The Boy Who Granted Dreams

by Luca Di Fulvio

  Christmas cranked out the page and put it with the others. He rubbed his eyes. He was tired and cross. He felt a weight on his stomach. He thought about what Cyril had said; how he’d called him a swollen balloon. But those words hadn’t hurt him. He was wearing his armor. He had more important things to do than listen to a black repairman jabber nonsense. He had better things to do than go eat dinner in some crummy little two-story house in Brooklyn with Santo and Carmelina. He looked out the window. It was dark. He couldn’t see the bench in the park. And he didn’t even care. He got up suddenly, knocking over his chair. He was angry. “I don’t give a shit!” he screamed from the open window. He slammed it shut, picked up the chair, grabbed a new white page and fed it into the Underwood.

  Darkness. Lights. Inside a police station. The woman is sitting in front of a desk. A young detective is questioning her. She answers him in monosyllables. Then the detective asks her if she knows the man the audience knows to be the killer. She looks at the detective. “Sure,” she says, “he’s my Sonny’s best friend.” The detective knits his brows …

  “What crap!” cried Christmas, ripping the page out of his typewriter. “What pathetic crap …” He crumpled up the page and threw it on the floor. He took another sheet of paper and put it in the typewriter.

  Darkness. Lights. It’s daybreak. Two cars are parked at a construction site in Red Hook. The killer gets out of one of them. A heavyset man with a scar on his right cheek gets out of the other car. They shake hands. “Nice work,” says the boss. The killer slaps his holster and doesn’t say anything. The boss signals one of his men, who opens the trunk of the boss’ car and takes out a wrapped package. He sets it on the stub of a cement column. The killer walks over to it and tears open the wrapping. It’s full of money. While he’s counting it, the boss pulls his gun and shoots the killer in the neck at close range. The killer falls, with his face against the broken column. The boss’ underling gathers up the money, and then they get back in the car. Blackout. Next scene …

  Christmas stretched his back. He rubbed a hand over his aching neck. He breathed. He didn’t move. As if there wasn’t a single noise left, a single reason to move, a single thought. No longer any Cyril or Karl. No Santo, no Carmelina. Nothing and nobody. No Diamond Dogs. No radio. No Hollywood. No fan letters or newspaper reviews, and no apartment or bank account either. Maybe he wasn’t there any more either. The swollen balloon. The caricature of himself.

  He looked through the widow, into the dark. No bench in Central Park. No New York. Only a hard armor that was hiding the whole world from him. And that hid him from the world.

  There was only a dull pain, throbbing like an infection, like a cancer. A pain that shrieked within him. Inside the armor there was nothing else.

  There was only Ruth.

  And Ruth wasn’t there anymore.

  Christmas stood up slowly and went out, feeling drained. Without fighting the impulse, he crossed the street. He couldn’t see the bench but he knew it was there, a few steps away. All he needed to do was set his foot on the grass. But he didn’t move. He stood there, with tears running down his cheeks, dissolving the armor.

  Then he turned and went back to his echoing apartment. He picked up the pages he’d written and tore them to shreds. Then he picked up the typewriter and hurled it against the wall. He screamed. Finally he flopped onto the bed, still dressed, and sank into a dense black sleep, with no dreams.

  The next morning when he woke up, he didn’t bathe or change his wrinkled clothes. He walked through the apartment without looking at the typewriter on the floor with one dented side and some of the type bars twisted. He kicked at the scraps of the pages he’d ripped up and went down to the street. He drank a black coffee and thought he’d go see his mother. He turned and started walking down Broadway.

  “Rothstein shot!” shouted a newsboy from across the street, by Bryan Park, waving a newspaper in the air. “Mr. Big mortally wounded!”

  Christmas turned, as if he’d been hit. He ran across the street, ignoring the traffic, and grabbed the paper out of the newsboy’s hand.

  “Hey!” the kid protested.

  “Last night at 10:47 p.m., Vince Kelly …” He began skimming quickly through the article.

  ”Hey!” cried the boy again, tugging at Christmas’ jacket.

  Christmas reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin. He gave it to the boy and walked away, still reading.

