“Who are them two?”
Anna looks back toward the street, “Grace an’ Kit.”
“Bedraggled-lookin’ slatterns—”
“They were there when Pickles killt Maroney back when,” Anna says angrily.
“They’re old women, drug addicts.”
Anna catches that comment with a screw face, “They’re like twenty-two years old, the both o’ them. They’re younger than ya’self, Bill.”
“Why ain’ they got husbands?”
Anna’s lips part and Darby can see that fiery glimmer in her eye again, “Ya want them wit’ husbands an’ babies, or ya want them makin’ ya money? Ya’re gonna have a lotta people comin’ to pledge support to ya, Bill. Ya’re a war hero an’ Irishtown’s been starvin’ since Dinny’s on a stint an’ this storm came. Was bad before even that.”
“I ain’t a pimp.”
“Bill,” Anna steps closer to him with the calculated patience Darby came to know her by. She lowers her voice and bites her lip, “Ya know they work for the I-talians down at the Adonis Social Club below the Gowanus? Ya know who runs that, right?”
Without an answer, Bill refuses to admit he does not remember.
“The Stabile fam’ly,” Darby says.
Anna picks it up from there, “Those girls live in the Henhouse; a buildin’ owned by ya enemy, Bill, the Black Hand,” Anna spells it out for him gently. “Some o’ the Whitehanders go down there, like Vincent Maher. Wouldn’t ya like to know what he says to them? I don’ know if ya remember Vincent, but he likes to talk. ’Specially to girls.”
Anna watches Bill as he studies her.
The wheels are turning, Darby thinks.
Bill breaks eye contact and turns his eyes over a shoulder to the men working, then back to Anna.
“Soldiers need spies, advisors an’ insiders, Bill,” Anna assures him. “Ya’ve got no reason to question my loyalty. Ya were there for my brother when he got run over by the streetcar, an’ ya’ve been there for him ever since. Ya want my loyalty, ya got it ’cause ya’ve been there for us Lonergans all along.”
And there it is, Darby remembers. That dogged and determined will. A will power stronger than any domineering bull male.
Anna surveys Bill’s eyes to try and figure his thoughts, but there is nothing but a black mirror, devoid of humanity or kindness. The same thing Darby had found.
Abruptly Bill reaches out to her. Anna’s breath catches as he palms her left breast. She allows it, and moves her eyes to the men unloading the barge. But they are too far away to see Bill’s pale hand grope at her off-white dress. Anna then looks back to Grace and Kit, who witness it all with quiet concern.
Bill slowly gazes up from her breast to her face and drops his hand self-consciously, “Ya been down there? The Adonis?”
She nods in admission.
“Are ya still pure?”
She laughs unskillfully and turns on her hip, “What does that mean?”
Bill’s lip curls as he comes face to face with her, “Are ya pure? Simple question. Did ya keep ya’self pure for me while I was gone?”
“None of us are pure anymore.”
Bill grabs her by the arm, “Maybe ya’re not understandin’ the fookin’ question, so lemme spell it out for ya. Has any man fucked ya? Put his cock in ya?”
Anna rips her arm away from his grasp and pushes at his chest, “Let me remind ya o’ somethin’ Bill fookin’ Lovett, I went to ya god’amn funeral. I comforted ya parents. I put flowers on ya grave. Candles on the altar for ya. They tol’ me ya was dead. All hope was lost. Gone, Bill. There’s been a coal shortage, an’ these last two winters were the coldest I’ve ever known. Now the docks’ve dried up ‘cause wit’ the war over, there ain’t so many contracts for goods comin’ in or leavin’ Brooklyn no more.”
“So what’s that got to do wit’—”
“Tiny Thomas died!” she yelps.
A few men peer over their shoulders at her voice.
“Then it was the grippe that came for us. Hundrets o’ people died in Brooklyn. Thousands. An’ it took my little sister Ellen, too. She couldn’t breathe, Bill. It got in her lungs,” Anna clenches her teeth recounting the pain. “An’ maybe it’s in ya own lungs, Bill. Ya don’ look so good ya’self, so don’ come back here wit’ ya ignorant notions on the purity of a female. None of us are pure any longer. We never will be again.”
