Colin Sullivan turns to his lover, Madolyn, in Scorsese's film, The Departed.
They are naked in bed.
He's in very big trouble and the trouble is closing in. She's the only decent thing in his life— yet they know very little of each other.
"If we're not gonna make it," Colin says to her, "it's gotta be you that gets out, 'cause I'm not capable.
"I'm fuckin' Irish, so I'll deal with something being wrong the rest of my life."
That's the line where I fell off the couch.
I scrambled for the remote control in the dark. I made the lovers go backward, and then I listened to the man say it again:
I'm Irish. I'll deal with something being wrong the rest of my life.
I cried. What did this movie-writer know that no one in my family had ever told me? His delivery explained generations of my Irish-American family's inexplicable dissolution.
I looked up The Departed's screenwriter, Bill Monahan, and found out that I was not the only one to be so affected. It's his original phrase, although I keep expecting him to confess that his grandmother put it in his bottle.
Other blogs have dug into Monahan's motto. Brendan Kelly, a psychiatry professor at University College Dublin, is quoted by one:
"The Irish have an unrivaled history of failed revolutions, which are now interpreted as covert victories of one sort or another...This comes from generations of putting the best possible spin on generations of defeats."
Perhaps other ethnic groups resonate with similiar feelings; I don't know. But not everyone. The classic WASP mentality is that if you buckle down and work hard, you can beat the devil. You can expect to solve your battles with discipline and elbow grease. Striving pays off and so does entitlement.
That is a huge laugh to Papists and fatalists.
None of us start out that way. Children have a great deal of hope— and find it appealing believe that if they're "good" and "try hard," that things ought to work out. It is painful to get that stuffing knocked out of you.
"The Irish caricature is outgoing," I read on, from Dr. Paul Lynch, a psychoanalyst at Harvard.
"But when it comes to serious emotions that aren't a ballad or a joke or a story, they try to deflect attention to themselves out of fear of being ashamed of what would be seen. It's a part of the culture, the shame and embarrassment about sexuality, the role of the church and being dominated by the English for so long."
I always wanted my Irish family to be themselves, yet be able to allow a little light in. I wasn't asking for a complete strip.
My favorite aunt wouldn't tolerate my questions about our family tragedies. She liked to pick fights, though. She'd say, "Do you think I'm a fucking idiot?" when I suggested "talking" about a sudden family death or disappearance. "There is no fucking point to talking about ANYTHING."
One time I got angry."Yeah. This whole family is fucking crazy to think that if we die young and beat each other bloody and hang ourselves and drink ourselves to death and no one says a SINGLE WORD about it, then that will be a fitting end to the whole family line."
I can dish it out, too. But she didn't budge. And now she's gone.
Whatever usefulness the "silent treatment" lent to the my Irish family's early years, it outlived its benefits. The survivors— my contemporaries— are almost entirely estranged from each other. I wouldn't recognize more than one of my thirteen cousins if I ran into them on the street.
As much as I've tried to change that.. and perhaps they've made their attempts too...the doors are nailed down pretty tight. When we get disconnected on our own, self-destructive, or when things get brutal, no one makes the connection that this isn't some wild hair... it's an inheritance.
I did a lecture ten years ago in a big city where an adult cousin of mine came to meet me.We'd never met because our parents had a 45-year-old feud that TO THIS DAY is a mystery.
"Did your dad ever mention my mom?" I asked.
"Nope, never."
"I have pictures of them when they were young where they look like best friends, rowing a boat."
"I know."
"Well, she cries when I ask and then she gets mad so I've given up. But I found a old family notebook that says my mom's first word as a baby was calling out for her brother. —Before she said 'Ma' or 'Da'."
My cousin shook his head and went to back to the auditorium to smoke. He'd just gotten off from work, still in his dungarees.
One of the stage managers came up to me. "Do you want me to call security and get that man out of here? He looks a little sketchy."
"You're kidding," I said. "He looks just like me. He's my cousin; he's probably just a little uptight. He won't hurt anyone."
What did she see?
I exchanged Xmas cards with my cousin for a few years. Then both our parents died and his address dried up. No forwarding anything. I wouldn't think that much of it, but given the family history... I brace myself.
I am going to deal with some things being wrong the rest of my life.
The last family elder who called me up, loaded, to insinuate dark secrets and accusations— which she had no intention of spelling out— I stopped her in her tracks. I said, "If there's a body stuffed up a chimney, call the police, but don't call me anymore. I have stepped out of the game."
I have cleared away the brush. I finished writing a memoir this past month and I wrote everything I wish I could have shared with my elder family. Maybe I should have called it: "Silent Treatment."
There is another memorable piece of blarney on mental health in The Departed. Lucky Matt Damon gets to spread the myth:
"What Freud said about the Irish is: We're the only people who are impervious to psychoanalysis."
My now-departed aunts and uncles would have roared to hear it.
Previous St. Patrick's Day stories:
A St. Paddy's Day Message to Mother - 2009
Hunter Thompson's Wake at the Castle - 2005
Tommy, We Hardly Knew Ye- 2008
The Night I Stopped Believing - 2007Papist Girl Sing-Out! - 2006
Photo Album: Wearing of the Green -2007