Our Lady Of Greenwich Village (38 page)

O'Rourke, from below, replied, stealing a line from Sam Beckett, “I'm between wind and water.”

She laughed and grinded her pussy outward to his mouth. “Jesus,” she said. “Jesus.” O'Rourke finally surfaced and he lay on the bed and she mounted him atop. “Oh, boy. Oh, boy,” was all she could muster. Slowly he worked her way into her and she began to ride him.

Then she began to drip milk onto him. “My God,” O'Rourke said. “Aren't you a little early with that?”

“Doctor says it can happen to women occasionally. I guess I'm exceptional.”

Before she knew it O'Rourke's mouth was on her teat and she came. They found their rhythm instantly. It was as if nothing had changed.

“Stop,” O'Rourke suddenly said.

“What?”

“We won't hurt the baby, will we?”

“Tone,” she replied, “you're hardly hurting me!”

“Oh, then,” he said, “I must have it in the wrong hole!”

She once again hit him on his Vietnam arm, drawing a wince, but she didn't care. “You have, without a doubt, the filthiest mind I've ever encountered!”

“Lucky you,” he said and she came down and kissed him and they made love until exhaustion led them into a deep sleep.

M
cGuire heard O'Rourke working in the living room of their suite at the Shelbourne. She could tell he was talking some of his cousins and Dublin friends on the phone. The dawn in summer came very early to Dublin because of its northern latitude. It was breaking, but Sam ignored it and wrapped her arms around her belly, which seemed to have a mind of its own as a little kicking exercise had begun. This was the first time she would wake up in Ireland and she found it a strange experience.

“Rise and shine,” said O'Rourke, sitting on the bed. “Got to get moving. Big day ahead. Limo is picking us up at 8 a.m.”

“What's the rush?” yawned McGuire.

“We have appointments. Let's go!” Sam looked at Tone and saw he was wearing a blue suit and tie. She wondered what he was up to. “And wear a dress. We have to look respectable for the people we're meeting.”

McGuire got up and slowly made her way to the bathroom where she showered. O'Rourke stuck his head in. “We're running late. I'm going to the limo downstairs. I'll wait for you there. Hurry up.”

“Yeah,” she thought to herself as she soaped her belly, “don't hold your breath.” She really wanted to get back into the bed.

She finally made her way downstairs at 8:15, and O'Rourke looked like he was going to have a stroke. He hopped out of the limo and held the door for McGuire. “Let's go,” he said to the driver.

“Where are we going?” asked McGuire.

“To the rest of our lives,” he said as he kissed her on her cheek. McGuire wondered why he beamed like he did.

The limo pulled away from the Shelbourne and took a left on Merrion Street, sped past Merrion Square and finally came to a halt in front of St. Andrew's on Westland Row. O'Rourke helped McGuire out of the limo and they headed for the rectory. They were shown in and waited in the hallway. Neither O'Rourke nor McGuire spoke. “Mr. O'Rourke?” asked the priest.

“Yes,” he said, “and this is my fiancée”—it was the first time he had used the word and it elicited a smile from McGuire—“Simone McGuire. I hear you spoke to Monsignor Burke in New York and everything is in order.”

“Yes,” he said, “I'm Father Conway”—O'Rourke shook his head in quiet disbelief—“and after we fill out a few papers we can get onto it.”

“Get onto what?” wondered McGuire.

Father Conway pulled out the blank certificates of marriage and McGuire's knees went weak. She took O'Rourke's left arm—his Vietnam arm—in both of her hands and held on for dear life. “Just a few questions,” said the priest. “Your full name?”

“Jude Wolfe Tone O'Rourke,” he said and McGuire knew his Christian name for the first time.

“Have you ever been married?”

“No.”

“So you are a bachelor.”

“Yes, I am. Or was,” said O'Rourke, with just a tiny bit of doubt in his mind.

“Your name, missus?”

“Simone Elizabeth McGuire.”

“Have you ever been married?”

“No.”

“Then you're a spinster,” said the priest as he filled in the marriage certificate.

“Spinster!” protested McGuire with some fire in her eyes.

“Ah,” said the priest, “it's just a term we Irish use for the ould ones without a man.”

“Spinster,” said McGuire again and the priest gave O'Rourke the eye, knowing full well how sharp his needle was.

“There, there,” said O'Rourke trying to hide a smile. “There, there.”

“There, there, yourself,” replied McGuire.

O'Rourke often thought of himself as the “spinster's son.” His mother had not married until she was forty-two and, in reality, should never have married at all. It was funny. He had been all over the world, yet he was almost back to where he began.