Bill looks at her, “Where’d ya get the money for all this then?” Bill runs his finger up and down her gown. “Huh? So ya go down to the Adonis an’ give ya’self up to I-talians. Gave ya’self away. Didn’ ya? The most important thing ya got.”
“Ya was dead, Bill,” Anna points into his chest. “I stand by everythin’ I do. I might not be able to find work like a man, but there are things I can do to ensure no one in my fam’ly starves, or dies again.”
“Who was it?”
“None o’ ya fookin’ business.”
“Richie?” Bill motions for her brother to come over.
Richie holds two crates in his arms and stops in front of the lighter-barge and turns round to walk toward them.
Anna beams at Bill with warning in her eyes.
“Richie,” Bill taps him on the chest. “Did ya know ya sister’s a slattern?”
Richie turns emotionlessly to her. She watches as her brother places the two crates down and awkwardly touches his own eyebrow and begins to speak, but words fail him. He looks at Darby for a moment, then away.
He doesn’t know how to answer that question.
“Did ya know she slept wit’ a man for dime, Richie?”
Anna punches Bill on the cheek, then rears back again until he catches her by a clump of red hair and forces her to the ground. Richie takes one step forward, but Abe Harms suddenly appears to whisper in his ear. The men unloading the ship stop and turn dumbly toward the spectacle.
“Anna!” Grace and Kit pull up their dirty hems to run through the snow.
“They left me in the forest,” Darby reads Bill’s lips as he whispers into Anna’s ear. “I had nothin’. Nothin’, do ya understand? I had nothin’ but memories.”
Bill lays his weight on her as she digs her fingernails up into his face and neck, “Fuck you. Get off me!” Anna screams.
“Bill, maybe you should—”
But Bill talks over Darby, “Just a naked forest. They even took my sidearm an’ my rations. Even my boots. I had nothin’. Nothin’.”
Bill straddles her and takes both her hands and holds them behind her back and whispers into her ear, “But I had you. I was in the darkness, Anna. I was gone. All the world was empty, but I had the memory of you. I known ya my whole life an’ never did I think it’d be ya what saved me. An’ now this? It was all for this? This fookin’ sick joke? I crawled back to life for this? To find out that the girl who saved my life is a slattern? What kind o’ world is it when hope is proven as futile as a fool’s errand?”
Anna struggles against him until his hand appears on her throat.
Her eyes begin to bulge in fear. Darby and Non block Grace and Kit, who scream for her. Under the shadow of the lighter-barge her father sullenly turns away. But Richie steps forward again when he hears his sister choking. He opens his mouth, but Abe catches him again. Richie’s body begins to shake and he holds his fists over his thighs as Petey Behan laughs and slaps Matty Martin on the shoulder, who is pale and distressed.
Bill sits on top of her and reaches back with his right fist. When he connects under her jaw, Anna goes limp and her hands drop to the snow.
“Anna!” Grace screeches as Bill slowly stands over her.
Richie unclenches his fists and drops his arms to his side. Beyond the lighter-barge, a tugboat again hoo-hoos out on the water as if nothing has happened.
Wild Bill Lovett then turns to his men. From his belt he pulls out his .45 and checks the chamber.
“No!” Grace screams over Non Connors’ shoulder.
“Shaddup ya slattern!” Bill holds the gun to the sky and fires
.
“We will not wait until Pickles is released,” Bill announces. “We will not wait to show these men at the Dock Loaders’ Club that I am a decorated veteran. We will show them who we are wit’ our force an’ our might!”
The men who wanted to attack earlier walk closer to Bill. Joey Flynn has his revolver out and stocky Petey Behan a cudgel at the end of his arm. Non Connors and others have bail hooks and knives and pipes and broom handles even, and wave them in the air and yell for their leader.
“We will take the war to them now!” Bill yells. “We need territory! We don’ need hope, we need war! Are yaz ready to take back the land o’ our people?”
The men roar in approval.
“The Irish have ruled Red Hook since we arrived seventy years ago!”
The men yell as Grace and Kit kneel in the snow over Anna as Darby watches on.
“Let’s go then!” Bill leads the way.
“Anna,” Grace has tears in her eyes and holds Anna’s limp hand. “Are ya okay? Anna?”
“Where’s Neesha?” Anna asks, disoriented.
