railroad men, old politicians, old bare-knuckle fighters, dead Maud Gonne's likeness sketched on a handbill announcing her appearance at Hibernian Hall to raise funds for a free Ireland, defunct Hibernian Society marching down State Street on a sunny Saint Patrick's Day in '95, disbanded private fire companies standing at attention in front of their pumpers, K. of C. beer drinkers, long in their graves, tapping a keg at a McKown's Grove clambake. I went back to Packy's now and again until the place burned down in 1942, when fire dumped all that old history of faces into the powdery ashpit. Nothing ever changed there, till then.
Flossie was making the music when we walked in, the piano being her second talented instrument of pleasure. Flossie was a saucy blond cupcake then, not working directly out of Packy's, where sins of the flesh were traditionally prohibited on premises. But she was advertising from the piano bench and specializing in private sessions to augment her income after her musical workday. Ah, Floss. How well I remember your fingers, so educated to the music of joy.
She was jangling away at the keyboard while Packy and another man delivered up some two-part harmony, not half-bad, of 'Arrah-Go-On, I'm Gonna Go Back to Oregon,' a song from the war years.
'Now this is something like it,' Jack said, and he walked ahead of me past the crowded bar toward an empty back table that gave a view of the door. Hubert, having deposited the truck for unloading inside Packy's garage, followed us; but Jack told him, 'Watch the door and the street.' And without a word Hubert went to the end of the bar and stood there alone while Packy pined for Oregon, where they'd call him Uncle Pat, not Uncle John. He gave Jack a smile on that line and an extended left arm that welcomed and introduced the hero to the customers who hadn't yet recognized him; Jack waved to half a dozen men at the bar looking our way.
'You know those fellows?' he asked me.
'I guess I've seen one or two around town.'
'All thieves or hustlers. This is a good place to buy yourself a new suit or a new radio cheap.'
Jack bought the drinks himself at the bar, then settled into a chair and gave full attention to Flossie's piano and Packy's baritone. Packy came to the table when his harmony ran out.
'Fellow singing with me says he knows you, Jack.'
'I don't place him. '
'Retired railroad cop and not a bad fellow for a cop. Nice tenor too, and he carries a tune. Hey, Milligan.'
The tenor came over and looked at us through cataract lenses. His hair was pure white and standing tall, and his magnified eyes and cryptic smile gave him the look of a man in disguise.
'You don't remember me,' he said to Jack.
'Give me a clue.'
'Silk. New Jersey. l924.'
'Ah, right. I make you now. You pinched me.'
'You've got it. You were stealing the railroad blind, you and your brother.'
'I remember. You were in the house when I came home. Sure, I remember you now, you son of a bitch. You sapped me.'
'Only after you tried to kick me in the balls.'
'I forgot that.'
'You were out of jail quicker than I put you in.'
'I had some classy political connections in those days.'
'I know all about it. You remember anything else about that night? Remember singing a song coming up the stairs'?'
'A song.'
'It was a favorite of mine and I said to myself, now this can't be such a bad fellow if he knows a song like that. Just about then you saw me and tried to kick me in the crotch.'
'I can't remember any song, Milligan, that your name?'
'Milligan's right. You were drunk and howling it out like a banshee. Listen, see if you remember.'
He backstepped and put his hand on his stomach, then gave us:
There's an old time melody,
I heard long ago…
'l damn well remember that,' Jack said. ''One of my favorites.'
Mother called it the rosary,
She sang it soft and low…
Jack nodded, grinned, sat back, and listened as most of the customers were also listening now, not merely to Milligan, but to Milligan singing for Legs Diamond.
Without any rhyme,
I mean without any prose,
I even forgot
How the melody goes…
Flossie found Milligan's key and trilled some soft background chords, a flicker of faint melody.
But ten baby fingers…
And then Jack could hold it back no longer and added a spoken line: 'And ten baby toes…' And then together he and Milligan finished the song:
She'd watch them by the setting sun,
And when her daily work was done,
She'd count them each and every one,
That was my Mother's ro-sa-reeeeeeee.
Flossie gave them a re-intro, and with Jack on melody, Milligan on first tenor, and Packy on baritone, the harmonizers sang mournfully, joyously, and profoundly out of the musical realm of their Irish Catholic souls. They sang for all the children who ever had mothers, for all the mothers who ever had children, and when it was over, Jack called out, 'Flossie, love, let's do it again.'
'Anything for you, Jack. Anything you want.'
And the harmonizers moved closer together, their arms on each other's shoulders, and began once more:
There's an old time melody,
I heard long ago…
We sang songs that way for three hours and drove everybody out of the bar, including the bartender. Packy made our drinks and Flossie stayed and played for us, long after her advertising day had ended without a client. But I think the Floss anticipated things to come, and rejected all Johns who had no hint of transcendence about their requests. I was drinking beer and Jack was not quite reckless, but was at the boilermakers. And so both of us were a little slow on the uptake when Hubert, back in from a reconnaissance walk up the block, quick-stepped over to our table and spoke his first words of the musical evening:
'There's a guy in a car across the street, Jack. Two guys, in fact. One at the wheel looks like he's got that eyepatch you been looking for.'
'Would that be The Goose?' Packy asked. 'I heard he was around asking questions about you. '
'Probably him,' Jack said.
'Then we've got to get you out of here,' said The Pack. Of our little group of six, only Milligan did not know The Goose. But he asked no questions. The song was over, and Flossie's face showed it. Jack, on the other hand, seemed without tension, which, of course, he was not. Yet his control under the circumstances was almost equal to having none.
'It's tricky with The Goose,' he said. 'He might break in here any minute and start blasting. That's nonprofessional, but he's crazy all the way now. People have to remember that.'
'Sure he's crazy,' said Packy. 'In and out of town all summer asking questions. '
'He's made a game of it,' Jack said. 'He wants me to sweat.'
'But now he's outside,' Hubert said, understandably perplexed by a discussion at such a moment. My own first thoughts were to evacuate the uninvolved from the premises, myself included. Yet it seemed cowardly to think of running away from only the possibility of somebody else's trouble. Yet there was the Hotsy to recall, where
