Exile on Bridge Street (14 page)

Cinders Connolly watches in amazement, his hands wide open at his thighs and his high, broad shoulders erect, yet all the words he can summon are, “That shit's amazing.”

“I don't see any warships,” one man says.

“Who's attacking us?” another questions.

“That's a munitions island,” states an older man. “I dragged a barge there two days ago in the tug to the depot there on Black Tom's Island. Coulda been the Hun set fire to it. Fenian maybe.”

Dinny comes up from behind with his men round him.

“Coulda been an accident,” The Swede says.

“Yep,” Dinny looks at me as Cinders laughs.

For the next hour or so, all of us watch across the water toward Jersey City where the fireworks blast out in all directions. Not even Lady Liberty's reaching arm is visible, smothered by gloomy smog of fires in the earth and explosive strikes that light the night, streaked with bullet sparklers. Blooming open from the heat like popcorn in a pan. Streaming through the darkness like hope flashing its yellow teeth, and yet still what can come just as easily from the darkness is not just hope and light, but a cruelty of whimsical genius. The most important thing I remember from that night was that I'd never look into those eyes again. Whether they're Garry Barry's, or they're my own. And I won't go to the place Dinny buys me to keep me under his controlling, for I'll never take an order to kill a man again. No.

CHAPTER 7

Mother of Caution

O
UTSIDE
THE
L
ONERGAN
BICYCLE
SHOP
ON
Bridge Street are panhandlers and rain-soaked bootblacks and snuffling mares pulling junk drays and old-timers shuffling about. The great abutment to the Manhattan Bridge a block and a half away climbs slowly skyward and to the north as seen from the corner of Front and Bridge Streets out the shop window. The children who rent the bicycles have increasingly stayed away from here due to the stories of Richie Lonergan and his crew, who blacken eyes and abuse those who don't return the bikes on time, which had been stolen in the first place. It is also widely known that an Italian boy from Navy Street who attempted to bull Richie into selling drugs out of the shop was found in a garbage-strewn courtyard with his face and head swollen beyond his own mother's ability to identify him. Two knife wounds were found on the boy as well, one puncturing the heart and the other slicing at the throat.

Mary, mother of fifteen, stands behind the counter inside, a worried look on her disfigured face. With Tiny Thomas playing on the floor behind her, she wipes wisps of hair off her forehead as she sees Richie and Anna coming in the front door. Taking a deep breath, she knows that she is up against her own children who are able now to think and act on their own without her controlling them. Oftentimes their actions are purposely contrary to what she demands.

“Please, Lord, give me the strength to stay humble,” she crosses herself silently, forehead to chest, shoulder to shoulder, her face forever scarred. Forever scarring her thoughts too, for she is known as Mary Lonergan, wife of drunk John and bearer of his brutality, whether it be the violence that mutilated her, or the many children he's damned her with. “Please, Lord, help me,” she continues as her two eldest walk toward her.

Richie's tie is bedraggled and his gray-blue eyes and wide shoulders, wild blond hair give him the look of some war-torn, weather-beaten teenage foundling. His sister, graced with natural beauty but wearing a sack dress with a torn sleeve stands next to him four inches shorter, her sprouting curves the topic of many conversations in the neighborhood.

“Richie?” Mother Mary says carefully.

“Yeah.”

“We need to talk.”

“About what? You can't send Anna to come and get me . . .”

“I can, and I already did.”

“I'm workin', Ma, ya can't send her to the docks no more . . .”

“I ain' scared o' no one over there,” Anna says sternly to him.

“It ain't that,” Richie says, discouraged that he can't express his thoughts. “It's just that . . .”

“Richie,” Mary says, coming around the counter and standing in front of him. “Have ye or the boys said anyt'in' to anybody about what Bill told us?”

“He said to keep quiet about it.”

“And yez have?”

“Yeah.”

“All right then.”

“Is that all?”

“Ye bhoys're werkin' with Connolly at the Fulton Ferry Landin' an' Donnelly in the Navy Yard?”

“And sometimes down with The Lark an' Big Dick at the Baltic Terminal too.”

“And yez just do as yer told? No words on Bill'r nothin'?”

“Nothin'.”

“Anybody talk about Non Connors? That he was set up?”

“No.”

“Dinny's cousin, the golden-haired one, replacin' Connors as Bill's righthand?”

“Mickey Kane? No one talks about it,” Richie says, looking at his mother sharply and searching for words. “I don' . . . you're not . . . don' tell me what to do . . .”

