Old Man Murphy’s Boy
Old man Murphy’s boy once sang on the Ed Sullivan show. He was a tenor in a Navy choral group that performed “Danny Boy” on the show in 1959. Someone took a picture of the performance and old man Murphy kept a framed copy hanging on the wall behind the counter of the small gas station he owned. He’d take it down and press a bent index finger under a curly-haired young man in dress blues standing erect in the first row, eyes forward, mouth formed into a perfect oval. “That’s Jack,” he’d say, “that’s my boy. He sang a solo.”
The station was two gas pumps and a squat cinder block building at an intersection on the edge of town. The summer after eighth grade, I went there to buy bottles of soda for twenty-five cents, fishing them out of the icy water of an ancient red cooler the size of a dresser, with the words “Coca Cola” stenciled in white cursive letters along the side.
Old man Murphy sat inside in an overstuffed chair of indeterminate color although some shade of blue seemed most likely. The chair, nearly worn through to the stuffing in spots, engulfed his small, stooped body like the jaws of a giant fish.
“He could always sing, from the time he was a little boy, no more than five or six. He had the purest voice, a real gift. His mother and me, we knew even then it was special, a voice like that. When he was older he used to sing along with all the songs on the radio, he learned them all, all the words and the melodies. He’d stand in the living room and sing just like he was Mario Lanza or Frank Sinatra. He hit every note just like they did. He still can, of course. He’s a fine singer.”
Old man Murphy’s voice was a phlegmy rasp, a result of age and the unfiltered Lucky Strike cigarettes he smoked one after another. He said Jack didn’t smoke. Once when he was twelve, old man Murphy caught him sneaking a cigarette in the small wooded area behind the house and gas station.
“I slapped that cigarette right out of his mouth, knocked him clean to the ground to boot.” He shook his head at the memory. “That was the only time I ever struck him, but by God I wanted to make the point. A voice like that, I wasn’t going to have him ruin it with cigarettes.”
Old man Murphy lived alone in the house behind the station, a brick rambler with a patch of yard in the front and another in the back leading to a small wooded area. His wife died when Jack was a senior in high school and the summer after graduation, Jack enlisted in the Navy.
He said Jack got out of the Navy the year after he appeared on the Ed Sullivan show and was living in New York, trying to make a career as a singer.
“He’s not much for writing letters, but he calls pretty regular. I told him he should use his GI bill to go back to school, study music if he wants, but get his college.” He peered out the window, as if expecting a car to drive up. “But he’s doing all right. He’s got an apartment with another musician, a piano player. I imagine they’re living the life, two young fellas in New York.”
***
I met Jack Murphy the following summer. I had hardly been to old man Murphy’s, as if, having finished my first year of high school, I was too old to spend time drinking soda and listening to his stories. But one July afternoon I felt like a cold soda and rode my bike to the station where, instead of the old man, I found his son.
He was standing behind the counter in the gas station office thumbing through a pile of receipts. He was shorter than I expected, his black hair as curly as in the picture, but thinner on top, his face fuller, with the beginning of a double chin and a five o’clock shadow. He wore chinos and an open collared, powder blue short-sleeved shirt that revealed thick, pale forearms covered in dark hair. He looked up when I entered, his brown eyes going wide and betraying a trace of annoyance.
“We’re not really open.” His voice was as smooth and resonant as a radio announcer’s.
“Where’s old man Murphy?”
He tilted his head. “My father had a heart attack a week ago. He just got home from the hospital yesterday.”
“Jesus,” I said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know. Is he going to be okay?”
Jack nodded. “If he’s not too stubborn to do what the doctor tells him.” He came around the counter and extended his hand. “I’m Jack Murphy.”
“Tom Johnson, but everybody calls me TJ.”
He returned to his receipts. “We really are closed.”
“Yeah, sorry. I just came by to get a soda and say hi to old man…your dad.”
He nodded towards the cooler. “Help yourself.”
I fished a Coke from the frigid water and placed a quarter on the counter. Jack looked up from the receipts and slid the quarter back to me. “On the house.”
I came back a couple of times a week after that to see how old man Murphy was doing. Jack was always in the office, most often perched on a barstool he had placed behind the counter, as if the easy chair was reserved only for the old man. There was a radio in the office that old man Murphy turned on to listen to Cardinals games, but that Jack kept tuned to a classical music station. Once or twice as I approached I could hear him humming to the music, his wordless voice rich and full in the summer air. He didn’t stop when I entered, offering a nod hello and continuing until the song ended. He always had a book on the counter, thick novels by authors like Herman Wouk and James Michener. I was surprised to find him working in the station—-pumping gas and checking oil, just like his father—-he didn’t seem like the type. But I guess he felt he had to keep the business going until old man Murphy recovered.
