Fish On Friday

From Dorothy Burke

Dear Rev. Father:

I wonder would you be willing to read this letter and tell me what you think. I have been so disconsolate for the past two weeks I do not know what to do. I guess it’s just my vanity which is a foolish thing for a girl to have at my age, being, well, to be honest, forty-two, which is easier to admit in a letter than when I am talking with people. Sometimes I don’t look forty-two, at least so my brother Eddie says, and the fellows who come to play poker with him at our house after supper says Eddie is right.

One of the fellows who plays poker with Eddie and who wins most of the big pots in the game says, “Eddie, Dorothy don’t look a day over thirty-five or six.” And Eddie replies, “You’ll have to bid a little higher than that to get the old lady’s age,” and I think that that’s what started the fellows who plays poker calling me “the old lady,” though never to my face, but only when I am in the kitchen making club sandwiches for the boys and not supposed to hear.

It didn’t hurt me so much to be called “the old lady” by the boys if they started it, but Eddie started it just because he has so darn much blah. I told Eddie that if he didn’t have so darn much blah he would make more money playing poker. Every time he has a good hand you can tell it by his blah and the way he twitches his cigar, and all the fellows are wise and pass. And that’s why whenever Eddie wins a pot there’s nothing to win because nobody raises him. When Eddie bids and starts blahing all the fellows know he has a good hand and all pass.

I know it doesn’t sound right for a lady like me to be knowing so much about poker but I can’t help it as the fellows come every night and play and you get so tired of the radio it sort of whiles the time away to look in at the game and find out how much Eddie is losing, and he is always losing on account of having so much blah and giving his hand away,

Once or twice the fellows made me sit in and play a hand while Eddie went out to the store to buy some ginger ale which I always serve to the boys before leaving, and every time I sat in for Eddie I won. I think the reason I won was because one of the fellows named Mr. Devins, who is quiet and who looks at me sometimes in the strangest way, backed out and let me win the pot just to make me feel happy,

The boys refer to me sometimes as the Queen of Hearts, that is when I am in the room, but when I am out of the room getting sandwiches and ginger ale ready it’s always “the old lady,” all except Mr. Devins, who calls me the Queen of Hearts even when I ain’t there to hear him. I never heard Mr. Devins call me “the old lady.”

Mr. Devins looks so sad even when he is winning on account of being a bachelor, although the boys says his wife left him and he is paying alimony, and that’s why they hate to lose to him on account of having to pay somebody else’s alimony. In fact the boys have got into the habit of calling the chips they put up alimony, and they’ll say, “There’s lots of alimony in this pile, boys,” and this is all on account of Mr. Devins, who never says anything about his past life, and who never refers to the chips as alimony and never calls me “the old lady,” but always the Queen of Hearts.

The boys got a great laugh out of my knowing so much about poker one night when Eddie went out in the kitchen to get the ginger ale. Eddie says, “It’s time to pour out the ginger ale, Dorothy! Ain’t you got any openers?” Eddie of course meant the openers for the ginger ale bottles, but I said, so the boys could hear me, “Why don’t you get a pair of Jacks? Ain’t they openers?” Because in poker you have to have higher than a pair of tens to open the bid, and you have to show your openers, and Mr. Devins was the first to get on to the joke and laughed for the longest time. And the other fellows all laughed too when they got on to the joke, and Mr. Devins kept on laughing so much he lost four dollars in the next two pots on account of being distracted from his cards by my joke. And the fellows says, “The Queen of Hearts is a witty old girl, isn’t she?” And Mr. Devins spoke up and says, “Yes, the Queen of Hearts is a witty lady,” which was a much sweeter way of putting it than saying “the old girl,” but that is just like Mr. Devins, who is a perfect gentleman, and how he got in with the gang Eddie travels around with is more than I know, because, although they are gentlemen in a way, being good fellows at heart, they are not perfect gentlemen. Mr. Devins is a perfect gentleman.

My brother Eddie is a bachelor and I keep house for him, and that is why I suppose I never married, having Eddie on my hands, as he is an awful baby even though he tries to be a hard guy. Eddie is really an awful baby because we had a white dog, a collie that Eddie bought, and when the dog died last May Eddie cried. And I think it is a good sign when a man cries as it shows that there is some good in him. And I was going to tell the boys about Eddie crying over the dog, just to let them know that there is something gentle in Eddie’s nature, only when I started to tell about the dog dying before the boys Eddie says: “It’s a good thing. He was a lousy little cur anyhow!” and he looked at me as though he was going to kill me if I said another word, no matter what it was.

And so I says, “Yes, the dog is dead,” and began to cry myself. And all the fellows says, “Gee, that’s tough, Dorothy,” all except Mr. Devins, who said, “I’m so sorry!” And Eddie says, “Well, what the blankety-blank are you boohooing about?” bursting into profanity at me. And the fellows think Eddie is much harder than he is.

And the next day Eddie bought me a canary bird and that night when the boys came in to play poker they said, “Oh, ho, a new bird, eh?” and Eddie says, “Yes, I had to get her something to keep her mouth shut!”

And that night when the boys left I went in and knelt down by Eddie’s bed and says, “Eddie, why didn’t you buy another dog?” and Eddie says, “There’ll be no more dogs now that Snuff is dead. No more. No more,” and he buried his head in the pillow. And Eddie keeps the picture of Snuff, the white dog we used to have, on his dresser behind our mother’s picture. Only the fellows don’t know that.

