Table Money

by Jimmy Breslin

  “I think she made something to eat.”

  “If the food waited this long it can sit there for another twenty minutes. Besides, I want to tell you just how quickly you can advance yourself in this business. Moreover, just how much this business needs you. Lord, we haven’t had a young union guy with your class in ten years.”

  A few yards up from the mailbox was the green awning of the Capri, an old Italian restaurant that was now a saloon. Owney saw himself with a Coke in his hand, a Coke in a large glass with ice. He wondered if Kellerman would get mad when he ordered a Coke. He took a step toward the Capri and then felt Kellerman’s hand on his bicep. “Across the street is better,” Kellerman said. With his briefcase under one arm and his other clutching Owney’s, Kellerman led Owney through the traffic and toward a place across the street that had a front door with as much grace as a plant gate. The sign said, “O’Looney’s and Burke’s.” Kellerman shouted in the noise of an el train, “Ah, the Capri tends to get a bit dark. This is a railroad conductor’s place. All white, of course. Much more comfortable.”

  In the harsh light in the doorway, Owney saw the spotted hands of an old fight second leaning through the ropes and yanking up the cloves of the opponent, alcohol, who stood waiting for the bell. The opponent’s face was smeared with Vaseline so the punches would slide off. Owney walked straight at the opponent, who jabbed and then went back through the door and into the bar and Owney went in after him. Inside, in the smoke and noise and harsh ring lights, the opponent danced and beckoned to Owney to come in and mix it up.

  Now Kellerman, making his entrance, stood just inside the doorway and bellowed, “Ja-mayy-ca. Change here for trains to … Hunting-ton … Far-ming-dale, and Port-Jeffer-son.”

  The railroad conductors cheered and Kellerman stomped to the bar.

  “Libation!”

  Owney, in the middle of a desperate first minute of the first round of this fight, pushed alongside Kellerman and had his hand out. “Beer.”

  The bar was long and barren, with railroad conductors in uniform sitting at the bar with mounds of wet money in front of them. They were fresh from the Long Island Rail Road terminal down the street. The money was also fresh; conductors who sell tickets on the train have to account for the money exactly once a week, and usually store it on the bar. The tragedy of facing an accounting once a week often is suddenly relieved by a group of twelve purchasing costly round-trip tickets on the very train that the conductor is taking to his accounting appointment. This system causes railroad bars, such as O’Looney’s and Burke’s on Jamaica Avenue, to be somewhat lively.

  Kellerman had two drinks and then began to cackle. Owney played pool with a trainman while Kellerman got into a discussion with a conductor who proudly kept his gold-braided hat on.

  At eleven, Kellerman said to Owney, “You’ve got to take a ride with this guy and see the conditions he has to work in.”

  The conductor was tall and wide and had a great black mustache. He was proud of himself in his shiny suit and with a nearly complete load of whiskey inside him.

  “This is Mikey Mastrangelo,” Kellerman said.

  “Pleased,” Mastrangelo said.

  “We’re going with him,” Kellerman said.

  “Where to?” Owney said.

  “What do you care? We’ll perform a service for labor. And we’re going in the bar car,” Kellerman said.

  Owney thought about going home. Then he heard the high squeak of boxing shoes. He decided to mix it up.

  They walked down Sutphin Boulevard to the five-story railroad station and went through a lobby where a couple of blacks drank wine. Up one flight, there was a counter that sold hot dogs, whose normally pleasant smell was overwhelmed by the odor of hot grease. Up another flight was the outdoor platform and a train of battleship-gray cars, many of whose windows had spider web cracking from rocks being thrown at them.

  The big conductor led them into the second car, which was half filled. At one end, the old smudged imitation leather seats had been pulled out and there was a metal bar cart set up. A young girl with long light hair and a round face shining with sweat stood at the bar cart.

  “Vodka and ice,” Kellerman said. He looked at Owney.

  “What the hell,” Owney said. “Same.”

  She served them drinks in plastic glasses and collected the cash and they drank standing as the train left the station.

