Exile on Bridge Street (8 page)

I look back at the man, Dinny Meehan at his desk, where all attention is directed. He has only twenty-seven years, yet somehow his patience comes to the fore. It was he that brought us all together out of nothing, so I've been told. He who now feeds the poor where this country chooses to ignore them. Just like the British had when we died of the starvation. Here, he finds them jobs, rooms, brings them as one in a second-floor saloon by the docks amidst the filth of factories, the fires of foundries and the enormous transience of the elevated trains and bridges reaching deep into the leaning tenements of the bulging underclasses. All of this on him, and still he looks to me with a great tolerance, patience.

“Connolly,” he says after a good long silence.

“Yeah?”

“What was it ya said to all the new boys just the other day when . . . when all o' ya was outside just before we took back Red Hook?”

“I told 'em to listen to Richie. That any order Richie gives, treat it like it comes from Dinny.”

Dinny nods.

“And what was it ya said to all the new boys just this mornin'?”

“Go to the Lonergan bike shop 'til ya hear word from us.”

Nods again. Adjusts his shoulders inside the coat and swivels his neck. I look away from him for a moment. The top of his desk empty of all papers. All evidence. Dust accumulating on the most of it.

Dinny clears his throat and eventually speaks in a low tone, “I made a commitment to you.”

I listen.

“That,” he looks away, then looks back at me. “That I take seriously. If I were a man who said things he didn't mean, no one would care a shit for me. I take the things I say, the commitments I make, as somethin' carved into me, ya know? As somethin' all men around here can trust'll be done.”

I agree with a nod.

“Do you know that the man you went to speak wit' today was a very close friend of my fam'ly? When I still had a fam'ly. Mr. Lynch and my father came from the same village, Coolmeen in Clare. His wife Honora met him at a County Clare ball that my father'd organized. She was an orphan girl sent to Ennis from a little place called Kildysart. Her fam'ly was a friend of my father's family, and we got her here, New York. My father . . .” Dinny looks up, but does not cross himself. “My father was buried in Calvary Cemetery in a respectable grave when I was eleven years old. I was the only one left wit' him. My mother and brothers and sisters'd all died. But because of a man Tanner Smith connected me wit'. . .” Dinny looks over to Tanner, who calmly acknowledges. “The money he loaned me . . . my father didn' have to be left in some pauper's groundsweat. Now I have new fam'ly. There are many men and women and children that we care for. In these neighborhoods. Because if we don't, no one will. So, people trust us. Is that a fair statement?”

“Yeah,” Maher says.

“True,” Connolly agrees.

And everyone else in the room is with him. And I see that they are raising me. That my childishness is small potatoes compared with the vast operation that Dinny oversees. That it takes a genius to keep together what we have here, with all the elements that want us taken down. Our ways and our ancient laws that inform us here in the new world is what makes us so reviled by the many. Wolcott of the New York Dock Company and his followers Silverman and Wisniewski who attempted to control us. King Joe of the International Longshoremen's Association along with the missing Thos Carmody and my dead uncle Joseph who longed to enfold us in their syndicate. Frankie Yale's man Il Maschio who was gunned down on Imlay Street after threatening our sovereignty by crossing the Gowanus Canal into the Irish north. Brosnan and Culkin of the Anglo-American law whose job it is to bite at the wrists the criminal activity we so blatantly flaunt. And even Lovett within our midst, who'd love nothing more than to take the gang in his own name by ripping the life out of Dinny himself. All of them against our way. All of them using time against us while we protest it. Dinny seeing them only as invading gangs or opposing clans. Outsiders. Foreigners. Strangers. Intruders. Infiltrators. Touts. Others. . . . Change. Only a man of great ingenuity could succeed in stopping time and change. Halting progress by summoning the ancient glories of our people.

He uses silence to sway me too, his hands folded and head slightly atilt. To make me see it all, he sits quiet and allows me to imagine on my own. To see him as who he is and what he has done. What he is still doing, for not only did he organize a great blow to take back the docks from the “others,” a day for legends as we termed it, to not only win against the most absurd odds, but to know exactly where he'd land afterward. Where these enemies would be funneled and collect to again attack: Lovett. Lovett being the recipient of offers from our enemies through Red Hook in the south of our territories, Dinny will know from where these enemies will attack.

