City of Dreams (35 page)

“I thought old things got more valuable.”

“Some things don’t. Old men, old clothes, old bonds from an old government.” Plunkitt flicked his ash. “The Treasury man said a few people had tried suin’, but the government decides who can sue them and who can’t. You have to fight that fight first.”

Tim Riley slumped back in the chair.

“Best thing, son, sell them to a collector. Try Daly’s boss, J. P. Morgan. He collects old autographs, old government papers, and such. He might be interested. But quit thinkin’ that these are worth real money.” Plunkitt picked up the paper, as if to say that the meeting was over.

Then Graziano came whistling back.

Tim climbed down from the chair. “Thank you, sir.”

And Plunkitt lowered the paper again, “How old are you, boy?”

“Almost fourteen.”

“When I was fourteen, I went to work drivin’ a cart for the contractor cuttin’ in the paths and the pretty bowers of what we now call Central Park. Then I went down to Washington Market and worked as a butcher’s boy. Learned knife-sharpenin’ and meat-cuttin’, learned how to tell the difference ’tween the tenderloin and the chuck—”

“Eh . . . you learn you like the tenderloin,” said Graziano. “That’s what you learn.”

Plunkitt smiled. Sitting on his wooden throne, beneath those little flags, he looked like the benevolent ruler of a small and quiet kingdom, so secure in his power that he took no umbrage when one of his subjects made a joke at his expense.

“What about you?” he asked Tim. “You like the tenderloin?”

“I guess.”

“The tenderloin is meat, son, good red meat, not pie in the sky, not like a box of old bonds you found when you was tearin’ down a house.”

“How did you know there was a box of them?” asked Tim.

“I didn’t, till just now. But it don’t matter whether you got a box full of ’em or just one. A hundred times zero and one times zero is both zero. That’s mathematics.”

“That’s what my pa said I should study.”

“Because he was practical. He didn’t want you crammin’ your skull with all kinds of college rot like that Shakespeare, who might know about English kings and airy fairies runnin’ around English forests, but who don’t know nothin’ about New York City.”

The boy shoved his hands into his pockets and looked at the floor, “I guess I like Shakespeare’s stories. I like his speeches.”

“I like stories, too,” said Plunkitt. “I tell enough of ’em. As for speeches . . . well, it don’t matter that I only had three years of schoolin’. I can sling the English with any silk stockin’ in the district. But smart men keep their tongues still and their brains active.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So remember”—Plunkitt pulled out a match and relit his cigar—“education is good, but common sense is better, and when it’s yoked to hard work . . .
that’s
the best.”

“Yes, sir.”

“After I learned I liked the tenderloin, I asked myself how to get it. I went into contractin’, usin’ what I learned drivin’ that cart. Then I had to ask myself how to get the best contracts. That’s when I decided to go into politics. So I started an association.”

For a man who believed in keeping his tongue still, thought Tim, Plunkitt sure could make it move.

“I asked a few fellers in my tenement to back me, and they did. Then I asked a few more on my block, and they did. Pretty soon, I had a gang of fellers who’d stick by me in a political fight or any other kind. That’s when I started gettin’ attention at the hall. And it all come from common sense and hard work, and rememberin’ the first rule.”

“What’s that?”

“Every man wants somethin’. Figure out what it is, find a way to give it to him, and you’ll make a friend for life. . . . Now let me see your hands.”

Tim pulled them out of his pockets and offered them, palm up.

“No callus, so I don’t guess you’ve done much drivin’, so we won’t put you on a team.” Plunkitt peered into the boy’s eyes. “And you don’t look tough enough to handle yourself in the Washington Market just yet—”

Tim resented that. He
was
tough. But he knew he would have to get tougher.

Plunkitt kept talking. “Go home and think what it is you really
want
. Then come back and see me. Bring your brother, too. And Tim—”

“Yes, sir?”

“This is a grand and imperial city you live in. It will reward you, if you make the right choice.”

ii.

Tim walked all the way home, so that he could save the nickel carfare and stop off at the New York Society Library on Twelfth Street. He stayed for two hours in the upstairs reading room, surrounded by the railed balcony, the walnut shelves, and the warm wood, all bathed in the gentle glow of the skylight.

By the time he got back to Hell’s Kitchen, it was near three o’clock. So he went up Eighth Avenue, on the side opposite Washington Hall, but Uncle Billy wasn’t waiting. No surprise. Probably drunk. So Tim turned for home.

