Narrows Gate

by Jim Fusilli

  Bell had seen enough. Defying all protocol, he stepped behind the curtain. “A word, Doctor,” he said, adjusting his glasses. A young nurse hurried over to admonish him.

  The toothy doctor looked astonished.

  Bell remained calm. “My friend’s eye is much worse than when we arrived.”

  The nurse put her hands on Bell’s arms and tried to turn him away. He looked at her—she seemed younger than Bell—then held up a hand and smiled politely.

  “Sir,” she said. “Please. You have to step outside.”

  Bell mentioned the name William F. Flanagan, the hospital’s chief administrator. He’d read it on the plaque in the lobby when he went out to get Benno a lemon ice. Benno had put the paper cup against his eye, but the cold didn’t do a damned bit of good either.

  “Mr. Flanagan,” Bell repeated. “I’m going to his home now.” He said it so evenly that the doctor believed him.

  “I’ll be with you in a moment,” the doctor replied finally.

  “In one moment,” Bell said, “I’ll be gone.”

  And so Dr. Horan had Benno brought from the now-empty waiting room to the bay next to the woman with the little cut on her thumb. Seated on the gurney, Benno fidgeted nervously, tinkering with the knees of his slacks and jiggling his cap.

  Horan arrived in a huff, snapping up the chart. “Salvatore Benno,” he muttered. “Inflammation of the eyelid.”

  Benno looked over to Bell, who smiled in an attempt to comfort.

  “Let me see,” the doctor said.

  Benno pulled off the gauze. He’d been tempted to swipe a new one while they waited, but he believed in the olive-oil coating even if the eye, blood red and inflamed now by the pressure of the sty driving against it, had gotten much worse.

  The doctor tossed the pad on the floor, then smelled his thumb and forefinger.

  “You people,” he said. He rolled the spotlight over and told Benno to look up.

  “Hordeolum,” he said. “A sty.”

  “It hurts like a son of a bitch,” Benno said.

  Like he wanted to show him real pain, the doctor pressed the swollen lump with a bare finger.

  Benno howled.

  Horan snapped off the light. “Put a warm cloth on it.”

  Bell said, “The eye’s full of blood.”

  The doctor ignored him.

  Benno wiped his face with the back of his wrist.

  “Put a warm cloth on it,” the doctor repeated. “It’ll drain.”

  Shooting Bell a look, Dr. Horan threw back the curtain and disappeared.

  Red-faced, Benno jumped off the gurney. “I’m going to kill that fuck,” he said. “You seen that? He poked me on purpose.” Suddenly Benno wobbled, his knees buckling. “My head. The damned thing wants to explode.”

  Bell said he’d take him to his father’s house. He should’ve done it hours ago.

  Bebe looked over the crowd, the young girls in front gazing upward, couples further back. Men who worked the shipyards and piers lined the sidewalks, their arms folded as they waited to be impressed. The old neighbors watched from their stoops.

  Over by the big Buick, Mimmo was raffling away, that dunce Freddie Pop sitting behind the wheel like he wanted to drive off. Hennie paced nervously, her skin tingling, her chest tight, counting the ways it could wrong. Vincenzo the Fireman looked around, amazed that all this could be for Bebe. Maybe 500 people packed Polk Street. For Bebe. America. Some fuckin’ place, huh?

  Behind the stage, the Irish were strolling across Church Square Park; they’d boycotted the San Gennaro Festival but were intrigued by rumors of Bebe’s announcement. They’d read about him in the Observer: Bebe Marsala is singing with the Hudson Four in Bangor, Schenectady, Providence, winning them over in Philly, Wilmington, Baltimore. In D.C., Captain Bridges posed with him, slinging his arm across Bebe’s shoulders; that photo ended up in the Daily News. The Irish wouldn’t go so far as to say they thought Bebe a young man to be proud of. But he had sloughed off some of his native grease.

  Taking his time, Bebe studied the people on the fire escapes. He stared past the busy food stands a couple of blocks away and at the Ferris wheel on Observer Road.

  At the piano, Terrasini waited.

  Stoked by the mayor, the crowd expected Bebe to burst onto the stage and kick off with a frantic version of “Shine.” But Bebe wasn’t doing nothing but standing there. They began to murmur.

  Mimmo turned to Hennie. He figured Bebe forgot the words to his opening number.

