Sean M. Hanratty's Funeral

By Ken Thompson

     “Oh, doesn’t he look so lifelike… so peaceful?”

     I didn’t look at her or say anything. I didn’t even move my head. I just kept looking down at him.

     “The suit looks good on him. He liked the blue suit… and the red tie,” she continued.

     Still I just looked down at the casket. I didn’t move or say anything.

     “Oh, they put his glasses in his hands rather than a set of rosaries. The rosary beads would have made him look holier,” she again paused and looked him over more closely.

     “Tis a shame they parted his hair on the wrong side. I’ll have them change it for the next viewing,” she said as she walked away to speak to Mr. Preston of the Bay Ridge Funeral Home.

     I just stood there looking at the recently deceased Sean M. Hanratty and could hardly muster a prayer for his poor departed soul. He was a mean bastard when he was alive and having him dead will probably upset no one… particularly the people who knew him well and who he tormented in life.

     I thought the parting of the hair was ironic. He never seemed to have his hair in any orderly manner. As for the glasses; they were okay… rosary beads would have been an insult to everyone and probably would have spontaneously combusted in his miserable, cold hands. It was no loss to me that he was dead. I despised him.

     Margaret returned and stood beside me and said, “I just went out and spoke to the Preston fellow. They said they’ll fix it,” she paused for a moment, “he’s made all of this pretty easy. When the News ran the obit with a year of death of 1967 instead of ‘76, he got it fixed in the next printing.”

     Margaret was Sean’s sister and though they weren’t particularly close she dressed in the almost solid black honoring a deceased relative and seemed to look at him with tenderness. As she reached to straighten his tie she spoke to no one in particular and probably only loud enough for me to hear, “He was a prick, a terrible father, no credit to mankind in any way,” again a pause, “It’s a shame his wife, Patricia, isn’t here to see him and smile; God rest her soul.”

     I looked over at her and smiled slightly. I had come to know Margaret, never Peg, over the years and I liked her… she was always interesting and had a good story.

     “Come sit with me Kenny. There’s things I can tell you.” She took my hand and led me to one of the small sofas at the back of the funeral viewing salon.

     “I gotta have a cigarette,” she announced as she opened her purse.

     “You’re not supposed to smoke in here Margaret. There’s a smoking lounge down stairs,” I whispered.

     “Let them try and stop me… I’m paying for all this.”

     I helped light her cigarette and the drag she took was long and hard and savored with all her might. She blew the smoke out in a long, smooth stream and I’m sure that in ten seconds everyone in the room would know someone was smoking. Mr. Preston, assigned to preside over the Hanratty Funeral, had come to know Margaret well in the last two days, looked over disapprovingly but said nothing. He was probably more concerned with getting Sean’s hair parted right to assure Margaret’s payment.

     We sat for awhile as a few mourners began to arrive and pay their respects to Brian, Erin and Mark standing between the front row of folding chairs and the casket.

     “How’s Brian doing?” she asked as she looked at Sean’s three children standing there, doing their duty.

     Brian had been a friend since early in high school. I had first met him at Scoville’s in Coney Island when he, like me, was not in the popular group and we waited while our parents `tied one on’. Brian taught me how to stand under the boardwalk and look up between the boards up women’s skirts; a skill that has served me well over the years.

     I had gotten to know him very well when he stayed with my family for two weeks after his father had thrown him out of their house for two bad report cards in a row. Even though Sean, his father, had threatened my Dad; we took Brian in for whatever period it would take Patricia and the parish priest to calm Sean down. It was during that stay at my house that Brian had told me of the beatings and abuse his father administered to anyone nearby when he drank… which was often. All but Sean Hanratty were forever thankful for my father taking Brian in that spring.

     Brian and I grew apart when he went off to Boston College on a Scholarship and then on to Brown’s Tuck School of Business for an MBA. He had done well for himself.

     “Brian seems okay, I saw him last night and this afternoon. I think he’s relieved both for mankind and his father. He said his father had been in out of the VA hospital in Bay Ridge for chemo treatments. Sean used the cancer as a reason to drink, as if he needed an excuse. Brian said the cancer was a way for his father to get someone else to buy.”

