The Old Overholt and Other Stories

By Michaela Casey

A dreamer, a talker, a merrymaker, and a moralist, Tim Cadigan is classic Boston Irishjust the kind of local color that writer Mitch Goldberg is looking for when he moves to a working-class Dorchester neighborhood. Mitch soon learns that his elderly neighbor is both a prolific storyteller and a fascinating character, hilarious and neurotic, open-minded and self-righteous, kind and thoughtless, honorable and cagey, forgiving and grudge holding.
After hearing dozens of stories from Tims family and friends, Mitch decides to compile a broad sampling, including his own favorite, in which Tim produces a deathbed miracle of sorts with a shot of whiskey and a beer chaser. Blending humor and poignancy, other stories describe Tims righteous defense of a tenant victimized by prejudice, his madcap efforts to get the pope to stop in for tea, his extraordinary determination to reverse his brothers mental illness, his annual yuletide roast of the regulars at the Connemara Gardens Bar and Grille, and his final days at the home he loves.
The Old Overholt and Other Stories is a lively portrayal of an endearing, complex individual and the people, times, and place that shaped him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 4, 2017
• ISBN: 9781532013645

Michaela Casey

A native of Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood, Michaela Casey taught adolescents with special needs for forty years. She and her husband now live entirely off the grid in the western Maine foothills. In retirement, she plans to devote more time to her long-standing avocation, creative writing.

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Copyright © 2017 Michaela Casey.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-1363-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-1364-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016921099

iUniverse rev. date: 01/04/2017

CONTENTS

The Saint Aloysius Story

The Old Overholt Story

The Sister Augusta Story

The Wedding Engagements Story

The Turning Points Story

The Finality of Death Story

The Millpond Story

The Naddie Story

The Grandpa Joseph Story

The Purgatory on Earth Story

The Pope Story

The Morning Mass Story

The Never Leaving Story

The Brotherhood Story

To the character who inspired me, my father, Tom Casey,

1914–2009

and forever

THE SAINT ALOYSIUS STORY

MITCH GOLDBERG

I guess you could say Tim Cadigan and I were meant for each other. I’m a writer, and he was a character.

I usually create the people in my stories, which are concoctions of folks I’ve known and my random, occasionally inventive musings. However, as I got to know Tim firsthand and through his family and friends, I realized I had stumbled upon someone who was a concoction in his own right—someone who made the cliché They broke the mold when they made that one seem fresh and apt. Tim possessed all the parts of a fleshed-out character, but just as important, his whole exceeded their sum. As you’ll see in the following pages, he was hilarious and neurotic, open-minded and self-righteous, kind and thoughtless, honorable and cagey, forgiving and grudge holding. No matter what words I might choose to describe him, I still feel the definitive, encompassing ones lie just beyond my grasp.

I met Tim at a meeting of the Dorchester Civic Association. My wife and I, both new to Boston, had bought a three-story house with an apartment on each floor (a.k.a. a three-decker, or an Irish battleship) near Saint Aloysius Church. Both of us were raised in upscale but flavorless suburbs, so we were delighted by the distinctively Catholic ambience of our new neighborhood. We’d found the house, which was located on Saint Aloysius Street, through real estate listings identified by parish. Our first tenants were a trio of nuns experimenting with life outside the convent, and little kids wearing green plaid skirts or neckties trooped past our house every morning. We chose Saint A’s, as it’s called, because a friend had told us that it was a bastion of sorts for quintessential Boston old-timers. It seemed, therefore, the ideal place for me to get some material for my new book, which was, at that point, a vaguely sketched story about intergenerational friendships. My only motive for joining the DCA was to look for local color I could weave into my characters. I never anticipated making a dear friend who would weave himself and his love of the neighborhood into my life.

When I arrived at the parish hall for my first meeting, Tim broke away from the group he was chatting with and hustled over to me with an outstretched arm. He appeared to be in his midseventies. He was jowly, gray haired, and slightly stooped, but he had the smooth, rosy complexion and keen, bright eyes of a much younger man.

Tim Cadigan, he said, and then, as if in apposition, he added, I’ve lived in this parish my whole life, you know.

After a pause—intended for emphasis, I now think—he said, "In the house where I was born—delivered, actually. He paused again. Jeez, where I was conceived. After a third pause, he said, Can you imagine?"

