The King of Mulberry Street

by Donna Jo Napoli

  “Of course she works at home,” I said. “She helps Aunt Sara with laundry and mending.”

  He laughed. “You really know nothing. That's not what ‘working at home’ means. You want to know how to get a job?” He leaned toward me and beckoned with a curled finger.

  I stepped forward.

  “Turn Irish,” he whispered.

  “Irish? How?”

  He laughed again. “You don't. You can't turn white just by wishing. Irish boys get all the bootblack jobs. They deliver all the newspapers. There's no way an Italian boy like you can get a penny without begging or stealing. And if you beg around here, the padroni will beat you to a pulp. They own every street corner worth begging on. And if you steal, you have to give half of everything to me.”

  “I don't steal. And I'd never beg. And why would I have to give you half, anyway?”

  “So I wouldn't turn you in. That's how it works.”

  My stomach hurt. “I'm hungry.”

  “Who isn't? Give me your shoes and I'll give you fare for the streetcar.”

  I knew what a streetcar was. They were building one in Milano, up in the north of Italy. Uncle Aurelio had talked about it.

  “My shoes wouldn't fit you,” I said.

  “You think I'd want to wear them? I'd sell them in a second.”

  “If I wanted to ride a streetcar, I'd sell them myself,” I said.

  “You don't know who to sell them to,” said the boy. “I do.”

  I walked around him. I passed a shoemaker and a barbershop and a candy maker, and from each of their doorways I heard Italian. So that boy was wrong. Italians could get jobs—at least on Mulberry Street.

  A produce vendor was taking oranges from a bushelbasket and arranging them in piles on a low table outside his shop. “Want me to do that for you?” I asked.

  He glanced at me. “Go home.”

  I stepped closer. “It'll only cost you an orange.”

  “Didn't you hear me? Don't bother me. Don't bother my customers.” He didn't speak Napoletano, but I could understand him pretty well. And his tone wasn't mean, just wary.

  “You've got better things to do,” I said. “And I can do it perfect.”

  “Perfect?” He looked at me again, amused.

  I made a circle of my thumb and index finger and drew my hand across the air in front of my chest in the gesture that meant perfect.

  Was he almost smiling?

  I lifted my chin and looked straight into his eyes, hopeful.

  “What do you know about stacking fruit, a little kid like you?”

  “If you don't like the job I do, you don't pay me.”

  “If I turn around and you run off with an orange in each hand, I'll come after you and make you sorry you were ever born.”

  “I don't steal.”

  He pushed the bushel of oranges toward me. “You get a tomato, not an orange,” he said.

  So I stacked the oranges, the way I stacked Nonna's yarn balls at home. I was careful; not a single orange rolled away. I imagined Nonna watching me, saying some proverb—maybe the one about how the eye had to have its part in everything. That was why it was worth it to makeeven the smallest thing beautiful, even a plate of food that would be eaten in an instant. I stacked the oranges for Nonna's sake.

  The man was standing behind me when I finished. “Do these tomatoes and the zucchini and the onions, and I'll give you two tomatoes.”

  Amazed, I stacked them just right. “Can I come back tomorrow?”

  “Sure, but it's Sunday. I'll be closed. Here.” He handed me a bruised orange, as well as two tomatoes.

  “I wonder, do you know a widower named Tonino?”

  The man shook his head.

  I put the food in my pocket and walked back to the mouth of the alley. I knew the tough guy would show up sooner or later.

  It was sooner.

  Before he could speak, I handed him a tomato—a tomato my own mouth was watering to eat.

  “That's right,” he said. “Half of everything.”

  “I didn't steal them,” I said. “And I didn't give you one because you said I should. I gave you one 'cause I wanted to.”

  He looked me up and down. Then he leaned over and bit his tomato. Juice squirted out and landed on my shoe.

  “Watch it!” I pushed him away, squatted, and wiped off the mess with the hem of my shirt.

  When I stood again, he stuffed the rest of the tomato in his mouth and grinned as he chewed. “I knew it. You wouldn't sell those shoes no matter what. What were they, a birthday present?”

  I ate my tomato.