  When he felt the tension in the crowd peak, Bebe turned to Terrasini.

  The pianist started an up-tempo introduction that was nothing like the corny, hopped-up pace he’d whip up for “Shine.” Quick and snappy, but it swung, too.

  Bebe snapped his fingers and the audience followed, clapping their hands in rhythm. Looking into their eyes, seemingly one at a time, he helped them find the downbeat. When the crowd was locked in, he stepped up and began to sing. “Over somebody else’s shoulder, I fell in love with you.”

  An Eddie Cantor tune Bebe and Nino rearranged, getting to the heart of the song about the singer stealing his pal’s girl. They junked Cantor’s gay approach and more or less stole a sound they heard from Bill Basie, the pianist in Benny Moten’s band. To Bebe, it was like Basie took the frills off the music, like he made rhythm king, putting the listener’s body in motion.

  Swinging Cantor’s tune, Bebe’s voice floated along Polk Street, its timbre far richer than the high-pitched tone he used with the Hudson Four. His idea was golden. He’d out Crosby Crosby, using the mic for intimacy with his listeners, swinging like the Negro cats do. Crosby was 12 years older than Bebe—a great singer still but old news. Bebe could improve on his style—and in doing so, declare himself a man and no longer part of the boyish quartet.

  Hennie thought her son was going to stand up and tell Polk Street and the press he was leaving the Hudson Four. Instead, Bebe was announcing he’d come up with a new way to sell a song.

  “Over Somebody Else’s Shoulder” wrapped up with Bebe holding a note as Terrasini played a Basie-like outro. The duo ended in unison—hell, they’d been rehearsing the number for weeks—and the crowd burst into applause. If the new music confused them, Bebe’s confidence won them over.

  “All right, Bebe!” someone yelled.

  “Hey, Bebe, way to go!”

  “Thank you so much, ladies and gentlemen,” Bebe said as the violinist, Bonifacio, stepped up. “Here’s a little number I think you know.” He pointed toward the crowd. “Hey, fellas, if your loved one’s nearby, grab a hold of her right now.”

  As Terrasini held a G chord so Bonifacio could check his tuning, Bebe said, “For you old-timers out there…” Then he repeated his introduction in Sicilian. Big applause.

  Mimmo said, “He’s got your head on his shoulders, Hennie.”

  She was looking at Rosa, an idea brewing.

  An arpeggio by Terrasini, and then the opening chords over which Bonifacio played the melody. Tall, thin, a pencil mustache, hair slicked, the violinist played the old way—soppy, overwrought, melodramatic, Sicilian—tugging at heartstrings as Terrasini kept the tempo for “I Surrender Dear” slow and steady for romance.

  Bebe sang, “We’ve played the game of ‘stay away.’ But it costs more than I can pay.”

  Vincenzo put his hand on Hennie’s shoulder. He whispered, “Ciò è buona, no?”

  “Better than good,” she replied. She’d begun to think her beautiful boy made a bargain with some devil who’d turned him into a man with a new set of brains.

  Bebe continued, taking the second verse just like Crosby. In fact, he preferred Louis Armstrong’s approach to the song, but he’d pushed his idea far enough. The bridge from where he’d been with the Hudson Four to where he was going needed to be built slow. A false move would bring the whole thing down.

  After the third verse, Bebe stepped back and let Bonifacio solo. The violinist laid it on with a trowel, but it went over. As if i
nspired, Bebe repeated the third verse in Sicilian.

  The old-timers sitting on the stoops and leaning on the window ledges smiled with pride. On Polk Street, couples danced in tender embrace.

  At the side of the stage, Mimmo grabbed Hennie and gave her a spin.

  Rosa looked at the girls in front of the stage. They were swooning, too.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Benno’s pain was desperate now, a jagged stone dragging across his eye every time he blinked, a worm made of steel drilling its way through his brain. Earlier, he vomited, and when he tried to stand, he fainted, Leo catching him and easing him to the floor. When Leo’s father walked in, he drew up in shock. Behind the giant growth on the lid, the boy’s eye looked like it had been turned inside out; the right side of his face was swollen like it had been beaten.

  Benno tried to listen as Mr. Bell made a phone call, but he couldn’t understand the language. After he hung up, Mr. Bell wriggled into his topcoat. “Not to alarm, Sal. But an expert is needed. Leo, call for us a taxi. To Manhattan—Sixteenth and First.”

