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Authors: Frank Lentricchia
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for the meaning of Q. She answers, “Short for barbecue – let’s get some Q – not Q for queer, Detective.” (
Mind reader
.) She adds, “Don’t you think we should call each other by our first names, Detective?”
“A pleasure, Catherine.”
“Likewise, Eliot.”
“Do you prefer Kate or Catherine?”
“Catherine, though no one calls me that.”
“Catherine with a K or C?”
“C.”
“It makes a difference in my mind, all the difference in the world, when I hear it with a C, rather than a K.”
“Is that a fact, Eliot?”
“Yes, Catherine with a C.”
(This kind of flirty banter is a shocking first for Conte.)
It’s their turn to order: “Detective Katie Cruz herself!” “Jesus Mary and Joseph! I ain’t seen her in two days!” “Kiss me, Kate!” “Who’s your great fella there, my Kate?” “Oh, her fella has a mighty presence, he does!” “I don’t think he’s Irish, Seamus, I don’t see it at’all.” She replies in the spirit of things, “Sure, and another word outa ya and you are all bound for the slammer.”
He orders what she orders: an overflowing pork barbecue sandwich, potato salad, and lemonade. The cashier tells him his money is no good in Troy, “It’s on the house, lad,because you’re the lucky man to be spendin’ time with the ravishin’ Miss Kitty O’Cruz.” Conte’s about to say there’s no place to sit when the cashier says, “Your place is secured as usual, Kitty,” and Conte follows her down a short hall to an office with a desk, a table, and sudden privacy.
They sip their lemonade and before either can start on the sandwiches and potato salad, Conte – unable, unlike Catherine Cruz, to bear the silence – launches a story about his paternal grandparents because the “Q Shack,” he says, only half-believing the analogy, “with its male domination brings it to mind.”
“Really?” she says, with a twinkle in the eyes.
“Back in the day, Catherine, there once was in Utica an establishment called Donnelly’s, and a grand Irish saloon it was, the Q Shack of its time” – warming to the narrative now and sounding like an Irish tale-teller – “where no women were ever allowed.”
“Could that have been legal, Eliot?”
“They didn’t have the right to vote, so I guess it was. My grandfather was a serious anarchist –”
“A bomb thrower?”
“Metaphorically, and a poet. It was a fine summer night and he was out for a long post-dinner stroll with my grandmother. A ritual of theirs, even in the winter months, and on this particular night their journey took them beyond the east-side Italian ghetto to Utica’s central district and Donnelly’s, an institution that Umberto had never set foot in and knew not its gender policy. He was a moderate drinker of red wine who rarely partook of the hops, but it was hot and he was thirsty and the prospect of a cold one was irresistible, andso he said to Amelia – the meekest and sweetest of women and a teetotaler – Let us stop here,
cara mia
. And so they entered Donnelly’s, where no woman, or Italian, had ever set foot, and all the many men turned and stared, but only briefly because they were gentlemen, despite their Irish hostility to Italian immigrants. Umberto drank his tall cold beer and with his free hand held Amelia’s hand and said, in Italian, It is tranquil here. And no one said a word except the waiter, who had taken the order and asked if the lovely Mrs. would like something, too, but the Mrs. required nothing, not even a glass of water. (Long pause.) End of tale. I fear that I made a bollocks of it, Ms. O’Cruz.” They’re both grinning ear to ear.
“When did they discover they had integrated Donnelly’s?”
“Much later. Years.”
“Amelia was the anarchist’s bomb?”
“Never thought of it that way. Sure. Do you happen to know the saying, You’re the bomb? It means –”
“I do know it, Detec – Eliot.”
Desperate, casting aside all shyness, and again
Mind reader
.) She adds, “Don’t you think we should call each other by our first names, Detective?”
“A pleasure, Catherine.”
“Likewise, Eliot.”
“Do you prefer Kate or Catherine?”
“Catherine, though no one calls me that.”
“Catherine with a K or C?”
“C.”
“It makes a difference in my mind, all the difference in the world, when I hear it with a C, rather than a K.”
“Is that a fact, Eliot?”
“Yes, Catherine with a C.”
(This kind of flirty banter is a shocking first for Conte.)
It’s their turn to order: “Detective Katie Cruz herself!” “Jesus Mary and Joseph! I ain’t seen her in two days!” “Kiss me, Kate!” “Who’s your great fella there, my Kate?” “Oh, her fella has a mighty presence, he does!” “I don’t think he’s Irish, Seamus, I don’t see it at’all.” She replies in the spirit of things, “Sure, and another word outa ya and you are all bound for the slammer.”
He orders what she orders: an overflowing pork barbecue sandwich, potato salad, and lemonade. The cashier tells him his money is no good in Troy, “It’s on the house, lad,because you’re the lucky man to be spendin’ time with the ravishin’ Miss Kitty O’Cruz.” Conte’s about to say there’s no place to sit when the cashier says, “Your place is secured as usual, Kitty,” and Conte follows her down a short hall to an office with a desk, a table, and sudden privacy.
They sip their lemonade and before either can start on the sandwiches and potato salad, Conte – unable, unlike Catherine Cruz, to bear the silence – launches a story about his paternal grandparents because the “Q Shack,” he says, only half-believing the analogy, “with its male domination brings it to mind.”
“Really?” she says, with a twinkle in the eyes.
“Back in the day, Catherine, there once was in Utica an establishment called Donnelly’s, and a grand Irish saloon it was, the Q Shack of its time” – warming to the narrative now and sounding like an Irish tale-teller – “where no women were ever allowed.”
“Could that have been legal, Eliot?”
“They didn’t have the right to vote, so I guess it was. My grandfather was a serious anarchist –”
“A bomb thrower?”
“Metaphorically, and a poet. It was a fine summer night and he was out for a long post-dinner stroll with my grandmother. A ritual of theirs, even in the winter months, and on this particular night their journey took them beyond the east-side Italian ghetto to Utica’s central district and Donnelly’s, an institution that Umberto had never set foot in and knew not its gender policy. He was a moderate drinker of red wine who rarely partook of the hops, but it was hot and he was thirsty and the prospect of a cold one was irresistible, andso he said to Amelia – the meekest and sweetest of women and a teetotaler – Let us stop here,
cara mia
. And so they entered Donnelly’s, where no woman, or Italian, had ever set foot, and all the many men turned and stared, but only briefly because they were gentlemen, despite their Irish hostility to Italian immigrants. Umberto drank his tall cold beer and with his free hand held Amelia’s hand and said, in Italian, It is tranquil here. And no one said a word except the waiter, who had taken the order and asked if the lovely Mrs. would like something, too, but the Mrs. required nothing, not even a glass of water. (Long pause.) End of tale. I fear that I made a bollocks of it, Ms. O’Cruz.” They’re both grinning ear to ear.
“When did they discover they had integrated Donnelly’s?”
“Much later. Years.”
“Amelia was the anarchist’s bomb?”
“Never thought of it that way. Sure. Do you happen to know the saying, You’re the bomb? It means –”
“I do know it, Detec – Eliot.”
Desperate, casting aside all shyness, and again
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