Mr. Devins is always so sad. If a fellow who wins as much money playing poker as he does is still sad there must be some tragedy in his life, only you can be sure Mr. Devins would never tell you what it was. And Mr. Devins looks at me sometimes for the longest time while one of the boys is shuffling the cards, and he looks at me so long I have to look away or lower my eyes, although the boys never suspect Mr. Devins of looking at me, but think he’s only trying to dope out how much alimony he’s winning.

And Mr. Devins is always so well dressed. All the boys dress well except Eddie, who comes out in his suspenders just to show it’s his house and not theirs, but they dress flashy and they wear socks that look like cheap wallpaper, but Mr. Devins always dresses to the king’s taste and not with wallpaper socks. And he is always neatly shaved and never needs a haircut, and some of the other fellows always needs a haircut and even a shave, and when a man doesn’t shave he always keeps rubbing his beard when he plays poker, and it makes a disagreeable, swishy sound like trying to shuffle a sticky pack of cards, and that annoys me more than the smell of the fellows’ black cigars which I like to smell.

And when fellows play poker they sometimes get very intense and sometimes don’t speak for a long time, and all you can hear is the clicking of the chips, and the room gets so still you can hear the fellows breathing one by one, and one of the fellows has a habit of grinding his toe inside his shoe, and you can hear every little noise in the room you otherwise wouldn’t notice. And maybe I ain’t glad when those tense moments are over and the hand is won and the men talk and laugh again and drown out the little noises that you hear only when they get intense.

Because when the men get intense that’s when Mr. Devins’s eyes get big and look at me in the strange way, and you’d think I was one of the cards, he stares at me so when the game gets intense and the clock begins to tick and you hear the fellows breathing and Eddie squidges his cigar in his teeth and the fellow who churns his toe inside his shoe begins to do it.

And last Thursday an awful calamity happened, at least for Eddie, and I was all to blame. There was about fourteen dollars on the table, which is one of the biggest pots the boys ever play for, and the boys were all keyed up over it, all except Mr. Devins, who acts the same whether he wins or loses, though he generally wins.

I was sitting behind Mr. Devins and watching his draw. One of the fellows, named Jimmy Hutch, opened it and Eddie stayed in and so did all the other fellows, because the pot was so big. And Mr. Devins held four hearts, Ace, King, Jack, and ten, and he discarded the four of spades and drew one card, trying for a Royal Straight Flush in hearts, which is the highest thing you can get in poker.

Jimmy Hutch called for three cards, showing he had a pair to start with and nothing else. Eddie called for two cards, meaning he must probably have three of a kind. The other boys called for either four or five cards, and Mr. Devins called for one. It was one of those times when the boys was terribly intense and all the little noises in the room began to start up again on account of the awful silence. The clock began to tick, and the little bird in the cage could be heard twitching his feet, and you could hear Eddie giving little chews on his cigar, and all the boys began to breathe out loud, and the toe of one of the fellows that he crunches inside his shoe was crunching away, and everybody’s perspiration was on their forehead, and I thought I would have to scream from nervous excitement, but I knew that if I even coughed the boys would go into hysterics.

And one of the fellows said, “Oh, Rats!” out loud, which doesn’t mean a thing in poker, because maybe he was trying to bluff it that he didn’t draw anything so the others would stay with him on the bid. And then Mr. Devins, whose hand I was watching, reaches for his one card. And he turned it over, slowly, slowly, and it was a Queen! Only it wasn’t the Queen of Hearts, it was the Queen of Spades, and my nerves seemed to give way on me, and I said, “Oh, Mr. Devins, I’m so sorry!”

And when I said, “Mr. Devins, I’m so sorry,” the awfulest hush came over the poker game I ever heard, and the boys turned white and glared at me, because nobody who is watching the game is ever, ever supposed to speak during the time of play. And Eddie just looked at me as though I had run a knife through the heart of every man at the table. And the boys just sat there holding their cards and staring at me, and I thought the room had turned into a furnace in Hell; and then I turned cold and the blood ran out of my fingers and I would have shrieked and fell into a faint with all the boys staring at me if Mr. Devins hadn’t said, “Your bid, Eddie.” And Eddie, who had been trying to think of some profanity bad enough to say to me but couldn’t think of any he was so furious, said sheepishly, “I’m offering two dollars. Only I apologize to Devins before all you fellows for the dirty trick my sister played on him. And if she ever opens her yap in one more poker game she’ll sit in the kitchen from now on with the door slammed in her face.”

And Mr. Devins says, “That’s all right, gentlemen,” and went right on raising my brother Eddie. And then I got more frantic than ever, because I knew Eddie thought from my remark that Mr. Devins hadn’t drawn to his hand, and he had, because with the Queen of Spades, that gave him a straight run of picture cards, which is a very, very good hand in poker, only I was disappointed because Mr. Devins had not drawn the Queen of Hearts and so have a Royal Grand Flush which comes in poker once every hundred years.

And then I didn’t know whether I ought to tell Eddie what my remark about Mr. Devins’s hand meant, only that would be putting my foot in it worse, and so I began to cry. And Mr. Devins and Eddie kept on bidding and raising and I began to cry harder and harder and kept pleading with Eddie with my eyes not to bid any more.