Mary ignores Richie's attempts to confront her, looks at Anna, and speaks over him, “Dinny sent a bhoy over here with flowers fer Anna.”

Richie blinks, “Who was it?”

“That bhoy from Clare, Garrity.”

Anna looks up to her brother to see his reaction, her mouth half open.

“Don' do a t'ing, Richie,” Mary says. “Be smart. Dinny and Bill're fightin' over ye. It's obvious. They both want yer loyalty. Ye've gotta stay prudent here. Let 'em fight it out, those two, but goin' after that Garrity bhoy again will only make t'ings worse. Petey already gave it to 'em good, no sense in doublin' back now. Dinny made 'em come here with flowers fer yer sister, we could see it on his face that it wasn't his own idea. Just let Bill'n Dinny fight it out among themselves . . .”

“Let 'em fight it out?” Anna interrupts. “No, Bill is the only one for us, Ma. We've known him since day one. His family lived in the same building as us when we was young. We need to help Bill. He'll be the man one day, everyone knows it, Dinny Meehan's just keepin his seat warm is all . . .”

“Anna,” Mary says calmly, though her voice is shaking. “Dinny put up the rent for this bikecycle shop . . .”

“Richie earned that on his own when he beat Red Donnelly in a fight,” Anna raises her voice. “Look what he done to the Leighton fam'ly, Ma. Look what he done to Non Connors. He's an animal.”

“Still, it was Dinny's money,” Mary yells over her daughter, then turns to her son. “What I'm sayin' is it's too early to choose sides, Richie. What if Dinny kills Bill? Everyone says Mickey Kane's bein' groomed fer takin' over Red Hook. What if that? Ye listen to yer sister'n ye'll be out on yer arse, ye will.”

Richie does not answer.

“I know,” Mary says looking away. “No response from ye. Ye don' listen to yer poor ol' Ma, but ye'll listen to that Jew bhoy, Abe Harms. That's fine, he's got a voice o' reason, I s'pose. What's he tellin' ye to do then?”

Again Richie does not answer.

“All right, that's fine,” Mary says, still shaking. “Ye don' listen to yer fam'ly. Certainly not to a woman. Ye listen to yer friends. Ye listen to men only. I understand it. Just be smart, Richie, is all I'm arskin'. If ye take one side over the other, ye might find this bikecycle shop burnt to the ground one day when them two men finally have it out. And they will have it out, mark it. The two toughest always do. Ye t'ink I haven't seen all this before? Yer father and me brother, yer uncle Yake Brady and his bhoys back in our day? One day yer father's a peacock, but when Yake Brady left the gang, yer da was no more than a feather duster. Left out, and we had no choice but to leave the Lower East Side for Brooklyn or else he'd get killt. Don' put all yer eggs on one man over the other's all I'm sayin', Richie. Does that make sense to ye?”

Richie looks toward Tiny Thomas on the floor, “Why ain' he at school today?”

“He's sick,” Anna says.

“Again?” Richie says, as Tiny Thomas looks up to his eldest brother without realizing they are talking about him.

Mary walks round the counter again, turning her back to her children. Richie, Anna, and Tiny Thomas all watch her. Pensively, she places her palms on the counter and looks up, “All I ask fer is a healthy fam'ly, fed children, and the chance to move up and out of this place, yet I have the scars of a woman whose been t'rough terrible battles. Look at my face. Look at it. Is this the face a mother deserves? I was once beautiful like yer sister is. Men wanted me as they want her now. They fought over me and look how we've turned out. Anna?”

“What?”

“Ye listen to me an' ye listen now,” Mary says angrily. “Ye tell Richie to go with Bill over Dinny and yer puttin' us all at risk. The whole fam'ly. Ye t'ink Dinny won't kill Richie? Look what he done to that Gilligan fella, would ye?”

Richie looks away, shifts his weight off the wooden leg.

“That's right,” Mary says to Richie. “They say ye did it yerself. Killt the Gilligan fella with Abe and that Maher man at the soap factory under the order o' Dinny Meehan. Is it true?”

Anna looks at Richie, then to her mother, “And what if he did do it, Ma? So what?”

“Well,” Mary says looking in her son's eyes as Anna folds her arms indignantly. “Then ye did what the king said ye should and not some upstart. Good on ye then. Bill becomes king one day? Ye do what he says.”

