Divide the Dawn- Fight

by Eamon Loingsigh

  Through the snow we trudge along Sands Street in front of a saloon situated between the bridges, which has twenty regulars inside. Regardless of the weather, it is only the drink that worries the men inside. Next to it is a lot with some charred remnants of a building covered in snow. Outside, we walk by one man with a pallid, sleep-fallen face, his body stretched on its side in a drift. Rust-colored vomit stains have melted the snow in front of his hairy gob.

  “Isn’t this where Pickles killed Christie Maroney, the Larrikin back in 1912?” I call out, pointing at the dilapidated framer.

  “It is,” Beat assures, blowing harder than the rest of us. “Ya sure got a good remembery, Liam.”

  “A good what?”

  “Ya good at rememberin’ things, is all I’m sayin’.”

  “It’s memory, not remembery.”

  “Oh yeah, yeah,” Beat continues. “It was a fateful morn. Foreseen by the ol’ timers. I remember! One shot an’ the old ways was resurrected in Irishtown. It led to the Adams Street Riots a year later after Dinny was exonerated. Riots o’ celebration, that is. To honor their new leader the revelers dragged Maroney’s followers out of Jacob’s Saloon, their gang’s headquarters, an’ set the building alight.”

  Now old and small in number, dead Maroney’s remaining adherents have migrated next door to whet their softening memories with hard whiskey. And Jacob’s Saloon is now but a place where boys go to piss in the rubble.

  But Harry doesn’t talk about those days. Ever. Or what it might mean that we pass in front of the charred bones of Maroney’s old headquarters now.

  A drunkard with a bedraggled old derby hat stumbles through the door of the saloon and spits at our feet. “Fuck all o’ yaz, White Hand scum,” says he.

  At that the man sleeping in the snow gags and smacks his lips.

  The derby-helmed man sloppily persists, throwing a cigarette toward us, “Ya day’ll come too, yaz’ll see! Ya fookin’ pieces o’ shits. Ya reap what ya sow.”

  But Harry ignores the soused and swaying man.

  “Oh they’re comin’,” Beat assures us. “How do ya reason wit’ someone who thinks they’re touched by fate?”

  Breathing heavily now, Beat and Burke turn to Harry, who gives them the answer, “Ya don’t.”

  What if we arrive too late? God forgive me for what I am about to do, my mind races and summons on its own the god of my childhood. Forgive me. The M.12 is still in my coat pocket.

  Just then, Harry hits a second wind that the old fellow cannot equal.

  “G’on,” Beat says. “I’ll meet yaz there.”

  As we turn onto Bridge Street, behind us the gigantic Brooklyn Union Gas tank hangs three stories above the tenements and elevated tracks. Down the hill we edge through the snow and pass in front of the empty Lonergan bicycle shop. Burke cranes his head up and flinches when a lone gull twists across the sky and clamors in a guttural shriek. The white bird with a gray-winged cloak squawks again to remind us that we are approaching the waterfront.

  Just as my toes are about to freeze, in the distance a low chant comes to our ears. Over the rooftops the cold blue-gray steel towers of the Manhattan Bridge looms over our destination. Down the whitened slope of the Bridge Street hill a clanking sound grows louder with the chants.

  What are they yelling?

  “Why are there so many outside the headquarters?” Burke asks through ruddy cheeks. “There must be two thousand o’ them.”

  “Are those Bill’s men?” I wonder. “How did they get there before—”

  “They’re starved,” Harry says, pacing ahead. “It ain’t Bill’s men. It’s Irishtown faithful. They don’ wanna loot the local stores, so they go to the one place that’s always served them.”

  “Maybe they all came because Mickey’s back?” Burke puts in as we fall to a slower stride.

  “Mickey’s dead,” There is a finality in Harry’s voice that cools my spine. “He ain’t comin’ back. Now stop sayin’ otherwise.”

  As we push through the periphery of the crowd, the begging of alms comes to our ears when we are noticed.

  “We’re hungry!” Yells the sable-shawled widow of Johnny Mullen. Her hands hold the hands of children with frayed gloves, exposing most of their tiny blue fingers to the cold. Mrs. Mullen’s lonely eyes are half-veiled and she is clad head to heel in black. Her youngest child, a little girl, has Vincent Maher’s eyes, so it’s said. The eldest, Johnny Jr., is a randy little ten year-old who swoons as we pass. His cap is tilted so precariously that he is forced to constantly right it, while all along a lit cigarette smolders from the corner of his mouth. “Poe,” he calls out, and it’s only then I see Mullen’s cohort shadowed over his shoulder, the Sutton boy from High Street.