Neesha? Neesha who? Darby wonders.
Even Grace and Kit are stumped by the question.
“Who is Neesha?” Grace gently asks Anna.
“Wha. . . What happened?” Anna slurs her words as if drunk.
“Bill hurt ya, Anna,” Grace says as Kit gently pets Anna’s red hair.
“Oh, oh yeah,” Anna sits up in the muddy snow, her gown soaked through the back. She notices blood on the front of it and tries to wipe it away as more blood drops from her mouth. She tries to focus and wobbles and peers up to Grace with confusion in her eyes. “What happened?”
“I just told ya. . . oh never mind,” Grace pulls Anna’s face to her chest for a hug and rocks back and forth.
Before Darby turns to join the men, Anna’s muffled voice comes to him one last time, “Where’s Neesha?”
A Slew of Mendicants
The morning moon sits white and half-faded like a rune painted on the blue canvas sky. It hangs there as if watching like an unblinking eye. Staring through the naked trees and peeks round buildings. Following us. A symbol of the past, some might argue. Or maybe a portent of what comes. I cannot say, yet high in the sky it watches, wholly impassive of the theatrics below and the interpretations we attach to it.
Burke said, “I’m tired o’ sloggin’ through this snow. I’m goin’ back to Eighth Avenue. There’s no work today, an’ I’m starved. An’ I wanna check on my son an’ my fam—”
“Ya leave us now and I’ll kill ya myself,” Harry says.
Burke frowns back, “A true seaman weathers the storm he cannot avoid, an’ avoids the storm he cannot weather. My father was in the United States Navy an’ had the sense o’ the seas. We’d be wise to heed them words an’ head home.”
“Spare us your memorizations,” Harry chides. “If we were on the seas t’day, I’d want to avoid storms, sure. But we’re not. Our home an’ our way o’ life are under attack by mortal men. An’ we gotta face up to them. The storm ain’t our enemy; men are.”
Things ya don’ understand. Things none o’ us understand, Harry had warned me. I remember the words, but now he seems to have forgotten.
No, he hasn’t forgotten, I realize. He’s just concentrating on what he can control.
“The storm breathed life into those men,” Burke mumbles. “The Bard o’ Irishtown predicted it.”
I turn to Burke, “The Gas Drip Bard fellow? Have you been back to listen to him since we went with the kids?”
Burke nods worrisomely and whispers, “Their eyes are mere holes o’ black. . . an’ when they speak, the blood spills from their mouths.”
I tilt my head at those words as they bring on some foggy sense of a memory.
Inside the Hanan boots my feet are wet and freezing and it’s hard to think on memories with the cold everywhere. But the Bard I can never forget. After my mother and sisters arrived from Ireland I had taken them with Burke’s family to listen to the aged shanachie storyteller in the oldest part of Irishtown. We went for the entertainment in it, of course. At first he gave us yarns of drunken goats and buxom biddies that amused the children.
Afterward, he told of the gangs of old Irishtown. How they had long protected the borders without, and enforced the old Brehon codes within. He elevated Dinny Meehan as a hero on a hero’s journey. Cut from the mold of the old days, Dinny brought back the old ways after the evil Christie the Larrikin had sold Irishtown’s secrets to the Anglo-American ascendency. He called us, the followers of Dinny Meehan, “Soldiers of the Dawn,” so he did. He meant it in a poetic way, I believe, which can be interpreted any manner a listener may lean, just like the moon above.
I turn my eyes back up to the sky, and the one-eyed waning moon stares back.
“It warns us,” Burke comes to my ear. “It gives us heed; the white moon born o’ the morn. After the storm. It’s a signal that we should—”
“It means nothin’,” Harry turns back to us as trails of vapor billow from his mouth. “It’s only a moon. It’s as meanin’less as a brick or a shoe or a fart. Do ya see omens in a mornin’ fart too? Or is it just gas an’ wind built up overnight?”
“But there should be—”
“Stop sayin’ should all the time,” Harry cuts him off again. “Everybody believes in should, who wouldn’t? There should be enough food an’ jobs for everyone. There should be justice for all too, but there ain’t. Let’s all pray to should, the new god o’ gods. Why not?”
Burke glowers at Harry like a boy at his correcting mother.