     “That’s Sean for you. He had a way of intimidating and scoring a shot. He was unique like that. He could be a pisser!”

     “Brian doesn’t know how he can pay off his father’s debts. The ones from banks and stores he can handle over time but it seems there are hundreds who had loaned him 20 to $100 at a time. There are no records of them except people making claims to him. Brian says Sean planned it that way.”

     Margaret smiled, “I told you Sean was a pisser. I’ll help Brian out and speak to those taking advantage of the situation.”

     “He’ll be glad when this is over and he can get back to Boston and his family.”

     “Why didn’t Anne and the boys come down for the funeral?”

     “Brian didn’t want them to. He didn’t want them to go through it. Anne’s never really forgiven Sean for being terribly drunk and causing the scene at their wedding and for not coming to Boston for the boys Christenings. When they all came down last Christmas and Brian was hosting a family dinner at Gage and Tollner’s, Sean never showed up. His boys were really hurt and disappointed, and Anne was terribly annoyed.”

     Margaret didn’t say anything. She remembered… she was there. She hauled the gaily wrapped packages and homemade cards to Sean’s apartment. She still could see them wrapped, stacked in the corner from her visit to his apartment yesterday. Anne was forgiven for not being here.

     “Oh look, there’s Jeremy, Mark’s friend from Minnesota. He’s been taking pictures for most of the evening. I asked him what the hell he was doing and he told me that he looked at funerals like weddings… people getting together who haven’t seen each other in years and an opportunity to capture a wonderful time of sending a soul back to God. The fool insists on calling me Aunt Margaret. Mark told me to let him do whatever he wants; that he wasn’t hurting anyone. So I say `whatever!’”

     There were periods of silence broken by people stopping to convey their condolences to Margaret. She was gracious in receipt and told everyone “He was so special in so many ways.” I wasn’t sure what she meant though I saw it as a slam.

     There was a flurry of activity in the hallway as five disheveled `gentlemen’ from Tommy’s Bar and Grill were making their way into the salon. They were loud and had obviously had stopped for liquid reinforcements before venturing to say goodbye one last time to Sean M. Hanratty.

     In spite of their weakened sobriety, they were honest and sincere in speaking to Sean’s children of their loss. They were going to miss Sean for reasons that no one else in the salon could appreciate. He had been one of them and, good or bad, and he would no longer be with them owing to his now being dead.

     After they viewed Sean, Brian gently ushered the men {Jeremy click/flash.} from the salon to downstairs for cigarettes, and shared Sean stories and forced belly-laughs. Brian stayed awhile and slipped Mike Donahue, their apparent leader, three twenties so they could continue their grieving, boilermakers probably, back at Tommy’s. Each of the gentlemen again expressed their condolences to Brian and thanked him for his supporting their grieving process.

     Dennis, the smallest of them, held back and huddled with Brian and related an event some three years earlier when two men of a different sexual persuasion wandered in to Tommy’s and ordered `sissy’ drinks and that Sean proceeded to relieve himself on their legs. They left in a huff with a lot of name calling. Tommy was not pleased with the event and had Sean mop the entire bar floor for a week in order to permit him to stay a patron.

     Neither the urinated on visitors nor Dennis knew of the sexual persuasion of Sean’s son, Brian and Erin’s brother, Mark. Brian didn’t bring it up.

     Margaret leaned over and whispered to me, “Do you know that woman?” She was eyeing a woman, tired looking, maybe mid-forties, in a well-worn housedress, holding onto a clump of Kleenex tightly. I told her I didn’t.

     Margaret had carefully ignored most of visitors during the evening and had only the briefest of commentary on a few. The woman was an unknown and a challenge. Margaret rose to make her way over to her.

     Being left alone, I looked around for a familiar face and saw none. Rather than sit alone, I walked up near the reposed Sean and said hello to Erin. Her return greeting was a sincere hug and big warm smile. {Jeremy click/flash.} It was a good to see her again.