  “A dollar?” said the kid. “Thanks, mister!”

  “Vince Kelly, elevator operator at the Park Central Hotel at the corner of West Sixty-Sixth Street and Seventh Avenue, found noted mobster Arnold Rothstein mortally wounded in a service corridor on the second floor. The noted gangster had been shot in the stomach …” Christmas lowered the paper and stared into nothingness. He started to read again. Mr. Big had been rushed to the New York Polyclinic Hospital. To the police officers who asked him for the name of the person who shot him, Mr. Big replied, “I’ll take care of it.”

  Christmas folded the paper and whistled for a taxi. “Polyclinic Hospital,” he told the driver.

  When the taxi arrived, Christmas hurried into the hospital lobby, but then his legs stopped. He’d only been in a hospital one other time. For Ruth. The smell of disinfectant stung his nostrils. He felt slightly dizzy. He saw two cops waiting for the elevator. He got in and rode up with them.

  There were guards in the corridor.

  “I want to see Rothstein,” Christmas told a policeman.

  “Relative?” the cop asked.

  “Please, I need to see him.”

  “You a journalist.”

  “I’m a … friend of his.”

  “Rothstein ain’t got no friends,” laughed a police captain passing by. Then he stopped, turned back, and stared at Christmas. “I know ya,” he said, pointing a finger at him. He shoved him, pushing his face against the wall. “Frisk him,” he said to the cop. “I know this piece o’ shit from someplace. I bet we got a file on ya, jerk.”

  “He’s clean, captain,” said the cop. He reached his hand into Christmas’ inside pocket, took out his billfold and flipped through it. “Christmas Luminita,” he read.

  “Christmas Luminita?” said the captain. “Let go of him,” he told the cop. “I said let him go, sonofabitch!” he ordered. “Sorry about that, Mr. Luminita … but ya gotta understand we … uh … shit.” He turned back to the policeman. “This here is Christmas Luminita. Diamond Dogs.”

  “The one on the radio?”

  “Of course the one on the radio, idjit.”

  “I need to see Rothstein, all right?”

  The captain glanced around, thinking. “Seein’ as how's it’s you,” he said. “Come this way.” And he walked down the corridor. Christmas followed him. They stopped at a door. “Take my advice, sonny. Don’t go around tellin’ people yer a friend o’ Rothstein’s.”

  “Thanks, captain,” said Christmas. He came into the room.

  Rothstein lay in the bed, eyes closed. He was pale and sweating. His face was taut with pain. “That you, Carolyn?” he said, hearing the door close.

  He didn’t turn his head to look.

  “No, sir, it’s Christmas.”

  Rothstein opened his eyes and barely moved his head. He smiled. “My winning pony …” he said faintly.

  “How do you feel?”

  “That is one dumb question, kid,” Rothstein sighed; then he smiled and patted the bed. “Hey, you really must be a big shot now, kid. They don’t let nobody in here.”

  Christmas sat on a chair next to the bed. He looked at the man who had governed New York. Even wounded and in pain, he hadn’t lost his kingly air. “You know that five hundred dollars you gave me for the radio station, Mr. Rothstein? They’re worth five thousand now.”

  “You don’t owe me a cent. Keep it,” Rothstein smiled painfully. “You ain’t worth shit as a gangster. Never pay off a debt to a dead man, that’s the oldest rule in the book.”

  “But you bet on
us and you won …”

  “Naw, that wasn’t a bet,” said Rothstein, breathing with difficulty. “Know why I staked you five C’s? Because you’re decent. And no decent person ever asked me for money till you did. Nice people, they think my dough’s dirty. Even my poppa wouldn’t take money from me. I had to give it to him, anonymous. Had to hide it.” Rothstein shut his eyes and grimaced. Fighting off pain somewhere in his body. He looked at Christmas again and breathed with his mouth open for a few seconds. "You’re the first nice guy ever wanted my money. That’s why I gave it to you. So keep it.” Then he beckoned him closer. “Swear you won’t tell what I’m about to say to you. And I mean never.”

  “I swear,” said Christmas. He stood up and leaned close to Rothstein’s face.