But Mr. Devins kept raising the bid and Eddie kept putting out chips and staying with him as if to say, “You’ll fool me, will you, Devins, you piker, after Dorothy gave away your hand?” And I kept praying to God that Eddie would stop bidding.

And the pile of chips kept getting bigger and bigger and all the fellows kept dropping out, and finally there was left only Eddie and Mr. Devins. And then the chips gave out. And the fellows were nearly insane from excitement at Mr. Devins’s nerve, as they all thought too he was bluffing. But neither Eddie nor Mr. Devins would back out. And Eddie got up and went into the next room to get some more money from the dresser where we were keeping the money for the new pianola.

And I says, hysterically, “Boys, boys! Please! — ” and every one of the fellows says together, as though they were drilled, “ Shut up !” And when the pot had risen to eighty-seven dollars, with twenty dollars of our pianola money in it, Eddie calls on Mr. Devins to show his hand. And Eddie laid down three deuces and Mr. Devins laid down his straight run from ace to ten, and smiled, and swept the chips into his corner. And he turned quietly to me and said, “Well, the Queen of Hearts won that hand for me after all,” and he pocketed all the money, and got up and put on his hat and went home.

When Mr. Devins left, Eddie and the fellows sat in complete silence. Finally one of the fellows said, “Well, folks, I guess I’ll be going”; and one after another they said, “Good night, folks,” and after a while there was left just Eddie and me. And I didn’t dare to even move until Eddie got up and slammed the door and went to bed. And nobody drank their ginger ale. And I didn’t get to sleep until 3:00 A.M. from worrying. And then I fell asleep and dreamed and dreamed, and all during the dream the boys kept staring at me and telling me to shut up and kept calling me “the old lady.” And Mr. Devins kept laughing all during my nightmare. And I didn’t hear the alarm go off at six when I am supposed to wake Eddie. And when I woke up I heard Eddie leaving in the morning without any breakfast, which he must have got in the lunchroom out at the corner.

But what is troubling me most of all is this. Last night just before the boys were leaving, Mr. Devins came out in the kitchen and gave me thirty-five dollars. And Mr. Devins said, “I really feel that your brother has been chagrined at you all on my account over the expensive hand I won the other night. If I remember rightly he had about thirty-five dollars in the game. So rather than keep things uncomfortable for you and him any longer, I am giving this money back to you, and you can return it to him with my compliments, and then maybe he will forgive you.” And he put the thirty-five dollars into my hand and went into the other room.

And now that thirty-five dollars has been troubling me all day. Because I don’t know whether it belongs to Eddie or not. And if I give it back to Mr. Devins, maybe it don’t belong to him. And if Mr. Devins really owes the thirty-five dollars to Eddie, maybe he owes him thirty-five more for the share he would have had to give Eddie if Eddie won the hand. And if Eddie won the hand maybe I would have to ask Eddie for the money back to give Mr. Devins, as the hand was all muddled up on account of my saying it was too bad when Mr. Devins drew the Queen of Spades instead of the Queen of Hearts. And besides, if I give the money to Eddie now he will be madder than ever, because he’ll think I asked Mr. Devins for it, and then Eddie will think Mr. Devins will think Eddie is a quitter. And besides that, I spent five dollars of the money this morning getting a semipermanent wave at the hairdresser’s. And now I don’t know whether I ought to give the thirty dollars I have left to Eddie or Mr. Devins, or put back the five dollars I spent at the hairdresser’s and give that too, either to Eddie or back to Mr. Devins. It’s bothering my conscience, Father, and I wish you would tell me what to do.

And now my life with Eddie for the past two weeks has been miserable. He don’t even notice me and never speaks to me unless in a growl. And when the fellows come in to play poker I’m practically ignored by all except Mr. Devins, who talks to me very pleasantly and pays no attention to what the boys say.

And I tried to make off I wasn’t interested in the game any longer, and made off I was sewing in the corner. And one night I tried staying in the kitchen and not going in the room at all, only that made me worse, because if there’s a poker game, it is impossible to stay in the next room without going crazy, that is if you know the game and hear the boys bidding through the keyhole.

And some of the boys make mean, cutting remarks, and they’ll say things like, “You ought to win this hand, Eddie, if the old lady doesn’t butt in.” And then somebody’ll say to Mr. Devins, “Devins, why don’t you call the old lady over and ask her what to bid?” And Eddie never says a word at all in reference to me, which from Eddie is worse than if he filled the room with profanity. Because if Eddie is thinking profanity about me I wish he would out with it, because I keep thinking to myself of the kind of profanity Eddie is thinking about me and that keeps filling my own mind with profanity. And I keep inventing new kinds of profanity in my own mind trying to think of what Eddie is thinking about me. And in that way I have thought of some expressions of profanity that I know even Eddie wouldn’t say.

So you see why I am unhappy and disconsolate, and it’s all over my vanity and my liking to be called the Queen of Hearts which got me into trouble and made me blurt out about Mr. Devins’s hand the night he won all the money from Eddie.

And one thing I have learned and will never forget, and that is, never, never talk during a poker game, because you are sure to have trouble of conscience later on about owing somebody some money. Please tell me what to do.

Yours sincerely,

Dorothy Burke

(“The Queen of Hearts,” which, I am ashamed to say, I like to be called).