  Banging pans with wooden spoons behind Mrs. Mullen are more black-veiled widows, they of Quiet Higgins and Gimpy Kafferty who died in the Great War. And then there are the large families of the Simpson brothers, Whitey and Baron who also died in some rainy ditch in France. The widows clack their pots and pans noisily and have the shame in their eyes for us.

  “We’ll never go ‘way,” Mary Lonergan screeches with her brood of snot-faced moppets gathered round her timeworn sack dress. Her lopsided face and bulged fish eyes ogle us defiantly. “We’ll starve to death right here at ya door ’til we’re sated, we will! We want the honor price that’s due us!”

  “Poe!” I hear a boy’s voice call out. “Look it’s Poe and The Shiv!”

  The children of Irishtown throw us up as heroes and long to become us one day.

  If only they knew how fragile we truly are, they would never claim us as heroes.

  Mrs. Lonergan lunges for my arm, the burn-scar along half her face gives her the appearance of some traveling carnival oddity.

  “Liam child! Please, please, I haven’t seen me Anna. She’s been winnin’ us food since before the storm but she’s gone now for days. Liam please, just a few dullars.” She holds my arm and blinks with the eye on the misshapen side of her face, then blinks the other as if the two sides of her face are disconnected altogether.

  I reach into my pocket but before I can take out any bills, Harry grabs me by the back of my coat and drags me away from her.

  “We need to make a plan first,” he yells into my ear over the chant of the mendicant crowd. “They’ll rip ya to shreds if ya pull out any bills.”

  The three of us push through the endless flock of hands that claw for us until we come to the front where we are allowed passage. Coming through, Burke can’t close the door behind him. Inside Eddie Hughes and Freddie Cuneen pull it open and Harry yells through the doorway, “Let us talk and we’ll find a way to help yaz!”

  Finally the door slams shut.

  From behind the mahogany trough a Kilkenny lilt is barked out, “They’ll be after breakin’ the glass on the front window soon, ye know,” Paddy Keenan warns. “We can’t deny them forever, like. It’s not right.”

  Just then Beat barrels in, “Bill’s comin’,” he announces as Ragtime Howard turns his eyes to us from the whiskey glass at his lips.

  “Jaysus,” Paddy reels and points to the stairwell. “Yez g’won ’hopstairs to the second floor then. The bhoys are up plannin’ a plan fer these hungry people as we spake. G’won, tell them Wild Bill comes.”

  Harry turns for the stairs while Paddy catches my eyes, “Fer feck’s sake, when Bill shows up it’ll be a bloodbath. T’is true Mickey’s stiff?”

  I nod, abashed to admit it in front of the other Whitehanders at the bar.

  Paddy throws his towel and reaches underneath for his revolver, empties it of bullets and blows into the cylinders.

  At the top of the stairwell Harry gives the office door a coded knock and Red Donnelly opens it wide with a look of relief on his big red box face, “Oh thank god yaz are here.”

  “Rebels are to descend on the Dock Loaders’ Club this very minute,” Beat blurts out again, the two little beans he has for eyes half-hiding the horror within the melted face on him
. “Bill and his boyos are on his way to kill us. An’ he’s got some dark devilry on his side too.”

  Cinders Connolly stands from behind Dinny’s desk where the Manhattan Bridge and the New York skyline fill both of the arch windows in the background. “What did yaz see out there?”

  Harry doesn’t answer but stands forth and turns to Beat McGarry. “I want ya to go downstairs.”

  Beat stops in his tracks, then nods in my direction, “What about him?”

  Harry stares and takes another step forward.

  “Cinders is the boss while Dinny’s in the stir, not ya’self,” Beat’s flushed and fleshy face pivots. “Cinders, I can stay can’t I?”

  Cinders leans both palms flat on the desk, “I ain’t the boss. Dinny said Mickey was in charge an’ I was to help him. I’m no man for the job alone. Do as Harry says. Go downstairs an’ gather all the weapons we got in the rearroom. G’ahead.”

  Beat warily turns round for the door and leaves me with a sour look of half-jealousy, half-resentment.

