Water Street (7 page)

“Thank you, too, Thomas, for the chives.” Mama pulled herself away from the table. At the counter she poured soup into Da's jar and cut two thick slices of bread. “Why don't you and Thomas go together when you bring Da's dinner down to him?”

“Can't I be alone with Da for two minutes?” Bird said. “Does Thomas always have to—” She broke off.

Mama was looking up at the ceiling as if she could see Thomas going up the stairs through the cracks in the plaster. “He has nothing to do all by himself in that apartment; he'll be happy to go with you.”

Bird never had one moment of peace. “He has homework, you know. It wouldn't hurt him to work on his essay.” But even as she said it, she knew it wouldn't do any good. And Thomas had probably worked on his writing all afternoon.

And that reminded her. “Why don't we have any books in this house?”

“Books?” Mama said. “Where would we get the money for books? We need money for food, and clothing, and to
buy plants for cures.” She took a breath. “Most of all we need money to save.”

For a farm in New Jersey near my brother Patch.
That's what she'd say next.

Bird cut her off. “Books are just as important as food.”

Annie began to laugh, rattling her needles. “I'd like to see you go without food for a day, Miss Crow, and then say that.”

“Sister Raymond wants us to bring a book to school,” Bird said slowly, wondering why she felt like crying.

Mama shut the lid of Pa's dinner pail, then shifted things around in the ice box to make room for the leftover soup. She turned and put her arms around Bird. “You're a good girl, Bird, and you're right, a book is a wonderful thing to have.” She smiled. “You might ask Da about it when you go over there.”

Bird hugged her, then picked up Pa's dinner pail and went into the hall and down the stairs.

Hughie was still there, just opening the door to the basement. She took a step forward. “Wait,” she said. “We never get to walk together. We never even get to talk anymore.”

“Ah, Birdie. Didn't you just tell me a wonderful story?”

“I don't mean that.”

He waited, his hand on the knob. She saw he knew what she was talking about, that he was quieter every day, and how angry he was just underneath his few words. She had a quick memory of him sitting at the table, head back, laughing. How long ago that was.

“Be the way you used to be,” she said. “Walk with me to bring Da his dinner.”

She saw him hesitate, and then he shook his head. “Not tonight, Bird.”

Annie called down from the stairs, “Did you ask Thomas, Bird?”

Hughie ran his hand over the top of her head and went down into the cellar.

Thomas wandered through the dark apartment, went from the lighthouse bedroom through Pop's room, and then into the living room to look out the window. Pop wouldn't be coming, though, not for hours.

Thomas went back into the bedroom and sat on the bed, listening to the sounds coming from the register, pretending he was still there having dinner, listening to them talk.

He heard Bird calling. “Want to go down to the bridge with me?”

He grabbed his jacket, flew out the door, and took the steps two at a time. Outside it had begun to rain, a fine mist of a rain: fall leaves were plastered to the walkway, and puddles filled with bits of hay and coal lay in the street. A nice bit to remember for the writing. Water Street! He loved to look at it.

He nodded at Sullivan the baker, who was turning the
key in the lock, and Willie, the assistant, who bent his floury head into his collar for warmth.

He could see that Bird didn't want to talk. She was humming under her breath, hardly paying attention to him.

He heard the clop of hooves in the street behind them and turned to watch the driver snap his whip and shout at the horses. He took a step toward them, thinking about running along in back of the wagon, reaching out to hang on, his feet flying as the horses raced along.

Bird was paying more attention than he'd realized. “Don't you dare hitch, Thomas. I'll tell Mama and she'll never let you come with me again.” She looked fierce enough to be a bare-knuckle fighter.

Instead he climbed on one of the iron fences in front of the houses, balancing himself, arms out. He dashed along, grinning back at her.

“You're going to fall off,” she yelled, “impale yourself on one of the spikes, and I'll have to roll your bloody body all the way home.”

He raised one shoulder. “Would you care?”

“No.”

He was laughing again. What was it about Bird that made him do that?

He stood on one foot, just to see what she'd say, but she marched ahead of him, her hair bouncing, her back straight as an arrow.

The tower was up ahead, at the end of the street, fog swirling over the top. He jumped off the fence as she rattled the gate to get her father's attention.