His first encounter with the fairer sex was violent. It had been just around the corner at Hollis Street Hospital in 1946 when after two days of excruciating labor they finally yanked him out by the head, clamps scraping, from between his mother's legs. In Dublin you apparently got natural childbirth whether you wanted it or not. Mary Kavanagh was forty-three and this was her first child and, by God, she was terrified.

Her life had been hard after her father had succumbed to Black and Tan thuggery. Out of the orphanage in Sandymount and into her first job in a tobacconist shop in Bray by the sea. His mother was a woman of few vices, but it was here that she acquired her most virulent one. On the counter they sold “Lucys”—single, loose cigarettes. A Woodbine for a ha'penny. If you worked in a sweets shop, you might pop a chocolate. In a tobacconist shop, it was a Lucy. She lit up for the first time at eighteen, and it was three packs a day until she drew her final breath at eighty-two. Her right hand looked like it belonged to a Negro, it was so brown from the nicotine. But she loved her smokes from the first light-up in the morning to the last snuff-out at night.

After the tobacconist there were jobs as scullery maids and housekeepers in all the fine Protestant houses in the wealthy, manicured suburbs of South Dublin. Her life was literally just like
Upstairs, Downstairs
, which became her favorite TV show. She was unlucky in love—as her son would be—but she filled her time away from work with a deep devotion to the church—and a penchant for the movies. When she worked for the Anglo-Irish—O'Rourke couldn't utter the hyphenated words without thinking of Brendan Behan's bulls-eye definition: “A Protestant on a horse”—she found herself with a half day on Thursdays and Sunday evenings off. Thursday afternoons were reserved for the cinema and she took the tram to O'Connell Street for some Hollywood escape at the Carleton, the Metropole, or the Savoy. She confessed years later that Tyrone Power “did it for her” and O'Rourke first realized that she was as interested in sex as everyone else was. Her Sunday nights were different as she would often find herself in the City Centre, on Dame Street, when the loud, solitary bells of Christ Church Cathedral would strike the Angelous at six o'clock. “Oh,” she said to her son years later as they walked together on the same Dame Street as the bells sounded again. “I remember them as a young girl and they were so, so lonely.” O'Rourke looked across the deserted street—long before Temple Bar became the place to be—and understood completely, for loneliness was another trait he shared with his mother. It was as if loneliness stalked the Kavanaghs, for just down the street was Temple Lane, the girlhood home of her mother, Rosanna.

Her life changed when she went to work during the “Emergency”—as World War II was known in the Irish Free State—for Mrs. Darley out in Foxrock. O'Rourke's mother was a fantastic chef and a superb baker. Her gift was her simplicity. She could take a piece of fish and fry it—
sauté
was not yet in the Irish vocabulary—to a golden, delicious perfection. Mrs. Darley was suspicious of this O'Rourke fellow—a land steward from Donabate—his mother was seeing and demanded that he come to the fancy house in Foxrock for an interview. It did not go well and Mrs. Darley advised against marriage, but Mary Kavanagh was adamant. She was married in July 1945 at Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow.

O'Rourke, years later, had asked his mother if she loved his father when she married him. “I liked him enough,” she replied, which was the wrong answer, for O'Rourke at least. And now he remembered his mother's marriage certificate and the marriage certificate of Rosanna Conway. Spinsters. Spinsters to the core. Now he was about to marry another spinster, one Simone McGuire.

“The maid of honor and the best man?” asked Father Conway.

“They'll be here any minute. Driving down from Phibsborough.”

“Fine,” said the priest, “I'll meet you in the church momentarily.”

O'Rourke took McGuire by the elbow and began walking her toward the church. “So this is it?”

“You sound like a prisoner walking the last mile,” laughed O'Rourke.

“Well,” replied McGuire, “maybe I am.”

O'Rourke tapped her gently on the behind. “I don't think so.” “You can't keep your hands off my ass even in church!”

“And you love it.”

“I do love it, and I love you.”

O'Rourke and McGuire were joined by O'Rourke's cousins Jerry and Maura Bartley, who would be their witnesses.

The church was empty and the mass was quick. Immediately following the mass, the marriage ceremony took place. It was all over in half an hour. Father Conway pronounced them man and wife, and O'Rourke kissed his bride. The four of them headed for O'Rourke's limo to go back to the Shelbourne for breakfast.

As O'Rourke helped McGuire into the limo, she said, “I guess I'm not a spinster anymore.”

O'Rourke smiled, then gave her a peck on the cheek, thinking of two other spinsters. “I guess not.”