  Then Mr. Big whispered the name of his assassin into Christmas’ ear.

  Christmas stayed crouched there, with his ear beside Rothstein’s lips. He straightened up slowly. “Why would you tell that to me?” he asked, moved. Upset.

  “’Cause holding it in was a pain in the ass. But I waited till I could tell somebody decent,” and Rothstein gave him a little slap in the face, with no strength behind it. It felt almost like a caress.

  Christmas sat down. “I wouldn’t trust anybody else. Just you,” sighed Rothstein, painfully. “You swore not to tell, and I trust you.” His voice was getting weaker and weaker. “If I was to tell Lepke … that guy would be dead inside an hour. Same with all the other guys.” It was harder for him to breathe now. He kept his mouth open. Again he grimaced with pain. “And I don’t want that prick to die …”

  “Why not?”

  Rothstein gave a wheezy laugh. “My last roll of the dice.” A laugh like a rattle. “I bet when you’re old … people’ll still be talkin’ about it … that I never said who shot me … when that first mick cop asked me … I told him, ‘Me momma did it,’ then later I said, ‘I’ll take care of it myself.’” He winked at Christmas and tried to smile. “Classy exit line, huh? But if I let on who it was … they’d find out I was killed by a nobody … and he’d end up one famous corpse because he shot Mr. Big. And I’d end up … pitiful, like any other dead gangster. This way, though … even when I’m dead, I’m a legend.” Rothstein sighed. He closed his eyes, nostrils flaring. After a few more breaths he turned and looked at Christmas, “Hell, I learned that from you, kid.” He coughed. “Shit … good lies come true. They pay off.”

  Shyly Christmas reached over and squeezed Rothstein’s hand.

  “I’m tired,” said Rothstein in a faint voice filled with pain. “Get out of my hair, Christmas.”

  Outside the door Christmas saw Rothstein’s wife, Carolyn, waiting to come in. The looked at one another briefly, and then she hurried into the room at New York Polyclinic.

  The next day Rothstein went into a coma and died.

  “I can’t tell ya how many people they was at Union Field Cemetery t’day … a lot, though, I can tell ya that,” Christmas said over the radio a few days later, at the end of the broadcast. “I seen a whole lotta Plug Uglies, but not many respectable people in the crowd. An’ I can also tell ya, Arnold wouldn’t have liked that. He’d a been sad. Yeah, yeah — I can hear you sayin’ he travelled a road that didn’t go no place near respectable. Sure, that’s true. Maybe he couldn’t never be a respectable person, but he liked ’em. He knew how to appreciate ’em. And Mr. Big WAS NEW YORK. Don’t you forget it. Because that’s what you are, too, New York: darkness and light. You know where I’m talkin’ from, don’t you? Yeah. That’s right: From where it’s dark.”

  He lowered his head, waiting for Cyril to shut down the mike. When he looked up, he saw Karl, who nodded slowly, looking moved. Christmas turned towards Cyril, who smiled at him for the first time since they’d started the new Diamond Dogs broadcasts.

  That evening Christmas showed up at Santo’s house in Brooklyn. He ate pasta al forno and roast pork with rosemary and potatoes.

  When he came back to the apartment on Central Park West, he picked up the Underwood, which had stayed on the floor ever since he’d thrown it at the wall. He straightened the type bars as best he could. One was broken: the R. He sat down at the desk and inserted a new piece of white paper. He took a pen and wrote a capital R by hand. And then he typed three letters: U — T — H. Ruth. And he stayed there, not moving, his hands on the keyboard, staring at that name that was his whole life.

  He looked up and out the window. He couldn’t see the bench but he knew it was there.

  Suddenly he remembered an object the workmen had forgotten to take with them. He’d put it in the storeroom. He put some matches into his pocket, went in the storeroom and retrieved the oil lantern they’d left behind.

  He went down to the street and stopped at the edge of the park. He couldn’t see the bench but he knew it was there, a few steps away. He just needed to set foot on the grass. He smiled. He did set one foot on the grass, and then the other. And then he found himself running to the bench.

