The Persimmon Tree (17 page)

Kevin looked pleased at my obvious interest. But then his expression turned serious, rearranged to befit the mood of the story to come. There was a lot of theatre in our Kevin.

‘We slept in these big dormitories, fifty kids, beds straight as coffins lined up after the St Valentine’s Day massacre. In the winter just one blanket each, so thin you could blow holes through it whistling Dixie. I tell you, man — we froze our balls off. In the summer it was steamy, hot as hell, like one o’ them Turkish baths. The dormitory windows were shut, nailed shut all the stinkin’ summer, they had bars on them, but in that place the kids were so skinny the brothers didn’t take no chances.’

I chuckled, in my mind’s eye seeing a skinny kid slipping through a barred dormitory window and making his escape into the world. ‘Food no good, eh?’

Kevin rolled his eyes. ‘The chow was terrible, shit on a shingle! Creamed beef, scraping they musta got from the meatworks’ killing floor! Served on stale mouldy bread the Polack baker give us rather than feed it to the hogs. Pea and potato soup so weak you could wash in it. That was the winter special. Mash potato, it so glassy you can see the pattern on the plate through the itty-bitty dollop they give you! It supposed to have peas in it, the ones that never got into the soup. If you found one you knew you must be the princess with the pea and the mattress. Every Friday, like I told you, it’s stinkin’ pussy. When it ain’t potato it’s boiled carrots, mashed. There was never enough to eat in that place. You was always hungry.’ He paused, remembering, shaking his head. ‘Shit! It was all shit, but still never enough.’

‘There must have been
some
happy times?’ I volunteered.

‘Who ya kiddin’, sonny boy, wit them cocksuckers?’

It was the first time he’d used the ‘sonny boy’ epithet in almost two weeks, although, in my mind, it had become somewhat ameliorated since being used by the Virgin Mother in her appearance during the storm to announce Kevin as officially dead.

‘Nothing good ever happen to you? I mean, something must have?’ I insisted.

‘Yeah, the day I left at fourteen to go to Pontiac, to the reformatory. It was the middle of the Depression but we couldn’t tell, it made no difference. Angel was in the middle o’ the fuckin’ Depression permanent! Leavin’ — that the goodest moment! Lemme tell you something, Nick. There weren’t no angels there. Nobody in that place was good. Nobody was holy — us kids, the Irish brothers or the nuns. In there, it was everyone for himself; to give a sucker an even break was considered a crime against humanity! No angels in Angel Guardian, but lots of guardian. Yeah… that part they done real good. They guarded us like we was criminals and they told us every goddamn day how they nurture us, how lucky we are to be in God’s good care.

‘Father Geraghty, he says every morning, “We, the Brothers and the Sisters in Christ Jesus, are here my children to be the moral guardians of your souls, the angels in cassocks and habits, charged by no other than His Holiness the Pope Himself to mind over your spiritual and temporal life.”

‘Ha! That the biggest joke, buddy, they beat up on us for anything. You got ya hand in ya pocket scratching your nuts.
Whack!
That lust! You use too much shit paper.
Whack!
That waste. You eat too fast.
Whack!
Gluttony. Caught fightin’.
Whack!
Intemperance. You answer back.
Whack!
Arrogance. Swearing.
Whack!
God’s name in vain. Catechism incorrect!
Whack!
Ineptitude. Locker untidy.
Whack!
Sloth. Farting.
Whack!
Pollution. Smokin’.
Whack!
That theft, because how else you gonna get them fags. Every one of them
Whacks
I said real hard — that a regular floggin’ from Father Geraghty.

‘Okay, lemme take you through the floggin’ routine, Nick. You standin’ in Father Geraghty’s office waitin’ for him to come from this little room behind his desk, he calls it his sanctum sanctorum, it suppose to be holy, but it just a bed where the fat bastard can have a kip any time he likes. The office, it got shelves, bookshelves, lotsa holy missives, some other books also. On the walls there’s pictures, ya know, photographs — baseball, the Chicago Cubs, Gaelic football players, they wear these little caps with tassels and they all got big moustaches and they clasp their arms over their chest, nobody smiling. There’s one photo of Big Jack Dempsey, the American Irish heavyweight champion of the world, it’s signed
“Jack Dempsey, The Manassa Mauler — Knockout knowing ya, Father G!”. There’s one of the Pope doing a blessing in St Peter’s Square, but it ain’t signed. Then there’s this big coloured picture of the Blessed Mother. It’s a proper paintin’, done with oil and it says, on a brass plate underneath, “To Father Geraghty,
from Mother Superior and the nuns of Derry Abbey, Ireland”.