     Erin was Sean’s second child and looked more like her mother, which was good. Erin had gone away to a novitiate when she turned sixteen to commit herself to God and educating disadvantaged children in the Deep South. Following Vatican II the ranks of nuns was decimated and Sister Erin found herself teaching in Bed-Sty in a school that no one, students and teachers, wanted to be at. Because of her habit, strong education, ability to speak Spanish and some Haitian, and community support; she rose quickly in administration and found herself no longer educating children but rather politicking at so many levels of New York City bureaucracy as Acting-Principal that after four years she chose to resign her habit and find herself anew.

     I still thought of her as a nun, though. I thought she had a `nun look’ though I couldn’t tell you exactly what that was.

     Erin was the most tolerant of everyone who knew Sean. He was not just her father but a project for her. The transition had taken place over time and wasn’t even close to finished. Erin always believed that Sean was forever getting better and that even with his frequent back-sliding his progress was marvelous. She knew, but did not speak the truth.

     Erin, though residing in the old neighborhood, didn’t see Sean everyday though they spoke when Erin made the phone call. She did see him a couple of times a month and would take him to lunch where no alcohol was served.

     “You know he wasn’t all bad,” glancing over at the casket. Brian heard her and just rolled his eyes up to the heavens.

     “He didn’t have it easy himself as a kid. His own Dad was abusive so what could we expect?”

     I believed the question to be rhetorical and said nothing.

     “You don’t believe me do you?”

     “I don’t know. Brian isn’t abusive to his kids. It has to stop somewhere. Mr. Hanratty wasn’t stupid. He should have known better.”

     “Probably, but he didn’t. He just raised us the way he was raised. Thank God that our Mom was there.”

     Erin and I chatted for a while. I found out she was `seeing’ a man, Desmond Mannix, who had studied to be a priest but who left and was now with the DEA in Newark. She seemed happy with her overall situation but a little annoyed with me that I didn’t see the good in her Dad that she did.

     She asked me if I would be coming to her apartment after the burial for a bite and maybe a drink. I told her I would.

     When I got back to the sofa Margaret was there, dragging on another cigarette. As she patted the seat beside her, she told me in a hushed tone that the woman was Eileen McSomething-or-other, from two blocks away and that she worked as a cook and waitress at The Shamrock Diner on Fifth Avenue. She said that Eileen knew Sean from the restaurant, a term used loosely, and that he was always nice to her.

     I was surprised to find that anyone could actually find Sean to have been in any way pleasant; an exception being given to the more committed Tommy’s Bar and Grill patrons.

     Margaret continued, now holding on to my arm as if it was the last loaf of bread in Brooklyn, saying that Eileen related that she and Sean had gone to the movies once in awhile, that she made him dinner once a week or so, and that they had even taken a bus trip together to Atlantic City sponsored by the church’s Senior Citizen Center.

     I was in disbelief.

     Margaret looked me right in my eyes and said, “That’s what she told me. She said that she’s gonna miss him. Can you believe it?”

     As we turned to look at her again Mark approached her and sat with her for a moment and shared a small tender and warm embrace. As we watched, though she protested politely, he walked her up to the casket and stood by her as she knelt to say a prayer. When she stood up he hugged her again {Jeremy click/flash.} and took her for introductions to Erin and Brian. Margaret and I stared with rapt attention at the turn of events.

     Erin embraced Eileen {Jeremy click/flash.} and from the demonstrations of hand-holding and smiles it appeared they were renewing an established acquaintanceship; one that even Margaret didn’t know about. Erin took Eileen over to two of the empty chairs on the side of the salon and they sat sharing a moment that Margaret and I seemed not able to believe was occurring.

     Margaret, still trying to cut off the circulation in my arm, said, “I’ll have to see Erin about this. Could the bastard actually have found a woman who saw value in him besides Patricia, God rest her poor soul.”

     A hush came over the room and all eyes turned to see only the frame of a very tall and broad Policeman blocking the light from the hallway. He stood there for a moment; looked around, removed his cap, and entered the salon.

     “That’s Sergeant Collins,” Margaret whispered to me. “’Twas many a night he dragged Sean drunken and beaten body home and plopped him by the apartment door. He would just rap on the door with his nightstick and leave rather than have to take Sean to the station house and have to put him into the system.” There was admiration in her voice. “If there were problems at home we were to call Sergeant Collins and he would try and beat some sense into Sean and would leave him in Tommy’s storeroom to sleep it off. He did it ‘cause he was Patricia’s nephew.”