  Bell turned toward the hall.

  “Leo,” his father shouted, “better to make it two. I want you should go to his family. Bring them.”

  Benno was too queasy to protest.

  “Sal, I’m getting a blanket,” Mr. Bell said, as he buttoned his vest under the jacket. When he returned, he found Benno had passed out again, his head pressed against the table, one arm dangling.

  The taxi stopped at the entrance to the emergency room. Under a wash of stars, an orderly in white down to his socks and shoes was waiting with a wheelchair.

  “Sal. Salvatore,” Mr. Bell said. He held out his hand. “Let’s go, son.”

  Benno groaned. In the backseat, his head cradled against the door, he’d fallen asleep. Now a wave of nausea rushed in.

  “Where’s Leo?” he managed.

  “He’s with your aunt and uncle,” Mr. Bell said, stepping aside as the orderly positioned the wheelchair.

  As he struggled into the seat, Benno saw, in the lights of the bay, Mr. Bell accept a muted greeting from a tall man in a long black coat. The man wore a black hat with a wide brim and had a dark beard and long curls that spun past his ears.

  They brought me to a Jew hospital, Benno thought as the chair bounced on cobblestone. He tried to remember if this might be a good thing and he concluded it was better than St. Patrick’s, where they made you sit around seven hours so they could poke you where you hurt, then walk away.

  In Yiddish, the man in the long coat assured Mr. Bell that the best doctors would tend to the boy. An eye specialist, a superior surgical team if, and we should only hope it wouldn’t be a necessity.

  Mr. Bell said, “Eli, I can’t begin—”

  “Tend to the boy,” said Mr. Kreiner, his boss and dearest friend.

  At Albini the Tailor’s, Bebe washed up good. He talked to the press boys, telling them of his plans to head out solo, saying good-bye to Captain Bridges as well as the Hudson Four. Then he walked Polk Street in a fresh suit and clean, crisp shirt. Starstruck high school girls were waiting—their older sisters, too, and a few young mothers, looking at Bebe with muted lust and unbridled admiration. As Terrasini watched, his girl Ruthie on his arm, he thought, Which will you choose, Bebe? Nobody wants to see a man with a 15-year-old blonde at his side. But you fuck somebody’s wife down here and you turn up under a bridge, body parts scattered.

  A couple of men came over to shake Bebe’s hand, guys who a year or so ago thought him an imbecile, an eel. Some guy called him “Bebe Hollywood.” The crowd around him was closing in. He signed a few autographs. Then, with the flick of his head, he summoned Terrasini.

  Bebe gave Ruthie a peck on the cheek. “We do OK, kid?” he asked as they moved on, the crowd following.

  “You did fine, Bill.” She was 25, a secretary at Western Union in Manhattan. A brawny Pole, she once told Marsala that if he grabbed her ass again she would crush his larynx. She believed the singer was keeping Terrasini from settling down.

  When they reached Madison Street, Bebe looked over his shoulder. “Dinner on me tonight?” he said to Terrasini.

  Before Ruthie could protest, Terrasini said, “What’s the plan?”

  “The Blue Onyx. Mimmo wants me to meet his niece.”

  “Mimmo?” Terrasini laughed. “I hope she don’t look like him.”

  “Watch yourself,” Marsala replied. “This is a lady we’re talking about.”

  Leo, his father, Gemma and Vito had spent the night in the hospital waiting room, praying that the surgeon would do his best by Sal. Hours ago, an intern had mentioned the possibility of an intracranial tumor. “Whether there is permanent damage to the eye, we don’t know. But,” he added with a forced smile, “your son is in excellent hands.”

  Now pale morning light filled the long, narrow room. Still wearing his surgical scrubs, the doctor came in, his professional detachment strained by fatigue. “Dr. Finkelstein,” he said, introducing himself. He withdrew a pack of Luckies from his pocket. As he lit a cigarette, he turned to Gemma and Vito, who sat on the sofa facing the Bells.

  “Well, the boy is out of danger.”

  Leo Bell stood and walked gingerly toward the doctor.

  “No sign of a tumor. This is very good news. It was my greatest concern, frankly.”

  Vito nodded as Gemma dabbed at her nose with her husband’s handkerchief.

  “However, the eye could not be saved.”

