Much like my son Frisky Barrington, I have maintained a
somewhat ‘sub-rosa’, under-the-cover, not-really-noticed existence.
My mother (Momma Goose Shreve) and my husband (Jake
Barrington) required constant attention from a multitude of sources and
people. Their lives were and are the
stuff that good stories and books like this one, are made of!
I was born into a family of four sisters and three brothers. All but one of us made it into adulthood,
but it can be safely said that none of us reached maturity. It’s not that we passed away – we just made
it our motto to grow old and never mature.
One need only attend our family reunions to witness and attest to the
imbecilic, childish, and petty behaviors of my siblings, their spouses, and
spawn.
Although raised in the Catholic faith, we all migrated away
from or abandoned those guilt-riddled teachings to embrace atheism,
agnosticism, communism, Episcopalian-ism, Jehovah’s Witness-ism, and any other
‘ism’ that seemed fashionable, intellectual, or a topic that Dick Cavett and
William F. Buckley would discuss.
I don’t know how or why, but all of the girls in the family
adopted that rather patrician dialect that was so popular in the 50’s and
60’s. We all sounded as if we had just
stepped foot off the Mayflower, or were only a quick-boat ride-away back to
merry-old-England.
We never really had much money, but photographs taken of us
suggest that we were fashionable. Of
course, we were young in the 1940s and clothing back then was much more
substantial then today’s fashion trends.
One would think that the entire family lounged about our Dentdale abode
dressed to the hilt day-in, day-out. We
girls always wore skirts, and the boys generally didn’t have much more than
some t-shirts and the white shirts that they wore to school and church, so I
suppose (compared to today’s loose standards) we were fancily dressed.
Daddy was a more-than-generous provider to the church so we
had a pew near where the action was: near
the altar. We were by no means wealthy, but our pew
position elevated from Shanty-Irish to Lace-Curtain-Irish, and that seemed to
be an important distinction. Daddy’s
generosity to the church never stopped the nuns from their corporal
punishments. I’m afraid the boys in the
family suffered more bruised knuckles (and worse) because the nuns felt a need
to humble those handsome young men who sat only three pews away from the altar!
I am the youngest daughter, and my sister (Minnie Glouster)
is married to Jupiter Glouster. They
live in that long brown house that had the willow trees at the corner of
Gloucester Pike and Moore Avenue. Jake
Barrington and I lived at 308 Barrington Avenue. Both houses were prominently situated and
well-known homes to those passing through Dentdale.
The houses were very much like their residents: facades that rarely belied the activities
that were going on inside the homes.
It’s not that anything illicit or tawdry was being hidden – we lived
lives of ‘quiet desperation’ and things seemed to run smoothly. But I’ve found that the smoothest ride is
often had while in quick and irreversible descent. I knew that we didn’t have much money, but
we had ethics and morals, and humor, and, and, and boy was I wrong!
In Jake’s case, he was raised in a fancy home in Camden and
then a fancier home in Collingswood. It
was the Barrington’s belief that if it looked good, then it was good. If the house looked stable, secure,
comfortable, and better than the homes around it, then the residents would be
stable, secure, comfortable and better than the people around them!
Jake always had company cars, so he always drove something
big, new, and somewhat deluxe. He was more
than personable, and so a career in sales was his future. He would awake in the morning, put on his
white shirt and much like Willie Loman he would set out into the world to see
what treasures awaited him!
I knew I had his loyalty, and I thought I could depend on
his faithfulness. When he came down
with hepatitis I assumed he caught it from some shell-fish he had eaten for
lunch when he serviced his client’s in Atlantic City. Many years later Frisky asked about the
hepatitis episode. I remembered it as
one of the nicest periods in our marriage.
After all, hepatitis isn’t all that debilitating – it’s just
exhausting. Frisky had come down
with Hep B and that’s what brought up Jake’s hepatitis. We never approached Jake about the topic (at
that point I had learned not to beat dead horses). Did I ever think or suspect that Jake was
the philandering type? No, I really
didn’t. But I suppose boys will be
boys, and as long as he kept his flings outside the boundaries and purview of
our fellow Dentdalians I moved blissfully forward.
It’s difficult to live with Catholic-guilt, low self-esteem
juxtaposed with that innate Irish sense of wonderfulness and superiority. Truthfully, and I’m really not boasting, we
(the Jake Barrington family) very nice people.