CHAPTER 8

Miscarried Betrothal

“D
INNY
,” S
ADIE
SAYS
TO
HER
SON
. “Come over 'ere now, we're almost done.”

L'il Dinny has to use two hands to pick up an apple that he dropped on the grocer floor and when he stands, he hits his head on the cart inside the shop, begins crying.

“Oh no,” Sadie says with a smile and picks him up. “Lemme rub it for yu and it'll be gone.”

“Cute kid,” says a voice from behind them. “Wish I had the chance to get to know 'em.”

Sadie turns round and sees a figure in the dark, then grabs at L'il Dinny's hand and pulls him up from under his armpits, “Da'by?”

With a wet cough, Darby Leighton smirks and walks closer to Sadie and the boy, “Ye call 'em Dinny, eh?”

“'At's his fava's name,” Sadie says with an apprehensive smile.

“That right?” Darby says, looking at the child suspiciously.

Sadie glances toward Mr. Cohnheim behind the butcher's counter, a small and elderly man who does not recognize the fear in her face. She then looks back to her cousin and begins saying something, but stops.

“Do I scare ya?” Darby says, his face pallid and bony.

“No,” she says, holding L'il Dinny closer to her chest.

“For what ya done to ya cousins?”

“I didn't . . .”

“Ya know, when me an' Pickles first came to Brooklyn, we used to live under a pier together wit' Dinny Meehan while ya was still in London. Guy named Coohoo Cosgrave was the leader o' our gang back then. He was crazy, Coohoo, but he saw Dinny as like the next big thing even though me'n Pickles had been around for mont's. Pickles didn' like Dinny. Didn' listen to Dinny, an' look what happened to Pickles.”

“I don' know a fing 'bout all that . . .”

“Sure ya do.”

“Da'by?”

“Yeah?”

“Are yu sick? Can I get yu some food to eat? Yu look 'ungry . . .”

Darby looks at his cousin with a self-conscious glare, “That ain' ya problem to fix no more. You chose to ignore us, so don' play like ya care.”

L'il Dinny's squirming in Sadie's arms takes away from her feeling sad about what her cousin had just said to her.

“I wanted to go wit' Dinny,” Darby says. “But I couldn't. I got eighty-sixt instead when you'n him got married after the trial. Wasn't my fault Pickles an' Dinny hated each other.”

“Dinny wanted bof o' yu to join in. Dinny . . . Dinny said 'e looved me. Dinny courted after me, paid for us to get outta 'at rattrap we lived in and promised 'e would join our families togeva, but Pickles . . . Pickles just wouldn't listen. Pickles has a mind o' 'is own so 'e didn't wanna listen . . . I'm sorry Da'by. I know it was you'n Pickles 'at saved all 'at money to get me outta East London, bring me an' Frank 'ere. I'm so fankful and I'm so sorry fings've turned out the way they 'ave . . .”

“Don't be,” Darby says, his face gaunt and somber. “I see my older brother Frank's in good wit' Dinny. Got that job for 'em over in the soap factory. But I'm just lumped in wit' Pickles ain' I?”

Sadie looks at her cousin, “I'm sorry.”

“Stop bein' sorry for things that don' matter,” Darby says angrily. “Ya chose Dinny Meehan over ya fam'ly, but that don' seem to bother ya, does it?”

“Da'by . . .”

“Are ya gonna tell 'em I came to see ya so he can send The Swede after me again?”

Sadie puts L'il Dinny on the ground, but holds his hand tightly.

“Ya know,” Darby stands closer to her. “One day Bill Lovett's gonna kill ya husband. And I'm gonna know about it ahead o' time. Maybe I'll say somethin' to ya. Warn ya. But maybe I won't, either. There's a lotta people out there want him dead. Cops an' unions an' businessmen an' I-talians an' ghosts all in between 'em too. All them guys? They know he's real. They know what he does and who follows 'em. They'll get 'em, one day. Until then, I'll be out there. Driftin' around, probably. Can't work in Red Hook wit' Bill. Can't work for Dinny on the north docks. . . . Can't talk to my own cousin unless I sneak up on her.”

Sadie and Mr. Cohnheim watch as Darby turns round and walks toward the faded light of the front windows. L'il Dinny pulls on her arm to get away, but she holds his hand tighter and brings him close to her long dress and leg. Pushing away, he begins wincing and squirming uncomfortably.

“No yu don't,” she says with a tear on her face. “Yu'll not be gettin' 'way from me.”