  “Where does this go?” Owney said.

  “To the fishing grounds,” Kellerman said.

  “To where?”

  “Montauk. We’re on the last train to Montauk, young man. It is the male fishing capital of the world. Key West gets written up, but that’s fags with reels. This is where the men go. Say, young lady, how much do they pay you for this job?”

  “I’m only summer help,” she said.

  “I don’t care when you work. It must be paid for.”

  “I get four dollars an hour.”

  “A trainman gets ten! You ride the same train!”

  “I get good tips,” she said.

  “How do they tip you?” Kellerman said.

  “Usually, they tip me right when they buy a round. You forgot to do it.”

  “I didn’t forget,” Kellerman said. “I refuse to demean the American worker by making him beg for tips.”

  “I’m not begging, mister. I just take whatever I get. From you, I got nothing.”

  Kellerman lurched away and went to a seat. “Fresh punk,” he muttered to Owney. “She’s exactly the kind of person that gives the American labor movement a bad name.”

  “I don’t care about her,” Owney said. “I can tell you that I’m never going to last to Montauk. We’ll have two more and get off.”

  “How will we get home?”

  “If there’s no train, we’ll go for a cab,” Owney said. The car was suffocating in the night heat. Owney, running a hand over his face, looked around and saw that everyone else was hot. He put his hands on the window, but there was no way to open it.

  “Say!” Kellerman called out. Mastrangelo was swaying down the aisle toward them.

  “Yessir, professor,” Mastrangelo said.

  “Who handles your grievance about a lack of air conditioning?” Kellerman said.

  “We tell the shop steward,” Mastrangelo said. “Lot of good it does. We have so many cars without air conditioning that the shop steward hardly listens to complaints anymore. We just pray for winter.”

  “Ah, I see. Well, you can figure a way to open a window for us somewhere and we’ll come sit by it.”

  “Professor, there’s not a window on the train you can open.”

  “You should take this to the Central Labor Trades Council tonight,” Kellerman said. “It must be a hundred in here.”

  Kellerman stood up and took off his jacket. The yellow shirt had a button missing and through the opening could be seen a soaked T-shirt.

  “We’ll have one more drink,” he announced. “Then we’re getting off.”

  Owney stood up. “Forget the drink now. I’ll buy you one when we get off. Let’s just get off now.”

  Mastrangelo smiled. “You guys got a bit of a wait.”

  Owney looked out the window to see where they were. Below on the right was Sunrise Highway in the middle of Nassau County. “Anyplace is fine,” Owney said. “Are we up to Freeport yet?”

  “This train doesn’t make a stop until we get to Westhampton Beach,” Mastrangelo said.

  “That’s way the hell out in the Hamptons,” Kellerman said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Just make one quick stop at the first place you see and we’ll be gone,” Owney said.

  “I thought you wanted to go fishing,” Mastrangelo said.

  Kellerman smiled. “That thought seemed nice back in the bar. But, good Lord man, we’ve got three hours more on the train before we get to Montauk.”

  “Three hours and twenty-nine minutes,” Mastrangelo said.

  Kellerman smiled. “No,
Brother Mastrangelo. I think we best get off.”

  “You said you wanted to go fishing.”

  “That was back in the bar.”

  “You better start wanting to fish again. I can’t let you off until Westhampton.”

  Kellerman smiled. “Just stop the train, brother.”

  Mastrangelo shook his head.

  “I’ll do everything I can to get you fired if you don’t stop this train,” Kellerman snapped.

  “Hey, Brother Professor.”

  “Don’t brother me. I’ll be at the Public Service Commission tomorrow morning with evidence that you’re a fucking drunk and a menace to passengers and should be fired.”

  “Is that how a good labor man talks?”

  “That’s how a man talks, you ignorant guinea slob.”

