A yankee red sox wedding, p.28
A Yankee Red Sox Wedding, page 28
No lady in Tahiti. “Yeah in The Bronx, that’s where we live,” Kerry Anne stated plainly, proudly. Like the animals at the Bronx Zoo lady. Exhausted with this mundane one-sided conversation with a conniving mother of seven, like her own—obviously gathering dirt for her family’s gossip on the other side of dinner table—Kerry Anne scoffed down her entire glass of champagne, then buttered her bread in an angry pattern.
Angela knew her mom was annoying Kerry Anne. “Sorry to interrupt you two lovely ladies, but we need another McCarthy in this picture.” Kerry Anne bit her buttered roll belligerently and got up.
“Where’s Jack and Cathy?” Shannon asked Angela distraughtly.
“They’ll be here Shannon. Come on, I want you in this picture,” Angela extended her hand.
“It’s tough getting here from Perpetual Help,” Joey said.
“It’s tough getting here from Perpetual Help,” Tony repeated. “A lot of twists and turns—”
“Shut up.” Joey kneed him sideways. Shannon’s animal sense stirred as Angela pulled her away.
Joey and Tony both hated cops. Joey was picked up as a youth for bootlegging Sox memorabilia and scalping tickets on Lansdowne and Tony for driving under the influence on his way home from J.J. Foley’s after the last game of the 1996 World Series. Perhaps what they really despised was North End’s condescending rank-and-file blue-collar caste system in which their father, a proud veteran and sanitation worker—as they now were—were so often and so unfairly cast at the bottom.
Chris jabbed his head between the twins, startling them. “Hey you two, I just wanted to thank you guys for being here and for helping out with our special day tomorrow.”
“No problem,” both twins said simultaneously. “We had nothing better to do,” Tony added.
Chris was used to the twins’ cold responses and knew they didn’t mean anything by it. They were insecure and defensive. “Dinner’ll be out soon, hope you guys are hungry.”
“Jack’s lost!” Shannon cried.
“He’ll be here,” Chris promised. “Our big brother wouldn’t miss this for anything. Come with me Shannon, Mom and Dad need to talk to you.”
Catherine and Jack Junior entered the Bluff dining room visibly upset. They had fought, and she was trying to calm her husband down. Despite his intellectual challenges, Junior hated being late, having learned this from Captain Jack and having obeyed it a lifetime. Catherine went straight to the bar to get her husband a drink, without saying hello to anyone. Her husband pulled his seat out angrily, waving a hand of regret to announce his presence to the other McCarthys only. He sat down like he wanted to leave, right next to Tess.
The parents ordered fresh martinis when their conversation about our highways, the skyrocketing cost of college tuition, and the weather slackened off.
“We didn’t have to bomb Bosnia. Milosevic was no threat to us.”
“If we didn’t, someone else would’ve. We got to look out for our interests Bambino.”
Captain Jack got Nancy’s Irish up. “Our interests? God forbid one of my kids died over there, or anywhere.”
“Amen,” Louise said, uniting with her fellow woman and mother.
“It’s the defense contractors,” Job continued, “they’re just keeping the war machine going while we spend millions dropping’ bombs. Nothings’ changed since Nam.”
“Let’s change the subject,” Louise said. “War is so depressing.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Nancy said.”
Then it began.
“So, what’s Steinbrenner gunner do in the off season?” Job asked.
“Spend another billion?” Nancy added without moving her lips; a bona fide husband-wife Sox ventriloquist act.
“Oh, we’re making a lot of moves with the rotation. Don’t get your hopes up Bambino.”
Shannon and Connie couldn’t take another second of this grownup gobbledygook. Connie had heard it all week as she’d put together numerous events around Boston for both families and couldn’t take another word. The two headed to the ladies’ room talking of animals on the way, a love they shared. They boasted of their modest worldly travels and their would-be travels if they only had the chance. Connie had done it; she wasn’t just talking like so many others. She’d fled the east coast and made it alive to L.A. She had road tripped to the San Diego Zoo, a huge catch for Shannon who secretly dreamt herself of escaping to the west coast one day: Venice Beach, Santa Monica, the Strip, La Jolla, San Fran, the seals, Monterey, the vineyards. The bright colored food, the laid-back pace, the torn jeans, the non-judgmental girls, the funny guys with guitars and crazy bad hair with effortless six-pack abs.