  “So why'd you want to give me a tomato, then?”

  I thought of how Nonna had made me bring the bowl of meatballs to the Rossi family next door the night before I left home. “You get, you give.”

  “Magari. What gave you such an idea? Look at you: the king of Mulberry Street, just giving things out right and left. Well, listen good. In this neighborhood it's everybody for himself.”

  Magari. I had to shut my eyes hard against the surge of longing; I could see Nonna sitting at the kitchen table sighing, “Magari.” I could smell her garlic hands, see the thick knobs of her knuckles. And now I realized I'd given this guy the tomato for another reason, too. Mamma said survive. This guy could be an ally. As Nonna's proverb went: “A chi me dà pane io 'o chiamme pate”—Anyone who feeds me is like a father to me.

  I took out the orange and peeled it. It smelled like flowers. The boy watched me closely. Before I had a chance to think, I gave him half and ate a section of my half. It tasted wonderful. Juicy.

  He ate his orange fast. “So you think you're a big guy 'cause some jerk from Calabria paid you, huh? Big deal, tomatoes cost next to nothing. And that orange was too bruised to sell. Yo u still don't have your streetcar fare.”

  I finished my part of the orange and licked my fingers. This guy was older than me, but he wasn't that tough. The way he devoured the food told me that. Really tough guys were never that hungry—not in Napoli. A bad guy would have simply knocked me down and stolen my shoes. “I don't want money. I just want enough food to last me two days.”

  “Two days. I'm supposed to put up with you for two days?”

  My heart banged; I could stay with him. “Yeah. Where do you sleep?”

  “Whoa. You're not sleeping anywhere near me. And don't ask where I sleep. Look. I like being alone. There are gangs of boys around here—but they're always noticed, so they're always getting in trouble. I stay alone, and I don't stay in one place too long, so no one hassles me. The most I'll do is look out for you. But if you want my protection, you're going to have to show you're worth it.”

  “How?” I said.

  “In the next block Pasquale Cuneo runs a salami shop. Go do a chore for him, and bring me back prosciutto—the raw kind.”

  Prosciutto was pig meat. “No.”

  “Don't make me mad, kid.”

  That was the last thing I wanted to do. “What's your name?” I asked.

  “What's yours?”

  “Dom.”

  “Mine's Gaetano.”

  “I can do lots of work, Gaetano. But not in a shop that sells pig meat.”

  “Why not?”

  I shrugged.

  “If you don't do what I say, you'll be alone. You can't make it alone. Not in Five Points.”

  I was sick of being alone. It couldn't be that bad to be around pig meat, so long as I didn't eat it. “I'll do it.”

  “You bet you will. You're lucky it's a slow day, or I wouldn't pay any attention to you at all. Understand?”

  “Yeah.”

  Gaetano rubbed his mouth in thought. “Okay. I got a better idea. On Park Street there's a big store run by Luigi Pierano. He's got every kind of Italian food.” He slapped me on the back. “Go work for him and bring me four pennies.”

  I wanted to ask him to show me a penny, so I'd be sure to bring him what he wanted. But then he'd know I wasn't from that place he said—the Bronx. I felt sa
fer having him think I had a mother close by who might show up on a streetcar at any minute.

  I turned around and went back to Park Street. There were lots of stores with writing on the windows. None of them had the name Luigi Pierano. But one was bigger than most. I went in.

  Rows of shelves from floor to ceiling brimmed over with food. A line of bins held spices. I stood over the one with the seeds I knew so well—anise—and breathed deeply. Mamma's scent. For an instant the room swirled and my head went light.

  A woman clamped a hand around my upper arm and steadied me. She said something in English, then in some Italian dialect, “Are you ill?” I smiled to reassure her. She walked on.

  A man behind the counter was making gigantic sandwiches. A card taped to the front of the counter read 25¢. Twenty-five cents? Was it a lot?

  “Can I do a chore for you?” I asked the sandwich maker.

  “Get out of here.” He didn't even look at me. His tone was final.

  I went outside. A crowd had gathered at the foot of the next street. I crossed Park and worked my way between the adults to the inside of the circle. An organ grinder played music and a monkey on a chain took off his cap to people in the crowds.