     Sergeant Collins came up and stood at the foot of the casket and seemed to say a prayer and make the sign of the cross. He took his nightstick and gently wrapped on the casket twice as sort of a sign of recognition. {Jeremy click/flash.} The officer looked over at Jeremy and shot him a look that stopped him mid-click/flash. Mark rushed over and spoke to Sergeant Collins and settled things down. He then brought him over to his brother and sister.

     The rest of the night was more of the same, and while it was captivating, it was still draining.

     I didn’t go to the second night of the viewing but did speak to Brian late in the evening after it closed down. He still sounded tired and beaten. When I asked if there were any surprises that evening, he related the stories of David Costello and of the `rosary fight’.

     David Costello was a nephew of Margaret’s by adoption and peer of Mark’s in age. He was one of those kids that will probably be forever in search of himself and who is easily led `astray’. David was a little late in even getting his GED; and had had a few brushes with the law for petty theft and for using and, sometimes, selling pot. While he was `family’ he wasn’t overly welcomed and had a capability of pissing people off without really trying.

     Soon after he arrived at the salon, a little high, he made a point of hitting on any woman under forty who looked in any way passable. After a series of blatant rejections and even laughs, he was getting a little loud. First Mark and then Brian spoke to him to back off but to no avail. They were hoping he would extend his condolences and leave as soon as possible.

     When David made an overt a pass at Maureen, an obviously pregnant second cousin, her husband took a swing at David {Jeremy click/flash.} and missed {Jeremy click/flash.} but flattened two stand-up floral arrangements; one from the Longshoreman’s Local and the other a half-brother in Omaha. Mr. Preston helped-up the embarrassed husband, restored the floral arrangements, and had security usher David out of the salon and out of the Bay Ridge Funeral Home with Margaret’s nodded approval.

     On his way being exited out, David kept repeating, “Get your f*ckin’ han’s offa me, donya touch me,” and screaming back to the casket, “I love ya’ Unka Sean, I love ya.” Jeremy click/flash.}

     While the `David Event’ was certainly memorable and a sincere expression of affection; according to Brian, it wasn’t the highlight of the evening. Brian continued with the `Main Event’ of the rosaries.

     Evidently, Father Padillo from the parish stopped into the Bay Ridge Funeral Home to visit the family of one of the other recently deceased. As he walked through the hall Erin saw him and assumed that he had come to lead a rosary for her father’s soul. She made a big fuss in greeting him and pulling him {Jeremy click/flash.} into her father’s salon. With all the honor and civility he could muster, he whispered to Erin that he had not come for the Hanratty wake but to visit the Carlos DeMaio family.

     In trying to save face, Erin begged him to at least lead a decade of the rosary, but he expressed that he had a very tight schedule and would do a fine funeral service in the morning. Sensing it had not been received well, Fr. Padillo turned to the casket and made a loud though brief blessing {Jeremy click/flash.} for the mercy of God on the soul of Sean Hanratty, a lost soul on this earth and yet a child of a hopefully, very merciful, God.

     Erin, in a fit of rage, through her rosary beads {Jeremy click/flash.} at Fr. Padillo’s back as he walked from the salon and told him what he could do with them. Mr. Preston discretely picked them up and put them in his pocket.

     Yet again attempting to save face, Erin launched into leading a rosary herself. Being upset and without beads to help her keep count, she said a rosary of seven decades averaging twelve Hail Mary’s each. The visitors in the back of the salon snuck out quietly forcing the remaining crowd to respond even louder --- for their own safety.

     Before he hung up, Brian told me, “I’ll be so glad when this is over tomorrow. Oh, by the way do you have Margaret making notes for you? She’s very busy scribbling on envelopes in the rear of the salon.”

     I told Brian she wasn’t doing them for me but made a mental note to ask her for a copy.

     When I arrived at the Bay Ridge Funeral Home in the morning, the salon was pretty crowded. I asked Brian where Margaret was and he told me she was with Erin, Mr. Preston, Fr. Padillo, and a very old priest named Monsignor Kelley in the Funeral Director’s office.