‘On his big desk, dark shiny wood with these carved legs, they’s lion’s claws grabbin’ hold of a wooden ball at the ends. On the top, there’s this big square glass bottle with a glass stopper and six little glasses on a silver tray; inside is Irish whiskey. There’s photos in silver frames of Mayor Dever shakin’ hands with Father Geraghty, another one of Monseigneur O’Hara doin’ the same, then a photo of Father Geraghty’s sister, Mary, who is a nun in the Holy See.’ Kevin flicks me a quick look. ‘Lemme tell ya, she ain’t no Greta Garbo. He’s even got one of Archbishop Mundelein, it’s signed “With all good wishes, George”.

‘There’s this big brown leather armchair to one side o’ the desk.’ Kevin glances up and, pointing his finger at me, gives me a significant look. ‘Remember that for later,’ he instructs and then, taking a breath, continues. ‘So, now the good father comes in from out his sanctum sanctorum, he’s yawnin’, scratchin’ his fat ass and he points to the paintin’ of the Blessed Virgin. “Will you look at that now, boy? Such a beautiful face at’al, at’al… will you not beg her forgiveness for what you’ve done?” He points a fat finger to the floor. “On your knees, boy! At once! Ten Hail Mary’s for the likes of you! God is not mocked and neither am I! You have sinned grievously and the wages of sin are mine to deliver! Now, boy, make ready for the verity of Geraghty!”’

‘He said that?’ I exclaimed, repeating the phrase.

‘Yeah, that’s his slogan. It means he’s about to beat the livin’ crap outa ya. So, when you’ve kneeled in front of the Virgin’s picture and asked her forgiveness, he says, “Stand up, boy! You’ve had the love of the Blessed Mother, now you shall have the wrath of the temporal Father. Take off your britches. There’s a bad lad. Right off, hang them on the chair, bottom bare, lift your shirt, higher lad, higher, up round your neck. Tilt boy, tilt your bottom!” Then he’d remove his big, black leather belt. You’d hear the “click” of the unbuckle. That strap, it three inches wide and a quarter inch thick and you’re bendin’, shittin’ yourself. He strikes the belt through the air —
Vhooosh!
— then it lands against the back of that big leather chair.
Whack!
“Let the lamentations begin!” he says. “Grab your ankles now, boy! Now think of Ireland, our beautiful emerald isle, nourished by the sacred waters of the Shannon.”

‘Then he commence to whack the bejesus outa ya. He whales away at ya ass, gruntin’ and snortin’ like some fat hog. When he’s finished, he collapse in that big old leather chair. He’s got his fat fingers inside his cassock. The boys who work in the laundry, they say it got no linin’. The pocket in his cassock, it got no fuckin’ linin’! You can see his boner inside like a tent pole stickin’ up, his eyes they closed. “God forgive me!” he moans. The front of his cassock, it moving every which way, like a rat got himself trapped in a burlap sack.’

I had been so absorbed in the little bloke’s story and now, laughing uproariously at the burlap sack incident, at first, and unforgivably, I hadn’t realised what was going on around us. But the sudden cry of a seabird penetrated my concentration. I looked up to see that we were surrounded by wheeling seabirds, some flying low, others diving for small fish. A school of dolphins appeared at our bow.

‘Hooray! We’ve made it, we’re near land!’ I yelled, leaping to my feet and throwing my arms up above my head like an excited schoolboy. Kevin, suddenly aware of what I was saying, jumped up and we danced around the deck, yelling, laughing and yahooing, acting like idiots.

The little bloke suddenly stopped and looked at me, his expression serious. Then he grinned, looking down at the deck and shaking his head. ‘I owe you big time, buddy,’ he said. ‘Twice! Twice you saved me.’

I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t tell him it was a coincidence, the right time in the wrong place, and that I’d really been out chasing a butterfly. ‘No, mate, afraid I can’t take the credit. You got it arse about face. It was
Madam Butterfly
. She saved us. I only helped a bit with the navigation.’ I grinned. ‘I ain’t no hero, you understand?’

‘I like dis blacksmith work, man. I black, this mah work, man.

It good, you pick up dat big ole hammer, you sweatin’ like a nigga,

de metal it red-hot from dat forge.