—————————

From Dorothy Burke

Dear Rev. Father :

When I wrote you that last letter I said I was disconsolate. But now I am more disconsolate than when I wrote you the last letter, in which my trouble was money and not love as it is now. Because if you have money you think belongs to the wrong person you can give it back, and if Eddie, your brother, is mad on you, you know it won’t last forever, because no matter how mad he makes off he is you know down in your heart he would die for you in a pinch. But when love starts in to make you disconsolate — it’s the limit.

The funny thing about being bothered by love is that you enjoy being bothered. And the worst thing about being bothered by love is that you begin thinking about the time before you were in love and that makes you absolutely disconsolate thinking that you might get back that way again. Any way you look at it, you are unhappy.

Well, I might as well out with it and tell you that the whole cause of my heart affection is none other than Mr. Devins, the man who plays poker with the boys at our house, and who wins so much money, including the thirty-five dollars, which he gave back to me, and which I did not give back to him, Father, but put in the dresser with the money for the new pianola, as you told me to in your nice letter. And Eddie was so surprised to find so much money there he forgot all about losing it after all to Mr. Devins, and Eddie is friends with me again.

To explain my affair with Mr. Devins I shall have to begin by telling you about my eyes, which are blue, and which I do not like to talk about in a letter, but would prefer that a person meet me face to face and then notice it for themselves. Ever since I was a little girl people have been saying, “Hello, blue eyes!” or, “Dorothy has lovely blue eyes,” or, “Dorothy is pretty with her blue eyes,” and things like that which I can’t help at least hearing. I had three chances to get married on account of my blue eyes, which I turned down. Two of the chances were bums they proved to be afterwards, who just say the same thing to every girl they meet, only change the color of the word they use for blue to suit the eyes of the girl they are spooning with. But one was from a nice boy about twenty years ago, and I almost kept the ring for good which he gave me, only he had the awfulest bushy eyebrows and I couldn’t help thinking that after we were married and perhaps had children that looked like both of us, his bushy eyebrows would never go with my blue eyes in the children. And as long as God gave me blue eyes, it would be a shame to waste them on the wrong kind of eyebrows, though ever since, and on account of losing a nice boy for a husband (on account of a technicality) I have often wondered if I did not make a mistake, especially when you get older and wake in the night time and wish you had some children to love you no matter what kind of eyebrows they had over their eyes.

I don’t know why it is that blue eyes are so much better than any other color, but everybody seems to think so, and if you read a novel and the writer is describing the girl who is to be the heroine in the story, as soon as he comes to her eyes they are always blue. At least it seems so, and I have noticed myself that if ever the writer said the heroine had not got blue eyes, somehow or other you seem to lose interest in the book. And I have been so careful to keep my blue eyes looking presentable that I have not worn my glasses which the doctor ordered me to wear continually. Because glasses just make a person with blue eyes useless to look at. Only I get terrible headaches from not wearing the glasses.

Well, the other night Mr. Devins came out into the kitchen when I was preparing the club sandwiches which the boys like after the poker game, making off he wanted a drink of water. And Mr. Devins looked at me in that strange way which he always looks at me in, but this time more strange than I ever saw him look at me before. And Mr. Devins took hold of my hand which I am ashamed to say was greasy from putting bacon into the club sandwiches, and he said, “Didn’t we meet and have a long talk in the moonlight on the Rivvyaira about thirty years ago?” And I was so surprised and frightened I answered him in my worst tone of voice, “No, Mr. Devins. At least I don’t think so.” And I was wondering what the Rivvyaira was outside of a moving picture house.

And then Mr. Devins gripped my hand tighter until he must have got bacon grease all over his fingers, and he said, “Well, then, you sat in the prow of the gondola when the man paddled us through the alleys of Venice, in May, when the singers were passing in the dark, in the spring of ninety-seven?” And I said, “No, Mr. Devins. I don’t think so.” And I kept wondering how Mr. Devins would ever get the bacon grease off his hand when he let my hand go, which I hoped he never would, no matter how much it hurt.

And then Mr. Devins started for the next room, only he turned suddenly and came back, and he took hold of my hand again, which I was glad he did because I had a chance to wipe it on my apron in the meantime, and he said, “But weren’t you — ” and I said quickly, “No, Mr. Devins. I don’t think so,” just like a boob, because I should have waited to find out what he was going to say. And then Mr. Devins said, “That’s strange. I thought your eyes were familiar.” And he went out of the kitchen like a flash and closed the door.

And I kept wondering how Mr. Devins ever got the bacon grease off his hand, because I knew he wouldn’t wipe it on his trousers like Eddie would, and if he rubbed it on his handkerchief, later on he would be sure to get it on his nose, because Mr. Devins has hay fever and would be sure to have to use his handkerchief for a hurry-up sneeze. And I got so nervous when the boys began to holler, “Where’s the grub?” that I didn’t put enough bacon in them and the boys said, “These club sandwiches are rotten,” and wasn’t that a nice way to end the most beautiful night I ever spent in my life, outside of getting poor Mr. Devins’s hand all over bacon?

