The Boy Who Granted Dreams

by Luca Di Fulvio

  “I won’t last long either!” she cried out, laughing. “Hello, everybody,” and then she slumped to the ground. She struck her head against the wrought iron staircase finial. She laughed. She saw her mother rushing towards her. “Mamma,” she murmured, almost affectionately. It was almost as if some regurgitated hope hovered in her throat, falsifying the sound of the word. “Mamma …” she repeated. And as she said that name it sounded different to her, as if it were made up of other letters. As if she were saying “Grandpa,” or “Christmas.” And then — as her mother reached her, followed by two servants, as all the grasshoppers turned to look at her with their mandibles full of food — her laugh became a sob. For an instant. “Am I weeping blood, Mamma?” she asked in a voice thickened with whiskey and her mother’s pills.

  “Ruth, how could you?” murmured her mother. “Ruth, how dare you–”

  “Make a spectacle of myself,” Ruth finished it for her. And then she began to laugh again, wiping her tears. Then anger took over, shaking her like a temblor, an earthquake. She stood up, pulled away from them, slapped one of the servants, shoved her mother aside. She glared furiously at the locusts that were suddenly quiet, staring at her. And when the anger had filled her completely, quickly and unexpectedly, like fire through a field of straw, she ripped at the dress with her fingernails, ripped her own skin, because the frightful anger she felt wasn’t against her mother, or the locusts, or Christmas, or Bill, or the whole world, but against herself. She pulled on the dress, ripping it open. And everyone could see that the girl with red-painted eyes was wearing a heavy bandage that flattened her breasts. When she took hold of the gauze strips, the two servants held her arms firmly.

  “It’s nothing. Please enjoy yourselves,” said her mother to the hushed guests as the servants carried her daughter up the stairs and Ruth began to scream, giving voice to her long silence.

  They laid her on the bed.

  “Am I going to have to tie you up?” asked her mother with a fierce cold look.

  Ruth was quiet. Suddenly, as suddenly as she’d begun to scream. She turned her head away. “No, Mamma.” She said softly.

  “You’ve ruined your father’s evening, can you understand that?” asked her mother.

  “Yes, Mamma.”

  “You’re mad,” said her mother.

  “Yes, Mamma.”

  “I have to be with the guests now,” her mother went on. “Afterwards, I’m calling a doctor.”

  “Yes, Mamma.”

  “Out,” Mrs. Isaacson told the two servants. Then she followed them.

  Ruth heard the key turn in the lock of her bedroom door. She lay with her head turned away. Unmoving.

  Crack.

  This time it was a gentle sound. Friendly. Soft. Muted.

  “You’ve ruined your father’s evening …” she began softly, in a voice with no inflections at all. “See here, Ruth … your father invested all his money … our money … in the DeForest system … DeForest … don’t you know what that is? … Talking pictures … sound … your father isn’t like your grandfather … not like your grandfather … he’s not … DeForest … sound system … all his money … Phonofilm DeForest … all his money … Phonofilm DeForest … bankrupt … went broke … the producers … your father is not like Grandpa Saul … the producers have to help him … not like Grandpa Saul … to help him … help him … help him … you ruined your father’s evening … Grandpa Saul … your father … you’ve ruined your father …”

  Crack.

  A light thump.

  Ruth was quiet. Everything had stopped spinning. The walls and the ceiling and the floor had come to a stop. Everything was still now. Everything was clear. Her mind was limpid. Transparent.

  She got off the bed. She went to the window. She opened it. She climbed onto the sill. She could see the locusts down below. But they didn’t see her. Only the eight sisters turned to look at her. They were smiling at her. And they reached up their arms. Towards her.

  She stepped out into emptiness.

  Crack.

  When she fell among the party guests onto the square Tuscan paving, Ruth was surprised at herself. She didn’t feel a thing. Once again, she felt nothing at all. No pain, no cry. And things had no color. In her mouth there was a sweet taste. Her own blood’s sweetness.

  And then at last came the darkness.

  37

  Manhattan, 1926

  Christmas counted each one of the broad white granite steps. He rested his hand on the metal bar of the revolving door and came out in the lobby of the building on West Fifty-Fifth Street, not far from the bench in Central Park where he used to meet Ruth. He walked uncertainly towards the burlwood reception desk with its gleaming top. Two women, one very young, the other in her forties, both of them pretty and identically dressed, were sitting behind the desk. Behind them a huge sign announced “N.Y. Broadcast.”

