The Americans

by John Jakes

  They strolled back to Bayard Court in the hot summer sunshine. When they’d gone half a block, they came upon two boys of fifteen or sixteen punching one another while a small crowd looked on. Will stopped to watch, but Drew motioned him away.

  “Those two belong to the same neighborhood gang. They aren’t mad. They stage a fight like that every few days.”

  “Stage a fight? Why?”

  Drew pointed, and Will saw what he hadn’t noticed before—other boys, about the same age as the fighters, standing behind the adults in the crowd. One of the boys slipped his hand under the coattails of a well-dressed man in front of him. The man was obviously not a resident of the area. A moment later, Will saw the boy hide a fat wallet under his shirt.

  “You mean, it’s just a diversion so the others in the gang can pick pockets?” he asked.

  Drew nodded. “That’s what it is.” Will laughed, shook his head, and the three walked on.

  Soon they crossed Mulberry Street. Will felt a prickle on the back of his neck. He glanced to the right and saw nothing suspicious. He looked the other way, and stiffened—

  A few doors down, a man on a brownstone stoop was watching him.

  The man stood motionless among cronies with whom he’d been talking. Even though the brim of a derby kept his face shadowed, Will recognized him. It was Giuseppe Corso.

  A shiver chased down Will’s back. Fortunately Drew was talking to his sister; neither noticed.

  Once across Mulberry Street, Will didn’t look back. But he felt Corso’s eyes following him until the three of them were out of sight on Bayard Street. Drew began to explain some things about the practice.

  “We’ve worked the schedule out so that Dr. Clem always takes Sunday off to relax and attend to personal business. He also takes every other Saturday. I take Tuesdays. We plan to add a third person, though that isn’t absolutely definite yet.”

  “He means me,” Jo said. “If I can’t pay for nursing school, I can at least learn by apprenticing myself to a couple of exceptional doctors. I’ve decided to tell Father I won’t stay in Hartford past the end of this year.”

  That confirmed a prediction Drew had made only yesterday. “How will your father take it?” Will asked.

  Drew laughed in a humorless way. “He’ll squeal like a gored bull.”

  “But my mind’s made up,” Jo added.

  “Ultimately, Pa will give in,” Drew went on. “He won’t like the decision, but he’ll understand it.”

  She sighed. “I hope you’re right. Still”—she glanced at the tenements simmering in the sunshine—“I’d come work here even if he didn’t. Life’s very short. I refuse to squander mine standing behind a counter when there are so many people who need what little help I can give.”

  By God, they’re still trying to convert me! Will thought. But he didn’t utter a protest. Jo’s dedication, like Drew’s, had a strong appeal to a certain part of his nature. So all he did was smile and say, “Spoken like a true disciple of Julia Kent.”

  Jo laughed. “Right you are, sir.” Without embarrassment, she linked her arm with his. Drew looked a bit unhappy about his sister’s forward behavior, but Jo ignored him. She and Will strolled arm in arm for half a block. A most enjoyable half block, Will thought as they separated to walk single file through the passage leading to Bayard Court.

  “I’m confused about one thing, Drew,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  “The place we’re going. Which is it, your office or the free clinic?”

  Drew laughed again. “All depends. If a patient can pay us a few cents, it’s the office. If he can’t, it’s the clinic. You don’t imagine we earn enough to cover two rents, do you? Now I’ll ask you something. Supposing we get busy this afternoon. May I put you to work?”

  “I wish you would.”

  iii

  He didn’t expect the office would receive many patients the rest of the day. There had been none during the morning, as the Bend had come slowly to life while church bells rang the summons to mass at regular intervals. But two young men were already waiting outside the tenement. Both looked groggy; both were covered with blood that attracted a great many big black flies.

  The men were brothers, explained the one who knew a little English. After church, he went on, they had retired to their fire escape and started drinking and playing cards. There’d been an argument; knives were drawn. Each brother suffered a wound—

  An embarrassed shrug ended the story. With no warning, the brother who’d been speaking fell forward against Will, his eyes rolling up into his head.