I smiled—not, as Tim might have thought, in appreciation of this feat but because I suspected I’d just met one rainbow of an old-timer.

When I told him my name, the right corner of his lips flickered with the suggestion of a smile.

Ah, are you one of the Galway Goldbergs? he asked, his expression now deadpan.

Somehow, my memory produced the name of the Irish county my editor’s husband came from.

Oh no, I said, trying to look as serious as he did. My branch of the clan hails from Killarney.

For the first time, I experienced Tim’s laugh. It wasn’t something you just heard or saw; it was more like an inspiration. His mouth hung wide open, and his cheeks and eyes were radiant. It was a big-man burst of little-kid delight—spontaneous, pure, and irresistible. It spread throughout the room each time he introduced me as Mitch O’Goldberg, a nice Irish boy from County Tel Aviv! HA-ha-ha! It peaked when he greeted a man and a woman clearly decades younger than he and then told me in a dramatic whisper clearly intended for everyone to hear, Don’t tell anybody, but I’m their secret love child. HA-ha-ha!

The mood changed, though, as soon as the meeting began. The first order of business that night was a proposed assisted-living facility for mentally handicapped adults. The owner of the abutting three-decker was there to ask the DCA to support his opposition to the project. His presentation was short on facts and long on fearmongering, but it appeared to have its desired effect. When he had finished speaking, a pale, scowling man stood up.

This guy’s right. It’d be bad for all of us—safety, property values, the whole nine yards, he said. I mean, ya never know what those people are gonna do. They’re retarded for Chrissake!

Comments from several others, though not all as strident, made it clear that opposition to the project was widespread. Then Tim took the floor.

I find it strange listening to what’s been said here in the parish hall of Saint Aloysius, he said, trawling the room for eye contact. "As you undoubtedly know, he was a man who, during a terrible epidemic, housed the dying in his own home—his own home, mind you—where he washed and fed and comforted them, ultimately sacrificing his life."

I swear everyone stopped breathing.

"Now, I wonder if Aloysius gave a moment’s thought to his safety or property values. Probably not. I tend to think that his values were more Christlike and that he would want us, who meet and worship God here, to honor his name by following his good example."

He sat down with his hands clasped and head slightly bowed—praying, it seemed—but that tiny smile had reappeared.

I thought some of the objectors would resent being preached to, but if they did, there was no sign of it on their faces, which looked almost uniformly chastened—even the scowler’s. No one said a word after the chairman asked for further comments.

As paper ballots were being distributed, I wondered if Tim would be as successful in changing people’s votes as he had been in silencing their objections.

Yes, as it turned out, and by a decent margin.

Afterward, I asked him if he was surprised at the outcome.

Surprised? Nah, he said. Guilt’s a great moral persuader. Your people know that, my boy. It’s kind of like corned beef—there’s the Jewish kind and the Irish kind. They look different, but they both hit the same spot.

So our friendship began with a story. I was to hear many more over the next few years—from Tim and from those who loved him. I got the idea of compiling the stories for publication after I overheard an exchange between a couple of his old pals.

I tell ya, there’s nothin’ like a good Tim Cadigan story, James.

Cripes, Charlie, there’s no such thing as a bad one!

When I broached the notion to Tim, he said with a quizzical frown that made me think he was about to kibosh the idea, Stories about me?

A few seconds later, though, he said, Jeez, Goldberg—it sounds like a best seller! HA-ha-ha!

Thus, I offer you a few episodes in the life of Timothy Michael Cadigan. Sadly, he never got to see the finished work, because not long after I started my interviews, his health declined with shocking speed. The O’Goldberg he instilled in me, though, likes to think he’s reading it on the other side and maybe raising a glass of Jameson in my honor. I also hope that if I’m lucky enough to get there someday, he’ll pat me on the back and say, You may not be Irish, boy, but you’re a damn good spud nonetheless.

I’m allowing myself the first and the last words, beginning with the story I recall most fondly and concluding with a flight of pure imagination that lets me join Tim’s circle of friends at a special time—long before I was born—and in a special place. In between, his loved ones have the floor with their own reminiscences of what more than one of them called the genuine article.

THE OLD OVERHOLT STORY

RETOLD BY MITCH GOLDBERG

O ur elderly host raises his glass of whiskey and studies its amber glow in the candlelight long enough that we begin to wonder where his thoughts have roamed this time. His face gives conflicting clues, for his