  The other sullen-faced men assembled in the dark corners of Dinny’s office moue at me like a litter of cornered refugees. There is The Lark Gibney with his tree-trunk thighs and broad waist. He is dockboss of the Baltic Terminal and his right hand is the burly, barrel-chested, black-haired Big Dick Morissey. Henry Browne is Red’s righthand. He was once the ILA leader in the Navy Yard before the deal to join forces with the Italians of South Brooklyn whisked him into our midst. And half-black Dance Gillen is in a chair with head in hands, “I shoulda went down there wit’ Mickey,” he mumbles.

  “I shoulda never let Mickey go,” Cinders answers him, with the fool-mute Philip Large behind his shoulder, short arms at his side.

  With a low whistle of wind through wood-slats and iron shutters, Cinders recounts his last moments with Mickey in muted tones, “I couldn’t stop him. Harry, I dunno why he left. He was dead set on goin’ to Red Hook even though the storm was comin’ down sideways, everywheres. I needed him here, but he just went off into it.”

  “Did he say why?” Harry asks.

  “Nah, he was just pacin’ an’ pacin’ in circles up here, like he. . . like he needed to be somewhere.”

  “He knew he was supposed to die,” says a dejected Burke. “He knew he had to be there for it. He knew that was his role.”

  “The fuck are ya sayin’?” Cinders takes that statement as an affront, while feeble-minded Philip recognizes Cinders’ angry voice as a cue that violence looms.

  “An’ there’ll be more,” Burke presses on. “I had a dream the other night, durin’ the worst o’ the storm, that. . . that a man would see wit’ his own eyes, his body only a few feet away. . . wit’out a head. But at that moment, his last moment, he knew it was his callin’. As if it were written beforehand, or known. That death was his duty all along. Same as Mickey!”

  Harry takes three steps and is in front of Burke, who looks back at him sheepishly. With one quick swing a clout lands under Burke’s jaw that puts the small man to sleep with an unnerving ease. Harry then catches Burke before he hits his head on the wood floor and drags him effortlessly to a corner for a nap.

  “He’s been spookt all mornin’,” Harry says with a somber assurance.

  The spectacle of Harry’s cold, brutal performance bears mute testimony until a sound downstairs turns all of our eyes toward the floorboards.

  Are they here?

  But it was just a chair being moved.

  “Burke don’ know what he’s sayin’. That’s what happens when dread o’ the unknown is allowed to run rampant in ya,” Harry turns as the chant strikes up again for those outside that protest their hunger. “Cinders, what are we doin’ for all these people?”

  “We have to help them,” says I.

  “That’s the thing,” Cinders’ broad shoulders obscures Philip as he moves from the desk and wipes a shock of sandy hair away to tuck it behind an ear. “The tunics came here ‘bout an hour ago. Patrolmen Culkin an’ Ferris.”

  “In here?” I ask disbelievingly.

  “What about Detective Brosnan?” Harry’s eyes are on the floor in thought.

  “Nah, just Culkin an’ Ferris, but they were escortin’ that fookin’ leech, Vandeleurs, the slumlord. Apparently his rent-collectin’ thugs went to each an’ every home recently, passin’ out eviction letters.”

  “So now they threaten to evict our people while they’re hungry?” I complain. “What good will it do to put them on the roads?”

  “Some things never change,” Cinders’ gloomy realization sparks Harry to action.

  “Everybody empty out ya pockets on the desk. We’ll sift through every dollar to determine what we can and can’t give them downstairs. It won’t be much help, but we gotta do somethin’.”

  “Wait,” Cinders says. “Before we do that. . . We need to determine who our leader is now.”

  “Ya’re the leader,” Harry waves off. “Dinny left ya an’ Mickey in charge. Ya’re in the hot seat now.”

  “No, he left Mickey in charge. I was only to help him. I’m not a leader, Harry. Dockboss o’ the Jay Street Terminal an’ the Fulton Ferry Landin’, sure. I give ya that, but I ain’t a long term solution. We need to vote on the leader o’ the White Hand movin’ forward wit’ Dinny gone. An’ I for one am votin’ for ya, Harry.”

  “Aye,” Dance Gillen tallies his support and stands at the ready.

  “True,” The Lark and Big Dick agree.

  Harry turns away, “I can’t.”

  “You are the most obvious candidate Harry,” I step forward. “You’re the smartest, you’re experienced and the most capable, it’s clear to us all. Why wouldn’t you want this?”

