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Kindness was a rare thing in 10 year old Johnny Mulcahy’s family. Both his parents drank, his father Patrick especially, and could be unpleasant when he saw the bottom of the liquor bottle. It didn’t help much that Johnny was smaller, shyer, and more studious than his 3 older brothers. Seen as weaker and possibly more effeminate than the other boys, he was often the brunt of his father’s drunken rages and ignored by his mother, Mary Agnes.
The two things that saved Johnny from a young life completely devoid of joy were his sister and best friend Catherine, one year younger than he, and his love of boxing. As a teen when he took up boxing at the CYO, he would wonder if he became interested in boxing to connect with his father or if it was simply one of the few things they had in common.
On good days Patrick, a beat cop in their Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, would allow Johnny to listen to a match with him on the family’s Zenith Stratosphere radio. On better days, the two would walk to the gym in their neighborhood to watch the local boys fight. A few times a year they might take the bus all the way to North Philadelphia for a semi-professional match.
“You shouldn’t ask him, Johnny.” Catherine warned one afternoon near Thanksgiving. The two were in the shed shared with their downstairs neighbor, the Pfisters, behind their small rowhouse apartment hiding from their older brothers and Mary Agnes. Catherine had torn the hem of her second best dress climbing a tree during recess and was afraid to tell her mother.
Johnny glanced up from the back of his Dick Tracy comic where he shamefully coveted the advertised Tom Mix pocket knife with pearlesque grip and picture of Tom Mix and his horse Tony. “But Catherine, it’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted. Surely just once....”
“You’ll just cause trouble. You know Christmas gifts are things we need. Not things we want.” Her voice dropped a few notes to imitate their father. “You kids think Christmas is a time for getting frivolous things. You’ll be glad for the few useful things your mother and I can afford.”
Johnny pushed his glasses further up his nose and sighed. He supposed Catherine was right. Still, it would be nice to have something under the tree on Christmas morning other than socks, underwear, and a new church outfit, even if it meant having to wear his brother Colin’s dress slacks from last year. He shivered as a heavy wind blew at the thin walls of the shed. “Come on in the house, Catherine.” He said. “I’ve been watching Mother when she sews in the evening. I believe I can mend that torn hem, and she’ll never be the wiser.”
That night lying in the bed he shared with Colin, he listened to his older brothers snore and formulated a plan. He supposed he did still need socks and underwear. But maybe, just maybe, if he caught his father on a good day, he could explain that a Tom Mix and Tony pocket knife was still a useful item. With careful mending he could get by another year with Colin’s old pants, or perhaps his middle brother Aidan's pants from two years ago instead. He’d been quite pleased with the job he’d done on Catherine’s dress earlier. His stitches looked almost as neat as Mother’s.
On a good day a few weeks later Johnny seized his chance walking home from a fight. Patrick had bet against the local lightweight, a spry negro with a heck of an uppercut, and won big. Even the slush dampening their shoes and pants cuffs did little to dampen his spirits. “Johnny, my son, today’s winnings will make for a good Christmas dinner yet.”
If you don’t drink it all, Johnny thought in a sudden surge of cynicism. Instead he righted himself and said, “About that, Father. I was wondering. Rather than new Sunday pants this year, I’d like a Tom Mix pocket knife. The pearlesque handle one with the picture of Tom Mix and Tony. I could help Mother mend Colin or Aidan’s old pants for mass, and I haven’t grown that much this year....”
“Corp dicheile.” Patrick muttered.
“But father...” Johnny protested. “A knife could be quite useful. I could use it to open packages, cut string and cording, open a letter, trim the wicks on the altar candles, cut strips of cloth for a bandage in a pinch. Why I could even use it to cut up an apple! It could be quite the lifesaver!” He blushed at his last words, knowing he’d been too dramatic.
“Is minic a bhris beal duine a shron.” Patrick warned.
Johnny stopped. He’d seen his oldest brother Joseph nurse a broken nose for talking out of turn, and he’d known the sudden blunt pain of a night stick when it struck the tender areas of the upper thigh. They walked nearly 3 blocks in silence before Patrick glanced sideways at Johnny. “You’re not as stupid nor the coward your brothers believe you to be.” He said almost to himself. “Still a scrawny damned thing, though.”
Once Patrick and Johnny reached home, Patrick poured himself and Mary Agnes a celebratory drink while Johnny went in search of Catherine. He found her on the small bed she had to herself in the corner of their parents’ room trying to hem a handkerchief for Mrs. Pfister. Pulling aside the sheet hung from hooks in the ceiling meant to give her and their parents some privacy, Johnny spoke. “I asked him, Cathy. I asked him for the knife.”
Catherine’s eyes grew wide. “Johnny...”
“He said it was folly and told me to be quiet, but he didn’t say no.” Johnny said.
Catherine mulled over this for a moment before cursing a large knot in the thread. “Maybe if I asked Mother she would get me a set of knitting needles and some yarn.”
“Why whatever for? You hate needlework.” Johnny looked over his glasses at his sister. And you’re not very good at it, he continued affectionately in his head.
“I’d rather have a basketball, but I don’t think they’d find that useful. Besides, Stefano Dinapoli down the street said I could play with his basketball if I’d knit him a hat.” she explained.