And then, of course, after Mr. Devins left I had my usual nightmare, which I always have after any excitement, on account of not sleeping well from asthma which I have, and it makes it hard for me to sleep sound. And all during the nightmare I was rubbing bacon all over Mr. Devins’s nose and in his eyes, and while Mr. Devins was trying to talk about the moonlight I was greasing his face and hands and his nice clean collar with bacon grease, and I began to shudder and cry out, “Oh, Lord, bacon, bacon, of all things, bacon!” and I must have yelled it out loud in my sleep because Eddie came running in with baking soda in a glass of hot water, which was what he thought I wanted for my indigestion which I sometimes get during the night and Eddie has to get me some baking soda in hot water.

And Eddie said, “Poor kid, the old indigestion, eh? Poor old lady!” And I was crying and I didn’t know how to explain to Eddie except to drink the hot soda, which I did. And Eddie stooped down and gave me a kiss, which is a big thing for Eddie to do, as he does it very seldom, about twice a year, and he never lets you kiss him first but only when he wants to himself. And he generally only kisses me when my asthma gets very bad or else bad indigestion. And I kept wondering after Eddie left if only Mr. Devins had kissed me what would I do, because if Mr. Devins had kissed me it would have been a mustache kiss, because Mr. Devins wears one, and that would be a new experience for me, because you get tired of getting the same old kind of a kiss all your life (that is one without a mustache), especially when the only man who ever, ever kissed you in your whole life is your brother Eddie.

And the next night after Mr. Devins came out into the kitchen in that mysterious way, maybe I wasn’t all prepared to meet him, after another semipermanent wave at the hairdresser’s that morning, and a blue apron on to go with something else blue which I have, namely, eyes. And I got a little oyster fork to use on the bacon for the club sandwiches, and was all ready in case Mr. Devins should come out into the kitchen for another drink of water. Only that night Mr. Devins didn’t show up for the poker game at all. And talk about disappointment! I was never so disappointed in my life, especially because of those semipermanent waves which are supposed to last two weeks, but the day after you get one you wonder if it was worth the money.

And the next day I was on pins and needles from fright, thinking that maybe Mr. Devins had given up poker and the boys and me forever. But, thank God, that night he showed up again as usual. And I waited in the kitchen all dolled up while preparing the club sandwiches. But Mr. Devins didn’t come out that night, although I took as long as possible to prepare the sandwiches for the boys. And once I went to the door and called out, “Anybody want a drink of water?” But the boys was in the middle of a hand, and you might as well be talking to the wall for all the attention the boys, including Mr. Devins, paid to me.

And for four nights straight now I have been waiting in the kitchen for Mr. Devins, but he never comes out any more. And I have been abusing myself for not being more encouraging to Mr. Devins when he gave me the chance. Because a man can only do so much, and if a girl keeps throwing him down as I did Mr. Devins by telling him that I was not the girl he saw on the Rivvyaira or in the alleys in Venice when the moon was shining, then you can’t expect Mr. Devins to go on forever paying attention to a girl who keeps disappointing him.

I know it sounds foolish for a person of my age (forty-two) to become romantic, but fortunately Mr. Devins is fifty-one. At least Mr. Devins said one night to the boys that this was his thirtieth year voting the straight Republican ticket, and so, if he began at twenty-one, that would make him fifty-one now; unless Mr. Devins didn’t begin voting when he was twenty-one, which I know he did because Republicans, which he is, and Eddie and the boys are not, always vote. And so Mr. Devins is at least fifty-one or two, if not older, which would not be a bad thing if he was, because then people would be saying, “She married a man much older than herself,” which is a nice thing for a girl to hear and makes it look as though the man had to fight for her to win her.

So I have decided to put my pride in my pocket and go at least half way with Mr. Devins by telling him that his attentions to me are not displeasing. And I have thought of some lovely things to say to Mr. Devins if I could only get the nerve to say them, and if he would only be sensible and come out and ask for a drink of water when I knew he was coming.

And I don’t think a girl my age should be as timid as a girl in her teens and wait for the man to say everything, especially when Mr. Devins has gone so far already. And I am sick and tired of waiting for somebody to come out and say to me what a lot of men seem to want to say to me (namely: propose), that is, judging by all the compliments they have paid to me about the blue eyes which I have.

And I think a good way to begin with Mr. Devins, now that he has broken the ice, would be to say, “I don’t ask you to love me, Mr. Devins, I only ask you to let me love you.” And I think if Mr. Devins would hear me say a thing as romantic and encouraging and unselfish as that, he wouldn’t be long finding a jewelry store for the purpose of buying something that goes around your (the bride’s) finger.

And so I am writing to you, Father, to ask you if you think that would be a suitable and proper thing to say to Mr. Devins. Or should I say it or write it in a letter? And do you think Eddie ought to know about Mr. Devins’s and my love for each other? Because I think Mr. Devins is really in earnest, and the coming out to ask for a drink of water was a bluff, otherwise why would Mr. Devins, who is so particular and neat, get his hand all over bacon grease trying to make love to me? I think Mr. Devins was so willing to get his hand greasy as long as it was my hand that he was holding, that that is a sure sign that Mr. Devins is madly in love with me, which is the way I like to see Mr. Devins be in love with a girl, namely, me.

And I shall be so disconsolate until I get this affair with Mr. Devins settled once and for all. Because Mr. Devins isn’t getting any younger each day, and every year he gets older will make it so much harder for him to find a wife. Awaiting your advice.

Yours respectfully and perplexed,

Dorothy Burke

(The Queen of Hearts, according to Eddie and the boys).