  “Get ’em inside,” Drew ordered. After a brief examination of the unconscious man, Will dragged him through the waiting room to the surgery, covering himself with blood in the process. That was the start of work that didn’t let up until after five.

  Will soon came to appreciate why Drew derived such satisfaction from his work. The people who came to the office didn’t come with trivial complaints. It took pain, and attendant fear, to overcome their natural unwillingness to visit a doctor. The language barrier compounded their difficulties. When they walked into the surgery, they were in need, and terrified.

  Will’s first patient was a weeping mother with a four-year-old girl in her arms. Three rat bites marked the child’s legs. In broken English, the mother explained the youngster had been playing in the alley when she was bitten. The explanation brought on more sobbing. Will managed to calm the woman, who was far more upset than her child. The little girl bore the experience stoically, as if rats were an accepted part of life in the Bend. He cleaned the wounds and told the woman to bring the girl back if fever or other symptoms developed.

  Next Jo brought him a burly young man who was weak and in severe pain. Will diagnosed acute enteritis, administered opium, then turned the patient over to Jo for fomentation.

  The young man stretched out on the examination table, blushing as she applied the warm water poultices to his belly. When he left, he took along a little vial of opium tincture. Will hoped the patient had understood the directions Drew had given in slow, halting Italian. The young man probably couldn’t do what would be most beneficial for his condition—stick to a bland diet. People in the Bend didn’t have the luxury of choosing the foods they ate. Most of their energy was consumed in an effort to find any food at all. He felt helpless when he realized that—helpless and not a little angry.

  He experienced the same sense of helplessness with a seventy-year-old woman suffering from subacute rheumatism made even more painful by the humidity. How could he tell her of the remedies enumerated in his textbooks? How could he urge her to eat better food? Get more rest? Move to a milder, drier climate? The thought was ludicrous. All he could do was spoon out some tincture of guaiacum mixed with sarsaparilla and ask Jo to prepare a tepid alkaline bath behind a folding screen.

  After much balking, the woman was persuaded to step behind the screen where Jo helped her bathe. All this went on while Drew examined a portly, well-dressed padrone with a rasping cough. The padrone accepted a bottle of medicine and paid nothing.

  After her bath, the rheumatic woman smiled and acted a bit more spry. She shook Jo’s hand, pressed a dime into Will’s, and impulsively kissed his cheek.

  Will thought a moment, then handed the dime back. Drew didn’t object.

  The final patient Will saw that afternoon raised a ghost that had troubled him only once in recent months—the night of his last quarrel with his father. He’d begun to think he was finally free of the past. With a jolt, he discovered how dangerously wrong that assumption was.

  The patient was a middle-aged man suffering acute pleuritis. It was obvious that fluid had to be drained from the left side of the chest cavity. Will prepared the trocar. For the first time all day, he started to perspire.

  Soon his hand was trembling. Drew noticed. Will fought the trembling and brought it under control. But by that time the patient had noticed too.

  Will’s reassuring smile did
nothing to ease the man’s anxiety. He stood up, obviously ready to leave. Drew stepped to Will’s side and held out his hand for the trocar. Reluctantly Will surrendered it. Drew got the patient seated again, then performed the procedure with no difficulty.

  Jo took charge of the cannula and the basin to catch the discharge. Will pulled Drew out to the reception room— empty at last—and attempted to apologize.

  “I’m sorry you felt you had to take over. I’ve never done an aspiration before.”

  “That was evident. Trouble is”—a nod toward the surgery—“you let the patient see it too.”

  “Damn it, Drew. The Harvard faculty doesn’t offer a course in confidence!”

  Instantly, Will regretted the outburst. It brought a scowl to his friend’s face. “No,” he said, almost curt. “You have to learn that on your own.”

  He went back into the surgery. Will leaned against the whitewashed wall, one fist clenched. He saw his mother vividly.

  Laughing at him.

  iv

  Just as they were closing the office, a florid man in a white suit and wide-brimmed straw hat walked in.