Out of the silence comes a voice in the distance.
“Who is that?” Burke has turned round.
From the south, a figure runs through the snow between low-rise buildings on either side. It’s calling to us. Waving to us.
“Should we run?” Burke asks.
Harry shoots a glare at him for saying ‘should’ again. “Nah,” he answers and turns to face the oncoming man but does not take out a weapon.
Beat McGarry struggles through the hip-deep snow. When he reaches us, he stops and stands with both hands on his knees, out of breath. The old fellow has a face like a melted candle with little mouse eyes hidden in the waxy folds. But what we can see in his eyes, is fear.
“I saw’r Bill Lovett,” he finally says, the fearful countenance gives him the appearance of a man older even than the fifty-seven years he has.
“So it’s true,” Burke taps my arm. “See!”
“They’re headin’ toward the Dock Loaders’ Club, I heard Bill say it, I did. They got weapons. Bill’s back! I saw’r him. He’s comin’!”
Harry turns to face north, “We have to hurry. We have to warn everyone at the Dock Loaders’ Club.”
“What’s that gonna do?” Burke shrugs.
“Save lives, let’s go.”
Harry grabs Burke by the lapel and we high-leg through the deep snow. Soon enough we are blowing hard. Sweat inside my coat turns to ice, but we can’t stop.
“We have to beat them,” Harry whips us with his tongue. “Keep goin’, keep goin.”
“Did Bill admit to killin’ Mickey?” I ask Beat, who is falling behind us.
Beat calls up toward us, “Darby Leighton told me that Bill came to him and gave him a gun to give to Richie. . . Richie Lonergan.”
“Richie did it?”
“He did,” Beat says dispiritedly. “But that ain’t the all of it.”
“How many men do they have?” Harry asks.
“Fifty, fifty-five maybe.”
“Run faster,” Harry tells us all. “We have probably half that right now at the Dock Loaders’ Club.”
“Probably less.”
“They’re doomed,” Burke says as white smoke billows out of his mouth.
“Look,” I interrupt them both before they take up arguing again. “The White Wings. They’re cleaning the snow off the trolley rails and sidewalks.”
Men with white hats and whit
e uniforms furiously shovel snow from the middle of the road and pile it six feet, eight feet high where the street meets the curb. Snowy passageways are left for passengers to enter the trolley cars from sidewalk to street. Against the buildings, snowdrifts reach higher still and creep up to second-floor window ledges. Up ahead the Fulton Elevated Line is already in service, albeit at a snail’s pace. It plods along and pushes heavy clumps of snow down onto the street along the iron girders to clear the tracks.
“We can take the El at Duffield Street to Sands Street and we’ll only have a few minutes walk to the Dock Loaders’ Club.”
From inside the car on the Fulton Elevated Train we can see the heavenly whiteout across the dirty old industrial city.
“It’s like a ghost town,” Burke’s voice echoes in the empty train car.
Windows are blocked with snow that has collected on the ledges and all the streets are coated with the puffy white stuff. On the streets there are no trolleys running and there will be no labor work to accomplish this day. There are hardly any ships in the slips either, which means no goods will be unloaded here, prolonging the hunger and foreboding.
“There has to be some purpose to all this,” I say incredulously. “There has to be.”
Harry’s voice is a gravel of dour, stoney words, “The grocers will be robbed soon.”
“Always cheerful news wit’ this one,” Burke shakes his head at Harry.
“They’ll choose jail over starvation, logically. There’s not enough to feed everyone, so the quickest, boldest thieves’ll benefit.”
The gigantic, three-story Sands Street Train Station, the busiest in all of Brooklyn, is completely barren save a few itinerants who stare off into the air or mumble prayers. A family of refugees huddles closely together in a lean-to and a few sparse morning riders bundle up against the gusts that rattle the broken second-floor windows. Unmolested by thick crowds and the accompanying cutpurses that normally clog the train platforms and narrow halls, we jog four-abreast. Under our feet, joints in the wood-framed train station creak and moan like an old schooner ship upon the open ocean. Beyond that there is silence but for the whistling wind.
“Let’s go, hurry, hurry,” Harry runs ahead toward the exit with Beat following as we rush down the snowy stairwell.
Divide the Dawn- Fight Page 7