As he passed under the El, he saw a gang of kids clustered in front of his tenement, as if there was a fight. He began to run.

“Y
OU AIN’T PUSHIN’
me around,” Eddie was leaning on his crutch and trying to stand up to a kid who was a head taller and muscled like a man.

“Things are changin’.” That was Dinny Boyle. He was seventeen and already chewed tobacco and drank and ran a crap game at the corner. His father was a conductor on the New York Central. His mother was a drunk, often seen around the corner at McGillicuddy’s.

“Things are changin’?” repeated Eddie. “Says who and so what?”

“Says me, and so what
you
got to do, if you want to sit on this stoop and play your harmonica . . . is pay.”

“Pay who?” said Eddie.

“Pay me.” Boyle said it loudly so that all the kids could hear, and any grown-ups looking out the windows could, too. “I’m the new street captain.”

“Street captain?” said Eddie. “What’s that?”

“A job I just got,” said Boyle.

“My old man needs a job,” said one of the other kids. “Who give
you
a job?”

“Yeah,” said another. “With this panic thing, everybody’s old man needs a job.”

What Dinny Boyle said next caused Tim to stop in his tracks: “The Irish Niners give me the job.”

“The Irish Niners?” said one of the younger kids. “Who are they?”

“They used to be a gang,” said Eddie. “But my pa beat ’em down single-handed.”

“Well, they’re back,” said Dinny Boyle. “And they ain’t a gang no more. They’re a political organization. They made me captain on this street and told me I could start an association. So”—he spit a wad of tobacco—“join up or pay.”

Tim pushed through the crowd to get to his brother.

But Eddie had always been quick on his crutch and quick with his tongue, and he said to Dinny Boyle, “Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.”

“Fuck me? No, you crip. Fuck you.”

Tim grabbed his brother.

“Yeah,” said Boyle. “Get him out of my sight. And tell your ma you can join the Dinny Boyle Association or pay to sit on the stoop.”

“T
HAT DIDN’T TAKE
long,” said Mary Riley. “Your father not dead a week and the troublemakers already stirrin’.”

“You mean Dinny Boyle?” asked Tim.

“She means the fuckin’ McGillicuddys,” said Eddie.

Mary Riley slapped the boy across the face. “There’ll be none of that talk in my house. There never was when your da was alive, and there won’t be now.”

Eddie brought his hand to his cheek and looked down at the floor, as if trying to control his anger. “No back talk” had been one of Six-Pound’s favorite phrases.

Mary Riley raised her apron to her eyes and wiped them, then she said, “But Eddie’s right. The McGillicuddys is the troublemakers.”

They were standing in the little windowless kitchen. Their mother had gotten back to baking. She said that a soda bread with a few bits of raisin and carroway seed would cheer them all, but to bake she had to raise the fire, which raised the heat. So she kept the door open to the hallway, but it did little to cool a top-floor flat in July.

Tim wiped the sweat from his forehead and stepped into the front room, where the open windows gave a bit of air. “What do we do?”

“You know what we do.” Eddie followed.
Clump-thump-clump-thump
. Good foot-crutch-fake foot-crutch. “I told you what we do the other night.”

“What we do,” said their mother, “is put up with what we must.”

“Tim! Hello, Timmy Riley!” Uncle Billy stomped into the flat, looking angry but sounding hurt. “I waited till four o’clock, Timmy. It was you and me together. That was the plan. But you never showed, so I went up and talked to Plunkitt meself. He said you come down to see him at the courthouse instead.”

“I couldn’t wait,” answered Tim.

“Made me look like a fool,” said Uncle Billy.

“At least it was somethin’ you’re used to,” said Mary.

“Now, sis, I stood in front of the sachem himself and didn’t know a thing to ask.”

“I did,” said Tim. “And he said the bonds are worthless.”

“Worthless, is it?” Mary Riley seemed to sag, right where she stood.

“They was bonds?” said Billy. “The funny money is bonds?”

“Worthless,” repeated Tim.

“So you mean this is it?” Eddie looked around the flat. “This is all we got to look forward to? Just this?”

Their mother stalked across the room and slapped Eddie again, and before he could react, she threw her arms around him and said how sorry she was. “But this is what the Lord give us, son, what your da earned for us, a roof over your head and a family that loves you in a parish that cares. It’s better than what most folks have.”