  The man had a curling mustache waxed at the points. A silver toothpick jutted from between his lips. There was a lot of silver in his mouth, too; all his front teeth had been partially replaced, Will noticed as he scrubbed his hands with carbolic solution.

  “Sergeant Banks!” Jo exclaimed, smiling.

  “How do you do, Miss Hastings? Dr. Hastings—”

  The visitor touched his hat. He had a low, husky voice. A second chin hid half of his cravat. Despite his girth, the man seemed to radiate strength and controlled tension. He was around forty, but something in his brown eyes said he’d been examining the world—and finding it wanting— for much longer.

  The man was obviously among friends. Yet the wary brown eyes examined every cranny of the surgery. He looked behind the folding screen, then lifted the curtains and peered out the improvised window. Only when he was satisfied did he inspect Will, then say to Drew, “This the friend you were telling me about?”

  “That’s right. Sergeant Eustace Banks—Will Kent. Dr. Will Kent in another year. I mean it’ll be official then. He’s already a pretty good practitioner.”

  Drew’s remark made Will appreciate the meaning of friendship. By what Drew said and didn’t say, he made it clear that Will’s problem of a few minutes ago—part inexperience, part fear of failure—would never be mentioned in front of strangers.

  “Glad to hear it,” Banks replied. “Didn’t stop by purely to be social, Doc.”

  “You seldom do.” To Will: “The sergeant operates out of the Sixth Precinct station house over on Elizabeth Street. You’re out of uniform, Eustace.”

  The policeman sat down on a stool. He pulled his hat off and fanned himself. His pink forehead glistened. His hair was parted in the center, and had been shaped at the temples into a pair of perfect spit-curls. A bit of a dandy, Will decided. But not a man to be dismissed for that reason.

  “Of course I’m out of uniform,” Banks retorted. “It’s my day off.” ,

  “You never take a day off.”

  The policeman laughed; it was more a snort than anything else. “You learn fast, Doc.” While speaking, he somehow managed to work the silver toothpick to the other side of his mouth without touching it. “I came to ask whether you’ve heard anything about a new stale beer dive. It’s supposed to be operating in Robber’s Row.”

  Drew shook his head. “Haven’t heard a word.”

  Banks sniffed. “Must be newer than I thought. Maybe we can padlock it before anyone perishes of poisoning.” He stood up suddenly, resettling his hat on his head without disturbing the curls. Will noticed his hands. They were callused. The wrists were thick and powerful.

  “Thanks for your time,” he said in a voice lacking any emotion. “Good day, Mr. Kent. Miss Hastings—”

  As he turned to leave, Drew caught his arm. “Are you going to check on this new dive before you close it?”

  “Sure. I figure on giving it the once-over tomorrow night. Jake’s going with me.”

  “I’m anxious to show Will the conditions we’re fighting down here. Truth is, I’ve never seen a stale beer dive myself. Would you and Riis mind if we came along?”

  Again the wary eyes examined Will. “Sure he’s got the stomach for it?”

  “I’d say so,” Will replied with a smile, “seeing that I don’t know what it is.”

  The attempt at humor failed. Banks stared. “Be thankful. Even the wops who live in these chicken coops won’t patronize a two-cent restaurant. That’s the fancy name for a stale beer dive. A few of ’em actually serve moldy rolls and some black swill they call coffee. But the staple is beer from the bottoms of kegs that decent saloons put out on the curb. The kegs are supposed to go back to the brewery for refilling, but the stale beer boys get to ’em first, and drain the dregs.”

  “You mean the dives serve that kind of stuff?”

  “Yes, sir, that’s exactly what I mean.”

  “Who’d be crazy enough to drink it?”

  “People who can’t afford better. Tramps, mostly. They know they’re taking their lives in their hands. They don’t care. Why, we can’t stay ahead of the stale beer trade in this part of town! And the politicians don’t help, either. We’ll close this new place and ship the patrons out for a six-month vacation on Blackwell’s Island. But it’s likely none of them will serve a full sentence. Some alderman will get a friendly judge to spring ’em as soon as their votes are needed, and they’ll go right back to killing themselves in some other dive.” He sighed and let some of his anger drain away before he said, “It’s a losing game. I’ll show you this new place if you’ve the belly for it, Mr. Kent.”