Everyone in the gang questioned why Non Connors, Lovett's right-hand man, was set up as the lamb. It's too obvious, some said. It gives Lovett momentum, others complained. But I see it now so clearly. By setting up Non Connors, Wolcott and the New York Dock Company, Frankie Yale and the Italians, King Joe and the ILA, Brosnan and the law would all go to Lovett to make a deal against Dinny and the power structure set up in old Irishtown. To divide and conquer us, as the Anglo-Saxon has always done. That the only way to take Dinny down, would be through Lovett. I look up to Dinny and see his brilliance for the first time, the bridges and skyscrapers over his shoulders and the breeze of the waterfront brine in our noses through the open iron shutters. He did it on purpose, setting up Connors so that he would know exactly where they'd strike next. Creating! Creating what would be seen as a weakness by outsiders, while making Lovett an enemy too for making deals with those outsiders. And I see too, looking at him at his desk now, that Dinny Meehan does everything with purpose.

“Why don' ya trust me?” Dinny asks, his thick, dark brown hair falling over his shorn ears in jagged shards. “Now I hear Petey Behan punched ya and ya ran away. Do ya remember what I said in the taxi we took together t'rough Manhattan earlier this year? Do ya remember?”

“I do.”

“What?”

“You said draw a line and don't ever let anybody cross it again without a fight.”

“We're a family here,” Dinny says, spreading his hands across the room. “Some o' us don' act right and need to be handled. We don' go to Brosnan and the tunics for justice, though. The law ain' for us, it's for the ownin' class who can slip a piece o' change to the judge to get saved, make the laws themselves for their benefit—and for the rest? Who got nothin' but hope? It's to hell they're sent. We don' go to the papers to right a wrong either. Or the boss on-site for a slave's justice. We don' go to I-talians for nothin' and the ILA don' tell us what to do. Nah. . . . We take care o' our own problems. You, Liam. . . . Ya got a problem.”

The other men in the room mumble in agreement.

“You know like I know,” Dinny continues. “T'roughout time our people been crushed by others. They keep us poor and weak so that they can have touts among us who need handouts. To keep us small and controlled. If it weren't for touts among us, we'd have our own country where you'n I would still live, wouldn't we, Liam?”

“That's true. A big part of the problem, at least.”

“Ya father told ya about 'em. They're always there among us. Always will be. That's why we take care o' things on our own. You . . . you got things ya gotta take care o' wit' Petey Behan, 'cause the rest o' us'll suffer if ya don't. Ya know why? Because if ya don' do somethin' about 'em, they'll see weakness in us. Weakness is opportunity, dig? Lovett an' Lonergan and every man down there are always, and always will be, waitin' for us to show weakness,” Dinny opens his left palm out in front of him, open to the ceiling and says, “weakness,” then does the same with his other palm, “opportunity.”

I think about what he means.

“Now,” he continues, The Swede staring down at me. “Can I have ya trust?”

“You can.”

“Can I help bring ya mother an' sisters, Abby an' Brigid, to New York?”

“You can,” I say.

“Can I help get ya own place where they can stay in a peaceful neighborhood? Like down by Prospect Park'r somethin'?”

“That sounds like a good plan.”

“First though,” Dinny raises a finger. “Ya gotta earn the trust o' these men. Earn ya name back. Show that you'll stand up for ya'self and for us and what we have together here.”

I am following him.

“Do you knowhow you can do that? How you can earn their trust and earn ya name back?”

I think around in my head for the answer.

“He still don' get it,” The Swede says, unfurling his long arms from their crossing and dangling them at his side in frustration.

“How can I do it?”

Dinny looks at me seriously, then speaks softly, “Ya gotta challenge Petey Behan.”

“To a fight?”

Dinny nods, “Now.”

“Right now?”

“Now,” Dinny says, then turns to Vincent Maher. “Tell Tommy Tuohey to come up here.”

Vincent immediately unlocks the door, “Tuohey? Come up.”

“You have a short time now,” Dinny says to me. “Ya boy is downstairs.”

As Tommy Tuohey and Vincent Maher enter, Tuohey is blurting, “What's it I'm gonna learn the bhoy when it's Dinny beat me twice?” Tuohey then looks up to Dinny, “How's it? Why not yerself teach 'em?”