  “They told me to start today,” said Christmas to the younger one.

  The girl smiled at him, reaching for the phone. “Who’s your appointment with?” she asked him sweetly.

  Christmas reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper with a name written on it. “Cyril Davies,” he said.

  The girl frowned. She raised her finger at him, indicating he should wait. Then she turned towards her colleague and waited for her to finish her telephone conversation.

  Christmas looked all around him, thinking excitedly, I’ve done it.

  “Do you know the extension for … Cyril Davies?” the girl asked her sidekick when she hung up the phone.

  The woman puffed out her lips and shook her head.

  “Are you sure he works here?” the girl asked Christmas.

  The two women were staring at him. They looked at the cheap brown suit and the scar that marked his lower lip and went down towards his chin.

  “Are you sure?” asked the forty-year-old.

  “That’s what they told me,” Christmas answered, feeling uneasy.

  The older woman arched an eyebrow and, never talking her eyes off Christmas, told her colleague, “Check in the directory.” Then she picked up the telephone and dialed a number. “Mark,” she said softly. “What are you up to?” Nothing else.

  A minute later, while the young receptionist went through a list of names muttering, “D … D … Dampton … Dartland … Davenport …” a man in a uniform strolled into the lobby.

  “Problems?” said the security man, staring at Christmas.

  “… Davidson … Dewey …” the girl went on. “No Davies here,” she told her colleague.

  “Sorry,” said the older woman. “No Davies.”

  “But they told me to start today,” said Christmas. “And that’s the name they gave me.”

  The forty-year-old took the directory and stabbed her finger between two names. “From Davidson it goes to Dewey. There isn’t any Davies here, I’m sorry,” she said firmly.

  “That’s impossible,” Christmas protested.

  “O.K., mister,” said the security man, reaching for Christmas’ arm.

  “No, that’s impossible,” he repeated. “I was hired to work here at the station,” he said vigorously, taking a step backwards to avoid the security guy’s grasp.

  “Mister …” said the security man again, his arm still reaching towards Christmas.

  “Check again. It’s not possible,” Christmas told the younger woman.

  “There’s no Cyril Davies working here, kid,” the older receptionist said coldly.

  “I’m sorry,” said the young one, looking at him.

  “Did you say Cyril?” said the security officer.

  “Cyril Davies,” said Christmas.

  The man laughed and dropped his arm. “It’s the repair guy,” he told the two women.

  “Who?” said the older one.

  “The negro,” said the man.

  “Cyril?” she asked.

  “Yeah, Cyril,” he laughed.

  “Cyril,” she told her young colleague. �
��The negro. You know who he is?”

  The girl nodded vaguely, then lost interest in Christmas and began leafing through a magazine.

  “You’re supposed to use the service entrance,” the older woman told Christmas.

  “Go out, make a right, and knock on the green door at the end of the alley. It says ‘N.Y. Broadcast,’ you can’t miss it,” said the man from security. He turned his back on Christmas and leaned his elbows on the desk, looking at the older woman. “Say, Lena, I’ve got two tickets for–”

  “Not interested, Mark,” she snapped. “Stay at your post and don’t go wandering around. They pay you to keep track of who comes in here. Don’t make me have to report you.”

  The man flushed, grumbled something, stepped away from the reception desk, and turned towards the revolving door at the entrance. Christmas was still standing in the middle of the lobby, looking at the big sign that proclaimed “N.Y. Broadcasting.”

  “So what are you waiting for?” the man barked at him. “This is the entrance for people who belong in here. You’re not working in radio, you’re in the repair shop!”

  Christmas turned and left.

  As he went down the seven white granite steps he could feel disappointment sticking to him. When he reached the bottom step he looked back towards the entrance and — as a well-dressed man with a polished leather briefcase went in to the N.Y. Broadcast studio — he said softly, “Someday I’ll go through that door and Ruth will get to hear my voice.” Then he went around the side of the building, down an alley filled with empty cardboard cartons, and at the end he saw double metal doors painted green, with “N.Y. Broadcast” in shiny brass letters. He caressed them with his fingertips.