     I looked around and saw Eileen in an obviously new black dress and stylish hat looking better though still grieving with Kleenex in hand. With her was a young man, maybe 16, looking very uncomfortable in an obviously borrowed and oversized sports jacket. I asked Brian who he was and he told me he was Eileen’s son Sean. He then spoke directly at me and said “Thank God he doesn’t look like anyone in our family.”

     But he did… a little. Or was it just that he looked Irish?

     When the office door opened, Erin came out looking like she was scrapping for another fight having just won one, Fr. Padillo looking like he had encountered the devil incarnate {Jeremy click/flash.}, Mr. Preston looking relieved that the Hanratty Funeral would soon be coming to an end, Fr. Kelley looking bewildered {Jeremy click/flash.} and Margaret, the payer, looking like she had been a fly on the wall to a historic encounter that would go down in the annals of all mankind.

     Margaret looked around and our eyes locked. She said in a loud whisper, “Kenny, come here, you gotta hear this. You don’t mess with any of the Hanratty’s.”

     She continued and had my full attention, “After the rosary incident last night, Erin was fit to be tied. She spent most of the night looking for another priest to conduct Sean’s service and found Fr. Kelley, well into his retirement, over in Joisey. He agreed to do the service if Erin picked him up in the morning and took him back in time for dinner. Erin had to leave here at 4 A.M. just to get him.

     “When she told Fr. Padillo this morning that he would not be doing the service he said it was his church and that it was him or nobody, AND that he was doing Erin a favor. Erin stood up and got in his face and told him that she knew what was going on in the parish with the money and the good father’s trips to Miami and she would make sure he was reassigned to Bed-Sty if he refused her father a Catholic service. Preston mediated the situation and they agreed that Fr. Padillo would lead the procession from the Bay Ridge Funeral Home to the church and that he would be allowed to sit in the presider’s chair in the sanctuary. Fr. Kelley would conduct the service with Erin beside him.”

     “Good God. I see sweet Erin in a whole new light,” I said

     Margaret scanned the crowd and said “Doesn’t Eileen’s son look a little like Mark?”

     All I could say was, “Don’t go there Margaret, don’t go there!”

     She changed the subject again with, “We have room in the limos; do you want to ride with us?”

     “I don’t think so. Brian asked me to ride with Erin, Mark and him in his car.”

     “I don’t know why I rented two damn limos. All I have in it is Fr. Kelley, Eileen and her son, Jeremy, and myself.”

     It was out of my mouth before I realized it, “Take good notes.”

     She smiled.

     Mr. Preston gathered everyone around the still open casket and asked if anyone had anything to say.

     Waiting patiently but uncomfortably, I glanced at Sean M. Hanratty waiting for his final trip to begin. Evidently during the wake, people had put items in the casket that they thought Sean might need in the hereafter.

     The items included a pack of Lucky Strikes, a fifth of Jameson’s, a U.S. Bicentennial pin, an OTB t-shirt, two New York Mets tickets, a small bottle of Maalox, and a twenty-dollar bill. It was the first time I had seen the custom but I figured these items were right for Sean.

     Finally some people spoke up. After a few, “God bless you Sean.” and “Pray for us,” Erin coughed for attention and said, “Mark has a few words.”

     From the look on his totally surprised face we could all see that this opportunity to speak was totally impromptu. Quickly composing himself and his thoughts he started, “Our Dad, Sean M. Hanratty, was not perfect and would not be held by many as a model father or husband. He had faults and failings but he was true to himself. You could take him of leave him; he didn’t care. He was totally who he was. For good or bad, those who came to know him will probably never forget him. For those of you, and us, that he has hurt; I ask that you now forgive him and get over it for he will be judged on more points than we could ever imagine. Dad, may God be both just and merciful to you.”

     There was a moment of silence and Erin asked Brian if he had anything to say and he shook his head “No.”

     Erin coughed again and said, “Throughout my life I must have written hundreds of letters to my father that I never sent having had better judgment intercede at the last moment. I can only say thank you to Mark for capturing all my thoughts and feelings so well.”

     Erin was gently weeping as was Eileen and many of the other women.