“I've already gave 'em advice and I don' think he's listenin'. What'd I teach ya about fightin', Liam? What? Were ya listenin' to me?”

Before I can feel scared about fighting, I am having to answer questions, “Keep my fists over my face and, uh, spread the legs for balance, I think you said.”

“Dat's right giverteek, moraless,” Tommy starts talkin' so fast I can barely understand him, and all while he is sparring me at the same time. “Stand up. Hands high, dat's right. Now slide back wit' ye front foot while steppin' back with the back foot. No, no, like dis here. Slide'n step. Yeah yeah, bhoy, left widda jab right widda hook. Swivel dere. Swing here fer fecks sake. When ye go chest to chest wid 'em, don't give an inch. He clatters ye, don' slash yerself and don' say nuttin' just keepa goin' like she's a job. Just remember we fight 'cause we're men and we'll do it.”

“We fight because we are men and we will do it.”

“True 'nough.”

Over the next ten minutes, Tommy gives me pointers while the others in the room watch and throw in their opinions. Even Lumpy notices something and turns round all surprised.

“Bounce, bounce,” Vincent yells at me.

Tommy slaps me a good one across the face, “Wake up, ye feckin' sausage. Ye ready for da yoke to try'n hert ye? Are ye? Ye'll wake up den, won't ye? Ye like yer mudder, don't ye? Don't ye wish ye could live under'er skirt again, don't ye?”

The others laugh.

“Duck out the way den here comes a right cross.”

I drop my hands while my eyes pop out and I rush from the way of it.

“Don't drop 'em, Sally. . . . Ye wanna be a poet, do ye?”

The men laugh again, louder this time.

“What is it Ragtime call ye d'udder day? Eddie Allen Poet? Dat's his name?” Tommy asks the others as he moves around and swats down my fists.

“Poe,” Dinny says.

“Yeah Poe,” Tommy says. “Ye wanna name fer yerself? Yer a poet warrior are ye? The man here's name is Poe Garrity in his corner ready to die fer his country sure of himself as he is. Killin' 'em wit' the werds, does he. But a man can't have a name widout neck. Ye got neck, bhoy? Do ye? Well ye'll go'n prove it then. Earn yerself den and if yer a sausage don't come back.”

“Let me see ya fists,” Dinny says, standing from his desk, and we stop our bouncing and sparring.

He takes my hands in his. Dwarfing them with his muscular thumbs and big round fingers, wide palms. He then turns my hands round and opens them, feels the calluses and closes his eyes.

“Ya haven't worked for a few days,” Dinny says, then looks in my eyes. “Killed a man though.”

The room goes silent.

“Ya can forget anything anybody told ya in this room for the last while,” Dinny says, closer to my face now than ever before, then whispers. “Don' forget this. Only remember this. Most important thing I'll ever tell ya. Ya lookin' at me?”

“I am,” I say, focusing in on his green eyes.

“This . . . as long as ya alive . . . don' quit.”

The men again mumble in agreement.

“He hurts ya, get back in for more. No one can beat the man outta ya. If he does, and you quit?” Dinny says, then nodding toward Tommy Tuohey. “Like he says, don' come back.”

“Today ya make ya name,” Tommy says. “A real poet don't sit in rooms. He's out in the world fightin' it.”

“Has nothin' to do wit' Petey Behan,” Dinny says walking back toward his desk. “But if ya quit, don' come back here. You'll never make it. And we won' have ya.”

I look over to Cinders Connolly who has always been so kind to me, but his face is strong and hard and looking away. Vincent is staring at me in a demanding smirk ready to uproot the friendship he and I have too. Waves of distress ripple through my body. And when I think about going back to Mr. Lynch if I couldn't stomach this fight, I remember being blocked by Dinny's claiming him. Which means, of course, there's nowhere for me to go.

“Jimmy,” Dinny says to The Swede as he sits at his desk. “Lumpy holds the money, tell Chisel no holder's fee. He's only there to fan the odds, introductions and whatnot. I'll give 'em a bite afterward.”

The Swede confirms as Dinny looks over to me, “Good luck, kid. G'on now, lead the way. Vincent, you stay wit' me up here. You stay up here too, Tanner, yeah?”