Bastids" ! Then the lunge, I go to grab her. Dad blocks the door, the table goes over, the light breaks, the table breaks... she starts swinging wildly and I catch one across the side of the face... it hurts enough but theres no time to worry about it... now shes on the floor, screaming at the top of her lungs. Shes' cursing us both like a demon...she is a demon at the moment. In the next few minuets she seem to calm down, all three of us breathing heavy. She, panting like some captured animal trying to assess the situation...it takes allot out a ya'. We stand up and try to console Ma, who usually would have been right there with us but tonight she just can't deal with it. Then the inevitable, the lunge...right to the door and she is out by the time we can get to her... practically pulled the nails right off four of my fingers... I had caught her coat but it was just to fast...so now, once again she disappears into the hallway, down the stairs and into the night.

These kind of episodes killed them eventually. Such great parents, such histories of their own. Nobody deserves this, especially people like this. It sure didn't do me any good either. The love and hate I developed over the forty years this went on really hurt and it hurt deep down. I wrote only one song about it because it was just to painful to recollect. My sister, I did learn later, had the reasons and the causes for this behavior, deep down inside her but in those times I was just concerned with the moment and the results...ya couldn't help it...God damn, ya just couldn't help it.

I was born in the spring, on the Island of Manhattan in 1951. The war was over, Dad was home and had married his sweetheart, Helen. His people had been in the States forever. Started coming over from Ireland in the 1820s. I never knew my Paternal Grandparents but I would have loved to. Granddad worked on Wall Street at J.P. Morgan and Grandma played piano in all the best theaters during the silent movie era. What a combination, I used to think. Money was coming in and there was always music in the house. From what I've heard over the years, they were a fun couple. Parties were plentiful and the twenties really did roar. Bathtub gin, jazz, the whole nine yards. Some of Dad's earliest recollections were of he and his sister, my Aunt Agnes, being tucked in a carriage safely parked outside of a New York night club. Can you imagine...in New York City, parked outside...kids ! Geez, you would get life in prison if you did that now.... but that was how it was then. I know I complain how much the city has changed since I was a kid but this to me was beyond belief....but great in its own scary way. "Don't you think you've had enough to drink". He would look into her eyes and say, " Mae, don't be ridiculous" and they both would just crack up. I know this must sound like an excerpt from "Angela's Ashes" but it wasn't ....not from what I gathered. Number one, there was money and number two, there was money. The jokes and good times flowed. They were loving parents, in spite of what I mentioned about the baby carriages...everybody did that.... but they were long gone before I came on the scene. Succumbed to the life style... and their party was over.

Dad broke his back at work, figuratively speaking. He had to quit school after the Navy to take care of his folks and now, after they passed, worked down on 14th Street by the meat packing district. Those freezing winters on the water front and the heat in the summer never changed him...not to me. We had now moved to the Bronx. Highbridge to be exact. It was a beautiful place of art deco buildings, parks and clean streets. This place, more than any, other has influenced my life. I saw it as home, still do in a way. Today, families are spread coast to coast and weddings and funerals only allow their paths to cross...maybe. In those days though, almost everyone in the family was within walking distance of each other. This made for a very tight circle for a kid my age. The Aunts, the Uncles the cousins and their friends all made for great Christmases, great Easters, a great Halloweens and many "for no reason" get togethers. I've learned so much about people from just observing them and their actions. I both loved and dreaded those get togethers... but dreaded only because of what seemed like endless hours, at the end, waiting to go home. We would be crashed out on my cousin's bed, half falling asleep and half anticipating the call to get your coats on. Then the singing would start. You could hear it loud and clear... from the kitchen, of course...where else. We would all look at each other, the kids I mean, and just sigh. We knew that was good for at least another hour. By the time I was eight I knew all the words to "Slow Boat to China" and "You're as Welcome as the Flowers In May To Dear Old Donnegal". Painful then, yeah, kinda' but it left a deep impression on me. One I wouldn't realize or even appreciate till years later. Then another half an hour, standing in the hallway with your coat on while they all said their good-byes. The freezing walk home. My sister and I walking under my Mother's long coat, protected from the wind. Past Grandma's place and up Woodychrest Avenue, where Dad was born. Past Sacred Heart Church. Up around Ogden Avenue, Aunt Agnes's place and downstairs from her, Cousin Joan, Aunt Nelly and Uncle Jack's... then past the Noonan Towers where the rich people lived and finally to our building, dead tired and to bed . Sound awful... no, no, I wouldn't have had it any other way. These are solid things. Things you never forget. Things that guide you through your life and because of life and its changes...almost unattainable, except in memory. Things are certainly different now but thats OK, too. A bird in a cage still sings his heart out. He knows no other place. Knows no other way and unlike me to you...don't ever tell him.