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People assume I was named after
St. Michael, the archangel,
because they think why else would a girl
be called Michael, unless she were a nun,
but I was named after my father,
Michael Gavin Daugherty,
and he was no saint.
He was a lousy bastard underneath the smiles
and camaraderie he saved for his mates,
not Ma and me.
No better than a slave to him was she,
the real saint of Delancey Street in 1945.
Next stop was Hell's Kitchen,
but we had to leave there in a hurry
as the Da offended someone
and took us on the run to Boston.
I wasn't born yet and only heard about it recently
when the old crowd gathered at his wake.
They made me take their hands
and stand in front of the coffin
singing a sorrowful tune I hummed
because I didn't know the words.
I'd heard it often enough
when I was a kid.
Usually, he was drunk when he sang it,
or sad, or both.
He had bad luck, he'd say,
explaining away each lost job
and finally, settling for sweeping up at a bar
in the Combat Zone,
at home at last among the thugs, hookers and druggies
who dragged their tired bones
to this macabre celebration of a wasted life.
He was a writer once in Ireland.
He wrote stories and poems that glorified the poor.
He was middle class, but he could pass through any door
and be welcome, but that was long before
he set foot upon the golden shores of America
where his life took a sudden cruel turn to tragedy.
His mother died back home in Galway
and he was too broke to go to the funeral.
Ma was sick too, pregnant and jaundiced.
Their son, my brother, died in infacy the spring
they welcome me into the fold.
I was two years old before we settled
in a rooming house in Dorchester.
Ma went to work at a department store in Boston
and Da got more and more involved in the sporting life.
Playing the horses was more interesting
than a wife and a kid
who hid from him when he came home,
red-nosed and loud, singing that infernal song.
"Michael Boy, come to your da," he'd cry,
squeezing me in a bear hug,
and I would try to break away, but he'd hold on
until Ma would shame him by saying,
"she's a girl, you fool."
"What happened to my son?" he'd ask
no one in particular
and Ma would answer, "you killed him."
That's when the tears would start.
He'd cry as if his heart would break,
then he'd take a swing at Ma
and end up falling down,
where he would lie so still
you'd think he'd died
and gone to the hell she prophesied he would.
There he'd stay, then rising finally, leave us for days,
to return sober and unshaved,
smelling of liquor
and the faint perfume of betrayal.
Ma wouldn't speak to him
until he begged her forgiveness,
then they'd declare a truce for a few months.
He'd be the perfect father.
He wouldn't even call me boy.
I'd be his daughter
and wouldn't get a taste of beer
when he watched "The Honeymooners,"
and wouldn't hear a dirty word.
I thought if that's what it was like to be a girl.
I'd rather be a boy and get to swear and drink,
spit and piss outside on a dare
and so I welcomed his lapses sometimes,
although Ma didn't.
I'd get to dress in pants, wear a cap
and dance on the table at the bar
and have strangers tell my Da what a fine son he had
and with a wink at me, Da would agree.
Breasts and menses put an end to that
and I was back where I started in the womb.
I was trapped in a girl's Catholic school.
My Da became my father
and I became a bothersome claim on his time.
Now he had two females to complicate his life,
he'd complain, stingily handing out Ma's weekly allowance
for the groceries and incidentals.
He said I was an endless drain on his expenses
until he aimed me in the direction
of the boy he called the young fool, Anthony Santoni,
not exactly the boy Da had imagined for me,
but he gave his blessing anyway
in the summer of my nineteenth year.
I added a Mrs. to my name and became Michaela,
because Anthony thought Michael was too masculine.
After five years, two miscarriages,
adultery on both our parts
and a year long separation, we divorced
and I went back to school.
I got a BA in elementary education
and taught other people's children.
I couldn't sustain a relationship.
I drifted in and out of love.
Sometimes I wondered whether I were guilty
of something terrible, rather than the usual
crimes of the heavy heart by being condemned to be alone.
Then I thought I was cursed
because I'd been given my brother's name.
I decided he hated me
because I was alive and he was doing time in purgatory.
I suffered privately,
while my career blossomed like a rose.
I became a principal
and thought I was invincible,
until I felt its thorns prick me
and I fell into a poisoned waking sleep.
A parent sued the school
because of a cruel teacher and she won.
I'd done what I could, but not enough to get rid of him.
He had tenure, was well liked, jovial,
talked of his sexual conquests,
one of whom was me,
and to make my story short, I was fired, not he.
He became a principal himself
and I got a certificate in geriatric health.
I make home visits and tell myself
I'm doing something useful and good,
but I would give it up if I could join my Da
for a beer and a song,
to have him call me "Boy"
and make me feel that I belong in the world
that never had a place for girls named Michael.
Then afraid I'll fall into the trance of living life
without ever taking chances,
I go out alone, chug-a-lug my beer,
climb on a table and dance,
waiting to hear what a fine lad I am,
father, son and daughter one at last.
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