You hit it hard, you change da shape.

You keep hittin’ ’til you ain’t angry no more!’

Joe ‘Hammer-man’ Popkin

Illinois State Reformatory

AT SIX O’CLOCK IN
the evening we sighted a low island I thought must be the northernmost islet of the Houtman Abrolhos. If I was correct then we were about forty miles off the coast of Western Australia, roughly 240 miles west of Fremantle. With sunset almost upon us I hauled out to sea for two hours to avoid the reefs and shoals I knew lay south of us and set our course to the east of sou’ south-east, 155 degrees allowing for leeway.

The following morning dawned bright and sunny. There are mornings at sea where conditions are so perfect you think you’re sailing inside a crystal goblet. If the two days ahead were like this, we’d be having a cooked breakfast in Fremantle the day after tomorrow. Bacon, eggs, sausages, fried tomato, milk in my tea. A second cup, more milk. I wondered briefly what the little bloke would order.

He’d been quieter than usual at breakfast where we’d both had a double helping of rice and the last tin of tuna. We still had six tins of mackerel and two tins of carrots, no more peas and still plenty of rice. Anna’s supplies had lasted and then some.

‘What’s the matter, mate, cat got your tongue?’

He looked up and smiled. ‘I like that word. Since Joe Popkin I ain’t never had a mate.’

‘You’ve got
me
, mate,’ I said, stressing the word.

‘Yeah, that what I bin thinkin’. I reckon Joe saved my life once or twice at Pontiac, now you the same.’

I avoided the compliment knowing I would have done the same for anyone. I was growing fond of the little bloke but because of my previous experiences and being the kind of person I was, forming a lasting friendship would be difficult. Anyway, we’d soon be forcibly parted by the exigencies of war — he’d be sent to the States for rehabilitation and I’d be in the army. It was simply and literally ships passing in the night.

‘What happened after you left? Did you keep in touch with Joe?’

‘Nah, he didn’t get the four years’ education you hadda have for the military so the judge don’t give him no option. I went to Camp Paul Jones at San Diego and…’ He paused. ‘Man, he don’t write good and I ain’t the letter writin’ type. I called him long distance twice then.’ Kevin shrugged. ‘His landlady she say he ain’t there, he gone to Noo York.’

‘Popkin. It’s an unusual name; maybe when you get back to the States you can trace him?’

‘Nah, sometime it’s better let sleepin’ dogs lie. That landlady, I can tell she ain’t tellin’ me the truth. Joe, he ain’t gonna go to Noo York widout he tells me. He’s done a heist and got himself caught. He ain’t a juvenile no more, he’s doin’ penitentiary time. He knows I joined the navy. If he wants he can find me. I don’t wanna put no shame on him.’

‘You said yesterday that Pontiac was an improvement on Angel Guardian?’

‘Yeah, man, it just a big jail for kids. What the hell, I bin in jail all my life. In Angel I got beat up every day; in Pontiac I had Joe to take care o’ me. It the first time I ever got as much as I could eat. The others, they was always complainin’ about the grub. Me? I thought I was in fuckin’ paradise. Stews in gravy you can stan’ your spoon up in, pieces of meat you can lift out wid a fork dey so big, corn-beef hash, vegetables, fill yer plate with spuds, boiled, mashed, baked, they got carrots but nobody makes you eat dem. Breakfast, you wudda not believed it: eggs, bacon, hash browns, hot cakes, flapjacks, maple syrup. I thought, I’m dead and gone to heaven.’

‘Mate, I don’t know about the flapjacks, hot cakes and hash browns, but I can guarantee you bacon and eggs when we get to Fremantle. Okay, you’re in Pontiac. Why?’

‘Why? Don’t ask. I’m small. Small kids can climb in small windas. One thing I could never figure, every mart is the same, dey got security front and back, dey got the mart locked like it’s Fort fuckin’ Knox. Then dey go home and leave the winda in the washroom open. The little one above the toilet, it’s always left half-open. Climb in the winda, step on the cistern, step on the toilet seat, step on the floor, step in the storeroom, load up, three cartons only, you don’t be greedy and they don’t even know you bin there. Cigarettes and booze, dey the two things you can sell on the street, outside any saloon. You do the heist and in ten minutes yer clean. Only one day I sell a carton of Luckies to a plainclothes cop. I got two more, Chesterfield and Camel, hid in the front o’ my ’cheater.’