  When he came back to his desk, beyond the page where he’d written Ruth’s name, beyond the window, he could see a little trembling light shining. The light from the oil lantern. And by that faint light he could see the bench, too.

  Diamond Dogs, he typed out below Ruth’s name. “A Sto y of Love and Gangste s.” He put in the missing Rs by hand. Then he pulled out the page, laid it on his right, and plucked another one from the pile at his left. He cranked it around the roller and typed “Scene I.” He took some deep breaths and plunged into it, striking the keys enthusiastically, adding an R whenever one was needed.

  And now he knew that something was flowing through those pages that kept multiplying, and it was life.

  66

  San Diego — Newhall — Los Angeles

  It had been Clarence who helped her. She hadn’t asked him for anything. He’d listened to her in silence and then said only two things: “I feel sorry for that young man,” and “Mrs. Bailey is going to miss you.” Then he closed himself up in his office and began telephoning people. In less than an hour he came back to Ruth and asked her, “Have you ever been to San Diego?”

  Two days later, Ruth moved into a miniscule apartment in Logan Heights. Her new boss, Barry Mendez, had found it for her. Barry was somewhere between thirty and forty years old. The part nearest thirty was revealed in his dazzling white teeth and infectious laughter. The side nearer forty found expression in encroaching baldness and a round belly that swayed above his belt. He’d been one of the photographers Clarence represented in the agency’s early years. He’d had a good career in Los Angeles, but he’d wanted to be in San Diego: closer to his birthplace. “Even though Barry was born in the States, he’s always been Mexican in his soul,” Clarence had told Ruth. Barry Mendez had a photo studio and specialized in weddings. He did most of his work inside the Mexican community. “They don’t pay as much, chica,” he told her, showing her his photos, “but wait’ll you see the colors. And look at these faces! Getting married is a serious business for them, but it’s also a game. They’re proud people.”

  Ruth developed Barry’s photos. And she stayed in the shop when Barry was out photographing weddings. If the wedding took place on a Sunday, she went with him. If the job was for gringos, then Barry sent her to do it alone.

  At the beginning Ruth didn’t know what to do with her free time. She sat in her claustrophobic apartment and thought. About herself. About Christmas. And too often at night she dreamed about Christmas’ hands on her skin. She had fled because she wasn’t ready, she told herself. To silence everything. But in the silence of her solitude there was a whole loud chorus of memories and sensations, new and old. It didn’t take long for staying inside the house to become unbearable. She started going around San Diego with her Leica, snapping photos. She went down to the beach and began to photograph nature. But the voices, thoughts, and emotions didn’t quiet down. Sometimes it seemed to her that she was hearing them less clearly, that she was keeping them at bay, like a soft background noise, l
ike the waves receding. That didn’t last long, though. The questions came swiftly back. The memories took her away, far away from where she was. Occasionally she thought of Daniel. Just to keep Christmas at a distance. She tried to recall the comforting lavender fragrance of the Slater household. It didn’t help.

  One day Barry told her they needed to cross the border and photograph a wedding in Tijuana. Ruth got into the car with her cameras, glad to be distracted from her thoughts. As they got close to the border, she saw a battered truck speeding in the opposite direction and a police car pursuing it, siren screaming. She turned to watch and saw a cop lean out the window and fire his gun. The truck skidded, hit the side of the road, and turned over.

  Barry stopped. Ruth got out of their car and began to shoot photos. A woman with blood on her forehead, who climbed out with her hands in the air. And behind her, two frightened children. Then two men wearing dirty, short, white trousers that showed their ankles. Then she photographed the cops who shoved the woman and made her fall in the dust. One of the children who hurled himself at the cop and beat him with his small fists, trying to protect his mother. And the policeman who hit him with his pistol butt. One of the two men who came forward, but another cop pointed a gun at his head and made him kneel. She photographed another police car that stopped, loaded everyone into it, and turned back toward the border. Then Ruth photographed the faces of the five Mexicans in the police car as they came past her. The wide, black, fearful, and curious eyes of one of the two children, who turned back to look at her through the rear window.

  “Finito el sueño,” said Barry. He spat in the dust that covered the asphalt and got back in the car.