“Right,” said Billy. “Sayin’ less is a black mark on your da’s blessed memory.”

Eddie pulled away and headed for the hallway.

“Where are you goin’?” asked their mother.

“Downstairs. It’s too hot in here, and I want to play my harmonica, and I like to play it on the stoop, where I ain’t payin’ because somebody wants to start an ass . . . assoshi . . . What did he call it?”

“Association,” said Tim. “It’s how a man gets power in politics. He starts with his building, then his block—”

“Well, I ain’t lettin’ that Dinny Boyle get power over me,” said Eddie.

The crutch
clump-thumped
down the hallway, then Mary Riley said, “I don’t like it that the McGillicuddys is backin’ Dinny Boyle . . . or Sunny Jim. Imagine Strong and Slick bossin’ a boss. Imagine them bossin’ a
district
.”

“That Strong ain’t so bad,” said Uncle Billy. “He come to the funeral. He stood me to a drink this afternoon.”

“I wish you wouldn’t go in there,” said Mary Riley.

“Ah”—Uncle Billy made a wave of his hand—“I go where I want when I want.”

Mary Riley wiped her hands on her apron. “If Plunkitt loses his seat to the McGillicuddy man, where do we go for help?”

“Why do you think I drink with them?” asked Billy. “It’s so they give me a job. Strong said I could work behind the bar.”

“You’d work for the McGillicuddys?” said Tim.

“’Twould put us in good, no matter how the election comes out,” said Billy. “Any port in a storm.”

“I’d rather see the ship sink,” said Mary.

T
IM NEEDED A
walk after that.

He avoided eye contact with a bunch of kids hanging at the corner of Tenth Avenue. Eye contact could be a challenge in any neighborhood. But he could not avoid the smell of a dead horse on the corner of Eleventh. The flies had gotten there ahead of the glue wagon.

A freight train chugged slowly down the center of the avenue, filling the street with the bulk and stink of cattle cars bound for the slaughterhouse. A man in a scally cap rode a horse a block ahead of the engine and rang a bell to warn people out of the way.

Every kid in Hell’s Kitchen dreamed of being the Eleventh Avenue cowboy, except for Tim. He usually avoided this stretch, because this was where his brother had lost his foot.

Eddie had seen a big chunk of coal on the tracks. A kid on the other side of the street had seen it, too. And there was a train coming. But picking up coal that the trains dropped on Eleventh was like picking up pennies that the swells dropped on Broadway. Eddie was a lot faster than the other kid, but only a little faster than the train. And when he stopped to pick up the coal, the train won and took his foot.

Tim tried not to think about all that had followed: the horror of seeing that mangled foot, the sad homecoming after a stay in the hospital, the nights of whimpering pain, the unhappiness that could come over Eddie like a cloud on a clear day, the anger that could come even more quickly.

So Tim kept walking. He found his way to that pier in the Thirties. He wandered out to the end, sat on a piling, listened to the lap of the water, and heard a soft voice whisper from behind him, “I’m sorry for your troubles.”

He turned to a vision in gray shift and ankle socks: Doreen Walsh. Her strawberry-blond hair shimmered, and the light made her eyes more green than hazel.

“How did”—his mouth went dry—“how did you—”

“I followed you. I felt sad for you, seein’ you walkin’ down here alone. So I snuck out and followed you.”

He looked behind her. “Does your pa know?”

She shook her head. “And I told my ma I was goin’ for a singin’ lesson.”

“You sang real nice at the funeral.”

“Thanks.” She came over and sat down beside him. It was a big piling. “Someday, I plan to sing in a show.”

Her soft thigh pressed against his, and a jolt of life shot through him. It was the best feeling he had known in days . . . or ever.

“That’s a . . . a nice dream,” he said. “To sing in a show.”

“I got the voice.” She swung her foot, so that her leg peeked out from beneath the shapeless shift. “You got any dreams?”

He looked at her leg. He did not tell her that touching it was one of his nightly dreams. Instead, he looked off toward the sunset. “I got a dream to get rich.”

“My pa says the only way any of us would get rich is to find a box of money.”

Tim looked at her, to see if there was something in her eye to suggest she had heard about his box of funny money. All he saw was that fine-colored hair and those sweet features. And he could not help himself. He leaned over and kissed her cheek.