“Up here there’s no such thing as getting your hopes up Jack.”
“Yeah,” Nancy added, “we go into every season not expecting to win a World Series, so we’re never disappointed,” she said in a bubbly tone, like they were supposed to be jealous. “And when we finally do, it’ll be that much more exciting!”
“Oh-that-is-so-cute,” Louise said as quick as a human being possibly could, curbing her Abruzzo temper with each word.
“Sure you will,” Captain Jack patronized like the ‘sure you were’ cop responding to a speeder’s excuse for doing ninety in a forty, “when you finally do.”
Along the intense perimeter sat Michael, Peter, and Symantha McCarthy. Directly opposite sat Maureen, Kevin, Marianne, and her clay man. The house staff placed the salads down and cleared their soups—except for Junior’s, he was already working on seconds having made a scene demanding he try both chowders, belching carelessly in between to rave disgust, the twins turning to each other and oinking, louder and louder, until Maureen shut their act down.
The children relaxed and commingled for but a short precious while until, through some disturbing familial attrition, they simply realigned amongst their own—pure tribalism setting in. Peter and Symantha were edgy, not having liked their treatment at Logan, still raging about the baggage handlers who’d mishandled theirs, while Michael complained out loud about the cost of the train from Penn Station, which he’d taken with nothing but his Yankee pride, and no one but his altar boy ego.
“What I loved the most about going to school in Noo Yawk was the diversity,” Marianne said loud enough so all could hear, especially Angela. “Noo Yawk is everyone’s city. There’re people from all over the country. All over the world. It’s America’s city. It’s so cool. The Bronx too!”
The first part had been annoying enough for the McCarthys, but her dig about the Bronx really hit home. You could say things about Manhattan because Manhattan was Manhattan. It was the melting pot they’d all learned about in social studies. What bothered them was Marianne’s callous use of diversity as a vice inferring that New York was not a Yankee “town” like theirs was Sock, but a sports-frenzied big tent free-for-all orgy of tourists, divorcees, carpetbaggers, runaways, and pious capitalists. It was no secret that Manhattan had something for everyone—just look at those damned St. Louis Cardinals fans hijacking Red Foley’s place next to the Empire State Building—but what irked the McCarthy’s most was this bitch’s wishful insinuation that, with changing times, new waves of immigration, and urban gentrification, New York—including the Bronx—would eventually become Yankee irrelevant. Man, she didn’t learn anything in college. All the McCarthys were thinking precisely the same thing: Only the faces change Marianne. McCarthyism has no expiration date.
“Maureen, Kevin, Marianne, I’d like you to meet Michael, Peter, and his wife Penelope,” Angela honored.
“Symantha, with a Y,” Peter’s wife said snot-nosed.
“Symantha, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, be better.”
“You guys have never met, so tonight is such an exciting opportunity.” They all stared at Angela like she was trying to get them to do Amway. “Joey and Tony, I think you’re Peter’s age. And Michael,” Angela continued across the circle uncertainly, “Marianne here is about your age. She went to Manhattan College.”
“Go Friars,” Peter rooted weakly, Symantha cracking a dubious smile.
Chris circled the table restlessly. “Come on gang, we’re taking pictures; the photographer’s here.” Finally. “All of us,” he demanded, tucking his chin in.
“Wait I need a cigarette,” Joey said, patting himself down as he got up.
“I thought you quit,” Tony pestered.
“Shut up. I’m going out on the patio.”
“Me too,” Kerry Anne said, bolting out before anyone.
“I have to call Noo Yawk,” Maureen said.
Onto Coogan’s shadowy terrace they spilled, lighting up butts and firing up phones. It was an ideal opportunity for members of the two families to come together as the bride and groom so dearly hoped. The Macs went one way and the Bams went the other, not even sharing the same patch of ivy. While the Bambinos chain-smoked in a pack, Kerry Anne got her nicotine fix while fiddling with her new cell, pretending to be on an important call while she listened to brother Junior vent about “these people” and “this place” as he bummed an irate drag off his sister. Joey Bam paced the length of the deck on a cell phone call and was getting extremely loud. Junior cast a cop’s glance and he was on his way.