‘They sent you to a reformatory for three cartons of cigarettes?’

‘Nah, the asshole cop dat caught me, he tol’ the desk sergeant he bin watchin’ me, I on the way to being a habitual offender. There’re three heists in other marts they got on der books, the cop who arrest me says he hears talk I done dem. It ain’t true. I ain’t stoopid. Them three heists, they got greedy and took too much and leave a mess behin’. But they put me down for them. Cops don’t like unsolved when dey got some dumb kid to blame who ain’t got a daddy.’

‘What about the brothers, Father Geraghty?’

‘Yeah, they know the system. Irish cops and priests, dey a brotherhood. Dey ain’t gonna rock the boat. First it’s Audy Hall, like I tol’ you, it’s this big buildin’ where they hold the kids for processin’ and assessment wid a social worker. That all bullshit. It’s just another fuckin’ jail. The social worker, Mr Smybert, ask me these questions. Did I sleep wid my mother? “Sure,” I say, “I was four years old, there weren’t no other bed.” I’m just supposin’, I can’t remember, I’m four years old, ferchrissakes. Did I wet my bed? That the next question he ask me. “What now? Or when I slept wid my mother?” I say. He don’t smile, he jes write all this crap on his yella pad. Do I play wid myself? That his next question, that his exact words, “play wid yourself”. “Yeah, I ain’t got no friends, I a lonely chile,” I say, ’cos it a stupid question, I’m fourteen, nearly fifteen, it ain’t possible I don’t. “Masturbate?” he says, now he’s smilin’ and he’s got one eyebrow cocked like he’s suggestin’ somethin’. “Nah,” I says. “When the devil temptation come, I think o’ Jesus.”

‘Next thing I know I’m in the Juvenile Court and the judge says, “Your social worker’s report indicates that you were extremely uncooperative and recalcitrant.” Later, at Pontiac dey tol’ me, if I let Smiley Bert, dat the social worker’s nickname, play wid my wienie I coulda got a good report.

‘The judge says my intelligence test is good. I must learn me a trade. He gonna send me to a correction facility upstate, the Illinois State Reformatory at Pontiac, to Mr Googerty. He gimme three years. “Get some education, son,” he says to me. “The best helping hands you are going to get in life are attached to the ends of your arms.” He don’t tell me that is because Mr Googerty, the superintendent at Pontiac, is a master blacksmith and every boy got to learn himself blacksmithin’ skills. Workin’ wit your hands, it suppose to break delinquent habits. Lemme tell you summin’, it don’t work — when we got outa that place we all got good blacksmithin’ skills, and there ain’t no place we can’t break into, no safe we can’t open.’

‘So you’re a blacksmith by trade?’ I asked.

‘Nah, they say’d I’m too small for the work. I got to do general duties. Joe, he was good.’ Kevin laughed, recalling. ‘One day he says to me, “Judgie, I like dis blacksmith work, man. I black, this mah work, man. It good, you pick up dat big ole hammer, you sweatin’ like a nigga, de metal it red-hot from dat forge. You hit it hard, you change da shape. You keep hittin’ ’til you ain’t angry no more!”’

‘You never know, maybe he went straight and he’s a blacksmith somewhere?’ I said.

Kevin looked doubtful. ‘Yeah, maybe.’

‘And you? What did general duties involve?’

‘Library, laundry, sanatorium duties, but it mostly involve getting me an education, three years’ high school. I already got one year when I at Angel, De La Salle Catholic High School. But I didn’t take much notice in the classroom. I couldn’t read so good, so the brother he ain’t interested. Now they say I must get me three more or no general duties. If I don’t do no learnin’ dey gonna send me back to the workshops wit the big hammer.’ Kevin laughed. ‘It’s funny, when I ain’t in juvenile detention I hate school, the brothers, they call me stoopid, useless, brain-dead, or dey jus’ ignore me. Now in kids’ jail I like it. They gimme special lessons for slow readers and in three months I’m readin’ everythin’ I can find in that library. They said I ain’t stoopid no more. In fact, I suppose to become bright. So I learned me everythin’ I could. At the end, graduation, dey said I was the best they ever had. I was college material. Mr Googerty say he disappointed I don’t turn out to be no blacksmith but he gonna try an’ get me wunna them state scholarships. It ain’t easy cause it jes after the Depression, but he gonna try. But by den I done my time and I’m back on the street. I’m seventeen, I can make my own way, I don’t have ter go back to Angel.’