But the Barrington clan had long ago dissipated the wealth that the
original Jake Barrington created, and we stumbled forward with eager
anticipation and an unrealistic/unrealized belief that tomorrow we would awake
and find ourselves returned to the land of manna and big bucks.
Had we had more money, and if I had not limited my feminism
to the weekly watchings of Maude and the writings of Gloria Steinem, I think I
would have divorced him. I’m an
attractive woman, and my gin-soaked, New-Year’s-Eve-Jitterbugging at the V.F.W.
often caught the wandering eye(s) of the various wolves and predatory creatures
that can always be found in a small town such as Dentdale.
I maintained my virtue for all of my married life, but there
was once. Yes, there was once. There was a temptation, and opportunity, a
chance to experience the mid-life rekindling of a fire that I had long ago
dampened.
It started at Cinelli’s Country House in Cherry Hill, The
Pub on Admiral Wilson Boulevard, or maybe The Hawaiian Cottage on Route 38. Except for the distinctive Hawaiian Cottage
they pretty much all looked alike, and after a couple of Tom Collin’s who
really cared what restaurant they were in!
We were there for some company sponsored event where Jake
was to be honored. Jake (as usual) was busy regaling everyone in
the room with the same five jokes he had been telling for years, and I had
forgotten my lighter.
Back then, every restaurant and public venue was clouded by
a velvety fog of cigarette smoke. It
was a habit the boys had picked up in WWII, and we women just thought it to be
the height of emancipation to join them (or beat them) in their smoking
habits. I had expunged the contents of
my smart little evening purse onto the banquet table, and found no
lighter. There was the gold compact
that boasted a little mirror and some powder (which I can still remember the smell of), a lovely little tortoise
shell case for my eye glasses, and a shagreen (sharkskin) cigarette holder in the purse, but no lighter could be found. I powdered my nose (which today means something so totally different), and extracted a
cigarette. Each of these little
containers had a clasp that ‘clicked’ upon closing. I loved the sound of that ‘click’. That click made me feel feminine – kind of
like Doris Day in a Rock Hudson movie.
Actually, I was more like Doris Day then I knew – but that my friends
will be a topic for a later day!
Anyway, I knew I could depend on the kindness of some
stranger for a light, and my overly lacquered, Aqua-netted hair was almost
ignited when ‘He’ offered his already lit Cartier lighter to light my ciggy!
‘He’ asked me to dance, and I quickly accepted. These were times when men and women touched
each other to dance. There was actually
choreography to be paid attention to, not just wild gyrations, and it wasn’t
unseemly or untoward for a married girl to dance the light fantastic with
several gentlemen on her night out with the hubby! It was called socializing. We didn’t have television (or maybe we had
three channels on a black and white TV), so we depended upon one another for
our amusements.
The married women flirted but would never, ever consider
having a fling. I suppose our
sisterhood and ersatz sorority prevented us from indulging our passions. But I really think it was because we never
had the time (or the place) to
consummate our longings. Did the men
have flings – certainly they did. But
they had them with the divorcees and permanently single women who lived in the
apartments on the outskirts of town.
The single women didn’t mingle with the married women, and the divorced
women were pariahs so the men could ‘visit’ the apartments without fear of
their car being seen. A married woman
living in a single family home, simply could not have a car parked out front
for an hour or two in the morning or afternoon while the kids were in school,
and the hubby at work.
We finished our dance and ‘He’ lingered for a second more
than necessary. I thought that I was
flirting – and that it was a harmless flirtation. I too lingered for that extra second, and as
the song says: “It Only Takes a Moment….”
I had somehow nursed that damn cigarette through our dance,
and quickly turned to extinguish it in one of those metal ashtrays that had a
little plunger (you know, you hit the
plunger and the metal part of the ashtray spun around removing the offending
butt from view). I remember I stunk
to high heavens of Chantilly or Imprevu, and the room’s cigarette smoke clung
to every inch of my clothing, skin, and hair, but it was as if Brigadoon had
appeared and the air was filled with clover and honey.
Jake had a penchant for cigars and Old Spice. ‘He’ smelled of Brylcreem and Mennen.
Jake drank beer. ‘He’
drank scotch and soda (neat).
Jake loomed over people.
‘He’ nestled comfortably into the crowd.
Jake had pretense.
‘He’ had no need for pretense, because he was the ‘real deal’!
Jake was………. ‘He’
wasn’t.........
Jake thought........ ‘He’
knew..........
Jake returned. I
cried……..