On Christmas morning the family dressed early and trudged through the snow to church for early mass. Johnny was sore at Colin for being chosen altar boy for the morning. Colin didn’t take the position nearly as seriously as he, and he resented not being selected on such an important day. Nonetheless, wiggling a toe through the hole in his worn sock, he worked to put aside his resentment for the closest thing his family felt as cheer all year. His anger over something so insignificant to the rest of the family would do him no good anyway. Miraculously Patrick and Mary Agnes hadn’t drunk all the winnings from the boxing match a few weeks ago. A large roast goose, boiled potatoes, creamed onions, Brussels sprouts, and an apple pie (Catherine’s specialty) waited for the family at home for dinner. Johnny tried not to be too anxious about what may or may not lay under the haphazardly decorated Christmas tree.
“Nollaig Shona duit! Happy Christmas to you!” The family greeted the priest and fellow church goers following mass. Eager to get home, Johnny stood quietly with Catherine by the door to wait for his parents while his brothers pushed and shoved at each other. Occasionally they tried to take a swipe at Johnny to lure him into the roughhousing. He dodged several sloppy cuffs to the side of the head, taking off his glasses when one made partial contact. The last thing he needed was to have his glasses broken on Christmas morning! Catherine, whose temper wasn’t as even, stamped her foot before she stormed outside to avoid her brothers altogether. One parting “Nollaig Shona duit, Father Fitzgerald!” and the Mulcahy family was finally headed home.
As gifts were sorted, Johnny noted all the packages to all his siblings were the same size as his, and his heart sank. There were stockings, of course, for all the children with a few treasured pieces of chocolate, some nuts, one tangerine, and a shiny quarter in each toe. But then he realized Catherine had an extra thinner box, and Father said “Johnny, what’s that box small enough to fit in my hand?” He looked again and found a something with a tag larger than the package itself. “To Johnny,” the tag read. Joseph, Aidan, and Colin each received precisely 7 pairs of socks, 7 pairs of undershorts, a pair of black slacks, and one white button down shirt. Johnny realized that he and Catherine only received 3 pairs of sock each and 7 pairs of underwear. Johnny had a pair of slacks and a white shirt while Catherine unwrapped her new church dress and a sweater to go over it in the colder months. “You’ll have to make due with last year’s socks.” They were warned.
Catherine was already opening her extra package while Johnny turned his small box over in his hands before he slipped a finger under the butcher’s string to loosen the brown paper. The box bore an impression of Tom Mix’s autograph. The knife with the pearlesque handle shone in the sunlight streaming through the front window. Johnny could barely breathe for the perceived kindness of the moment.
“Tapadh leat.” He met his father’s eyes, knowing the expression in Patrick’s native tongue would convey his sincerity. Though they understood the language, the children of the family rarely spoke Gaelic. To his left, Catherine attempted to show her own appreciation to Mary Agnes for a new set of knitting needles and a ball of green wool.
“Hey!” Joseph interrupted the moment. “Why did those two brats get extra gifts?”
“Because they asked for something else useful instead of socks.” Patrick said, giving his older son a look that shut down any further conversation. He turned to his youngest son. “You lose that knife, Johnny, I’ll beat your hide to Toledo and back, you hear?” Patrick said, pouring himself his first whiskey of the day. Johnny knew his father meant it too. Between the threat from his father and the love for his knife, from that Christmas Day on he was never without it.
At night Johnny placed the pocket knife carefully on his side of the sock drawer in the dresser he and Colin shared, tucked under his black socks reserved for Sundays he served as altar boy. As soon as he put on his pants in the morning, he slid the knife in his front right pocket. He did indeed use it to trim wicks of altar candles, the ends of yarn for Catherine, and idly sharpen sticks for no apparent reason. His father showed him how to use a small wet stone to keep it sharp. “A dull knife is a dangerous knife, Johnny, and of no use,” Patrick said.
When he moved on to Loyola University on a boxing scholarship, the knife went with him where he used it frequently for cutting open packages and slicing an apple or a chunk of cheese. The knife rested in his front pocket on Johnny’s final trip home from Chicago to Philadelphia for seminary, where he registered with the draft board as a conscientious objector during World War II. It pressed lightly against Johnny’s thigh as he knelt to become Father Francis John Patrick Mulcahy.
He used it to open a multitude of envelopes including the letter from Colin’s commanding officer after Colin’s death in France shortly after D-Day; notes from Catherine at the convent in San Diego where she coached women’s basketball at the CYO; and his own draft board notice in 1950. (He felt serving in Colin’s stead was the least he could do).
The knife was in its usual place in his pocket as the jeep carrying Radar O’Reily, a wounded soldier, and himself squealed to a halt on a dusty road near the 38th Parallel. He and Radar ducked when a mortar blast hit too close to the jeep. “Listen, Father.” Hawkeye Pierce’s voice crackled over the handheld radio. “You have a first aid kit. See if there’s anything sharp in there.”
Radar dug frantically through the medkit. Father Mulcahy remembered a conversation he’d had with his father 20 years before. “I’ve got my Tom Mix pocket knife! It’s quite sharp!”
“Dear Sis,” Father Mulcahy wrote once he returned home to the 4077th MASH unit, “The most extraordinary thing happened today. Do you remember that pocket knife I asked Father for when we were kids? Today it proved most useful indeed.”
The letter went on to describe the mortar shells, the wounded man who suddenly couldn’t breathe, and the directions radioed to him to perform a tracheotomy. Mulcahy ended with “Hawkeye says I was brave and saved that man’s life. Perhaps that’s so, but I felt too frightened by the bombing and the blood to think about being brave. I couldn’t even think of a proper prayer to help guide me through. All I could hear in my head was Father’s voice calling me scrawny, small, and useless. I wonder if Father would be proud of me, Sis. I wonder, if he were still alive, would I even bother to tell him. Anyway, I must close and go check on our young Corporal O’Riley. He still seems shaken by the experience. Peace to you, Your loving brother, Johnny.”