  The two of them went onto the floor with a crash. The light-haired girl with the bar cart let out a yelp. Owney sat in his seat and stared at the vodka glass. He was tired of stupid-ass fights. Finally, he decided to get up. As he reached for the two, each with a hand clawing the other’s face, the train came into a lighted station. Owney got up on the seat and yanked the red emergency cord. The train squealed and jerked. Bottles flew off the bar cart. Owney put his foot in the aisle, got it over one of Mastrangelo’s hands, and then stood up with all his weight on the hand. There was a grunt and then the start of a howl. Kellerman, wisps of hair in his face, climbed up. Owney pushed him toward the doors. Kellerman was past the bar cart when he saw the small individual whiskey bottles rolling around the floor. He stopped and grabbed several, which momentarily blocked Owney and gave Mastrangelo a chance to follow. Growling, he rushed for them, but Owney was out the door and onto the platform. Heads popped out of the open train doors up and down the length of the train. Owney could hear Kellerman on the staircase going down to the street. Now Owney turned and looked for the conductor, who was lurching out the door, hands out to grab somebody. And then the conductor saw Owney’s eyes. The conductor’s hands grabbed the doorway and he stayed just inside the door. Now he looked closely at Owney’s eyes. The conductor saw a darkness to them, unblinking, hurtful, that caused him to step back, one hand reaching for the button to close the door. Owney turned and walked down the stairs.

  Downstairs, Kellerman stood in the street light and held up a miniature bottle of Red Label Scotch. He tore the stamp, opened the bottle, and took a swig. He handed it to Owney.

  “Guineas like that should not be allowed to work in any setting where there are real human beings,” he said.

  Upstairs, the train was moving. Owney looked around him. The sign said Amityville. There was a cabstand with no cabs.

  “We’ll go broke getting home,” he said.

  “I don’t care. I wouldn’t ride a train with one of these slobs again,” Kellerman said.

  The cab to work cost sixty dollars. Owney went right to the hog house, where he slept on a bench. When he woke up at five-thirty, two people looked at him intently.

  The opponent was the first. He was asleep on a cot with an army blanket over his bare body. He raised his head slightly, saw that there was nothing for him to do, that it was happening by itself to the other guy, and he rolled over onto his stomach and fell asleep on his face. He began snoring through a nose that had been broken so many times in so many winning fights.

  Navy was the other to notice Owney.

  “Morning,” he said.

  “Is that what it is?” Owney said.

  Navy smiled. “What time did you get home?”

  “I believe I missed doing that.”

  “How are things at home for you?”

  “All right.”

  “For sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Navy smiled. “I was just thinking about myself. I came home one night and my wife had her head in her hands. She needed a washing machine and I was walking in broke. In the middle of the night. Some guy in the bar said he needed fifty bucks for table money and I whipped it out for him. Like a millionaire. Then I go home broke. I see she’s feeling bad and I want to say something to make her feel better. So I put my arms around her. I’m stewed and I say to her, ‘Don’t worry, dear, no matter what happens, I’ll never leave you.’ She breaks into tears. Bawling. I thought I was saying something nice to her. She thought it was the end of the world. I wasn’t leaving. That meant she was going to have to kill herself.”

  Navy laughed. Then his blue eyes became serious and he said softly, “It shows you, you don’t understand what you’re doing when you’re screwed up drinking.”

  “With me, it’s fun,” Owney said.

  “Oh, it can be some fun,” Navy said.

  “The only fun in the whole world,” Owney said.

  It took until the middle of the morning, when Owney was trying to think up an excuse to give Dolores, before he realized that the story about Navy’s wife had not made him laugh.

  7

  FOUR DAYS LATER, DOLORES Morrison stopped for cigarettes at Prine’s candy store on Myrtle Avenue, picked up one of the two Wall Street Journals from the newsstand, and went immediately to the editorial page. The signature under the last letter to the editor said, Owen Morrison, Local 147, Tunnel Workers Union. She raced through the letter, noticing that it had been cut and that the paper had done some slight word changing: instead of printing Owney’s “three blacks getting on,” the Journal made it read, “three thugs getting on.” Synonym.