We started to talk more, beyond his telling me about his father’s recovery. I asked him what it was like to live in New York, told him it was where I wanted to live when I grew up. I wanted to be an actor. He told me about the people, the thick jam of humanity moving along the avenues and streets every day, the jostle and press, the constant noise, oppressive at first, that settled into a steady, ever present hum.
“But I’ll tell you, TJ, it’s the energy that makes it worthwhile. I always feel alive in New York. Not like here. I never felt anything like that in Sangamon, Illinois.”
“I guess you couldn’t wait to get out. Your dad said you joined the Navy right out of high school.”
He was leaning forward on the barstool, elbows on the counter, both hands propped under his chin. “Yeah, I guess so. Things changed after my mother died.”
“Were you close?”
He nodded. “She was kind of a buffer.”
He said he was trying to make it as a singer anyway he could—in the theatre, records, nightclubs. He had been called back a couple of times for musical auditions on the strength of his voice, but his lack of acting experience hurt him (he had only been in a couple of plays in high school) and he couldn’t dance. He and his friend Rick had cut a demo tape, but nothing had come of it so far.
“It’s a bitch, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” He drew a cigarette from a package on the counter.
I laughed. “Your dad said you didn’t smoke.”
“They’re menthol, hardly like smoking at all. You want one?”
I took one from the pack and lit it. I had snuck cigarettes from my parents, but they didn’t smoke menthols. The roof of my mouth felt like I was inhaling cool air from a balloon.
“Aren’t you afraid your dad’s going to catch you?”
He laughed and gave me a quizzical look. “No, are you?”
“He said he caught you smoking out behind the house once and knocked the cigarette out of your mouth.”
Jack nodded, exhaling a long stream of smoke.
“He said it was the only time he ever hit you.”
Jack focused on rolling the tip of his cigarette on the edge of a beanbag ashtray. “Is that what he told you?”
“Yeah. He said he wanted to make the point so you wouldn’t ruin your voice.”
He looked at me and grinned, holding up his cigarette. “Well, I guess the point didn’t stick, did it?”
***
The old man made it to September before suffering a second heart attack. Jack said he died in his sleep, laid down for a nap and never woke up. I saw him a couple of times that summer seated in his easy chair in the office, gazing out the window. He wasn’t smoking. “Have you met Jack?” he asked me both times, gesturing at his son, who sat behind the counter reading one of his thick novels. “That’s my boy.”
The funeral was held at St. Jude’s. The priest introduced Jack, who stood at the foot of the altar in a dark gray three- piece suit. A piano had been set up to one side and a man I didn’t recognize came up from the first row and took a seat on the bench.
“This was my father’s favorite song,” Jack said. He looked down for a moment, then lifted his head to face the congregation. “Oh, Danny boy,” he sang, his voice effortlessly filling the church, tender and pure and brimming with melancholy, as if the congregation had interrupted a moment of private grief.
I was close enough to see the way his throat quavered as he held certain notes, the way his fingers splayed even as he kept his hands at his sides, the way his face contorted with emotion. I couldn’t look away. I had never seen a performer so close, so lost in the moment. I felt a tinge of envy for it was what I wanted to do—to sing like that, to lose myself in performance.
Afterwards he introduced the piano player as his friend, Rick, who had flown out from New York for the funeral.
“Finally got in last night at 10:00 o’clock,” he said. “Had to change planes in Chicago and catch one of those little puddle-jumpers. It’s not easy getting to this charming little burg.”
Rick had a trace of a southern accent and spoke deliberately, as if he were reciting lines from a play. He was a few inches taller than Jack, with thick, Brylcreemed blonde hair combed straight back and pale blue eyes. His complexion was pasty and rough and made him look older than Jack, even though they were the same age.
“I’m glad you made it,” Jack said.
“Was there ever a doubt?” Rick placed a hand on Jack’s shoulder.
We were in the living room of old man Murphy’s house, where people had gathered after the service and burial. There was a platter of cold cuts, cheese and crackers, pretzels, chips, beer, wine, and some bottles of Coke, Seven-Up and RC Cola that I suspected had been taken from the cooler in the gas station. It turned out to be more food and drink than was necessary, as only a handful of people came to the house.
I noticed on the bookshelf a copy of the picture of Jack on the Ed Sullivan show. As I looked at it I heard Jack’s voice from behind me.
“My moment in the spotlight.”
“What was it like?”