  “Now show me this story about the radio ain’t one of your made up lies, kid,” Arnold Rothstein had said to him two days earlier after summoning him to the Lincoln Republican club. At first Christmas hadn’t understood. Lepke and Gurrah were there, arms folded, staring at him while Rothstein explained that some friends of his had found him a job at a radio station. Christmas couldn’t even thank him. He stayed there with his mouth open. Then in a stunned voice he said “Radio?” They’d all burst out laughing. Rothstein gave him a slap on the back, then he took his hands and turned them palms upwards, “Better’n tarrin’ roofs, right?” he’d said. “I owe you a favor, Mr. Big,” Christmas managed to say. Again they all laughed. Gurrah harder than the others, a high strident laugh, slapping his thigh, and while he repeated, “He owes ya a favor, boss!” his pistol fell on the floor. And only when the laughter died down did Christmas look into the eyes of Arnold Rothstein, the man who ran New York. Rothstein smiled at him, as benevolently as a man like that could smile. He took him by the nape of his neck and led him to the pool table. He pushed all the balls away from the middle and took two ivory dice out of his pocket. They were very white and he put them in Christmas’ hand. “Lemme see if ya lucky. Eleven wins, seven loses.”

  And as Christmas remembered that throw of the dice, he kept rubbing his fingertips over the brass letters on the green door. N.Y. Broadcast.

  “Keep those dirty fingers off of my sign,” said a harsh voice behind him.

  Christmas turned and saw a thin black man with one leg shorter than the other limping down the alley. The man pulled a bunch of keys out of his overalls pocket and pushed Christmas aside. He rubbed the sleeve of his cotton jacket on the letters and jabbed a key into the lock. His face was wrinkled and dried, like the old oystermen from Pike Slip or South Street who lived on the East River under the Manhattan Bridge. His eyes were bulbous and yellowish, marked with tiny red veins. He didn’t look older than forty. He unlocked the door and looked at Christmas. “What you lookin’ for? Go on now, go take a walk someplace else,” he told him.

  Christmas smiled at him.

  Again he remembered how the dice had skittered across the green felt, bouncing independently, silently striking the wall of the table and coming back again, beginning to slow down, and all the while Rothstein kept his hand on his neck. Five. And then six. Eleven. “Your ass got lucky, Rabbit,” cried Gurrah. Rothstein squeezed his neck, then said: “Time t’ go, kid.” And only then, going out the door, could Christmas say it: “Thanks.” Lepke whistled at him, the way Italian boys whistled at pretty girls in the street. “Look out, all them actors is faggots,” and he snickered.

  “You see somethin’ funny, boy?” the black man asked Christmas on the threshold of N.Y. Broadcast.

  Maybe it wasn’t the way he’d dreamed it would be over those two days, thought Christmas. Maybe it would be a while before he could come through the main entrance to the studios. But he was here. And that was the only thing that mattered. “I threw an eleven,” he said.

  “You a half-wit?”

  “Are you Cyril?”

  The black man frowned. “What you want?”

  “They told me to start work today,” and Christmas held out the piece of paper shakily.

  Cyril snatched it out of his hand, rudely. “I’m a negro, but I ain't illiterate,” he muttered, reading it. “Uh-huh, they told me a new one was comin’.” He looked at him. “I don’t need any assistant, but if they done hired you …” He shrugged. “What you know about radio?”

  “Nothing.”

  Cyril shook his head slowly, turning his mouth downwards, causing more wrinkles to appear. “What’s you name?”

  “Christmas Luminita.”

  “Christmas?”

  “Yes.”

  “What kind o’ name …? That sound crazy, maybe even a nigger name.”

  Christmas looked straight into his eyes. “Of the two of us, I guess you’d be the expert, Cyril.”

  Cyril stubbed a finger against Christmas chest. “Mister Davies to you, boy,” he grumbled, but Christmas could see a flicker of amusement in those bulging eyes. Next, Cyril reached into the storeroom, pulled out a rag and tossed it to Christmas. “Startin’ today, it’s yo’ job to keep those letters shined.” He went inside and closed the door behind him with a heavy thud.

  Christmas rubbed each letter rapidly and then knocked at the door.

  “Who out there?” Cyril said from inside.

  “Open up, Cyril, I’m done.”

  “Nobody name Cyril in here.”

  Christmas took a deep breath. “Okay, Mr. Davies. Could you please open the door?”

  Cyril opened the door, pushed Christmas aside and looked over the letters. He nodded and went back inside, leaving the door open. Christmas followed him.