  The woman beside me put a coin in the monkey's cap. The monkey's tiny, long fingers clasped around her thumb for a shake. She gasped. The monkey chattered, showing sharp teeth. His eyes darted around with a quick intelligence that made my stomach sick. He knew he was a prisoner and he hated all these people; I could have sworn it.

  Everyone took out coins; they all wanted to shake the monkey's hand.

  I pushed my way back through the people, bursting free onto the street, and ran the path I'd already traveled twice that day, back toward the boy with the triangle. He was still on the corner. “How much have you gotten?” I asked.

  He turned his back to me.

  I moved around in front of him. “I asked how much you've gotten.”

  “So what.”

  “Listen, Tin Pan Alley, I'll do it. I'll play the triangle.”

  Tin Pan Alley put his hand in his pocket and counted the coins. “Thirty-two cents,” he said. “You have to make sixty-eight more. Then we split the last twenty. Promise?”

  “I promise.” I took off my shoes; then I suddenly clutched them to my chest. “If you run off with my shoes, I'll catch you,” I said. “I'm fast.”

  “If you run off with my triangle,” he said, “my padrone will catch you. You can't hide from him.”

  “I don't steal,” I said for the third time that morning.

  “You think I do?” Tin Pan Alley stiffened.

  I shook my head. He was too proud to steal. I handed him my shoes.

  He handed me the triangle. “You smell like oranges.” His face looked wistful for a moment. “Play.”

  I tapped the little metal rod against the triangle. Most people walked by quickly, not looking at me. But whenever someone looked, I smiled big, and, more often than not, they dropped a coin in the tin cup.

  Tin Pan Alley sat with his back against the nearest lamppost and kept an eye out. If he saw his padrone coming, he was going to jump up, throw me my shoes, and grab the triangle. I was supposed to run as fast as I could. And if the padrone caught me, I was supposed to tell him I worked for someone else; no padrone would beat a boy who belonged to another. Instead, he'd take whatever I had and send me on my way with a warning.

  The very idea of his padrone made me queasy. But I didn't want to be alone again that night, and I didn't see any other way of getting four pennies for Gaetano.

  Every so often Tin Pan Alley came over and emptied the tin cup. It had to stay close to empty or no one would give.

  People ate as they walked along—ugly meat sticks that Tin Pan Alley called wienerwursts—German food. Sometimes the meat was covered in a stinking rotten cabbage. And they ate sandwiches, much smaller than the ones back in the store on Park Street.

  The tomato and the orange half had made me hungrier. The sun was hot. The rumble of horses and carts hammered in my head. I felt woozy and smiled weakly at everyone, whether they looked at me or not.

  Tin Pan Alley jiggled his cup in my face. “Ninety-eight cents already. You're good at this, and you don't even whistle. Usually it's slow on Saturdays.”

  Saturday. It was Saturday. The Sabbath. Jews didn't work on the Sabbath.

  But I'd already arranged the fruit. That was work, because the man had paid me.

  In fruit, not money. That's not really pay—that's not really work.

  And playing music, that wasn't really work, either. It was entertainment. So long as I didn't pocket any of the money. “I'm stopping,” I said.

  “You look sick.” Tin Pan Alley counted out nine coins. “Here's your nine cents.”

  I shook my head.

  “That's half of eighteen,” said Tin Pan Alley, “which is what's left over after I pay my padrone. I'm not cheating you. You'd have had to get a whole dollar to earn ten cents.”

  “I told you, I can count,” I said.

  “So you're trying to cheat me now, is that it? And I thought you were okay. Well, you can't have ten cents. You can't cheat me.”

  “I'd never cheat you,” I said. “I keep a promise. Look, how about you do me a four-cent favor.”

  “What's that mean?” asked Tin Pan Alley.

  “Come with me to Mulberry Street to give a boy four cents.”

  “Why don't you give him four cents yourself?”

  “I can't.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don't want to tell you.”

  Tin Pan Alley looked at me with troubled eyes.

  “Come on, Tin Pan Alley. If you do this, you get to keep my other five cents.”