—————————

From Dorothy Burke

Dear Rev. Father :

I asked Eddie to write to you and tell you what happened, but he said he couldn’t bear to do it. And that is why you didn’t hear from me about the letter I wrote and you answered. And the reason I didn’t write, Father, was because I was in the hospital which I got out of the day before yesterday And I wish to God I were dead, which I hope I will be soon.

You remember the blue eyes, Father, which I had and which I told you about in the last letter on account of trying to explain why Mr. Devins grew so infatuated and came out into the kitchen? Well, I lost one of them. The doctor had to take it out three weeks ago, which was when the accident occurred when I had to go to the hospital.

The day after I wrote you the last letter I was working at the sink in the kitchen, which was broken on account of the soapstone piece that fits in the back of the sink being broken. And I told Eddie a dozen times to fix it, only he kept letting it go. And I was so happy that morning thinking about Mr. Devins, and about our finding out about our love for each other right there in the kitchen, that I said I will fix the sink myself, I was so happy. And I was singing at the top of my voice (which is not so good for asthma and hard to do when you have it), only I was so happy I felt like singing, asthma or no asthma. Because I was in love.

And I tried to fix the piece of soapstone in place which Eddie ought to have fixed, or at least a plumber. And in order to get it fitted into the groove in the sink where it came out of, I took a hammer and began to pound it into place. And I gave it a very hard crack with the hammer with all my might, and a piece of the soapstone flew off and went into my right eye. And I screamed from fright and the lady in the next apartment came in and looked at my eye and saw the blood which was flowing. And I tried to look through the right eye and all I could see was blood flowing. And the lady in the next apartment sent for the doctor. Only the lady in the next apartment told the doctor over the telephone that I had got something in my eye, and the doctor didn’t think that was any sign for him to rush and didn’t come for three hours, during which time you saw the blood in your eye stop flowing and when you tried to look through it I could see nothing but black, although the lady next door said that is nothing because it’s just swollen.

And the pain was terrific, and we tried to get Eddie at the store, but he was out of town for the morning, and finally the doctor came and said, “We got to get her to the hospital right away.” And I said, “Doctor, will I lose my eye?” And he said, “I don’t think so,” but took me in his car and we dashed for the hospital.

And the doctor in the hospital said he would have to operate right away and give me ether which I always choke taking on account of the asthma. And there was a nurse in the hospital who was a little nun and who came in to see me and tried to make off it was nothing. And I got down on my knees and prayed to God, “Almighty God, please don’t let them take out my blue eye but only the piece of stone which is in it!” And the doctor said he wouldn’t take out the eye unless he absolutely had to, and I made him swear to God that he wouldn’t, which he did, and I was nearly frantic. And I made a promise to the Blessed Virgin, who has blue eyes in most of her holy pictures I have seen, that I would say the Rosary every day for a year on my knees no matter how sick I was with indigestion or the asthma, if she would only ask her Divine Son not to let me lose the blue eye which had the piece of stone in it.

And the nun prayed with me, only she said, “But you will be resigned to God’s Holy Will if the doctor has to take out the eye if it’s the best thing to do, won’t you? Because you don’t want to lose both your eyes by any infection.” And I said I would rather be blind entirely than lose any of my both eyes which was the only thing I had left in life to live for besides Eddie.

And then the doctor took me into the operating room and they tried to give me ether, but which they had to give up trying to give me on account of the asthma, and had to operate without ether as I nearly choked to death and turned black one of the nurses told me afterwards.

And during the operation which took two hours, and which was simply frightful on account of the pain, I heard one of the doctors say, “It’s got to come out.” And I screamed out loud and said, “Doctor, do you mean the eye?” And one of the young doctors in white said, “No, dearie, just the piece of stone.” And I said, “Will I be blind and will the eye keep on being blue after the operation?” And he said, “Yes,” and the doctor kept on cutting. But I was so happy to think that I was not going to lose my eye that I didn’t mind how much pain it took to cut out the piece of stone.

And then they bandaged the eye all up and put me to bed in the hospital. And the pain was frightful, but I didn’t care as long as the stone was out and the eye was there.

And Eddie came in that night and knelt beside my bed and was crying and gave me a kiss. And I said, “What do I care, Eddie, as long as the eye is going to get better and keep on being blue like it used to be?” And Eddie kept on crying, but finally began to cheer up and tried to cheer me up by making a lot of wise cracks, which Eddie is good at when he is really funny, but that night none of the wise cracks was funny. But I laughed just the same, and Eddie laughed too, and the lady in the next bed hollered, “Don’t you know this isn’t no place to laugh, in a hospital? If you had appendicitis you wouldn’t laugh after the operation!” So Eddie kissed me good-night and went out, and I kept thinking about how easy it is to have appendicitis when nothing that they ever take out of you shows after the operation. And I wondered if there would be a scar in my eye and if Mr. Devins would ever think about the Rivvyaira when he looked into it again in the kitchen.

Only the next day the little nun came in and said, “Aren’t you glad that God didn’t take away your sight entirely? Just think of the poor people that are blind and haven’t even got one eye to see with.” And I was listening to her in the dark, because the doctor kept both my eyes covered for three days. But I began to feel the sweat coming out all over me and it seemed that all I could see was blood and more blood flowing down before both my eyes. And I said, “Sister, for the love of God, you don’t mean to say that I haven’t got my both blue eyes underneath this bandage!” And the sister put her head down beside mine and held me tight, and seemed to tremble, and I screamed, “Where’s my right eye gone?” And the sister cried so hard I knew where it had gone after all.