  He sounded as if he were doubtful. Will said, “Absolutely.”

  “I’d like to see it, too,” Jo said. “But I know better than to ask.”

  Banks’ gaze nickered to her. “Let’s hope so. If my wife ever asked to visit a stale beer joint, I’d break her head.”

  Jo bristled but kept quiet. The policeman turned back to Will and Drew. He took the silver toothpick out of his mouth and said, “Tomorrow night. Dress like you don’t have a cent. Smear a lot of dirt on your faces and hands. Be ready at nine sharp.”

  It wasn’t a suggestion; it was an order.

  CHAPTER VI

  STALE BEER

  i

  ON MONDAY, DREW FOUND jackets and some ragged pants for them to wear that night—not a difficult search in this neighborhood. The landlord, Nevsky, helped locate the clothing. Drew asked Nevsky’s wife to boil the old clothes and hang them out to dry. She was quite willing; her own husband was the one who had urged the precaution. Nevsky had spoken of infants lying or playing in stacks of garments in their parents’ sweat shops. The children were later found to be ill with smallpox. The garments had transmitted the disease to employees of the companies which had contracted for the sweat work. In one documented case, the disease had been carried into a fine Broadway store displaying the finished clothing.

  As the summer evening darkened, the two young men escorted Jo from the office to the tenement. There they changed clothes, smeared dirt on their faces and hands, and started back to Bayard Court.

  The streets were dim; electrification hadn’t yet reached the Bend. Shops and tenement rooms were for the most part lit by lamps and, in a few instances, by gas. There were plenty of dark areas to conceal crime.

  As Will and Drew walked down the passage to Bayard Court, a church bell struck nine. From up on the fire escapes, Will heard tired, quarrelsome voices. Sergeant Banks and another man were waiting near the tenement entrance.

  The clock rang for the ninth and last time. In the silence that followed, Banks said, “You’re late.”

  Without waiting for an explanation, he stalked past the two friends. Will heard a clicking sound. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought Banks was examining the mechanism of a revolver.

  In
a hushed voice, Drew introduced Will to the reporter Jacob Riis. All three hurried after the stocky policeman, who had already entered the passage leading to Bayard Street.

  Once on the street, Banks turned right. The others kept pace. The darkness made it impossible for Will to tell just what Jacob Riis looked like, other than that he was husky, with a frame much like Roosevelt’s. The reporter’s voice was deeper than Roosevelt’s, yet there too Will discovered a resemblance. Riis spoke with a seriousness and an intensity that immediately brought the other man to mind.

  Riis was much more willing to answer questions than the policeman who led them around the corner into Baxter Street, then on through a succession of black passages that seemed to go nowhere—at least not until Banks traveled unerringly to some unseen doorway in a decaying brick wall, or lifted some loose plank in a solid-looking fence.

  In just a short time, Will got a good deal of information out of the reporter, starting with some facts about his book. It was called How the Other Half Lives. Riis hoped it would shock the complacent public into doing something about the poverty and disease endemic in the New York slums.

  Riis explained how the city’s tenements had developed. Seventy or eighty years earlier, many residential lots in lower Manhattan had had two houses on them. The smaller, rear-of-the-lot house was usually leased to a tenant. Soon someone got the idea of subdividing such houses to produce even more income. As fashions in neighborhoods changed, better-class families abandoned the older sections and moved uptown. The tenant houses were expanded outward and upward, thus creating tenements. Now the blight was everywhere—block after block of it.

  “I’ve done research on the subject of slums, Mr. Kent. The Americans have succeeded in developing overcrowding to a high art. Even in the worst stews of old London, people were never packed more densely than at the rate of about a hundred and seventy-five thousand per square mile. In parts of New York, the density’s twice that. One result is that areas like this one become a breeding ground of disease. Has your friend Hastings mentioned the infant mortality rate for the Bend?”