  Mr. Bell inched to the edge of the sofa.

  Frowning, Vito said, “I don’t understand.”

  Hearing the thick accent, Finkelstein turned to Leo. “Could you translate, please?”

  “You took the eye?” Leo asked softly.

  Finkelstein nodded.

  Leo shuddered. “Aunt Gemma, Vito,” he said. “L’occhio. È andato. Sono spiacente.”

  Gemma gasped.

  Later, there would be talk of irreparable damage to the cornea and sclera, Staphylococcus aureus and the risk of reinfection, and how very rare it is for a meibomian cyst to cause such damage. But now Finkelstein said carefully, “This is a healthy boy. The prognosis is very, very good. Perhaps we could think of ourselves as lucky.”

  Said Leo Bell, “Salvatore vivrà—lungo e felice.”

  An ocularist would be recommended, they were told. The boy would be measured before he left the hospital and the fitting would take place after healing. He would stay at the hospital for at least one month.

  Gemma took Leo Bell’s hands onto her lap as he began to cry.

  Freddie Pop couldn’t help himself. First, Mimmo told him go boost a new car far, far out of town. So Pop went all the way to Hartford up in Connecticut, farther away from Narrows Gate than he’s ever been, and walked around car dealerships until he saw that Buick Coupe, shining like a black diamond under the September sun, the machine calling to him, key in the ignition. And then he got it back home—the thing drove like the road was made of marshmallows—and Mimmo says sit on it, keep it clean and by the way, get some kids together and make them sell raffle books over at the train station.

  To Freddie Pop, it was like being told to raffle off a chance to marry Lucy, his girlfriend. He knew the game going in but still felt betrayed. Mimmo should’ve known he’d have a good thing going with the Buick.

  So the day after the feast, when Mimmo told him to deliver it to the daughter of that boss at Olson Transport, she lives in a nice house in Fort Lee, Pop thought maybe he should say something. Like why not give the girl some dough instead? She can buy any car she wants. This Buick, it’s not for some girl, Mimmo.

  But he said nothing. Only 17, Pop had no standing with the crew. They considered him a goopy kid; his only talent the ability to hotwire a car in seconds, then drive off like a choirboy.

  “Don’t fuck up the delivery,” Mimmo advised, explaining Frankie Fortune was interested, but leaving the details out.

  It was raining, the drops beading on the coat of wax Pop had applied
with love. The ride up to Fort Lee was one sad journey, and he took the long way so he could have a few more minutes with the Buick, a beauty with dual side mounts, mohair interior, the whitewalls ringed in red. He was so blue the cherry lollipop tucked in his cheek brought him no joy.

  The Fort Lee neighborhood was green and lined with big houses with driveways.

  Ah, fuck it, he thought, and the next thing he knew, he was on the other side of the George Washington Bridge, going north.

  And the sun came out.

  The call to the candy store was for Frankie Fortune, but Mimmo took it.

  “But he left here three hours ago,” he tried to explain, but the boss at Olson Transport was shouting. Apparently, his wife and daughter had waited for a big surprise, standing outside their beautiful home, hope melting to disappointment when nothing happened.

  Hanging up, Mimmo’s first reaction was to bury the thing. Go boost another Buick, rush it up to Fort Lee, end of story. But there was tension in the crew. Don Carlo was on the run, nobody certain where, and it wasn’t too clear who was in charge—Corini, Gigenti, Geller down in Florida. Maybe it makes sense to fix the problem before it goes to Frankie, given the state of affairs, but it could be he already knew about the missing Buick and he’s sitting there thinking Mimmo kept the car to sell.

  After calling three restaurants over in Manhattan, Mimmo found Fortune up at the Saint Tropez, which wasn’t too far from Fort Lee.

  Fortune listened.

  “Send Boo,” he said.

  Mimmo couldn’t tell what Fortune was thinking. When he was angry, he shut down like an icebox when the power dies.

  “Tell Boo to bring him here.”

  Mimmo figured he’d better say he was sorry. But Fortune cut the line.

  “Boo,” Mimmo said to Chiasso, a big slab of muscle, his skull full of sharp edges. “Freddie Pop stole the Buick.” They were behind the candy store in Mimmo’s weedy backyard, the pisser boy statue dribbling. Suddenly, gray clouds threatened to burst again. “Find him and deliver him to Frankie.”