“Not as exciting as you’d think. It was hot with all the lights and we were in dress uniforms and bunched together.”
“Did you meet Ed Sullivan?”
Jack shook his head. “Not really. He said hi to the group, but that was about it.”
“But still, you got to sing a solo part on national television.”
Jack cocked his head to one side. “How did you know I sang a solo part?”
“Your dad. He talked about it just about every time I saw him.”
Jack started to smile but instead his face tightened. He shook his head, wiping each eye quickly. “Sorry.”
Before I could say anything, Rick was next to him, reaching an arm around his shoulders.
“Here,” Rick said, handing him a glass of white wine. “You need another drink.” He tugged Jack closer. “It’s all right.” He spoke quietly, the soft lilt of his voice bringing out the southern accent.
Not certain what else to say, I told Jack I was sorry. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You didn’t.” He gave my arm a gentle pat. “You’re a good kid, TJ. I can see why dad liked you.”
***
I didn’t expect to see Jack again. He and Rick returned to New York. Old man Murphy’s gas station closed and the house looked abandoned. I returned for my second year at St. Thomas Aquinas, the all-boys Catholic high school in Sangamon.
I was less intimidated than I had been the previous fall, no longer a freshman at the bottom of the natural order at Thomas Aquinas. I was good enough at sports to be picked in the middle of the pack, smart enough to be in the top academic tract, and social enough to have friends in all the groups, even the cool kids at the top of the social order. But I was self-conscious about my desire to be an actor. Among the boys at Thomas Aquinas, it was okay to stand out at sports or in the classroom, but not for theatre, with its makeup and costumes and immersion in the world of make-believe. When I was cast in both the fall play and the spring musical Aquinas put on with the nearby all-girls Catholic school, I tried to keep it low key. After the performances, some guys would come up to me in the hallway or the cafeteria and say “Good job” or “Great show” and even as I thanked them, I searched their expressions for signs they were jerking my chain. When I saw none, I assumed they were hidden beneath the surface, waiting for me to let my guard down.
Early the following June, just after school let out for the summer, I saw a large blue sedan parked in the small drive next to Old man Murphy’s house. A week later I went to auditions for “South Pacific” being staged by the Sangamon Players, our community theatre group, and Jack was there.
When I asked why he came back, all he said was he had grown tired of New York. Later, after he had been cast in the role of Lt. Cable and I was in the chorus, we talked more during rehearsals. He said he woke up one day and realized he was thirty years old and getting nowhere.
“New York’s an expensive place to fail,” he said.
“What about the energy you said you always felt?”
He laughed. “It ran out.”
Rick had come with him. They both found jobs and were living in old man Murphy’s house, which Jack had inherited mortgage free. He sold the gas station.
I listened and smiled, acting as if I understood how he could give up on the dream I thought we shared.
It was the summer before I got my driver’s license, so Jack and Rick gave me rides to rehearsal in the ’58 Chevy Bel Air they’d purchased second hand after moving to Sangamon. Rick was the rehearsal pianist and later part of the orchestra for the show. He could play anything, classical, jazz, show tunes, and picked up melodies if you hummed just a couple of bars. I sat in the back seat and listened to them talk about the progress of the show, members of the cast, the director. Other times they talked about mundane things: how their days had gone, what to pick up for dinner the following night, whose turn it was to do laundry. Every so often Jack would glance at me through the rear-view mirror and smile, or Rick would turn in his seat to ask me how I was doing.
“Do you have a girlfriend?” Rick asked me one evening as we drove to rehearsal.
“Not at the moment.”
“No kidding? I figured you for a ladies’ man.”
“It’s not easy when you can’t drive. To go on dates, I mean.”
Rick nodded, narrowed his eyes to a squint. “What about Molly Squires? She’s pretty cute.”
“Very cute. Beautiful in fact.”
Molly Squires was an auburn-haired girl in the chorus whose lithe dancer’s body I had ached for since the first rehearsal.
“Well?”
I laughed. “She’s eighteen and going to college in the fall.”
“So? I notice you talking to her quite a bit.”
“We’re just friends. I’m like her younger brother or something.”
“I don’t think you should quit so easily. I wouldn’t.”
“Then why don’t you ask her out?”
Leaning his head into the back seat, Rick grinned. “If I wasn’t so damn old I just might.”
Jack laughed out loud.
***
The show ran for six performances over the last weekend of July and the first weekend of August. My parents came to opening night. My father told me I’d done a fine job and said he was proud of me. It was an awkward moment, since expressing emotion did not come easily to him, but I thanked him and shook his hand when he offered it.