     Mr. Preston waited to see if anyone else would speak and then asked that we line up for the procession to the church that would be led by Fr. Padillo. {Jeremy click/flash.} {Jeremy click/flash.}

     The service was brief with no eulogies. {Jeremy click/flash.} {Jeremy click/flash.} The singing was performed by Tomas Martinez, the current presiding Irish tenor for the parish.

     Erin wore a white altar-boy tunic and helped Fr. Kelley. There wasn’t a lot of pomp. The attendees had thinned out though the church had a number of old women in black who seem to show up for funerals. I could never figure out how the word got out so fast.

     The trip to Holy Cross Cemetery was quiet. The gathering around the grave site was solemn. Fr. Kelley asked if anyone had any last words and there was silence till Sean McSomething-or-other stepped forward and said, “I promised Mr. Hanratty I’d do this so here goes.” From inside his jacket he pulled two bumper stickers and pasted them on the casket in a split second. One read `Death is God’s way of telling you you’re fired.’ and the other ‘I’m not drunk enough yet you shilly sit.’ {Jeremy click/flash.} {Jeremy click/flash.}

     My eyes shot over to Eileen and her face showed deep praise for her son and a warm smile of closure for a relationship.

     The murmur of giggles and guffaws went through the crowd as the sayings were passed back. Erin at first looked shocked and then laughed loudly and announced, “It’s done, Sean M. Hanratty got the last word on all of us and a Sean did it for him. Put ‘im in the ground and let’s get something to eat.” {Jeremy click/flash.} She walked over and hugged Sean and gave him a big, noisy kiss on the cheek.

     Erin’s apartment was way too small for all the people she invited back. Many just came in for a Jameson’s or a Harp’s and to just restate their condolences, possibly make an embellished toast, remind Brian of a debt, and then leave. The table of food, mostly cold-cuts and deli salads, was hardly being touched though it looked as if some damage had been done by the first arrivals.

     Fr. Kelley was sitting in a wingchair and had dozed off. Mark was mostly conversing with Jeremy and Brian was chatting with visitors in general. Margaret was hanging out at the kitchen drain-board, being used as a makeshift bar with a large block of ice in the sink, talking with Eileen, with her hat in one hand and a Jameson’s neat in the other, as if they were girlfriends from high school.

     I mingled for awhile and then started to make my way around to say my goodbyes to people I probably might not see ever again. All the `thanks’ and hugs and hand shakes were warm and sincere lubricated in the slightest way by the drink.

     As I was walking out the door Brian caught up with me and asked to walk me down to my car.

     We talked about the old days and how the neighborhood had changed. We spoke of friends, family, failings, and frustrations. There were a few moments of strained silence. Finally, Brian spoke, “Thanks Kenny for coming. I do appreciate you being here. While we’ve not been that close I still consider you a good friend. I’m glad the funeral is over though.”

     “I’m glad I could come. It’s a big event,” I paused, “What’s gonna happen to the Clan Hanratty now?”

     “Mark and Jeremy are gonna go back to California and I told Erin she should marry the DEA guy, settle down and raise a family. Me? I got a good life in Boston and I’m very happy with Anne and the boys. The past is passed. My connection with Brooklyn will finally come to an end and that’s probably okay.”

     “What about you, Kenny? What’s it gonna be?” he asked, returning the question.

     “I still have some family in Brooklyn though they’ll probably be moving to Jersey. Brooklyn is important to me. I have a lot of memories and stories that, sooner or later, I have to capture. I’m not sure how but I’ll do it."

     “My family is happy in Milltown. I can get to the city or Brooklyn pretty easily and it’s a good place to raise a family. Who knows where I’ll be in five years,” I continued.

     After we both spent some time looking at our feet and not saying anything I tried to bring closure to what was becoming a little uncomfortable.

     “You know, Brian, you’re a good guy and I love you. I wish we had stayed closer. I wish you and the family only the best.”

     “I love you too Kenny. You and your family helped us through some tough times. God bless you. Stay in touch.”

     We hugged each other and I gave him a kiss on the cheek. We each turned away and went on with our lives having been brought together, and then separated, by Sean M. Hanratty.

[end] © Copyright by Ken Thompson - 2004.