The rain was drenching now. Bird was shivering, her
shawl soaked through. He reached out to take Mr. Mallon's dinner pail from her and was surprised that she didn't pull away.

Mr. Mallon was inside his small shelter, and in front of him was a fire in an ash can. He threw another slab of wood into the can and came toward them, his hair gray under his blue cap. He unlocked the gate and the three of them hurried to the shelter. It was nothing more than a roof and three walls knocked together, but still it was out of the rain, and the fire in front of them made it almost warm.

They sat on the ground, and Mr. Mallon opened the jar of soup, the heat of it steaming into the air, and took a gulp.

Thomas's mouth watered. Even after he had eaten all that bread and soup at the Mallons' table, he was still hungry. He was always hungry.

Strange, there were times he had gone a day without food, and once even two days when Pop was off somewhere and there was nothing in the house. But now that he was eating downstairs some of the time, it seemed he couldn't get enough.

He picked up a piece of granite that lay in front of them; there was a smooth feel to the face of it, the edges jagged on the sides.

“Ah, there's a story to that one,” Mr. Mallon said. “It's from a huge block that was being hoisted up toward the tower as they were finishing the top.”

Thomas held the jagged stone to his face, turning it one way and then another.

“The block was so heavy the ropes began to vibrate, and suddenly it broke loose.” Mr. Mallon was silent for a moment.
“A miracle that no one was underneath. The block buried itself halfway into the ground.”

Thomas tilted his head, trying to think how to put that into a story.

“All that stone came from twenty different quarries.” Mr. Mallon squinted up. “Hundreds of shiploads of them.”

“Can I have it, Mr. Mallon? A souvenir?”

“Why not?” He held out the jar. “Want a sip of the soup?” he asked. “Or some of the bread?”

Thomas hesitated, and Bird slit her eyes at him, so he shook his head, but Mr. Mallon tore off a chunk of bread and handed it to him. Thomas raised his shoulders at Bird before he took it down in one huge bite.

Mr. Mallon screwed the lid back on the empty jar and put it back into the pail. Then he reached inside for a thick slice of one of Annie's cakes.

Bird grinned. “Hughie and I thought that cake was gone. Mama must have hidden the last piece for you.”

“Lucky. One of you would have gobbled it down in a moment,” Mr. Mallon said. “How about a piece of this, Bird? Thomas?”

“Mama wants it for you,” Bird said.

He divided the piece of cake into three even slivers.

Bird took hers in tiny bites, sucking on the raisins to make it last, but Thomas didn't waste time. He ate his piece, then went out in the rain to look at the piles of stone and tools. In back of him Bird's voice was light and quick, almost a whisper, and after a moment, her father answered. Maybe it had something to do with the book.

He was sure the Mallons didn't have a book, and he and
Pop had all those books upstairs. He wanted to give her one to take to school, but he could see her, back straight:
I don't need one of your books, thank you very much, Thomas Neary.

He heard banging; it was almost like the noise of a woodpecker he'd seen once in Greenpoint, a
rat-tat-tat
over and over again, but it wasn't a woodpecker, he knew that. He went back to the shelter, hearing Mr. Mallon say, “A nightstick.”

It meant trouble, one cop signaling another for help, banging his wooden stick against one of the wroughtiron railings or on the ground. It could be anything. A thief. A fire. Boys in trouble. Gangs fighting.

It could be Bird's brother, Hughie.

Another nightstick took up the sound, until they could hear them for blocks.

Mr. Mallon was thinking the same thing. “Was Hughie home?” He raised his hand to push back his cap, as if it were too tight.

“He was in the cellar after dinner,” Bird said. “And I think his jacket was still on the hook.”

“Good then.” Mr. Mallon handed Bird the dinner pail. “Go home.” He walked them to the gate and put his hands on their shoulders. “If he's there, tell him to stay home this night. Tell him I said that.”

They hurried down the dark back street, stepping around puddles, black and oily, in the alleyways.

“He's home!” Bird said, almost as if Thomas had said what he was thinking.

He didn't answer. He couldn't.