Jack and Rick came by to say hello. They referred to me in the third person, using words like “talented” and “fine young man,” speaking with an enthusiasm that caused my father to blink and draw his head back slightly, as if hit with a sudden burst of light. My mother thanked them for giving me rides to rehearsals. Everyone was smiling, although my father kept glancing at Rick’s paisley ascot.
The local newspaper declared us a hit and everyone thought Jack’s performance of “Younger Than Springtime” was the best number in the show.
“That’s why I wanted the part of Lt. Cable,” Jack told me at the cast party the weekend after the show closed. “To sing that song.”
It was late in the evening. The party was held at the home of the director, a large, square, three-story house in one of the older neighborhoods of Sangamon. I had come out onto the wide front porch for some fresh air and found Jack sitting on the top step with a glass of wine, smoking a cigarette. His eyes were wide and glassy.
“You did a great job,” I said. “I think your dad would have enjoyed it.” The air was still but less humid, like a blanket had been removed leaving only a sheet, and carried the aroma of fresh mowed grass.
“Hmmm.” Jack’s head bobbed a little unsteadily. “You think so?”
I nodded.
“Hmmm,” he said again. “It’s very kind of you to say. Very kind.”
Inside I heard Rick playing the piano and a group singing show tunes.
“It’s the truth,” I said.
He took a deep drag off his cigarette and exhaled into the night air. “Maybe. My dad and I had a complicated relationship.”
We sat quietly for a moment. Inside the group was singing “Bloody Mary,” Rick’s slightly off-key baritone rising hoarsely above the others.
“Can I say something?”
“Sure.” He flicked his cigarette onto the lawn, where the orange tip glowed briefly.
“From what I could tell by the way he talked about you, I think your dad loved you. I know he was proud of your singing.”
Jack turned to me and nodded his head. “Maybe so.” His eyes welled with tears and I felt his hand on my knee. “You’re a sweet kid, TJ.” He started to lean toward me, tipping sideways in slow motion, until his head rested against my shoulder. I didn’t know if he was making a pass or passing out. I pushed him away and scrambled into the house.
Cigarette smoke permeated the air, and the low murmur of conversation, punctuated by laughter, mixed with the sound of singing and Rick’s piano. To my right as I stood in the entryway was the den where couples and small groups huddled in conversation. Molly Squires, dressed in blue shorts and a sleeveless white blouse, sat in an overstuffed chair facing in my direction, legs tucked under her, one elbow propped on the arm of the chair, the side of her face resting in her hand. She smiled when she saw me, lifting her head and wiggling her fingers in a small wave. For a moment I thought about joining her, asking her for a ride home, and maybe, if I was lucky, stealing an end of summer, farewell kiss. But I smiled instead and nodded, then turned left into the spacious L-shaped living room at the back of which, Rick was playing.
There were seven or eight cast members crowded around the piano, an old upright with a black finish, the top of which held a large ashtray and several mixed drinks on paper doilies. The group made room for me. They had switched from show tunes and were finishing “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” when I wedged into a space behind the piano facing Rick. He bent over the keyboard at the end of the song, plinking the last few notes with a shoulder-hunching flourish. When he looked up and saw me his face broke into a broad grin.
“There he is, the next great star of stage and screen, Sangamon’s own Tommy Johnson. How are you, kid?”
I shrugged, trying to sound nonchalant. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
Rick cocked his head, brow furrowed. “Sure.” He stood and took his drink from the piano top. “Excuse me, folks. Time for a brief intermission.”
As we moved through the living room he asked if I was okay.
“It’s Jack,” I said. “I think he’s upset.”
He was still sitting on the porch, slumped against the railing, humming or mumbling, I couldn’t tell which. He looked at us and his head bobbed in a kind of involuntary nod. Rick sat and put an arm around him.
“You alright?” he asked.
Jack’s head bobbed then fell sideways against Rick’s chest.
“Okie-doke,” Rick said. “Time to call it a night.”
***
During the drive home I told Rick what happened. Jack was passed out on the backseat, so I sat up front. I was unsure of what to say, hesitated as I described Jack touching my knee and calling me “sweet”. I alternated between looking at the darkened houses and looking at Rick. His face was in and out of shadow as we passed under streetlamps, but remained calm, almost passive, as he listened. He kept his eyes on the road.
“I didn’t know what to do,” I said. “It scared me a little.” I was facing forward, watching the road come towards us, the dark reflections sliding up the hood of the car. “Not scared like I couldn’t protect myself. I just…” I shook my head.