So what could you do? You had to put up with it or else commit suicide, which I might have kept thinking about (though I would never do it), if it wasn’t for the little nun who took care of me. Because when they took the bandage off the other eye, that is the one blue eye I have left, I looked into the most beautiful pair of blue eyes I have seen on any human being since I was born, outside of in a mirror. And those were the blue eyes of the nun who was my nurse. And I said to her, “Where did you get such wonderful eyes, sister?” And she tried to blush like they all do when you ask them something personal, and she said, “My mother has blue eyes.” And I said a little prayer to God that she would never be such a darn fool as to try to fix a sink with a hammer which her brother Eddie ought to have done.

And then after I got over crying and weeping with the one blue eye I have left, I started in to get funny. Because people always try to get funny when they have been through some great sorrow and are trying to forget it. And I said to the little nun who wears a black veil over her head, and black clothes with a white neckpiece and a collar, I said, “Sister, you look just like the Queen of Spades.” And then I thought I ought to apologize to the sister for mentioning anything about cards, which they probably don’t know one from the other. And I explained to the sister about watching the boys playing cards so much, and that was what put the idea about the Queen of Spades in my mind, which I apologized for.

And the sister laughed, and told me that when she was a little girl her father used to call her the Queen of Hearts, my title with Eddie and the boys. And that took the word out of my mouth about telling her about myself. Because if I came out and told her about me being the Queen of Hearts with the boys, it would sound like a flat tire after her saying it about herself, and it would look as if I was just making it up. And that’s what I get for trying to be funny and calling her the Queen of Spades. What I ought to have done was tell her first about me being the Queen of Hearts, and then spring the joke about the Queen of Spades after that. But you always think of things after they are done.

But you’d be surprised to find out all that little nun knew about cards. And she said her father used to play cards all the time when she was a little girl. And she knew that four of a kind beats a full house, and a whole lot of other things about poker that I never thought nuns even remembered after they go into the convent. And I noticed that whenever she spoke about her father she seemed very sad.

And one day I said to her, “Sister, is your father dead?” And she began to cry. And she told me very confidentially that her father left her and her mother and ran away with somebody else, and that he was a great gambler and drank and disgraced his family and never writes to them and hasn’t been seen for years. And after she told me all those things she seemed ashamed that she had told me so much about her private life. But she said one thing which I thought was very strong for a girl like her who has such beautiful blue eyes to say, and she said, “And I would gladly give up one of my blue eyes to get my father back again, because I have offered up my life being a sister in a convent for his salvation.”

And she was so confidential to me that I thought I would tell her about my love affair with Mr. Devins, only not mentioning his name, because I was sure that Mr. Devins would come to see me in the hospital and I wanted her to pick him out from all the other boys who came to see me, and not know right away that he was Mr. Devins from being told his name by me.

So I said there was a certain gentleman who plays poker with the boys who was in love with me. And I started in to mention the affair in the kitchen, only every time I would start to say something about the Rivvyaira she would say: “That’s where my mother first met my father.” And then if you mentioned the boat in Venice and all the singing she would say, “That’s where my mother and father spent their honeymoon!” And though she was a very nice sister, one thing about her I didn’t like was that she seemed to know more about your own story than you did yourself. And it seemed that Mr. Devins couldn’t do a thing that her father hadn’t done, even to calling her the Queen of Hearts, which was my private title until I met her. And if there is one thing I don’t like about a person, even if it is a nun, it is when they keep spoiling your story by going you one better. Or else, why didn’t she let me finish telling the story about Mr. Devins and then tell the story about her father, instead of saying almost the identical things about two different persons, which would make you say, if she wasn’t a nun, that one of us was lying.

But Mr. Devins never showed up at the hospital. And he left the boys for good, it seems, as he hasn’t been to our house once in the past three weeks. But that’s what I expected. Because what Mr. Devins was in love with was my blue eyes, and when he found that one of them was gone — you can’t expect a man to look into a one-eyed person and think about Venice and the Rivvyaira.

And now I keep thinking, why, oh, why didn’t I give Mr. Devins more encouragement the night he came out in the kitchen, and then maybe he would have run off with me that night and the accident wouldn’t have happened, because Mr. Devins wouldn’t have left the sink for me to fix like Eddie did, but would have had a plumber there right away like a perfect gentleman.

And now there’s no more Mr. Devins and no more blue eyes and no more anything. And I feel like a piece of furniture that nobody wants but ought to be thrown up in the attic. Because when you are forty-two years of age, and only one eye on top of that, you don’t feel like a lady; you feel like a thing. And even your name, Dorothy, sounds as if it didn’t belong to you. Because Dorothy goes bad enough with a person of my age, but with one eye gone, you might as well call an old man Dorothy as call an old woman with one eye Dorothy When you look in the mirror, outside of your long hair, you look like an old man as much as an old woman.

And I got a bad cold trying to take the ether in the hospital, and I wish to Heaven it had been pneumonia which would end it all, and so close the life of the most miserable and unhappy person that ever lived.

Yours despondently,

Dorothy Burke

(who used to be the Queen of Hearts).