The photographer was ready and on the clock.
“This isn’t going well,” Angela stated the obvious.
“Let’s hang in there. It’s almost over. Tomorrow we’ll be free Angel.” He grazed her face with two fingers and lifted a silky wave behind her ear, tickling her. She gazed into his baby blues and smiled sweetly. It was the first sign of age she’d seen in his face since the night she’d met him, and she kind of liked it. “Okay?” Her response a jaded, worried one.
The photographer’s tripod was readily positioned in the far corner of the private dining room when everyone flooded back in. The foppish weekend artiste steered them under the lifeless plants, packing them tightly between the waiters’ station and a ceiling high stack of chairs.
“Alright boys and girls let’s do the class picture thing.”
They posed in two sections, clinging for dear life to their own and, sadly, not even noticing. He snuck behind his camera, covering himself with a fabric like he’d gotten out of the shower. “You, on the far left, move in a little you’re not even in the picture,” he instructed Tony. “You, in the back, stop hiding your face,” he snapped his fingers, “and take that yucky hat off.” Sully refused. “And you, my darling,” he said to Marianne in a sexy voice, eyeing her curvaceous waistline and throbbing cleavage up and down with fascination, “you’re blocking the bride’s face.”
Angela stepped forward and turned around, paying bitter witness to the relentless tribalism. “Hold on. Guys come on, let’s mix it up here. This is one family photo, not two.”
“Yeah,” Chris said. “Let’s mingle here, all of you. Let’s see…Peter move over here next to Marianne. Tony, you move next to Kerry Anne.” The photographer was offended, growing impatient. “Sully you come over here next to me. And the parents…why are you standing so far away from each other? Move in. Closer, closer, up front. Now Kevin and Maureen move—”
Dora and Abby appeared behind the photographer having entered from the restaurant’s back door, finding their way to Coogan’s without help.
“Excuse us we’re taking a family photo,” Nancy said.
“They’re part of this family Mother,” Angela said.
“Hi everyone. I’m Dora McCarthy and this is Abby.”
“Not funny,” Nancy said mindlessly aloud, then turned quietly to JoBa, “She didn’t even return her invite.”
“Who invited them?” someone asked.
“I did,” Angela said loudly from the other side of the photo shoot.
“We did,” Chris stood by her side.
“We are so sorry we’re late Christopher, Angela,” Dora said, Abby hiding behind her broad shoulder. “We had bad directions.”
“Oh my Gawd!” Shannon screamed, having just returned from the bathroom with Connie, running over and hugging her big sister. “I love you.”
“Folks you told me this was a rehearsal dinner, not a family reunion. I’ve got another gig after this one, so let’s get it together people. Tell you what. You,” the photographer pointed to Abby, “get out front cause your small, between the two young girls, next to the bride and groom,” he directed Abby alone.
“No, she’s fine next to me,” Dora overruled. They walked to the left, settling in the back row.
“Oh, very well then,” he sighed exhaustively. “Now everyone be as still as possible, come on, everyone, look at my little birdie now, everyone say bir-deeeeeeeeee…” Poof.
“Finally.”
“That took fawevah.”
“I need a beer.”
“Yanks are on in the next room.”
“I need a shot.”
“Get the Sox score from the batendah.”
“My cell’s buzzing.”
“I gotta take a piss.”
“Who’s the lil’ lipstick?”
“I need a smoke.”
“I gotta call Nu Yawk.”
“Let’s go outside again.”
“Why not.”
Angela and Chris couldn’t wait another twenty-four hours to be done with this gene cesspool, these degenerate pukes, this mutant cold war experiment gone horribly wrong. When out came the Yankee pot roast and Boston baked beans right on time. The house salads, which had sat on the round table untouched, remained.
“Hm I’m going to ask you nice people to kindly keep it down,” the fake smiling waitress requested as she placed down the perking pot roast and bubbly baked beans in family style oval dishes as the hard-drinking families eyed the platters like famished lions.
