Johnny Nolan Timeline and Summary

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• Papa’s signature move is that he comes home in the middle of the night singing the Irish folk song "Molly Malone," and the whole family gets up to hang with him a bit before going back to sleep.
• Johnny and Katie marry young and work as night janitors at a school. They have a great time at their job until Johnny loses it the night Katie goes into labor with Francie. He forgets all about going to work, and overnight pipes freeze and burst.
• The idea of being a dad makes him a nervous wreck, but Katie comforts him and he starts to feel better.
• Johnny goes to work as a singing waiter with his brother one night, and ends up getting hired for another night, too. Lo and behold, Johnny stumbles back into this unreliable work.
• Johnny gets more and more undependable, to the point where Katie stops depending on him at all.
• Johnny is drinking excessively and suffers from delirium tremens, the physical withdrawal symptoms of alcoholism.
• He gets so bad with his wailing and screaming through an attempt to sober up that Katie is too embarrassed to stay in the apartment anymore.
• Papa goes in spurts, alternating between being a heavy drinker and trying to get his act together for his kids.
• Mama whispers something in Papa’s ear, and soon after, Papa starts acting very strangely. It is like he is drunk, but he is sober, and one day he comes home and looks like he has been sleeping in the gutter. He weeps that he lost his job and can’t sing anymore.
• Mama takes him to bed and comforts him untul he is asleep, but by the morning, he has left for the last time.
• He is found close to death in a doorway and is taken to a hospital.
• Mama arrives before Johnny dies, and sits with him holding his hand until he does.
• Johnny ends up helping Mama after he dies because Mr. McGarrity, who really misses Johnny’s company, wants to hire both Francie and Neeley to work a little after school. Without this help, Francie would have had to drop out of grade school to work.
• We find out that what Mama whispered to Johnny earlier is that she is pregnant with their third child.