‘No college then? You didn’t accept?’

‘Hey, maybe I ain’t so bright after all. But, man, all I want is freedom. One way or ’nother I bin in jail all my life. I seventeen years and not one day I get to do what I want — when I don’ need permission to scratch my ass.’

I thought how, with the exception of boarding school, I’d lived my life largely unsupervised and at seventeen had been free to go butterfly hunting in Java and then, as we were doing at present, sail across the Indian Ocean. It was quite a contrast to the little bloke’s first seventeen years.

‘So what did you do with your first taste of freedom?’ I asked.

‘Ha! Freedom! That a big, big joke! Wit my record I can’t even get a job stackin’ groceries at the supermart.’

I laughed. ‘I should think not!’

Kevin did a quick double-take, but then got the joke and chuckled. ‘Yeah, maybe you right. I get dat job, hey, I doesn’t need no toilet winda no more. Dat a whole lot o’ temptation to put in front my two hands dat suppose to be the best help I gonna get in life.’

‘What about Joe Popkin? Was he with you, released at the same time?’

‘Nah, he was involved in this fight in the washroom. Three big wop kids, Latinos, they attack him, one wit a knife, they gonna cut him bad. It about cigarettes… the wops dey control the distribution o’ smokes. They chargin’ unfair and the black kids, they got to pay more dan the white kids. Joe says they ain’t gonna pay no more, they gonna start their own supply, get deir own outside connection wit a guard.’

‘So, what happened? Joe get hurt?’

‘He got cut on the arm, but it ain’t bad. He broke the arm o’ the wop wit the knife. He broke the jaw of der second one and the last, he threw him against the shower wall and he got himself, that wop, he got fifty-two stitches in the head. Joe says to me, “You da cigarette man, Judgie. Why you not go talk to dat Irish guard wid da red head. We can do dis busy-ness, man. You got da distribution and I do da protection. What you say, man?”

‘So I talk to the carrot-head, Mick O’ Rourke, that the same as my mother’s maiden name, Mary O’ Rourke, and he got hair, freckles jus’ like I remember hers. But he says he don’t know her, he come from Detroit. I put the deal, the proposition, to him. He greedy, but he agree to give me three cartons’ credit if we pay triple for the first order and after dat double above retail. It ain’t good, but also it ain’t bad. Soon we got ourself a good cigarette business wit the blacks and then wit the white guys. The wops, dey don’t come near, because Joe, now he the man, black an’ white, dey call him “Joe ‘Hammer-man’ Popkin”! “Hammer-man” fer short, like, “Watch out, here come the Hammer-man!”’

‘Punishment? The fight?’ I asked, feeling certain they couldn’t have got away with the washroom brawl.

‘Yeah, nobody grass, not even the wops, but der’s too much blood and bones broke, the sanatorium, dey involved. Dat mean no cover-up. Joe got six months added on for assault and battery. Mr Googerty he put in a good word wit the judge ’cos Joe is the best blacksmith apprentice he got and he don’t make no trouble before, otherwise he coulda got two years for A an’ B. Dat wudda meant when he turn eighteen, he ain’t no juvenile no more, he got to leave Pontiac and go to Joliet, the state prison. But now wit the six months added, Joe don’t come out wit me.’

‘That’s tough,’ I sympathised. ‘I mean losing a good mate like that.’ It occurred to me that I’d never had a Joe as a mate. Never had anyone like that. Aloneness has its drawbacks.

‘I shoulda gone to college,’ Kevin said, shaking his head ruefully. ‘But I got dis one dumb idea. I want to find my mother, dat the first thing.’

‘Oh? Hasn’t she been gone a fair while, since you were six? How did you know where to start looking?’

Kevin gave a grim little laugh. ‘Saloons. She’s a lush. Irish. Mary O’Rourke. If she still pretty, it ain’t too hard to figure.’ Kevin looked up at me knowingly, expecting me to react. But I didn’t, not sure what it was I was supposed to figure out. ‘The game… she floggin’ pussy,’ he said quietly.

‘You mean she’s a prostitute?’ I said, somewhat shocked at this assumption.

His voice grew suddenly angry. ‘Stands to reason, don’t it? Poor Irish, she’s an alky, how else she gonna buy her booze?’

‘But you couldn’t be certain?’ I protested.

‘Nah, yer right, maybe she become a nun,’ he said, still angry, but I could see, also hurting inside like hell.