  “And don’t you slam it,” said Cyril without turning.

  I’m inside! thought Christmas.

  It was a huge room, full of shelving; dark and low ceilinged. At the back was a workbench with an electric soldering iron, a clamp, screwdrivers, a wall-mounted magnifying glass with a retractable extension, scissors and boxes of tubes, valves and other devices Christmas had never seen before.

  “What should I do?”

  “Nothin’,” said Cyril, standing at the workbench. “Go find someplace where you not in my way, and keep quiet.”

  Christmas wandered around the room, exploring the shelves, He picked up a base with some tubes screwed into it.

  “Put that right back where you found it,” said Cyril, without turning around.

  Christmas replaced it on the shelf and continued his explorations. There was a smell in the room, something he didn’t recognize, but he liked it. Maybe it was the odor of metal. He saw a huge wooden spool with bare copper wire wound tightly around it. “What’s this for?” he asked.

  Cyril didn’t answer him. He was taking a microphone apart with a screwdriver.

  “What are you doing to it?” asked Christmas.

  “Now is that what you think bein’ quiet mean?” asked Cyril, never looking up from his work.

  Christmas was watching Cyril’s big hands moving with great speed and sureness. After removing the microphone’s protective dome, he laid down the screwdriver and reached a finger into a tangle of wires, lifted it out del
icately, at last exclaiming, “I got you, bastard!”

  “Got what?” asked Christmas.

  Cyril didn’t speak. He picked up the screwdriver, undid a clamp inside the microphone, unwound some lead wire, set the end of the wire on a metal plate. With the soldering iron he melted two drops of lead into which he submerged the bare end of the wire. Then he blew on it, checked the solder, screwed the clamp back in and went back to reinserting the wires into their housing and replacing the metal carapace. Finally he took a grease-stained rag and polished the chrome fittings before inserting them into a panel. “Don’t mess with me, cocksucker,” he said into the mike. And a loudspeaker amplified his voice from the opposite end of the room. Cyril chuckled, detached the microphone and laid it in a cardboard box at his left with “Studio A — fourth floor –sound effects” written on it.

  He stretched himself, and then from an identical carton on his right he selected a glass tube. He held it between himself and the lamp on his table, examining it in silence. He shook his head, then wrapped the tube in a piece of thick cloth. He picked up a small hammer and gave it a firm blow. “Farewell, Jerusalem,” he said as the glass shattered. He unfolded the cloth, gathering up some fine filaments with tweezers and put them in a little box. He stood up, still holding the cloth.

  “Why is you right under my feet, boy?” he said as he went over to a metal waste bin and dumped the shards. When he came back to the worktable, Christmas was holding an old photograph of a black woman with a fixed intense gaze. She was standing, with both hands gripping the back of a chair where a cloak and hat had been placed.

  “Is that your mother?” asked Christmas.

  Cyril took the photo out of his hand and set it back on the table. He sat down again. From a new carton he pulled out a panel with sliding keys. He started taking it apart with the screwdriver.

  Christmas stood there for a moment; then he turned and walked to the other side of the room. He sat down on the floor, discouraged. After a minute he heard an electrical crackling coming from the loudspeaker over his head.

  “You be purely ignorant like all white folks, boy,” said Cyril’s amplified voice. “She not my mother. She be Harriet Tubman. She was a slave. Her master loan her out to other slave owners. They done beat on her, they chain her with iron chains, they broke her head and they broke her bones. She see her own sisters sold away. And once she escaped, her husband — he was a freed slave — he wouldn’t have a thing to do with her, ‘cause he was scared he might lose the nothin’ he had. From that time on, Harriet, she help dozens, hundreds, of slaves to get free. After the Civil War they was a reward o’ forty thousand dollars on her head. More than for any criminal back then. Because our Miz Moses, that’s what we come to call her, she was worse than a criminal for you white folks. She talk about freedom, and that’s a word you white folks keep in your mouths, without it goin’ nowhere. But let a knee-grow have it in his mouth, then that’s a crime. She fought till her dyin’ day to get rid o’ slavery. She died right here in the county of New York, on the tenth day o’ March, 1913. So when March tenth come around, I make sure I spit on somethin’ that belong to a white man, just to show respect. So don’t you leave stuff layin’ around that day. You done been warned.”