bet, erratic in a way Martin was not. Billy
was self-possessed, even as a boy, but then again he had to be, did he not? Fatherless from age nine, when Francis Phelan left home, left wife, son, and daughter forever, or at least until this
morning.
Martin’s problem was similar, but turned inside out: too much father, too much influence, too much fame, too much scandal, but also too much absence as the great man pursued his greatness.
And these, my friends, are forces that deprived a young man of self-possession and defined his life as a question mark, unlike Billy Phelan’s forces, which defined his life as an
exclamation point.
When his bets were made Martin swallowed the last of his coffee and went to the morgue and pulled all files on the McCalls. They should have had a file cabinet to themselves, given the coverage
of their lives through the years, but thieves walked abroad. No clips remained of Patsy’s victory in 1919, or even of the Democratic sweep of the city in 1921. Stories on the 1931 legislative
probe into the city’s assessment racket were gone. So were all reports on Patsy’s doing six months for contempt in the baseball-pool scandal.
This was historical revisionism through burglary. Had freelancers looking for yet another magazine piece on the notorious McCalls done the filching? Or was it McCall loyalist reporters, who
doubled on the city payroll as sidewalk inspectors? The lightfingering effectively kept past history out of the ready reach of reform-minded newsmen, or others snooping on behalf of uplift: Tom
Dewey, the redoubtable D.A., for instance, who was making noises like a governor: Elect me, folks, and I’ll send the McCall bunch swirling down the sinkhole of their own oily unguents.
Joe Leahy saw Martin shuffling through the McCall files and wondered aloud, “What’s up with them?”
“Ahh,” said Martin with theatrical weariness, “a backgrounder on them and the A.L.P Big power move that comes to a head tonight when the enrollment figures come in.”
“The McCalls taking on the reds? Can they really do it?”
“The power of prayer is with them. The bishop’s behind Patsy all the way.”
“You writing something for the first edition?”
“Nothing for the first. When it happens, it happens.”
Martin turned back to the folders and Leahy walked off, a good Catholic boy who loved Franco and hated the reds. Untrustworthy
with anything meaningful. Martin leafed through the Charlie Boy file, all innocuous stuff. Promoted to major in the National Guard. Engaged to sweet-faced Patricia Brennan. Initiated into the
B.P.O.E. lodge number forty-nine. Named vice-president of the family brewery. Shown visiting Jimmy Braddock in his dressing room in Chicago before the fight with Joe Louis. Shown with his favorite
riding horse, a thoroughbred named Macushla, birthday gift from Uncle Patsy of political fame, who keeps horses on a small Virginia farm.
Charlie was pudgy, the face of a smiling marshmallow on the torso of a left tackle. There he stood in his major’s suit, all Sam Browne and no wrinkles. Where are you this minute, Charlie
Boy? Tied to a bed? Gun at your brain? How much do they say your life is worth? Have they already killed you?
Martin remembered Charlie’s confirmation, the boy kissing the bishop’s ring; then at the party Bindy gave afterward at the Hampton Hotel, the bishop kissing Bindy’s foot. That
was the year the McCalls all but donated the old city almshouse to the Catholic diocese as a site for the new Christian Brothers Academy, the military high school where Charlie would become a cadet
captain. Martin’s wife, Maire, now called Mary, a third or maybe fourth cousin to Bindy’s wife, sang “Come Back to Erin” at the confirmation party, accompanied on the piano
by Mrs. Dillon, the organist at St. Joseph’s Church, whose son was simple-minded. And Mary, when the bishop congratulated her on her voice and parted her on the hand, felt fully at
was self-possessed, even as a boy, but then again he had to be, did he not? Fatherless from age nine, when Francis Phelan left home, left wife, son, and daughter forever, or at least until this
morning.
Martin’s problem was similar, but turned inside out: too much father, too much influence, too much fame, too much scandal, but also too much absence as the great man pursued his greatness.
And these, my friends, are forces that deprived a young man of self-possession and defined his life as a question mark, unlike Billy Phelan’s forces, which defined his life as an
exclamation point.
When his bets were made Martin swallowed the last of his coffee and went to the morgue and pulled all files on the McCalls. They should have had a file cabinet to themselves, given the coverage
of their lives through the years, but thieves walked abroad. No clips remained of Patsy’s victory in 1919, or even of the Democratic sweep of the city in 1921. Stories on the 1931 legislative
probe into the city’s assessment racket were gone. So were all reports on Patsy’s doing six months for contempt in the baseball-pool scandal.
This was historical revisionism through burglary. Had freelancers looking for yet another magazine piece on the notorious McCalls done the filching? Or was it McCall loyalist reporters, who
doubled on the city payroll as sidewalk inspectors? The lightfingering effectively kept past history out of the ready reach of reform-minded newsmen, or others snooping on behalf of uplift: Tom
Dewey, the redoubtable D.A., for instance, who was making noises like a governor: Elect me, folks, and I’ll send the McCall bunch swirling down the sinkhole of their own oily unguents.
Joe Leahy saw Martin shuffling through the McCall files and wondered aloud, “What’s up with them?”
“Ahh,” said Martin with theatrical weariness, “a backgrounder on them and the A.L.P Big power move that comes to a head tonight when the enrollment figures come in.”
“The McCalls taking on the reds? Can they really do it?”
“The power of prayer is with them. The bishop’s behind Patsy all the way.”
“You writing something for the first edition?”
“Nothing for the first. When it happens, it happens.”
Martin turned back to the folders and Leahy walked off, a good Catholic boy who loved Franco and hated the reds. Untrustworthy
with anything meaningful. Martin leafed through the Charlie Boy file, all innocuous stuff. Promoted to major in the National Guard. Engaged to sweet-faced Patricia Brennan. Initiated into the
B.P.O.E. lodge number forty-nine. Named vice-president of the family brewery. Shown visiting Jimmy Braddock in his dressing room in Chicago before the fight with Joe Louis. Shown with his favorite
riding horse, a thoroughbred named Macushla, birthday gift from Uncle Patsy of political fame, who keeps horses on a small Virginia farm.
Charlie was pudgy, the face of a smiling marshmallow on the torso of a left tackle. There he stood in his major’s suit, all Sam Browne and no wrinkles. Where are you this minute, Charlie
Boy? Tied to a bed? Gun at your brain? How much do they say your life is worth? Have they already killed you?
Martin remembered Charlie’s confirmation, the boy kissing the bishop’s ring; then at the party Bindy gave afterward at the Hampton Hotel, the bishop kissing Bindy’s foot. That
was the year the McCalls all but donated the old city almshouse to the Catholic diocese as a site for the new Christian Brothers Academy, the military high school where Charlie would become a cadet
captain. Martin’s wife, Maire, now called Mary, a third or maybe fourth cousin to Bindy’s wife, sang “Come Back to Erin” at the confirmation party, accompanied on the piano
by Mrs. Dillon, the organist at St. Joseph’s Church, whose son was simple-minded. And Mary, when the bishop congratulated her on her voice and parted her on the hand, felt fully at
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