Chris and Angela made the rounds handing out thrifty, curious favors far removed from anything baseball to the wedding party. In addition, each guest received a meshed red and blue pinstriped t-shirt which read: I SURVIVED THE BAMBINO McCARTHY WEDDING with a dreary black and white holographic group picture of all of them outside the church taken just two hours earlier. Angela was then showered by all the ladies with Red Sox paraphernalia. Connie had created a really neat Red Sox Nation collage on her Mac and Maureen endowed Angela her treasured collection of Red Sox yearbooks while Marianne glued a clever scrapbook together of Red Sox baseball cards, programs, scorecards, ticket stubs, and articles from when they were growing up Sock. The McCarthy ladies picked up a bunch of Red Sox stuff on Lansdowne: dated t-shirts and pointless posters she’d already taken down, a green Sox hat, wanting pennants, wrist bands, and a casual array of winter Sox gear including ear muffs.
“Wrist bands?” Marianne winced. “Wrist bands??” She was about to pluck the inside of her mouth with her finger when Nancy shushed her, quite loudly.
Angela found it thoughtful and kind and was beginning to feel better. The McCarthys, however, acted like a proud bunch of distinguished archeologists first to discover this ancient witchcraft and the Bambinos, getting drunk on pitchers of Sammy Summer without sharing, began ridiculing them behind their backs and under their breath. The intensity at the table grew a thousand-fold, as did the unbearable pitch of stabbing forks and slashing knives cutting through the bloody roast and scraping against the hard ceramic crockery. She suddenly lost her appetite and even felt a bit nauseous. Rising slowly, she slipped casually from the round table and meandered over to the bar without drawing attention. After asking him gratuitously what time the place closed she ducked down a short flight of stairs and into the ladies’ room. Chris had skipped the soup and salad and was weak in the knees. Where did she go? He needed to eat, but would not until his bride returned.
She cupped her hands under the faucet, but just stared at her complexion instead, noticing the slight indentation of a baby wrinkle line, her first. She had to start sometime, might as well be on the eve of her wedding. She splashed some water on her face. What if she had accepted Christopher’s courtship sooner? Instead of listening to the wrong people and never herself, making him wait for months, twist even, and almost losing him. All this fuss would be behind them now. They’d be starting their life, searching for a house somewhere and talking about having children. They’d be happy tonight. This made her angry. She didn’t care about the wrinkle, it was natural, and she respected what was natural. She resolved instead to face the twisted crowd upstairs with every ounce of that insatiable courage which had brought her here tonight.
She opened her eyes, immediately taken by an image in the base of the cracked mirror. To her left, on the beige Formica floor, a pair of sparkling ruby red slippers announced their presence. She was scared and did not turn around, staring at them in the mirror instead.
“Hope you liked the scrapbook Angie. Bet you wish you had gotten these instead,” she clacked the shoes together three times. “The way I had him. That’s right Angie. Someone had to give that renegade Yank of yours shelter from the storm last night. Boy, was he good too. Mm mm. Better than anything I had at Manhattan, or, as you and I both know, the Bronx. Good luck tomorrow little sister. And remember, every time you do it together, that I had him first…right before your wedding. And my-oh-my I can attest Angie, he really is a champion.”
Marianne had all along resolved to put her own dent in the wedding. She’d destroyed her sister’s past and was determined to destroy her future. Even she was torn though. For she knew if Angela wed her knight in shining pinstripes, she would face certain Boston banishment—would be branded forever the Benedict Arnold of the Bambino family, and North End for that matter—and would be sentenced to eternal damnation in Yankee hell. This prospect pleased her more than Garciaparra. Yet the sickening possibility of Angela living happily-ever-after with her pompous prince in pinstripe paradise would leave Marianne blowing chunks of chowder out her turned up nose for life. Her torturous dilemma over the crucial answer drove her to Aunt Tess’ trusty Ouija board Marianne had discovered years ago, in the Bambino attic.
As the eve of the wedding arrived the sacred soil passed precariously through her church’s inscrutable hour glass like a fizzling shooting star; a tailing comet, arching and majestic—more a boon than a dent—instantly extinguishing all sanctimonious and shamanistic charms.