  “Dinny’ll see it as a insurrection,” Harry says. “I’ve already been to his home t’day.”

  “And shot a man to defend it,” I point out. “Why would Dinny see it as an insurrection if you’re the most competent to help while he’s out?”

  “He didn’ choose me. He didn’ want me to supervise the White Hand in his stead. Ain’t that enough for ya?” Harry’s words are like the lyrics to a dirge over the harmonic chants outside. “He trusts Cinders more than he trusts me. No. Cinders Connolly is the leader ’til Dinny comes back, an’ I won’ hear another word on it. I’ll do anythin’ that’s needed to help these people outside an’ to hold Bill’s thrust, but don’ give me any titles. I won’t have them.”

  Cinders turns round and faces the open iron-shutter windows, as Dinny always had. The men’s faces turn long as well.

  Dance sits down and shakes his head, “I shoulda been wit’ Mickey, goddamnit. Goddamnit.”

  “Ya’d’ve been slaughtered wit’ him,” Harry says. “Another thing everybody oughta know. We saw Garry Barry out there.”

  Dance picks his head up, his dark face darkened more by the shade of shadow, “That can’t be true.”

  “It’s true,” I say. “I saw him, but his face is all lamped up.”

  “It’s true,” Burke is still on the floor in the corner, but comes to his elbows. “Like a woman’s wound, but sewn up an’ with an arsehole for a mouth. That’s who Harry shot, but he just got right back up again.”

  “No one coulda survived what we gave Garry fookin’ Barry at the Hoyt Street Saloon,” Dance raises a hand to Big Dick, who along with Eddie and Freddie, wrecked his head and left him for dead. “I was pullin’ brains outta my boots for two days after I danced on his face. . . fuck, ya’re kiddin’ me? What the fuck’s goin’ on here? Shit’s fuckt lately.”

  “He was wit’ Wisniewski,” Harry says.

  “Wolcott’s lump,” I put in.

  “So lemme get this right,” Cinders sits on the edge of the desk, but Harry finishes the sentence for him.

  “Barry’s workin’ wit’ Wolcott an’ the Waterfront Assembly now.”

  “Damn Harry,” The Lark slumps in the corner. “Ya really know how to kick the wind outta a guy, don’ ya?”

  “It’s just what it is, is all. I’m not tr
yin’a tell ya nothin’ except how things are.”

  When the room goes silent we can hear the hum of voices rise and fall out front.

  Burke fidgets, “I’ll put in five dollar bills for them.”

  “Ya need that money for ya son. To feed ya fam’ly,” Harry says. “Turn in two and keep three. What about the rest o’ ya?”

  The slew of mournful mothers and half-starved children outside becomes unsettled. Harry turns his head to listen as a wave of gasps sounds off from below. The arched windows of the second floor overlooks the Belgian block alley and the lot beyond, leaving us to wonder who it is that comes to the front of the saloon.

  “Wild Bill is here,” Burke holds his jaw. “Beat was right. If only Dinny an’ The Swede an’ Vincent were here. . . An’ Mickey. Good fortune’s not on our side.”

  Harry hushes him while the other Whitehanders in the room listen.

  “How many men do we have?” Harry asks Cinders.

  “The men in this room, an’ downstairs we got Paddy, Ragtime, Beat an’ Needles.”

  The Lark and Big Dick shake their heads, “A bartender, a whiskey drunk, an ol’ man an’ a drug addict? Laughable. Bill’ll overrun us if he’s got fifty men.”

  “Eddie an’ Freddie are down there,” I say. “They’re fair fighters. An’ I saw Chisel McGuire an’ Dago Tom too. An’ Paddy’s got a pistol.”

  “I don’ know for sure he’ll pull the trigger at a man,” Harry says, as outside the slew again stirs until a woman’s scream cuts through the morning.

  Harry yells at Red Donnelly, “Get the door! Get the door! Tell them downstairs to bar the door. Go! Liam, gimme the M.12!”

  I pull it out of my coat and hand it over as men yell downstairs to block the entrance.

  Harry quickly puts the pistol in the hands of Dance, “Now’s your chance to kill them that killt Mickey.”

  “This is as good a place as any for a last stand,” I hear The Lark say who suddenly has a bail hook in his hand as Big Dick Morissey grips at a cudgel.

  Dance walks up to a pouting Burke and flips the brim of his cap up with the barrel of the M.12. “Get off that an’ get ready.”