Hughie would be at the back of the cellar in the small room Mrs. Daley let him use. They'd have to walk through the winding passageway with its storage rooms looking like prison cells, and only the dim light at the end to guide them.

But was he there?

How glad Bird was that Thomas was with her, even though she'd never let him know that. She couldn't get Mrs. Daley's story out of her mind. A woman disappearing with only the buckle of her shoe left to say she had been there.

She couldn't remember ever being in the basement alone. The only times she had gone down there, she'd followed Mama with her laundry basket on one hip, or Da as he brought out the ash cans for Mrs. Daley.

Once she'd gone with Annie, and they'd heard something scurry along ahead of them. “The wind,” Annie had said. “Old leaves coming in from the cellar door.”

Annie knew as well as Bird that it wasn't the wind. Together, they had seen the gleaming eyes of a rat staring back. His body was long, his leathery tail so close they might have stepped on it.

If Annie hadn't grabbed her hand, Bird might have run. But Annie gripped her fingers so tightly she couldn't move. In one motion Annie reached down with her other hand to pick up a pail and threw it at the creature, which scurried away in the darkness.

Now Bird and Thomas walked the last block. As they came up the steps of the house, Mama rushed out. “I'm glad to see the two of you. Mr. Harris needs me, and I've already sent Annie to find the doctor for old Mr. Magher.”

Foxglove for his heart
, Bird thought, almost seeing where she had written it in the cure book. But how to do it, how much …

“Just go. Tell Mrs. Magher the doctor will be there soon.”

Bird was limp with relief. She didn't have to worry about foxglove or how much of it to give. She tried to get in a word. “Da wants me to tell Hughie—”

“Never mind Hughie. Poor Mrs. Magher is frantic for the doctor.”

Bird and Thomas ran in spurts and then slowed down in between to listen for the nightsticks, but all they heard was the tinkling of the piano in one of the bars, and loud voices that spilled out onto the dark street.

By the time they were back home it was late. The streets
were deserted except for a man hurrying home, his head down. Only a few lights from people's apartments were reflected onto the puddles.

And sitting up at the top of the stairwell, his head resting on the banister, was Mr. Neary. “Ah, Thomas,” he said. “There you are. It's late, and you have school tomorrow, don't you?”

“I'll be right up, Pop. Go on in awhile.” Thomas turned to Bird, his face flushed. “Do you still want to go down to the cellar?”

Upstairs Mr. Neary began to sing under his breath.

“Don't worry,” she said. “Go upstairs, it's late.”

Thomas put his hand on her arm. “You know Hughie's not down there.”

“He is!” She shook his hand off.

“I'll go with you then.”

“Go upstairs, Thomas Neary,” she said. “I don't need you. I don't even have to go down there. Hughie's probably in bed.”

Thomas looked undecided, but then he went up the stairs and helped his father inside.

She waited until the door was closed, then, heart pounding, opened the one that led downstairs. The wooden steps were unsteady; she could feel them give as she stepped on each tread.

She peered into the darkness. “No lights down here,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice, as if Hughie would be sitting in the dark and she weren't afraid. But her hands were damp.

Why was she doing this? She was almost sure he had
thrown his hat into a ring somewhere. She was almost sure he'd be fighting, picking up money that people threw at him as they watched him beating someone, or being beaten himself.

And she was sure of something else. Someday he'd be caught and sent to prison. He couldn't get away with breaking the law forever.

Something moved in the darkness. She banged her hand against one of the wooden storage bins. “Hughie,” she yelled.

She was almost crying, breathless, wanting to go back, knowing she should go back, but she was halfway to that little room that Hughie used, and maybe the door there was closed so she couldn't see the lamp.

She passed the window high up in the wall, dust-covered and filthy, but a little light from the street came through. She took another few steps and then began to run toward that room, hitting her knee on something, calling the whole while.

And then her hand was on the door, pushing it open to darkness. “Hughie,” she called, even though she knew he wasn't there, probably hadn't been there all night.

She wiped her face with her sleeve, feeling the dampness of it from the rain.

“I hate you, Hughie,” she said, and then she started back the way she'd come, almost like a blind woman. She was glad she'd left the hall door open, because she could see the steps ahead of her, and the light beaming down.