that—but it wasn’t that great in the north, either. But what could I do? Huh? You go on and tell me. In those days you lived with those differences.
We turned up at the Sons of Erin Hall on Friday at four o’clock, an hour before. We drove up in the special Ford truck Biff and Manny and me put together. The back end was all enclosed with canvas, and there were two cots bolted on the floor. We even had an electric hotplate that ran off the battery, and the band’s name was painted on the outside.
The day was just right—a ham-and-egger if you ever saw one, with little white summer clouds casting shadows on the fields. But once we got into the city it was hot and kind of grim, full of the hustle and bustle you got out of touch with in a place like Morgan. By the time we got to the hall my clothes were sticking to me and I needed to visit the comfort station. I could have used a shot of Tommy Englander’s rye, too.
The Sons of Erin was a big wooden building, affiliated with the church where Scollay’s sis was getting married. You know the sort of place I mean if you ever took the Wafer, I guess--CYO meetings on Tuesdays, bingo on Wednesdays, and a sociable for the kids on Saturday nights.
We trooped up the walk, each of us carrying his instrument in one hand and some part of Biff’s drum-kit in the other. A thin lady with no breastworks to speak of was directing traffic inside. Two sweating men were hanging crepe paper. There was a bandstand at the front of the hall, and over it was a banner and a couple of big pink paper wedding bells. The tinsel lettering on the banner said BEST ALWAYS MAUREEN AND RICO.
Maureen and Rico. Damned if I couldn’t see why Scollay was so wound up. Maureen and Rico. Stone the crows.
The thin lady swooped down on us. She looked like she had a lot to say so I beat her to punch. “We’re the band,” I said.
“The band?” She blinked at our instruments distrustfully. “Oh. I was hoping you were the caterers.”
I smiled as if caterers always carried snare drums and trombone cases.
“You can—” she began, but just then a ruff-tuff-creampuff of about nineteen strolled over. A cigarette was dangling from the comer of his mouth, but so far as I could see it wasn’t doing a thing for his image except making his left eye water.
“Open that shit up,” he said.
Charlie and Biff looked at me. I shrugged. We opened our cases and he looked at the horns. Seeing nothing that looked like you could load it and fire it, he wandered back to his comer and sat down on a folding chair.
“You can set your things up right away,” the thin lady went on, as if she had never been interrupted. “There’s a piano in the other room. I’ll have my men wheel it in when we’re done putting up our decorations.”
Biff was already lugging his drum-kit up on to the little stage.
“I thought you were the caterers,” she repeated in a distraught way. “Mr. Scollay ordered a wedding cake and there are hors d’oeuvres and roasts of beef and—”
“They’ll be here, ma’am,” I said. “They get payment on delivery.”
“—two roasts of pork and a capon and Mr. Scollay will be just furious if—” She saw one of her men pausing to light a cigarette just below a dangling streamer of crepe and shrieked, “HENRY!” The man jumped as if he had been shot. I escaped to the bandstand.
We were all set up by a quarter of five. Charlie, the trombone player, was wah-wahing away into a mute and Biff was loosening up his wrists. The caterers had arrived at 4:20 and Miss Gibson (that was the thin lady’s name; she made a business out of such affairs) almost threw herself on them.
Four long tables had been set up and covered with white linen, and four black women in caps and aprons were setting places. The cake had been wheeled into the middle of the room for everyone to gasp over. It was six layers high, with a little bride and groom standing on top.
I walked outside to grab a fag and just about halfway through it I heard them coming—tooting away and raising a racket. I stayed where I was until I saw the lead car coming around the comer