—————————

From Edward Burke

Rev. and Dear Father :

You’ll be sorry to hear that the old lady passed out last Monday. She told me to write and tell you when she took sick, but I didn’t get around to it. But I might as well drop you a line now and tell you that she died last Monday.

It hit us all pretty hard because, although I’m the only one she had in the family, there’s a lot of boys who used to come to our house to play cards nights, and they were almost one of the family and thought a lot of Dorothy.

She had a pretty tough case of asthma since she was a kid and they tried to give her ether at the hospital and I guess this irritated the lungs, because she caught cold after the operation for her eye and couldn’t shake it. Last Saturday it turned into pneumonia, and Monday she passes out.

The boys did a swell job for her at the funeral. Six of them was pall bearers and they chipped in and sent her a swell floral wreath with a big heart of red roses in the center and a sign on it done in gold letters on a ribbon: “To the Queen of Hearts, from the old gang.” This was on account of the boys kidding her and calling her the Queen of Hearts when they used to play cards at the house, as this seemed to please her when the boys did.

I feel kind of hard hit myself, but I guess I’ll get over it, as I don’t go in much for sentiment. I believe that life is just one sock in the jaw after another and everybody has to take his licking with a grin.

One thing that was a great comfort to me was the way the boys stuck by me. Honest, Father, there wasn’t a fellow there at the wake who wasn’t blubbering. They’re a swell bunch of pals, all except one piker named Devins, who showed what a piker he was when Dorothy took sick. None of the boys in my gang ever talk religion and we never ask a guy what his religion is as long as he is a square shooter. In fact, two of the other boys in our crowd is Protestants, and one is a Jew, and finer fellows never lived, and they’re true pals and even came to the Mass we had for Dorothy in Saint Joseph’s Church, and Izzy, the Jew, was one of the pall bearers. But Devins evidently isn’t that kind of a guy Because when Dorothy was taken to the hospital and Devins came up the next night to play cards, he says: “What hospital is she at?” And we says, “She’s down at the Mercy Hospital.” And he says, “Is that a Catholic Hospital that has the sisters that dress in black and white?” and we says, “Yes.” And Devins turns white and puts the awfulest face on him you ever saw. And pretty soon he gets up and leaves. And we haven’t seen or heard from him since. And the dirty piker didn’t even show up for the funeral. All the fellows, including the two Protestant boys and Izzy, says it’s dirty bigotry and we’re glad we found Devins out at last. I don’t ask no man his religion and I ain’t ashamed of mine, and if Devins wants to be a piker let him be one, because it takes a showdown like this to show you what kind of yellow mud some guys is made of.

Now that Dorothy is gone I feel that I kind of gave her a rotten deal in a way when she was alive. She really never had any girls to chum with since our father and mother died, but had to stick around with me and my gang. I wish now I had made her get out more and meet some girls to pal around with instead of having to sit in the house every night watching the boys play poker. Because the boys used to smoke a lot and that played the devil with Dorothy’s asthma. And besides, hanging around with a bunch like I go with is tough on a girl who has to listen to nothing but hard talk all the time. Of course I must say none of the boys ever said anything shady when Dorothy was there, but there was a lot of helling and damning, and that ain’t the best thing in the world for a girl to be 1istening to. And I’m ashamed to say I did a whole lot of helling and damning myself. But you only think of these things after the person is dead. May God have mercy on her soul.

Dorothy was all broken up about losing the eye, and really in a way it’s a blessing she passed out, because she would have been pining away for the rest of her life on account of having only one eye. Because she was always a sensitive kid and when she was a youngster she was real pretty. In fact I wish now she had stepped out and got married instead of sticking around with a bum like me, but what’s the use of crying over spilled milk, as they say.

The night before Dorothy died she was a little bit delirious and kept hollering about her being the Queen of Hearts, the poor kid, which was one of the things the boys used to kid her about. And she says, “Eddie, I’ll never be the Queen of Hearts again!” And I says, “Yes, you will, sweetheart; you’ll always be the Queen of Hearts to me and the boys.” And she says, “How can I be the Queen of Hearts with one of my blue eyes gone?” And then I got a sudden light, and I don’t know how I got it. But I ran out to the sitting-room and got the cards and I pulled out the Queen of Hearts out of the deck and I looked at it and I nearly cried out loud for joy. Because, Father, the Queen of Hearts in the picture in the deck we have is turned sideways. And you can only see one half of her face. And I ran into the next room and I knelt down beside the bed where Dorothy was dying, and I held it up for her to look at, and I says, “Look, sweetheart, look! Can’t you see that the Queen of Hearts has only got one eye?” — And she sat up and looked at it and she said, “Oh, Eddie, is that true?” and I said, “Yes.” And then she pressed it to her heart and I never saw Dorothy look so happy in her life as she did that night with the Queen of Hearts pressed to her heart and a smile on her face that was the sweetest thing I ever saw.

And she died a couple of hours later, and the last thing we did, me and the doctor, was to take the Queen of Hearts out of her hand and put it back in the deck.

The fellows and myself have given up playing poker for good since Dorothy died. We just agreed to kind of break up for good. Of course I’ll see them occasionally that is, if I can get over to New York from Philadelphia, where I’m going to live, as I have a new job there.

Yours respectfully,

Ed. Burke (Dorothy’s brother).