  Finding one phrase that was solely hers—“you cannot commingle an opinion issued from a carpeted office with the experiences of a workingman riding the transit system”—she exulted. Embarrassment rose as she thought of her anger at Owney for his absences and drinking, an ire clearly out of proportion to what had happened: a few mistakes by a young guy who obviously had so much in his past that he was having difficulty pushing aside, yet at the same time there clearly was so much in front of him that mature behavior simply would occur. She bought the paper and read it twice on the way home.

  She even tolerated his being three hours late and groggy from brew upon arrival. He was surprised at her amiability, and also at the pleasant feeling generated by the sight of his printed letter. Owney wondered what he had to do to get letters like this in the paper again.

  By the time Dolores had her nightgown on, he was asleep with his arms spread and his hands open, a sports page picture of a fighter who just got knocked out. She smiled at the thought. Nobody knocks him out, she told herself, he just has to change this least bit.

  That was Tuesday. Owney went the rest of the week without a drink. On Saturday, he congratulated himself on this, and at the same time reduced in size the notion that something in a glass was dominating the life he was living. Oh, that wasn’t his idea to say the drinking was a problem. It was something he had seen in the looks of others. Navy.

  That night, he and Dolores went to the Mets–Atlanta game with his father and mother. The father ordered big beers from the vendors, but Owney shook his head and Dolores had a Coke. In the ninth inning, with the Mets ahead by a run, the Braves got two on with nobody out and Gil Hodges, the Mets’ manager, walked to the mound and signaled for the left-hander. Owney’s father began yelling.

  “He’s bringing in McGraw. Up the Irish!”

  The father now turned frantically, looking for the beer man. Sound was everywhere in the park as out of the bullpen came McGraw. He got to the mound just as the beer man got to Owney’s father, who bought four beers. Owney and Dolores shook their heads. “That’s fine with me,” the father said. He put the two extra beers between his feet.

  McGraw struck out the first man, got the second on a pop fly, and now the place was delirious with tension as Aaron came up for the Braves. Owney’s father had one beer gone and was operating on the first of his extras when McGraw blew one past Aaron. Owney came out of his seat clapping. Up the Irish! McGraw blew another past Aaron. Owney looked quickly at his father, who offered the extra beer. Now McGraw threw with his body down to his toes behind the pitch and
Aaron swung the bat an entire instant early. The scroogie. McGraw gave a little leap and the catcher ran out to him with the ball held out for McGraw. Owney felt the beer placed into his hand at a moment so delicious that drink was required. Rain for the turf. From somewhere inside him he summoned a strange resolve. The beer became alien in his hands. Back to the father went the beer. Owney used both hands to applaud McGraw.

  Later, at Lum’s Restaurant over in Flushing, Owney drank ice water.

  “That was some game,” the father said.

  “Sure was.”

  “Take a drink.”

  “No.”

  “You got the flu?”

  “Cooling out.”

  “That’s what a beer’s for.”

  Dolores said quietly, “He isn’t drinking tonight.”

  “What does that mean?” the father said.

  His loudness intimidated her and she looked at her food. She could feel the tension coming from Owney.

  “I just want water,” he said, firmly.

  Dolores relaxed.

  During the meal Owney said he was going to the union meeting the next morning.

  “I don’t think I can make it this time,” the father said.

  “We’re going to look at a house,” the mother said.

  “You are? Where?”

  “Selden.”

  “Exit Sixty-three,” the father said.

  “A big ranch house with a lawn in front and a back yard that goes through to the next street, where there’s nobody even living.”

  “We got to see the real estate man, ten o’clock,” the father said.

  “I’m having trouble believing this,” the mother said.

  “What made you decide on a house?” Dolores said to the father.

  “Because I got to have something,” the father said. “I work all my life and I don’t have a thing to show for it. Clothes on my back, that’s all. I got to have something. A house.”

  “I hope you know what you’re doing with the money,” the mother said.

  “I know what to do. You get a mortgage. They got all kinds of forms you fill out, then they give you the house.”

  “With our credit rating?” the mother said. “We have to put the phone in my maiden name, all the years they shut us off.”