T
he fire had gone out of O'Rourke's political belly. After nearly two months in Europe, he had returned to New York in early October with serious doubts about running for Congress. His political drive had taken a backseat to Sam and the baby. He would have pulled out in a second, but he felt an obligation to the party. His poll numbers had been steady while he was away, and he had felt no urgency to return. He and Sam had actually looked at houses in Wexford and West Cork, but he knew that was just fantasy. He belonged in New York. Or did he? Now he couldn't decide.

“Nice of you guys to finally show up,” said Clarence Black as they settled in for their first campaign meeting of the fall.

“Did everyone have a pleasant summer?” asked O'Rourke sweetly.

“Yes!” said McGuire, and everyone laughed. She was getting really big now and it took some effort for her to move around. “How are those polls coming, Nuncio?” she asked. Baroody pulled out copies and passed them around.

“Fifty-nine percent overall,” said O'Rourke, shaking his head. “That's okay.”

“It should be higher,” said McGuire and O'Rourke nodded. “Let's look at the breakdown,” she said.

“We're doing really well with the gays,” said Nuncio. “You're nearly 92 percent. I don't know what the hell the other 8 percent is thinking.”

“Ah,” said Black with amusement, “the Log Cabin Republicans have spoken!”

“Fuck them,” said O'Rourke. “How about the Limousine Liberals on the Upper West Side?”

“Could be better,” said McGuire. “You're at 55 percent.”

“That sucks,” said O'Rourke.

“It does,” confirmed McGuire.

“I should be killing Swift up there.” There was quiet in the room. “Okay, guys, tomorrow we start hitting the subway stations morning and night. We're going to the Upper West Side first. Seventy-second Street. I hope no one bleeds on me this time.”

“Why start uptown?” asked McGuire.

“Because those people would rather vote than fuck and if they don't vote for me I'm fucked. Got it?” Everyone nodded as O'Rourke's phone rang. McGuire came out of her chair to pick it up and O'Rourke waved her off. “My God, Sam, calm down,” he admonished. He picked up his own phone.

“Tone, it's Kevin Griffin.”

“Bubba,” he said delighted, signaling to everyone to stay, “how's it hanging?”

“I hear you got married and didn't invite anyone,” said Griffin.

“I got married in Dublin,” said O'Rourke in explanation.

“I see,” replied the taciturn Griffin.

“Fuck you,” said O'Rourke and Griffin laughed. “What do you want?” he asked.

“I got a call last night from someone in Congresswoman Fopiano's office.”

“Hold on, Kev. I want to put this on speaker phone.” He hit the button and made the necessary introductions. “Kevin and I were in the same outfit in Vietnam. He also took me into custody,” he said laughing, remembering that it was to Griffin he surrendered to in 1972 at the American Embassy in Dublin. “So what did Congresswoman's Fopiano's office want from you?”

“They wanted to know if you really earned your medals in Vietnam?”

“What did you tell them.”

“I told them you were a big fucking hero.”

O'Rourke and the others laughed. O'Rourke turned serious quickly. “What else did they want?”

“They wanted to know about you and me in Dublin in '72.”

“Yeah?”

“I told them it was none of their fucking business.”

“Thank you, Bubba.” Griffin was Bronx Irish tough.

“What are they up to?” asked Griffin.

“I have a pretty good idea,” replied O'Rourke. “And it ain't good.” O'Rourke looked around the room, and the three faces were dead serious. “Thanks, Bubba. If they call you back again, get in touch immediately.”

“Will do,” said Griffin.

“
Siemper Fi
,” said O'Rourke.

“
Siemper Fi
,” responded Griffin, and he hung up the phone.

There was silence all around for a good minute. “What do you make of it?” asked McGuire.

“They're about to try and fuck us. So get ready.”

“Get ready?” repeated McGuire.

“Yes,” said O'Rourke, “have the ad agency ready to respond within twenty-four hours to any major attack by Swift. Also, start polling the district every Monday and Thursday from now on.” O'Rourke looked at his team. “Okay, everybody,” he said, “Tip O'Neill 101 . . .”

“Money is the mother's milk of politics,” they said in cultlike fashion, and they all laughed.

“As far as we know,” said McGuire, “they're hurting for money since Costello was deported.”

“Correct,” said O'Rourke, “but we must be vigilant. Got that, Clarence?” Black nodded. “Keep a close eye on their bank statements.” O'Rourke got out of his chair and stretched. “
Bó airgead
,” he said in Irish and laughed. “Cash cow,” he repeated in English. “Let's keep a sharp lookout for that GOP cash cow.”