“You just?” Rick asked quietly, his voice as serene as the neighborhoods we were driving through.
I looked at him. “I just don’t want to feel bad about Jack.” But even as I spoke I knew it was too late. I’d already started to feel a distance open between me and Jack.
Rick nodded, eyes still on the road, and we drove the rest of the way in silence. After parking in the small drive next to the house, he lit a cigarette and offered me the pack.
“No thanks.”
From the back, Jack’s snoring sounded like a sibilant whistle. He was curled onto the seat, one arm tucked under his head, the other dangling towards the floorboard.
“He’ll feel like shit tomorrow,” Rick said.
I nodded.
“How about you?”
“I didn’t have anything to drink.”
He smiled. “That’s not what I meant.”
I shrugged. “I’m okay.”
“He didn’t mean anything, TJ. He’s not like that.”
“I know.”
Rick looked at me. “Do you?”
I nodded.
He tapped his cigarette into the little metal ashtray in the dashboard, then opened his door and got out. He opened the rear door and gently tapped Jack on the cheek. When Jack didn’t wake up, Rick started to lift him out of the car.
“Do you need any help?” I asked.
“I got it,” he said. “You better go on home.”
“Thanks for the ride.”
There was something in my voice, a hesitation, a forlorn note, that caused Rick to gently lift his hands free of Jack and come around the car to where I stood. He was quiet a moment before pulling me into a hug.
“It’s all right,” he said. He braced me by the shoulders, his face so close that even in the dark I could see the pockmarks that formed little patterns around his chin and in the hollow of his cheeks. “You didn’t do anything, TJ. You have a good heart, that’s what got to Jack.” His expression was suffused with tenderness. “Okay?”
I nodded, said good night and started to walk home. Before I turned the corner of the gas station, I looked back and saw Rick and Jack leaning against each other, Rick’s arm around Jack’s waist, Jack’s arm slung over Rick’s shoulder, stumble-walking towards the little house they shared.
***
I never told anyone about that night, because there was no one to tell. Not my parents, who I feared would overreact and forbid me from ever returning to the Sangamon Players, and certainly not my friends at Thomas Aquinas, even the ones who were in theatre with me. Nor was I sure what I would say.
Among the boys at Thomas Aquinas, the slurs “queer” and “faggot” and “homo” were hurled back and forth like baseballs at a little league practice. No one took them seriously because no one thought the words applied to any of us. It was a joke.
I never called Jack or Rick those names, but I started to think them about Jack. They expressed what I had started to feel about him, which was not anger, but a mixture of disappointment and pity that morphed into a kind of contempt. I noticed he always drank too much and talked too loud at cast parties, that inevitably, Rick had to scoop him up and take him home. I saw him as someone who had given up on his dream. Instead of Broadway, he was working as an office manager and performing in community theater. He had settled for an ordinary life.
I continued with the Sangamon Players until I finished college, and Jack and Rick were always there, part of the troupe. Nothing was ever said of that night, but the memory lingered, like a hovering guest at a party.
After college I didn’t move to New York, but I did get as far away from Sangamon as Chicago. Until my parents retired to Florida, I used to go back from time to time. Old man Murphy’s station was torn down, replaced by a 7-Eleven; the house was gone too, paved over for a parking lot. But Jack and Rick were still around. I heard they had an apartment near the business district and that on weekends they performed in a piano bar on the top floor of the Hotel Grant.
I went once to hear them play. They performed mostly show tunes and American standards, with a few contemporary songs mixed in, and closed the set with “Danny Boy.” Jack didn’t mention it being his father’s favorite song, but he sang it with the same raw emotion he had at the funeral. Eyes closed, arms held away from his body, palms outward, he seemed as lost in the moment as he had that day, and like on that day, I was a little awestruck and envious. Like a participant in a séance where singing was the medium, he was calling on the old man to listen.
When they finished I bought them a drink. They were both grayer, especially Rick, and Jack had put on weight. After we caught up, after I told them about my wife, my job teaching English in a suburban high school, and the novel I was shopping with agents, the conversation slowly coasted to a halt, like a car running out of gas.
On the drive back to my parents’ home, I passed the 7-Eleven that stood where old man Murphy’s place had been. I thought about Jack and Rick stumble-walking to their house that night, and I realized I had known what they were without understanding what it meant. I realized that for Jack and Rick, an ordinary life was the point.
• • •
David Metz is a writer and member of the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland. His stories have appeared in several print and online literary journals, including Brilliant Flash Fiction, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Bull, The MacGuffin and New Plains Review. Originally from Illinois, he lives with his wife in Damascus, Maryland.