Poignant, yet often funny, Easter Sunday 1956 tells of a tragedy in the life of a New York City working-class family. The story begins on Easter Eve as the City of Swansea docks at Brooklyn's Pier 5. Jack, ship's carpenter, watches the mooring lines being secured. Melancholia dampens his usual high spirits on arrival in port. For this is his last ship. On return to Liverpool, he is to retire after fifty years in the British Merchant Service. But Jack will never return to England. In Astoria, Bill, a hard drinking house painter, has placed chairs from O'Shay's Funeral around his living room for guests attending his brother's retirement party. He then has gone off to O'Donnell's Bar for "a quick one." In the kitchen, Bill's wife, Nan, a feisty Irish woman with MS, and her "spinster" sister, Margaret, debate the sinfulness of viewing TV wrestlin'. Jack arrives, is fondly greeted, and dispatched by Nan to rescue "the 'ol goat" from the bar. Seven-year-old Johnny comes home and is sent after his pop and uncle who have been delayed by a failed jockey's bizarre story. Johnny returns, men in tow, and with a joke for his mom. The O'Shay's chairs are mostly occupied, including by an accordionist and banjo player. Rounds of singing, Jack's rendition of The Pig and the Inebriate, and Nan's story of Ireland's sacred donkeys kick off the festivities. With alcohol and time, the party degenerates and concludes with a human tug-o-war that humiliates Bill, mortifies Johnny, and infuriates his mom. Later Nan enters Johnny's bedroom cradling a bust of Winston Churchill, Bill's prize possession. Johnny, half asleep, watches her open the bedroom window and shove the statesman out. The bust drops two stories to the alleyway. She closes the window. He prays it is a dream; it's not. On Easter Sunday, Bill and Johnny visit the Swansea. After a surprise welcome aboard, they tour the ship, ending in the First Mate's cabin with other seamen. In the midst of sailor talk, Johnny all ears, Jack leaves and returns as King Neptune-cardboard crown, mop beard, burlap vest, long dried-up grass skirt-to elevate Johnny from a soft-bellied pollywog to a first-rate shellback. As the ritual proceeds, a sailor sweeps a lit match along Neptune's grass skirt. The fire catches. Jack bursts into flames. He races from the cabin. The men chase after him. Johnny dazed, face singed, follows to find his uncle on a shower room floor, horribly burnt. Johnny is taken to the deck. Left alone, in shock and tears, he is calmed by seagulls begging-what-ya-got-for-me! While Jack is carried from the ship, he passes something to Bill. Father and son then leave the Swansea and stop at a waterfront saloon. There Johnny is distracted from the tragedy by the barmaid's history of her establishment. Bill gulps several boilermakers and phones his wife. They then go to the hospital where Johnny sees his pop cry for the first time, ever. On the "L" home, Bill shows Johnny what Jack had given him-a blackened thumb. Astounded, Johnny asks what he will do with it. Bill tosses the thumb out of the train window. Johnny tries to leave the train to retrieve it: "We'll get arrested! It's a real thumb!" His pop stops him: "Don't worry, son-the stray dog or the odd rat will make short work of it." At the "grand internment" days later, Johnny wonders if God gave Uncle Jack his thumb back in heaven: But what, he muses, if he's in Purgatory-or worse. God's not in those places. A reception at the Irish Oaks Tavern follows the burial. There Tony Bennett, Astoria's own, croons from the jukebox. Bill is consoled with free drinks. Nan shares titillating gossip about a Monsignor with woman friends. Johnny sips a coke at the bar. He desperately wants to go home. Meanwhile, the Swansea heads for Liverpool, minus its old carpenter-and life goes on reaffirming that fact is indeed stranger than fiction: in families, God help us, even more so.
About the Author: Patrick J. Bird was born and raised in New York City. He has written for popular magazines such as Scientific American, Women's Health, Cooking Light, Your Family, and Golden Years. For thirteen years, he wrote a weekly health column for the New York Times Regional Newspaper Group and the St. Petersburg Times. In 2012, he published a memoir: A Rough Road (available in print and Kindle e-book through Amazon.com) about contracting polio in 1940 at age four and his subsequent nineteen-month hospitalization at the New York State Reconstruction Home. Pat has three grown children; he and his wife, Mary, live in Gainesville, Florida.