  Tin Pan Alley put the coins back in his pocket. “Let's hurry. If my padrone passes and finds I'm missing, he'll be mad.”

  I thought of the welts on the neck of the boy who played the harp in Chatham Square. “How often does he come by?”

  “Most days not at all. Other days he'll come a few times. But never early in the morning. Besides that, you can't predict. That way he keeps us honest.”

  “Mulberry isn't that close,” I said. “It'll take time.”

  “I know where Mulberry is.”

  “Look, let's not risk trouble with your padrone. Just keep the money.”

  “What, are you feeling sorry for me? Don't waste your time. I'm going to earn back what my padrone paid for my passage over and then I'll find a regular job and I'll send to Italy for my aunt and my cousins on Vico Sedil Capuano. We'll all have the good life.” He started up the road.

  Vico Sedil Capuano. I knew that street. Tin Pan Alley's family was practically my neighbor. What had happened to his parents?

  “Come on,” he called to me. “A deal's a deal. You think you're the only person in the world who can keep a promise?”

  We went to Mulberry Street, to the alley where Gaetano had shown up before, and waited.

  “You got the four cents?”

  I turned around. Gaetano stood there. Tin Pan Alley put four cents in Gaetano's hand.

  “Wait a minute,” said Gaetano. “I've got a treat in mind, and it's four cents just for the two of us. I'm not paying for this mook.”

  “I don't take nothing from no shark,” said Tin Pan Alley.

  I didn't know what a mook or a shark was, but I could tell they were insults. “Tin Pan Alley,” I said quickly, “meet Gaetano. He's my friend. Gaetano, meet Tin Pan Alley. He keeps his promise.”

  “Oh, another good boy, like you,” said Gaetano. “A beggar, huh?”

  Tin Pan Alley spat on the ground.

  I moved between them. “He's a musician.”

  “A musician? Not a beggar, just a really skinny musician.” Gaetano blew through his lips, making a horse noise. “Well, come on, then.” He walked and talked, pointing as we went. “This is Baxter Street. Lots of people from Napoli live here. Like on Mulberry and Mott Streets. But the people from Genova live here, too. An
d the best ice cream vendor in all of Five Points is here.” He led us past grocery stores with wooden barrels of dried fish—delicious baccalà—and up to the ice cream vendor. He put the four pennies in the man's hand.

  “It's a penny a serving,” the man said in his dialect. “You want three extra-large servings for four cents?”

  “No. Tw o doubles,” said Gaetano, talking in the samedialect the ice cream vendor used, “for me and the little squirt.” He jerked his elbow toward me. “Nothing for the mook.”

  “One double,” I said. “And two regulars.”

  The ice cream vendor raised his eyebrows at Gaetano. Gaetano gave me a look of disgust. “I had a big lunch, but I guess I can stuff down a triple serving,” he said to the man. “Give the squirt one regular serving, then.”

  The man took out a bit of brown paper and put a dab of ice cream on it and handed it to me. He gave three dabs to Gaetano.

  What Gaetano had done was lousy.

  I ate half the ice cream as slowly as I could. It was creamy and cold and not nearly enough. “You could buy a serving,” I said to Tin Pan Alley. He had fourteen extra pennies in his pocket, after all—his nine and my five.

  “It's not your business what I buy or don't buy,” said Tin Pan Alley.

  There must have been days when he didn't take in eighty cents. When extra money saved from a good day could spare him a beating.

  I handed the paper to Tin Pan Alley.

  He ate the rest of the ice cream in one bite and licked the paper clean. Then he turned and walked down Baxter toward Park.

  “Bye,” I called.

  In answer, he looked back over his shoulder at me.

  “Where'd you pick him up?” asked Gaetano.

  I shrugged. “What's a mook?”

  “An idiot.”

  “He's not an idiot.”

  “He's got a padrone, doesn't he?” asked Gaetano. “Any kid who's owned by a padrone is an idiot. If you weren't one to start, you become one fast.”

  “What's a shark?”

  “A boss.”

  “It can't mean just that,” I said. “A boss isn't something bad, but a shark is.”